What the world needs more of is tales of men battling monsters. Like Beowulf de-limbing Grendel. St. George (or Bard the Bowman) slaying dragons. Jim Corbett taking on the Maneater of Kumaon. Patterson taking out the Ghost and the Darkness.
So… Beast.
Here’s the caper:
A recently widowed man and his two teenage daughters travel to a game reserve in South Africa. However, their journey of healing soon turns into a fight for survival when a bloodthirsty lion starts to stalk them.
Idris Elba is one of those actors whose charisma is so riveting that you can’t take your eyes off of him every second he’s on screen. Will somebody PLEASE make a movie out of Tim Willocks’ Memo From Turner and cast Elba as Turner?
*
While were in South Africa…
This documentary dropped on Wednesday. The Great War series has been excellent since its inception in 2014, when it covered a week-by-week centenary retrospective on the First World War. Since the end of the centenary, the scope has expanded to cover a wide variety of related world events, particularly focusing on the military history of some relatively obscure conflicts.
This piece on the Anglo-Boer War is an excellent half-hour primer on that subject, including some seldom-seen photographs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFxCfxF_iV4
Matthew says
The man vs. monster is the most basic of myths and thus probably the most powerful whether it is Beowulf vs. Grendel, Idras Elba vs lions, or even Arnie vs. the Predator. This myth is always the same but can be told in an almost infinite number variations. The Conan stories work this out in a number of ways.
Paul McNamee says
I’m in.
Stanley Wheeler says
The Beast movie seems promising. After seeing the trailer, I worry that it’s a lot of looking around in fear, and false tension–but the lion scenes may redeem it. I hope it’s fabulous.
lane batot says
I saw the trailer too….sigh. Maybe. When it becomes a cheapo used DVD in the cheapo Wal-Mart Bin….. I’ve seen SO MANY killer animal movies over the years, and 90% of them are just so bad(animal fact-wise, that is–but remember, I AM a total Critter Geek…..), I usually just shake my head when another pops up. But then go ahead and watch them anyway!! And I’ve seen quite a few killer lion movies over the decades–most are purty unrealistic. Which is a shame, as real man-eating lions can be truly enormously terrifying, WITHOUT all the inaccurate Hollywood elaborations! And nowadays, of course(sigh again), the lion movies(or whatever critter is wreaking unrealistic havoc) aren’t even using real animal actors, but computer animated critters(but OK, I DO LOVE the Jurassic Park/World movies!). I used to still enjoy seeing REAL animal actors at work, if only for the amazing training often involved. Of course it has become politically incorrect to use real animals, thanks to the trainer abuses that HAVE occurred in the past. But of course, animal actor trainers are/were like anything and anyone–some WERE horrible to their animals, some were wonderful!