Written By: Dan Geer

Hammer Films’ The Woman in Black was a very surprising throwback to classic gothic horror. Director James Watkins really understood the genre, filling up the big screen with just the right amount of creepy atmosphere and “jump out of your seat” moments. Nothing was overdone. The film hit just the right balance when it came to executing the fright factor, never letting us see too much. The camera work and lighting (or lack thereof) were so well done, that the eye plays tricks on the viewer when watching, often making us see eerie spectres that aren’t even there. The film simply had a great look to it, as well as a compelling story.

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Written By: Dan Geer

Watching The Hobbit Trilogy has been kind of like munching on a really good appetizer after you’ve already thoroughly enjoyed your filet mignon. We’ve already been blown away by The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, director Peter Jackson’s masterful film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s time-honored novel – a novel that perfected the world that was first established by Tolkien in The Hobbit twenty years prior. It’s one of the greatest sequels ever written. So it is probably inevitable that many will be underwhelmed with The Hobbit film trilogy as a whole after seeing The Battle of the Five Armies. Audiences have already been given the climax to the story, particularly with The Return of the King, and are now being asked to go backwards and enjoy the beginning just as much. That’s just not possible.

So while it is difficult to avoid comparing The Battle of the Five Armies with The Return of the King (or The Hobbit Trilogy to The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, for that matter), in the end we really should only be judging this final film in The Hobbit Trilogy on its own merits, and question whether or not it is a worthy ending to the story being told in this trilogy. To critque it any other way just doesn’t make sense. With that in mind, I’m delighted to say that this film is indeed a worthy conclusion, and actually connects to The Lord of the Rings Trilogy quite seamlessly. That’s really all we should expect.

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Written By: Dan Geer

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first installment of Peter Jackson’s epic Middle-Earth Trilogy, was a film that took its time in getting to the point. By taking its cues primarily from J.R.R. Tolkien’s 300+ page novel, and referencing The Lord of the Rings appendices and other various notes from the well-renowned author that tie in with The Hobbit, Jackson managed to stretch out the first third of the story into a nearly three-hour film.

While many found that this approach enriched various aspects of the story that weren’t described in elaborate detail in the book (or glossed over entirely), others found the film to be quite tedious to sit through, snobbishly proclaiming that Jackson is taking a tightly-written young adult novel and turning it into a over-bloated cash cow over the course of three long films. Of course, many of those criticisms stemmed from the fact that many had no idea that this trilogy is based on more than just The Hobbit, and/or don’t understand the fine tuning that needs to be done when translating a book to film. Nevertheless, for better or for worse, A Unexpected Journey indeed had a slower pace.

So those who were nodding off during the first film for this very reason may be happy to know that The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug gets a move on with the story quite quickly, tossing us right into the action by picking up right where the first film left off, with Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), Gandalf (Ian McKellen), Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) and his company of dwarves on the run from Azog the Defiler and his goon-squad of orcs as they make their way toward The Lonely Mountain in hopes of fulfilling their quest to reclaim their dwarven homeland of Erebor and the treasures held captive within by the dragon Smaug.

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Written By: Dan Geer

Not since Disney’s Return to Oz in 1985 have we visited the world of author L. Frank Baum’s classic series of Oz novels on the big screen. Needless to say, many fans of both Baum’s works and the original 1939 musical, The Wizard of Oz, have been waiting a long time for someone to take on the series again, and to do it justice at that. Of course, other fans may just want to leave well enough alone out of fear of ruining a classic. After all, the 1939 musical is one of those films that has stood the test of time for decades and still resonates with families all over the world today, and so to create a film that acts as a quasi-prequel to such a beloved classic is simply asking for the most harshest of criticisms. It’s inevitable. How could anyone possibly produce a new film that does justice to Baum’s novels and director Victor Fleming’s original 1939 film? Believe it or not, Disney may have just pulled it off with Oz the Great and Powerful.

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Written By: Dan Geer

Back in 1993, Chris Carter was a new name to the television business when he delivered the pilot episode for The X-Files, a science-fiction series that raised the stakes for what could be done with fictional storytelling on TV, and gradually became one of the Fox network’s biggest hits. By the time the show’s third season rolled around, it was clear to Fox that Chris Carter had practically become a household name, and that any new series with his name on it could potentially give the network its next groundbreaking success. In light of this revelation, Fox decided to give Carter another crack at developing something entirely new for the network that might captivate audiences just as much, if not more than The X-Files. Millennium was Carter’s bold response to that challenging proposition.

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Written By: Dan Geer

Eleven years ago, director Peter Jackson and his highly-skilled team of writers brought to life what many thought for decades to be impossible with the live-action adaptation of author J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. When it concluded in 2003 with The Return of the King, many (including myself) deemed it to be the greatest trilogy of films ever made in the history of cinema. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences seemed to agree with that sentiment, with all three films receiving a nomination for Best Picture (something that almost never happens with fantasy films), and The Return of the King landing a clean sweep of eleven Oscars, including Best Director and Best Picture. It was one of the most historic moments in film history (The Oscars have never again been as interesting), and it was just a great thing to see the creative people behind the making of these films get rewarded for the incredibly hard work and tremendous love they put into the trilogy over the years.

So it goes without saying that Jackson’s return to Middle Earth nearly ten years later with The Hobbit Trilogy has been met with expectations higher than the peak of Mount Doom – expectations that are more than likely impossible to live up to completely. It is thus necessary to inform the reader on just what exactly to expect this time around, as The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journeyis not quite on the level of genius as 2001’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, but is nevertheless a fun adventure and welcome return to Jackson’s incredible vision of Tolkien’s imaginative and captivating fantasy world.

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Written By: Dan Geer

Ever since director Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight blew everyone away back in 2008, creating an even more perfect film than its ground-breaking predecessor, Batman Begins, fans have not only been waiting with bated breath for the last four years to see the epic conclusion of Nolan’s take on the Caped Crusader, but also with an extreme sense of uneasiness. Could Nolan take us to the next level and top The Dark Knight? Could we really have a perfect trilogy on our hands? The answer is, not quite, but pretty darn close.

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Written By: Dan Geer

It doesn’t take a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist to know that Marvel made a huge gamble in creating four different superhero film franchises that would eventually cross over into one film. It was one of the biggest gambles in film history, and nothing quite like it has ever been done before. Thankfully, Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor, and The Incredible Hulk were all reasonably successful at the box office, with both Iron Man films generating the most profit out of the four franchises.

Marvel had won over audiences for the most part with these films, which, in turn, has generated a huge amount of buzz for The Avengers. Moviegoers have been highly anticipating this film since the debut of Iron Man in 2008, not to mention the millions of comic book fans who have been waiting for this for decades. Expectations are beyond sky-high, stretching along the branches of the world tree all the way out to the other eight realms (see Thor). So, it is quite a relief to be able to say that those expectations have been met, for this particular reviewer anyway, as The Avengers succeeds on every level, delivering a film with jaw-dropping action, an ensemble cast that works, and a story worthy of Marvel’s legacy.

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Written By: Dan Geer

Director James Watkins’ latest film, The Woman in Black, is the type of horror film that only comes along once in a blue moon. Moviegoers have not really been properly treated to gothic horror on the silver screen since the days when Universal, Hammer, and American International Pictures made it commonplace back in the 1930s-70s. Nothing since then has been done quite as effectively – although films like The Others and The Wolfman remake had their moments. Gothic horror is simply an all but forgotten genre that barely gets touched in modern-day film-making.

So, it really comes as no surprise that the recent reemergence of Hammer Film Productions would lead to the creation of such an effective film that harkens back to that golden age of horror when it was all about ominous warning and creepy atmosphere – and it pleases this reviewer to say that it is truly a warm welcome back to the genre.

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Written By: Dan Geer

John Carptenter’s 1982 film, The Thing (a remake of the 1950s classic, The Thing from Another World) has almost become as much of a cult classic as his much-beloved film, Halloween (from my point of view, it is arguably a better film altogether). It holds up today as much as it did 29 years ago, still scaring the pants off of most everyone who watches it. It has gone down in film history as one of the best sci-fi thrillers of all time, right up there with Ridley Scott’s Alien.

So the idea of making a prequel – showing us just what exactly happened to that devastated Norwegian base camp at the beginning of Carpenter’s film – is something that has been met with both excitement, as well as skepticism from fans of the original 1982 film. Even though it could be intriguing to see how it all went down, what’s the point, really? We basically already know what happened, so what possible reason is there to go back and show it? Furthermore, how could it possibly live up to the original? While these questions can really only be answered by experiencing the film for yourself, I can say that there’s more to it than you might think – although not much.

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