Another acting legend has passed on. Sir Christopher Lee, known recently for his roles in Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, passed away on Sunday at the age of 93. He had gone into the hospital for some respiratory problems. Lee had a long career that included playing Dracula, Frankenstein, Count Dooku in Star Wars, Saruman in Lord …
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is a strange beast. Gameplay-wise, it takes its inspiration from a number of sources. Its combat system, for instance, is lifted straight out of Rocksteady’s Arkham series, complete with combo meter, takedowns and counters, whilst its open world, stealth and traversal are clear nods to Assassin’s Creed. Film-wise, however, it’s definitely taking its cues from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, at least on the surface. Because whilst there is enough in the game to tie it to its silver screen counterpart, it’s really just fan service – and it’s all the better for it.
Like a twisted and reversed Chekov’s Gun, everything that appears in the popular original trilogy has to appear in the prequels: it is lazy foreshadowing to reward the fans of the series for being able to spot the glaringly obvious references.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Written by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Guillermo del Toro Directed by Peter Jackson New Zealand, United Kingdom, and USA, 2013 The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is, no doubt, an improvement over The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, though perhaps because it is the second of three …
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Written by: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, and Guillermo Del Toro Directed by: Peter Jackson New Zealand, UK, US, 2012 There is an argument to be made that Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy is the best series of films of the naught decade, if not of …
I hate being wrong. Really hate it. The only thing I hate more than being wrong is publicly admitting I’m wrong. And, man, when it comes to how 2012 played out at the movies matched up against what I’d predicted in my end-of-2011 box office wrap-up, I couldn’t have been more wrong. “Want a prediction …
March, 2011: After their rights to the source material elapse after a failed four year venture, Paramount officially drop their in-development film Dune, ending a frustrating and ultimately fruitless effort that served better as a topic of heated discussion than an actually feasible movie. Such an announcement had been on the cards, and the prospect …
It was the year that many critics dubbed the worst in recent memory. With a toxic summer movie season that gave us disappointing dreck like Pearl Harbor and The Mummy Returns, and a dismal couple of autumn weeks where theatres were inundated with a staggering level of mediocrity (forgettable titles like Bandits, K-Pax, and Thirteen …
Production on the adaptation of J.R.R Tolkien’s prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy The Hobbit is now well under way in New Zealand since March of this year after numerous delays and shake-ups which shifted the previous projected release dates for the production which you may recall, has been split into two …
In 1993, audiences gazing on the truly imposing sight of dinosaurs come to life in Jurassic Park felt the same sense of jaw-dropping awe displayed by the movie’s human characters. Nothing in movie history could compare to what Steven Spielberg and his CGI crew were able to put on the screen: not the herky-jerky stop-motion-animated …
The world has never seen such a dangerous threat until the World Cup came to South Africa. Now, striking terror in Middle-earth, the vuvuzela joins the fellowship in an epic scale. Check out the trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Vuvuzela!
49- District 9 (2009) Directed by Neill Blomkamp Genre: Sci-fi District 9 is an allegory for our time, bursting with contemporary themes such as oppression, greed, power and propaganda and while the metaphor itself is pretty clear, Blomkamp goes for the visceral quality of the images and situations proving that sci-fi thrillers don’t have to …
Warning: Unabashed Geekery To Follow Ah, I remember fondly the years of Tolkien mania, that stretch of time spanning 2001 to 2004 back when The Lord of the Rings was busting up box office records and sweeping the Oscars, and Frodo and Gandalf were names familiar to social groups outside your average D&D gatherings. I …
