The characterization may not be fair, but for 11 years the Slamdance Film Festival has been seen by many movie-industry types as merely the Sundance stepchild. And the notion is only reinforced by the two festivals’ concurrent scheduling in Park City each year, as if Slamdance is merely riding on Sundance’s considerable coattails. But as Hobbits invade this year’s festival, Slamdance may finally get the respect it deserves. Slamdance has scored what is arguably the biggest star event in Park City this year — the documentary “Ringers: Lord of the Fans,” a look at J.R.R. Tolkein fans, narrated by “Lord of the Rings” star Dominic Monaghan, who is also a star on the new hit TV series “Lost.” Monaghan is expected to be in attendance for some of the film’s screenings, along with “Rings” co-stars Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Viggo Mortensen and Billy Boyd. [More] [RINGERS: Lord of the Fans]
Day: January 17, 2005
From the Dallas Comicon website: LOTR fans unite! We are very pleased to annouce the addition of a fan-favorite actor, Sean Astin! Sean, known to many fans as ‘Samwise (Sam) Gamgee’ in the LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY and Mikey from GOONIES has just finished writing his first book “There and Back Again, An Actor’s Tale”. [scifiexpo.com]
Michael Drout, a professor at Wheaton College in Norton, will deliver a lecture Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Duxbury Library on “The Lord of the Rings: What the Films Left Out.” A professor of Anglo-Saxon literature, Drout is considered an authority on J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy trilogy, “The Lord of the Rings.” He has spoken twice before at the Duxbury Library on the connections between Tolkien’s fantasy series and the literature of the early Middle Ages. Wednesday’s talk will focus on elements of Tolkien’s epic that the filmmakers could not fit into the three recent films on the “Rings” trilogy. Drout said those missing aspects of the books are important to understanding the fictional world of Middle Earth. [More]