I remember reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy sometime back in the 7th or 8th grade. I always thought the books could make a great movie, but never in my life did I expect that (a) the great movie would be directed by Peter Jackson, an offbeat New Zealander who made his first few movies exercises in queasiness (e.g. the splatter/comedy/horror movie Braindead, aka Dead Alive) and (b) that, when the movie was released, that it would be to thunderous praise from the critics. The latter is truly unheard of, especially for mainstream movies which aren’t cartoons (e.g. Shrek, anything by Pixar, some of Disney’s animated musicals like Aladdin). And my initial concerns about Jackson have been obliterated by the fact that he stated in an interview that he has always been a lover of the Lord of the Rings. That, and he left the splatter films behind back in the early nineties for movies like Heavenly Creatures, which I have yet to see but hear it’s quite good (and, it has Kate Winslet, which is a Good Thing). AND, most critics — now that they’ve seen the movie — don’t know anyone who could have done better than Jackson, because he has the right sense of the scale of the story itself.

The big bonus: there’s no reason to think that the remaining two installments won’t be just as good (or better) than the first — all of them have already been made, same actors, crew, and director.

I won’t be seeing the movie until my wife and I go to Western New York for Christmas, and I’m truly sad that I have to wait to see what might be the best film this year.