This is starting to become a family New Year's tradition. (Some years we skip, and we usually skip the tedious Frodo/Sam/Gollum stuff in TTT and ROTK ( Read more... )

1. Liar Game: So apparently my original, untweaked theory was correct after all (the one I said had not yet been jossed, though I myself had poked holes in it). Eyeroll. Ironically I think I had the exact same hangup as Yokoya. It would have been veryyyyy easy for this whole thing to go wrong, because the end scenario can ONLY happen if every. ( Read more... )

Saw it this morning. Enjoyed it as expected, but kind of underwhelmed. It starts in the middle of nowhere, goes nowhere, and ends in the middle of nowhere. In other words, it suffers from all the typical second installment flaws (which The Two Towers actually averted). WHY did they make this a trilogy again? Sigh.

( not really spoilers but )

- Love the dwarf song (which of course had already been in the trailer). So haunting. So... perfect for the world, for the characters, everything.

I <3 Shore's usage of leitmotifs btw. Have ever since the original trilogy. That said, the dwarf a cappella (not quite but u know the one) version of the track is still my favorite variation on this ( Read more... )

Finally watched Harry Potter 7 on DVD (missed it in the theaters, I forget why) -- verdict: underwhelmed. I think the weaknesses of the book are really magnified on film. Too much happening, not enough space to linger.... The scenes that I liked in the book (and yes, I'm one of the folks who did actually like book 7 with caveats) ended up kind of ( Read more... )

My family has a tradition of watching Red vs. White a.k.a. Kohaku.　But last year, of course, we were in China, and this year we still haven't bothered getting TV programming back, so instead my sister and I marathoned the Lord of the Rings movies. All three of them. Extended version. :D ( Read more... )

Internet at home died. Turned out to be because SBC changed their login err, format I guess? Because we had been dialing in with just "username" and "password", but now it has to be "username@pacbell.net" Weird. By the time I figured it out though I was too tired to do anything anyway. (So had another LOTR-watching marathon ( Read more... )

Yesterday... was a most interesting day indeed ( Read more... )