Moroni's Review of "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"

The very first book I read on my own was "The Hobbit" at age seven.  (I read it before I read the Book of Mormon.)  Then at ages eight and nine, I read "The Lord of the Rings" series.  As a young parent, I read all of these books to my kids.  In the days before our ranch had electricity, I would have my kids around me and read to them the works of J.R.R. Tolkien by candlelight.

So to say that this movie franchise is important to me would be an understatement.  Seeing these movies translated to the big screen for me has been a dream come true. When "The Fellowship of the Ring" came out in 2001, my excitement reached a fever pitch that had not been experienced since the original Star Wars trilogy.  And it did not disappoint.  It was everything I hoped for.  When "The Two Towers" came out, I already had tickets, and my then-wife, Temple, and I drove through a blizzard to see this movie, with our infant in a car seat.  We were driving past diesels that couldn't make it up the hill - just to see Middle Earth on the big screen.  For "The Return of the King", we went to a midnight showing - in sub-freezing temperatures.  They set up a medieval tent in the parking lot, and I had a cold, my nose dripping like a faucet, waiting to get into the theater.

In other words, "The Lord of the Rings" became a Christmas tradition for me for a few years, and, after that, when it was all done, it never really seemed like Christmas.

So it was with great expectation that I awaited the release of "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey".  I so wanted for this movie to finally come out, and what a journey it was for this movie to arrive!

Years ago, there was an online poll about which director - other than Peter Jackson - would be fitting to direct a movie version of "The Hobbit".  The answers were mundane - Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, etc.  My answer was quick - Guillermo del Toro.  This was pre-Pan's Labyrinth.  I had only seen "Blade II" and "Hellboy" by this point.  But I knew - he was the man for the job.  So I was ecstatic when he was selected to helm "The Hobbit".  It was perfect.

Then came the problems with the rights being owned by the floundering MGM, along with sniveling from the Tolkien estate.  There were delays after delays, and, after two years, del Toro had to bail.  It was a devastating blow.  (He did retain screenwriter credits.)  Peter Jackson returned to direct, and it seemed like the devil himself tried to prevent this movie from being made - labor disputes, animal handler's complaints.  But it finally arrived.

So part of our family Christmas was for sixteen of us to file into two cars and head to the movie theater.  There was even a snow storm!  Several of my kids have read the book, and they were excited, especially my ten year-old son, Aidan.  We donned the 3-D glasses and were transported back to Middle Earth.

The previous trilogy was breathtaking, but this time it seemed as Peter Jackson filled the screen with more sweeping landscapes from his homeland.  It made me miss New Zealand!  If there was any place that I would chose to live, it would be New Zealand.  The music also carried many hints of the previous series.  We were transported back to a familiar place, and many familiar faces were there.  Ian Holm as the aging Bilbo, Elijah Wood as Frodo, Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, Cate Blanchett as Lady Galadriel, Andy Serkis as Gollum, and a 90 year-old and spry Christopher Lee as Sauruman.

One of the brilliant moves of Peter Jackson was to raid Tolkien's appendices for more material.  There are several back stories inserted to flesh out the story, and provide fodder for two more movies.  There is a dazzling introduction sequence that sets up the dragon Smaug and the loss of Erebor, the Lonely Mountain.  Radagast the Brown, Gandalf's associate, is inserted into the narrative to set up the Necromancer's evil invasion of Mirkwood.

The story sticks fairly close to the book apart from the added components of back stories.  Martin Freeman is Bilbo, right from the book.  There are so many dwarves that it is hard to get a good sense of who they are, apart from their sullen leader, played to the bone by Richard Armitage.

I was happy that they put more songs in the movie as J.R.R. Tolkien's writings are laden with songs.  The movie has more of the whimsical feel of the book.  That pleased me as well.

I didn't like how most of the orcs and goblins were CGI.  Call me old-fashioned, but I like my monsters wearing make-up.  The computer animation did allow for the creation of more grotesque creatures, though.  There, that is my sole complaint.

Otherwise, this movie is perfect and entertaining in every way.  It won't win any Oscars, but, in my book, it is the best movie of the year.  What need do I have to go see "Les Miserables" when I can just go see "The Hobbit" again?

Moroni's Review of "Cloud Atlas"

Early Mormon apostle Orson Hyde once asked, in prayer, to be shown the meaning of time and eternity.  He was shown in a dream a great cloud that he was told represented eternity.  There was a stream that flowed out of the cloud, arced around, and fed back into the cloud.  He was told that the stream represented time.

I have contemplated this dream quite often, trying to divine a meaning in it.  The cloud representing eternity is enormous, amorphous, even chaotic.  And what we call time is finite, follows its own course, but eventually ends, returning to the wellspring that spawned it.  I have many, many theories about time and space and eternity that would either sound crazy to people, or like a really great science fiction movie.

Personally, I think that Orson Hyde was onto something.  I think that the mystics of the East have also come close to understanding the substance of time and space.  I remember reading about an Eastern teacher trying to teach his student about time.  He cast a twig into a river and said that the twig represents our lives, and the river represents time.  The twig floating with the current is symbolic of our lives flowing along through time.  From the perspective of the twig, where is the river?  It is only where the twig is.

But then the teacher explained, "Where is the river?  Is it at the source?  Is it at each bend and turn?  Or is it where it feeds into the sea?"

The answer is - the river is everywhere at once.  So it is with time.  From our perception, time is linear and appears to flow with continuity from one moment to to the next.  But that is an illusion.  Like the river, time exists everywhere at once.  As a great, eternal cloud, as it were.

So when I walked out of "Cloud Atlas", I told my wife Martha, "This is either the worst movie I have ever seen, or it is the best movie I have ever seen.  I can't decide which.  I may have to see it another time to decide."

I went home and slept on it and decided that "Cloud Atlas" is indeed one of the best movies that I have ever seen,

I figured out why so many people don't like it.  It is very nonlinear.  The plot bounces us back and forth through time.  There are several distinct story lines - one in the mid 1800's, one in the 1930s, another in the 1970s, an episode in the modern day, another 150 years in the future, and a final one hundreds of years in the future.  The movie moves seamlessly between the time periods.  The editing techniques used to mesh these narratives together was nothing short of breathtaking.

In other words, there is not much in the way of conventional continuity in the narrative.  But that is the point.  Every story is happening at once, at the same time.

This movie is not for the dumbed-down masses.  It isn't sufficient to sit back and be entertained.  In order to understand the movie, it is required that the viewer think for the entire duration of the movie.  I think that's why people don't like it.  They have to think.

Before this movie came out, I knew nothing about it, except that it is directed by the Wachowski Brothers (er, brother and sister), along with Tom Tykwer.  I am a huge fan of the Wachowski siblings.  Of course, I loved "The Matrix".  Like "Cloud Atlas", I knew nothing about "The Matrix" when I walked in to see it and was completely wowed.  I loved "V For Vendetta", that anthem of libertarianism, and I even loved "Speed Racer".  So it was a given that I would go see this movie.

It is unique in many ways.  There is a superb ensemble of a cast (Tom Hanks, Hugh Grant, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Susan Sarandon, and others), and the genius is that each of these actors play a different character in each of the different timelines.  Each performer was able to display their acting prowess in the animation of very different characters.  Sometimes, they even played someone of a different ethnicity.  A black actor would play a white person.  A white person would play an Asian.  It was really ingenious.

There were hints of reincarnation, which traditionally is not a Mormon belief (but does have its argument in the doctrine of Multiple Mortal Probations).  So it is interesting fodder for thought.

And that is the genius of this movie - it makes you think.

It doesn't hurt that it is visually stunning.  For me, this is more than just a movie.  It is art.  This is what the movie experience should be about.

I never did go see it again.  I have to wait until it comes out on video.  Or just realize that, if all time exists at once, I am watching it right now.