I work for the only newspaper in America that gave RotK a bad review. It was so bad, we ran the New York Times review next to it, just to keep from getting lynched.

Arty film critic who hates this kind of stuff, or someone who should know better? Doesn't matter, bring them to me so I can stomp out their reproductive organs. Any living children, brains to be dashed out. That critic must leave the gene pool, forthwith.

(What? I tried to be nice and restrained. Didn't work.)

Okay, see, I just home from watching it, and I (and my woefullly underprepared friends) got through my tissues long before the tears had stopped. My scarf will never be the same.

VICTOR!!!

Raquel, the first thing on your inappropriate laugh list is first on my inappropriate HoYay list. That eyebrow raise is just. too. much.

got through my tissues long before the tears had stopped. My scarf will never be the same.

See? Bring all of them.

Okay, really leaving for mail and shopping now.

The HoYay was thick on the ground.

Although I do understand the perspective of people who complain that slashers simplify complex relationships by making them about sex. I do. This way, though, I get to enjoy it on two levels.

I mean, "You won't leave me, will you, Pippin?" and "Don't go where I can't follow!"

There was far too much for me to wrap my tiny brain around. I think for TTT it was on the third viewing that I really got it. So I'll have to watch it again, obviously. And again. Maybe Billy Boyd won't break me next time. I don't hold out much hope though.

There was such HoYay towards the end when the Hobbits were back in the Shire at the Green Dragon. Sam gets up to talk to Rosie and Merry and Pippin give each other a look as if to say, "Well that's sweet, but it's not our sort of thing."

Well, just got back from my second viewing in, oh, about 19 hours. (What? Obsessive geekiness? Yeah, so what!) I had to watch it separate from the trilogy showing, because my brain wasn't processing as well as it should have been last night.

Second viewing comments: Why oh why did the couple in front of me bring in their 3-year-old? Although she was as cute as could be and really didn't make any fuss (I had more complaints about the grown up guy sitting across the aisle and three rows back, who insisted on talking throughout the entire damn film, and also was laughing during the Sam/Frodo post Ring-toss conversation).

Anyway, my favorite moments:

* The beacons!!! Amazing use of aerial photography, loved Pippin's climb up to the MT beacon (did you notice that Christian Rivers played one of the beacon guards?), and Aragorn's reaction was great--you can tell he was just waiting for the call.

* The entire suicide ride to Osgiliath sequence, starting with Pippin's oath and Denethor's rejection of Faramir (David Wenham played this wonderfully), all the way through the great editing done between the Orcs waiting, the Gondorians riding full-tilt, Pippin singing, and Denethor eating. All the other music on this track in the soundtrack equals Pippin's song (btw, did you know that Billy Boyd was given the lyrics and told to improv the tune?)--love the muted martial strains that sound so desperately futile.

* Pippin/Gandalf's conversation about death. The use of the Valinor imagery for heaven had me weeping.

* How utterly broken Frodo was. From the first time we see him fondling the Ring while Sam sleeps, we see how strung out he is. His eyes, his very posture just spells "wreck." I read this somewhere (either oscarwatch or council-of-elrond), but it's a great point: Gollum/Smeagol is an old junkie, and Frodo is a young junkie. As sometimes happens in druggie circles, the young junkie hooks up with the old one who aids and abets his habit, and rejects his lifelong non-junkie friends. I like this explanation for Frodo's telling Sam to go home.

* The way that neither Sam nor Frodo hesitated to smack Gollum around when it became necessary (Sam clocked him with the pot after overhearing the pond conversation!). Choking, punching--very violent stuff from our mild-mannered hobbits.

* Frodo crawling up Mt. Doom. The close-up camera work, James Galway's flute, the determined yet hopeless expression on Frodo's face...just amazing.

Oh, just the whole damn movie!! Now I really am going to wait to see it for the third time. I'm hoping to talk my sister and mom into taking a few hours out of one of our afternoons during Christmas week to go see this. My mom accompanied me to the first two films, but still has never really appreciated either one. I'm thinking this one will suck her in, though.

It appears I am seeing it tomorrow.

Never underestimate a determined geek boy. Huh.

This next bit is from Hubby as he was coming out of the anesthesia today. "I kept seeing the big birds, but I told them I couldn't go. Because I promised you I wouldn't go somewhere you couldn't follow." The drugged human mind is an odd place,

Oh, connie.

I'm trying to get out of a Christmas luncheon so DH and I can go see it before his second shift on Friday. I really missed having him see it at the same time.

Oh! My favorite object, as opposed to creature or location or whatever? The flaming rhino-ram.

I just now got to open and look at my three bits of film. I got Elrond on the battlefield from FotR, Arwen in mourning from TTT, and Gandalf (no Pippin) on the gallery at Minas Tirith from RotK.