Weta Workshop did a bang up job on some of the visual effects of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. While there were some things I wasn’t too impressed with, there were other things that were just spectacular. You can read more about my likes and dislikes in my review of The Hobbit. And you can also hear me talk about it on Episode #23 of The MovieByte Podcast.

But particularly, Golum was simply fantastic CGI work. And The Goblin King wasn’t too shabby. Here’s two videos on those two CG elememnts:

Azog was a CG character I was much less impressed with, but it’s still better than…

Whatever shall we see this weekend? Is there anything playing in those crazy theaters? Let’s find out shall we?

Remember that this is not an exhaustive list, I list new films, then only films I feel are worthy of mentioning, or if it’s exceptionally bad, warning you about.

New Films

Broken City (R)
I’m going to be seeing this film this weekend so that we can talk about it on the upcoming Episode 28 of The MovieByte Podcast. It’s R rated so you certainly won’t want to take the kiddos.

Over on Rotten Tomatoes, the Tomatometer shows shows that the critics are really hating on the…

Looper. You either loved it or hated it. Or, if you’re like us, you wrote down a list of sins you found in the film. Here’s everything we found wrong in Looper, presented in 3 minutes or less.

Be warned, there’s a little language in this “sin tally” that is ineffectively bleeped out.

Despite the fact that I enjoyed this film, I am not blind to it’s problems and was already aware of most of these “sins”, but that didn’t stop me from laughing when watching.

Have fun:

Depending on whom you ask, most members of the Fringe team have a lot to say — or at least hint at — when it comes to summing up the series finale airing Friday night. But if you ask Joshua Jackson, he boils it down to one word.

But more on that in a bit.

A fun read for Fringe fans such as myself. It’s about a 3 minute read, and there’s a slideshow of photos from the series finale at the end of the article.

Lost meets Men in Black or something like that.

No, seriously, this does look like it could be good. Staring Tommy Lee Jones as General Douglas MacArthur, who’s name speaks for itself, and Mathew Fox, who I know from Lost and that’s pretty much it. I reckon that’s his claim to fame. But I have had no complaints with his acting abilities there so I’m not worried.

Here’s the quick synopsis from IMDb:

As the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII, Gen. Fellers is tasked with deciding if Emperor Hirohito will be hanged as a war criminal. Influencing his ruling is his quest to find Aya, an…

Oh man! RED was so much fun! I’m really looking forward to this one. And it looks like we’re bringing in even more talent to the party. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Anthony Hopkins will be joining the cast.

This looks like it will have all the first film’s mix of comedy, and drama, and more comedy. That’s not a bad thing.

Of course, returning to their roles are Bruce Willis as Frank Moses, Mary-Louise Parker as Sarah Ross, Helen Mirren as Victoria, and John Malkovich as Marvin Boggs. RED 2 open August 2^nd.

Take a quick little trip behind the scenes of Les Mis with Director Tom Hooper.

While not long, this featurette is interesting and worth taking a moment to watch. It’s about two minutes, and it shows the film crew working their way through the foothills of the Alps, managing their gear, the camera, and all that while it’s freezing cold. But man did they get some nice looking shots!

Here we are. This is how, not just The Hobbit should have ended, but the whole stinking series.

Of course, isn’t that true of almost any film, you can do “X” and nip the whole sequence of events in the bud. But then we wouldn’t have a film no would we?

Be sure to watch until the very end. These guys are a laugh riot.

Let’s take another look at Chris Pine who plays Jack Ryan in an upcoming Kenneth Branagh‘s action thriller! Well, to be honest, it’s not all about Pine (and his bike) this time, ’cause we also have another look at Kevin Costner‘s William Harper & we (finally) have a chance to check out Keira Knightley who plays Cathy Ryan in the whole thing! Make sure you check out these images in the rest of this report & let us know what you think!

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s just images of actors on set. But I’m sort of excited about this upcoming film, and in the absense of any other news about it, this…