COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho (AP) — Oscar-winner (and Sean Astin’s mom) Patty Duke had single bypass surgery Wednesday and was in fair condition, officials said. The 57-year-old actress was in the intensive care unit at the North Idaho Heart Center. “Her husband said everything went well,” said Kootenai Medical Center spokeswoman Teri Farr. The centre is part of the medical facility. [More]
Month: November 2004
Special effects are now a central part of the moviemaking process. But as audiences demand more, effects houses are being forced to ramp up their processing power like never before. Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films are packed with epic battles. Behind the scenes, however, another struggle was going on. As each movie in the trilogy went into production, visual effects studio Weta Digital scrambled to add the processing power needed to render an increasing number of computationally intensive special effects shots. [More]
David Salo writes: My new book “A Gateway to Sindarin” has been published and is now available. From the website blurb: “A Gateway to Sindarin… covers the grammar, morphology, and history of the language. Supplemental material includes a vocabulary, Sindarin names, a glossary of terms, and an annotated list of works relevant to Sindarin.” My own remarks: “This book is the outcome of eight years of work and represents my effort to comprehensively cover the known facts (and some conjecture) about Sindarin. It by no means represents the last word on the subject, but will, I hope, become a foundation — however imperfect — on which future studies of Sindarin can be built.”
Buy your copy of “A Gateway to Sindarin” on Amazon.com today!
TORn Staffer Ostadan has updated the Legends and Lore section of Green Books with a story about his recent pilgrimage to Tolkien’s grave: “It seemed to me the very distillation of what being a ‘Tolkien fan’ represents…” You can find it here in TORn’s [Green Books]
Leandro writes: elfenomeno.com has been rebuilt. Now the website presents a new Tolkien Encyclopedia, with new data from the books and the films. I’m sorry but I cannot write a notice by now… but we wanted you (all TORn people) to know anyway. Thank you again for sharing all your time and your work with Tolkien fans. [More]
Hannah writes: In order to raise money for an upcoming film production, a producer is auctioning off a chance to be made up and photographed as virtually any fantasy / sf character you can imagine. Zombies, aliens, elves, vampires, faeries… the sky is the limit! This is your chance to be immortalized as your favorite character from fantasy literature or film, either for your own enjoyment or as an ideal and imaginative gift for that special someone. [More]