Pen-Elayne on the Web

Peace on Earth

As 25 December is upon us, I take some small comfort in the belief that millions if not billions of ordinary citizens are wishing for peace on Earth, even if (or as) their leaders prepare for war, and I'd like to direct folks to the wonderful post on Escalating Nonviolence written today by Natasha (link now at left bar). Meanwhile, Peter Bergman takes on Clement Moore here and, with the rest of the Firesign Theatre, here.

We celebrated "National Jews Go to the Movies Day" (thanks, Daily Show) one day early, using our buy-one-get-one-free ticket from the Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring DVD to take in The Two Towers after I got out of work yesterday. We just made it, too, having been told to go to the wrong theatre in the Loews 34th Street complex (the one printed on the ticket I bought the previous day) and not following our instincts to search for a theatre with the LCD of the correct movie's name, which was two flights down - so we had to hurry down two escalators at the end of the oddly-chick-flick-oriented previews only to find a hell of a lot more people in that theatre than were in the audience for Two Weeks' Notice. :) As it was near-packed by that point, we had to take the neck-straining seats right up front, a bit too close for the screen for both of us, but other than that things were fine.

If you allow for the fact that it's a chapter rather than a story - i.e., that it really has no beginning or ending, only a middle (something that seems to bother fewer and fewer people nowadays, and doesn't actually bother me in this particular case as I couldn't see any other way to adapt the books, but I will probably maintain to the end of my days that Empire Strikes Back was the weakest of the Star Wars movies because they had no such excuse) - this movie was easily as well done as the first chapter, probably more so. I loved how, from the opening scene onward, the tone was set to portray an old man as immensely powerful (something I also quite enjoyed about the David Eddings books I've been reading from Robin's collection, the idea of age as an acquisition of potency rather than a sign of weakening). I adored how John Rhys-Davies pretty much stole every scene he was in, even more so considering how difficult it must have been to act under all those prosthetics (and he also did the voice of Treebeard, which I thought was cool). I got a real kick out of Brad Dourif doing the sleaziest character I remember him playing since he nailed the essence of Piter de Vries in David Lynch's Dune ("the good Dune," as I call it, but then I like shots of a young Sting's near-naked body so sue me), although I must confess that every time he came on screen I couldn't stop thinking, "It is by will alone I set my mind in motion..." Like Robin, I admired the way Peter Jackson was able to weave all the different story threads together. I thought the Ent scenes were fantastic, and Gollum beyond amazing. I shook my head at Sean Astin's occasional loss of fake accent, but was glad he got to do some great stirring speeches. I wept in all the chick-flick places I was supposed to weep, squinted and sometimes closed my eyes at the copious battle scenes (I don't care for fight scenes in anything, even if they are necessary to the story), scoffed at that silly Vin Diesel-like stunt that Orlando Bloom did (those who have seen the movie know what I'm talking about), and marveled at the lovely Rohan theme music. And of course I drowned a few times in Elijah Wood's eyes. :) All in all, very worthwhile, and we even got our Christmas cards mailed out from The World's Biggest Post Office afterwards.