1900 June - Mabel Suffield Tolkien converts to Catholicism, which shocks both the Unitarian Suffields and the Baptist Tolkiens. Despite being familially estranged and financially cut off due to this decision, she remains undeterred and begins her sons’ instruction in the Catholic faith, one that becomes especially deep-rooted in Ronald for his entire life.
1915 June 29 - At his army physical, Tolkien declares that he has never suffered from any serious illness or injury. Read the rest of this entry »
Another week, another wacky list from the folks at Entertainment Weekly. This week, EW is listing the ‘Never Say Die: 17 Beloved Pop-Culture Immortals‘ in film, and who do you think makes the list? That’s right! None other than our elf friend Legolas!
He has long blond hair and moves with balletic grace, but Bloom’s Legolas is a born fighter who has deadly aim with a bow even when sliding down the trunk of a raging Oliphaunt. And according to Tolkien, elves live forever…unless they die in battle or decide to take the Grey Havens cruise.
Read through the full list over at EW.com [Full List]
June 20th, 2008 by Calisuri
| Source: EW.com
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Entertainment Weekly has come out with a list of ‘The 100 New Movie Classics,’ and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, as a whole, has ranked No. 2. EW.com defines a ‘new movie classic’ as ‘films released in the past 25 years stand with the all-time greats.’ Here’s what they have to say about LOTR:
Peter Jackson did the impossible. He filmed an unfilmable novel, he conjured a dark, ravishing vision all his own without desecrating J.R.R. Tolkien’s, he made a nine-hour trilogy that truly lives and breathes like one movie, he got a riveting performance out of a slithery CG cave dweller with a split personality — and, what’s more, he made fantasy a box office monster.
See the full list over at EW.com. Thanks to Ringer Julie for the heads up! [Top 25 List]
TheOneRing.net boards are always active with all types of of interesting discussions. Here is one that jumped out at me today from board member Dreamdeer:
So..the second movie is tentatively expected to release around December, 2012? How fitting! Multiple groups around the globe (most famously the Mayan calendar) have predicted that the world will end that very month, or at least experience such interesting cataclysms as to signal the end of the world as we know it. But hey, if I get to see the final Tolkien movie before it all goes kablooey, I’ll be satisfied. Wouldn’t that be a nice way to close things down?
With the announcement of The Hobbit, Hollywood is bound to start a new wave of dragon movies, as has been commented in our forums. Well, Universal has taken the first step towards this, acquiring the movie rights to the Dragonology series.
The faux nonfiction books by Dugald A. Steer are based on the conceit that dragons actually exist as revealed by the Victorian dragonologist Ernest Drake. An underlying theme is that dragons should be studied and revered in the same way as any rare species.
The movie reportedly “revolves around a group of dragonologists who go on a globetrotting quest to keep a corrupt man from taking control of the world’s dragons and using them to wipe out humanity.” [Hollywood Reporter] [Dragonology at Amazon.com]
As many of you know, TheOneRing.net has been contributing bi-weekly Tolkien updates for ‘To Be Continued… with Sohaib and Stuart,’ a pop culture show on WNJC 1360 AM, Philadephia. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the content of the show before ‘To Be Continued…,’ TheOneRing.net will now be providing that same segment on a new show called ‘Fictional Frontiers with Sohaib,’ featuring host the very same Sohaib Awan. This show will air in a more family friendly time slot, 11AM-NOON ET on the same station, WNJC 1360 AM, Philadephia. The first show will be this week and we hope you can join us for some interesting talk about Tolkien, The Hobbit, maybe some prizes and more! As always, the show will be streamed live for those of you who live outside Philadelphia. [Fictional Frontiers] [Netcast]
(CNN) — Author Arthur C. Clarke, whose science fiction and non-fiction works ranged from the script for “2001: A Space Odyssey” to an early proposal for communications satellites, has died at age 90, associates have said. Clarke had been wheelchair-bound for several years with complications stemming from a youthful bout with polio and had suffered from back trouble recently, said Scott Chase, the secretary of the nonprofit Arthur C. Clarke Foundation. He died early Wednesday — Tuesday afternoon ET — at a hospital in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he had lived since the 1950s, Chase said. “He had been taken to hospital in what we had hoped was one of the slings and arrows of being 90, but in this case it was his final visit,” he said. Arthur C. Clarke 1917 - 2008
Fantasy is in style right now. “Narnia” fans are jonesing for the sequel next May (did you see that trailer?). “Harry Potter” can’t be stopped. The “Lord of the Rings” franchise earned and deserved all its awards, and “The Hobbit” is a fierce issue on every film forum on the Web. All are popular by economic demand, but often passable and forgettable by design. The problem with fantasy is that it’s difficult to film. Who doesn’t think 1988’s “Willow” is a little hilarious? For the level-headed filmgoer, magic is kids’ stuff without the right execution. It takes great deal to buy into witches, wizards and faraway places outside the norm. Sure, teen magic and epic journeys are familiar and affecting as an extension of the usual tropes. But anthropomorphized, battling polar bears? That’s just crazy. Fantasy tunes of a more astute ilk
The “Hobbits” are homeless. Again. In 1978, Mike Canavan painted a mural based on the “An Unexpected Party” scene from the first chapter of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit.” The painting was large 40 feet long and 11 feet high and made up of 11 panels. Mike painted the mural as a billboard when he worked a part-time college job for Richards Of Course, the outdoor advertiser. Those were the days when billboards all were hand-painted. The Hobbits need a new place to party
Gary Kamiyawrites: Robert Zemeckis’ new film “Beowulf” gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “the sublime and the ridiculous.” Zemeckis took the oldest and most important text of our ur-language, and turned it into a 3-D Disneyland ride so cheesy he should have called it “Anglo-Saxons of the Caribbean.” Of course, there’s nothing new or surprising about this. Hollywood has been profaning history and literature since long before Cecil B. DeMille cast Charlton Heston as Moses. If the Bible isn’t sacred, why should the oldest poem in our ancestral language be?But the “Beowulf” travesty is especially glaring, because of the obvious contrast with another work that mined the same ancient field: J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.” “Beowulf” isn’t just a bad, although visually spectacular, movie, it’s a huge missed opportunity. With enough imaginative audacity, Zemeckis could have created a mythical universe, one that finds the mysterious threads that connect the distant past to our time. Instead, he turned our shared cultural heritage into a cartoon. (This hasn’t hurt “Beowulf” at the box office: It was the highest-grossing movie in the country after its first weekend.) Beowulf vs. The Lord of the Rings
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TheOneRing.net boards are always active with all types of of interesting discussions. Here is one that jumped out at me today from board member 
As many of you know, TheOneRing.net has been contributing bi-weekly Tolkien updates for ‘To Be Continued… with Sohaib and Stuart,’ a pop culture show on WNJC 1360 AM, Philadephia. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the content of the show before ‘To Be Continued…,’ TheOneRing.net will now be providing that same segment on a new show called ‘Fictional Frontiers with Sohaib,’ featuring host the very same Sohaib Awan. This show will air in a more family friendly time slot, 11AM-NOON ET on the same station, WNJC 1360 AM, Philadephia. The first show will be this week and we hope you can join us for some interesting talk about Tolkien, The Hobbit, maybe some prizes and more! As always, the show will be streamed live for those of you who live outside Philadelphia. [
