the hobbit Archives - i luv cinema

September 20, 2012 By iluvcinema 6 Comments

“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” Trailer — Thoughts?

By now, many of you have probably watched, re-watched and processed the latest “The Hobbit”, Part I trailer. Well, that is, unless you are not a Tolkein fan — if that is the case, feel free check it out now (or just bear with me 🙂 ):

Anyways, I would like to get your reaction(s) to it. When I watched this last night, I was rather surprised with the moments of whimsy which it contained. That initial observation aside, it looks absolutely vibrant and lovely!

Share your thoughts below.

Are you looking forward to it?

December 20, 2011 By iluvcinema 5 Comments

Trailer Madness!

By now, you know that the blogosphere and the internet in general is all abuzz with the first trailer for Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Combined with the weekend release of the trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, and you see why movie fans are celebrating … it is like we have had our holiday prezzies come a few days early 🙂

The Dark Knight Rises: For whatever reason I delayed seeing the preview for the final installment of Nolan’s Batman trilogy until this evening. And having just watched it, I must admit that while I am overall thrilled and intrigued by it, for some reason, I was not as excited as I had anticipated. For one, I think I experienced a syndrome that I have just decided to dub ‘recognizable actor overload,’ or RAO for short. In addition, there seemed to be a whole lot of stuff going on – too much for me to keep up with; in other words, Which of his foes will threaten our favorite caped crusader and cause him the greatest degree of peril? Guess we will find out in a few short months.

Trailer reservations aside, when it comes time for the actual movie, I am certain that the finished Christopher Nolan product will please.

I do not know much about the plot, all I can say is what the above poster indicates: The Legend Ends. Intense.

The Hobbit, on the other hand, was a bit more satisfying. And this reaction REALLY surprises me. To be clear, I am not a devotee of Tolkien and have only just managed to get through the novel, The Hobbit, and have not considered the remaining books in the LOTR saga for any future reading lists. But as far as this movie teaser goes, I found it really charming. It has been said many times before, but Martin Freeman was born to be Bilbo!

You may gather some of this from the trailer but for the truly uninitiated, here is a little synopsis (courtesy of Warner Bros.):

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey follows title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was long ago conquered by the 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 Oakensheild. 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 ofguile 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.

2011 is not even done and I am eagerly anticipating the latter half of 2012!

What do you think? Please share your reactions below.

March 20, 2011 By iluvcinema Leave a Comment

Fan-girls, Sexy Dwarfs and Reading The Hobbit (Finally)

As you may have gathered from previous posts I have made here, I really look forward movie/book tie-ins. In anticipation of the forthcoming release of The Hobbit (2012), I would like how I came about getting to the point where I felt I HAD to read the book.

By reading The Hobbit for the first time at this point of life I clearly passed up the opportunity to read J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic as a youth. In fact, I had no desire to read it despite being a nerd growing up. In fact it is not that the world of fantasy and sci-fi was something lost upon me (I was a huge Star Wars fan), but I simply was not a voracious reader. In fact, for the most part, I found reading to be a taxing process.

Fast-forward several years later and my attitude toward reading changed dramatically. And I have the movies to thank for that. In high school I got into classic films big time. I then started to notice that many movies I was watching were based on works of fiction. As a result, I started to gradually get more into reading. In fact, if not for Alfred Hitchcock, I would have missed out on reading one of my all-time favorite novels, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.

After completing my university studies and entering the workforce, I was able to return to my newfound love of pleasure reading thanks to daily train commutes to work.

Also during this time, the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) films were released. Part of me certainly felt like I was missing out on details found in the source material, but I concluded that the time had passed to read the books – they WERE kid’s books after all. Thus, I appreciated the spectacle of LOTR as purely cinematic events.

That all changed with Harry Potter. Until I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (OOTP), I was content to not bother reading J.K. Rowling’s books. However, after watching OOTP, I was left feeling like I was missing a lot of details. This feeling was amplified when I discovered OOTP was not only the LONGEST book but that it had one of SHORTEST running times of the film series.

Armed with that information, I immediately went to the bookstore and started reading all the books. Since completing all of the books in the series, I have been rewarded with a satisfying trip to the movies. At this point it is safe to say that I am on the periphery of fan-girl status. Not sure I am ready for Comic-Con just yet.

With the HP franchise concluding this summer, my “enthusiasm” has naturally gravitated towards the next epic book-to-film adaptation – Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit, Parts I and II.

I was all the more delighted when I started to hear the casting news coming out of the production. I recognized the names of Martin Freeman (The Office, Sherlock) as Bilbo Baggins (Richard Armitage (North and South and MI-5) as Thorin Oakenshield and Aidan Turner (Being Human) as Kili.

Remember at this point, I have NOT read The Hobbit so even knowing the names of Thorin and Kili meant nothing to me; the only Hobbit characters that had any resonance with me with Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf. I was not even sure which other characters crossed over from one book to the next.

Imagine my surprise in discovering the characters of Thorin and Kili are DRAWFS! John Rhys Davies was my “Middle Earth” vision of what a dwarf should look like. And with all due respect to Mr. Davies, Armitage and Turner are quite attractive so the thought that they are dwarfs (dwarves), left me a little perplexed.

Apparently many dyed in the wool Tolkien fans were equally perplexed by the casting choices. Simply type in the words “sexy/handsome dwarfs and The Hobbit” into Google to see what I am talking about. I will not elaborate here but I will say I trust Peter Jackson and his team.

So instead of putting me off the idea, I was more interested in The Hobbit than ever. And that is where I am at the moment. I am currently in the thick of the novel and hope to finish the novel by the end of the month. And then the countdown begins – 18 months (or more) and counting!