Movie Review #9276 BONNIE & CLYDE.

Having today stopped in to Primm, Nevada, to see the actual car in which Clyde Barrow & Bonnie Parker met their end, it was apt that the original 1967 movie was showing on my flight back from LA to Auckland tonight.

Bringing a very young Warren Beattie & Faye Dunaway, the latter looking more like 60s bombshell than 30s moll, to international prominence, this is a masterful piece of movie making that tells the story of Bonnie & Clyde from the time of Clyde's release from prison in 1932 through to their demise on a Louisiana backroad in 1934. In a couple of short years, their ruthless daring captured the hearts & minds of America in the midst of the Depression, perhaps giving those suffering the most some sort of folklore to hang onto. Certainly the movie portrays this way & paints these characters without excuse or misunderstanding, depicting events reasonably close to truth with very little over-dramatisation.

Excellent performances from the aforementioned leads + an equally superb Gene Hackman as Clyde's older brother Buck. Estelle Parsons is Buck's squealing spouse Blanche, Michael J Pollard does the goofball yet sinister sidekick CW Moss (actually a fictional character - an amalgamation of a couple of the gang's sidekicks) with aplomb & Denver Pyle is on Texas Ranger duty as Frank Hamer, the law who finally brings them down. Also spotted was Gene Wilder as a Midwestern twit who manages to get himself & his fiancée kidnapped by the Barrow gang before being dumped in the middle of nowhere, after ticking off Bonnie.

All in all a thoroughly entertaining yarn that manages to decently reflect life in the mid America dustbowl with the bravado of Bonne & Clyde roaring through the middle of it. 8.5/10.

The Jungle Book: Movie Review #9365 THE JUNGLE BOOK.

Remake of the 1967 Disney animated movie which in turn was based on a collection of stories written by Rudyard Kipling late nineteenth century. As a kid I never got to see the animated version & remember feeling quite left out as all my friends did.

Anyway having long since gotten over that childhood trauma, I popped along to the 3D version showing this evening in downtown Palmerston North. Have to say it is a beautifully crafted film, made all the more dramatic in 3D, albeit with a few obvious hat tips to StarWars, The Lion King & the original Planet of the Apes. Cinematography is amazing & NZ's own Weta Digital had a hand in its production. I picked most of the voices apart from Bagheera the panther whom I initially thought was Sir Anthony Hopkins but turned out to be another British knight, Sir Ben Kingsley.

If you don't know the story, man-cub Mowgli is raised by wolves in the Indian jungle & forms all sorts of interesting relationships with the animals within his surrounds. Shere Kan the tiger however is intent on man-cub for supper/revenge & pursues him through thick & thin, finally meeting his match in Mowgli's tricks, which he had previously been berrated for deploying. Along the way Mowgli meets Baloo the bear (Bill Murray), Kaa a python (Scarlett Johanssen) & King Louie a massive orangutan (a very Godfather-like Christopher Walken), each wanting Mowgli & his tricks to help with their own agendas.

A few little goofs noted; Baloo emerges from a river almost completely dry & when the wolves get rained on they don't seem to get wet, unlike Mowgli who is often submerged & drenched!

All-in-all thoroughly entertaining although being a Friday night, I was pretty jaded after a tough week & had a little trouble staying engaged. Note: make sure you see it in 3D! 9/10.