Category Archives: Movies

DISNEY+ Announces Full Content Line Up for South Africa

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© 2022 Disney and its related entities

Launching on 18 May, Disney+ subscribers will have access to Star Wars’ “The Book of Boba Fett” and both seasons of “The Mandalorian”. In addition, Disney+ will be the home of the entire Skywalker saga, with Star Wars Episodes 1 through 9 streaming on the service.

Confirmed from launch, superhero fans will have access to over 60 Marvel films including Academy Award®-nominated “Shang-Chi and the Legend of The Ten Rings”, “Eternals”, “Avengers: Endgame” and “Captain Marvel,” and over 80 Marvel series including “Moon Knight”, “Loki” and “WandaVision.”

Subscribers will also be able to enjoy over 100 titles from Disney and Pixar, including the entire “Toy Story” franchise, “Soul” and Academy Award®-nominated “Luca”, and from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Academy Award®-winning “Encanto” which tells the tale of an extraordinary family, the Madrigals, and Academy Award®-winning “Cruella” starring Emma Stone as the legendary “Cruella de Vil”.

National Geographic documentaries including “The Rescue” and “Free Solo”, from Academy Award®-winning directors and producers E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, will sit alongside popular National Geographic series such as “The World According To Jeff Goldblum” and “Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted”.

In general entertainment, subscribers will also be able to watch titles including the hit original comedy series “Only Murders in the Building,” limited series “Pam and Tommy,” “The Kardashians,” “Queens,” and mystery thriller “Death on the Nile” directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh, as well as “The Simpsons” and back seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy,” “9-1-1” and “Black-ish.”

With unprecedented access to Disney’s vault, beloved classics such as “Cinderella,” “Tangled”, “The Princess and the Frog,” and “The Little Mermaid,” will be available to stream alongside recent blockbusters like “Raya and the Last Dragon” and “Mulan (2020)”. There will also be hundreds of Disney Channel series, shorts, and specials available to stream, including “Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir” and “Phineas and Ferb”.

Fans can currently register their interest to take advantage of an exclusive introductory offer to subscribe to Disney+ in South Africa for the price of R950. This pre-launch offer for the annual subscription is only available until mid-night 17 May and is equivalent to 12 months for the price of 8. Standard pricing at launch is confirmed at R119 per month, or R1190 for an annual subscription.

Users will have access to features like high-quality viewing, up to four concurrent streams, 4k video quality for select titles and the ability to set up to seven different profiles, including the ability for parents to create pin-protected profiles, ensuring kids access age-appropriate content.

Check out my Instagram Reel about this below:

Connect:

Hashtags: #DisneyPlusZA and #MyFirstStream

https://www.facebook.com/DisneyPlusZA

https://www.instagram.com/disneyplusza/

http://www.twitter.com/disneyplusza

Disney+ set to launch on 18 May 2022 in South Africa

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I was super excited to learn that Disney+, the streaming service from The Walt Disney Company, has confirmed launch dates for the 42 countries and 11 new territories set to launch this winter.

The streaming service will launch in South Africa on 18 May 2022. South African pricing has also been announced at R119.00 per month, or R1 190.00 for an annual subscription.

With exclusive original content and thousands of episodes and movies from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic and general entertainment from Star, Disney+ is the streaming home for some of the world’s most beloved stories.

Subscribers will have access to Star Wars’ “The Book of Boba Fett” and “The Mandalorian” from Executive Producer and Writer Jon Favreau. In addition, the Marvel Studios’ series “Moon Knight” starring Oscar Isaac as Steven Grant, which sees a mild-mannered gift-shop employee becoming plagued with blackouts and memories of another life as well as Academy Award®-nominated “Shang-Chi and the Legend of The Ten Rings” starring Simu Liu and Awkwafina, will also be available at launch. 

MEET THE MADRIGALS – Walt Disney Animation Studios’ “Encanto” introduces the Madrigals, a compelling and complicated extended family who live in a wondrous and charmed place in the mountains of Colombia. © 2022 Disney. All Rights Reserved.

Subscribers will also be able to enjoy Disney and Pixar’s Academy Award®-nominated “Luca”, Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Academy Award®-winning “Encanto”, which tells the tale of an extraordinary family called the Madrigals and Academy Award®-winning “Cruella” starring Emma Stone as the legendary “Cruella de Vil”. 

In general entertainment, subscribers will also be able to watch titles including “The Simpsons”, “Queens” and “The Kardashians”. From National Geographic, fans will have access to both seasons of “The World According To Jeff Goldblum” that sees Jeff take us on an entertaining, insightful and playful ride. In each episode of these 12-part series, he pulls on the thread of a deceptively familiar object to unravel a world of astonishing connections and fascinating science and history.

Disney+ offers access to high-quality viewing up to four concurrent streams, unlimited downloads on up to ten devices, and the ability to set up to seven different profiles, including the ability for parents to set Kids Profiles that have an easy-to-navigate, child-friendly interface to access age-appropriate content.

To keep up to date, visit:

Disneyplus.com

twitter.com/disneyplusza

www.facebook.com/DisneyPlusZA

www.instagram.com/disneyplusza

“BARAKAT” is South Africa’s Official Selection for the 94th Annual Academy Awards

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The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) is pleased to announce that the first South African Muslim film shot in Afrikaans, (actually AfriKaaps) Barakat, has been selected as South Africa’s official submission for the 94th Annual Academy Awards.

Directed by Amy Jephta and produced by Ephraim Gordon, co-founders of production companies PaperJet Films and Nagvlug Films, Barakat was released in cinemas in early 2021. The screenplay is by writing-producing team Amy Jephta and Ephraim Gordon who made their debut at South Africa’s 2017 kykNET Silwerskerm Festival with their short film Soldaat (Soldier), for which they won Best Screenplay and Best Short. 

Barakat Official Trailer

Jephta, a celebrated theatre practitioner, director and writer, also scripted South Africa’s official 2018 Golden Globes submission for Foreign Film, Ellen: The Story of Ellen Pakkies. In 2019, she was awarded the Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year Award for theatre. Actor and director Gordon starred in Nosipho Dumisa’s critically acclaimed 2018 debut, Number 37, which premiered at South by Southwest (SXSW).

“I am so proud that this film has reached as many people as it has, and to be recognised by South Africa in this way is incredibly special,” said director Amy Jephta.  “Even after an extremely challenging year for our film industry, we’re honoured that a small story about a family has connected us.”

Producer Ephraim Gordon added: “This was totally unexpected, but it shows that everyone’s hard work on this project has paid off. This film was a blessing from the beginning and continues to be.  It is our barakat.”

‘Barakat’ is an Arabic word denoting blessings, abundance and prosperity. The film follows the trials and tribulations of Aisha Davids (played by veteran acress Vinette Ebrahim), a widow who has to preserve the peace between four sons struggling to come to terms with the death of their father two years after the fact. Her sons, Zunaid (Joey Rasdien), Zaid (Mortimer Williams), Yaseen (Keeno Lee Hector) and Nur (Danny Ross) return to their family home to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr (or Labarang, as it’s called in Cape Town), the celebration marking the end of the month-long dawn-to-sunset fasting of Ramadan. They’ve never dealt with their father’s death or the void his passing has left. Each son’s unprocessed pain manifests in constant familial conflict, saddening their mother as she tries to move on with her own life.

The 94th Oscars® will be held on Sunday, the 27th March 2022.

Barakat was developed in partnership with MNET and funded in association with the NFVF, the DTIC, IDC as well as Indigenous Film Distribution, the South African distributor of the film.

Disney’s new movie “Jungle Cruise”

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I’ve been looking forward to “Jungle Cruise” for ages, as I am a huge Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt fan.

Inspired by the famous Disneyland theme park ride, Disney’s “Jungle Cruise” is an adventure-filled, rollicking thrill-ride down the Amazon with wisecracking skipper Frank Wolff and intrepid researcher Dr. Lily Houghton. Lily travels from London, England to the Amazon jungle and enlists Frank’s questionable services to guide her down-river on La Quila—his ramshackle-but-charming boat. 

Lily is determined to uncover an ancient tree with unparalleled healing abilities – possessing the power to change the future of medicine. Thrust on this epic quest together, the unlikely duo encounters innumerable dangers and supernatural forces, all lurking in the deceptive beauty of the lush rainforest. But as the secrets of the lost tree unfold, the stakes reach even higher for Lily and Frank and their fate – and mankind’s – hangs in the balance.

Jaume Collet-Serra directs the film, which stars Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Edgar Ramírez and Jack Whitehall, with Jesse Plemons, and Paul Giamatti. The producers are John Davis and John Fox of Davis Entertainment; Dwayne Johnson, Hiram Garcia and Dany Garcia of Seven Bucks Productions; and Beau Flynn of Flynn Picture Co., with Scott Sheldon and Doug Merrifield serving as executive producers. The story is by John Norville & Josh Goldstein and Glenn Ficarra & John Requa, and the screenplay is by Michael Green and Glenn Ficarra & John Requa.

Disney’s “Jungle Cruise” releases in cinemas in South Africa on 30 July 2021.         

Social Media

Website and Mobile site: https://disney.co.za/movies/jungle-cruise

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DisneyinAfrica

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/disneystudiosafrica

What We’re Watching on Netflix

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I often get asked what’s on my streaming watch list, so I thought I’d write a series of posts for each streaming platform that I watch – starting of course, with everyone’s favourite, Netflix!

Besides discussing what’s just “dropped” I will also look at “golden oldies” such as Friends.  Can this series be considered that? I guess it can, since it celebrated it’s 25th anniversary in September 2019.

Please note that the below may contain spoilers!

First up – #BlackAF starring the creator, writer and executive producer of Black-ish, Grown-ish and Mixed-ish, Kenya Barris. By the way, Mixed-ish is my favourite of this trio, being mixed myself 🙂

The show is loosely based on his own family and life, in the sense that he plays himself, but apparently his character’s personality is the complete opposite of the real person. He has 6 kids (3 girls and 3 boys) with wife Joya (played by Rashida Jones) who is a former lawyer and never lets anyone forget that fact.

The 8 episodes cover their life and adventures as a family going through ups and downs, as only a wealthy Hollywood family can. The show is filmed “mocumentary” style and in reality format, where the characters do “diary sessions” (ala Keeping Up with the Kardashians and every other reality show). This is because the second eldest child, Drea, is using the show as her NYU Film School acceptance piece. The trailer showed the best and funniest bits, so I was expecting a lot, but at the end of the final episode, I kind of felt like I missed nothing. The only really memorable thing about the show is the opening sequence track by Jay Rock called “WIN” – which is now on my Deezer “Favourites” playlist.

That’s my 2 cents, but you can decide. Here’s the trailer:

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