Page 30 - aruba-today-20190712

A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Friday 12 July 2019

‘Lion King’ returns but it’s

harder to feel the love

By JAKE COYLE Cue Savannah sunrise. Cue
Associated Press “Naaaants ingonyama
Life moves in a circle, “The bagithi baba!”
Lion King” tells us, and, in- The remakes have them-
creasingly, so does studio selves been a mixed bag
moviemaking. offering some combina-
Close on the heels of “live- tion of modern visual ef-
action” remakes of “Alad- fects, fresh casting and
din” and “Dumbo” and on narrative tweaks to catch
the precipice of a reborn up more dated material to
“The Little Mermaid,” ‘’The the times. Don’t count on
Lion King” is back, too. a new “Song of the South,”
Round and round we go. but much of the Disney li-

This image released by Disney shows characters, from left, Zazu, voiced by John Oliver, and
young Simba, voiced by JD McCrary, in a scene from “The Lion King.”
Associated Press
brary will soon have been ney worlds of cartoon and ic hand-drawn creations
outfitted with digital clothes nature documentary have of Roger Allers and Rob
for the Internet era. finally merged. Minkoff’s 1994 original into
It’s easy to greet these re- It’s an impressive leap in realistic-looking animals,
makes both cynically and a visual effects, which includ- “The Lion King” has great-
little eagerly. In the case of ed Favreau, cinematog- ly narrowed its spectrum
“The Lion King,” the songs rapher Caleb Descehanel of available expressions.
are still good, the Shake- and VFX chief Rob Legato Largely lost are the kinds
spearean story still solid. making use of virtual-real- of characterization that
And, well, Beyonce’s in it. ity environments. Some of can flow from voice actor
And yet Jon Favreau’s “The the computer-generated to animation. (Think of how
Lion King,” so abundant makeovers are beauti- closely fused Tom Hanks
with realistic simulations of ful. Mufasa, the lion king is with Woody in the “Toy
the natural world, is curious- voiced again by James Story” movies.) Here, most
ly lifeless. The most signifi- Earl Jones, is wondrously re- of the starry voice actors
cant overhaul to an other- gal, and his mane might be (including Donald Glover
wise slavishly similar retread the most majestic blonde as the grown-up lion prince
is the digital animation locks since Robert Redford. Simba, Beyonce as the old-
rendering of everything, And the grass stalks of the er lioness Nala and Chiwe-
turning the film’s African pride lands shimmer in the tel Ejiofor as the villainous
grasslands and its animal African sunlight. Scar) feel remote from their
inhabitants into a photo-re- But it’s a hollow victory. By characters. And, in many
alistic menagerie. The Dis- turning the elastic, dynam- cases, so do we.q

3 vehicles owned by Elvis Presley going

up for auction

Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Elvis
Presley fans can take to the
road in his personal stretch
limousine, on his last motor-
cycle or in a pickup truck if
they have the money, an
auction house announced
Wednesday. Kruse GWS
Auctions said the items will
be part of its Artifacts of This photo provided by GWS Auctions shows a motorcycle that
Hollywood auction on Aug. belonged to Elvis Presley.
31. Presley drove the white- Associated Press
on-white 1973 Lincoln Con- 1976 Harley Davidson FLH the late 1980s. The third Pre-
tinental stretch many times 1200 Electra Glide motor- sley vehicle is one of three
around Memphis, Tennes- cycle was the last motorcy- GMC pickups that Presley
see, Kruse said. It features cle Presley ever purchased. purchased in 1967 for his
an old-school TV and other He transported it from Cali- Circle G Ranch in Missis-
amenities. There are photos fornia to Memphis and sold sippi. Two years later, his
showing “the King” driving it 90 days before he died in father, Vernon, sold them
the car he was in when he 1977 at age 42. The Harley back to the same dealer-
stopped at a car accident has been on display at the ship, the auction house
in Memphis in 1976. Pioneer Auto Museum in said. It has undergone a to-
The auction house said a Murdo, South Dakota, since tal restoration.q