Idris Elba

‘The Jungle Book’ is an embarrassment of visual riches that thoroughly entertains on every level.

Although the achievements of director Cary Joji Fukunaga in the first season of True Detective have never been widely disputed, the disastrous second season, produced without Fukunaga at the helm, made his contribution all the more apparent. The astonishing six-minute tracking shot midway through season one was an obvious high point, but Fukunaga embedded visual information throughout the season which brought the setting and characters to life. Beyond the convoluted plot, season two missed these sorts of details, leaving a bland detective show without enough aesthetic idiosyncrasies to make it compelling.

Cary Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation showcases a bombardment of graphic imagery that is excruciating, chilling and hard to digest. Still, for all the cringe-inducing brutality, the engrossing material engages on a fundamental level with empathy that is not present in most glorified war epics.

Why does Hollywood keep mining the smallest nooks and crannies of my childhood? This week, two major children’s film projects are reportedly in development. The first is Disney continuing to pile on to their live-action reboot slate with a reimagining of none other than Winnie the Pooh. How they intend to do this without sending one …

One day after the announcement FOX was developing an American adaptation of Luther, star Idris Elba and writer/creator Neil Cross will also be back for another round of the original Luther. The two-part hourlong miniseries will air sometime late 2015, revived by a partnership with BBC America and BBC Drama Production. “Luther is coming back where …

Black British Batman is hopping the pond. Fox has ordered a pilot of Luther to be written by Neil Cross, the original series’ creator. John Luther himself, Idris Elba, will serve as executive producer. Luther ran for three seasons on BBC, a Sherlock-like murder detective who befriends a psychopath named Alice (Ruth Wilson) while capturing …

No Good Deed is directed by Sam Miller of BBC’s Luther, and he knows how to take typical archetypes and work them around his leading man. Memorable villains like Hannibal Lector and Patrick Bateman are all too common for white actors, but, with the exception of Denzel Washington, black actors rarely get those parts. Actors of Elba’s caliber should at least get the chance to play a quality scoundrel.

If you flashback to the early 00’s, there was still a sense of excitement and anticipation at the announcement of Ridley Scott working on a new project. This was a visionary director who’s expansive, ambitious and heart capturing visual eye had given the world of cinema such wonders as Alien and Blade Runner, masterpieces of …

If Calvin and Hobbes, those most delightful and beloved comic-strip characters, made a monster movie out of one of their fever-dream playtime japes, it would probably look a great deal like Pacific Rim. The sweaty, breathless determination with which the film’s main concept plays out, as well as how frequently it aims to top itself, is both charming and a mild hindrance. (Cartoonist Bill Watterson was able to get away with such boyhood tomfoolery because he was working with a much shorter amount of space and time.) Co-writer and director Guillermo del Toro has broken free of his almost quaint, homemade style in Pacific Rim, delivering, in many ways, the ultimate summer movie, for good and ill.

Prometheus Written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof Directed by Ridley Scott USA, 2012 This review contains no explicit narrative spoilers. Prometheus is a hugely disappointing film on several levels. The first is in regards to its director Ridley Scott, never the most consistent filmmaker but one with an especially underwhelming track record since 2003’s …