MUCH funnier than I remembered, particularly the first hotel sequence, and (for me) the scene when Ben is finally confronted by Mr. Robinson, where the elder's rage at his tarnished pride of ownership does battle with Hoffman's uncertain twitty chirping. (So much better than the famed "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me." is the lesser-remembered "Aren't you?" )

I watched this once when I was in high school, didn't think much of it; only the Simon and Garfunkel impressed…

So it's probably best at the start to admit that I'm not capable of approaching this objectively, given how hard I managed to nerd out on Tolkien in my early formative years (thinking 8-14 here), and how utterly successful Jackson was from 2001-2003 at realizing on screen most of what drew me to the material. So, though I can totally see what people are talking about when they find Jackson's hobbity films overstuffed, overlong, over-portentous, far too interested in fiddling…

With a couple forgivable exceptions, this is an unconventionally unsentimental take on the "child disrupts selfish man's life" trope, mainly because the human suffering is observed rather than underlined, and especially because the kid's angry exterior hides only an even more angry interior, significantly more pragmatically avaricious than her adoptive-probably-biological father figure. She doesn't want to melt his heart, she wants to refine it into something more effective.

Despite strong performances from Ryan O'Neal and (Oscar winning) daughter Tatum as…