Let’s see, since that last post….
Decorated Christmas tree. Opened presents. Had traditional Christmas breakfast of bacon and bagels, to Jewish husband’s shock and horror.
Went back to Brooklyn. Tried sushi with banana (good), mango (double plus good) and peanut butter (not so much.) Saw Return of the King; had crush on Viggo Mortenson confirmed. Apart from that, it had both my favorite and least favorite parts of the three movies.
yh
Read two Patrick O’Brian novels. Great characters, especially Maturin, and I am now fully hooked, but cannot quite get out of the habit of skimming past the battle scenes and nautical terminology.
Went to the exhibit of the World Trade Center memorial designs downtown. I liked most of the designs somewhat better after looking at them closely. I found out later that day that the jury has tentatively narrowed the field to two finalists and one dark horse that still has an outside chance. “Passaged of Light: Memorial Cloud” is my husband’s favorite and my second choice. “Garden of Lights” was one of our least favorites, but the hokey description that accompanied the sketches and models may have soured us on the whole thing–which is not really the best grounds for judging. “Reflecting Absence”, the dark horse that needs to be redesigned to fit in with Libeskind’s master plan, is my favorite. The original design called for a building along West Street, an unpleasant highway type street, to shelter the memorial from the traffic. I think Arad has to take that out to remain under consideration, which is a shame. I guess the idea is that most of the memorial is sunk below street level so it will be protected already.
I had a fairly low key new year’s eve & day with family and friends. Was not too hungover after five whole drinks. This is kind of unusual; I’m a lightweight who brings shame upon my Irish ancestors.
Watched The Quiet American on DVD. I don’t know why I waited so long; it was just great.
Drove home. The roads from New York to Boston were clear, but the apartment next door’s garbage disposal has backed up into my bathtub again. And I have to locate incorporation dates for every freaking town in sixty counties by Monday. Ah well. It’s still good to be back. I’m going to end my hiatus from reading about politics tomorrow, so I’ll have more to say then.
All right, bacon with bagels, excellent, even if the husband doesn’t approve. Sushi with mango, fine. But… PEANUT BUTTER WITH SUSHI?????
What the hell were you thinking, Katherine? Do we need to do an intervention?
Also, you can’t just tease us with that whole “favorite and least favorite parts” line. You have to tell us what was what!
It was with eel sushi, so it’s sweet and you can see how it might work. And it was recommended by someone who usually has good taste. But it was a mistake.
Liked: almost everything up to the destruction of the ring, though some of it I found–what’s the word, terrifying. Some particular favorites: the fire beacons going from Gondor to Rohan, the arrival of Rohan at Pelennor fields, the scenes with Faramir and Denethor. And most of Aragorn’s scenes, and most of Eowyn’s. And also the relationship between both pairs of hobbits.
Disliked: For the first time I really objected to some of what was left out of the book. No, not the scouring of the shire–I see why that’s important to people but it’s so freaking long. What I missed most was the houses of healing. I don’t remember where it’s placed in the book, but if you move it after the final battle–which is believable enough–that’s a good transition from the “battles, death doom doom doom” to the happy ending. As it is, you get “and then Frodo woke up and everyone was there and they look like they’re about to have a pillow fight and Aragorn is king and everyone’s alive and getting married! yay!” Which is all in the book of course, but doesn’t quite work in the movie.
Also, it’s called “Return of the King” and that’s the chapter where the King returns, and it fits the character a bit better than sweeping through Gondor with a creepy Ghost army.
They also should’ve followed up with the palantir–to help show how they actually fooled Sauron. And I like the scene with the Voice of Sauron presenting Frodo and Sam’s weapons and armor before the gate opens. But there is a serious length problem so those are more understandable.
Oh, and the five fake endings were bizarre. But kvetching aside they’ve done a really great job–in a way these are much better as movies than LOTR is as a book. (That’s probably as blasphemous as peanut butter sushi, but what are you gonna do.)
You’ll be happy to know that most of the stuff you missed should be in the extended edition. You can tell that they shot the Mouth of Sauron scenese, because when they’re at the gates of Mordor Aragorn’s on horseback, but when he charges the orcs he’s on foot.
I thought the movie was excellent, but that Peter Jackson should never be allowed to film anything in slow motion ever again.
Welcome back!
Saw Return of the King; had crush on Viggo Mortenson confirmed.
Ugh.
Sorry. I loved The Return of the King, but the experience was nearly ruined for me by three 13-14 year old* girls who giggled “I love you Viggo!” every freakin’ time Aragorn appeared on the screen. What is it about that guy?
Which is all in the book of course, but doesn’t quite work in the movie.
Yeah, and I can’t believe they cut the scene where Frodo loses his virginity to Sam. It really added another dimension to the characters’ relationship.
von
*Twelve-to-fourteen: The worst period of life, for both the person living it and those around him/her.
“What is it about that guy?”
Heh. In my circle of friends the girls (straight and gay) all swoon over Orlando Bloom.
I can promise you I didn’t yell anything at the screen. I was kind of annoyed by the people applauding at key moments, and afraid they were going to try to start the wave. I also didn’t understand the parents who brought a one year old who sobbed through about half the movie.
Orlando Bloom is too pretty for my tastes, especially with the flowing blonde hair.
You mean the flowing blond wig? (What do you think of him in Pirates of the Caribbean?)
Yeah, I knew it was a wig (and colored contact lenses, I think). I definitely prefer the “Pirates of the Caribbean” look, but still not really my cup of tea. (Nor is Johnny Depp–the one who just about everyone else in my office was obsessed with. I like him as an actor though.)
And how, in my original post or first comment, did I forget to kvetch about Liv Tyler? I liked her well enough in the first movie, but much less so in the next two.
“I like him as an actor though.”
I will forgive Depp much for that performance; it was… well, it should never have worked. But it did. I cannot conceive seeing anybody else in that role: I do not want to conceive seeing anybody else in that role.
“Read two Patrick O’Brian novels. Great characters, especially Maturin, and I am now fully hooked, but cannot quite get out of the habit of skimming past the battle scenes and nautical terminology.”
Oh yeah: don’t worry about the skimming: you’ll go back and pick up on it later. Probably the second or third time you read the series. 🙂
I have have had about eight thousand Sarah Gellar and Gillian Anderson and Juliana Margulies moments in front of a screen, so the idea that I’d cough for a second at Viggo or Orlando moments would be hypocritical, and, bssides, hetero as I am, those guys are pretty.
Otherwise, sushi good, and Maturin… oh, man, none of you said it, but the sushi he might come up with is not what one wants to face.
Going back to tea, Earl Grey, hot, now.
“…Liked: almost everything up to the destruction of the ring, though some of it I found–what’s the word, terrifying.”
If many folk didn’t find the whole thing terrifying, the enterprise failed.
in a way these are much better as movies than LOTR is as a book
I think I blacked out for a few minutes. How long have I been sitting here with mouth agape? I mean this affectionately, Katherine, but you’d have better luck convincing me to eat peanut butter sushi.
A young cousin of mine, wonderful kid but not the most literate or introspective type (I know, I know, lucky bastard), told me that watching the films made him want to read the books. But he decided not to read the Hobbit because “hey, we already know what happens, right?” For me it was one of those moments like in The Ring where their nose starts bleeding after the girl makes a manifestation.
I haven’t posted much on LOTR films because I suspect most people might find my position extreme – viz. that Peter Jackson has perpetrated an abomination upon one of the 20th century’s best adventure tales, and it would be better all considered had his project died a quiet studio death in New Zealand. Whew! Now I feel better.
It’s not that the films don’t have great moments, chiefest being the Alan Lee inspired set design and art direction, which together with the NZ location shots make the best looking Middle Earth anybody’s ever seen. And it’s not that Jackson’s adaptation is only bad when it changes the books. Tolkien’s books are flawed (hey, I can see that, I’m not a fanatic you know!), and some of Jackson’s choices are brilliant improvements. I’d highlight the choice to bring forward Arwen and use her character to compress the plot. Tolkien’s fantasy world always seemed to have trouble squeezing in active female characters.
But the mistakes Jackson made are so bad that the films are so irredeemably flawed that for a die hard like me they can be nothing but heartbreak. Which means I’ll wind up only watching them half a dozen times each, rather than the every six months for the rest of my life as I would have if the films had lived up to my modest expectations.
Sins of omission are of course the greatest. Any adaptation that even considers skipping The Hobbit has doomed itself from the beginning. Any sane person knows the LOTR is actually a quadrillogy, not a trilogy. Not to mention The Hobbit is much shorter, with a linear, film-friendly plot unlike the sprawling, episodic LOTR. Turn your special effects crew over to the dragon fight over Lake-town = happy FX crew. But entire chapters of LOTR should’ve never been cut, including some of my favorites & some of Tolkien’s most imaginative work.
The Shadow of the Past (replaced by Kate’s VO)
A Conspiracy Unmasked
The Old Forest
In the House of Tom Bombadil (Fog on the Barrow Downs could be a short codicil to this episode)
The Houses of Healing
The Scouring of the Shire
I might be able to live with cutting the Bombadil chapters but the others are crucial. I would’ve cut the Grey Havens in favor of the Scouring of the Shire in a heartbeat, saving the audience 20 minutes of hugging and kissing goodbye in favor of one of Tolkien’s real moral subtleties – the characters come home from the Great War of their time only to find that the government of their own country has been taken over by the same SOBs they were fighting against. Grey Havens is an eventless chapter – show scenes from it while rolling credits.
But the movies could still have been great if what didn’t get omitted had been consistently good. Unfortunately the flaws in what got left in are too great to spare Jackson from the stake. Characters were ruined (Theoden’s nambypambying in the Hornburg, long *after* Gandalf supposedly rejuvenated his fighting spirit with the power of Narya, being the ruination of the 2nd film), the Nazgul aren’t scary (how hard can it be for SFX people to come up with something that sounds like “A long-drawn wail came down the wind, like the cry of some evil and lonely creature. It rose and fell, and ended on a high piercing note. Even as they sat and stood, as if suddenly frozen, it was answered by another cry, fainter and further off, but no less chilling to the blood” instead of that mewling rusty nail sound the wraiths make?), the silly “wizard battles” (Harry Potterizing Tolkien’s concept of magic), etc. etc.
These are just the great flaws, don’t get me started about the little irritating mistakes. What? You don’t plan to get me started? In fact you’re nodding and smiling in hopes that the ranting geek will go away quietly?
Sigh. The terrible thing is now we’ll have to wait a generation before somebody’ll get a studio to back another adaptation, and that one will probably be hopelessly flawed as well. What I need is a bowl of mead.
shoot. This time I even used Preview. I give up.
Did that do it? I think preview actually takes away your html tags.
Ok, I just figured out how to delete one duplicate and edit the other. Bow before my moderating powers.
As for the rest, the wraiths sure worked on me. Shudder, shudder.
Tom Bombadil had to go. Had to. And whole chapters had to be cut to make the length even close to reasonable.
I don’t disagree with some of your other points, but there is something to be said for bringing something to life on the screen–I’m not someone who can visualize what I read. So many of the characters and scenes were just dead-on-perfect–and these are appallingly hard books to film. The mistakes are more forgivable to me than, say, the book’s failures of character development and its long slow patches. (Also, there are many more great/good books than great/good movies, so in some ways it’s not a fair comparison.)
Tom Bombadil had to go. Had to. And whole chapters had to be cut to make the length even close to reasonable.
I agree. I’m a huge Bombadil fan, but cuts had to be made somewhere.
Heh. In my circle of friends the girls (straight and gay) all swoon over Orlando Bloom.
Yeah, I understand the swooning over Orlando bit. The swooning over Viggo bit, however, I still don’t understand.
I have have had about eight thousand Sarah Gellar and Gillian Anderson and Juliana Margulies moments in front of a screen,
For the record, I’m more of a Willow (lesbian-nerdiness can be sexy) and Faith (danger-sluttiness can be sexy) man, myself.
Thanks for fixing me up, Katherine. Tags much better now. I’m gonna stick with quotation marks.
You say “whole chapters had to be cut to make the length even close to reasonable,” and then you say and complain, with some justice, about the books’ “long slow patches.” You mean, you didn’t notice long slow patches in the films? Course we’re talking film narrative time here, but you can fast forward through the slow motion scenes and cut two hours easy. You see?? You see?!?
[there’s a brief embarrassing scene where lab coated attendants grab Jordan and force some meds down his throat. After a few moments glassy-eyed calm reigns supreme.]
Ok, I can be reasonable. The films are a great achievement, there’s no denying it. Bombadil is key to Tolkien’s rambling raconteur nonlinear style (hint: Bombadil and Farmer Maggot are artifacts from Tolkien’s earliest Middle Earth stories written for his kids, Father Christmas Letters, etc.), which is why those chapters’re great for the books but antithetical to film narrative. Do you think if I could kidnap the entire cast & crew and hold a gun to Jackson’s head they could go back and shoot the missing scenes, fix the bolloxed scenes, etc.? No, that’s unreasonable thinking again.
Aw heck. I’m gonna go see The Passion. Filmmakers could never screw up *that* story.