Well, much to my surprise, mom did finally decide to give Lord of the Rings a fair hearing. We watched the first two episodes recently. Not on the same night, okay! 🙂 She hates this kind of thing normally, but all the hype and good reviews weakened her resolve. Of course, she ended up thinking they were terrific, and we plan to see the final part at the cinema soon. (Not right now; we’re both suffering from yet another cold virus at the moment. Lovely.)
Watching The Two Towers a second time helped resolve some of my own reservations about it. I’m told the extended version has better editing, but on the whole, I enjoyed it better than the first viewing. Look, I won’t forgive Jackson for the Christopher Lee thing in a hurry, but that doesn’t mean I don’t admire this work on many levels. It’s a genuine achievement.
Mom’s only criticism was: some of the scenes where the Hobbits are running along with man-sized folk, they’re obviously stand-ins (either children or real dwarves). I hadn’t noticed before, but dammit, she’s right—occasionally, they do look horribly wrong in terms of proportion and posture. A minor gripe, really. Anything that mom describes as ‘amazing’ must have a lot going for it.
Not much else to comment on film-wise of late. I did buy the DVD of John Carpenter’s brilliant 1982 remake of The Thing, which boasts a very interesting commentary track. One of my all-time fave horror/sci-fi entries, and it still holds up.
I’ve neglected my reading habits a bit, too. I picked up the first of the much-touted His Dark Materials trilogy a while back, but haven’t dipped into it yet.
At least travel is on the horizon. I’m planning a trip to Leicester on March 3rd and London on March 15th… the latter will be a chance to catch up with Paul again, who I last saw some weeks ago when I was out of town. I think I need to get out and about a lot more this year, so this is a start of sorts.
BTW, I haven’t been thinking about my career (or lack thereof) much lately. I’m sure I’ll get round to that too before very long…