Soundtrack Wednesday - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Track: Over Hill

Artist: Howard Shore

Movie: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

RELATED POSTS:
 

Anna Karenina

And when you are one of the characters in Joe Wright's Anna Karenina - you probably should. But apart from ridiculous tagline "You cannot ask 'why' about love" the actual movie has many more - and much more serious - problems. I generally like Joe Wright's films - in fact he made only one movie I despise - The Soloist. His Atonement and Hanna were in my top 15 of the respective years they were released in and I thought his Pride and Prejudice was very skillful and heartfelt adaptation of the famous novel. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about his Anna Karenina.

Favorite Director Quote Relay Race

David of Taste of Cinema has created a relay race known as Favorite Director Quotes that features quotes from 10 filmmakers about cinema. It's a simple concept that is passed on from one blogger to another by taking one quote out and putting a new one in. Here's what he has to say:

“People love wisdom words from great minds. As a cinephile, I prefer director quotes than words from any other group of people in the world.Their thoughts on cinema not only provide insights into deep understanding of cinema, but also open the window to their own films, their genres, their filmmaking methods, thus they need to receive more exposure as their films did.”

Frankenweenie

I remember the day my beloved hamster died. It was terrible - he was my first pet, well, excluding the fishes in aquarium, and though I couldn't walk him and I almost never let him out of his cage, I really loved him. I cried for days. Now I have a beautiful Yorkie, my first dog ever. He is one year old,  I've known him for 10 months and I love him so much - he wiggles his tail and jumps whenever I get back home, he wakes me up in the morning and he brings toys and drops them next to me when he wants to play. He is my friend.

Saturday TV Special - AHS: Asylum 2x10 The Name Game / 2x11 Spilt Milk / 2x12 Continuum

My threshold for crazy is pretty high up. It takes chicken drumstick fellatio or telepathic sex with Nicole Kidman's ripped stockings in her panties area to disturb me. But damn if Ryan Murphy didn't come close to those levels in the last three episodes of American Horror Story. But what's even more astonishing is that for the first time in the history of the series he made an episode that was such a baffling mess, I understood maybe 50% of it. But before we get to dissect Continuum, let's start with The Name Game.

Silver Linings Playbook

Silver Linings Playbook is director's David O.Russel follow up to his hugely successful The Fighter (which ended 24-year long history of the Academy snubbing Christian Bale). To be honest I was quite surprised that this director took on to adapt that book - which is essentially a romance story. O.Russel strikes me more of a director who would be interested in more manly subjects like war or boxing - it was only recently that I read about O Russell having a son who suffers from bi-polar disorder and that is what made him took interest in this project. But let me tell you this now - Tiffany, the main female character in Silver Linings, would probably kick any boxer's ass and bring him to tears, just by using her wits and passionate words.

Thoughts on Golden Globes

Red Carpet:

• Amy Adams looked absolutely beautiful!
• Why is Megan Fox there? She doesn't matter
• Michelle Dockery looked pretty except for the dress. What the fuck was that thing?
• Lena Dunham is disgusting.
• Bradley Cooper walked in like a boss on red carpet and Jodie Foster pulled him aside to talk to him, damn!
• Chastain being hyperactive Hathaway-style as she gets out of limo and starts waving around
• Who the fuck is Julianne Hough?
• Damn, Hugh Jackman <333

The Paperboy

The Paperboy is one of the most divisive movies of the year - it got a fair share of terrible reviews and then it got a lot of positive responses from the audience that was entertained by the film. You probably know two things about the movie - that it includes a scene where Nicole Kidman is peeing on Zac Efron (in the film's defense - it's after he is stung by jelly fish and thanks to Friends we all know what needs to be done in this situation) and that this is a movie for which Kidman got the Golden Globe nomination. The fact that not many people actually got to see that trashy little gem is in its favor - The Paperboy is a fun ride filled with unpredictable twists and turns.

5 WORST Oscar nomination snubs since 2000

I woke up today and checked out BAFTA nominations. To my surprise, Leonardo DiCaprio was nowhere to be found in Best Supporting Actor category for his work in Django Unchained. Now, some of the people gave up hope and are saying there is no way he is getting nominated tomorrow. I myself can't wonder about that anymore because it gives me a headache.

The Academy made many snubs over the years and the ones that always surprised me most happened when an actor was nominated for Golden Globes, yet missed out on Oscar nomination. It was hard to narrow the worst snubs of the last 12 years to just 5 - there are so many. The ones I listed here are just the people who didn't even get a nomination - if I were to make a list of people who won, though fellow nominees deserved it more, I'd spent 2 days making this post.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

The Two Towers has always been my favorite installment in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It's an incredible accomplishment - it's a popular belief that the middle part of the trilogy is always the weakest. We don't have the fun of being introduced to the world the movie is set in and we already know all the main characters plus it doesn't provide the conclusion the third part does. But for me, The Two Towers is not only (however slight) improvement over The Fellowship of the Ring but it also doesn't feel too long like The Return of the King did in its last 40 minutes.

Scene of the Week Special: 10 favorite scenes in The Lord of the Rings trilogy

Since I've recently seen The Hobbit I found myself missing the first trilogy taking place in the magical Middle-earth. I must have seen every of The Lord of the Rings movies at least 5 times, including the lovely extended editions. I really love these films - they show the beauty of friendship, courage and love. They are filled with amazing performances and they are extremely well made. As I rewatched the trilogy in the last few days, I finally managed to put together the list of my ten favorite moments:

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I remember when I first saw The Fellowship of the Ring, 11 years ago. I loved the movie. I loved The Two Towers even more and though I'm not a big fan of The Return of the King it still had many unforgettable and moving moments. The Hobbit, which will be inevitably compared to The Lord of the Rings, really suffers when that comparison is made. There are so many problems with it I hardly know where to begin. It doesn't help that I didn't read the book and yet I still didn't love the movie - what I mean is that I was completely new to this story, yet many times I was really bored.

Flight

Robert Zemeckis is not a risk taker. He makes movies that play things safe - animation, ultimately feel good flicks with Tom Hanks, occasional black comedies. Even his thriller What Lies Beneath, while very good, is pretty subtle for the genre. Flight may just be his ballsiest film to date, but it suffers from incredibly messy script - the film, more often than not, feels very strange - it mixes a drama about addiction, dark comedy and thriller. Many times things are so heavy-handed you are rolling your eyes. But damn if it's not worth seeing.

Movie of the Month - January - Frost/Nixon

I'm saying that when the President does it, it's *not* illegal!

Following the resignation of US President Richard Nixon (Frank Langella), television talk show host David Frost (Michael Sheen) wants to arrange a series of interviews with him to air on television. Part of the reason Frost thinks the interviews would be compelling to both the public and the television networks is that Nixon never admitted any guilt of or offered any apology for the Watergate scandal which led to his resignation.. Nixon believes he can railroad Frost, who is better known as a pop cultural entertainment styled interviewer than an investigative political interviewer. However, Frost has every intention on these interviews being hard hitting and pointed; in addition to his producer John Birt (Matthew MacFayden), Frost hires two investigative reporters known for their previous exposés on Nixon: Bob Zelnick (Olivier Platt) and Jim Reston (Sam Rockwell). Nixon's chief adviser for the interviews is his current chief of staff, Jack Brennan (Kevin Bacon).