DVD review: The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey
If the Lord of the Rings trilogy didn’t exist, then Peter Jackson’s bloated fantasy blockbuster would seem impressive indeed. Â Â Â Â
April 6, 2013
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If the Lord of the Rings trilogy didn’t exist, then Peter Jackson’s bloated fantasy blockbuster would seem impressive indeed. Â Â Â Â
BBC’s wildly successful Sunday-night entertainment is certainly preferable to the cloying Lark Rise to Candleford and it doesn’t flinch at portraying domestic abuse in late 1950s Poplar.
JRR Tolkien’s sweet, 320-page fantasy has presumably been turned into a monstrous three-part film in order to make as much moolah as possible. Â Â Â Â
“Go shopping until you cheer up,†is the unhelpful advice given to Rebecca Gibney’s distraught mum, Shirley, in a cake shop.    Â
Available in the UK after a four-year wait, this American sitcom is heavily indebted to The Office and all its mock-doc stylings – there’s a sideways glance to camera every 30 seconds – but it has a sweetness and richness all of its own.
Frustrated Alma is going through ch-ch-changes in the parochial hinterlands of Norway.
This is as rare as Javan rhinos, an absorbing, beautifully acted romantic comedy featuring recognisable humans: Bradley Cooper’s bipolar Pat, who is fixated about getting back together with his cheating wife, Jennifer Lawrence’s resentful widow whose cop husband has recently died and Robert De Niro’s volatile, OCD gambler who struggles to comprehend his son.
London looks positively post-apocalypse in this damning look at Thatcher’s Britain, and the C4 series is a little dated.
Dogme figurehead Thomas Vinterberg memorably exposed historical child abuse in Festen.
“I know all sorts of people who have had bad experiences in caravans,†Tina’s vile mother warns.