If I stop posting

[electricland]

it'll probably be because the house has collapsed into the giant hole next door. I wouldn't mind so much if my room wasn't right over the excavations and if they hadn't woken me up at 9 this morning with what sounded like a coffee grinder right next to my ear. And this in turn would be an OK time to wake up if I hadn't gone to see the 11:20 showing of The Two Towers with Kate and Dan last night.

I do like it very much indeed, but I could definitely have done with fewer Wargs and a LOT less Rivendell -- I'm not such an Arwen fan that I needed ten minutes of anguish and dream-sequences. ("Daddy, I'm three thousand years old -- stop trying to run my life!") I understand ditching lots of the Entish stuff -- it's lovely but doesn't forward the plot much -- but I thought Faramir and his merry band could really have used more time to explain themselves and their connection to Gondor and what the hell they're doing there. I missed the description of him learning of Boromir's death, and when you learn his life will be forfeit if he lets Frodo and Sam go there's NO preparation whatever -- you're left thinking "What the hell?". And I've read the books, although not recently.

(Hmmm. Debbie Ohi posted this article in which Peter Jackson and Philippa Boyens explain some of their reasoning. I love the Web. Still don't agree with what they did with Faramir though.

Oh, so cute!

Q: Are they [your kids] proud of you? Do they know what you've achieved?

PJ: [laughs] They're very grounded children. They're very down-to-earth kids. They're great. We showed them The Two Towers before anybody else saw it. Really, they were, like, the first people that ever saw it. The second it was finished, we ran it for our kids. I said to Billy at the end, "What'd you think?" And he said, "Yeah, Dad, that's pretty good. It was better than Spider-Man." And Spider-Man is his favorite film! He's got Spider-Man stuff all over his bedroom and everything, so really, the biggest compliment he could think of to give me was to say that it was better than Spider-Man. It was incredibly touching.

Anyway, moving right along...)

Things I did like very much indeed:

• Theoden Had the best and most heartbreaking lines: "They are gone... like rain on the mountains, like the wind in the meadows." Bernard Hill was absolutely marvellous, pre- and post-curse. (Incidentally I'm fine with Saruman possessing him -- I thought it was a nice visual dramatization of something that could otherwise have been a bit vague. And the bit where the boys clear Gandalf's path to the throne was really very funny.)


• Eowyn Except for the tiresome bits where she's stuck with the wimmin and children in the basement at Helm's Deep. I loved her strength and courage and the fact that she'd been living alone among enemies and a much-loved man whose mind was gone, without going crazy.


• Grima Wormtongue Eeeeugh! Played to absolute perfection.


• Gollum I appreciated him much more the second time around, having read more about Andy Serkis's voice techniques -- the higher voice for Smeagol and the lower, throatier voice for Gollum. Really, really well done. It also took me a while to twig to what a technical achievement that fight scene was. I adored the scene at the pool -- trust and betrayal in a very small space.


• The Dead Marshes were just how I always imagined them. Faces under the water, hundreds on hundreds. One of the Men had the Tree of Gondor on his breastplate. The detail in this movie...


• Likewise the Nazgul were incredible and terrifying. Again, that was something I didn't appreciate the first time -- just took them for granted, yeah yeah, huge menacing black dragon-things, whatever. Which is quite a compliment, because I truly did forget they were CGI.


• And yeah, I admit it, the battle of Helm's Deep was pretty damn cool.


• The production design and costumes continue to blow me away. Can't believe the incredible care and detail that went into this cycle of movies. The embroidery on Theoden's collar has horses' heads worked into the design!

Nitpicks: few, won't bother here, but someone should tell Gandalf not to gallop full-speed out of stables, it's dangerous.

Anyway it was a good day all around. Had coffee with Dan and got all caught up, then distracted Mummy while she packed to go up north (have to be more careful what I admire, she just gave me a kisii stone chess set -- v. cool), ate lunch, sat around, updated this journal, went to meet Kate at HMV (the Parking Goddess smiled on me but only after quite a bit of driving around, so I was late), then dinner at Sonia and Dennis's. (Rotisserie chicken and chips, yum -- I always get so much protein when I come home for the holidays.) Got a bit caught up with Jo which was nice. Wasn't going to go to the movie but then we started chatting about it and I changed my mind.

Sunday also an excellent day: shiatsu massage, then the '50s couture fashion exhibit at the ROM with Jen (I also hit the James Ossuary exhibit because dammit I was going to get my money's worth out of the exorbitant admission price -- should've snurched the parents' membership card), lunch, shopping (bought exercise clothes in the hope that they will provide more of an incentive to go to the gym than my ratty 10-year-old leggings and giant T-shirts), then 5 hours of Pride and Prejudice and Thai food. Yippee! and likewise Yum!

Anyway, going to post a shameless materialism list and some New Year's resolutions (to be continued), then shower and go find munchies.