I didn’t know much about this film going in other than it stared Hawkeye(Avengers), Io (Clash of the Titans),  and Jean Grey (X-Men). The premise is simple Hansel and his sister Gretel having killed the witch by roasting her in her own oven made it their personal mission to exterminate every witch they came across as badass bounty hunters. The opening credits are some of the best uses of 3-D in opening credits I’ve ever seen.  The action is fast paced and nearly constant.  The “R” rating was well deserved with lots of gore, violence, language and one brief nude scene.  I was entertained the whole time and loved this film.  So, if you loved Van Helsing staring Hugh Jackman you’ll love this one too.

A grand story like this starts where any story should at the beginning, at two beginnings for that matter.  The film starts off as Bilbo is receiving RSVP’s to his one hundred and eleventh birthday party, the one we witness at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings.  You see the Bilbo we know from The Fellowship of the Rings played by Ian Holm and Elijah Wood as Frodo going about Hobbiton sorting through the mail. We see Bilbo sit down at his desk and begin to write his book “There and Back Again” a book of his adventures for Frodo. The writers even include Bilbo penning those famous words written by Tolkien on the back of one of his student’s papers, “In a hole in the ground lived a Hobbit…” (the entomology of the name hobbit comes from the word homebody).

The film then transitions to 60 years earlier when The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey  takes place. A younger Bilbo now played by Martin Freeman (Dr. John Watson of Sherlock and if you haven’t seen this amazing BBC series you need to drop everything and do it now) sitting on the bench in front of his hole smoking his pipe.
Now, that is enough of the plot it’s time for the review.  The acting by the cast is excellent, but what else would you expect with a cast that includes Ian McKellen and Cate Blanchett.  I thoroughly enjoyed the fast passed action.  I will admit the introduction to the Dwarfs seems a bit silly and got on my nerves but that was a brief moment. Once the adventure began the pace really picked up for a really fun romp.
You may have heard how the high frame rate of 48 fps makes the film look to sharp to the point of losing the beauty of film.  I watched the film in 3-D IMAX and didn’t have anything to complain about. I did see a scene or to where the FX were a bit obvious but no more so than in any other film.  So if you are worried about the High Frame Rate don’t, you just can’t please some people especially critics.
The story told on film is good, but isn’t exactly true to the book.  The director Peter Jackson, you may remember him as the brains behind the first three films, and writing staff that included Guillermo del Toro and assistant director Andy Serkis pulled in many elements from other Tolkien tales and appendices to make a richer deeper world than The Hobbit would be on its own. I am recommending this fantasy adventure to children and adults and am eagerly expecting the next journey to middle earth.

If you are looking for a real middle earth experience checkout this sunday’s  blog post from No Kids, Will Travel that highlights Hobbit and Lord of the Rings tours in New Zealand.

A video commentary on the bad move by the network to cancel Attack of the Show.
Save G4

I am truly disappointed by the choice of G4 or its parent company to reformat G4 and eliminate its two best programs. I also think it is a mistake. G4 and AOTS and X-Play provide information and entertainment you can’t get anywhere else. G4 also is one of the most inclusive networks when it comes to women and let’s remembers women control a lot of purchasing power. Women spending counted for more that 45% of the consumer electronics purchased. Female gamers today are also representing a greater percentage of the game playing population than boys 17 or younger according to the Entertainment Software Association they make up more than 47 percent of the overall market and will be abandoning by the changes to G4. The promoting of women in gaming and technology is one of the best parts of G4 and should not fall by the way side. The use of female hosts like Candice Bailey and Sara Underwood talking confidently about geek culture and technology and looking fabulous while doing it have been great role models for young women interested in science and science fiction who may be afraid of the “nerd” stigma. I think both hosts do a lot in the eyes of young women to say that you don’t have to look and act like a dork to want to read a comic book or play “Call of Duty”. The 2012 Comic-Con attendance was 40% women and continues to grow each year. The mother of all Comic Conventions even had several female focused forums such as “Oh You Sexy Geek, No Damsels in Distress Here, and Girls Gone Genre”. I think the big point is girls and women need more role models in the land of nerd not fewer. The network is not only providing a safe place for young women to be exposed to science fiction and fantasy, and these young women interested in science fiction are more often interested in science fact and work in technology fields and earn more and spend more on tech and entertainment. So the change in G4 will leave a powerful consumer block out in the cold with no one to help direct their spending.

And now for the boys,

The G4 demographic geeks who have grown up and are now professionals, the average gamer is 30 years old, have plenty of money to spend on computers, technology and entertainment and will now no longer have a community on network television to direct their spending. We like G4 the way it is. I think the only think we’d like more about it is if there was more original programming not less. A whole show on comic books for example. The safe place you created for the women goes for us guys too. We have a place to let our geek flag fly, a place where the host can make a Star Trek joke and we’ll laugh, a place where we can go each day and get turned on by being introduced to the latest and greatest movies and technology.

I know this email will do nothing to change the minds of those who call the shots but I thought it would be a good reminder of what is being lost with the demise of G4 and its wonderfully unique programming.

I would hope someone would take the concept of AOTS and X-Play to the web where we can watch it free of network advertising.

I wrote a detailed blog post about my experience at Baltimore Comic-Con on my other site No Kids, Will Travel.  I will add here that the Con experience is great.  The Baltimore Convention is still a comic book based gathering.  The hall is filled with comic book vendors and artist.  If you are looking for something rare or want something signed this is a great convention for just that.  You don’t have to wade through a million gaming gamers or both after booth of elaborate setups promoting movies. You just have to watch for geeks with their push carts stacked with long boxes.

http://nokidswilltravel.com/2012/09/09/baltimore-comic-con/

I have heard the naysayers, even before walking in the door to the theater, but learned years ago if you want to watch a movie and enjoy it you have to block all of that out.  Having blocked the people who may not be able to appreciate a film on its own merits (you know those who complain because they thought it should be this or that way and are not willing to get over their preconceived notions) I took a seat in the large IMAX theater and braced myself and my bladder for what I knew was a longer-than-average runtime.

The story takes place several years after the last installment, showing Gotham as a city that has come into its own.  The city is no longer a massive slum filled with crime but a city reaching for its potential.  I don’t think that I’m giving too much away when I say the bright and sunny Gotham is about to come crashing down.  I’ll move away from the plot now and focus on the acting.

Christian Bale reprises his role as a Batman who feels like he has nothing to live for or to lose. He brings and emotion, and sometimes even levity, to the complex, broodiest hero of the DC Universe.  The lines of dialogue delivered in the angry whispers of Bale’s Batman have forever changed the way we think the character speaks.  He gets hurt, badly and often, and his body has been destroyed by the punishment of years of crime fighting. He brings a very human quality to Batman, reminding us that he is only a man with all of his physical weakness.

Anne Hathaway does an amazing job as Catwoman, playing the thief with all the charm and moral flexibility a career criminal should have. She plays her (like all the Noland characters) as a real person, not the caricature some of the movie portrayals have gone to in recent years. I think her performance may have been the best of the whole cast.

Tom Hardy as Bane is hard for me to describe.  The character is so far from what I’m used to in the pages of the comics.  Hardy did his best, and I’m sure acting through a mask covering most of your face is hard.  Still, I felt like Bane was a paper villain.  The character was given layers of back story and motivation but in the end was just a thug.   I just wasn’t impressed by this strong man villain.

The rest of the cast, including Oldman, Cain and Freeman did their usual bang-up job in the supporting roles of Gordon, Alfred and Fox.

The effects, both practical and CG, were great. I never found it hard to suspend my disbelief.  The plot was strong and moved and didn’t make me feel captive in my seat thinking “wow this is long.” Noland focused on telling a trilogy that had a beginning, middle and end, and that is a big part of the strength of this franchise. He created a story that was strong and told well.  Christopher Noland found a great way to wrap up his Dark Knight trilogy with finality. No spoilers, but he did leave the slight thread of hope for the story to continue.

I would see this film again and recommend it.

The Amazing Spider-man was simply amazing. I was skeptical of a Spider-man reboot so quickly after the last one wrapped up in 2007. The new “Amazing Spider-man” stars Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker (aka Spidey). Garfield’s interpretation of Parker can only be described what you’d imagine if James Dean played a superhero. The Parker we meet is still smart, but not quite the nerd as previously portrayed. He is a bit of a loner, but still your average high school boy, trying to fit in and talk to the girl he has a crush on.

The choices of Sally Field as Aunt May and Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben bring some energy to the roles often portrayed as frail, elderly and partly clueless. Field’s May is sharp and witty and lets us know she is made of stern stuff, the strength you know that will get her by as a widow. Sheen’s Ben is wise and kind and still an authority figure, one you know will instill the values that will make Spider-man. I’m comfortable I won’t spoil anything in saying, as my wife remarked, it’s sad that Sheen’s character has to die in the first hour.

We are slowing down with age, its inevitable, even for a planet. You see the earth isn’t as spry as it used to be. It had breathing problems caused by pollution, has put on some weight due to human population, and tends to feel hot all the time. So its spin doesn’t have the same zip as it used too. It’s just not spinning as fast. We as humans who value time and its orderly delineation need to find a way to compensate for that so we will add a second, just once, but we will make the last-minute of June 30 take 61 seconds. The addition of this second will compensate for the slowing for the earths rotation this happens every few years. How do we know this? atomic clocks. The atomic clock doesn’t slow down. If you want to read more detailed sciency stuff on this check out this series of article from io9

http://io9.com/5922647/understanding-the-leap-second-that-crashed-the-internet