editorial

Thank the Lord

I’m trying to come up with a name for the new movie genre that’s emerged over the past seven holiday seasons. Hobitday films? Adventshire movies?

Ever since the first Lord of the Rings movie stormed theatres in December 2001, each holiday season has featured at least one effects-laden fantasy film filled with good little people — whether they be children or hobbits — battling evil.

Often these movies take place in parallel worlds, usually ones with a decidedly British tone. They have huge budgets, and the special effects to prove it. Oh, and they’re all based on books.

Aside from the two Rings sequels, think of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or last year’s Eragon, about a boy (with a suspiciously Tolkien-esque name) and his dragon.

This year’s addition to the Orc Candy genre (no, that’s definitely not it) is The Golden Compass — a big-budget fantasy about a 12-year-old girl who battles an evil organization in the far north of a parallel world. Oh, and it’s based on the first book of British author Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy.

The books are fantastic. I know this because the clever marketing people at the film’s distribution company got me hooked last year by sending the first book as a Christmas present. I spent most of this year reading the entire trilogy — half an hour at a time — on the elliptical machine at the gym.

The film version (from New Line Cinemas, the studio that brought you Lord of the Rings) stars Nicole Kidman as the complicated and, yes, evil Mrs. Coulter. In “Lock Up Your Children,” Kidman recalls her own odd childhood, when she too was drawn to dark and unusual stories.

In “History Repeats Itself,” Nicolas Cage explains why all the outlandish plot devices in National Treasure: Book of Secrets don’t worry him one bit.

In “He’s a Lover, Not a Fighter,” Scottish actor James McAvoy connects the dots between his own difficult childhood and that of his character in the World War Two drama Atonement.

Read “Life After Death” for Hilary Swank’s explanation of how a striptease scene she was shooting for P.S. I Love You ended with her getting stitches.

And finally, we have “Die Laughing,” our interview with Morgan Freeman about playing opposite Jack Nicholson in The Bucket List. The dramedy — about a couple of old guys about to die — marks the first time these two actors, both of whom turned 70 this year, have shared the screen.

—Marni Weisz