This past Thursday night, the Visual Effects branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences met to vote for the five VFX nominees at this year’s Oscars. As expected, voters were highly impressed by the frontrunners Gravity and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. But the fellow potential nominees were no slouches either. Presentations of the special effects work behind Pacific Rim, World War Z, and others left quite an impression as well. Continue reading “‘Smaug’ Visual Effects wow at Academy Awards bake-off”
Tag: The Hobbit
Among other awards groups announcing their nominations today, the Costume Designers Guild also released their nods. Ann Maskrey, Richard Taylor, and Bob Buck were nominated for their work on The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, along with the costume designers of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Oz the Great and Powerful. Continue reading “Costume Designers Guild nominates ‘The Desolation of Smaug’”
Film Producer Saul Zaentz has passed away at the age of 92. Many Tolkien fans will know him as the man who held the film rights to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings – but he was so much more: a true Hollywood legend, with countless film projects to his name. He won many Oscars, including Best Picture wins for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The English Patient, and my very favorite film of all time (perhaps with the exception of The Lord of the Rings trilogy) – Amadeus. Continue reading “Academy Award winning Producer Saul Zaentz dies at age 92”
Due to be released
on April 1 (no, not an April fools joke), the new book Smaug: Unleashing the Dragon comes from the same wonderful team behind the three The Hobbit: Chronicles books. This release will be 96 pages, exploring the creation of the title character of the second Hobbit film from concept art to digital realization. Final cover art is not yet available, but you can order the book on Weta’s website as well as Amazon.com and other online book stores. Continue reading “‘Smaug: Unleashing the Dragon’ now available for pre-order on Amazon.com”
Those of you living near Newbury, U.K., should take advantage of this special screening of “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” being presented by the Corn Exchange theater on Tuesday, Januray 14, 2013:
Join actor Adam Brown (who stars as Ori in Peter Jackson’s film trilogy) for a Q & A session before the screening of the The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Having grown up in Hungerford, Adam was part of the Corn Exchange’s resident theatre company, Plested and Brown, and starred in the Corn Exchange’s annual pantomime for four years. He now returns to answer questions about working on major blockbuster films. Tickets cost just £15 of which £4.25 will be donated to the NSPCC (reg charity no. 216401) – see below for more information – and £4.25 will be donated to the Corn Exchange (Newbury) Trust (reg charity no. 0180567). [Read More]
From boingboing.net; Michelle Nijhuis’s five year old daughter insisted that Bilbo Baggins was a girl. After arguing about it for a while, Michelle decided to read her The Hobbit, switching Bilbo’s gender-pronoun throughout. And it worked brilliantly. Bilbo is a great heroine: “tough, resourceful, humble, funny, and uses her wits to make off with a spectacular piece of jewelry. Perhaps most importantly, she never makes an issue of her gender — and neither does anyone else.”
Continue reading “Gender switched Bilbo makes The Hobbit a better read”