fantasy

Sometimes it takes a while for me to get around to watching a movie. I’m human. What can I say? In this case, it took 21 years. I remember hearing people saying good things about The Secret of Roan Inish back when it first came out in 1994. A movie about some girl in Ireland going to some island? No thanks. But the memory of good reviews hung around in the back of my head, and when the movie appeared in Netflix, I added it to the queue, thinking I might try it out on the kids at some point. […]

As soon as the Hobbit trilogy was announced, I had one goal that popped right up on my radar: watch all 6 movies as close to back-to-back as I could. (When you have a full time job and three children, watching 20 hours or so of films is going to be difficult to pull off on a literal back-to-back basis. And there was no way I was going to watch anything but the extended editions. What do you take me for?) Ideally, I wanted to do it all over Christmas break. In practice, I started December 20th or so and

Keanu Reeves was in a film that came out last year: 47 Ronin. I’d seen the trailers for it, and it seemed like it was right up my alley (minus the Keanu Reeves part): a Samurai action fantasy movie? Sign me up, right? Well . . . it didn’t quite turn out as I’d hoped, on many different levels. First off, let’s get the elephant out of the room: Keanu Reeves. The guy just has a talent for one note performances. It’s what made him such an excellent choice for The Matrix. Half of the fun was that “The One”

Last night I saw a new Lord of the Rings movie for the last time. Yes, I suppose it was technically a Hobbit movie, but let’s be honest here: Jackson’s Hobbit movies are prequels to Lord of the Rings first, and adaptations of The Hobbit second. And I am perfectly fine with that. No–even more. I love it. I know there are Hobbit lovers out there who are really disappointed in Jackson’s Hobbit films. They take the book they love, and they Legolas it to death. There’s dwarf/elf love. sandworms, evil elves, and more. Stuff Tolkien never mentioned in his