From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V11 #437 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Tuesday, December 31 2002 Volume 11 : Number 437 Today's Subjects: ----------------- wrangley rangel [gSs ] ;-) ["Maurer Rose, Inverse Nome" ] Re: The Two Towers [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Happy New Year! ["Maximilian Lang" ] Names, Birthdays ["Rex.Broome" ] Lemon Quadratinis [Jeff Dwarf ] Lemon Quadratinis [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: the two towers ["Michael E. Kupietz, wearing a pointy hat" ] Re: The Two Towers [Eb ] Re: Names, Birthdays [Mike Swedene ] LOTRland ["Maurer Rose, Inverse Nome" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 09:57:35 -0500 (CDT) From: gSs Subject: wrangley rangel WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Democratic lawmaker said Sunday he will introduce a bill in the next session of Congress to make military service mandatory. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-New York, said such legislation could make members of Congress more reluctant to authorize military action. "I'm going to introduce legislation to have universal military service to let everyone have an opportunity to defend the free world against the threats coming to us," Rangel said on CNN's "Late Edition." http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/12/29/mandatory.military/index.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 16:15:03 +0000 From: "Maurer Rose, Inverse Nome" Subject: ;-) Hmmmm There are about a thousand threads I want to contribute to but first ... I have a confession to make on this the very last day of the old year-- I am not really Kay Lord Newburger Wisniewski(come on --you have -got- to have realized that that was a made-up name,) flakey but practical, foolish but observent, moody, beneign but inwardly sinister 49 year-old mother, wife, librarian, high geek and Hitchcock fanwoman. Yes, I know some of you have met her. Yes, I know she pisses Robyn off by shouting rejoinders to his monologues(and even worse, to his songs) at inauspicious moments(and I heartily apologize for this. Its the two-bit actress's fault. She's impulsive and, being a method actress, thinks such innapropriate behavior produces the right authentic touch. I think it stinks but she was cheap and the only working actress I could find with a really really big nose, which obviously, is why I could afford her.) So Kay is my creation and I hope you enjoy her. I was partially influenced by Tracy Ullman's K K Kay character and partially by the Sir Kay and earlier Celtic Kai character(quite different they are too) in Arthurian lit. I think creating web characters is a new form of cultural exploration. May well replace the novel-form Kay thinks is so much more important. Well--Happy New Years to all Fegs. Harry Wart, who really is dyslexic however you roll the dice. The body is at its best between the ages of thirty and thirty-five: the mind at its best about the age of forty-nine. Aristotle _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 3 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail&xAPID=42&PS=47575&PI=7324&DI=7474&SU= http://www.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/getmsg&HL=1216hotmailtaglines_smartspamprotection_3mf ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 10:41:28 -0600 From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: The Two Towers Quoting The Great Quail : > First of all, I think Jackson *had* to make some changes. As a few Fegs > have > pointed out, the books are not always cinematically friendly, and by > the > time "The Return of the King" rolls around, Tolkien's writing style > has > undergone a radical shift, moving from an avuncular but elaborate > storytelling mode to an impersonal, deliberately antiquated "epic" > mode. In > fact, Jackson had *better* change the "style" of presentation for the > last > movie, as Tolkien's heroic mode won't serve very well with cinematic > characters. > > Which is the main point, to me, where Jackson succeeds brilliantly: he > makes > the characters come alive I was waiting to, uh, actually *see* the movie to comment (we're saving it to view w/some Tolkien-fanatic friends we're visiting in California next week), but Q's post definitely makes some of the points specifically I was going to make generally. I think, for instance, it's perfectly reasonable for a person who didn't like the books to check out the movie - because some of the reasons he didn't like the book are unlikely to be a factor in the movie (such as Tolkien's literary style), and perhaps despite disliking some aspects of the book, enough might have been intriguing to make the movie worth checking out. I'm fortunate, I think, in that while I've read LOTR several times, it's been so long since I have that my memory is very vague: I lack the precision recall afflicting so many of you (!), and therefore I'm just not going to remember exactly what happened in the books vs. what happens in the film. One more comment: it seems to me that Frodo isn't the center of the movie in the way, say, James Bond is the center of those movies. Frodo does have agency - but the key is that the powers working around him are so much vaster, it's more a question of making right decisions than manfully grappling and steering the turn of events. I also think Tolkien *wanted* to emphasize both the uncontrollability of the larger world *and* the still-remaining importance of right decisions within that world. I hate it when people go all Christian-parable on Tolkien, but there's something there...although maybe in this case more like Kurt Vonnegut's revision, which (if I recall) has Jesus as just some preaching shmoe who gets caught...and *then*, God shows up and says something to the effect that even though he's just some shmoe, he's as valuable as God's own son would be. Vonnegut's criticism, I think, was that the Christian story is misinterpretable as "don't fuck with people who have connections." Frodo is just a little guy, not a superhero. Anyway, I really enjoyed Quail's post. ..Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html :: we make everything you need, and you need everything we make ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 12:08:45 -0500 From: "Maximilian Lang" Subject: Happy New Year! Hi, Kathy and I are going to leave for Hoboken in a little while to see Luna at Maxwell's tonight(thanks Ken!). I hope everyone has a great new year and look forward to lots more of the lighthearted fun I have come to expect from the Fegs. Max _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 3 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail&xAPID=42&PS=47575&PI=7324&DI=7474&SU= http://www.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/getmsg&HL=1216hotmailtaglines_smartspamprotection_3mf ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 09:30:13 -0800 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Names, Birthdays Jill: >>Let me recommend the celebration of half birthdays as Ridley gets older. It's a >>bit of a clobbering to get all the hoopla and presents at once, and then to have >>nothing for the rest of the year. Cool... still working on that. One thing in our favor is that Ridley's older sister practically shares a birthday with me (off by two days) so that combined celebrations are gonna be a common thing for us anyway. Jeff: I think that Patti Smith was actually born on Dec. 30. I found the one reference to the 20th but everyone else lists the 30th. But you've had the birthday for longer, so maybe you've researched it a little better. Would be cool. However, I'm pretty sure I share a birthday with Patti's dad. James: >>There is also a Jim, a Jimmy, a Jay, a Hamish, and a Seamas among my relations. Wow, you guys really cover all the bases. "Jasper" was in the running for boy names this time around, which kinda counts... but it is not to be. No more kids for us. Nosirree. Kay: > Let me once again throw into the name game that in the Northeastern US > upper-middle and upper classes, using family names as middle(required, > usually mom's maiden name) and first(encouraged but not manditory)names > is a class marker. It's moving out and being used by the great unwashed these days-- maybe because it "sounds" high-class? In addition to our own Ridley, among the younger set I know several Parkers, innumberable Conners, a Cooper or two, a Porter and at least three Reeses (at least one whom is definitely a mother's-maiden -name issue; most of the others aren't). Old Testament is also big these days-- our friends just had a "Caleb". Here's the Top 10 US Kids' Names from 3001 (Miranda's birth year)... for some reason I find this stuff fascinating. Indeed I do know a few young "Emmy"'s or "Emma"'s 1 Jacob / Emily 2 Michael /Madison 3 Matthew /Hannah 4 Joshua /Ashley 5 Christopher /Alexis 6 Nicholas /Samantha 7 Andrew /Sarah 8 Joseph /Abigail 9 Daniel /Elizabeth 10 William /Jessica Ross: >>then I realised that the charactor's name was Ripley & the director's name >>was Ridley, a connection that had never occured to this bear-of-little-brain. Odd, eh? Here in Hollywood, a lot of people seem to think she's named after Ridley Scott, but that would be really weird. I do talk to Ridley Scott's assistant probably once a month and it's starting to be weird when she tells me that "Ridley needs a tape" or something. - -Rex, tired ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 10:07:26 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Lemon Quadratinis TOP HOWEVER MANY I PUT ON BEFORE I STOPPED FOR 2002: 1. Luna -- Romantica/Close Cover Before Striking 2. David Bowie -- Heathen 3. The Soft Boys -- Nextdoorland/Side Three 4. Interpol -- Turn on the Bright Lights 5. Elvis Costello -- When I Was Cruel 6. Aimee Mann -- Lost in Space 7. Cracker -- Forever 8. Linda Thompson -- Fashionably Late 9. Solomon Burke -- Dont Give Up On Me 10. Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot 11. Tom Waits -- Alice 12. Camper Van Beethoven -- Tusk 13. Sigur Ros -- () 14. Sonic Youth -- Murray Street Best 2001 album I didn't get to last year: Lloyd Cole & The Negatives Overrated Album that was still fairly good: Beck -- Sea Change Most lamentably boring: Either Tanya Donelly (whose voice is so wispy, she needs tougher arrangements of her songs to keep from being lost into the ether, something she seems to have forgotten after breaking up Belly) or The Breeders (songs also TK apparently) At least he sucked trying to do something he hadn't done before: Bob Mould ===== "Propaganda is that branch of the art of lying which consists in very nearly deceiving your friends without quite deceiving your enemies." -- F.M. Cornford "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." -- Theodore Roosevelt . Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 10:08:25 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Lemon Quadratinis TOP HOWEVER MANY I PUT ON BEFORE I STOPPED FOR 2002: 1. Luna -- Romantica/Close Cover Before Striking 2. David Bowie -- Heathen 3. The Soft Boys -- Nextdoorland/Side Three 4. Interpol -- Turn on the Bright Lights 5. Elvis Costello -- When I Was Cruel 6. Aimee Mann -- Lost in Space 7. Cracker -- Forever 8. Linda Thompson -- Fashionably Late 9. Solomon Burke -- Dont Give Up On Me 10. Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot 11. Tom Waits -- Alice 12. Camper Van Beethoven -- Tusk 13. Sigur Ros -- () 14. Sonic Youth -- Murray Street Best 2001 album I didn't get to last year: Lloyd Cole & The Negatives Overrated Album that was still fairly good: Beck -- Sea Change Most lamentably boring: Either Tanya Donelly (whose voice is so wispy, she needs tougher arrangements of her songs to keep from being lost into the ether, something she seems to have forgotten after breaking up Belly) or The Breeders (songs also TK apparently) At least he sucked trying to do something he hadn't done before: Bob Mould ===== "Propaganda is that branch of the art of lying which consists in very nearly deceiving your friends without quite deceiving your enemies." -- F.M. Cornford "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." -- Theodore Roosevelt . Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 10:10:10 -0800 From: "Michael E. Kupietz, wearing a pointy hat" Subject: Re: the two towers At 5:27 PM -0500 12/30/02, those funny voices I hear when no one else is around called themselves "Steve Talkowski" and whispered: > From an FX standpoint, I'm often jaded since I've been doing this type >of work for 15 years now. However, Gollum was an order of magnitude >better than ILM's Yoda (of course, ILM will have their chance for >rebuttal when "The HULK" hits screens next summer) and I totally bought >into the performance - especially so when Gollum/Smeagol is >experiencing his inner turmoil. Ooh, my inner 12 year old is jumping up and down. I grew up wanting to be a special effects guy. John Dykstra and Ray Harryhausen were childhood idols. Gollum certainly was a remarkable piece of work. But for my money, CG characters aren't quite there yet. (I don't know anything about it technically, just avidly interested as a viewer.) I remember watching a documentary in 1987 showing the "state of the art" in computer animation - a cartoonish piano player that had *actual facial expressions!* - it's amazing to think of that and look at the face they put on Gollum. But overall, something's not right. My personal theory is it's something textural, something about light on skin that they haven't got down yet. To my eyes, it's that real skin is somewhat translucent, and has depth, and it looks like they model it as a solid surface for CG characters. You see Gollum, Luke and Threepio^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^hFrodo and Sam next to each other in a scene, and it just doesn't look like the light falls on Gollum the same way it falls on the others.To my eyes, even if they pull off amazingly lifelike facial features, if the overall look is fake enough to be noticeable, it's not an improvement to me over anything Harryhausen ever did, it's just flashiness. Any thoughts? I'd be interested to know what a pro thinks. My all-time favorite movie from a CG character standpoint is Men In Black. The aliens in that were unbelievable, the only time CG characters have looked completely real to me. Don't know why that movie seemed to do it so much better than any other. At 5:36 PM -0600 12/30/02, those funny voices I hear when no one else is around called themselves "Miles Goosens" and whispered: >At 05:27 PM 12/30/2002 -0500, Steve Talkowski wrote: > >wasn't as > >disappointed as some of you hard-core Tolkien geeks about what was and > >what wasn't left in or out. The three hours passed quickly and I was > >totally prepared for the next three... > >I thought this might be the case for folks who haven't read the books. I'm gonna put in my $0.02 and second Steve's comments - I haven't read the books either, and enjoyed the second movie, although not so much the first. Fellowship didn't leave me wanting to see the second one when it came out, but Towers definitely made me want to see the third. I could've sat through another three hours of it easy. Interestingly, the one point where I thought it sort of dragged were the dull, sappy dream sequences w/ Liv Tyler, which I gather from later discussion weren't in the book. Other than that, though, as a moviegoing experience without benefit of expectations from having read it, I liked it a lot, pretty much from start to finish. I finally got to see the original version of Solaris last night. It's very wonderful, in that early '70s scifi sort of way. Very Russian, though, lots of slow pacing, lots of conversations and almost no action. And yet two and a half hours somehow still passed like 45 minutes. Now I'm really curious to see the remake, I just can't imagine what Hollywood would make out of it, and certainly can't see George Clooney as the retiring, slovenly "everyman" Kelvin. So I may be on the other side of a similar conversation to this shortly. Mike - -- ======== We need love, expression, and truth. We must not allow ourselves to believe that we can fill the round hole of our spirit with the square peg of objective rationale. - Paul Eppinger At non effugies meos iambos - Gaius Valerius Catallus ("...but you won't get away from my poems.") "Moderation in all things, except Wild Turkey." - Evel Knievel ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 10:59:25 -0800 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: More movie talk from a guy who doesn't go to movies any more Drew: >>It's too bad Astin's not a better Sam; his performance is almost >>totally without nuance, and I don't think we can totally blame >>Jackson there. Possibly I'm the only one (except for my wife), but I really like Astin as Sam. I like him being a little less of a "crybaby" (Blatzy has something there), and to me Astin does a good job making him a real "earthy" Hobbit. Look at the Sam in the Bakshi movie-- on the basis of that I was prepared to find Sam totally tiresome in these films. Instead he's great, a solid comic foil without being jokey and lame. Elijah Wood is okay; better this time around, pretty decent at that "ring-junkie-with-vacant-stare" thing; Sam & Gollum get the lion's share of the fun stuff, though. Blatzy McBlatzmanstein: >>I re-read them recently I was shocked to see how little there is for Sam and >>Frodo to do after the Fellowship splits. Cinematically, I can see why >>Jackson has re-structured the last two films... Moving Shelob to the 3rd film is a VERY wise move. Blatzman is right: most of the Sam & Frodo action in "Return" is very much going from point A to point B; fine literarily, but that kind of exposition can be moved around... Jackson has proven good at that, in my opinion. Michael W. >>However, rerouting Frodo out of Ithilien back towards Minas Tirith (at >>Faramir's orders!) is downright criminal. The only purpose I can see to this >>is to set up a close call at Osgiliath and to put on Faramir's change of >>mind in a more *dramatic* setting. This was the one that jarred me the most. I think it was meant to give Frodo one last big face-to-face encounter with the wringwraiths and their very cool dragon beasts. I agree that Faramir turns into a very different guy as a consequence-- Boromir Part II. But he has more stuff to do later, so maybe he'll straighten out. Quail: >>Oh, and having just seen the AMAZING extended version of >>"Fellowship," I felt somewhat like I was seeing a rough draft of the "final" >>cut, which is sure to have another half-hour of character development. I agree with that, and I wonder if any of the material that'll be added to the Two Towers DVD is *more* derived from the book. (It would be nice if they skipped the release of the early, unextended DVD this time... not everybody reads the trades and some people are mighty pissed with their "short" copies.) Bottom line for me after seeing the extended FOTR is that I just like spending time in this world, as envisioned this way; if it deviates from the source, it's kinda like, hey, what "historical" movies are 100% accurate? >>my Entourage spell-checker has suggested the correct spellings for both >>Smiagol and Thioden! 'Cept I think you had 'em right the first time, with e's... Interesting question: other than probably ending up doing "The Hobbit", what kinda stuff is Peter Jackson gonna do after this? Considering his previous output, you know. Hard to guess. ___________ On to other films: Miles: >>I love or at least like every movie I've seen from Eddie's "favourites" >>list (which I think is about 2/3 of them), with the exception of >>SCHINDLER'S LIST, but I'm not getting into that again. Me, too, mostly; the honorable mentions include some which I would rank even higher.. >>On the other hand, Eddie's "worst" list contains: (etc.) And I like a bunch of those, too. A lot of them are more "disappointments for what they were/who was involved" than truly abominable, but a lot of people take that more personally. There are worse Burton films than "Sleepy Hollow", many many way worse Spielberg films than "Jurassic Park", worse "thrillers with a twist" than "The Sixth Sense"; "Face/Off" is the best Woo Hollywood film by far (not a great achievement, but hardly worse than"Hard Target")...and while I'm not a Buffy fan at all, its inclusion here smacks of personal vendetta. What about "Dukes of Hazzard: The Complete Season Where They Replaced The Main Actors With Two Guys With The Same Colored Hair"? That was worse. Jeffrey FF: >>I mean, c'mon - who's ever actually *met* anyone who'd admit to being a >>rock critic? Some of us have. But probably just because it's harder to pretend to be a teenage girl in person. (Not that anyone around here is doing that!) - -Rex, a 63-year old black woman from Florida ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 14:18:38 -0500 From: Steve Talkowski Subject: Re: the two towers On Tuesday, December 31, 2002, at 01:10 PM, Michael E. Kupietz, wearing a pointy hat wrote: > But for my money, CG characters aren't quite there yet. (I don't know > anything about it > technically, just avidly interested as a viewer.) Hmmm... it's definitely come a long way. I still remember the excitement of T2, and then the dinosaurs in the first Jurassic Park as being "milestones" in computer animation. Our work (while I was at Blue Sky) on the CG cockroaches for "Joe's Apartment" and the alien creature in "Alien Resurrection" is often considered some of the more successful attempts at integrating CG with live action plates. A large part of the success had to do with the proprietary rendering software that was developed by two of the co-founders. > I remember watching a documentary in 1987 showing the "state of the > art" in computer animation - > a cartoonish piano player that had *actual facial expressions!* heh, that's Tony De Peltrie, whose creator went on to form the 3d "killer app of it's time", Softimage. (Mainly due to it's inclusion of the first workable IK (inverse kinematics) solution, thus empowering us animators not to have to reverse animate leg hierarchies with forward kinematics). > But overall, something's not right. My personal theory is it's > something > textural, something about light on skin that they haven't got down > yet. To > my eyes, it's that real skin is somewhat translucent, and has depth, > and it > looks like they model it as a solid surface for CG characters. Translucency in CG skin has already been solved. The integration task falls on the TD lighting the scene, then the FX supervisor who signs off on the shot, and ultimately, the director who either "buys it" or sends it back for re-render. > To my eyes, even if they pull off amazingly lifelike facial features, > if the overall look is fake enough to be > noticeable, it's not an improvement to me over anything Harryhausen > ever did, it's just flashiness. Harryhausen was a master at stop-motion, which has it's own inherent flaws (especially when trying to integrate into live action). That's why folks like Phil Tippett were pushing the envelope and developing "go-motion" in the hopes of achieving motion blur within a single frame of film. > Any thoughts? I'd be interested to know what a pro thinks. I can talk about this stuff all day, are you kidding? ; ) This has all been hashed and rehashed over the years on a 3d Pro mailing list I'm subbed to. It essentially boils down to how well the rendering software used (and which algorithms they employ) can simulate natural laws of light and physics. It's also at the whim and call of the director (i've seen many shots where i cringe and think to myself "they let THAT get through to final render? eeesh!") > My all-time favorite movie from a CG character standpoint is Men In > Black. > The aliens in that were unbelievable, the only time CG characters have > looked completely real to me. Don't know why that movie seemed to do > it so > much better than any other. Once again, ILM. It depends on whether they have their "A" team or "B" team on it. For those who really want to delve into how this stuff is done I highly recommend picking up any issue of Cinefex. The current issue features LOTR TTT. Have a safe and Happy New Years everyone! - -Steve ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 12:26:13 -0800 From: Eb Subject: Re: The Two Towers >Quail: >Well, I loved it. Who would have predicted this??? >...by the time The Return of the King rolls around, Tolkien's writing style >has undergone a radical shift, moving from an avuncular but elaborate >storytelling mode to an impersonal, deliberately antiquated 'epic' mode. Huh...interesting observation. I don't recall the books well enough to know, either way. I haven't been to a theater movie since the *last* LOTR film...I guess I'll probably go see this one too. It's that "culturally mandated" thing again, and besides, I'm sure the effects are much better on a big screen than a TV. But I do retain a casual "It's only an adventure film" perspective. Speaking of light entertainment, I'm startled to have recently discovered that the older brother of my closest female friend during high school/early college is now a *major* reality-show producer/creator whom everyone on Earth is courting. I did know he was in television, but jeez, I didn't know "The Bachelor" was HIS! And "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire," and the upcoming "High School Reunion," and.... Amazing. Eb ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 12:38:00 -0800 (PST) From: Mike Swedene Subject: Re: Names, Birthdays - --- "Rex.Broome" wrote: > Jill: > >>Let me recommend the celebration of half birthdays > as Ridley gets older. > It's a >>bit of a clobbering to get all the hoopla > and presents at once, and > then to have >>nothing for the rest of the year. > > Cool... still working on that. One thing in our > favor is that Ridley's > older sister practically shares a birthday with me > (off by two days) so that > combined celebrations are gonna be a common thing > for us anyway. > As a new years eve baby (now for 30 years... ouch!) Let me tell ya.... it really doesn't matter about half birthdays and all. My mom's birthday is Dec 26, and my Great Uncle (although not a personal fav of mine) is on Dec 25. My family is good about seperating the holidays and all. I am certain you will find the groove best for you. Happy new year to all! I am off to eat a great pork dinner prepared by a very close friend! Perhaps I can get them to listen to "Nextdoorland" at dinner.... or some Smiths. Who knows..... Love, kisses and best wishes in the new year to all! Herbie np -> "Santa Baby" Kylie Minogue Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 21:03:23 +0000 From: "Maurer Rose, Inverse Nome" Subject: LOTRland Sabrina, Now I get it. Ive never seen the original movie, thou Ive always meant to. I gather its delightful. Dumbie me for not picking up on it. At first I associated it with "Sabrina the Teenage Witch." - ----------------- Ross: >In light of your spooky fiction, it's neat you were born near >xmas -- isn't there something semi-satanic about being born on xmas day? >but >you side-stepped that? Unfortunetly I don't have the heart to play Anti-Christ. No, I was born on Holy Innocents Day. I unhappily share Bdays with Maggie Smith and Woodrow Wilson. Is there some database somewhere that will tell me obscure rock people to add to this hapless list? >But he would have to be on the side of good. Bowie >does small roles as an >assasin & whatnot, >but I can't see Robyn even cooperating w/ the bad guys. Nor can I. I love how he manages to have all the strange grooviness of evil while bypassing the actual evil itself. And that, I think, is a true art that may be at the heart of his art. He wiggles through cliches of good and evil to combine the best of , Lord help me, am I really going to say this, nope Im not, you're on your own from here. - -------------------- Drew: >I think Aragorn is handsome (more so than Viggo Mortensen) Thats both funny and true. >and this time around I thought Legolas was cuter (he's still a little too bland for me), True, but I honor my own teenybop crushes enough to feel that almost every major work should have one slightly girlish-looking boyo with hair to die for for young girls to glom onto. If popular culture has created its own traditions(and it has) then that of young-girl-magnet cutie-pie is one of the better ones, and Legalas fills it well. I still covet his costume and weapons. - ---------------- On LOTR Miles: >And I think for what it's worth, that "you hard-core Tolkien geeks" cuts a >pretty broad swath. Me, I've read >the books and like them, but it's >hardly like they dominated my life. I didn't feel the need to learn > >Elvish, finish THE SIMARILLION, or write music for the songs in the >books, and I've gone for good long >stretches of my life without thinking >about THE LORD OF THE RINGS at all. Miles, you sound like me. Ive only read the book once. Im not really good at remembering all the plot details(I never am for books, BTW) but I am good at remembering the mood, the atmosphere, the feeling. And I felt that the bleak,pessimistic,heroic, anglo/saxon poetry-like feel of the 2nd book was what was blunted. And for me it was that mood that I found most fascinating, inexplicable and compelling about that volume. It was also a mood that other current writers were not producing so it was also strange and very unusual. In short, the trilogy, for all its stylistic faults and they are legend and legion, touches on the sublime. Tolkein was able to produce bits that were objectively poor writing but were nevertheless able to instill a sense of the sublime, and it is that sense that draws people to LOTR, that will always draw people to LOTR. My quibble, which I so hope the 11-hour opus will put to rest, is that these hints of the sublime has been sacrificed in places for more easily obtainable goals. Lets face it --the sublime is mysterious by nature and very very hard to convert into an easily replicated formula. Its somewhat scary, not just to experience, but even more, to try and produce. And if you try for it and fail, you tend to fail utterally(Jackson had no choice but to try with the Ents. This is why I prefer to not even -remember- the Ents at all;-) I think there were spots where Jackson perhaps choose not to try, to go instead for the pretty, the pleasent, the scary, the ugly, the grand or the grandiose, all of which he achieves and all of which make for a good movie. Just not a great one. Im waiting for the movie to transcend itself as the book does. Im waiting for the sublime. So just call me Vladamir;-)but maybe it will happen in the 3rd one. - -------------- Blazeman: >I have minor thoughts about his artistic choices, but >he's sure delivered >a wonderfully entertaining piece of >cinema. Yes, but if thats -all- he wanted to do, he wouldn't have picked LOTR to film. I think he wants to do more and, well, see the above bit. And more mundanely Ive realized that when my quibble isn't with the plotting and writing, its with the ^$#@@ lighting. Get rid of those horrid inappropriate golden spots. This is -not- "The Godfather" for Christsakes. And last of all -- Frodo. All the actors are decent to excellent and Frodo isnt that bad. But I dont think Wood is quite up to the complexity of what could be here. The main action for Frodo isnt just the journeying. Its whats happening inside him. A good actor can radiate internality. With Frodo his face just looks blank(and too perfectly lit) to me, I dont feel the conflict roiling around inside him. Yes I know he faints and gasps and stuff, but ... I dont know what it is that could/should be there but isnt, but I know its something. Frodo in a way is the soul of the movie, Aragorn the heart. Together they move and both must put the parts into place for the ecuatastrope to occur. Aragorn is the easier role in some ways, he does alot, his virtues are obvious and heroic. Frodo is a tougher role, he feels, he suffers, he endures, he goes on and in the end he fails. In the end he fails but his mercy, his compassion saves him, that and that he never gave up. His is the passive task, its what he -dosn't- do that saves him. So what he dosnt do is as difficult and even more critical than Aragorn's heroics. It needs an actor who can make Frodo's struggle feel as important as all the fancy dancy action going on on stage left. Perhaps an impossible task. And overall as Drew says of the books- >I think there's a purity and dignity about them that's absent from a lot of more >recent swords-and-sorcery nonsense. Here here. - ---------------- I am such a high geek that I saw a picture of Nickole Kidman all done up to play Virginia Woolfe, she's even got a nose-prothesison on, her hair is un-fou-foued and her makeup appears minimal. And you know what--I thought she looked really beautiful, better than usual because she looked ... I dont know, more sublime maybe;-). So just how insane am I to think that? - ------------- ReX: >Possibly I'm the only one (except for my wife), but I >really like Astin as >Sam. Not the only one, I did too. Sam is a difficult figure. I mean the whole servent thing seems so odd and uncomfortable to us at this point in time. Yet he's essential. I think Astin gave a warm believable performance. There are alot of people who would never be able to get out sentences that begin "Mr. Frodo, ..." without making half the audience break out laughing. And Ithink his face is expressive without him being a ham. - ------------ Kay, warts and all The body is at its best between the ages of thirty and thirty-five: the mind at its best about the age of forty-nine. Aristotle _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V11 #437 ********************************