Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.

Wow. Ummmmm... yeah.... wow.

Hi Folks... Edgard here... I just received this report from Solamen who totally lost her mind in Cannes yesterday evening as she attended the LOTR party... so here's her report (and good news, she did meet Harry... meaning he doesn't spend all his time on the beach).

Here's Solamen...

Cannes, Monday (but I still don't remember which number the day is!)

Question : "Was it great?"

Answer : "It was huge!"

Don't tell me that you have no idea of what "it" is! "It" is The Lord of the Rings Party! I've been there!! Oh my Goooood !! OK, now how many of you want to kill me? I'm trying to look cool and stay calm but I'm still over excited.

As you can guess I had no proper way to get an invitation, which actually happened to be a round badge with runes on it and a little leather cord to have it around your neck. But we were three and one of my friend had it. Well, I can't tell how he had it (it could put some people into trouble) but it was not really a usual way. So, we knew it was Sunday evening, no one knowing where and we also knew there were shuttles to bring us there.

First, we had to find the shuttles cause we were going out from the Coen film and there was a lot of people. We found them in front of the Gray d'Albion Hotel, he showed his badge, we hopped into it and here we were gone! After 20 minutes we arrived on a hill, with at the top a castle all with blue light and smoke. The shuttle left us at the park car and we had to follow a path up to the castle. On the path were candles on both sides and music, kind of Loreena McKennit music if you see who she is. On our way going up, we met people coming back (the party had begun at 6pm and it was 10pm) so we asked them : "Hi, my bag was stolen and there was my badge in it..." With a big bright smile, everything works out! We had two badges for three, we arrived at the first checking point and... we were in!

Now I'm talking to real Tolkien's fans : imagine coming into the Shire, imagine that all this world is true and you're in it, then you'll have a little idea of what it was. There were many sets of the film and I was just hopping from one to another, trying not to shout to loud "Oh my God! I'm there!" First of all, there was Bilbo's hole. I can't describe the emotion you have when you're in front of Bilbo's hole, thinking "In a hole lived a hobbit" and that you can come into it There was everything inside : little chairs, a calendar, books and written pages and lamps and there was the garden with the bench where he was when he first met Gandalf! I stupidly sat on this bench and stayed there for hours, beaming with joy!

Then there was also another house of the Shire and the entrance of The Pony inn at Bree! there was also the troll which is petrified in Bilbo's story and afraid the hobbits in LOTR. Then there was all the set for Bilbo's birthday party! There was music (unfortunately it was stupid pop music!) and food and drink and you had to eat on a wooden table with wooden benches. Then there was also by the pool the elvian boat that takes them on the river and an elvian path in white wood with lamps, just amazing. Then there also the throne room of Theoden with horses wooden heads on the wall (and of course I could not resist sitting on the throne!) And finally there was two pairs of big pillars but which pillars? I don't know. All of this was in the set of a real castle and all the sets looked so real!

Question : But who was there?

Answer : almost all the cast. We saw Elijah Wood, Liv Tyler, Ian McKellen and of course Peter Jackson. I went to talk with Peter Jackson but not with the actors : first there were too many people around them, second I had nothing really to tell them, third I didn't want to destroy the magic, because when I'll see the whole film, I'll need to believe that they actually are Frodo or Gandalf, you know, just like kids when they make the difference between what's fake and what's true.

Apart from them, we saw Ethan Hawke, John Rhys-Davies (that was a shock because for me he'll be ever after Sallah in Indiana Jones and there I saw someone who was just an actor!) and there was David Cronenberg too. They may have been other people but I didn't really want to see that. I was just in the Shire by Bilbo's house and that will remain my souvenir of that incredible evening.

Well, I also brought back other souvenirs cause they gave us a bag with the LOTR book, special edition for Cannes, a little knife, a pipe and tobbacco and a poster. But that's nothing compared with being seated in Bilbo's garden.

Oh! Did I mention that I met Harry? He will tell you that I was over excited and kind of strange, but that's true!

Question : But apart from this, you saw films on Sunday?

Answer : Just the coen film "The man who wasn't there". It reminded me of "L'Etranger" by Camus (translated as The Foreigner, or The Stranger, I don't know). It had many reminiscences of Kubrick's Lolita and most of all it was a tribute to the film noir of the 50's with a character having strange resemblance with Humphrey Bogart ! Anyway, it was more an interesting exercise of style (in black and white) than the Coen stuff we used to see in Fargo or The Big Lebowsky. So, it was very artistic but rather disappointing.

But who cares of that? I've been to the LOTR party and that's, wow, huge or even huger than huge!!

PS : I've totally forgotten to say that there were a few stuff shown too. Well, I say stuff but it was amazing too. First, there was Bilbo's book, you know the one he's writing. It was opened at the page where he tells how he left the Shire with the dwarves on his first trip and with the map of the Shire. Next to it was Galadriel's vial, small and beautiful. There was Boromir's horn too, just like I imagined a horn. And there were swords, beautiful swords, most of them very worked, with interlacing patterns. And especially, there was Gandalf's staff, tall, in wood, an incredible wizard's staff.

I wanted to add too about Ethan Hawke that he came without Uma Thurman (or maybe I just didn't see her). But in yesterday Cannes magazines there were pictures of Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke and Quentin Tarantino, the three of them at QT's hotel...