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January 15, 2004 - March 21, 2004

3-21-04

Register for Marquette's Tolkien Conference
maegwen @ 4:04 pm EST
The Lord of the Rings: 1954-2004: Scholarship in Honor of Richard E. Blackwelder

On October 22-23, 2004, the Department of Special Collections will host "The Lord of the Rings, 1954-2004" The conference will offer new scholarship upon the 50th anniversary of the publication of Tolkien's masterpiece.

Papers will be delivered by Douglas A. Anderson, Jane Chance, David Bratman, Marjorie Burns, Michael Drout, Matt Fisher, Verlyn Flieger, Michael Foster,
John Garth, Wayne G. Hammond, Carl. F. Hostetter, S. Gary Hunnewell, John D. Rateliff, Christina Scull, Thomas A. Shippey, Arden R. Smith, Paul Edmund Thomas, Richard C. West, and Patrick Wynne.

A fall 2004 exhibit of sketches and drawings by J.R.R. Tolkien is also planned by Marquette University's Haggerty Museum of Art. Early-bird registration is available online. http://www.marquette.edu/library/registration.html Price of conference registration goes up after March 31, 2004.


General link to Marquette Archives web site: http://www.marquette.edu/library/collections/archives/tolkien.html

3-11-04

Boca Raton, FL, Oscar Party report
maegwen @ 4:45 pm EST

Click to view all pictures


Ringer Spy Steve writes: Hello fellow Ringers! Thought you all might be interested in hearing about the wonderful Oscar party the Boca Raton, FL Trilogy Tuesday line group threw last past Sunday. Sure, Peter Jackson and the gang didn't show up, but if you weren't in L.A, this was the party to be at! And yes, it was a long expected one.

The front of the house where the party took place was transformed into a hobbit hole, complete with sod on the roof! As "Concerning Hobbits" played in the air outside, guests crouched through the front door to attend. (Watch your head Gandalf!)

Drinks were found outside at the Green Dragon. Barrels, mugs, ale and an eager to drink Frodo were all there.

Inside, the line party recreated the setting of Lothlorien for our Academy Awards viewing area. There was a fountain (complete with silver pitcher) candles, a blue hue set by special lightbulbs and many, many leaves...on the floor and on the walls. If anybody got hungry, the homemade lembas bread was found in this room as well. But that wasn't the only food we ate!

We had everything from roast chicken, sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms and nice crispy bacon. For dessert there was an eye of Sauron cheesecake and Gandalf staffs. (chocolate dipped pretzels)All of the food sat on a table that was covered by a homemade tablecloth that featured a map of Middle earth. And just about every race from Middle Earth showed up.

Yes, costumes were worn. In fact, they were required! Hobbits, elves, humans and wizards were all in attendence.
"So all you did was watch the Oscars, right?" Uh-uh, this was an ALL DAY CELEBRATION of Lord of the Rings. We watched both EE dvds, played a little trivia, sword battled, talked LOTR, etc.

"So after all of this, you just watched the Academy Awards, right?" Nope! :) During the commercials we had our own...(wait for it)...Academy A-wargs ceremony! Winners in categories such as "Which LOTR character do you have a crush on", "Favorite scene in ROTK" and "Best Weapon" were voted on and announced. Instead of the Oscars, we called them Orcs, Bombadils and Ostohers (the 7th King of Gondor!)

So, finally we watched the big show, and what a great night it turned out to be for us LOTR fans. A clean sweep with 11 wins!
If you're in the area and would like to join our group fun or have any comments, stop by our board sometime at:

www.voy.com/165432/

THE BOCA RATON LINE PARTY

3-09-04

Dominic Monaghan to miss BOBW Convention
maegwen @ 8:29 pm EST
The organizers of 'Best of Both Worlds' Convention to be held in Canberra, Australia next weekend regret to announce that Dominic Monaghan will NOT appear as scheduled, due to the filming schedule for Dominic's newly landed television pilot.

* * *

This is the latest re the Disney pilot titled "LOST":

The pilot is now scheduled to begin in Los Angeles as of March 11, 2004 for 2 weeks and then Honolulu.
All convention contracts must include the "commitments pending" clause, and as a result Dominic will not be joining us at BOBW 21 - LOTR.

The convention will, naturally, proceed with a couple of changes:


1) As the difference between a "Gold" place and a "Basic" place = $65.00 which represents the guarantee of an autograph place with Dominic, we will refund this difference.

2) We have secured 2 more guests to join us: Joel Tobeck (Orc Lieutenant) & Mark Ferguson (Gil-Galad).

3) To quote one of our guests: "Bad news about Dom. But I'm sure the rest of us will make sure all the guests have a great time"

3) Exclusive to Greater Union, Civic - " One Weekend to rule them all March 12-15"

At the suggestion of one lady who is attending BOBW 21 - LOTR, we approached the management of the theater and asked if the trilogy could also be shown on Monday so our attendees could also have a chance to attend.

As a result, Greater Union in Canberra have "extended" the screening of the trilogy to Monday March 15th.

Thank you for your patience, and the numerous messages of support,

See you on the week-end,

Adele & Brian Carr
BOBW

2-19-04

Richard Taylor At The Video Effects Society Awards
Xoanon @ 2:41 pm EST
Wellington Premiere Pictures - Richard Taylor
Richard Taylor with THE suit at the Wellington Premiere in December 2003

Umlaut writes: I went to the Video Effects Society Awards event last night in LA were ROTK picked up several awards including, Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects Driven Motion Picture (I think that was who won it was a late evening).

But I was writing to tell you that I got a chance to chat with the Weta guru himself Richard Taylor and his wonderful wife. Both had on outfits that had Elven writing written on them. I skipped Elven when I was in high school and took Spanish instead so I can not tell you what it said.

But chances are he will were it to the Academy awards at the end of the month.

1-27-04

Info from PJ on ROTK EE!
maegwen @ 4:24 pm EST
Ringer Spy Nerdanel reports on the Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards dinner.

* * *

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association presented their 2003 awards Monday night at the St. Regis Hotel in Century City. (These awards were announced January 7.) The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King won two awards: Best Production Design (Grant Major) and Best Director (Peter Jackson). Barrie Osborne accepted the award for Grant Major, who is in New Zealand working on King Kong, reading from an email from Major. At one point Osborne said "and then he thanks me, but I'll skip that," which got him heckled by Peter Jackson.

Peter Jackson accepted his own award. He thanked, among others, Fran Walsh, also in attendance. He explained that he had met Walsh 18 years ago when she was recommended to him as someone who was good with scripts. At the time, Jackson was working on Bad Taste, which had no script, so he asked her to paint part of a set. She was not very good at that, he said, but he discovered she was indeed good with scripts.

In a conversation with Ringer Spy Nerdanel after dinner, Jackson said he had just finished editing the Extended Edition of RotK and that it was 4 hours and 10 minutes. Nerdanel was either too polite or too dense to ask whether that includes the credits.

-- nerdanel50

1-25-04

Figwit in "Tale of the Tongan Ninja"
Tehanu @ 3:28 am EST
Aniva writes, "I was fortunate enough to see the first New Zealand screening of "The Tale of the Tongan Ninja" last night, and was plesantly surprised at the number of connections to Lord of the Rings there was. For one, everyone's favourite elf - no, not Leoglas, but Figwit, contributes to one of the film's more questionable dance sequences. His name is credited to the coreography of the film's most random musical break-outs.

"I also noticed that in the credits, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Barrie Osbourne are included in rather a long list of thank you's. I suppose "Tongan Ninja" being predominantly filmed in Wellington was the reason for this.

"The movie was hilarious - a stand-out being (Flight of the Concord duo) Bret McKenzie & Jemaine Clement's lyrics in the many songs that seemed to be thrown into the mix. The Australian Empire magazine gave the film an atrocious review, but I thought it was a very enjoyable, funny film.

"....I just thought I'd e-mail you to let you know Figwit's progress in life after Lotr....."

Liv Tyler: "By the Sword"
Tehanu @ 3:15 am EST
Hengist writes: In a new book by Richard Cohen called "By the Sword" the author describes (amongst other things) the history of screen swordplay. He obviously devotes some time to Bob Anderson and includes the following snipet about Liv Tyler, which says a lot about Bob Andersons techniques and about Liv Tyler.

"He [Bob Anderson] was laughing at the fate of Liv Tyler in The Lord of the Rings. Cast as the young heroine, Arwen, she had bridled at the notion of rehearsing for a fencing scene. An angry Anderson told her he was going away for a while, leaving her with his assistant. He told her he'd give her one chance to shoot the scene on his return before giving it to the director for his approval. "When I came back I could see a gleam in my assistant's eye: she did the best fight sequence I've seen a girl do!"

Buy "By the Sword" on Amazon.uk Today!

1-15-04

Andy Serkis in SLC Reports
Xoanon @ 4:03 pm EST
Felicia

Here's a little report from Andy's book signing last night in SLC. I don't know how many people were there but we were about half way down the line and it took us a couple of hours to get to Andy. He said he would talk to everyone in line (they cut the line off at around 8:30). When we got in line they were estimating that there were about 600 waiting--maybe somebody else has a better idea of how many people were there. He was so kind and accessible to everyone. The books sold out in about 5 minutes. When it was our turn to have him sign, my 10-year-old daughter asked him to do the Gollum voice. The next thing you know, he starts a Gollum/Smeagol dialogue like, "What would you like me to say," going back and forth whether he should say anything or not and whether she liked him or not, and even did the Smeagol hand thing on his head like when they were in front of the Black Gate in TTT. He was wonderful with her and also with my 13-year-old son, who doesn't want to wash his hand ever again after shaking Andy's. What a great guy.

Macilmé

Just thought I'd drop a line and tell you my experience with Andy Serkis when he appeared at the Borders bookstore in Crossroads Plaza, Salt Lake City, on January 14.

I arrived shortly after 7pm and the line was HUGE; it snaked all around mall. Because his book had sold out very quickly, they allowed memorabilia to be signed, and luckily, I had brought my large Smeagol/Gollum (with 20+ phrases), so he signed the box for me. Even though it was 10:15pm, and he'd been signing non-stop for almost three hours, he was still smiling, gracious, and courteous. We were rushed through the line (though I doubt it was Andy's choice) because there were so many people. I was able to snap a few photos after he signed my Gollum.

Great experience. I'll know next time to take a half-day off of work to get in line.


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