Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films are among my very favorites of all time, so The Hobbit is doomed to suffer in comparison. If you’re not a devoted fan of Middle Earth, the first half of An Unexpected Journey will probably feel a bit cumbersome. Jackson should have trimmed 20 or 30 minutes (starting with the oddly wooden cameo performances from Ian Holm and Elijah Wood). But rest assured the pace does pick up and the film does find its action/adventure groove by the end.
If you wanted to remake William Lustig’s 1980 slasher cornerstone with an abundance of point-of-view shots, you probably couldn’t do a better a job than Franck Khalfoun did with this remake. Maniac is beautiful and imaginative, photographed almost entirely from the killer’s (Elijah Wood’s) point of view. You really only see him in mirrors and other reflective surfaces. On one hand, the conceit is clever and cool, but on the other hand, it ends up being what I’m paying attention to — not the thin storyline or the operatic depiction of its psychologically scarred central character. I think less would have been more where the back story is concerned, and I’m not sure the perpetual POV tactic is the best way to tell this story.
In the wake of the Watergate scandal and the waning Vietnam War, a Connecticut family reunites for Thanksgiving while simultaneously pulling away from each other for private indiscretions. While the characters play in moral shades of gray — drugs, adultery, petty crimes, and sexual experimentation included– the namesake storm arrives, causing a tragedy that puts things in perspective. Based on the book by Rick Moody and directed by two-time Oscar-winner Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Life of Pi), The Ice Storm is a very well-acted and superbly crafted piece about personal rebellion and the ties that bind.
