Just because a) I can’t resist posting a Lord of the Rings link that jbc missed and b) jbc has been distracted from his TT obsession by a well-dressed criminal — I now bring you a nice picture of Treebeard courtesy of elbakin.com, what appears to be a french-language fantasy news site. Surprisingly, I actually […]

from the this-isn’t-a-mine;-it’s-a…-actually,-I-don’t-know-what-this-is dept. Hard to know quite how to classify this one, but if you’re a fan of both Tolkien and wacky Web-based obsessions (and who isn’t?), it’s a must-see: The Library of Moria, where two self-described “youngish heterosexual women” present everything you ever wanted to know (and much, much more) about every possible […]

from the if-only-they’d-use-English dept. In the wake of the recent 6.8-magnitude earthquake in Taiwan, officials at a wildlife park are reporting that 1,000 crocodiles started making strange grunting noises and scrambling for higher ground about 20 minutes before the quake struck. As is typical in such cases, human observers failed to make the connection between […]

from the how-long-’till-December? dept. Recently the folks at TheOneRing.Net posted the first decent photo to come out showing Miranda Otto as Eowyn, from The Two Towers, the upcoming second installment of the Lord of the Rings movie. Not surprisingly, she looks perfect; just the right blend of beauty, sorrow, and vulnerability. Sigh.

from the is-that-a-ring-in-your-pocket,-or-are-you-happy-to-see-me? dept. I’ve been an obsessive Lord of the Rings fan for the last 25 years or so, and can’t gush enough about what Peter Jackson & Co. have done with the movie, but I still got a big kick out of Rod Hilton’s Lord of the Rings: The Abridged Script.

out-there-on-the-maroon: lotrfansaredorcs: Most composers spend just 10-12ish weeks working on a film’s music. John Williams spent around 14 weeks on each Star Wars movie, 40ish weeks total for the whole OT……but composing the LOTR trilogy’s soundtrack took four years The vocals you hear in the soundtrack are usually in one of Tolkien’s languages (esp. Elvish). […]

lady-beard: but where do the war boys come from? why aren’t there any war girls? when seed lady says ‘it could be a girl’ and dag shakes her head, it seems to signify maybe girls just don’t get made how do you selectively breed like that? where did the wives come from? — how did furiosa […]

isolatedextrovert: humansofnewyork: “I just want to die gracefully.” “Is there a lot of fear wrapped up in that desire?” “Of course there is. Facing the inevitable physical decline, not knowing what’s ahead. Hospital visits, chemotherapy, it’s all very scary. Fear is the oldest and strongest emotion, and it springs from the unknown. What was that […]

Diane Duane: Open Letter to David Cameron and the IOC: stephen-fry-me: Dear Prime Minister, M Rogge, Lord Coe and Members of the International Olympic Committee, I write in the earnest hope that all those with a love of sport and the Olympic spirit will consider the stain on the Five Rings that occurred when the […]

I’d be remiss if I let this one go without linking to it. Kevin Drum (A purgegate primer) doesn’t think much of Michael Kinsley’s (Been Bloggin’ So Long…Lordy, Lordy) comments on the US attorney firings and their aftermath. But say what you will about Kinsley, the guy can seriously turn a phrase: We’re all in […]

From Davids Medienkritik comes this collection of stereotypical depictions of Americans, as presented in Germany’s Stern magazine: USA: The Divided Land. My favorite image is this one: The caption translates as: “‘If you forget about the liberal crazies on the east and west coasts, we live in a really nice country.’ —Ronald Wilhelm, President of […]

Simply put, I want to spread the word that people should boycott the
movie “I, Robot” during its opening week in protest of 20th Century
Fox’s blatant abuse and misuse of Isaac Asimov’s classic book. I
don’t expect that anything I say will make a dent in the movie’s
bottom line, but maybe — just maybe — the studio will get the
message: don’t mislead your audience.

So, for the first time since March of 2003, and only the third time in his entire presidency, Bush is going to do a press conference in primetime. Well, except that if he follows the pattern he’s established with previous events, he will only call on a small group of reporters chosen for their willingness […]

from the 176-days-and-counting dept. ymatt made fun of me for not being first with the news that you can now download the teaser trailer for The Two Towers online, so here you go. It’s mostly the same footage that obsessed fanboys (*cough*) and fangirls saw already in the in-theater preview, though with additional explanatory voice-over […]