Unpop Culture

Having loved the first Hobbit movie , and knowing that The Desolation of Smaug would include scenes from my favorite parts of the book, I entered the theater with great expectations. To put it bluntly, I left the theater with great disappointments. In fact, even before the end credits rolled, I was morosely nursing the wounds—the desolation, so to speak—that Peter Jackson had inflicted upon me. I wish I could say watching the movie was only as bad as eating lembas bread. Unfortunately, it was more distasteful than that.* In the review below, I will refer to the movie as Desolation —and not just because it’s good shorthand. As a reminder, I rate my movies based on three criteria: morally objectionable content (C), artistic merit (A), and my personal opinions (P). CONTENT (C): 7 out of 10 Desolation has the dishonorable privilege of being the first Middle Earth movie with a couple lines of sexual innuendo between a male and female character. It’s sad when Tolkien’s source...

When director Frank Darabont decided to film The Green Mile , a prison story based on a serial novel by Stephen King, he willingly invited the world to hold him to a high standard. Having already garnered acclaim for The Shawshank Redemption , itself based on a prison-themed novella by Stephen King, could Darabont live up to the high standard he had raised for himself? Similarly, when George Lucas decided to create Star Wars prequels, expectations couldn’t have been higher. After all, the original trilogy was wildly successful and revered by fans worldwide. Would this new set of films live up to the quality of the original movies? In a hybrid of the above two scenarios, Peter Jackson faced a daunting task: return to Tolkien-penned source material in an effort to create a prequel trilogy to his enormously lauded Lord of the Rings films. Whereas Darabont largely succeeded at his task, and Lucas largely failed at his, Jackson has done the impossible. The Hobbit may have the...

On rare occasions, I make my mother go to the movie theater to watch a film on the big screen. This past weekend was one such occasion, although she wanted to see the movie anyway. After all, when I started praising King Kong after my first viewing—and second, and third, and fourth—she was intrigued. (Yes, having spent so much money on this movie, I now own part of Universal Pictures.) Well, she liked the movie a lot. In her words, “It’s like Jurassic Park and Lord of the Rings and every other movie all put together—and then some!” I have to agree. It was also fun sitting behind three older women who enjoyed the movie tremendously. Every time something made them jump, they’d nervously laugh after landing back in their seats. In fact, they were laughing through the entire movie (at the right parts, mind you). There’s something special about watching movies with complete strangers and seeing/hearing their reactions…like the one woman up front who screamed bloody murder when a ...

Okay, so a new movie review for a film that's been out for a while isn't the greatest thing in the world. Well, the review isn't exactly new--I wrote it several weeks ago--but I couldn't have posted it earlier because I only created my blog today. Besides, it is only the beginning of 2006, and it wouldn't hurt for me to comment on what I think was the best film of 2005. Read on... KING KONG (2005) Even four days before King Kong opened, I had no interest in seeing the movie. The trailers completely failed to engage my interest. As an independent filmmaker (albeit, a fairly inexperienced one), I can’t watch movies without analyzing them to death. Very rarely do I come across a film that I consider both expertly created and thoroughly engaging. The hype surrounding King Kong failed to hype me up at all. But as I started hearing one rave review after another, and in the process learning a little more of the story (I’ve never seen any of the previous Kong flicks),...