Edgy MD

When either one is stuck for an idea, they can be counted on to go with the Eagles.

How is J.R.R. Tolkien like a classic rock DJ?

Hey, like Sauron's bringing the dwarves and elves and men together in opposition to his treachery, Jackson has forged a pretty solid alliance between Sage and myself here.

As I kinda suggest in my last sentence, absolutely.

I guess that means me. I'm going to vote three stars, allowing myself the possible option to upgrade on reflection to 3 1/2. But this really gets lost tone-wise. Adapted as it is from a young adulty novel with a lot of silly elements, it can't really allow Bilbo to slowly stumble out of his innocence, as the viewer has already seen the far darker story that unfolds from it. They give a long prologue --- voiced by Ian Holm as Bilbo, flashing back from the morning of the birthday party that started LotR, explaining the history of the dwarves under the mountain and the mountain's eventual loss, bloody and vicious and horrible and hateful. So when he gets to reciting the opening lines of the book --- "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort." --- it's silly. We all know about Hobbit holes, we know about the fantastic world of Middle Earth beyond Hobbit holes, and the story can never unfold for us as it's meant to --- with Bilbo's stumble from his innocent world of comfort and food to the dangerous world beyond. Even if there's single viewer who hasn't seen the LotR trilogy, director Peter Jackson makes clear that he hardly cares to maintain that pacing. Innocence is lost before Gandalf ever visits bag end. We know all about what's up the beanstalk before we ever know Jack. Jackson, as game as he is to create some impressive set pieces, is not game for doing the hard work of the imagination that it would take to restore that innocence. Pity. And when he does try --- restoring some of Tolkien's songs to the narratives --- it seems an embarrassing departure from what Jackson really wants to do, which is enter into darkenss, and cut some shit up with some awesome extreme fighting moves out of the Jedi handbook. Half the dwarves lack anything resembling the stout and foreshortened body type (and a few lack full beards) characteristic of the race. They made a commitment clearly to give Thorin Oakenshield the role of brooding swordsman that Aragorn ably fills in the LotR trilogy, but you know, he's a dwarf, and the traits that we find in his compatriots --- randy, stout, stouthearted, good in a tight spot, but awkward in a world full of taller creatures --- are absent in him. The dwarves really are pretty hapless in the first half of the novel, getting captured again and again before getting bailed our by Gandalf, or eventually Bilbo as he grows in his resources. One thing that really does work, and to some length is in the spirit of the book, is, ironically, material that's not from the book at all. We spend some time with Gandalf's brother wizard Radagast the Brown, who is briefly alluded to in the book but never appears, and only briefly appears in passing in the Lord of the Rings books. Taking from background on him in the Simarillion, and doing some liberal construction of their own, they create a figure that's part Green Man, part St. Francis, part St. Nicholas, and a little bit of the (also absent from the films) Tom Bombadil. Drawn through the woods on a sled pulled by Rhosgobel rabbits, with birds nesting (and pooping) in his hair, Radagast is a holy fool, tasked (apparently by the ancients) with looking after the flora and fauna of the forest, acutely sensitive to shadows and suffering in nature, and first to realize that something evil is afoot in Middle Earth. Bully to them for creating him, but it speaks to the inability to live of to the challenges of adaptation that the best thing they did is extra-canonical. As the dwarves pass through Rivendell, we re-meet some the timeless characters of the LotR trilogy, as Gandalf confers with Elrond, Galadriel, and Sarumon, but we already know the fates of these three, on the page and in film. How pointless it suddenly seems to care about them. Even Bilbo, who in the books falls in love with Rivendell's pleasures and keeps them in his heart until he returns in his aged years, seems to reflect the audience's been there done that attitude. I don't know how you go back to The Hobbit after The Lord of the Rings, but Jackson --- torn between the challenges to take us to an earlier, more innocent story line, and on the other hand improve on the cinematic spectacle of a decade ago --- doesn't really pull it off to my satisfaction. Maybe future generations blessed with the opportunity to see these films chronologically will feel differently.

You get 13 dwarves, a few trolls, a wizard, a sniveling imp, and a southearted furry-footed guy who likes to eat. Anybody see this yet?

Maybe. Hope so, I guess. Though who do we expect as of now to pass him? Bixler and Cowgill, I suppose. Wheeler, I hope. I just wonder how many times a week David Weathers logs on and goes, "Yeah, there I am --- right above Willie Mays."

Actually needed adoption for a while there, but according to his tweet and photo link, has been reunited with his big daddy UUU, released from prison after five years. Daddy looks like he stayed in condition, anyhow.

I knew Batman would go bad. It was only a matter of time.

Well-staffed? How about the expense account?

Swan Swan H wrote: I liked this a lot. Aubrey Plaza was excellent, and the ending surprised me in spite of myself. Jake Johnson is really good as well. Still digesting. I mostly approve. The unapologetic out-loud manchild writer seems to be quite the stock character these dayz.

Vic Sage wrote: And whatever else Bond movies are about, they are about Bond. Without a great Bond, you can't have a great Bond movie. I hope it's not won't be to willfully contrarian of me to say so, but the next great Bond movie will be the first.

Screaming blonde chick --- Ensign Rand?

Hancock just used his superfingernails.

Unfortunately, it rather does the opposite. [youtube:font4zgn]3zBnHCyrx6Q[/youtube:font4zgn]

I've seen them all done by bunnies. Does that count?

Yeah, just noting that. Not really demeriting them for it.

Jaws wasn't the villian, so much as the henchman/assassin. It was a theme in the earlier films to include an oddall assassin with a fetish for death and often a cartoonish M.O.: Kronstein, Oddjob, TeeHee, and Bambi and Thumper, among others. Jaws was part of a proud (though goofy) tradition.

Vic Sage wrote: Dalton was strong, and looked the part, but had the sexuality of a bachelor uncle. he was a "Ken doll" Bond. That honker, though. It gets everywhere (and I know whereof I speak). The angular features come across as too diabolical and less cool. Looks more like the handsome villain in a fantasy (as he was in The Rocketeer and Hot Fuzz) than the handsome hero. I think the Broccolis (Broccolini?) were trying to get Brosnan at this point but he couldn't get out of his TV commitments, so by the time he did get the role, he had only so many miles left.

Living Daylights brings me two assocations: (1) Tmothy Dalton able to kick people in the head and swing down off of roofs in stealth gear, after a lifetime accepting that Bond may have solid hand-to-hand fighting skills, but he's a little creaky. (2) The final single to chart in the US (#113 with a bullet) from a-ha. [youtube:31a45etb]WzV4WGoyl4Q[/youtube:31a45etb]

Saw it. Had its moments, but not for me. Maybe a big screen would've done more for it. Covers a lot of the same material as Elf, I think, in that the main character is a misfit not because he doesn't drink the eggnog, but because he drinks it so thoroughly and enthusiastically.

I know it's hard to look directly at that photo, but look again and check yourself for a pulse. White shirt is a chick --- former Solid Gold sweetie Lucinda Dickey.

Good job. Sorry I failed to participate. My moving cut into my time when this started, but I should've gotten around to it. Has a save leader ever done so poorly in our rankings?

I actually just sat through The Spy Who Loved Me a few weeks back. As Bond has too often been about the lastestness in style, almost all Bond films seem dated years later. While most agree that the Connery ones are the best, I think it's more that Connery was the coolest cat to play the roll, but the films themselves seem boring on review. I remember the Moore ones being funnier --- Roger playing against the absurdity of the character --- but most of the zexy ladies come across years later like overpainted tarts. And the cuts back from action to romance seem bouncy and haphazard. I guess you're supposed to get caught up in the event --- this time we go to Paris and Honolulu! --- that you're supposed to forgive how stupidly convoluted the plots all are. But years later, when there's nothing cutting-edge about the style, the cars, the chicks, the wierdo villian or anything --- the emptiness of the plots is just disengaging. Old Bond films --- like decades-old mildewed copies of GQ and Vogue --- are best viewed as curiosities.

I'm getting that "Arthur Christmas" is a weak pun on "Father Christmas" --- Santa Claus's more popular British title. Tell me please that the film has a higher standard for jocularity than is indicated by this title.