中土世界的主宰
影片《霍比特人I》中，马丁·弗里曼出演的毕尔博充满喜剧轻松气息，全明星阵容的瑞文戴尔（林谷）展现了前拉斐尔风格。作者Nigel Andrews本不打算看这部片的，当看到瓦格纳式的结尾时，他已经迫不及待第二部了。
测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：
ineluctable [,ɪnɪ'lʌktəb(ə)l]| adj.不可避免的；无法逃避的
elvedom n.精灵王国
fast-frame 一般电影标准制式是每秒24帧，而该片是每秒48帧。彼得·杰克逊和詹姆斯·卡梅隆等导演都认为3D电影需要后者
tremolo['trem(ə)ləʊ] n.颤音
pièce de résistance n.（法语）一餐中的主菜
scintillating['sintileitiŋ] adj.闪烁的；才气横溢的
spooky['spu:ki] adj.幽灵般的
montage [mɒn'tɑːʒ] n.蒙太奇，将一系列在不同地点，从不同角度拍摄的镜头排列组合的手法
Wagnerian[vɑ:ɡ'niəriən] adj.（德国浪漫主义作曲家）瓦格纳风格的，这是歌剧或一般艺术中“先进”及非传统的代义词
scaly tail 有鳞的尾巴，这是影片结尾的镜头
A juggernaut in Middle-earth (419 words)
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”, announces the poster. Unexpected? By whom? Among the great certainties of earthly existence, death and taxes were long ago overtaken by the ineluctable box office march and stamina of Peter Jackson’s Tolkien film saga. Halt its progress? Curtail its hobbit-forming momentum? You could as easily flag down a juggernaut with a paper hankie.
Professor Tolkien’s slim preludial volume to The Lord of the Rings now stands release-ready as an equal-length trilogy of movies slated to march on into earths and elvedoms infinite. Don’t expect me to cast the first slate. The Hobbit may be long and certifiably whimsical. But it is dashingly spectacular and, in its headlong, obsessive-compulsive way – you have to like looking at folkloric weirdos in beards, hats and bulbous noses – a sort of masterwork.
Don’t be deterred by the slow start or already controversial fast-frame screen process. Somewhere in the Shire, Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) leaps from the flashbacking imagination of his older self (Ian Holm) to begin a trek through Middle Earth with an army of Dwarves wanting to reclaim a dragon-seized kingdom. Played by Freeman with a lightness of comic touch for which Jackson’s sometimes unwieldy franchise should weep with gratitude, this Bilbo makes a good contrasty double act with Ian McKellen’s Gandalf. Supposedly younger, the latter is as plummy and quavering as ever. Clearly youth cannot stale nor flashbacks wither that pop-eyed, purse-mouthed yet vocally empurpled, theatrical tremolo.
For a while little happens except walkies and fighties. The landscapes are lovely; the music soars; the dialogue is built around exclamatory one-worders cuing the next battle. “Orcs!” “Elves!” “Trolls!” An all-star interlude in Rivendell, with Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee and Hugo Weaving, threatens to freeze the movie into a permanent pre-Raphaelite stasis. Then comes the first true pièce de résistance and all resistance ends.
Gollum and Bilbo meet in a cave and for half an hour the riddling cut-and-thrust of their dialogue is scintillating. Voiced and motion-capture-performed again by Andy Serkis, this film’s Gollum is better even than in TLOTR. His eyes are huge and spooky pools; his naked body scrambles arachno-humanly; his husking, wheedling baby talk (“precious”, “hobbitses”) is at times scary, at others funny.
The film rolls away like departing thunder with another massed battle, the best. The final sequence is an inspired little montage, with a Wagnerian flick in its scaly tail, setting up Hobbit 2. I can’t wait. And I’m the one who didn’t even want to go into Hobbit 1.
请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：
1."You could as easily flag down a juggernaut with a paper hankie."
What does this mean?
A. Juggernauts are imaginary figures after all.
B. Jackson's film sagas and its box office performance are unstoppable.
C. Tolkien's stories were originally written down on a paper handkerchief.
D. Only the heroes can flag down a juggernaut, not everyone.
答案(1)
2.What can we learn about The Hobbit?
A. It is the finale of The Lord of The Rings stories.
B. It is scheduled to be realized into a series of 3 movies.
C. It is Tolkien's first fantasy story.
D. It is a very long story.
答案(2)
3.In the movie, which of the following event happens first?
A. Old Bilbo Baggins recalls his past adventures.
B. Gollum and Bilbo meet in a cave.
C. An army of Dwarves is assembled to reclaim a dragon-seized kingdom.
D. Gandalf and his friends arrives in Rivendell.
答案(3)
4.The writer criticizes which character?
A. Bilbo Baggins, played by Martin Freeman, with a lightness of comic touch.
B. Ian McKellen’s Gandalf, as plummy and quavering as ever.
C. Gollum, Voiced and motion-capture-performed again by Andy Serkis.
D. None of above.
答案(4)
* * *
(1) 答案：B.Jackson's film sagas and its box office performance are unstoppable.
解释：这句话实际上是反话，上文是：停下杰克逊的托尔金电影的发展？压制他制造霍比特人的势头？这就像flag down a juggernaut with a paper hankie一样不可能啊。
(2) 答案：B.It is scheduled to be realized into a series of 3 movies.
解释：第二段中说，托尔金教授薄薄的《霍比特人》是preludial volume to The Lord of the Rings，这将拍成个trilogy。C文中并未提及。D与事实相反，这是很薄slim的一本书。
(3) 答案：A.Old Bilbo Baggins recalls his past adventures.
解释：影片从Somewhere in the Shire老比尔博回忆他年轻时的冒险经历开始……
(4) 答案：D.None of above.
解释：可以看出，作者认为这三个角色的扮演者非常出色。
