Elisa Lipsky-Karasz writes: I hear that New Line Cinema is out for blood over Monday's catastrophic Washington screening of its Christmas blockbuster "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." I'm told that the first full-dress battle scene, more than a hour into the 3-hour, 17-minute epic, was run upside-down for some 30 critics at the Loews Georgetown. "At first I thought, 'Wow, that's a totally cool camera angle, from the perspective of someone who was felled in the battle," one witness told me yesterday. Baltimore Sun movie critic Michael Sragow said: "It was the first massing of forces, and you got these elephant creatures coming on screen upside down. Obviously, it was about the worst way to see a movie." Worse still, the influential audience had to wait 45 minutes while the projectionist re-threaded the film, only to restart it after a huge gap in the action. In due course, an upside-down Frodo appeared, and the screening was halted again for another 45 minutes. "Obviously we're upset as anyone would be, and we're in discussions with Loews," a chagrined New Line spokeswoman told me. "We want to know if Gollum was in the projection booth."