The Two Towers

Disponible le 18 novembre 2003 en version 4 DVD + statue de Gollum

Vu sur The New Zealand Herald

Jackson wants to bring 'Hobbit' to screen

11.12.2003

BERLIN - Director Peter Jackson, tipped to win an Oscar for his "The Lord of the Rings" epic, has said he would like to make "The Hobbit" prequel to the trilogy and work with some of the same actors again.

Speaking to journalists in Berlin ahead of the European premiere of the last part of the "Rings" trilogy - "The Return of the King" - Jackson said he was sad but also relieved that the mammoth project he has worked on for seven years was over.

"I'm glad there's not a fourth Lord of the Rings film next year," he said. "I feel very tired and exhausted."

"I've been working very hard this year. It was the hardest year of the whole seven really," he said, adding that the last part had twice as many computer-generated shots as the second, "The Two Towers," which won an Oscar for digital effects.

"It's my favorite because it has a stronger emotional depth than the other two films, it has a sense of closure," he said.

Despite his exhaustion, Jackson is not resting on his laurels and said if complex rights issues can be resolved he would like to direct "The Hobbit," J.R.R. Tolkien's prequel to the "Rings" trilogy set some 50 years earlier.

"I'd be interested in doing it because I think it would give continuity to the overall chapter," he said.

While many of the lead "Rings" characters do not appear in "The Hobbit" story, the wizard Gandalf, played by Ian McKellen, and Gollum, the cave dweller corrupted by the powerful ring, do and should make a comeback. Arwen, the elf princess played by Liv Tyler, could also feature again, Jackson said.

Jackson made movie history by filming all three parts of the "Rings" trilogy simultaneously. The first two films have earned a combined $US1.8 billion and won a total of six Oscars.

Barrie Osborne, the producer of the trilogy, and Philippa Boyens, the writer, both said they hoped for more Oscars for the third installment, especially one for Jackson's directing.

"The film is a memorable film that will stand the test of time and be around forever and ever. However winning depends on what's happening in the world, what other films are out there that you're competing with," Osborne said.

Boyens added: "Peter didn't make these films to win an Oscar...It's always been really hard for fantasy films or films perceived as fantasy to get that kind of acknowledgement."

Jackson, 42, has certainly not let fame go to his head. He met journalists in an upmarket Berlin hotel barefoot and wearing a faded shirt and threadbare shorts. While he said "Rings" was the hardest thing he would ever do, more challenges await.

"I just love making movies. I have done since I was seven years old," he said.

Jackson will take a few weeks off over Christmas and then start writing the script for his next project, a remake of the classic "King Kong" which, like the "Rings," he will also film in New Zealand, using the same team of special effects experts.

Richard Taylor, whose special effects workshop made 48,000 props for the trilogy and whose work earned two Oscars, says "King Kong" will be even better than Lord of the Rings.

"I have every aspiration to make King Kong much cooler," he said. "It's going to be a very beautiful film."

- REUTERS

* The Return Of The King opens in New Zealand on Dec. 18.

Bic Runga with the Christchurch Symphony: Live in Concert

04.12.2003 Reviewed by RUSSELL BAILLIE 

Herald rating: * * * * 

Considering Runga's unstoppable local popularity, for this album to be any more of a yuletide stocking filler, its case would have to be shaped like a foot.

But this live recording in hometown Christchurch with the local symphony is also something beyond Bic's-hits-with-strings-attached or the Runga album that's okay to give your favourite great aunt.

Helping that is its run of covers - Runga and orchestra turn Bob Dylan's One More Cup of Coffee into a wide-screen 60s-styled country-pop, she finds the Gallic despair in Jacques Brel's Ne Me Quitte Pas, and takes a delicate approach to Burt Bacharach/Dionne Warwick's Anyone Who Had A Heart.

Elsewhere, the likes of her own Beautiful Collision and Wishing on a Star fingerclick along in lush cabaret takes.

As well as the aforementioned French wrist-slasher, And No More Shall We Part, Say After Me help to give the 11-track album a considerable melancholy streak, with a feelgood counterbalance from Bursting Through and the closing Something Good.

As in-betweener albums go, it's a classy dramatic pause.

Label: Columbia

Vu sur The New Zealand Herald

The Return of the King: Jackson's crowning glory

08.12.2003

With its sense of spectacle and its dramatic depth, 'The Return of the King' confirms Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' as the greatest movie trilogy of all time, writes RUSSELL BAILLIE.

(Herald rating: * * * * * )

We come to it at last, the great film of our time. The film which makes the heart leap, the tears flow, the adrenaline race like never before.

The film which makes you laugh out loud, cower in fear, feel dizzy with vertigo, and at the end - and be warned, it sure does takes its time to finish - feel exhausted, dazed and slightly thankful it's all over. At least, until those compulsory further viewings.

It's the one that makes you wonder: how did we get so hooked up in this imaginary world with its labyrinthine legends and its allusions to everything from The Bible to British history, its creatures great and small, its grand scheme of things.

Well, if memory serves, there were two films before this - in my book, one brilliant, one not quite so, in that order - and a certain hefty work of fiction before that.

So far as his history-making adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's book goes, Peter Jackson and his crew have saved the best and the boldest for last. And that's despite the final third of Tolkien's original work being where his story unravels.

Performance-wise, many of Jackson's cast - some of whom were previously sideline characters - shine like never before.

Among them Sean Astin as Frodo's companion Sam, whose character becomes something much more than the loyal simpleton of earlier episodes.

Likewise, Billy Boyd as Pippin gains in stature and sings a couple of songs while he's at it. Also outstanding is Bernard Hill as King Theoden, whose character has transformed from a wizened Lear to a heroic Henry V. He also delivers one of the great speeches to the troops ever committed to celluloid.

Some characters do fall by the wayside: Liv Tyler's Arwen becomes a passive near-sleeping beauty, while Eowyn (Miranda Otto), her rival for Aragorn's affections, gets to swing a very big sword.

There are more deeper, darker Shakespearean overtones to this, as Middle-earth politics, loyalties and blood ties become more complex.

That resonates especially in the sub-plot involving the Steward of Gondor, Denethor (John Noble) and Faramir (David Wenham), the son he wished were dead rather than his slain brother Boromir.

The Return of the King may be following several strands of story - part of the slight undoing of the previous film, The Two Towers - but here it interweaves them with deft precision, using what it needs from the previous books and pacing most of its long running time in exact swings of tension and release.

That's right from the opening sequence, in which we meet Smeagol in his pre-Gollum days and are reminded of the devastating power of the ring, as well as seeing a little more of where actor Andy Serkis ends and the magic of Weta Digital begins.

We are every stumbling step of the way with Frodo, Sam and Gollum as they head towards Mt Doom. We're also there, with the rest of the scattered fellowship, preparing for the showdown against the mounting might of Sauron.

"We come to it at last, the great battle of our time," says McKellen's Gandalf as he sees the forces mount on the vertiginous city of Minas Tirith. It is a great battle. It makes The Return of the King a great war movie - the thrill of the horse charge of the Rohan warriors, the chill caused by the devastating stomp of the elephant-like Mumakils as they counter-attack.

It takes a certain matinee idol elf to bring one down in an eye-popping action sequence. It's topped off with a priceless one-liner by his short mate Gimli.

The Battle of Pelennor fields also comes with troll-powered catapults, and pterodactyl-like beasts piloted by Nazgul led by the Witch-king Angmar, the baddest of the Lord of the Rings baddies yet, though he has some competition from Orc captain Gothmog whose visage seems a tribute to the Elephant Man.

Both are played by Lawrence Makoare who played orc Lurtz in the first film. If there's a prize for most makeup-tolerant actor, he deserves it.

If it's a great war movie, it's quite a horror film, too. First there's the Army of the Dead who are summoned by the man who would be king, Aragorn, for the final showdown. Some business to do with an old curse apparently, but they are a visually arresting bunch whose special effects hark back to Jackson's The Frighteners.

Then there's Shelob, the giant spider into whose lair Frodo is led by the treacherous Gollum. It could have gone all very B-movie at this point, but with the combination of creature and choreography, it's something more akin to Alien.

But there are visual moments that are arresting for their simple beauty, such as the lighting of the beacons - mountain-top bonfires which presumably used the Southern Alps as their backdrop and on screen look like a high-concept art piece.

As in the book, it does take a while to find its ending, even without including episodes such as the scouring of the Shire, which were discarded by Jackson and his co-writers.

If it takes a while to wrap up, then again it is the ending to what is effectively one very big movie. It should be allowed a few curtain calls.

If it takes its time to roll the end credits, for much of the film it is beyond exhilarating and certainly the best of the three, effectively elevating the series into the greatest trilogy in cinema history.

Peter Jackson started off filming a legend. Now he is one.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING

Cast: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Viggo Mortensen, Sir Ian McKellen, Bernard Hill, John Rhys-Davies, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Liv Tyler, Miranda Otto

Director: Peter Jackson

Rating: M (violence and fantasy horror)

Running time: 202 mins

Screening: Cinemas everywhere from December 18

Musique : les dates de sortie

Réservation Cool Viny / Scooby Dogg

Bic Runga

[17 novembre 2003]

Live In Concert with the Christchurch Symphony

01. Precious things

0 2. Bursting through

0 3. One more cup of coffee

0 4. Ne me quitte pas

0 5. Anyone who had a heart

0 6. Beautiful collision

0 7. And no more shall we part

0 8. Wishing on a star

0 9. Say after me

10. She left on a monday

11. Something good