The Week That Was (12/31 - 1/08)

With the coming of Michael Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, a new film in which characters portrayed by Jack Black and Mos Def make home versions of popular cinematic blockbusters, YouTubers have taken up the challenge and begun to create their own similar short epics based on popular films. The task of remaking a popular Hollywood film as a five to ten minute home movie is, apparently, called Sweding (or so Black and Def's characters call it, and the name has caught on). Above, you'll find the brand new Lord of the Rings: Sweded!, Parts 1 and 2, released this week by Silent City Productions in Los Angeles, California. They've put quite a bit of effort into their Sweding of the Peter Jackson trilogy (based on the novels of J.R.R. Tolkien). Directed by Daniel Loyd, Written by Michael Leffler and Michael W. Shaw, produced by Loyd, Leffler, and Brad Jones, the film stars Shannon Hall, Shaw, Leffler, Guy Branum, Carl DeGrazio, Derek Bledsone, and Jones, all taking multiple roles from the trilogy.