It seems the only way we'll have the complete tale in a single medium, animated or live action, is to target the anomalous entry in the above marathon for replacement. Peter Jackson is happy to oblige beginning December 14, 2012, with the first of the two movies, the first being The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

This is not technically a prequel, as it was written before Fellowship, but it is indeed set many decades before that 2001 film. Some things remain constant, however: just as the previous trilogy is greatly enhanced by RiffTrax, so too has The Hobbit already begun attracting its satirists:

Like the literal trailer and its lyrics? You can get the song on iTunes for only 99 cents! Good grief.

I eagerly await this return to Middle-Earth and all the good humor it portends.

(Hat tip to Mary House and Know Your Meme)

The Muppets are long-known for their festive spirit. Be sure to join them for a chorus of bells, too!

See you in 2012!

My first outing with this functionality was a promotional video for an annual fundraising event. Since the fundraiser had already been held by the time I got my hands on iMovie, I didn't have any footage of my own to work with. I instead downloaded existing YouTube videos and recut them for my purpose, using the "sports" genre of film. When I showed the final product to the original videographer, she responded, "I just saw your movie trailer and I LOVE IT!!  You created a great, professional quality, energetic piece. I might bug you to do this again with what we['ll shoot next year]!"

My most recent trailer is the only one I've shot for fun. On June 12, 2011, two friends joined me in my annual ascent of Mount Monadnock, the world's most-climbed mountain. It was a last-second impulse to bring my video camera, a Kodak Zi8, and I got several candid and staged shots throughout the state park. I originally tried casting it as a horror film, but in the end, it worked best as an adventure.

But the trailer that was most meaningful is the one I made as a gift. I spent Christmas 2010 with friends, and I wanted to show my appreciation for letting me into their home to share this special holiday. Over the course of a week and as innocuously as possible, I shot several clips of B-roll. Most of them were no longer than five seconds, though one, a Christmas pageant, was fifteen minutes. Altogether, I ended up with about thirty minutes of film, which I whittled down to a brief trailer.

When I debuted a rough cut to the friends, they were extremely moved, immediately wanting to watch it again — and again — and again! They shared it with everyone in their immediate and extended family, and I could tell from my online analytics that the video was viewed every day for at least a month. As its audience was not computer savvy, they had no idea that the quality of what they were seeing wasn't the result of me being a professional video editor. Thanks to iMovie, I was able to keep my secret!

Just in time for me to re-create this gift for my own family this year, Vimeo, my video-hosting service of choice, has offered these tips for shooting great holiday video. Their suggestions are simple yet effective and will give you plenty of grist for later editing.

Happy holiday filming!

Marvel superheroes Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, and Thor join forces as the Avengers, under the direction of Joss Whedon of Buffy and Firefly fame. The team's individual films have, on the whole, been good to great, so even I, only an occasional fan of Marvel Comics, find myself with high hopes and expectations for this collaboration.

This raises the question: Why can't DC Comics do this with their stable of legendary heroes? Their Batman franchise is going gangbusters, but they've so far failed to gain traction with Superman (though a reboot is coming in 2013) or Green Lantern. The IMDb lists a Wonder Woman TV show coming later this year, with a movie in 2015. By contrast, Marvel assembled their team in just four years.

We'll likely not have an answer until well after The Avengers' May 4, 2012, debut.

UPDATE: Do not be fooled by cheap imitations!

When I started reading comics in 1996, I was immediately drawn to a superhero I wasn't very familiar with. His abilities and adventures were stunning and made me an instant fan. I've long hoped to see him brought to life by Nathan Fillion, and someone in power must've seen the fan trailer that demonstrated the power of that union, as he's been cast in a direct-to-DVD animated film. But the live action take on this storied character debuts today with an entirely different cast:

Yes, I want to see Green Lantern — but the casting and the reception have both been poor. So I'm psyched to see the perennial favorites from Sesame Street ride the wave of public awareness to promote their upcoming film. The above is one of many misleading trailers that suggest terrible films in alternative genres. Here's the romantic comedy approach:

SImply named The Muppets, the film returns Jim Henson's creations to the silver screen on November 23, 2011.

A week from today marks an equally significant event: the fiftieth anniversary of the first manned space flight, that being Yuri Gagarin's orbit of the planet Earth. At the age of 27 and seven years before his death, Gagarin made history by literally going where no man had gone before, opening a new frontier for countless other brave men and women to explore.

The anniversary of that occasion is known as Yuri's Night, and to commemorate the fiftieth such celebration, this year's Yuri's Night will see the debut of a documentary dedicated to Gagarin's accomplishment. Dubbed First Orbit, the film will be shown on April 12th for free online as well as at over 220 parties hosted across the globe. It's a day- and night-long celebration of a 108-minute flight that changed history.

For a moving documentary that captures many of NASA's accomplishments after Gagarin's precedent, I highly recommend In the Shadow of the Moon. This film and those like it capture a rare and exciting era in exploration that those alive today may not ever see again.

But what if, instead of taking the realistic and making it magical, we took the fiction and made fact? That's what some engineers were inspired to do after seeing the 2009 film Up. As part of a new National Geographic television series called How Hard Can It Be?, they set out to make a house fly:

If a house is designed to be lightweight enough to fly, then it's not all that surprising that it should be able to fly. That realization does nothing to diminish the smile brought to my face at the sight of an actual house floating across the sky.

(Hat tip to Alexa Lash)

The X-Men? Not so much.

The trilogy that ended in 2006 is getting a prequel. Well, another prequel: we already got the cleverly named X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which told the, uh, origins of Wolverine. By contrast, on June 3, we'll see the beginnings of the leaders of the two tribes of mutants that waged war across that trilogy. Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr are set to become Professor X and Magneto in X-Men: First Class, directed by Matthew Vaughn.

As trailers go, this one is mediocre. The use of clips from the first film, without showing the actors' faces, is clever. Their new avatars are James McAvoy, who played Mr. Tumnus the faun in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Michael Fassbender, from Inglourious Basterds and Jonah Hex. The trailer doesn't show us enough of Kevin Bacon as villain Sebastian Shaw. I'm also not sure I remember any history books acknowledging the role mutants played in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Wanting more details, I checked out the film's official Web site, which disappointingly is simply a redirect to a Facebook fan page.

Although the original X-Men film showed only the first manifestation of Magneto's powers, we didn't see any of the intervening fifty-plus years in which he met Professor X then strayed from the path of justice. It's an interesting story — but with the four X-Men movies thus far being 50/50, I'm inclined to sit this one out.

(Hat tip to Erik Davis)

First, let's see how many movies I've historically seen in public venues:

Now let's take my granularity to an unprecedented level by looking at exactly which months were most popular:

The myth of the summer blockbuster season doesn't hold much weight here, seeing as how it drew me to the theaters no more than the holidays did. In fact, many of the holidays films I saw could've easily stood up to the summer competition: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, TRON Legacy, and Voyage of the Dawn Treader. (The fourth "holiday" movie was a screening of Bicycle Dreams, a documentary that's been around for awhile.)

The best movie I saw last year was Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which was as much a video game as it was a movie; shame the enthusiasm of Comic-Con fans was not enough to make it a profitable film. The worst movie of the year was Predators, which was more akin to psychological horror films like Cube than it was an actual Predator movie.

The most surprising movie was How to Train Your Dragon — it wasn't a kids movie but was instead an ideal fantasy (and even anti-war) film. And the most disappointing film was Inception — actually a decent movie, but nowhere near deserving of the universal praise it received.

Will 2011 be much better? There isn't much on the docket that's caught my interest. Films I'm likely to see include:

Apollo 18 (Mar 4)

When I saw the trailer for the next Transformers movie — but before I realized it was a Transformers movie — I thought a secret, historical NASA mission a great concept. I was delighted to discover it's an actual movie, without giant robots.

Thor (May 6)

I don't know the Marvel superhero, and the trailer looked iffy, but it's part of the universe that includes Iron Man and the Hulk, so it can't be that bad.

Kung Fu Panda 2 (May 27)

The first film was surprisingly funny with broad appeal. I have high hopes for the second.

Green Lantern (June 17)

I'm still disappointed they didn't choose Nathan Fillion for the lead role, but Green Lantern is still one of my favorite DC superheroes.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (July 15)

The first half of this conclusion was possibly the first Harry Potter movie to be better than the book, thanks to its condensing of a hundred pages of camping.

Captain America: The First Avenger (July 22)

See Thor.

Cowboys & Aliens (July 29)

The last time a movie featured James Bond and Indiana Jones, it was The Last Crusade. So this graphic novel adaptation should be awesome. Right?

The Muppets (Nov 23)

You're never too old for Kermit and the gang.

Movies I'd see if I could convince a child to accompany me:

Winnie the Pooh (July 15)

Both innocent humor and traditional animation are rarities these days.

The Smurfs (August 3)

I actually am not a fan of adapting cartoons to live action, but I have a morbid curiosity about this one. Hank Azaria as Gargamel has to be worth something, at least.

Movies I will definitely not be seeing:

Your Highness (Apr 8)

A fantasy comedy is a great concept, but the dialogue in this one sounds asinine.

X-Men: First Class (June 3)

I've never seen a Matthew Vaughn-directed film, but I've also never seen a good X-Men movie that wasn't directed by Bryan Singer — X-Men Origins: Wolverine was awful.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (July 1)

I didn't see the second film in the Transformers trilogy, but I did see the first one twice (both with and without RiffTrax), and it was horrible both times. Pass.

Final Destination (August 26)

No longer called 5nal Destination (perhaps due to its resemblance to a porn title?), this film is part of a series that started off strong and quickly lost momentum.

Footloose (Oct 14)

It has a good cast (Dennis Quaid, Andie MacDowell, and Julianne Hough), but I'm just not sure a remake is necessary.

Puss in Boots (Nov 4)

A spin-off of Shrek, another series than ran too long.

Happy Feet 2 (Nov 18)

The first film was cute but couldn't tell if it wanted to be an action, comedy, musical, or social commentary.

Rise of the Apes (Nov 23)

Planet der Awful!

Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked (Dec 16)

See Smurfs.

Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol (Dec 16)

This franchise is actually pretty strong, but I like it enough to warrant a rental only.

Sherlock Holmes 2 (Dec 16)

I love Robert Downey Jr. but didn't see the first Sherlock Holmes.

What's on your must-see list for 2011?