It began with something Stanley Kubrick once said. With 2001: A Space Odyssey, he felt he owed the audience an experience. He wanted to use Cinerama to show people what it was like to fly through space. This was ambitious for 1968, but it worked. The film has certainly stood the test of time, due […]
2013 A Strong Year in Film
Moviegoers were well-tended in 2013. The past year in film was certainly diverse, with plenty of highs and lows along the way. With a decent slew of quality popcorn flicks and some very pleasant surprises in multiple genres, this was a big year for the silver screen. While it wasn’t quite the sequel-dominated year that, […]
The Best Cinematic Experiences of 2013
Roman Polanski once said, “I’d rather watch a film in a movie theatre. I have all the kit you need at home, but it’s not the same.” A few months ago, I had the privilege of seeing The Matrix (1999) on the big screen. I missed its theatrical debut fourteen years ago, but my local […]
High Frame Rate and Why The Hobbit Films Matter
As the prequel films to the estimable The Lord of the Rings franchise, Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit films already carry with them a heightened expectation of narrative quality. However, there was more to The Lord of the Rings than its epic story. Every part of the production was groundbreaking; filming all three movies at once […]
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
In my youth, I was a Tolkien acolyte. The Hobbit was always the bedtime story of choice in my house. When I got older, I read and watched all of The Lord of the Rings and became entrenched in Tolkien’s world. I took time to learn about the intricate relationships between the Valar and the […]
Should You See The Hobbit at 48 FPS?
I had the good fortune to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey at the midnight premiere in 48 frames per second. So as a follow-up to Ari’s review of the 2D 24 frames per second version of the film, and to my post from earlier this year about the negative CinemaCon reaction the first screening of the footage, here is a […]
The Hobbit Scroll
As a part of Comic-Con 2012, Entertainment Weekly has just released a fascinating piece of promotional advertising for Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey depicting many of the film’s important scenes. The 48 frames per second debacle aside, I have to say this scroll certainly stands to reassure the wary viewers out there that at […]
The Hobbit at 48 FPS
Update Peter Jackson has offered a short rebuttal to criticisms of the new format: “At first it’s unusual because you’ve never seen a movie like this before. It’s literally a new experience, but you know, that doesn’t last the entire experience of the film; not by any stretch, after 10 minutes or so. That’s a […]