Dixie writes: There was a quick Tolkien reference at the French Open (tennis competition) Sunday, during the men’s finals between Gaston Gaudio and Guillermo Coria. In the fifth and deciding set of what was undoutedly the strangest Grand Slam final I’ve ever seen, the commentators declared that the match had seen so much drama and reversals that it had become a triolgy; and they wondered if even Tolkien could have imagined such a fantastic series of events.
Category: Original TORn
Nikki writes: ROTK has been nominated for several Teen Choice Awards. They are:
Best Movie, Drama
Best Actor in a Drama – Elijah Wood for ROTK
Best Actress in a Drama – Liv Tyler
Male Hottie – Orlando Bloom
The show airs August 11, 2004, 8pm/7c on FOX. You can vote here (but you can only vote once): [More]
Today is Karl Urban’s birthday! Urban was born Karl-Heinz Urban on 7 June 1972 in Wellington, NZ. That makes him 32 today! Happy Birthday Karl!
Turgon checks in with not one but two new columns.
- The first is an addenda to his book, The Tolkien Fan’s Medieval Reader, presenting a few medieval poems from The Poetic Edda. For reasons of space they didn’t appear in the book, so look here to see the original source where Tolkien got his dwarf-names! [More]
- The second column is a roundup of some recent books on Tolkien, including the new unauthorized biography of Peter Jackson, a parody of The Hobbit, and several others. [More]
And if you missed the announcement last week, there are two new Special Guest columns, “Hearing the Horns of Rohan” by Edie Head, and “The Eternal Conflict in Middle-earth: from Literature to Film” by Michael Posa. Both are fine essays, one a personal look at Tolkien in one woman’s life [More], the other, a studied look at certain differing aspects between the presentation of good and evil in Tolkien’s books and Jackson’s films [More]. Enjoy!
Lomadia writes: According to Box Office Mojo, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban grossed $40,800,000 on its opening day (Friday, June 4). This beats out Spiderman, giving it the most successful opening day ever, and dropping The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King into fourth place.
Hobbitangel writes: Orlando Bloom has been told to wear a chest wig to look ‘more manly’ for his new film. Movie bosses want the screen hearthrob to cover up with the hairy rug for his new lead role in the Crusades epic Kindom of Heaven. [More]