Monthly Archives: December 2012

Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

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            “The Hobbit” was my favorite book when I was in elementary school.  I read it many times, equally enjoying the adventure story and the british humor and style of the book.  I didn’t read “The Lord of the Rings” until high school, once I had heard they were turning them into movies.  At the time I was surprised they weren’t starting with “The Hobbit”, but after seeing Fellowship of the Ring I was completely sold on their method.  “The Lord of the Rings” is more epic and adult than “The Hobbit” and the success of those films clearly shows that they made the right choice.

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Review: Lincoln

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             It’s winter, 1864.  Abraham Lincoln sits in the rain as a couple of black union soldiers recite back to him the Gettysburg Address, delivered about a year before.  It’s been almost two years since the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War is drawing to a close.  So begins Steven Spielberg’s long awaited masterpiece, Lincoln.  It tells Lincoln’s story in a somewhat unconventional way, by focusing on one event during his complex and fascinating lifetime: the fight for the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, banning slavery.Lincoln has recently been reelected, and is opposed by a stubborn lame-duck Congress.  He knows that the war will end soon, and he knows that the Emancipation Proclamation, a wartime executive order that freed only some of the slaves, will not stand up to legal scrutiny once peace is declared.  He has tried to sell the idea that an amendment abolishing slavery will bring an end to the war, but he knows that if rumors of peace talks spread that they will effectively kill any hope of passing such an amendment.