December’s Movie: Fellowship of the Ring

Ain’t It Cool News has a look at the first screening of footage of the first movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy at Cannes. The verdict: jaw dropping, drooling, and bust a gut good. If there’s any fairness in the world, this movie will blow away the recently-set opening weekend box office record by The Mummy Returns. If this isn’t the most-anticipated movie of all time, I don’t know what is; you might say Star Wars Episode I: Phantom Menace but I think many of the same people are taking this to the next level.

One representative quote from Harry Knowles (AICN bossman): “The bridge sequence is ungodly cool… the sort of ungodly cool that… well… I CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO DESCRIBE HOW COOL THIS SEQUENCE WAS!! I’ve never seen anything like it. This scene had all the dramatic intensity of William Friedkin’s SORCERER or the original WAGES OF FEAR, but even more cinematic. This is Cinema, big and showing me things my imagination has never conceived of. I was giggly-happy and dumbstruck all at once.”