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The Hobbit reviewed: An Unexpected Journey has a long road ahead
“All good stories deserve embellishment.” This is not a sentiment to be found in J.R.R. Tolkien’s slim novel The Hobbit, but it’s uttered by the wise wizard Gandalf near the very expected beginning of An Unexpected Journey.
It’s obviously co-writer and director Peter Jackson’s belief as well. Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy mirrored the structure of Tolkien’s book, to the delight of a legion of fans and many new converts. But The Hobbit is a relatively brief and simple quest, as evidenced by the book’s subtitle: There and Back Again.
Jackson’s Lord of the Rings was a masterpiece, and The Hobbit, at least as far as the unexpected journey has taken us, remains more of a mini-piece. (Warner Bros.)
2012 Movies Preview: If you only see a dozen movies this year…
Last year at this time, we were talking about all the upcoming movies that have numbers after the titles: 2011 was going to be a year of sequels. Well, looking over the 2012 slate, what do we find but a lot of movies with numbers after the titles. Yes, it’s déjà vu all over again, a sequel of sequels, but what are you going to do? In Hollywood, familiarity breeds content. Fortunately, we don’t have to travel that road. Here, in the order they are set to open, Jay Stone takes a look at 12 to look forward to in 2012:
Why 3D isn’t going anywhere
From January’s release of Underworld: Awakening to next Christmas’s Life of Pi and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, 2012 has more than two dozen planned 3D releases, with more yet to be slated.
Studios and cinemas like the automatic surcharge they make on 3D films, and audiences seem to have more or less shouldered the change, just as they did with the half-hour of advertising and trailers that now precede most screenings.
There have been some glorious triumphs for the format in the last year, mind you. German filmmakers Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders have created documentaries that almost demand to be seen in three dimensions. Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams explores ancient paintings in France, the camera capturing not just the images but the undulating rocky surface on which they were drawn.
Wenders’ film Pina just opened at the Bell Lightbox in Toronto, with more locations to follow. It shows dancers on the stage and outdoors in Wuppertal, Germany, the camera capturing not just the movements of individual bodies but they way they fit into each other and their environment. It feels as though we’re among them.
