It’s time to dive, dive in deep…well, at least as deep as you can in May. As I attempted to unveil the newest set of Oscar Predictions, I realized how many promising films are left to be seen in the remaining seven months. As of now, the only real Best Picture contender that has the legs to make it until the end of the year would be Sarah Polley’sStories We Tell, and that’s a longshot at best given its genre. You can make arguments for films like The Place Beyond the Pines by Derek Cianfrance and even Mud by Jeff Nichols but those will need a well-placed DVD release with a focused campaign, something I’m not sure the studios are willing to bet on. Cianfrance’s film also has an outside shot for Screenplay and a Supporting Actor mention for Ryan Gosling. If anything, this helps him for Nicolas Winding Refn’sOnly God Forgives, if they’re feeling like recognizing him a second time. It feels like eons ago when Gosling was nominated for Ryan Fleck’s Half Nelson (2006) and then later missed other opportunities for Lars and the Real Girl (2007), Blue Valentine (2010), and Drive (2011). Not sure when it will be before he gets back onto the Oscar radar.
Most of you know that I am a total geek for Middle-earth, so I was really excited to see a new video of Peter Jackson promoting the second Hobbit film, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Say what you will about The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, but after watching it a second time this past weekend, I found it better than I had remembered. Sure, it is still about 30 minutes too long, and for that reason I understand why the casual fan of Tolkien might dismiss the film, but geeks like me eat this shit up. Jackson recently held a Live Event where he took questions from fans, previewed the concept art, and showed brief footage of the upcoming sequel. Have a look at six minutes of the event after the jump.
Nine years after Peter Jackson put a wrap on The Lord of the Rings trilogy (LOTR), the acclaimed director returns to Middle-earth with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I should start by making everyone aware of what a geek I am for this world of wizards, elves, and dwarves: I named the LOTR trilogy as the greatest film of the past decade (2000-2009) – and yes, I consider the three as one, we can debate that another time if you wish. So you can basically knock a half-star or so off this review if you are just a mild fan of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy as seen through the vision of Peter Jackson and company.
There’s the infamous Watergate scandal; sports followers still get a kick out of Crygate; and Antennagate briefly plagued Apple’s release of the iPhone 4. Well, here’s a new one for you: Trailergate. It’s completely made-up and involves no impeachable offenses or villainous superstar athletes, so bear with me while I set this up.
The long-awaited (expected) journey back to Middle Earth finally sets off with the first installment of Peter Jackson’s imminent The Hobbit trilogy (still baffled as to how this turned into a hat-trick). As Bilbo, Thorin, Gandalf and the rest of the Dwarves make their way to the Lonely Mountain, so too will the film soar to the top of the box office this weekend. Not in the mood for second breakfast? Skip right to lunch with a handful of other menu options…
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Language: English
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellan, Richard Armitage
In his younger years, sensible Bilbo Baggins finds himself somehow convinced to venture out of the Shire to accompany a band of Dwarves on a dangerous quest to reclaim a treasure stolen by the evil dragon, Smaug. See what Terrence had to say about this first act. Read more on Weekend Openings: (12/14/2012)…
Suffering under the weight of the previous Lord of the Rings films, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey tries really hard to be its own entity while still tying into the previous franchise. Unfortunately, this film is nothing more than an adequate filmmaking exercise that strikes most of the same beats as Lord of the Rings without any of the importance, epic scope or je ne sais quoi is that a movie has to have in order to be really successful. That’s not to say this is a bad film, just one that wants you to believe that it’s great based on sheer will, 48 fps, a long running time, and closeups of the cast. Read more on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (**)…
During the debacle of the site being down, I didn’t get a chance to weigh in on the Visual Effects that were narrowed down to ten films. The ten films still in contention for the Visual Effects Oscar are:
When the Lionsgate Awards site went LIVE today and listed their slate of contenders involving Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Fisher Stevens’ Stand Up Guys, Gary Ross’ The Hunger Games, Nicholas Jarecki’s Arbitrage, and J.A. Bayona’s The Impossible, I started to analyze how this year could pan out for smaller films that are trying to make a play; even more so, the performances in them.
I’ve touted on podcasts for weeks that Nate Parker utterly deserves a citation in Arbitrage, a raw, authentic turn that stands as one of the year’s bests. His co-star Richard Gere is currently being predicted in the Lead Actor top five, mostly on the notion that after years of ignoring and snubbing, voter’s eyes would finally be open to the charm that Gere portrays in Jarecki’s film. As Hugh Jackman remains a mystery of the season in Les Miserables andthe word of Anthony Hopkins’ work in Hitchcock rallies some muted enthusiasm, a first-time nominee is bound to crack the top five. Believe me, Bradley Cooper might have a leg up on Gere given his film’s Best Picture chances and the powerful Weinsteins backing, but perhaps an overdue veteran has the gas to go the distance. Read more on Two Lead Contenders on Lionsgate Awards Plate…
The Warner Brothers Awards Site has had their roster listed for a few weeks now. Big contenders like Ben Affleck’s Argo, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, and The Wachowski Siblings and Tom Tykwer’s Cloud Atlas have their respective categories listed. Even Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike is pushing a campaign for Matthew McConaughey and the rest of the cast. Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, a film that our own Mark Johnson has stood by all year-long, has started listing their categories for consideration. Read more on ‘The Hobbit’ submits an Original Song for Oscar Consideration…
Action packed, thrilling, and very beautifully shot, “The Four” takes the audience into the corrupt world of those who seek power attempting to overthrow those in power. Like an old story unfolding on the screen, the audience gets the lay of the land during the opening credits. Much like the beginning sequence of credits for “The Italian Job” (2003), the opening credits for “The Four” demonstrates how the “Divine Constabulary” operates as a team, the secret service of that society. The audience is then introduced to ‘Department Six’, the CIA of their day. The characters weave an intricate web of power struggles and self-validation before the end of the movie, where the bad guy, An Shigeng (Wu Xiubo), disappears into the night, a cliffhanger of sorts for the audience to wonder about and anticipate resurfacing again in the sequel. Read more on The Four (****)…
The Oscar race is beginning to formulate itself. As it stands the Academy Awards have positioned themselves to be the wildest of wild cards of the Oscar season. Since Oscar ballots are due January 3rd, the nominations will be one of many awards ceremonies coming down like wildfire.
The Screen Actors Guild Awards announce their nominee choices first beginning on December 10th. The Broadcast Film Critics Association will name their best of the year with the Critics Choice Movie Awards being announced the next day on December 11th. The Hollywood Foreign Press will follow-suit with their Golden Globe nominations on December 13th. Mark my words; those four days will likely be the most important and telling aspects of the awards season. If you start hearing the usual suspects, back-to-back and over and over, Oscar will be referring to these groups for citations for their own nominees when they’re announced on January 10th. Read more on Oscar Circuit: “10 Weeks to Go”…
The second trailer for Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has arrived! This will be the first in what will be a trilogy of Hobbit films spanning the next three years. An Unexpected Journey will be in theatres on December 14th of this year, followed by The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug on Dec. 13, 2013 and The Hobbit: There And Back Again on July 18, 2014.
As Telluride and Venice ended and we sit in the heat that is the Toronto Film Festival, I’m updating Oscar Predictions slowly but surely. Screenings are happening daily and the race could change in a matter of seconds. My solution is to update one category per day for the next 20 days. By then Toronto would have ended, and we would be sitting firmly in the clump of the New York Film Festival. I’ve started with the biggest juggernaut, Best Motion Picture, but most importantly I took the opportunity to update the Oscar Tracker with several films and performances added to their respective categories. Read more on Oscar Circuit: Resistance is Futile…
It’s all coming together now for Peter Jackson. A few weeks ago it was announced that Jackson would indeed split his Hobbit sequels into a trilogy, and now The Hollywood Reporter has learned more about the sequels. The sequels will be titled The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and The Hobbit: There and Back Again, to be released on December 13, 2013 and July 18, 2014 respectively. Whether that last title is a tongue in cheek reference to how we’re getting prequel film to a story we already have most of the information for is anyone’s guess. It’s interesting that Warner Bros. has put the third Hobbit film on the same day Fox was set to release the sequel to X-Men: First Class. One of them (most likely Fox) will have to blink and change the date right? Giving us another look into the film i09 and Gamma Squad have released images from the 2013 annual, including the first image of Lee Pace as Thrandruil, Legolas’ father, all of which you can see after the jump!
Part of one of the cinema’s most famous families, the Coppola’s, she had been brutalized by the critics for her performance in The Godfather Part III (1990), which in my world simply does not exist. Frankly she was not even the major problem with the film, thus I found the attacks on her to be downright cruel. However Francis’ little girl learned one thing from her famous father, do not let them get to you, follow the passion, find a good story.
Much like I mused around a month ago about who could direct the sequel to ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ if Marc Webb doesn’t wind up returning, I’m back again discussing potential directors for a superhero project…this time, the open slot for the ‘Justice League’ film. This is a much different project, and obviously Warner Brothers is so far looking at the A-list for their filmmaker. Christopher Nolan distanced himself from the project pretty much as soon as asked during his publicity for ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ and I’d expect any day now to hear an official no from Ben Affleck’s camp after the studio set their sights on him. There are certainly plenty of interesting filmmakers who could do a great job with the gig and after the jump I’ll get into the names who might be in contention, along with who I’d like to see get the job. But this is mostly about seeing who you’d like to see sign on. That’s what I’m most interested in, but we’ll get the conversation started with my take on things below.
Admittedly I felt a warm glow the first time I saw a trailer for The Hobbit, due in theaters this December. It was as though we were among old friends again, something familiar, very fine about the look of the preview, which captured the feeling of The Lord of the Rings so beautifully. Peter Jackson’s accomplishment with the The Lord of the Rings trilogy remains astonishing, as he brought each book to vivid life on the screen with incredible detail, love and depth. There were some complaints that Tom Bombadil, a major character in the books was deleted, but upon seeing the films, I did not miss him. The actors gave the film such incredible dramatic heft with their wonderful performances, so much so that we began to care for them rather deeply. There were tears when it seemed Gandalf, and then, Aragorn had perished, and genuine heartache as that gutsy old King died a terrible death. As Sam lifted Frodo onto his back to carry him to Mount Doom we began to understand the depth of the little hobbit’s fierce loyalty to his friend. Best of all, the moment that still gives me chills, when Aragorn turns to Gandalf and whispers, “for Frodo” becoming at that moment the King we all knew he could be. Read more on Thoughts on “The Hobbit” Trilogy…
Great news for our readership! Our “Power Hour” will be moving to a weekly delivery. As the thick of the race heats up and the Awards Circuit begins to move to the next phase of its existence, our conversations are moving to Mondays. So now, every Monday, our “Power Hour” will be up and running for your entertainment. Also, get ready for some wonderful additions and guest spots from some people in the coming weeks. For now, the agenda is listed below:
Now that Ridley Scott’s Prometheus is behind us, the movie I am most excited about for the rest of 2012 is Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. As someone who placed the three The Lord of the Rings films in the crowning spot of their top 10 lists for 2001, 2002, and 2003 (and named the trilogy as the best film of the aught’s – 2000-2009), I have high expectations for Jackson’s return to Middle Earth.
Thanks to Entertainment Weekly, we have some new photos from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey to browse through, including images from returning characters like Ian McKellen’s Gandalf and Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel, as well as new heroes like Martin Freeman’s Bilbo Baggins and Richard Armitage’s Thorin Oakenshield. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens December 14th. Are you excited to return?
Last week, 10 minutes of footage from ‘The Hobbit’ was shown at CinemaCon, and while the film itself supposedly delivers, something else entirely was the talk of the town afterwards. Peter Jackson filmed the project at 48 frames per second, a potentially revolutionary new method of making movies (this is twice the normal rate of 24 frames per second). The reviews, however, left something to be desired. Some claimed that the film appeared to lose its cinematic nature and resembled television, while others complained of headaches. There were defenders of the new format to be sure, and they speak highly of how it’ll improve 3D technology and make it easier to watch, but this was hardly the love-fest that Jackson and others were likely hoping for. Entertainment Weekly has a response from Jackson on the issue that you can read here, but after the jump I’ll speculate on if we’re on the verge of a 48 frames per second invasion or not.
Best Director – (TIE) Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers & Roman Polanski for The Pianist Runner Up – Martin Scorsese for Gangs of New York
Directed by: Peter Jackson Written by: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro
Cast: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Andy Serkis, Benedict Cumberbatch, Graham McTavish, Ken Stott, Hugo Weaving, James Nesbitt, Luke Evans
Synopsis (from Warner Bros.):The adventure follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakenshield. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers.
Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever…Gollum.
Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum’s “precious” ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities … A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know. Read more on Awards Profile: The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey…
It’s time to dive, dive in deep…well, at least as deep as you can in May. As I attempted to unveil the newest set of Oscar Predictions, I realized how many promising films are left to be seen in the remaining seven months. As of now, the only real Best Picture contender that has the legs to make it until the end of the year would be Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell, and that’s a longshot at best given its genre. You can make arguments for films like The Place Beyond the Pines by Derek Cianfrance and even Mud by Jeff Nichols but those will need a well-placed DVD release with a focused campaign, something I’m not sure the studios are willing to bet on. Cianfrance’s film also has an outside shot for Screenplay and a Supporting Actor mention for Ryan Gosling. If anything, this helps him for Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives, if they’re feeling like recognizing him a second time. It feels like eons ago when Gosling was nominated for Ryan Fleck’s Half Nelson (2006) and then later missed other opportunities for Lars and the Real Girl (2007), Blue Valentine (2010), and Drive (2011). Not sure when it will be before he gets back onto the Oscar radar.
Suffering under the weight of the previous Lord of the Rings films, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey tries really hard to be its own entity while still tying into the previous franchise. Unfortunately, this film is nothing more than an adequate filmmaking exercise that strikes most of the same beats as Lord of the Rings without any of the importance, epic scope or je ne sais quoi is that a movie has to have in order to be really successful. That’s not to say this is a bad film, just one that wants you to believe that it’s great based on sheer will, 48 fps, a long running time, and closeups of the cast. 
