Tuesday, May 05, 2009

The hunt for Gollum

I've just watched The Hunt For Gollum, directed by Chris Bouchard. Its a not-for profit, so don't sue us, amateur film that tries to fill in some of the story just before the start of The Lord of the Rings.

Its about 40 minutes long, and if you have loved Tolkien at any point you'll enjoy the film. Whilst watching remember its been made on a budget of £3k ! It worth a look at some of the short documentaries attached to the films web site. ( See here ).

No doubt critics would point to bits and pieces, but I think the wider message should be for professionals in Hollywood and elsewhere - if this can be done on a shoe string by volunteers there must be great potential for more creativity than we are seeing in the Cinema currently.

Personally I really enjoyed it and this post is by way of a thank you to Chris Bouchard and his team. You made my day.( & H/T to BBC Entertainment for the post which lead me to it. )




PS I put the Label of Gordon Brown as there's a link in there somewhere ....

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for that!

I'm a die-hard "Tolkienista" but I wasn't aware of this before.

Man in a Shed said...

Just watched it again. I think I'll have to either re listen to the BBC radio series, which I bought years ago, or watch the DVD's again. The guys concerned did a great job.

I was watching a TV programme of CS Lewis and I hadn't realised that the two of them were such close acquaintances.

They both have a strong moral flavour to their books, though I like Tolkein more as his story has the feeling that other outcomes were just as likely ( something missing from poorer films ).

Its the combination of a slowly revealing mystery with the hazard to the eventual outcome that makes these tales great.