Tag Archives: peter jackson

Top 5: Scenes from The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers (IMDB Top 250 #15)

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Every other month, we take a look at a movie from the Internet Movie Database’s List of the TOP 250 FILMS OF ALL-TIME.  These are movies that transcend a simple “My Favorite Scene” column.  These are movies that are hard to just pry five gems from, but we do and examine the film overall.  We’re on our fifteenth installment in this series.  Click on the link here to check out previous installments from #1 The Shawshank Redemption to #14 Inception.

In planned trilogies, middle chapters are the trickiest.  They don’t have a beginning or an end.  They tend to be the darkest night before the dawn of the finale, but it’s possible to go too dark.  You can lose the momentum of your opening and set up narrative hurdles for the finale that are impossible to overcome.  A perfect bridge movie is rare, and with the possible exception of The Empire Strikes Back, the best one ever made is The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Continue reading Top 5: Scenes from The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers (IMDB Top 250 #15)

Mortal Engines Trailer #1 (2018) *London Calling*

If nothing else, The Mortal Engines finally gives London its revenge for being the most oft-destroyed city in cinema history.  London literally eats a city in the trailer for The Mortal Engines, written by Peter Jackson and directed by Christian Rivers.  There’s not much to the teaser to judge the film (it is a year away) on aside from visuals that borrow heavily from Mad Max, but I’m in to see London get some cinematic revenge.  The Mortal Engines will open December 14, 2018.


Thousands of years after civilization was destroyed by a cataclysmic event, humankind has adapted and a new way of living has evolved. Gigantic moving cities now roam the Earth, ruthlessly preying upon smaller traction towns. Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan)—who hails from a Lower Tier of the great traction city of London—finds himself fighting for his own survival after he encounters the dangerous fugitive Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar). Two opposites, whose paths should never have crossed, forge an unlikely alliance that is destined to change the course of the future. The film is based on Philip Reeve’s fantasy novels.

Hera Hilmer in The Mortal Engines

 

My Favorite Scene: King Kong (2005) “Kong vs. T-Rexes”

This Friday, King Kong will return to movie theaters for the first time since Peter Jackson’s bloated misfire.  Coming off The Lord of the Rings, Jackson could have done whatever he wanted with a blank check, and he blew it on a 3-hour plus retelling of cinema’s most famous ape.  It honestly was a case of someone who loves the material, loving it to death.  We don’t even get on the boat to Skull Island until over an hour into the picture, and every crew member is not as interesting as the members of the Fellowship of the Ring, but they sure got the screen time. Continue reading My Favorite Scene: King Kong (2005) “Kong vs. T-Rexes”

The Best of The Middle-Earth Saga


Since we just took a look back at the very first film in The Middle-Earth Saga (click here if you missed our look back on The Fellowship of the Ring), it’s hard to leave Tolkien’s world.  CLS Videos has put together this brilliant dual retrospective at the most beautiful sights, the most memorable moments, and the most beloved characters from Peter Jackson’s six films in Middle-Earth.  Drink it all in, because as long as Christopher Tolkien is alive (and granted the man is in his eighties), there is literally no chance that the rights to The Silmarillion or any of the other Middle-Earth ephemera not covered under the current rights agreement.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Smaug, Benedict Cumberbatch

There is enough material in The Silmarillion for an HBO show to run for a decade, with major stories, like The Children of Hurin, are deep enough for a featured film.  It’s a little bigger than The Hobbit in size, but it’s probably the densest book in terms of amount of potential story threads per page that I’ve ever read.  It’s really a brief overview of Middle-Earth from it’s creation to the end of The Second Age.  That’s THOUSANDS of years of stories.  It’s inevitable that the family will turn over enough members that they will relent and a return to Arda will be possible.  However, to make it as special as these films were to Tolkienites, it will need the same commitment and stewardship that gave us these six films.  Enjoy the video, and a Happy Labor Day weekend to those in the States.
Middle-Earth