Posted by jukkahoo
Beer of the day is Dragonhead Stout by the Orkney Brewery. Very nice, low-alcohol (4%) stout that has a good spirit to it, plenty of flavour and soothing aftertaste. The Northern Light Pale Ale was good too, same percentage, a lot less complex beer, easy to drink and therefore a solid recommendation as well. But the stout was really good, excellent beer.
Book of the day is Lohikäärmevuori by J. R. R. Tolkien, the childefied Finnish version of The Hobbit, which is still the only version I've read of the classic. I think I now must go and read the original version, since...
The film of the day is The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey (2012). Now, I'm a bit of an Tolkien fan. I was one of the three founders of Legolas, the later official fanzine of The Finnish Tolkien Society, of which I was also later a founding member, a vice-chair and subsequent editor of Legolas. I was gobsmacked by The Fellowship of the RIng and while I loved the other movies, I though of them not as much as the first one. Better looking, but less good. Two Towers' extended version was still great, come to think of it.
I was sold by the Misty Mountaing song sung by the dwarves. Not so much by the Neil Finn version, but nevermind. There's lot to like in the film: it looks REALLY great and New Zealand Tourism Board must be over the moon by all the visuals, I love the fact that plenty many dwarves have a distinctive personality, the film takes its time with the source material, the cast is great (Martin Freeman is made of awesome-sauce!), Gollum looks magnificient and the Dwarves vs. Orcs battle at the gates of Moria is breathtaking! And the eagles! They are a'comin'!
There are, however, few moments when Jackson could've just cut stuff out: I could've done with less roller coast rides, several bits of extended fighting, the totally unnecessary Freddo-bit and the usual Jacksony-grotesque. OK, his film and he loves the stuff, so I will not complain too loudly. But still.
I think my expectations were not that great, mainly because of the mistakes (in my opinion) he made with LotR and the inexplainable reason to make The Hobbit as a trilogy. And with the bloody 3D. Though, this was not as bad as I expected. I believe this would and will look really great in 2D. I mean, it LOOKS great nevertheless.
Very happy and satisfied. And big thanks to Mikael Ahlström for the invitation to the kutsuvierasnäytäntö.
The song for today is this, of course. It's really just the beginning, first minute or so, that rulez.
Yeah. I hate 3D. My eyes just want to focus on different parts of the screen than the director inteded and I squint to focus the blurry backround. The Film was really better than I expected. Nowhere near as thrilling as Fellowship was, but well worth the effort. The biggest problem is already in the source material: Hobbit is a nice children's romp with goblins and magical rings, and marrying it with the epic history behidn Lord of the Rings is nigh impossible. Jackson has his own trademarks which I don't much care for: the Tracking shots of scenery and models get a bit old, the prolonged action sequences get boring, and I really, really don't go for the grotesque he is facinated by. Even so, give me a 2D version, and I think I could grow very fond of this film indeed.
Posted by: Sari | December 11, 2012 at 23:13