PARK CITY — History was made at Sundance’s kid-brother festival this past week. For the first time in Slamdance’s 11-year existence, eager movie watchers actually camped out overnight to buy tickets for the off-spin film event. And, yes, you guessed correctly: They were indeed “Lord of the Rings” fans. While addressing the sold-out audience before her movie’s world-premiere Friday at midnight, the director told the happy campers who braved the freezing Park City air, “I salute you.” Carlene Cordova’s documentary “Ringers: Lord of the Fans” spent the next couple of hours saluting J.R.R. Tolkien and the celebrated work he created 50 years ago — a phenomenon that has inspired hippies and cyber geeks, influenced artists in literature, movie and music industries, and entertained and entranced millions in multiple generations. [More]
Day: January 23, 2005
Belladonna writes: Having had the privilege of attending the premiere screening of Ringers: Lord of the Fans at Slamdance in Park City yesterday, I wanted to let you all know that the first batch of photos is online. They are located here. There will be more coming in that same space, including from a second screening in Salt Lake later this week. Oh, and the movie was excellent!
Also check out Slamdance.com’s Spykam which posted several photos from Ringers events: Camped Out For Ringers & Ringers: Instant Cult Classic?
Slamdance documentary “Ringers: Lord of the Fans” hopes to capitalize on the tremendous success of the recent “Lord of the Rings” movie trilogy by chronicling the original book’s impact on popular culture for the last 50 years and its dedicated fans dubbed “Ringers.” “It’s strange, it’s deep, it goes a lot of different directions,” said director Carlene Cordova, who co-wrote the movie along with Cliff Broadway. The two also produced the movie along with Tom Desanto, who produced the two “X-Men” movies. [More]
From the Daily News of Washington, comes a story pointing out a dozen or so fantasy authors for fans of the genre. Many of these may long be familiar to Tolkien readers, but on the off chance some might not be, who doesn’t like discovering new authors? [More]
Award-winning J.R.R. Tolkien scholars Tom Shippey and Douglas A. Anderson will participate in a panel on “The Lord of the Rings at Fifty” at Illinois Central College’s Performing Arts Center, East Peoria, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 29.
The presentation, sponsored by the college’s English department, is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Professor Mike Foster.