Hey folks, Harry here.... Before going to sleep... I have to purge all LORD OF THE RINGS stuff, so I can sleep... Or try to sleep... Damn 13th ain't getting here fast enough as time seems to have grown molasses style slinking abilities... Move dammit! Well, Nick over at Chud.Com saw the film and ya know... Over there at CHUD there have been some doubting Thomases and Carls... However, I know Nick was cautiously looking forward to the film... He said about the movie:
"This really is an epic, one that combines all the ingredients to create something rich and memorable that'll endure for generations as The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, and so many of Disney's films have.
Is it a kid's movie? Not by a long stretch. There's beheadings, monsters (three biggies in this film alone), lots of battle, and a lot of foreign tongues and story to follow... but it's captivating and engrossing and built to last. I have no doubts that this new trilogy will be loved by my children's children.
Or I'll disown the little snots."
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF HIS SUPER HIGH RECOMMENDATION! Meanwhile, AICN's own RAV went to a screening in Houston... Didn't take me. Didn't drive up and take me... Oh no... Just went on ahead and saw the movie... How fucking Selfish is that... Where is his since of teamwork... his spirit of love of his fellow geek? (note, I'd sell my sister's baby to see this thing now! Any Buyers?) Well here's RAV
Lord Of The Ring’s: The Fellowship of the Ring and a bit of my adventure.
A few weeks ago I got an email with the subject ""THE LORD OF THE RINGS: The Fellowship of the Ring" Press Screening Invitation" ever since then I have been eagerly awaiting December 6th, 2001. Now I have not read any of the LOTR books, but ever since i ventured down and viewed the infamous Canne’s Reel a few weeks back I have been feverishly anticipating FOTR. Well this morning started off somewhat odd, it all began when I booted up my labtop and joined chat this morning, told everyone i was about to see LOTR, then I was subsequently bombarded with fuck you! DIE! messages. Eventually it got to the point where someone in chat was praying that I dont make it to the screening, well I guessed this was my que to exit.
Well the film was playing on the other side of town in the wonderful edwards marquee, but that invovled going through houston traffic. Houston traffic is a synonym for the word Hell. For most of the drive I thought that God had answered that anonymous chatter’s prayer and I would have to fake a horrible injury and hijack a life-flight helicopter to make it to the screening. Eventually I got to the theatre, actually about twenty minutes early. Well the invitation did state:
but that failed to keep me from being shocked at the amount of security they had for this one press screening. They had around 4 secret-service like agents patrolling the theatre at all times, i guess some critic somewhere was operating a bootleg ring or something, heh. Although i must say the agents were very nice and courtious, in addition to them there was a print-escort who seemed to stay pretty far away from the print most of the time.
The film is three hours long, but as long as there was a frame of it onscreen everyone was in their seats. This thing had everyone hooked. It was a pretty fucking grand site I must say, not a person shifted in their seats they were locked and concentrated the entire time.
The film begins with an introduction to the entire "Ring" situation, well I kind of feel bad calling it just an "introduction." as it is one hell of a fucking experience. The battle sequence in the introduction is one hell of a pace-setter for the movie, when Sauron shows himself weilding the ring in battle, you will be soooooo hooked on this thing. The crack will have been snorted, you are addicted, there is no going back now you have to see this thing again and again and again. Then as the intro begins to come to a close, with Gollum’s errie-as-hell "My Precious," its an image that will be stuck in your head for many-a-day to come. Then suddenly you are in the shire and "The Fellowship of The Ring" appears on the scree, holy shit, the film has only just started. It’s pretty damn nifty actually to watch the film come from such a rocketing intro, to the serene hobbit world, with the nice hoppity hobbit-ville theme. Well shit I am going to shutup, as I don’t exactly want to ruin the story for people, like me, that go in having not read the books already.
The make-up effects people must have gone fucking insane doing this, god damn those are some freaky looking orc fuckers. Although I must say there was one very very frightening similarity between that iruk-hai’s (sp?) warriors makeup towards the end and Luke Wilson’s make-up that he is wearing towards the end of royal tenenbaums. The CGI in the moria scenes were fucking amazing (although i kind of already saw it in the cannes reel) it felt completly new and struck a new chord with the cool as hell new original soundtrack attatched. The balrog was freaky as hell, as was some of the shots of the chasing orc armies.
The lighting in the moria scene, as well as the amazing tones of the shire and rivendell make this already a shoe-in for best cinematography this year. If he does not get the award it will have been a travesty. Peter Jackson you are a directing-God! if you aren’t convinced of this after watching the cave troll fight in moria, well you are insane. and Oh My God did he put a fantastic cast together. Christopher Lee’s Saruman is just fucking cool you-will-just have to experience this one. Ian Mckellan oh my god don’t even get me started on that GREAT! Sadly, I kept waiting for Hugo Weaving to go into matrix mode and find Keanu Reeves :(. Arwen and Cate Blanchett are fantastic for the little they are in the film. Sean Bean is really fucking cool. Elijah Wood has probably found himself his first award winning role, but its Viggo Mortensen who really steals the show as Stryder-the ranger which is perhaps one of the coolest screen characters in quite sometime. Sean Astin and Ian Holm are pretty top notch as well.
When this film ends, it leaves the audience begging for The Two Towers "LETS GO GET SOME ORCS!" sadly there was no promo or clip or anything for the other two films after FOTR.
When I walked into the screening room today, I was not a Tolkenite, I can now proclaim the next book I read will be Fellowship of the Ring. Although I am going to try to wait for the other two films before I read the books, but I really don’t think I will have the will-power.
Later CANT WAIT FOR BNAT!
RAV
And now we have this...
Harry,
Yesterday, I had the joy of being one of about thirty people in Houston to see Peter Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring. I have got to say that I went in a little excited, but still wary.(The trailer with Frodo running away from a nazgul on a pier made me think,"Oh no, not a Spielberg adaption!") Anyway, after about three hours of sitting in a magnificently huge theater with a wonderful sound system, I came out of the theater thinking that I just saw the best motion picture I have ever seen. Peter Jackson nailed it! As I was watching in complete awe, I noticed that my eyes were actually tearing up.(At least during five parts of the movie, and I'm not talking sadness.)
I've read the books to the Harry Potter movie numerous times before I actually saw the movie, and I have to say that I was a little disappointed. I thought that it was a good movie, but certain characters were never actually brought to their full light. (Snape and Malfoy) When I saw The Fellowship of the Ring, I noticed evering thing that was left out and changed. But, you know what? I didn't give a shit. This movie had everything that all the big directors in Hollywood don't care about anymore. (character development, great script, great visuals, and great acting to name a few.) I can't believe that I liked this movie more that my favorite childhood movie, Star Wars.(Any of them- even Empire)
A warning for parents is that this is not a children's movie at all. Some of the battles are as gorey as Gladiator. There parts that are so unnerving it's actually scary.(Nazgul and the balrog) Oh my god, the balrog was fucking awesome. I think that if Tolkien were alive today, he would love what Mr. Jackson has done with his world. I can't wait for the 19th so I can take my fiance to see a late show.(I'll be seeing it at least two more times in the theaters.)
GREEBO
And here's this one which details not only his reaction (that of a Newspaper writer, but of the other attendee which was a 24 year old African American Hip Hop Writer... Read the results...
Dear Harry,
Offered for your consideration: a short review of the first installment of The Lord of the Rings.
I had the distinct pleasure of seeing "The Fellowship of the Ring" this morning at a special review showing in the Triangle. My newspaper is putting together a features package to run the week of the film's debut, and I was invited along as the guest of our movie reviewer.
We realized a while ago it would be the perfect combination: I'm a life-long dweeb who has read the trilogy at least three times and has been waiting to see a (great) film version of it for over 24 years; he's a 24-year-old African-American writer who prefers hip-hop to hobbits and had never even heard of Middle-earth before a few months ago. Our reactions could be accurately measured from the two extremes of an expected movie-going audience.
I hesitate to use superlatives here, mostly because overheated expectations can spoil even a great film (so if you want to head in to the theater in a state of tabula rasa, stop reading now), but the adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's work to the screen is nothing short of brilliant.
There were a couple of times during the picture where I practically wept from the beauty and poignancy of the scenes (and I wasn't the only one judging from the sniffling I heard from other audience members). And there were a few times I had to remind myself to breathe.
My film-reviewing companion enjoyed it thoroughly and agreed it was an incredible movie. He couldn't believe almost three hours had gone by and actually wished it was longer. (His first words upon coming out of the theater, said knowing it would get a rise out of me, was "Hey, that was swell!")
He was particularly impressed with how well the script writers so adeptly compressed Tolkien's immense 'history' of Middle-earth into a short prologue that was neither dumbed down or overly long and complicated. At no point did he feel the story lost him, nor did he once doubt any of the characters, actions or scenes.
The whole way back on the drive he kept asking me questions about the original novels, and got annoyed when I wouldn't tell him if Frodo was successful in his quest or not. ("What? I have to wait 2 years to find out!?" I pointed out he *could* read the books, which for me made up for the 'swell' comment ;)
Yes, much detail had to be taken out of Tolkien's work to fit it into 3 hours, but it is obvious Peter Jackson and his dedicated crew knew where the heart and soul of the Lord of the Rings lay, and have lovingly -- and effectively -- crafted a masterpiece.
In many ways, they have improved upon some elements in their screenplay. Saruman is now a greater threat than I ever perceived him to be in the books (the combat scene between him and Gandalf is *painful* to watch), and Merry and Pippin (who, honestly, I always could never tell apart) are a sheer joy.
And the Ring ... oh, the Ring ... not since the blazing cyberpunk cityscape of Blade Runner have I ever seen an inanimate object so successfully portrayed as a central *character* in a movie.
Was The Fellowship of the Ring perfect? I had one or two nits to pick (when I told my friend that Boromir's Horn of Gondor didn't sound quite right, he started shouting "Geek! Geek!") but if that's all I could come up with, it is as close to perfection as anything ever will be.
My final word? Go. Get in line and buy tickets. Now.
Respectfully submitted,
Jape
A Reader sent this in from Salon.Com
In case you haven't yet seen this "mini-review" of The Fellowship of the Rings in today's Salon by one of their three film critics (and not the one who will post the main review on the 19th):
It strikes me as that rarest of Hollywood phenomena: a megabudget action-adventure spectacle that is also a labor of love and a visionary cinematic experience.
I shouldn't tread much further on the toes of my colleague Stephanie Zacharek, who along with a lot of other people will review "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" on Dec. 19, when it opens on something like 10,000 screens around the world. I'll add only that, as I see it, the handful of Tolkien purists likely to pillory Jackson for his various departures from the sacred text are missing the point on a world-historical scale. This isn't a doggedly literal adaptation, along the lines of Chris Columbus' competent but spiritless "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." It's an interpretation that seeks to capture Tolkien's magic in a new vessel, an epic with grimy hands and a core of mystery. It's a work of art created on its own terms.
Click Here To Read The Whole Article!!!
And now.... Here's some clips from the film.... I'm off to sleep land... see you folks back on line Sunday night!!!!
Hey guys, 5 clips from LOTR! Gandolf and Frodo in Bag End Race to the ferry Strider in Bree Boromir picking up the ring Conversation with Gandolf in Moria
-Marty Graw
