A self-taught critic and genuine movie geek
Now it’s easier to see how they managed to pad the book out to three movies — they not only added in Legolas, they wedged in a romantic subplot… and a very unlikely one, too, let me add. Of course, any overt romance in a Tolkien novel is unlikely, so whenever you see it in a movie adaptation you can be pretty sure it was added in later by command of some studio executive.
Continue reading “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”
The other day as I was entering a friend’s house, someone was watching Sherlock Holmes. This is the Sherlock Holmes, mind you, the Jeremy Brett version that shall never be surpassed. It was a scene where he explains to Watson how he produces such startling effects with his deductions — namely, by describing the first link in his impeccably logical chain of reasoning, then the last link, and not mentioning any of the links in between.
Continue reading “Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows”
As soon as the movie starts, you know you’re watching the work of Tim Burton and listening to the work of Danny Elfman. It almost looks ordinary to start with — it’s a proper Victorian setting, with only a little girl’s dream to give any hint of the weirdness ahead. But you can forget about the little girl, because things quickly move ahead thirteen years, since this movie is about the 19-year-old Alice (Mia Wasikowska, who’s apparently twenty but looks more like sixteen), who remembers her adventures down the rabbit hole only as a vague, recurring dream.