Amazon Announces Fourth Season for "Mozart in the Jungle" and a Last Season for "Red Oaks"

Amazon Studios Greenlights a Fourth Season of the Golden Globe Award-Winning Series Mozart in the Jungle and a Final Season of Hit Comedy Series Red Oaks

Both series are expected to premiere later this year on Prime Video in the US and UK, and additional territories in the future

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--(NASDAQ: AMZN)—Amazon Studios today announced it has green lit a fourth season of the Golden Globe award-winning series Mozart in the Jungle, and a final, third season of the hit comedy series Red Oaks. Both are scheduled to premiere later this year on Prime Video in the US and UK, and additional territories in the future.

    “We've always hoped to send these characters off to their futures with a third and final season, so we're thrilled that Amazon has given us the opportunity to do so.”

"Amazon Studios has been built by the risky, creative genius of shows like Mozart in the Jungle and Red Oaks,” said Joe Lewis, Head of Comedy and Drama, Amazon Studios. “We are excited to see how the amazing creators, casts and crews top themselves next season.”

Roman Coppola commented on behalf of the executive producers of Mozart in the Jungle: “We’re all delighted to be back for a fourth season and to share the further tales of our orchestra and all the artists who comprise it. For the fans who have been so enthusiastic about our show, we’re so happy to have an audience that wants to see stories about the arts, music, and all these characters we’ve invented.”

Red Oaks creators Joe Gangemi and Greg Jacobs commented: "We've always hoped to send these characters off to their futures with a third and final season, so we're thrilled that Amazon has given us the opportunity to do so."

Based on the critically acclaimed memoir Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs & Classical Music by Blair Tindall, Mozart in the Jungle draws back the curtain at the New York Symphony, where artistic dedication and creativity collide with mind games, politicking and survival instincts. Starring Gael García Bernal (Neruda), and Lola Kirke (American Made), Mozart in the Jungle will begin production later this year and will continue the story of the talented musicians who perform and live with passion under the baton of its spirited conductor, best known simply as Rodrigo. Along with Bernal and Kirke, Mozart in the Jungle also stars Saffron Burrows (Night of the Lotus), Malcolm McDowell (American Satan), Bernadette Peters (Smash), and Hannah Dunne (Caring). The series is executive produced by Roman Coppola (Moonrise Kingdom), Jason Schwartzman (The Darjeeling Limited), Paul Weitz (About a Boy), and Will Graham (Alpha House).

Set in the 1980s, Red Oaks explores the comic misadventures of the misfit staffers and clueless members of a country club in suburban New Jersey. Starring Craig Roberts (Submarine: The Fundamentals of Caregiving), and Paul Reiser (Mad About You), Red Oaks will begin production later this year on its third and final season, concluding the stories of aspiring young filmmaker David Meyers and the colorful characters he’s met on his journey to adulthood. Starring alongside Roberts and Reiser is a talented ensemble cast including Richard Kind (Inside Out), Jennifer Grey (Dirty Dancing), Alexandra Socha (Cut Shoot Kill), Oliver Cooper (Office Christmas Party), Ennis Esmer (Blindspot), Gina Gershon (Staten Island Summer) and Alexandra Turschen (Boy Meets Girl). The series was created by Gregory Jacobs (Magic Mike XXL) and Joe Gangemi (Stonehearst Asylum), and is executive produced by Jacobs and Gangemi with Steven Soderbergh (The Knick) and David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express).

The fourth season of Mozart in the Jungle, and the final, third season of Red Oaks will be available exclusively on Amazon Prime Video for members to watch via the Prime Video app for popular smart TVs, Fire TV, Fire Tablets and Android and iOS phones and tablets. Past seasons of both series are available to watch on PrimeVideo.com for Prime Video members in more than 200 countries and territories.


About Amazon Video
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In addition to Prime Video, the Prime membership includes unlimited fast free shipping options across all categories available on Amazon, more than two million songs and thousands of playlists and stations with Prime Music, secure photo storage with Prime Photos, unlimited reading with Prime Reading, unlimited access to a digital audiobook catalogue with Audible Channels for Prime, a rotating selection of free digital games and in-game loot with Twitch Prime, early access to select Lightning Deals, exclusive access and discounts to select items, and more. To sign-up for Prime or to find out more visit: www.amazon.com/prime.

About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about.

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Amazon Renews "Mozart in the Jungle" for Third Season

Multi-Golden Globe Award-Winning Amazon Original Series Mozart in the Jungle Renewed for Third Season

Amazon’s Prime Video is the first content provider in a decade to win Best Musical or Comedy Series and Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy Series in back-to-back years for different shows

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--(NASDAQ: AMZN) – Amazon today announced the multi-Golden Globe award-winning series, Mozart in the Jungle, has been renewed for a third season. Starring Gael García Bernal (Salt and Fire), who was awarded the Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy Series, and Lola Kirke (Gone Girl), Mozart in the Jungle will begin production later this year and will continue the story of the talented musicians who perform and live with passion under the baton of its spirited conductor, best known simply as Rodrigo. Executive Produced by Roman Coppola (Moonrise Kingdom), Jason Schwartzman (The Darjeeling Limited) and Paul Weitz (About a Boy), season three will see Rodrigo and many musicians take their talents to Europe.

    “Mozart in the Jungle bursts with creativity and passion, and offers audiences something truly unique”

The win for Mozart in the Jungle brings Amazon’s total number of Golden Globe awards to four, following last year’s double win for Transparent in the same categories. It also makes Prime Video the first content provider in a decade to win Best Musical or Comedy Series and Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy Series in back-to-back years for different shows.

“Mozart in the Jungle bursts with creativity and passion, and offers audiences something truly unique,” said Joe Lewis, Head of Half Hour Series, Amazon Studios. “Amazon is proud to have two of the most risky and enthralling comedy series on television today.”

Based on the critically acclaimed memoir Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs & Classical Music by Blair Tindall, the series draws back the curtain at the New York Symphony, where artistic dedication and creativity collide with mind games, politicking and survival instincts. Along with Bernal and Kirke, Mozart in the Jungle also stars Saffron Burrows (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Malcolm McDowell (The Mentalist), Bernadette Peters (Smash), Hannah Dunne (Frances Ha) and Schwartzman.

Schwartzman, on behalf of his fellow executive producers Coppola and Weitz, said, “We’re grateful to Amazon for endowing our orchestra with another season. We can’t wait to follow our characters through the vast world of music, whether performing on a subway platform or in the grand concert halls of Europe.”

Seasons 1 and 2 of Mozart in the Jungle are available for Prime members at no additional cost to their membership, through the Amazon Video app for TVs, connected devices including Fire TV and mobile devices, or online at Amazon.com/mozartinthejungle. For a list of all Amazon Video compatible devices visit www.amazon.com/howtostream.

In addition to SD and HD, Mozart in the Jungle is also available in 4K Ultra HD on Amazon Fire TV and compatible Samsung, LG and Sony smart TVs and in High Dynamic Range (HDR) on compatible Samsung and LG smart TVs. Prime members can also download the series for offline viewing on iOS, Android, and Fire devices at no additional cost.


About Amazon Video
Amazon Video offers customers unlimited access to tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes, including award-winning Amazon Original Series, through Amazon Prime; monthly subscriptions to SHOWTIME, STARZ, and more; and hundreds of thousands of titles including new-release movies and current TV shows for rent or purchase.

The entire range of selection can be instantly accessed through the Amazon Video app on TVs, streaming media players, mobile devices, Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, and Fire tablets, or online at Amazon.com/amazonvideo. For a list of all Amazon Video compatible devices visit www.amazon.com/howtostream.

Prime Video, included in Amazon Prime, enables Prime members to enjoy binge-worthy TV shows including Amazon Original Series airing now such as the multi-Golden Globe award-winning series from Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman, Mozart in the Jungle, the multi-Golden Globe award-winning and Emmy award-winning series Transparent, the breakout hit The Man in the High Castle, based on Philip K. Dick’s novel, the hour-long drama Bosch, based on Michael Connelly’s best-selling books, Mad Dogs, based on the hit UK series of the same name, and the comedy created by and starring Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan, Catastrophe, in addition to favorites like The Sopranos, True Blood and Girls, and popular primetime series including 24, Downton Abbey, Extant, Falling Skies, Grimm, Hannibal, Justified, Orphan Black, Teen Wolf, The Americans, and Under the Dome. Prime members also have access to a collection of kids shows now airing including Amazon Original Series Annedroids, Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street and the Annecy, Annie and multi-Emmy Award-winning Tumble Leaf, as well as popular shows from Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. including SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer, Team Umizoomi, and Blue’s Clues. Customers who are not already Prime members can sign up for a free trial at www.amazon.com/primevideo.

About Amazon
Amazon.com opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995. The company is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about.

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Amazon Offers "Mozart in the Junge" Free This Weekend

In Celebration of Golden Globe Wins, Amazon is Making All Episodes from Seasons One and Two of Mozart in the Jungle Free to Watch – No Membership Required

Starting Friday January 15, at 9:00 p.m. PT and concluding at 11:59 p.m. local time, Sunday January 17, everyone can watch Mozart in the Jungle for free via the Amazon Video app for TVs, connected devices and mobile devices, or online at Amazon.com/mozartinthejungle

Amazon will also offer Amazon Prime for just $73 starting this Friday at 9:00 p.m. PT in celebration of its wins at the 73rd Annual Golden Globe Awards

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--(NASDAQ: AMZN)—Amazon announced that in celebration of its two Golden Globe wins, it will make seasons one and two of the Amazon Original Series, Mozart in the Jungle available for free for everyone this weekend. Anyone can watch the first and second season of Mozart in the Jungle at no cost starting Friday January 15, 2016, at 9:00 p.m. PT and concluding at 11:59 p.m. local time, Sunday January 17, 2016, using the Amazon Video app for TVs, connected devices including Fire TV and mobile devices, or online at Amazon.com/mozartinthejungle. For a list of all Amazon Video compatible devices visit www.amazon.com/howtostream. Also starting Friday January 15, at 9:00 p.m. PT and concluding at 11:59 p.m. local time, Sunday January 17, and in celebration of Mozart in the Jungle’s multiple wins at the 73rd Annual Golden Globe Awards, Amazon Prime will be available for just $73. New members can sign-up for this limited-time Prime offer at www.amazon.com/MozartPrime.

    “What an incredible honor to be recognized by the Hollywood Foreign Press two years in a row”

Mozart in the Jungle took home the 2016 Golden Globe award for Best Musical or Comedy Series, while its lead star, Gael García Bernal, earned the coveted title of Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy Series. This year’s win marks four total Golden Globe awards for Amazon, following last year’s double win for Transparent in the same categories, and also makes Amazon the first network in a decade to win Best Musical or Comedy Series and Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy Series in back-to-back years for different shows.

“What an incredible honor to be recognized by the Hollywood Foreign Press two years in a row,” said Roy Price, Vice President of Amazon Studios. “We are incredibly proud of Gael, Jason, Roman, Paul and everyone involved in the making of Mozart in the Jungle – it’s gratifying and exciting to see the success of this series.”

Based on the critically acclaimed memoir Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs & Classical Music by Blair Tindall, the multi-award winning Amazon Original Series, Mozart in the Jungle draws back the curtain at the New York Symphony, where artistic dedication and creativity collide with mind games, politicking and survival instincts. The series is executive produced by Roman Coppola (Moonrise Kingdom), Jason Schwartzman (The Darjeeling Limited) and Paul Weitz (About a Boy) and stars Gael Garcia Bernal (Rosewater), Saffron Burrows (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Hannah Dunne (Frances Ha), Lola Kirke (Gone Girl), Malcolm McDowell (The Mentalist), Peter Vack (I Just Want My Pants Back) and Bernadette Peters (Smash).

In addition to SD and HD, the series is also available in 4K Ultra HD on Amazon Fire TV and compatible Samsung, LG and Sony smart TVs and in High Dynamic Range (HDR) on compatible Samsung and LG smart TVs. Prime members can also download the series for offline viewing on iOS, Android, and Fire devices at no additional cost.


About Amazon Video
Amazon Video offers customers unlimited access to tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes, including award-winning Amazon Original Series, through Amazon Prime; monthly subscriptions to SHOWTIME, STARZ, and more; and hundreds of thousands of titles including new-release movies and current TV shows for rent or purchase.

The entire range of selection can be instantly accessed through the Amazon Video app on TVs, streaming media players, mobile devices, Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, and Fire tablets, or online at Amazon.com/amazonvideo. For a list of all Amazon Video compatible devices visit www.amazon.com/howtostream.

Prime Video, included in Amazon Prime, enables Prime members to enjoy binge-worthy TV shows including Amazon Original Series airing now such as the multi-Golden Globe winning series from Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman, Mozart in the Jungle, the multi-Golden Globe-winning and Emmy-nominated series Transparent, the breakout hit The Man in the High Castle, based on Philip K. Dick’s novel, the hour-long drama Bosch, based on Michael Connelly’s best-selling books, and the comedy created by and starring Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan, Catastrophe, in addition to HBO favorites like The Sopranos, True Blood and Girls, and popular primetime series including 24, Downton Abbey, Extant, Falling Skies, Grimm, Hannibal, Justified, Orphan Black, Teen Wolf, The Americans, and Under the Dome. Prime members also have access to an exclusive collection of kids shows now airing including Amazon Original Series’ Annedroids, Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street and the Annecy, Annie and multi-Emmy Award-winning Tumble Leaf, as well as popular shows from Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. including SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer, Team Umizoomi, and Blue’s Clues. Customers who are not already Prime members can sign up for a free trial at www.amazon.com/primevideo.

About Amazon
Amazon.com opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995. The company is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about.

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Review: "About a Boy" is Warm and Fuzzy

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 90 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux


About a Boy (2002)
Running time: 101 minutes (1 hour, 41 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for brief strong language and some thematic elements
DIRECTORS: Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz
WRITERS: Peter Hedges and Chris Weitz & Paul Weitz (from a novel by Nick Hornsby)
PRODUCERS: Robert De Niro, Brad Epstein, Eric Fellner, and Jane Rosenthal
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Remi Adefarasin (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Nick Moore
Academy Award nominee

COMEDY/DRAMA

Starring: Hugh Grant, Toni Collette, Nicholas Hoult, Rachel Weisz, and Sharon Small

Every now and then, Hugh Grant plays a role that is different from his usual role: the loveable, affable, and charming British man child thrown slightly off-balance by the aggressive woman. In About a Boy, Grant takes his boy child and turns him on his ear, not necessarily for the better.

Grant plays Will, a self-absorbed bachelor – a rich, single, child-free Londoner in his 30’s who suddenly discovers that all his friends have taken on the adult responsibilities of family life. First, he invents a toddler son in order to pass himself off as a single father so that he can date jilted mothers he meets in single parents club. He’s confident that he can leave the mums behind when he’s tired of them, but his machinations bring him into contact with Marcus (Nicholas Hoult), a 12-year old boy with massive problems at school and a suicidal mother (Toni Collette) at home. Though the boy is his opposite in many ways, Marcus becomes Will’s friend, of a sort. He teaches the boy how to be cool, and Marcus helps will grow up.

It’s hard to believe that Chris and Paul Weitz could go from being the masterminds behind American Pie to making a movie that is so at once painful, yet so heartwarming and life affirming as About a Boy. What the Weitz brothers show again is the ability to let the actors take the story, whatever it is, and perform. That was the key to American Pie – how well the actors worked through the hoops and gimmicks given them by the filmmakers. In this case, the Weitzs and co-writer Peter Hedges (who adapted their script from a novel by Nick Hornsby) give the characters plenty to chew, but the characters here aren’t nearly as endearing as they were in Pie.

Many movie critics and fans felt that the Academy had robbed Hugh Grant of an Oscar nomination for his performance in Boy. The truth of the matter is that the character is so shallow and empty that any actor with at least film acting experience, if not talent, could have played the role. Playing Will as he was written is not an artistic or professional achievement (save for the paycheck); it would not be too farfetched to say that Will is pretty much just a character name in a script. I know that the central conceit is that Will is supposed to be a shallow and empty character, but Will isn’t a character. He’s just an empty cipher or caricature. We get the idea that Will is shallow when we see how easily he casts off his lady friends. I guess we’re supposed to assume that Will sitting around his apartment all day is another sign of his shallowness and emptiness. I just took it as a sign that the script writers didn’t know how to make any of those scenes visually interesting. Will fills the film with tiresome narrations about his selfishness and self-centeredness, when, after his first two “character enriching” speeches, we got the point. For a brief moment in the film, Will thinks he sees his long dead father. Sadly the movie doesn’t focus on Will’s relationship with his own father, although the movie story spends so much time telling us that Will could be “a father/father figure.” Certainly, it’s no stretch of the imagination to suspect that Will’s personality comes from something to do with his father. Heck, Will lives off his father’s song royalties. That’s why he doesn’t work, so obviously that’s something to explore.

Nicholas Hoult’s Marcus is much more interesting, perhaps because the story is really about him and how he makes two grown ups grow up. I won’t call his a great child performance, but it’s quite good. Marcus is world weary and cynical. Even at his young age (12 years), he’s already accepted that pretty much everything is beyond his control. He takes his lumps as if his torment was not only preordained, but also divinely ordained. Young Mr. Hoult makes us invest ourselves in Marcus’s destiny, and that’s more than I can say about the rest of the cast. We want him to win, to succeed, because he’s done nothing to be in the position he’s been in, and he has so much wisdom that he sees the practical solutions that other characters need to make their lives a little better.

Despite my reservations, I liked About a Boy. If you can tolerate Will’s narration and instead focus on Marcus’s, you’ll find a hero in the character. I understand that the filmmakers had to give the spotlight to Grant’s (the movie star) Will, when the film’s most interesting notions come from Marcus: people need other people and sometimes they need lots of other people to catch them when they fall. Take the film’s plague of self-examining voiceovers with a grain of salt and instead focus on people connecting. You’ll like this movie enough to feel a little warm and fuzzy at the end.

6 of 10
B

NOTES:
2003 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay” (Peter Hedges, Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz)


2003 BAFTA Awards: 2 nominations: “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role” (Toni Collette) and “Best Screenplay – Adapted”


2003 Golden Globe Awards: 2 nominations: “Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy” and “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy” (Hugh Grant)