YOU CAN'T TRIPLE-STAMP A DOUBLE STAMP!

So truepenny linked to this survey a guy is doing on people's relationships to Tolkien's work. It's a great chance to contribute to what one hopes would be a valuable oral history of Tolkien fandom. Go fill it out! And tell me what you said!

I really enjoyed filling it out because it gave me a chance to articulate some stuff that's been going through my mind about LotR etc since I reread The Silmarillion. The only downside is feeling inadequate about how much Tolkien I've actually read; I could only check like four out of a thousand ticky boxes! Why you taunt me, ticky boxes?

( my answers, for posterity/vanity )

For my politics course I've had to write out my ten favourite movies (everyone's lists will be collated and the results distributed; I look forward to seeing them). Apparently it's supposed to be in order of most-->least favourite, but no-one would be that cruel. So, in no particular order:

( My list )

So, disregarding the influence of mood: two Rob Reiners; I could also have doubled up on Kubrick or Goldman or Bogart or Gilliam or even tripled up on Reiners, which would actually not have changed the stats below one whit. Three (four, counting HCL) satires, two "childhood" movies, two thrillers, two fantasies, three animal names. All English or North American (with a touch of NZ & mystery island), in quintessential ways (US noir, gangsta, Western, Arthur/Medieval romance epic, English twits, American youth). All live-action. Two about music, one musical. Three with documentary elements.

All about Men OMG MEN and their manly bonds, like could they be any more MALE? (Maybe not Elijah Wood). Where are the women? Sense and Sensibility and The Princess Bride and Fifth Element were close to getting in. Most prominent female characters? Wife (Etta Place, Jeanine Pettibone) or fiance (Arwen) or mother (Alec's mum, Galadriel haha). Thank god for Mary Astor. Etta Place is pretty great, too. All white as lilies. Rabbit Proof Fence and Ang Lee and Yimou Zhang and Benicio Del Toro had look-ins. I'm almost disappointed in myself that I've chosen such a narrow spectrum of movies to really take into my heart! You can tell the kind of media I latched onto most as a kid *g*

I'm really interested to see other people's lists and the breakdowns. Tell me yours!

Also for this course I had to watch He Died with a Felafel in his Hand, which I very much enjoyed. Noah Taylor is great. Out of the ten million pop culture (and high culture) references in that movie, both in dialogue and homages, I think about two referred to Australia. And you know, aside from the occasional orgasming over Hugo Weaving and Cate Blanchett, that is so, so true. lydia_petze, have you seen this? There is a Reservoir Dogs reference in there that KILLED me.

So, to continue in the theme of white men doing manly things, in their Venice FF special on Wednesday Margaret and David touched on (heh) Brokeback Mountain. Man, I cannot wait for this. I am uncertain about Heath Ledger but I think Jake Gyllenhall will be fantastic (in one clip he mimicked Ledger having to take a shot of whiskey before the love scenes (in a way that implied that there was tension between them because of it. And Ledger, promoting Casanova, mentioned that BM was an extremely hard shoot). And they seem to be building on the Proulx story in intelligent ways.

I have never been more wholly immersed in pop culture in all my life. It's fantastic.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Elrond's reaction shot at the end KILLS me.

I wake up this morning to find I have fallen off the roof, so to speak. This afternoon I figure, hey, I'll go get some videos, so I change in to some almost as daggy clothes and kinda brush my hair a bit. I rent funny movies and incredibly depressing movies. Then I go to the shopping centre to pick up some more pads and think, hey, I'll get some chocolate while I'm here.

I walk out and realise, I am the biggest cliche ever. *facepalm*

On the bright side, at the video store (where you can rent 7 for $7, but only 4 DVDs! How am I supposed to decide which movies won't suffer quite so much in pan and scan! Evil! /bitch) I bought a very cool LotR poster which had Frodo and Sam and Gollum. I was going to give it to you, lainy122, but then I realised on the back it had Gandalf, Merry and Pippin, so I'm keeping it aaaaall to myself! Muahahaha! But the guy said he'd look for more and put one aside under my name if you wanna pop in.

Most brilliantest thing, seriously:

"Get outta my way, flame of Udun"

Lord of the Rings if it had been cast a little more...black and white.