Hugh Grant says fourth Bridget Jones film will be ‘funny but very sad’

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Actor reprises character of Daniel Cleaver but says he won’t play role of ‘60-year-old wandering around looking at young girls’ It is a universally acknowledged truth that Bridget Jones films are packed with humour and comedic scenes that attract viewers in their droves. However, in a slight departure, Hugh Grant has revealed that the fourth film in the series will also be “very sad”. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/ZJoB2VO via IFTTT
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The Monkey King review – lively Netflix animation revives ancient Chinese classic

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The streaming service is capable of interesting works for children, with this one based on 16th century novel Journey to the West featuring an irritating protagonist

Despite recent budget cuts, Netflix’s in-house animation division continues to produce lively, interesting works that, if released theatrically, might be diverting some of the applause that gets automatically lavished on Disney and Pixar’s currently mediocre output. Not that this is anywhere as rich and strange as the streaming service’s last big title, the Oscar-winning Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. The latest in a 10,000-mile-long line of adaptations of Journey to the West, the 16th-century Chinese novel attributed to Wu Cheng’en, bounces along energetically, and has some exceptionally fun frills around the edges, such as a flouncy vocal performance from Bowen Yang as spiteful, effete baddie the Dragon King, who gets to sing the film’s best musical number. (Vowing to flood the world as revenge for being mocked for his dry skin condition that can only be treated with an amphibian lifestyle, he sings: “Since then I’ve realised there’s nothing wrong with being moisturised.” Surely this is a metrosexual anthem in the making.)

Sadly, the Dragon King only gets wheeled in sporadically, as the lead protagonist is the considerably less endearing Monkey (Jimmy O Yang). A cocksure braggart who was born from a rock and is afflicted with an acute narcissistic personality disorder, Monkey steals the Dragon King’s all-powerful multi-use Stick – whose voice sounds like a didgeridoo and is a bit like a magical Swiss army knife – which he uses on a quest to obtain immortality. Some of the adventures – peach stealing, meeting the omnipotent Buddha – will be familiar to those who remember the wonderful late-1970s Japanese live-action TV series Monkey that the BBC used to screen. (This was the show that really popularised Journey to the West beyond Asia, while also entertaining stoners worldwide who chanced on it while channel-surfing late at night.)

The Monkey King is released on 18 August on Netflix.

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