School has been a real asshole. I know, I know. My first post since July, and I open with a grumble? I can explain. Time is so darn precious, and much of it is required by the job I have to attend to and this blog that I have to raise. That I’ve only been able to write one review (The Dark Knight Rises) since school started should give you an idea of how endlessly busy I’ve become. Such is my distress, but I find inspiration in the immortal words of Mark Twain: “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education”. Ah, yes.
But of course the quote is only applicable if you are an extremely intelligent person… or if your school is incompetent by world record standards. I’m not a very smart person, and that should be enough of a hint. Which brings me back to my opening sentence. But never mind. I’m scheduled to graduate in April of next year. That’s five more months. I persevere.
Though April 2013 isn’t as far away as it seems, I can’t wait that long to start posting actively here again. That is why I’ve decided to start this Movie Journal. Despite my soul-sucking schedule, I’m still able to watch around two to four movies a week. It’s the reviewing part that I don’t have time for anymore. So much opportunity has already gone to waste, and I hope that this Journal will be the beginning of a steady revival. Films that I saw and wanted to write about but did not end up reviewing include “Argo”, “Looper”, “Skyfall”, “The Avengers”, “The Muppets”, “We Need to Talk About Kevin”, “The Bourne Legacy”, and many, many more.
I plan to post a Journal entry about once a week or every other week, depending on my requirements form school and work. (This will be my routine until I graduate college, reclaiming sweet freedom.) Each post will feature (1) a brief intro regarding my current status and future plans and (2) a short discussion of about two to three movies that I watched within that week; think of it as a collection of Quick Reviews gathered to make one long post. For this first post, I’ll talk about two movies that I’ve recently seen, movies that I’m very enthusiastic about. And they are as follows.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
MOVIE JOURNAL: Wreck-It Ralph and Take Shelter
Saturday, January 5, 2013
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Review
Rating:
Let me get things straight first. I enjoyed “An Expected Journey” as I was viewing it. From the film’s first half hour, I could tell that it wasn’t going to be an event as grand and glorious as any of the “Lord of the Rings” movies, which was just fine by me. Though weighed down by several substantial flaws, I felt a mild satisfaction when the credits started to roll. The verdict of a movie reviewer should always be based on the immediate experience, and on that notion I should label “An Unexpected Journey” a success. But my later convictions overruled the other, and I realize that I cannot award a positive rating to a movie that could have easily been great but chose not to.
The three volumes that comprised Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” were made into three different films. That’s over 1,300 pages translated into nine hours of film. And while “An Unexpected Journey”, 2013’s “The Desolation of the Smaug”, and 2014’s “There and Back Again” are the components of another planned trilogy, there are all based on a single Tolkien novel, 1937’s “The Hobbit”, which is only around 300 pages long. Does Peter Jackson really have enough material for a trilogy? We don’t know yet, but judging on this first installment, it seems that he will stretch his way to his second billion-dollar franchise. Every single sequence in this introductory film is prolonged, and several other scenes feel unnecessary. The story itself is compelling, but the deadweight pacing prevents us from being compelled.
