Wednesday, December 17, 2003

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King released

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Released: December 17, 2003

Studio: New Line Cinema

Genre: fantasy epic

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 377.80 Worldwide: 1147.63

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: 605.92 Worldwide: 1737.00

Directing: Peter Jackson

Screenwriting: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson

Starring: Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellan, Orlando Bloom, Sean Astin, Andy Serkis, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd

Review:

In tackling Lord of the Rings, “Jackson demonstrates the definitive way to translate a popular literary epic for the screen, with sweep and passion and grandeur.” ^EW “The final chapter in the visually stunning chronicle of Tolkien’s legendary tale” ^A07 is “such a pure spectacle, that it can be enjoyed even by those who have not seen the first two films.” ^RE “Anyone who bangs on about all those endings is missing the many joys of Peter Jackson’s Academy Award-laden trilogy-closer.” ^E18 It joined Titanic and Ben-Hur as one of only three films to take 11 of the statuettes. “Deserves. Every. Oscar.” ^E18

The hobbits Frodo (Wood) and Sam (Astin) “undertake a harrowing journey” ^RE to Mount Doom to destroy The One Ring and save Middle Earth, a task made more complicated by “The Ring’s strange power to enthrall its possessors.” ^RE

They are accompanied by “the magnificently eerie, fish-fleshed, bug-eyed creature Gollum.” ^RE Thanks to CGI motion-capture and the voice of Andy Serkis, he “seems as real as anyone else on the screen.” ^RE He is pivotal to the story’s “fantastic dramatic-ironic twist when…[he] saves the day through his own treachery.” ^E18

The movie is “a crowning achievement” ^RE and “visionary use of all the tools of special effects.” ^RE “It has some of the most colossal and entertaining battle scenes ever mounted.” ^E18

Sources:

^A07 American Film Institute (2007). “AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies – 10th Anniversary Edition”
^RE Roger Ebert
^E18 Empire (3/20/2018). “The 100 Greatest Movies”
^EW source unknown

Awards/Honors/Lists:

Dave’s Movie Database Lists:

Dave’s Movie Database Genre Lists:

Box Office:

Awards:

Oscars:

Wins: 11 – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Best Visual Effects, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Make-up, Best Sound Mixing, Best Film Editing

Nominations: 11

Other Lists/Honors:

Critics’ Picks:

Leslie Halliwell/John Walker

First posted 8/6/2019; last updated 6/2/2023.

Monday, November 3, 2003

Today in Movies (1953): Tokyo Story released

Tokyo Story (Tôkyô Monogatari)

Released: November 3, 1953

Studio: Shochiku

Genre: foreign/drama

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 0.04 Worldwide: 32.0 (Japanese rentals)

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: -- Worldwide: 125.76

Directing: Yasujirô Ozu

Screenwriting: Kogo Noda, Yasujirô Ozu

Starring: Chishû Ryû, Chieko Higashiyama, Setsuko Hara

Review:

“Over and over in his astonishing career, Japanese legend Yasujirō Ozu proved his miraculous facility for a piercingly precise, intimate humanism that unfurls in every direction into an epic thematic landscape.” ^VY Tokyo Story was his most widely distributed and best-known work. ^T95

It served as the finale in the Noriko trilogy, which included the films Late Spring and Early Summer. Tokyo Story “takes the director’s deceptively quiet domestic focus to its most transcendent height.” ^VY It “is a very characteristic study of the emotional strains within a middle class Japanese family that has come to Tokyo from the country and dispersed itself.” ^T95

The movie explores “the gulf between parents and children.” ^T98 The “family grandparents arrive in Tokyo to visit their various offspring” ^T95 and are “treated with different flavors of neglect and disrespect by their grown-up children.” ^VY “Only their daughter-in-law, widowed in the war, is pleased to see them.” ^T95

Ozu’s vision…is emotionally overwhelming; and arguably profound for any engaged viewer.” ^T95 It is “unmatched in Western popular cinema.” ^T95 With the help of “a superlative cast led by Chishū Ryū and Chieko Higashiyama as the elderly parents, [Ozu] fashions simply the greatest and most devastating film about the generation gap ever made.” ^VY