Get the chance to watch your favorite cast members on the silver screen. [More]
Month: October 2000
Liv Tyler (Arwen) Armageddon ENCORE & Heavy SUNDAE 
Sean Bean (Boromir) Ronin TMC
Hugo Weaving (Elrond) The Interview STARZ5 
Elijah Wood (Frodo) Deep Impact TMC & Internal Affairs WTBSLOC 
Ian McKellen (Gandalf) Gods and Monsters TMC2 & I’ll Do Anything HBO 
John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) The Living Daylights TBS & King Solomon’s Mines WGNSAT & Canvas TMN
Sean Astin (Sam) Harrison Bergeron K13VC & Encino Man WPHL
Steve Coogan (Unknown) The Indian in the Cupboard MAX
Brad Dourif (Wormtongue) Bride of Chucky STARZ & Urban Legend TMC & Body Parts THMAX & Mississippi Burning KNXV
Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn) The Thin Red Line ACMAX & The Young Americans ENCACT 
Miranda Otto (Eowyn) The Jack Bull ACMAX & The Thin Red Line ACMAX Elijah Wood (Frodo) The Faculty SHOWX 
Orlando Bloom (Legolas) Wilde SUNDAE 
Christopher Lee (Saruman) The Last Unicorn STARZ & Killer Force KSAZ & The Skull SCIFI
Ian Holm (Bilbo) A Life Less Ordinary KVEW Hugo Weaving (Elrond) Bedrooms & Hallways HBOC 
Cate Blanchett (Galadriel) Pushing Tin MAX & Elizabeth TMC Sean Astin (Sam) Memphis Belle TNTI
Bernard Hill (Theoden) The Loss of Sexual Innocence HBOPL True Crime Max Brad Dourif (Wormtongue) Progeny Max
Bernard Hill (Theoden) The Bounty HBO Brad Dourif (Wormtongue) Hidden Agenda TMC & Body Parts Max
Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn) G.I. Jane WLII & The Passion of Darkly Noon SHOWDT Ian Holm (Bilbo) Hamlet KFTY Bernard Hill (Theoden) William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream HBOSIG Brad Dourif (Wormtongue) Jungle Fever DTVFX
Mark Ferguson (Gil Galad) Every Woman’s Dream LIFE John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) Perry Mason: The Case of the Murdered Madam KTBU Christopher Lee (Saruman) Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow TMC Bernard Hill (Theoden) Mountains of the Moon STARZ5 Brad Dourif (Wormtongue) Progeny Max Sean Bean (Boromir) Airborne TMN
Cate Blanchett (Galadriel) Pushing Tin Max Sean Bean (Boromir) Bulworth Max & Kimberly Max Brad Dourif (Wormtongue) Body Parts Max & Bride of Chucky TMN
And I’d give it a ten out of ten. At last, serious journalism. ‘The Listener’ is one of the main media and culture magazines in NZ; it goes way beyond its function as a TV and radio guide and observes NZ culture with a sharp intelligence. In this issue it’s recognised that LOTR is big news in this culture. (more)
The NZ magazine ‘The Listener’ has come up with one of the best articles on the LOTR-films that I’ve seen anywhere. It’s written by Gordon Campbell, a journalist who’s been reporting on NZ culture and media for a long time; he’s based in Wellington where the films are being made, and I tend to trust that he has sources that are reliable. There is not one piece of fluff in the six pages of the article, which is lavishly illustrated, and it includes a perceptive synopsis of the plot which makes no pretense that this is a cutesy little children’s story. Campbell even quotes author Ursula K. Le Guins’s analysis of good and evil in LOTR:
“…Tolkien’s world is more morally complex than, say, C S Lewis’s Narnia. While Narnia has good people and bad people – and how Lewis exults in the fall of the wicked – Tolkien consistently offers his characters….a chance of repentance. Even the zombie-like Black Riders are not evil men, Le Guin argues, ‘but embodiments of evil IN men…..Similarly the men who do wrong are not complete figures but compliments: Saruman is Gandalf’s dark self, Boromir is Aragorn’s and Wormtongue is, quite literally, the weakness of King Theoden. As for Gollum, compassion is the only possible response. “Gollum is Frodo’s shadow and it is the shadow, not the hero, who completes the quest.”‘
Among the wealth of information in this article are a few things I genuinely haven’t seen before. I’d heard a report of Sauron appearing in a spiked helmet; this article reports ‘…the film Sauron wears armour decorated with a poison ivy motif and a helm shaped like a horse’s skull.’ (Note we don’t know if this is Sauron in the time where LOTR takes place, or Sauron back in earlier history. Also of interest: In the film, when the wounded Frodo flees from the Black Riders, it is Arwen – not the elflord Glorfindel, who saves the day. Thanks to … Sir Ian McKellen, we can rest assured that Arwen neither joins the Fellowship nor fights in major battles.”
The article talks about how Jackson won the right to direct this movie, and further discusses whether Jackson can tell this story. “Moving a narrative fluidly from point A to point B has never been his strong point (But it IS Tolkien’s, so I tend to think that cancels out – Tehanu) and this narrative is trickier than most. Once the fellowship shatters on Amon Hen…this creates three storylines that go ahead in parallel. A challenge. Coppola’s ‘Godfather II’ managed to cross-cut successfully between time and place, but few other films have done it well”
“…..Jackson is also no George Cukor. He prefers self-sufficiency in actors, especially women. Liv Tyler…was initially left all at sea as Arwen, but has since found her feet. Sean Bean as Boromir and Ian Holm (in a cameo as Bilbo) are said to dominate film one, while Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn seems to be accurately pacing his character’s evolution from wary nomad to monarch.
A gifted method actor, Mortensen is said to have travelled to the Waikato set in the horse float, with his horse. He also shunned motel comfort and chose to stay in rundown huts nearby, without electricity. The man IS Aragorn.’
Out of this huge article I’ve extracted the tid-bits most likely to interest LOTR fans worldwide, but the main thrust of the piece is an examination of the tax laws that have made filming LOTR in NZ a viable proposition. The old laws were extended in order to allow LOTR to go ahead, and this meant that a lot of the financial risk could be spread – to the New Zealand taxpayer.
“I cannot tell you the importance placed inside each of these (major studios) on having some of their downside risk covered off,” says Richard Reiner, an LA intermediary that brokered the Rings deal. He claims that the “existence of risk minimisation is prime incentive for entering a particular territory.”
Last year’s outgoing government hated the idea of tax incentives for film companies (or anyone else for that matter) but weren’t prepared to court the unpopularity of stopping the project. “…the previous National Government allowed an exception for LOTR, even though tax incentives were abhorrent to its free market ideologues (Said Finance Minister Michael Cullen:) ‘Yes indeed, the initial inclination from [then Finance Minister Bill] Birch was to cut them in half. But no one wanted to look as if they were taking on the hobbits in the lead-up to the election. No one wants to kill a winner. Hobbits six, National zero, would have been the outcome.
Because the tax laws have been changed, NZ probably won’t support such interest from film companies again, becoming merely a source of cheap labour and nice landscapes. On the one side, Treasury argues that LOTR and Hollywood’s creative accounting have left NZ taxpayers carrying an NZ$225million risk if it fails. “According to Inland Revenue papers obtained under the Official Information Act, successive governments have known since 1996 that film deals were rading our tax base to the tune of $50 million a year.”
However, on the other side, the argument goes that the benefits to our economy and our skills base outweigh this, and the current government’s desire to have a ‘knowledge economy’ should be supported by encouraging activities such as film-making which develp this.
Hello again everyone! Gamgee here with yet another rousing edition of the Tolkien Fun Section! Our last winner was Giuseppe! Good job my friend!!! The answers were:
1. Dark
2. Brandybuck
3. Bilbo
Here are the questions for today:
1) “Who was the 13th king of Arthedain?”
2) “reengbdo” (Scrambled Tolkien person, place or thing)
3) “I know what it was that you last saw.” (Who said this?)
As always, Mail me with your answers, the 1st person to send all 3 correct answers in one mailing will be posted here next time! Good luck………Gamgee
A steel mist scuds in over the hills, and then parts to reveal dozens of riders and a standard-bearer. They are Gondorians. Wearing armour and helmets, they await the call to ride through the snow tussock and back into the mist. [More]