Welcome to our collection of TORn’s hottest topics for the past week. If you’ve fallen behind on what’s happening on the Discussion Boards, here’s a great way to catch the highlights. Or if you’re new to TORn and what to enjoy some great conversations, just follow the links to some of our most popular discussions. Watch this space as every weekend we will spotlight the most popular buzz on TORn’s Discussion Boards. Everyone is welcome, so come on in and join the fun!
Continue reading “TORn Message Boards Weekly Roundup — June 22, 2014”
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Egelantier shared these medieval Russian Orthodox style paintings from the Russian editions of Lord of the Rings on their tumblr page. We think they’re pretty amazing and have shared a few of them with you.
Continue reading “Medieval style paintings from the Russian editions of the Lord of the Rings”
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Welcome to this weeks episodes of the Oakentoons 🙂
Don’t forget to check out the Oakenstills and Oakencrossovers while you’re there and to say hi to Peckish Owl.
As always, just click the images to go to Peckish Owls site to see the full size images (you’ll also need to click on the longer ones once you’re on her site to see them in full size).
Continue reading “Oakentoon #73 – On The Matter of Blindness; Oakentoon #74 – The Road Goes Ever On; Oakentoon #75 – All That is Gold Does Not Glitter”
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Our first glimpse of Colorado came with the Rockies where what appeared to be the Lonely Mountain peeked out of the cloud-cover. As the three of us travelling together (my sister, Fili, and our mother “Dis”) are known by Dwarven names, we took this as a good omen. After all, the people of Colorado are mountain folk.
Upon descending on our eagles, we took some time to adjust to the lay of the land before the start of the convention. Having only really experienced the 150k strong crowds at San Diego Comic Con, we didn’t know what to expect from DCC. As it was, the massive line waiting to get in on Friday morning was intimidating. However, upon seeing a Gandalf among the cosplayers, our nerves were set to rest. We were among our people. Our mom even made up her own Dwarven costume for Dis!
We joined up with Bofur (Justin!) and hosted our first panel of the day that discussed the history of TheOneRing.net. Given that this year is the site’s 15th anniversary, there was a lot to cover! Many of the folks who attended enjoyed reminiscing about the old days of anonymous set reports that often spurred fan rage online. With time comes perspective, and it was fascinating to look at the response Arwen’s intended presence at Helm’s Deep received vs. the introduction of Tauriel in the new Hobbit films.
Continue reading “Denver Comic Con Recap”
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Beginning this Friday, The American Cinematheque is screening a mini-festival of dark coming-of-age stories — including Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures.
Entertainment Weekly writer Anthony Breznican is curating the film fest, and Jackson’s 1994 tale of friendship gone bad screens at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica this Friday. Star Melanie Lynskey will join a guest.
Breznican says he chose the film because Jackson created an haunting tale of friendship that simultaneously saves and then destroys two young girls.
While this is a true story, it’s an extreme one — but we can all relate to those friends we had who brought out both our strong side and our bad side. The kind of friend your mother doesn’t like you hanging out with. Doesn’t that make you want to see that friend even more?
Heavenly Creatures is remarkable for how much ground it covers. It has dark humor, deep love, tragedy, resistance, defiance, and gritty realism — but it also ventures off into the realm of fantasy and imagination. This movie was made long before Jackson ventured into the world of J.R.R. Tolkien, but it illustrates the power that fantasy can provide when we are feeling weak or lost.
I remember being stunned by the clay kingdom of the Fourth World, where Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey’s characters make their escape. To me, storytelling and fantasy are such potent forces because in a life where we often feel helpless or unseen, our imaginations can help us rediscover what heroism and courage really mean. Sometimes those stories — be it Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, the Marvel universe, or Star Wars — help us find those qualities in ourselves.
Other times, there’s the danger that escapism might take us too far. We can become closed off and lose ourselves in other worlds, then find ourselves crushed by the disappointments of reality. That’s what happens in Heavenly Creatures, and it is mesmerizing, terrifying, and stunning to behold.
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Welcome to our collection of TORn’s hottest topics for the past week. If you’ve fallen behind on what’s happening on the Message Boards, here’s a great way to catch the highlights. Or if you’re new to TORn and want to enjoy some great conversations, just follow the links to some of our most popular discussions. Watch this space as every weekend we will spotlight the most popular buzz on TORn’s Message Boards. Everyone is welcome, so come on in and join the fun!
Continue reading “TORn Message Boards Weekly Roundup – June 15, 2014”
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Welcome to our collection of TORn’s hottest topics for the past week. If you’ve fallen behind on what’s happening on the Discussion Boards, here’s a great way to catch the highlights. Or if you’re new to TORn and what to enjoy some great conversations, just follow the links to some of our most popular discussions. Watch this space as every weekend we will spotlight the most popular buzz on TORn’s Discussion Boards. Everyone is welcome, so come on in and join the fun!
