Tag Archives: The Hobbit

It’s Time For The Annual Self-Important Post About The Year In Film So Far

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the entire past week, something has been nagging at me.  I knew that there was something that I needed to do but I couldn’t remember what it was.  Earlier today, however, I was reading the latest critical blathering about the state of cinema over at AwardsDaily.  As usual, that site’s editors were whining about the fact that the Social Network didn’t win best picture and also the fact that my generation is apparently the “WORST.  GENERATION.  EVER” and blah blah blah. 

Fortunately, however, reading that  post reminded me of what I had forgotten: We are now at the halfway mark as far as 2012 is concerned.  This is the time of year that self-important film critics (both online and elsewhere) tell their readers what type of year it’s been so far. 

So, without further ado — what type of year has 2012 been so far?

(By the way, you can also check out my thoughts from July of 2011 and July 2010 as well.)

(Also, please understand that the act of me posting this in no way guarantees that I won’t change my mind several times within the next hour.)

Best Film Of The Year (So Far): Cabin In The Woods. Compared to both 2010 and 2011, this has been a pretty slow year so far.  There really hasn’t been a Hanna or an Exit Through The Gift Shop type of film so far.  Instead, there’s been a handful of nice surprises, quite a few pleasant but somewhat forgettable films, and then quite a few films that i wish were forgettable.  Cabin In The Woods, however, was a nice little valentine to horror fans like me and it’s a film that actually gets even better with repeat viewings.  Runners up include Bernie, Damsels in Distress, Brave, The Hunger Games, Safety Not Guaranteed, Moonrise Kingdom, For Greater Glory, Jeff, Who Lives At Home, and the Avengers.

Best Male Performance Of The Year (So Far): Jack Black in Bernie.  Runners up include Andrew Garfield in The Amazing Spider-Man and Jason Segal in Jeff, Who Lives At Home.

Best Female Performance of the Year (So Far): Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games.  Seriously, just try to imagine that film with someone else in the lead role.  Runners up include Susan Sarandon in Jeff, Who Lives At Home, Aubrey Plaza in Safety Not Guaranteed, and Greta Gerwig in Damsels in Distress.

Best Voice-Over Performance Of The Year (So Far): Kelly MacDonald in Brave.

Best Ending Of The Year (So Far): A 3-way tie between The Cabin In The Woods, Safety Not Guaranteed, and Jeff, Who Lives At Home.

Best Horror Film Of The Year (So Far): The Cabin In The Woods

Most Underrated Film Of The Year (So Far): The Five-Year Engagement, a sweet and funny movie that was just a tad bit too long.

Best Bad Film of the Year: Battleship.  Yes, the movie represented some of the worst impulses of big-budget filmmaking but I had a lot of fun watching it and Alexander Skarsgard was to die for in that white Navy uniform.

Worst Film Of The Year (So Far): The Wicker Tree.  I could make an argument for both Rock of Ages and The Devil Inside here but no…just no.  As the Trash Film Guru put it, “BURN THE WICKER TREE!”

Biggest Example Of A Missed Opportunity For This Year (So Far): Seeking a Friend For The End of the World.  A great performance from Steve Carrel can’t save a film that has no idea what it wants to be.

The Get Over It Already Award For The First Half of 2012: The Devil Inside, for being the most tedious example of a “found footage” horror film yet.  Coming in second: Rock of Ages, for reminding me that my parents had terrible taste in music.

The Trailer That Has Most Outgrown Its Welcome: The Perks of Being a Wall Flower.  “Be aggressive…passive aggressive…” Okay, shut up, already.

The Cameron/Fincher Bandwagon Trophy (Awarded To The Upcoming Film That, Regardless Of Quality, Will Probably Be So Violently Embraced By People Online That You’ll Be Putting Your Life In Danger If You Dare Offer Up The Slightest Amount Of Criticism): The Dark Knight Rises

The Ebert Award (Awarded to the upcoming film that will probably get  positive reviews based on the film’s political context as opposed to the film itself): Zero Dark Thirty

The Sasha Award (Awarded To The Film That I Am Predicting Will Be The Most Overrated Of The Year): Lincoln.

The Roland Emmerich/Rod Lurie Award For The Film That I’m Predicting Will Be The Worst Of 2012: Honestly, it’s really hard to imagine a worse film than The Wicker Tree (though, to be honest, Rock of Ages comes pretty close). 

Films I’m Looking Forward To Seeing In The Future (An incomplete list): On The Road, Lawless, The Dark Knight Rises, Cosmopolis, Django Unchained, The Hobbit, The Great Gatsby, and especially The Master and Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina.

And there you have it.  2012 hasn’t been a great year so far but there’s still a lot of time left.

Unless, of course, the Mayans were correct.

Del Toro and Cameron to Climb “The Mountains of Madness”

Posted on by Arleigh

It looks like the unnamed horror project Guillermo Del Toro was quite coy about during this past week’s San Diego Comic-Con may turn out to be one of his dream projects finally getting a chance to be up on the big-screen. Mike Fleming over at Deadline has reported that Del Toro’s next directing project since leaving The Hobbit will indeed be his long-gestating project to adapt H.P. Lovecraft’s classic scifi novella, At The Mountains of Madness.

He will not be going alone in this project as best buddy and confidant James Cameron has also joined Del Toro on his dream project as producer. Fresh off of the humngous success of Avatar has made Cameron the King of Hollywood once again and his name and clout should be able to give Del Toro the necessary muscle to get Universal not just to move the project forward but give Del Toro the budget he wants and the hands-off treatment he works best under.

Fleming also reports that the film will be in 3D which makes sense with Cameron being on-board and someone who can give Del Toro all the assistance he needs with the 3D tech Cameron has developed from his work with Avatar. The fact that Cameron will let his name be used in the promoting of the film speaks volumes as Cameron is known to be very choosy as to which projects he lends his name out to that he doesn’t direct.

There will be some moans and groans to the mention of 3D. Del Toro has never dismissed 3D, but didn’t see himself as having a particular project that worked best with it. Like any visually-gifted filmmaker, Del Toro knows how to use the tools of his trade both new and old so I don’t think Cameron’s 3D film-tech will be something he wouldn’t want to try out. Plus, if there was ever a story to be adapted onto the big-screen that would not just work well with Cameron’s 3D tech but also look beautiful it would have to be a Lovecraft tale and especially one with a setting and plot that’s not just epic but cosmic in scale. From the massive vistas of the non-Euclidean structures of the Elder Gods to the Plateau of Leng which may or may not have been the base for Cthulhu and his Star-spawns. Plus, we can’t forget the amorphous beings the “Shoggoths” which definitely would become even more terrifying in 3D.

I really hope that this project moves forward and with the speed with which Del Toro works I won’t be surprised if during San Diego Comic-Con in 2011 we get to see good footage of the film as a sneak-peek for a 2012 release.

Source: Deadline

Poll: Who should direct “The Hobbit”?

Posted on by Arleigh

Now that Guillermo Del Toro has made it official that he’s leaving The Hobbit as director there’s now a scramble to find who will be replacing him on the project. Del Toro was universally hailed as the best choice the first time around when Peter Jackson made it known that he would only produce the two-part film and not get back to directing them. The many delays due to MGM’s financial troubles, script still not completed and casting still not done forced GDT to back away and could shelve the project for good.

The only thing keeping the project afloat is the fact that this project has a major fan-base already clamoring to see it made. With the huge success both critically and commercially of Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings Trilogy this two-part film adaptation of The Hobbit is pretty much a lock to do the same in the hands of the right filmmaker.

Jackson and studio heads holding the rights to the project will not want just any director. While Peter Jackson was still a little-known director and an outsider from the Hollywood scene when he began work on the original trilogy, this time around studio people will want a marketable name or, at the very least, a filmmaker who has the skills to follow Jackson’s work. Guillermo Del Toro was the perfect choice now someone else has to take up the baton.

Some have mentioned Peter Jackson as the only choice if he’d back off comments that he won’t direct but only produce. There’s a camp that say now’s the time to sign Sam Raimi who recently has left another mega-franchise and now available. Raimi is an interesting choice in that knows how to handle huge blockbuster projects and he definitely needs a home-run to follow-up a bad end as helmer of the Spider-Man franchise.

Another name to come up which I would welcome if Jackson doesn’t return as director is Guillermo Del Toro’s fellow countryman and one of his best friends: Alfonso Cuaron. Cuaron has shown himself to be one of his generation’s best. He’s done fantasy as helmer of the third Harry Potter film (universally seen as the best in the franchise) and may see tackling this blockbuster project as a major artistic challenge. I, for one, would hope Cuaron takes the job if offered.

The one dark horse name which has begun making the rumor mill about who may replace GDT is Jackson’s own protege, wunderkind filmmaker Neill Blomkamp. He’s worked with Jackson already and his first feature-length film, District 9, shows he has the storytelling and directing chops. The only drawback to him accepting the job if offered is that this will be a major-budgeted studio film which means it could turn into another Halo-clusterfuck where he commits and the project dies due to problems within the studio.

Other filmmakers have been mentioned like Brad Bird, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Andrew Adamson, Tim Burton and Peter Weir just to name a few. In the end, my money is on either Jackson just taking the reins on the film if he thinks no one else would give the necessary commitment to the project it deserves, Cuaron takes on the job as a way to challenge himself or Jackson protege Blomkamp tackling something bigger as a way to add more cred to his growing reputation as one of the best young filmmaker of his generation.

Who do you think should take charge of The Hobbit now that Guillermo Del Toro has left?