As you all probably know by now, TheOneRing.net doesn't usually like to try and blatantly sell products on our front page. One of our product producers, however, is having a significant sale on their TheOneRing.net mousepads, so I thought this would be a great deal to tell you about. [More] [TheOneRing.net Products]

''The Lord of the Rings,'' due out in time to be a moviegoer's Christmas present, could well be the movie of the year. But J.R.R. Tolkien, ''author of the century''? That provocative claim is not just a publisher's book-jacket puffery but the argument of T. A. Shippey in this authoritative - and timely - critical study of Tolkien's masterwork. Shippey, now at St. Louis University, taught the same curriculum established by Tolkien at Oxford University and succeded him, 54 years later, as chairman of English language and medieval literature at Leeds. [More]

Update: E-mails are arriving from all over the US saying Gormenghast is being advertised in other locations too. PBS is giving Lord of the Rings a mention in the commercials, also! More

The UK's SFX magazine has a two-page spread of pics and a piece on Cannes--the trailer footage contains some "jaw-droppingly imaginative cinematic images".

Bruce Campbell (Ash!) mentioned bilbo in the first chapter of his book (after the foreword page one) here's the quote, in context)

IF Chins Could Kill, Confession of a B movie Actor
By Bruce Campbell

"Bilbo Baggins would have felt right at home in my neighborhood- It was a magical place. "The Braes of Bloomfield" was created by commuters hoping to get away from the faded glory of Motor City, and the results were impressive. As a kid exploring the woods between these upper-middle-class homes, the city might as well have been a million miles away."

To see a scan of the piece, check it out in our movie scrapbook. [More]

Thanks to Hiram for the tip and Tirion for the scan!

Thanks to Jen for the tip!

It's an article from the June 12th issue of Business 2.0, a high-tech business magazine.

Like the famous Boston dowagers, the publisher Houghton Mifflin possesses some priceless antiques. And Houghton, inevitably - and not always charitably - described as ''venerable,'' knows when to polish them off, and make a few dollars in the process. [More]

Thanks to Michael W for the tip!

Just to let you know if you can post, for all your Spanish readers, that "La 2" TV channel in Spain runs a FOTR report tonight in the movies programme "Dias de cine".

Xoanon here, after finally being able to listen to the RealVideo files and cleaning up the drool on my floor (I ADORE JRD, his voice, his mannerisms, his laugh), I was amazed to hear that he talks about Gimli's attempt to destroy the ring! So we now know a little more as to what we'll see in Fellowship this winter!

Discuss this in our message boards!

"The director of the animated version of Lord Of The Rings says he thinks it's impossible to transfer Tolkien's words to the big screen.

Ralph Bakashi directed an animated version of JRR Tolkien's books in 1978.

He was criticised at the time for cutting out certain characters and not taking the film to the end of Tolkien's third book The Return Of The King." [More]

In case you haven't seen this the one of the screenwriters for the LOTR movies will be a special guest at the 32nd Annual Mythopoeic Conference this August. Check out the details here.

The new Sean Bean (Boromir) film 'EQUILIBRIUM' has a spoiler rich review over on AICN. [More]

The Matrix sequel 'Reloaded' has been filming in California for a while, check out some behind the scenes pics of the latest Hugo Weaving (Elrond) film. [More]

America On Line has an opening page "commercial" for LOTR. It features links to some sites, a commentary on the 20 minutes of footage shown at Cannes (and apparently in New York too!), some stills, and the trailer.