Lotripper

Richard Taylor! Viggo! Bob Anderson! Swords! I so wanted to like this.

Shame that Reclaiming the Blade does the ponderous narration thing. It's mostly the script, which keeps making portentous statements and generalizations about how The Blade was So Amazing before those Awful Guns. They kept reaching for dramatic tension, instead of just relaxing and letting their passion show. The Netflix version didn't have any special features, but I doubt they'd be worth actually paying much for.

Also, the term "European Martial Arts" does not need to be used every five minutes: we get it, OK?

(Yes, I'm in a rotten mood today, but the documentary really was disappointing.)

Positive news, Tolkien estate settles 'Lord of the Rings' wrangle, so there's no legal shadow over The Hobbit film going ahead. It seemed like this was coming, but is good to see it happen.

Also, Guillermo Del Toro went onto the TORn forums, talking about the the episodic nature of the Hobbit as a story. He says,

Thorin & Co repeatedly go:

BANQUET-TRAPPED-FREED (Trolls, Goblins, Spider, Elves)
...
when studying for PANS LABYRINTH, I found out that the "predictable outcome" of these episodes is part of the charm of this particular form of tale. So, don’t be afraid, we are truly trying to preserve the charm of it- the whimsy of it
...
We need to make sure there are "long lines" emotionally (growth, friendship, etc) amongst Thorin & Co and dramatically (how episodes "build" upon each other ) that will make everything feel more fluid.

(there's more, all good.) This is very reassuring, and gives me hope that they'll get it right.

As per kidlet's request we went to see Half Blood Prince last night. The best part was watching it with her, holding hands, and knowing what was going to happen. I was amused by the shipping setups they are firmly establishing, now that we all know who's going to do what (or who).

Kidlet bookpicked like mad (she's on her fourth read of the series). She wanted more fidelity.

Ed had never read that book and so was exceedingly confused about the Prince business, we had to explain a lot because the movie completely left it out. He also noticed how grey and brown it was.

Oh cool, cleolinda wrote Half Blood Prince in 15 Minutes, and it's damn funny!

*uses slightly inappropriate HP icon*

Dom!
We actually made it to I Sell the Dead at the SF Indie Film Festival, and it was quite good. Darling, even. More comedy than horror, so I didn't have to hide too much. I didn't realize Dom narrates the whole thing, and I do love his voice. I even wrote a review on IMDB, I liked it that much :-)

DOM AND BILLY!!!
together, clowning around at the Independent Spirit Awards. Squeeeee! Small pictures now, I'm sure there are more to come. spikessweetgirl brought those first links.

Viggo!
Good is playing at the Contra Costa Jewish Film Festival, March 5 (scroll way down or do a page search for Viggo). It's way out in the plastic suburb of Pleasanton, but I'm going anyway. If anyone else is going, I'd like to meet up.

Ian!
Ian's King Lear is showing on PBS Great Performances in March. It's on KQED, on Wednesday, Mar 25, at 8:00 pm. As they are broadcasting in High Def, and we have a new TV, I am hosting a Viewing Party, and hope some people will join me. Note that he did not do that scene nude, for whatever reason.

---

There. I feel much better!

Dom's horror/comedy independent film, I Sell the Dead was at Slamdance, the low-rent adjunct of Sundance. So there are a ton of interviews and photos from Utah today, mostly in dom_media, and I especially direct your attention to the tight leather trousers ones :-) nothing_to_say has been very good to us tonight.

I Sell the Dead is coming to the SF Indiefest in Fabruary, and I read somewhere on their site that they might have some of the actors showing up, but who knows? I will try to keep checking, and update in various places if I find out. Let's see if we can get a fangirl contingent to go and squee together.

Fri. Feb 13 2009, 11:45 pm | Roxie Cinema
Thu. Feb 19 2009, 9:30 pm | Roxie Cinema
For tickets, click on the buy tickets button or go to http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/53529

Gender-neutral love-potion movie: http://io9.com/5100471/has-gay-cinema-finally-gone-too-far-we-hope-so
Sounds very cheerful and, um, gay!

Hobbit spam! Screenshots from the trilogy: all Hobbits, all the time. Great captions cracked me up, but the pictures made me all nostalgic.

I'm reading a very satisfying Dom/Billy WIP Boston by eff_reality. And I don't just say that because I suggested the name. It's Billy the film history graduate student, and Dom, the mostly-cheerful prostitute, but it plays with the conventions and there are missed connections and it avoids a lot of romantic clichés.

( omg bandfic? me? well, just these two AUs )

Also, I'm sorry that the feed msil_fanfic_rec (LJ) and msil_delicious (IJ) kinda went crazy, and started sending out tag links, alphabetically. It's del.icio.us, and I don't know how to keep it from happening again :-(

A full transcript of the online chat that Peter and Guillermo del Toro held to answer fan questions about the Hobbit movies. Links & interesting thoughts from ithiliana and sandelwood.

( summary in bullet points )

( Will the actors reprise their roles? (Short answer: yes!) )

Me: I read this as saying that the Elves could appear, but really very few of the Men and Hobbits would make it, even into the second film. They're just too young. The Hobbit events occur in 2940 of the Third Age, and LOTR in 3018. Aragorn, who was born in 2931, could show up. But Frodo wasn't born until 2968 and Boromir in 2978. Plus, the actors are all ten years older. I'm hoping that the ones whose characters aren't around will at least get to do minor roles. Ah well.

And Christopher Tolkien trying to terminate film rights to The Hobbit because New Line has been playing fast and loose with the accounting. Silly man. Royd Tolkien, OTOH, is a hottie.


ETA: matildabj points out that release dates are 2011 for the first one and 2012 for the second, and in fact there's a bit in the Q&A where some fan asks if they meant to use the 10-year-anniversary of LOTR, and Guillermo says, no but it's a clever idea.

TORN has it from Variety and also from stuff.co.nz (which has an interesting picture of Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson)

As I may have mentioned, I broke my left knee and then I slipped on the crutches and broke my left right heel. So I'm sitting a lot.

Fan happiness: Dom lunching with Liev Schreiber in Australia, yay for new co-stars!

Book that got me through the long day of tests: Beat Until Stiff - a really good murder mystery set in San Francisco, written by a friend of mine. The insights into the SF restaurant scene are fascinating and I even like the first-person narration, which usually bugs me.

( Other things that have been amusing me )

You, like I, may be wondering what on earth they mean by the Hobbit and sequel.

According to TORn's Hobbit slideshow at Dragon*Con (last slide):

• First film will be an adaptation of 'The Hobbit'
• Second film will be a 'bridge' film to 'The Lord of the Rings'
• The White Council
• Expulsion of the Necromancer (Sauron)
• Introduction to 'Fellowship' cast
• Gollum backstory expanded
• Frodo and Shire events

Speculative discussion followed.

I'm somewhat dubious about this, as it would involve getting the older Fellowship actors back again, and if human, looking younger, or if non-human, looking unchanged. However, Ian McKellan, Viggo and Cate have all said they would want to participate, which is way cool. So I'm interested in seeing what Pete and Fran and Philippa come up with.

The two “Hobbit” films – “The Hobbit” and its sequel – are scheduled to be shot simultaneously, with pre-production beginning as soon as possible. Principal photography is tentatively set for a 2009 start, with the intention of “The Hobbit” release slated for 2010 and its sequel the following year, in 2011. Best of all, it's got both Peter and Fran's names as producers. YAY FRAN!

And there's an official blog.

ETA: I did some digging on the sequel issues and posted some TORn speculation