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2014 IN REVIEW: Everything in Between That I’ve Seen
Finally, we come to the films that I actually did see! As with the films I didn’t see, these films will come at you in three parts: the films that were just somewhere in the middle in terms of quality, the films I greatly disliked, and the films I really enjoyed.
I use those qualitative terms just to avoid confusion over what I’m ranking here. The films in this section range from generally bad to generally quite good, but never elevating to excellence or making me fall in love with them or making me hate them with a passion. That being said, I didn’t expect to like some of the films here as much as I ended up liking them, and, of course, I was letdown by others I actually was kind of looking forward to.
If you don’t see the movie here and didn’t see it in the list of films I didn’t see, then you can almost certainly be guaranteed to find them on one of my next two lists, as this is just a portion of the 121 total films I ended up seeing from 2014 as of this writing, whether in theatres, on DVD/Blu-Ray, or through streaming. Read more…
2013 IN REVIEW: Neither the Best, Nor the Worst Films I Saw
I apparently watched a lot more movies in 2013 than I had realized… The films below represent not the worst, not the best, but certainly not always good, but also certainly not always bad movies that I saw in and from 2013. Only films released theatrically were counted, and film festival debuts did not count. Some of these films were truly great, others were truly awful, but none of them were seen fit to be placed in “the worst,” “the best,” nor “my favorite” categories. And so, they go here. Here are some of the films I watched in 2013, in order of release! Read more…
Trailer: “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”
Unexpected indeed! Santa apparently forgot one gift after he delivered The Dark Knight Rises trailer. Back down the chimney he came to deliver one final (?) gift!
As soon as that music played, I got shivers down my spine. I’m not nearly as much a Lord of the Rings fanatic as my friends are — I’ve barely gotten into the first book and find it hard to get through Tolkien’s wordy, heavy prose, which is why I’m so thankful for Peter Jackson’s film series, which are masterpieces in their own right. I imagine those fans of the books and their related stories are kind of like when I scoff at people who think a great song is by a newer artist who covered it (or, sadly, just sampled the older, better song in one sad case involving Kid Rock and “Sweet Home Alabama”…), but I just can’t get into the books (or most books in general) as I can film. I’m a very visually-oriented person in many ways, and thanks to Jackson, I am able to at least partake in some form of Rings fandom, even though I at least am aware that it is a much different experience. Hey, you don’t necessarily expect everyone to read every book of every film adaptation, do you?
Anyway, my seemingly anti-intellectual habits aside, I’m so glad that Peter Jackson has been able to revisit the world of Middle Earth. Sam Raimi may have done well, and it’s still a tragedy that Guillermo del Toro wasn’t able to put his own touch on Jackson’s take on the world, but if it couldn’t be him, it might as well be the original, right? Of course, The Hobbit is decidedly lighter in tone compared to the heavy warfare of The Lord of the Rings, but it looks like Jackson has been able to put just the right touches on this adaptation — touches that I hope hold over into the second film in this revisit, which will be an almost entirely new story that bridges The Hobbit to the epic trilogy.
Cate Blanchett and Ian McKellen don’t look to have aged a day since Return of the King, which is good since they’re technically supposed to be younger here, and it looks as though we’ll be in for a treat with fun looking new characters in the film, new takes on familiar characters (with The Office‘s Martin Freeman taking over as the younger Bilbo Baggins), and, of course Gollum along for what looks to be a gentler, more light-hearted adventure. Also cast in the film series are the returning Orlando Bloom as Legolas, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, Elijah Wood and Ian Holm as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins (apparently these films are flashbacks), and Christopher Lee as Saruman, with new cast members consisting of Stephen Fry, Richard Armitage, Graham McTavish, and several others I admittedly don’t recognize but will likely in the future.
Of course, the question remains: are we going to see an extended, 4 hour version of each of these films, as well? I don’t think marathoners can take it…
The Viewer's Commentary 