A Brief Introduction to Elijah

I have decided to start my posts by reviewing Elijah’s work in chronological order. I figured that since his body of work is rather large, I should start from the beginning of his career and follow it up to his most recent projects in order to do him justice.
The Bare Bones:
Elijah Jordan Wood was born January 28, 1981 in Cedar Rapids , Iowa to Warren and Debbie Wood as one of three children. At the age of 7, Elijah was enrolled in modeling school at the Avant Studios in Cedar Rapids where he early on began his career modeling and appearing in some national television commercials and small TV parts.
His brief appearance in Paula Abdul's "Forever Young Girl" music video, directed by David Fincher is what most consider to be his first big break into acting. His first big-screen appearance was a small cameo in "Back to the Future II", as a little boy playing video games in a diner.

It would not be until his breakthrough role in Barry Levinson's "Avalon" that his acting career would more or less take off, and once it did, Elijah proved himself to be more than just a short lived child star whose career fizzled when he grew out of the "cute" stage. It was evident early on that he had staying power and his talent would only grow and mature.
As it seems fitting, my next post will cover Elijah's first breakthrough performance in the movie "Avalon", a performance of which I will write about in more depth.

First Post

I am new to the whole idea of blogging, but I figured I would give it a go and create a site for my favorite actor, Elijah Wood. I hope this blog will be of interest to fans like myself, and anyone else who is interested in Elijah's work. This blog will be my attempt to show my appreciation and respect for the great talent and vision of Elijah Wood, and although I doubt any of my reviews will be extremely knowledgeable or insightful, I will approach each post respectfully. Each post will be a personal reflection of my views and opinions on his movies and projects.
My first encounter with Elijah's movies was when I saw "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" for the first time back in the Christmas of 2001. After seeing Elijah on the big screen for the first time, I became an immediate fan, and I began soaking up any of his earlier movies I could get my hands on. His ability to communicate emotions more through his eyes and facial expressions has me convinced that he would do well in silent films, as is evident through his emotionally charged, but silent performance in Vincenzo Natali's "Quartier De La Madeleine, one of the short films that appeared in "Paris Je T'aime" in 2006. His uncanny ability to convey emotion is what ultimately appealed to me about him, and I have been incredibly captivated by each of his performances.
I have discovered that more recently he has managed to stay just below the Hollywood radar and do his own thing. His talent is such that if Elijah so desired, he could be a huge star and be found in all the tabloids and in a lot of big-budget, commercially successful movies. Instead, he has chosen to remain somewhat of an enigma and work on projects that are more independant and thoughtful. I really respect his decision to not to limit himself to the mainstream film industry, and I admire his willingness to work with independant and foreign directors.
In the coming posts and reviews, this blog site will be a place to explore some of his movie and project choices and discuss his raw sensitivity and talent.
I still have some of his early movies to watch and review, so not all of my posts will be in chronological order, but will mostly be in my viewing order.
I hope that this blog will do his body of work justice. Enjoy!