Like many fantasy fans out there, I was eager to see Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I had some misgivings, though, since he had had to condense the weighty Lord of the Rings in many ways to make it fit into three still-epic movies (which I enjoyed), and seemed to be doing the opposite with The Hobbit — a slight volume aimed at children — by expanding it into, well… three epic movies.
Posts Tagged with Feature Friday
2012: What a year it’s been
Usually by this point in the holiday season (and the year) I am totally exhausted, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank you all for being part of my first year of blogging here at As You Were.
I started in February with a WordPress.com site, and started connecting with great bloggers such as Offer Kuban (wonderful writing on wine and travel), sj (brilliantly booksnobby), Amy (hilarious and with many deep thoughts), Andreas (witty and smart scientific posts), and The Booksluts (who very patiently bore with me as I tried to figure out WordPress.) (Actually, I’d say that goes for everyone who stops by here.)
Feature Friday: Sturla Gunnarsson’s Beowulf and Grendel
If you haven’t heard of Sturla Gunnarsson’s Beowulf and Grendel, released in 2005, don’t confuse it with the mo-cap movie that came out years later. This version, starring Gerard Butler as Beowulf, is a more primal take on movie-making, with much of the atmosphere coming from the Icelandic locations. The difficulties posed by the weather, among other things, were epic; that story is told in the documentary Wrath of Gods, which I plan to post about soon.
For now, read what Canadian filmmaker Gunnarrsson had to say about shooting in his homeland.
Where two cultures merge
Iceland-born director brings Anglo-Saxon epic to his homeland
Sturla Gunnarson is bringing an ancient hero to life in the wilds of Iceland. The Icelandic-Canadian filmmaker is helming a international production of Beowulf and Grendel, starring Gerard Butler and Ingvar Sigurdsson.
Beowulf, a poem written in Anglo-Saxon, is believed to be one of the oldest extant works of English literature. Ironically, none of its characters are English. The plot centres on the struggles of a Scandinavian warrior, Beowulf, against the monster Grendel.
Feature Friday: Freddy vs. Jason
I have to admit I’m not a fan of slasher flicks. A good scare is worth a lot, and I can appreciate anything from John Carpenter’s The Thing to Se7en.
But buckets of blood provoke a visceral reaction in my guts, and though that has faded over the years, it’s a big reason why I never saw more than a few in those hallmark eighties series, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. I’ll take Dokken and DJ Jazzy Jeff and leave it at that for my Freddy Krueger nostalgia.
Feature Friday: Guy Maddin’s Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary
Despite the vampire fiction genre taking its place in the mainstream — and the movies that have followed — in the 21st century, one vamp still reigns as the granddaddy of them all: Dracula. But is that just because he’s become a classic monster? Is he still relevant? Can he still be compelling? Offbeat, acclaimed filmmaker Guy Maddin — Icelandic by descent and from Winnipeg, to boot — tackles those questions in his adaptation, with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, in Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary.
Once bitten, twice Guy
Maddin, RWB reinvent classic vampire
A character like Dracula comes with a lot of baggage. Despite the relatively recent explosion of vampire fiction (and keep in mind this review was written in 2003, before the explosion of Twilight — DJF), Bram Stoker’s incarnation of the blood-sucking count, followed hard by Bela Lugosi’s screen portrayal, looms large in the popular conception of the ultimate creature of the night.
That hasn’t stopped filmmakers from sallying forth to capture Dracula — but given the heavyweights who have left their mark on the mythos (F.W. Murnau, Terence Fisher, even Francis Ford Coppola), you might think all has been said and done.
