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.)

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*

dashery rocks! I so needed something cheerful this week :-)

( Boom De Ya Da (I Love the Whole World) - LOTR )

( Dom & Billy - I Got U )

PS - Viggo was much more coherent on the BBC on Monday morning, and that night's cinema panel on Good than he was at the Sunday night awards show. Which is a good thing, cos wow.

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

That quote is from Miranda Otto's Love Serenade, which is neither a comedy nor a romance, it's more of an oddly dark slice of life in small-town Australia. The three lead characters are all deeply flawed, which makes the story that much more interesting.

There was one spot where I could just tell that the director was a woman: during intercourse, Miranda's character got bored. I've never seen a sympathetic woman portrayed that way, just prostitutes and comically awful wives, checking their nails. She looked just the way I felt, wayyy back when I had selfish boyfriends.

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.

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 Peter says, no but it's a clever idea.

ETA: caras_galadhon points out that the last bit is from Pete, not Guillermo, fixed.

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 )

ETA: Happy Birthday beizy!!!

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. 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 thing and posted some TORn speculations

telesilla was right, The State Within is really excellent, and Jason Isaacs is fabulous, also there's mankissing :-)

Laurie King's new novel, "The Art of Detection," is more a paean to San Francisco and its gay lifestyle (1920s and now) than much of a mystery. Plus: story within story and lots of Sherlock Holmes aspects. It's not bad exactly, it's just a little smug.

(My link up there is to worldcat.org, which points you at public libraries instead of amazon. yay libraries)

Billy's doing a lead voice for the Dominator X animation (just FYI, his voice is not in the trailer that I could hear). And MGM is going to distribute Billy's Flying Scotsman film in the US.

Heros - new cast member ( possible spoiler: )

I'm rooting for New Line to screw up The Hobbit negotiations and the rights to revert to Saul Zaentz. That's because Zaentz's Fantasy Records is based in Berkeley, a mile down the street from me and across from a favorite lunch place... When I worked in that area, I'd see lots of musicians, but didn't recognize them because I'm pathetic at pop culture. *hopes for Pete and Fran and Philippa sightings*

(ETA: cellphones are supposed to be exempt from auto-dialers, which most of the telemarketers use. Still, might as well opt out whenever possible!) via almaviva: [In about a week], all (american) cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sales calls for which you'll be charged. WTF. Anyway, the FCC's do not call registry number is 888-382-1222 or you can register at www.donotcall.gov.

When the Firefly fans convention was cancelled underneath them, they had an unconvention anyway. Many of the actors, including Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk, showed up for autographs and pictures, and apparently there was a party held in a secret location. That's a Big Damn Hero Fandom! (Fan report from our own maitheas here; others here and here, pictures here and a really good article here)

And nawwwww, I'm in dorrie6's love meme (now closed to comments cos of the LJ limits). I assumed I wasn't there and it's nice to be wrong.

... with my six-year-old. She gets scared sometimes, and has a million questions, and is loving it. Reminds me how much I love the movies, how well they express the imaginary world in my head. I notice new things every time, like Merry waking up in Fangorn, Gandalf's grey Lorien cloak, Saruman telling Wormtongue that he smells of horse, and Aragorn setting Brego loose because he's seen too much of war (yes, we are watching the extended version, is there any other?).

This year at ORC, I bought a wrap made from the same woven wool as the Lorien cloaks -- it has a gorgeous curving moire pattern that I simply can't see on my TV. I didn't notice it in the theatres either. A case where the New Zealand quality was so subtle that it fuzzed out on film :-(

Was talking to Mr. M. about Tolkien and backstory and my annoyance with Feanor for making outrageous oaths. You'd think someone that long-lived would be more careful about oaths, but t'husband pointed out that in most mythologies, gods tended to do stupid stuff like that. We decided that Feanor was the George W. Bush of Elves :-/

It's a very nice kids movie, Mumbles/Elijah is swell, and Robin Williams does fabulous comic relief. Really good music and dancing.

Fear factor: a bit scary for the the six-year-old who was scared by Peter Pan (the one with Jason Isaacs, yum). I had her and her friend in my lap for the last quarter of the movie.

( Several ways in which it was like LOTR )

( Spoilers, my issues about the end )

Anyway, very sweet.

Was bored, was friendsfriending, found a link from textualdeviance to a Fark photoshop Friday:

What if all movies had titles like Snakes on a Plane?

It's got some excellent ones like "Big-Assed Boat Hits an Iceberg", "Endless Waves of Bad Guys and 5 seconds of Milla's ass", and "The Girl Dies" (Love Story). Go for a giggle!

darkrosetiger said it better than I could:

...given a choice between throwing their weight behind "Racism is bad" and "Gay love is special and tragic", or "Conservative intimidation of the media is bad", "Violence begets violence in the Middle East" and a biopic of Truman Capote, TPTB are going to go with the safest option...

It's the Oscars -- they get it wrong all the time.

*hugs to people who need 'em*

matildabj gave me the British "Casanova" for my birthday and I hacked my new DVD player so we could watch it -- fantastic! David is perfect: high energy when appropriate, snarky, desperate, charming, sexy as hell and incredibly sweet. (A little embarrassing to watch with the teenboy but it makes me a cool mom so I'll live with it.)

This icon is from the Christmas Invasion episode of Dr. Who, where he's collapsed on the ground and trying not to laugh. *loffs*

Off to LA and ORC in the morning, we're driving which we expect will take very slightly longer than flying...

Yay, first actual movie in a few months. Everything Is Illuminated. I liked it.

( reactions, non-spoilery, I think )

I recommended it to my mom, my kid's kindergarten teacher (who didn't like Constantine cos of the script) and a random neighbor I met when voting who happened to have the same (Jewish) last name as me.

I'm a Mac user from waaaaaayyyyy back, and am typing this on my fabulous g4 ibook. So it tickled me to read an article describing Peter Jackson used Macs and iPods when finishing TTT and ROTK. Heh.

But I've messed up and added icons without remembering where they came from, and properly attributing. I feel dorky as hell. I made a few of my lovely new icons but several of them I got from people like nixxie_(iconorama) and skint. If you recognize them (newer ones at the bottom), please tell me -- so I can thank the creators.

I stuck it in my non-slash journal so I can point other people to it.

A Patrick O'Brian Fan's Review of Master and Commander

( Stories that tickled me lately: )
( And a movie, Lost in Translation> (very minor spoilers) )
Now, if only I could sleep more hours in the night, I'd be a happy camper.

In the SFX Magazine September issue, an interview with Bruckheimer, the director Verbinski, and Johnny Depp (found via ios_pillow_book and OBM).

The best bit of the interview, Jack the free spirit and Orlando the dork!

“The truth is,” says Verbinski, “the movie can support his performance, because Orlando Bloom is doing the Errol Flynn thing. Johnny isn’t burdened with the leading man love story. He gets to meander through this movie and affect the lives of everyone around him, and what’s great about his character is that at any moment you can stop and say, ‘What does the character want?’ He just wants his ship back. And as absurd as that performance is, whenever the Black Pearl is an issue, he plays it pretty straight. That’s what lets you ride on the razor’s edge. The character is not winking at this movie. The film is not winking at itself.”

As heroic blacksmith Will Turner, Lord of the Rings lust-elf Orlando Bloom acts as straight man to Depp’s fabulous freakishness. “I kept having to remind Orland that he wasn’t cool yet,” laughs Verbinski. “His character hadn’t completed his arc yet; he hadn’t found out who his father was. So I had to say to him, ‘Listen, you’re still a dork!’ And he’d go ….” Verbinski gives a priceless impression of a fiercely focused Bloom – “ ‘Oh yeah, yeah, yeah! Right! I’m still a dork! Got it!’ But then Johnny’s around and he wants to be cool like Johnny! That’s actually part of Will’s story, becoming a pirate, but for most of this movie he’s not a pirate, he’s a blacksmith. So I really wanted him to be rigid, to really contrast with Johnny when the two of them are together.”

Billy's movie, "Master and Commander" is coming out and rynalwyn has delicious Billy pictures. He looks a bit more rough and tough than as Pippin. Is good because the Barrett Bonden of the books is a big manly kind of guy!

Someone at bboyd posted a link to the movie trailer.

And AICN has an anonymous rave report from someone who saw an early sneak preview.

( book series vs.movie )

Conclusion: this movie is more like fanfiction than an adaptation of a book. They took the characters and some of the situations and created a new story. Beyond merely juicing up the action, they seem to be altering the entire dynamic of the characters and many of the most important parts of the stories. And that bugs me.

Took off with Lisa for an afternoon movie, quite enjoyed Pirates. It's not my period, but all the costumes and sets and ships looked reasonably accurate. And Orlando was sweet and Johnny Depp in eyeliner was just as sexy as I'd hoped. Am happy camper. Will take my son and try not to sigh to obviously.

rec: andrealyn just wrote ABC,123 (NC-17), a fabulous sexy Billy/Dom/Orlando threesome that subtly cycles among points of view, using letters of the alphabet to start paragraphs. (And I just got the 123 joke.)

rec: berreh has a funny Billy/Dom trilogy starting with Billy loopy from painkillers: Out of My Head, then Four To Six Hours Later, and ...And Call Me in the Morning (last one rated R-ish) Lovely angsty-schmoopy Dom with a smartass interior monologue and a longing for love. It may have started with a joke as crack!fic, but it certainly ended in a very satisfying way, hot and sweet together.

For shaenie and other fans of The Billeh, a larger-than-life picture, still crisp and clear, at patsie999's journal

From my favorite columnist of all time, and a friend from The Well, the inimitable Jon Carroll:

... All of which is but mere prelude to The Box Office Oracle, a site that lets you create your own movie and instantly see how it did at the box office, its critical response and its Oscar chances. Be a studio executive in the privacy of your own home! Tinker with the fate of movie stars! Lions and tigers and bears!
( more from Jon on this topic )

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( and the exceedingly funny 'homosexual agenda' revealed )

And to bed for me too, before midnight, amazing. I hope I won't wake up at 5:30 am again.