A fan has put together and edited the trailers and TV spots released thus far for director Peter Jackson’s upcoming The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012). The clips for this Lord of the Rings prequel are sequenced in an approximation of the order they will appear in the film so that you can get an extended view of the anticipated film. Check it out.
According to the post on YouTube from joatmonjb, the above “Unexpected Trailer” compilation includes the following: Announcement trailer, Announcement trailer (G), Trailer 1, TV Spot 1 – 7, UK 1 minute TV spot, Japanese 1 minute TV Spot. What do you think of the advanced look at The Hobbit? Leave your two cents in the comments.
This video below features a man who witnessed the April 14, 1865 assassination of Abraham Lincoln. In this February 1956 clip from the TV show “I’ve Got a Secret,” 96-year-old Samuel J. Seymour tries to stump the panelists who try to figure out his claim to fame.
The host of “I’ve Got a Secret” was Gary Moore, and this episode’s panelists are Bill Cullen, Jayne Meadows, Henry Morgan, and Lucille Ball. Check out the witness to Lincoln’s assassination.
Samuel Seymour was five-years old when he went to see “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre with his godmother. One may wonder how witnessing the event would impact the child.
Seymour passed away on April 13, 1956 not long after appearing on “I’ve Got a Secret.”
Bonus History Tidbit: In 1863, President Lincoln issued a proclamation making the last Thursday in November a national day of thanksgiving.
I recall hearing a story how after Director John Ford approached Henry Fonda to play Abraham Lincoln in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), Fonda declined the role because he could not imagine filling the shoes of the great president. But Ford explained that he was not asking Fonda to play the Great Emancipator, he was asking him to play a young country lawyer. With that assurance, Fonda agreed to the part.
Director Steven Spielberg could not make such an assurance to Daniel Day-Lewis, who also was reluctant to take on the part of one of America’s biggest icons, because Spielberg’s film focuses on Lincoln during a key moment of his presidency as the president pushed for Congress to pass the Thirteenth Amendment banning slavery. Although Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012) follows the president as a war leader and politician, Day-Lewis, like Henry Fonda, found in the character’s core the country lawyer with a great mind and great compassion.
In a screenplay by Tony Kushner based in part on a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lincoln focuses on a short time period in Lincoln’s life, allowing Day-Lewis and Spielberg to delve into the man’s character and tell a story while avoiding the pitfalls of some historical dramas that suffer by trying to cover too much. One might argue Lincoln falls into this trap at the end when it speeds forward to show us the end of the Civil War and Lincoln’s death, but I doubt the movie could have ended earlier when audiences already know the end of the story and want to see the resolution.
Lincoln is a glorious film with a great story, great drama, and great acting. Day-Lewis chose to portray the president in a voice that probably sounded more like Lincoln than the traditional deep-voiced portrayals. The choice to use the high pitched twangy voice, similar to what was used by Lincoln co-star Hal Holbrook in his own 1974 portrayal of the president, seems to have freed him to search for the human qualities of the icon as the character relays his humorous tales to anyone who will listen. I suspect that the voice of Lincoln in Lincoln will forever change our perception of how Lincoln is portrayed in future films.
While the movie cannot completely escape Lincoln-as-bigger-than-life, Spielberg probably does the best one could do by choosing a lesser known story from Lincoln’s presidency. Additionally, audiences may be able to feel some human connection to Lincoln’s struggles with Congress if they think of current political struggles in Washington in our own time.
The acting is uniformly good with several excellent actors appearing in the film. Sally Field, who had to convince Spielberg she was right for the part despite her age, humanizes Mary Todd Lincoln, helping show the good qualities and the faults of both the First Lady and her husband. David Strathairn is great as William Seward. Tommy Lee Jones plays the abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens, who is faced with a difficult choice. James Spader adds some comic relief as someone working behind the scenes to help Lincoln get the Congressional votes he needs. Jackie Earle Haley, who always makes me recall Breaking Away (1979), is perfect as Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens. And the list goes on.
Conclusion? There is something enjoyable about spending a few hours with one of the greatest figures in American history, and Spielberg and Day-Lewis do an excellent job of bringing Abraham Lincoln alive. Although Lincoln is 149 minutes long, it did not seem long and I hated for the film to end. If you do not mind that the film focuses on political negotiating and is not a war film, you will find Lincoln completely engaging.
Bonus Reviews Because Why Should You Trust Me?: Rotten Tomatoes currently gives Lincoln a 90% critics rating and an 83% audience rating, perhaps reflecting some audience disappointment that the film is about politics. Kimberley Jones of The Austin Chronicle loved the film, writing, “Master shape-shifter Daniel Day-Lewis delivers a monumental portrayal of a man so firmly monumented in our nation’s history.” Austin Kennedy at Film Geek Central was disappointed, noting, “I expect spectacular things from Spielberg, so when he delivers something that’s just average, it’s a bit of a letdown.”
What did you think of “Lincoln”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
As rockets land near Jerusalem and more violence and fighting seems imminent, it seems like a good time to revisit Steve Earle’s song, “Jerusalem,” the title song from his 2002 album.
During the summer of 1963, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez were driving on a trip to perform together. During the trip, an incident occurred that would inspire one of Dylan’s great songs, “When the Ship Comes In.”
A Hotel Stop
On the road, Dylan and Baez were in ragged clothes when they stopped at a hotel for the night. At this point in their careers, Joan Baez was the more famous of the two nationally. Dylan, however, still was highly regarded in the folk community, had recorded two albums, and had his songs covered by several artists.
The motel clerk recognized Baez and gave her a room, even though she was not wearing any shoes. But the clerk refused a room to Dylan because of his scraggly appearance. Baez was angry and stepped in on Dylan’s behalf, persuading the clerk to give a room to her unkempt companion.
It must have been difficult for Dylan to face the rejection and then have to be saved by Baez. His embarrassment must have been magnified because he was just starting — or hoping to start — a relationship with her.
When the Ship Comes In
For someone with Dylan’s talents, though, the best revenge was his music. That night, in his hotel room, in his anger and humiliation, Bob Dylan sat down and began writing the following words:
A song will lift As the mainsail shifts, And the boat drifts on to the shoreline; And the sun will respect Every face on the deck, The hour that the ship comes in.
When the Ship Comes In (live) – Bob Dylan (press play)
His new song, “When the Ship Comes In,” was a song of revolution that came out of a personal slight that evening. And Dylan was not in a forgiving mood. He sang about the forthcoming change where chains will bust and fall to “be buried at the bottom of the ocean,” elevating his slight into something Biblical:
Then they’ll raise their hands, Sayin’ we’ll meet all your demands; But we’ll shout from the bow “your days are numbered,” And like Pharaoh’s tribe, They’ll be drowned in the tide; And like Goliath, they’ll be conquered.
The March on Washington
Not many weeks after the motel incident, Dylan and Baez performed “When the Ship Comes In” at the March on Washington in August of 1963. So the song born out of pique at a hotel clerk took stage alongside Martin Luther King Jr. when he gave his “I Have a Dream” Speech.
Thus, Dylan’s song framed MLK’s speech with the warning, “The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.”
Revolution
Revolutions are often borne out of personal slights. But personal slights are often symbols of the system, so there is nothing wrong with such a genesis.
One instigation for the American Revolution was a tax on tea, but the tax was symbolic of something deeper. The Occupy Wall Street movement was fueled partly by people fed up with a system that had slighted them individually. Similarly, one can look at recent protests around the world to see movements that started small and grew into something unfathomable.
The year after Dylan wrote “When the Ship Comes In,” the song appeared on Dylan’s The Times They Are A-‘Changin’ (1964) album, his first album of all original songs. Some of the themes of “When the Ship Comes In” are echoed in the title song of the album: “There’s a battle outside ragin’;/It’ll soon shake your windows/And rattle your walls.”
Maybe the battle does not rage in the U.S. like it did in the 1960s, but it still continues here and around the world.
Bonus Source Information: In Martin Scorsese’s documentaryNo Direction Home, Baez tells the story about the hotel and the “devastating” song, not Dylan. So he may have a different perspective on the night. In Keys to the Rain, Oliver Trager, who calls the Live Aid version above “botched,” notes that Dylan once explained that “When the Ship Comes In” was less about sitting down and writing a song than being a type of song “[t]hey’re just in you so they’ve got to come out.” A better live version of the song was recorded at Carnegie Hall on October 26, 1963, two months after the March on Washington performance. It is included on the soundtrack to the Martin Scorsese documentary on No Direction Home: The Soundtrack (The Bootleg Series Vol. 7).
, Lincoln focuses on a short time period in Lincoln’s life, allowing Day-Lewis and Spielberg to delve into the man’s character and tell a story while avoiding the pitfalls of some historical dramas that suffer by trying to cover too much. One might argue Lincoln falls into this trap at the end when it speeds forward to show us the end of the Civil War and Lincoln’s death, but I doubt the movie could have ended earlier when audiences already know the end of the story and want to see the resolution.
, Baez tells the story about the hotel and the “devastating” song, not Dylan. So he may have a different perspective on the night. In 
, Oliver Trager, who calls the Live Aid version above “botched,” notes that Dylan once explained that “When the Ship Comes In” was less about sitting down and writing a song than being a type of song “[t]hey’re just in you so they’ve got to come out.” A better live version of the song was recorded at Carnegie Hall on October 26, 1963, two months after the March on Washington performance. It is included on the soundtrack to the Martin Scorsese documentary on 
.