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What's that you say? You haven't seen Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King yet? What kind of traitor are you? Do you not realize that the Men of Gondor need your assistance? Denethor has gone bats, I tell you, absolutely bats! Jump on your horse right now, Rider of Rohan, and get yourself to the theatre!
What a lovely film. The music, the visuals, the rich fabric of Middle Earth's society, the gorgeously dirty Viggo Mortensen. Mmmm.
Well worth a year's wait. Now I'm drooling for the extended edition box set. Previews at our screening included S2; I, Robot; The Chronicles of Riddick; Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow; and Butterfly Effect, which unfortunately stars Ashton Kutcher.
The Winter issue of Knitty is up. Now that the holidays are fast approaching, start thinking about projects for those long months of snow! Here's the archive, if current patterns don't strike your fancy.
Currently nearly finished with Robin McKinley's latest novel, Sunshine. Thank goodness she finally got a proper hardback premiere! Congrats! This one is really not for the youngsters, and is quite a departure in style from her previous work. It's a stellar alternate history in which Others (vampires, weres, and assorted demons) inhabit the Earth and are a continual danger to humanity. Our heroine, Sunshine, is kidnapped by vampires, only to develop a bond with a fellow prisoner--also a vampire. To say more would spoil things for you. Go out and buy it at once!
Recent viewings:
The Harmonists (or possibly, the Comedian Harmonists), a jaunty tale of a musical group in pre-WWII Germany, which included 3 Jewish singers. Oops. Actually, a very moving story, and worth watching despite subtitle-age.
28 Days Later. Wow. A terrible virus goes awry in modern England, during most of the population into "infected" degenerates whose only desire is to kill. Also, to projectile vomit blood. Yech. We follow the lucky survivors of the plague as they endeavor to find other non-infected folks. Lots of death and mayhem, some horribly wrenching scenes, and a very clear-eyed look at what humanity is capable of in times of horror. The creators' sick sense of humor is also at play here, though. Three alternate endings seemed excessive, but the commentary was cool.
Also, on the home front,
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Extended Edition. Brilliant, of course. If Jackson doesn't get the best director Oscar this year for ROTK (ok, yes, I haven't seen it yet, but I'll confirm this belief after I see it tomorrow night), the Academy has run mad. Possibly infected by a virus, see above. The added scenes in TTT:EE were much mroe subtle than in the first movie, and I admit I could do with less comic relief from Gimli the undignified, but otherwise perfect.
So here's my fabulous excuse for the lack of posts on this blog of late: no internet access!
My love to ComCast for their complete lack of assistance.
Things we tried:
1. Endless calls to tech support at all hours of the day and night.
2. Pinging and iprepairing and everything else from the C:\ prompt (fun!).
3. Service call (episode 1).
4. Changing the network card (episode 1).
5. Reformatting the hard drive (episode 1).
6. Changing the cable modem.
7. Service call (episode 2).
8. Changing the network card (episode 2).
9. Reformatting the hard drive (episode 2).
10. Several episodes of crying, screaming, throwing things, and calling ComCast to ask for a supervisor.
Don't get me wrong, ComCast's people were largely nice, cooperative, and competent. Some of them, unfortunately, were clearly allied with the dark side. However, all's well that ends well, I guess. I still need to reinstall a bunch more programs, but that's ok.