CLM writes: This afternoon I had the pleasure of attending a conference session featuring Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey at the 41st International Congress for Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, MI.
The topic of the lecture was forging the national epic, using “forging” in both the sense of forgery and of creation. Mr. Shippey gave a fascinating and sometimes humorous talk about the national claiming of and identification with epic stories, sometimes involving claims on the same story made by multiple nations, and the process of definitively locating those stories based on examination of people and place-names. At one point Dr. Shippey mentioned Tolkien’s historic essay on “Beowulf and the Critics,” applying Tolkien’s attitude that scholars and nations alike share possession of a marvelous poem and should ideally be happy with it, rather than arguing over its origins and its national ownership.
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Tristan writes: I know you’ve been following the development of the His Dark Materials fantasy films by New Line, so I thought you might be interested to know that it was announced today that Chris Weitz will be returning to the director’s chair for The Golden Compass, following the departure of Anand Tucker over “differences in creative direction” — the full press release is online here. [More]
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The Lord of the Rings, the $28 million mega-show now having its world premiere engagement in Toronto, is braced to get a big boost from Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. Lloyd Webber — the undisputed king of mega-musicals as well as one of the wealthiest men in the world — made a 24-hour flying visit to Toronto last weekend just to catch the show. “He was very excited by what he saw,” David Mirvish said yesterday. “And it’s a great tribute to this production and this city that he was interested enough to fly all the way from London.” The upshot: Insiders say LOTR’s next gig is likely to be at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane, owned by Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group. [More]
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Today is John Rhys-Davies’ birthday! John was born on May 5th, 1944 in Wiltshire, England. That makes him 62 years old today! Happy Birthday John!
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This week in #moviechat we will be getting together to watch George Lucas’ seminal blockbuster, ‘Star Wars’ (1977).
Join us this weekend Saturday May 6 on our IRC server a little before 5:30 pm EST when we pop our copies of the film into the DVD player. After the usual confusion, at around 5.30pm EST we’ll all press play on our individual players and proceed to cheer and jeer (or discuss and argue, if you like!) the finer points of the film. [More]
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This week in #moviechat we will be getting together to watch George Lucas’ seminal blockbuster, ‘Star Wars’ (1977).
Join us this weekend Saturday May 6 on our IRC server a little before 5:30 pm EST when we pop our copies of the film into the DVD player. After the usual confusion, at around 5.30pm EST we’ll all press play on our individual players and proceed to cheer and jeer (or discuss and argue, if you like!) the finer points of the film. [More]
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