Continue reading “Sylvester McCoy confirmed to appear in ‘The Minister of Chance’ movie”
Category: Miscellaneous
Previously only seen decorating the screens of The Hobbit panel at this year’s San Diego Comic Con (and in lower quality snapshots we were able to post shortly after), the full scroll for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies has now been released, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.
This latest tapestry takes us through the final chapter of Peter Jackson’s epic Hobbit trilogy, beginning with Smaug’s attack on Laketown and finishing with the titular Battle of Five Armies.
Visit Entertainment Weekly’s site to take a close look at the scroll with a magnifier, or click on the preview below to see the full image.
Lord Richard Attenborough has sailed into the West at 90. Though mostly known from Jurassic Park (and as older brother of David Attenborough) he holds a dear place for Tolkien fans as the director of Shadowlands, a wonderful film about C.S.Lewis featuring the first cinematic representation of the Inklings group which Tolkien was part of. Lord Attenborough considered Shadowlands his most perfect work, and we can only hope that the two upcoming J.R.R. Tolkien biographical films will be made with as much care and passion as Attenborough put into his films.
There are many tributes and remembrances around the net celebrating his career as actor, director, executive and philanthropist. It is the 1993 film Shadowlands starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger where Attenborough’s talent shines as a storyteller of storytellers. The film is a biographical look at author C.S. Lewis and his relationships both personally and professionally. Importantly it is the first film to include the Inklings – a group of famed authors and writers which J.R.R. Tolkien was part of. Actor John Wood plays a loosely based figure of Tolkien through the character Christopher Riley. Although Riley/Tolkien is the fictional antagonist of the film, his portrayal includes Tolkien’s dialog from what we know of their relationship at the time.
Many biographies detail how John Tolkien helped bring his fellow author, Oxford academic and close friend Jack Lewis to Christianity, but was dismayed when Lewis chose the Anglican Church of England instead of Tolkien’s Catholicism. This would provide the significant break in their friendship; Tolkien’s Catholicism disapproved of divorce and was not supportive of Lewis’ marriage to Joy Gresham. Shadowlands focuses solely on that marriage and uses Tolkien’s own words and writings in the Christopher Riley character, saying ‘any book written faster than his own books couldn’t possibly be good–and Tolkien wrote slowly, very slowly; he never did finish the dictionary of Icelandic he promised for decades to Oxford University Press.’ (LA Times) Lewis’ brother Warren was more supportive, writing “For Jack the attraction was at first undoubtedly intellectual. Joy was the only woman whom he had met … who had a brain which matched his own in suppleness, in width of interest, and in analytical grasp, and above all in humour and a sense of fun.”
Lord Richard Attenborough was one of the very few directors or storytellers who could make an emotionally captivating film of a bunch of Oxford professors. Although Shadowlands deviates significantly from real life in some of the character portrayals, Lord Attenborough provides careful directorial attention in bringing this important literary era of Oxford to life.
Shadowlands is close to a perfect film and Richard Attenborough rightly considers it his most perfect work of his career. It demonstrates a nuanced control of the material – the retelling of C.S. Lewis’ late blooming. Even the antagonist, a Tolkienesque figure, is portrayed respectfully without falling into caricature. Films such as Shadowlands, Chaplin and Gandhi prove that Lord Attenborough is one of the greatest biographical storytellers Hollywood has seen. With TWO distinct biographical films in development on the life of J.R.R. Tolkien, studios and filmmakers would be smart to carefully study Lord Richard Attenborough’s biographical output.
It’s a tradition that goes back years for a great many of us – downloading the latest Tolkien movie trailer on Apple’s Quicktime Site. In the years before Facebook and YouTube, this was where we all turned to in order to get our first (second, third, fourth…) glimpses of Peter Jackson’s epic adaptation.
While the rise of the aforementioned social media venues has seen them become the premiere locations to catch trailers, video blogs, etc. – you still can’t beat the high quality presentation (and superior video compression) of Apple’s Quicktime Trailers.
Now, weeks after the premiere of the teaser trailer, the first look at the final chapter in the Hobbit Trilogy is finally available to view in high quality 480p, 720p, and 1080p video on Apple’s website. Continue reading “‘The Battle of the Five Armies’ Teaser now available on iTunes Movie Trailers”
Evangeline Lily spoke to Clevver Movies at Comic-Con about her book The Squickerwonkers, as well as the experience of shooting her final scene in the trilogy.
She says that it comes near the end of the final film, in the last fifteen minutes, and was her favorite experience from the shoot, though it left her physically and mentally exhausted. Continue reading “Evangeline Lilly speaks about shooting her final scene”
Coinciding with its debut today at Comic-Con, WB Interactive Entertainment has released an all new trailer online for its Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor video game.
The game comes to Playstation 4, Xbox One, Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC on September 30 in the U.S. and October 2 for the rest of the world. Continue reading “New Shadow of Mordor “The Bright Lord” Trailer!”