Gavin Grades The Movies  The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
(Rated PG-13)  Peter Jackson is an amazing filmmaker and there
are few who deny that. He's able to visualize sequences that
make even the most jaded movie-goer scratch their head as to how
it was pulled off. Every bit of his Lord of the Rings trilogy is
spectacular and should be required viewing for anyone who
fancies themselves a fan of movies. He based each movie off of
one of the books by J.R.R. Tolkien and ended up getting showered
with Oscars when they were all done. Each one of those books
were about 400 pages each and the movies come out to about three
hours a pop. The Hobbit, however, is shorter than all those
books and is being told in three films that are almost three-
hours-long EACH! Regardless of how good these Hobbit films are,
I simply can't love them based on principle.  This second
installment of The Hobbit story is far better than the first
one, which was tedious, silly and vastly boring. This one has
its moments of excitement and d