I just watched the extended version of The Two Towers, having watched The Fellowship of the Ring last Saturday. If nothing else, those films are epic. Really, the sheer scale of them is immense, and the cohesiveness of all the elements, any one of which could so easily be rendered ridiculous through cliche or insincerity, is nothing short of a marvel. Of course, by now, you’ve probably either seen the films or have no interest in seeing them, and, either way, have a firm opinion of them which I am unlikely to change, and have no desire to.

For my part, I’d kind of forgotten how good they were. Though each of the extended films runs to around two-hundred minutes, just twenty minutes shorter than Sergione Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, a masterpiece which I have the utmost respect for, the Lord of the Rings films do not seem to last nearly as long: with Once Upon a Time in America, admittedly an emotionally draining film, you feel like you’ve been there a long time, a life-time in fact; but with Lord of the Rings, time seems to disappear.

(more…)

I realise it’s been out for quite some time, but I feel the Animatrix is somewhat under-appreciated. Firstly, let me explain what it is. The Animatrix is a collection of nine short films (each around the ten minutes long) based in some way around the Matrix universe. All but two of them are by different directors, most of them established Japanese anime directors. It’s essentially the movie equivalent of a short story compendium.

(more…)