A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

(C) 2015 Warner Bros./Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios The Hobbit Motion Picture Trilogy Nine years after director Peter Jackson concluded his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy with the Academy Award-winning epic The Return of the King, Warner Bros. released The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Starring Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, and Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield, this 2012 fantasy film is the first installment of an ambitious trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1937 novel, The Hobbit. An Unexpected Journey was followed by The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug in 2013. A year later, Warner Bros. closed the story arc with The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. The Hobbit Motion Picture Trilogy is the prequel to Jackson’s adaptation of Tolkien’s three-volume novel The Lord of the Rings. Thematically, The Hobbit is faithful to the spirit of Tolkien’s book, the script by Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens

(C) 2012 New Line Cinema/Warner Bros. Pictures The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) Directed by Peter Jackson Written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, and Guillermo del Toro Starring: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Benedict Cumberbatch, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee Gandalf : Well, why does it matter? He's back! Thorin Oakenshield : It matters. I want to know - why did you come back? Bilbo Baggins : Look, I know you doubt me, I know you always have. And you're right... I often think of Bag End. I miss my books, and my armchair, and my garden. See, that's where I belong, that's home. That's why I came back... 'cause you don't have one, a home. It was taken from you. But I will help you take it back if I can. Considering the success of director Peter Jackson’s epic fantasy film series The Lord of the Rings ($2.92 billion worldwide box office gross, plus 17 Academy Awards won out of 30 nominations)

“Hate is the complement of fear and narcissists like being feared. It imbues them with an intoxicating sensation of omnipotence.”   ―  Sam Vaknin ,  Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited People - mainly those individuals who are blissfully unaware of my family history - often ask me, "Why can't you get along with your sister? She's your closest relative now that your mom is gone, and she's so nice/generous/loving. Can't you try and be her friend?" While it is true that my half-sister is my closest family member and, as far as I know, my only living relative in the United States, I have to say that as much as I'd like to be Vicky's friend, I can't. She is a seriously disturbed narcissist who has done me (and our mother) much more emotional harm than she had done good. She (and her small retinue of vocal supporters) will deny it, of course. Like many narcissists, Vicky has an uncanny talent for cleverly projecting a self-image of being an a

(C) 2007 Random House/Vintage In 2007, three years after the publication of Max Hastings’ “Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-1945,” the British imprint HarperPress published a companion volume about the end of World War II in the Pacific, “Nemesis: The Battle for Japan 1944-1945.” Like its predecessor set in the European Theater of Operations (ETO), “Nemesis” is an examination of the various military and political maneuvers that led to the Allied (primarily American) victory against the Japanese Empire during the war’s closing months. When Knopf, Hastings’ U.S. publisher, released the book for the American market as “Retribution: The Battle for Japan 1944-1945.” In this highly readable 688-page tome, Hastings depicts the earthshaking events that led to Japan’s defeat in the Pacific War in vivid prose and clear-eyed analysis of the various campaigns and battles that culminated with the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hastings sets up his Pacific War chessboa

In July of 1989, Columbia Pictures released “When Harry Met Sally…” a witty romantic comedy written by the late Nora Ephron (“Sleepless in Seattle”) and directed by Rob (“Stand by Me”) Reiner. Starring Billy Crystal as Harry Burns and Meg Ryan as Sally Albright, “When Harry Met Sally…” is a clever, humorous, yet unexpectedly moving look at the relationships between men and women. It covers various aspects of love and gender roles, but its most famous theme is Can men and women really be friends?   “When Harry Met Sally…” follows the course of the titular characters’ relationship over a 12-year period that begins in 1977 and ends roughly in the movie’s Present Day. As Ephron and Reiner set up the scenario, Harry and Sally have jgraduated from the University of Chicago and are headed east to start new lives and careers in New York. They have never met before, but Sally’s a friend of Harry’s girlfriend Amanda (Michelle Nicastro) and has agreed to take Harry along as a co-driver