The Jungle Book

Jon Favreau has had one of the more interesting, circuitous careers in Hollywood (Outside of Tinseltown as well): From his near completion of undergraduate studies at Queens College, to a short stint working for Bear Stearns on Wall Street, the son of a Russian Jew and a Catholic of Italian & French-Canadian ancestry hasn't been one timid of "getting their feet wet" in a particular discipline. So, it should come as little surprise that his entertainment career has been rather varied, in terms of genres, types of roles he's acted in, and his involvement in projects (Essentially whether he was just an actor, an actor-producer, an actor-director, or solely a producer or director).

He's acted in everything from Friends (As Monica's boyfriend during Season 3), to the Avengers, Rudy, Cowboys & Aliens, The Break-Up, and many others. He's written films like Swingers, Couples Retreat, and Chef. He's directed films like Elf, Made, Iron Man, and most recently the Jungle Book. He's truly an artist that knows improvisation and the value of not "pigeon-holing" oneself in a competitive industry like Hollywood.

This time around Favreau parked his keester in the director's chair and left the writing duties to Justin Marks and Rudyard Kipling, with the latter providing the skeleton of the story that Marks adapted quite well. It's a story that most American children are familiar with with, but it has certainly been freshened up with the addition of cutting-edge CGI and sound mixing that definitely wasn't available during the 1960s. It's a keenly-paced movie as well, with it's producers wise to the fact that audiences would be rather varied in age range. The running time is 104 minutes, but it truly doesn't feel "too long" and I don't feel that audiences will feel as though they were "jipped" because of the under 2-hour running time.

The casting for Mowgli was very well done, with thirteen-year old Neel Sethi performing the role with an authenticity that made up for the fact that all of the other roles were voiced and done by by CGI. That's not to say that there was a problem with the CGI, or any of the voice actors, but I felt like it would've been a little bit better to see some real backdrops and actual monkeys. It seems like all the large budget movies these days are so dominated by CGI and it would be nice to see a movie not so dependent on it. But, to each his own, I guess.

The Jungle Book is definitely worth a trip to the theater though, especially as the summer box office starts to heat up with movies like Captain America: Civil War just premiering at theaters this weekend.
   

Don Jon

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has really been beating the pavement to garner publicity for his directorial debut, Don Jon, from a screenplay that he also penned. Gordon-Levitt plays the lead role of, Jon Martello, a quick-talking, ball busting, slick operating Italian twenty-something, who manages to pick up ladies like no one's business clad in only a cut-off tank. The role is one that many men will certainly be envious of, perhaps even more jealous of his co-star, Scarlett Johansson, who plays the role of, Barbara Sugarman, a voluptuous thick Jersey-accented "dime-piece" with a trunk full of attitude. Throw in Tony Danza, as his "chip off the old block" father, Glenne Headley, and Julianne Moore, and you have a supporting cast that is ripe with enriching performances and cross demographic appeal that is sure to score this movie a solid opening weekend. But, leave it to Brie Larson, who plays Gordon-Levitt's sister, Monica, to progress the plot in a significant way with her only two lines of the entire script.

Don Jon, seems a bit redundant and perverted at time's but, if you can make it past these moments you're in for a surprisingly candid movie that depicts the digressions that contemporary couples face in today's dating world. Two thumb's up to Gordon-Levitt for taking a chance with this one and striking a solid chord in the overly factory-churned out world, that has become the norm for Hollywood of late.