In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

This weekend is Hobbit weekend. Some friends and I will be seeing The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey on Saturday and then we'll be going to Denny's to have a nice meal from the Hobbit-themed menu. Second breakfast perhaps.

I'm a pretty big fan of Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings trilogy, and I'm also a big fan of the book The Hobbit, so ever since seeing the trilogy, I've been wanting Jackson to make a movie of The Hobbit. Although I'm sure it would have been very interesting to see Guillermo del Toro's version, I was also glad that Jackson stepped in for the job when del Toro left the project, since he was the one I originally wanted to direct it.

I'm so excited about seeing Martin Freeman play the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins. I'm not sure I have any longtime readers on this blog or even any regular readers, but if I do, you might remember the early posts about me wanting him to play Bilbo. Way before I even had a blog, I wanted Freeman to play Bilbo. I still can't believe it's actually happening, and I think we're all so very fortunate to get to see it. Ian Holm was great as an older Bilbo, but when it comes to a younger Bilbo, I can't think of anyone who could do the job better than Martin Freeman.

I have no problem with The Hobbit being three movies now. I just really don't see a downside to that, and I don't understand what has so many people upset. As for material being added to the movie that wasn't fully explored in the book, I'm really looking forward to seeing the White Council. For me, one of the most exciting aspects of seeing that is getting to see Christopher Lee play Saruman before his corruption.

I know there has been a lot of criticism about the format the movie was released in. I've put a lot of thought into how I want to see it, and I am planning on seeing it in 3D and 48 fps. Mainly, my decision comes down to artist intent. And much like when I saw Avatar in 3D, I feel it's something I have to experience on my own to decide whether or not I like it rather than to trust other moviegoers who have different tastes to tell me how I should see it. I'm thinking of it as an experiment or even an adventure.

Clerks III open for business.

For a while now, it hasn't been a secret that filmmaker Kevin Smith, best known for his View Askewniverse series of movies (in which he also plays the character Silent Bob), was planning on retiring from writing/directing feature films to focus on working in other forms of media. His last movie was going to be a hockey movie called Hit Somebody, but that is now going to be a six-part television miniseries instead.

With Hit Somebody no longer being a feature film, the other day, Smith announced on his Twitter account that his last movie will be a third Clerks movie:

                    KEVIN SMITH

          So with the Hit Somebody shift, the minute Jeff Anderson signs on, my
          last cinematic effort as a writer/director will be Clerks III.

For those that don't know, Jeff Anderson is the actor who plays the character Randal Graves in several of the View Askewniverse movies, starting with the first Clerks. From what I've heard, Smith had to do a lot of convincing to get Anderson to be in Clerks II. Since Randal Graves and Dante Hicks (played by Brian O'Halloran) are the main characters in the Clerks movies, obviously a sequel couldn't be made without them.

I don't know about how Anderson feels, but I'm pretty excited about Clerks III. Not being that interested in hockey movies made it seem pretty anticlimactic to me personally for Smith's final movie to be one. I'm glad he's still getting to tell that story, but I'm also glad there will be a third Clerks movie. It's much more fitting as his cinematic grand finale, and I'd just love to see what Dante, Randal, Jay, Silent Bob, and even Elias are up to these days.

Although I don't love every aspect of Clerks II, I think it was a great sequel, and it had some really amazing parts. I know it might sound silly since I'm talking about movies containing jokes about dicks and donkey shows, but something I really love about Smith's movies are the really beautiful and emotional scenes that explore concepts like love and friendship. The jail cell scene in Clerks II is one of my favorites in all of Smith's movies, up there with Silent Bob's Chasing Amy monologue. I'm not at all ashamed to say it makes me cry every time I see it. If Clerks III has the same amount of heart, I can't imagine not loving the movie.

Aside from all that, I realized my post about the idea of Alec Baldwin having a cameo as the live-action Leonardo Leonardo is relevant again, and I'd still love to see that happen. It might be cool to see some of the other characters show up too. Brodie, Steve-Dave, Fanboy, etc. Maybe Ben Affleck could be in there somewhere too. He was da bomb in Phantoms, yo.

Every time I see someone say YOLO (You Only Live Once), I think of this...

Adele sings new Bond theme

It's been rumored for quite some time now, and it has just recently been confirmed that English soul singer Adele is doing the theme song for the new James Bond movie Skyfall.

Was there anyone who didn't see this coming?

I guess it just goes to show that sometimes the most obvious and predictable thing is the best thing to do.

Go to SuperHeroHype to hear the song.

Guillermo del Toro and the Swamp Thing

In a recent interview with ShockTillYouDrop, director Guillermo del Toro listed several comic characters he would be interested in being involved with adapting to television or movies. Among the characters were Swamp Thing and Etrigan The Demon. It very much excited me to read this.

Aside from Batman, Swamp Thing is my favorite comic book character. I especially love Alan Moore's work on the character.

For some time now I've thought the story would make a great television show with today's special effects. I know the character has been featured in his own live action television series, an animated series, and the live action movies Swamp Thing and Return Of The Swamp Thing, but the character and his story have a lot more potential than was achieved with any of those adaptations. I also know Alan Moore seems to hate having his comics adapted into movies, but I think this could really work, especially if it stuck very closely to the source material. I hadn't thought of it before, but I think Guillermo del Toro would be perfect to create this television series. I don't think anyone could make the argument that the director of Pan's Labyrinth wouldn't be perfect to adapt Swamp Thing. I think I like this idea even more than the idea of him working on The Hobbit.

Besides getting to use the Swamp Thing character, if sticking to the source material, del Toro would of course also get to use Etrigan The Demon, who would probably be a recurring character. It would also be an opportunity to do the characters Jason Woodrue and John Constantine the right way since they've both been featured, not so faithfully in the movies Batman & Robin and Constantine.

Anyway, it probably wouldn't ever happen, but if it did, it could be really amazing, and it sure was fun daydreaming about it today.

He is the law, and he's not happy about it.

What's wrong, buddy? Does Dredd need a hug? x(

Click the photo to turn that frown upside down.

FILM + photography = FILMography

I saw an interesting tumblr called FILMography today. It has been getting a lot of press the past few days, so you might have already even seen it, but I wanted to post it here anyway.

It was created by Christopher Moloney, who I guess prints out black and white screenshots from movies, goes to the real location of the shot, holds up the screenshot, and takes a picture of it framed by the real location. The one above is from The French Connection.

There are shots from some terrible movies featured, but there are plenty of great movies as well. Unfortunately sometimes the achieved effect isn't as strong as it could have been due to the screenshot not being held in the exact position it should, or because not enough details are shown in either the movie screenshot or the real location. Some of these are really quite striking though, and it's especially interesting with some of the older movies. Seeing black and white photos of characters from several decades ago framed in the present version of the setting they're in, and surrounded by modern people is really interesting to look at. For example this one of North By Northwest and this one from Arthur.

I'm looking forward to seeing more.