Final results for MTV movie brawl poll demonstrates how important your vote can be - granted this one is only for a film. However, when we're choosing national & local elected officials, we're exercising true power by getting to the voting machines and supporting those candidates we're convinced can make a positive difference.
'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' Vs. 'The Woman In Black' (Poll Closed)
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 49.48%
The Woman In Black 50.52%
Did you ever read something that explained to you exactly why you had had an unsettled feeling about someone or something and couldn't exactly identify why? That's what happened as I read the following review of last night's Golden Globe awards. First, the only awards show I watch is The Oscars, therefore, I’ve never had reason to become aware of the recent host of the Golden Globe awards(last year's and last night). As a result, I didn’t realize he had skewered most of Hollywood during last year’s show. Woe is me that I missed that golden moment in time, because most of what the following reviewer says about ‘Hollywood types’ echoes my opinions of that irrelevant community. The reviewer is right on about speculating that Meryl Streep’s agent/producer/pusher is buying all these awards for her. Neither the woman, nor her dramatic vehicles, are interesting enough to merit so much attention - unless it has been manufactured in the first place. Box office results for her films definitely confirm that conclusion. IMHO, the only audience watching her movies - and the majority of others out of Hollywood - are the members of the Motion Picture Academy Arts and Sciences themselves (those earning their living in LaLaLand).
EXCERPT from review: ”..That must be what all the stars were promised this time around: ‘You can use Ricky this time as your punching bag’, and NBC guaranteed it won’t be the other way around.”
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
MERYL STREEP – THE IRON LADY
Seriously? Another win for The Weinstein Co? What did Harvey do: get every member of the HFPA green cards and/or permanent U.S. citizenship? (Well, he is a bundler for the Democratic party/Obama re-election campaign.) This is a movie that many Britons hated (not unlike Madonna’s W.E.) Shouldn’t that make it an anathema to the foreign press? Nope. “I want to thank everybody in England who let me trample all over their history,” Streep said.
Meryl wasn’t just joking when she thanked “my agent Kavein Huvane and God — Harvey Weinstein. The Punisher. Old Testament, I guess.” Harvey tried to act humble. Still, it’s an astonishing night for him. Two years ago he was down and out. Now he’s The Don again. The fact is he’s just so much better than other moguls at seducing these awards voters and swanning the clueless media. http://www.deadline.com/2012/01/advisory-live-snarking-the-golden-globes/
In a comment by Sally, she speculates that RA could perhaps finally appear in the play 'The Rover' during his filming break from The Hobbit - last half of 2012. Scroll to end of page for specific posts on The Rover..
This winter, director Peter Jackson will deliver the long-awaited return to Middle-earth. "The Hobbit," which will unfold across two films, begins with "An Unexpected Journey," as Bilbo Baggins leaves to win back gold stolen from his companions. But these are not just any friends. Bilbo is accompanied by 13 dwarves, each with a larger-than-life personality.
The leader of these adventurers, Thorin, will be played by Richard Armitage, who made a brief appearance in "Captain America: The First Avenger," but will get his biggest Stateside break in "The Hobbit." The British actor played a key role in last month's trailer and will soon join the illustrious ranks of Tolkien alumni, alongside Viggo Mortensen, Sean Bean and Orlando Bloom.
We spoke with Armitage about traveling to Middle-earth, the difficulty of working under pounds of makeup and leading a band of treasure-seeking dwarves.
MTV: Congratulations on being named to MTV's Ones to Watch!
Richard Armitage: Thank you very much!
MTV: Where are you currently in the filming schedule?
Armitage: We just finished up our second block, so we start again at the end of January, and then we go — we think it's the end of July. Then there's a bit more in 2013, we reckon.
MTV: What's it like being on a single project for so long?
Armitage: It's really weird because when we started it was just this enormous mountain to climb, but actually, it's going so fast. I think we've gotten to the halfway point now. It's been really intense but so exciting. We literally just finished our location shoot that we've been out on the road seeing most of New Zealand. It's been the best thing I've ever worked on in my life, by far.
MTV: Is it easy to forget you're acting? Do you get lost in the world the production creates?
Armitage: The soundstages they made in Wellington, [New Zealand], most of the time it doesn't feel like we've been working on a set. Even when there's a green screen there, Peter's vision of it is so clear and his description of it is so clear. The pre-production CGI that they've already created really fires up your imagination. That was the shoot we started with. On location, it's just theirs to program these amazing images into your head, so we can now take them back into the studio.
MTV: Will it be hard to leave behind once you've wrapped?
Armitage: It don't think it will be possible to leave it behind me. I think this is one of those characters that always stay with you because you spend so much time with him and it's such a transformation. I'm in the character every day, and I've become so familiar with him. I sort of know how he thinks. I feel really close to the character, and he will continue beyond this job , [spoiler ahead] even though, he dies at the end of the movie. I think he is a fascinating character. I will probably wake up in six years' time and be inspired to think about him again. It's really exciting.
MTV: How did your previous knowledge of the story change how you approached Thorin?
Armitage: I read it quite a few times when I was young. I think going back to it as an adult is really interesting because it is a book that was, I think, was written for Tolkien's children, but when you're creating a piece on this scale, you have to really visualize it for a much broader audience. I think that's the beauty of Tolkien. He does create very well-rounded, quite dangerous characters to play his protagonists. He risks scaring kids. He's the original fantasy creator, and I think you have to invest those characters with the same gravity as if you were making a piece for adults. It was interesting coming back to it as an adult, re-reading it again, because it did have a simplicity to it, which I really like. I felt we could take those characters and really develop them beyond the book.
MTV: You ended up with middle ground in terms of the amount of makeup. Did you feel lucky?
Armitage: It did evolve. We all started with quite an extreme version of ourselves. I think because my character does spend a lot of time onscreen and you really have to understand what he's going through emotionally, it became clear that if we started make the prosthetic as close to my features as possible but still make him a dwarf, it would be much easier to read the character. He has to go on such a journey, it was really important to do that. I grew my own beard after the first block because I felt that it was restricting my face. The jaw is so connected to emotion that I wanted to have that free. It made such a huge difference.
It's really weird now because I can't play the character when I haven't gotten everything on. It's very hard to rehearse when you're not in costume, when you haven't gotten the prosthetics on, but I look in the mirror when it's all finished and I don't see it. I can't see where it starts and where it ends. I just see the character. I've never had that before. It's such a unique experience. It's a face that doesn't belong to me. It belongs to WETA workshop and the people that created it.
MTV: How was it on set with so many actors playing the dwarves?
Armitage: I love it. I absolutely love working as an ensemble member, and we really are an ensemble. There's great camaraderie among all the guys. There is such a diversity of culture and background. We're working with a lot of Kiwis, and there's real mixture of British actors who come from television and theater and film. It's exactly as the dwarves are. When Thorin assembles the quest, he pulls dwarves from all different places to go on this quest. That's mirrored in who we are as actors.
Oh No! They've paired An Unexpected Journey with Daniel Radcliffe's Woman in Black - Current Results:
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 50.88% V O T E !
The Woman In Black 49.12% http://moviesblog.mtv.com/tag/mtv-movie-brawl-2012/
Will we allow the boy wizard to steal Thorin's thunder? Of course not ;) VOTE at link above
For many years, I've so admired Bernard Cornwell's respect for historical facts in his writing; therefore, it was gratifying to read the following excerpt during a discussion between the Lords of the North writer and Game of Thrones author, GRR Martin. As a history buff, I cannot muster as much respect for fantasy pieces as for historical fiction/drama. That's probably because the creative guidelines are much looser - there's no need to keep within the truthful framework that I, for one, find commendable in well written historical novels and drama. http://georgerrmartin.com/news.html
EXCERPT: GRRM: Historical fiction is not history. You're blending real events and actual historical personages with characters of your own creation, like Uhtred and Richard Sharpe. How much "poetic license" should a novelist have when dealing with the events of history? How accurate is he obliged to be? Where do you draw the line?
BC: I can't change history (if only), but I can play with it. The answer slightly depends on what I'm writing. I did a trilogy on 'King' Arthur and there's almost no real history to rely on, so I could do more or less what I wanted. With the Saxon books I have a skeleton history thanks to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and few other sources, but there's not much meat on those bones so I have a lot of freedom. If I'm writing about the American Revolution then I have almost no freedom because I'm trespassing on the high ground of American legend and I must stick to the real history if the book is going to persuade the reader of the story's viability - so in Redcoat I changed only one event by bringing it forward 24 hours. And then I confess my sins in an historical note at the book's end. Occasionally I change more drastically; Sharpe's Company tells the story of the dreadful attack on Badajoz and, in brief, a feint attack that was only intended to draw French defenders away from the breaches succeeded in capturing the city while the main attacks, on the breaches, failed disastrously. It seemed to me that the drama of that night was in the breaches, so Sharpe had to attack one of them, and if Richard Sharpe attacks, he wins (he's a hero!). So in the novel I allow the attackers to get through a breach (which didn't happen) because otherwise the story wouldn't work. But again, I confessed the sin at the book's end.
** Cornwell also mentions in above chat that a Uhtred tv series might be a possibility, although he added he's not holding his breath.
NEWS: I've not stopped watching him for the last 3 years ;) but MTV alerts others that Richard Armitage is on their ONES TO WATCH 2012 List:
THE HOBBIT NEWS:2012 MTV’s Ones To Watch
Richard Armitage
Elizabeth Banks
Taylor Schilling
Adrianne Palicki
Alice Eve
Taylor Kitsch
Josh Hutcherson
Liam Hemsworth INTERVIEW EXCERPT:
MTV: You ended up with middle ground in terms of the amount of makeup. Did you feel lucky?
Armitage: It did evolve. We all started with quite an extreme version of ourselves. I think because my character does spend a lot of time onscreen and you really have to understand what he's going through emotionally, it became clear that if we started make the prosthetic as close to my features as possible but still make him a dwarf, it would be much easier to read the character. He has to go on such a journey, it was really important to do that. I grew my own beard after the first block because I felt that it was restricting my face. The jaw is so connected to emotion that I wanted to have that free. It made such a huge difference.
It's really weird now because I can't play the character when I haven't gotten everything on. It's very hard to rehearse when you're not in costume, when you haven't gotten the prosthetics on, but I look in the mirror when it's all finished and I don't see it. I can't see where it starts and where it ends. I just see the character. I've never had that before. It's such a unique experience. It's a face that doesn't belong to me. It belongs to WETA workshop and the people that created it. http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1677131/richard-armitage-hobbit.jhtml
Sincere thanks to: http://www.richardarmitagenet.com/latestnews.html
EXCERPT: But the dwarf who is most likely to become a household name is the more fully titled Thorin Oakenshield and we think not only will we have an unforgettable character on the first Hobbit day (Dec. 14, 2012, the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey) but also the actor Richard Armitage will become a household name. While there are many who know and love the English actor, that day and the films, will change his career forever.
Thorin will be a stern and occasionally callous dwarf, but he comes from a royal lineage of kings and has very personal reasons to want to travel to The Lonely Mountain (often called Erebor) and kill the dragon Smaug. It was Thorin's grandfather, Thrór, who was King Under the Mountain when Smaug attacked and wreaked the kingdom, driving the dwarves away and into exile. Thorin escaped but the mark on his family is a personal one and if you watched the first Hobbit trailer released, you have already met his father Thrain.
So when we see Thorin in Bilbo's house, he carries with him the physical remnant of his family's legacy: a map showing the secret entrance back into The Lonely Mountain. He also carries with him the failure of his fathers and the hope of his people. Like his father before him, he is taking his kinsmen and heading back — with a burglar and a wizard — to reclaim his kingdom. He will drive the dwarves, and the film, with this desire that may at times boarder on obsession. But hey, if a dragon burned and ate your family, lived in your underground castle (not the one that a balrog lives in during The Lord of the Rings) and slept on your pile of gold and jewels, you might obsess a little as well.
But, that isn't all there is to Thorin. Besides being generally serious and occasionally angry, his pride and bravery will be a big part of his character. He is intelligent, brave, a fierce warrior and, he can sing. It is his (or Armitage's) voice that leads the dark dwarven song in the trailer — ripped directly from J.R.R. Tolkien's text — that gives the short film commercial its brooding mood. He is a king without a throne and a tragic character who will sometimes be at odds with our hero Bilbo, with Gandalf, men and elves, be he is only trying to do his best to meet his burden and return his people to their glory.
First reflection I had after hearing the above dwarf chant was...
Then discovered this more modern take - but somehow none of the fine voices can compare favorably with Thorin's:) - he's the Middle Earth's Got Talent champion..(just noticed they're not best spellers either:)
Finally had a chance to watch the tv show Martin Freeman and Gerard Butler appeared on within the past few days. Actually, my initial impression is "much ado about nothing" considering both Gerard and his fan seemed to behave perfectly natural and civilized about the situation. He couldn't remember whether he'd ever worn a kilt during an event on his home turf, and she reminded him(from the audience:) that he had worn one in Glasgow. At that point, he smiled warmly at her and didn't seem annoyed in the slightest. An instant look of disbelief did cross the actor's face when she identified the location of a photo of him on a beach in Hawaii. But even that visual feedback wasn't as strong as I'd been expecting after hearing second-hand reports about various reactions to the episode. Butler was very entertaining & charming when he described his mother's hand signals to him as he sat up front facing the congregation - wearing a kilt - at his sister's wedding. All in all, I'd say Gerard Butler never actually ridiculed his apparently *very enthusiastic* fan. As a result, his reactions left me with the opinion he wisely realizes an actor's professional life's blood depends on those in the audience who support (as RA said at one time) "what I [they] do".
In fact, this is the first time I've really enjoyed watching the GN show because he allowed his guests to do most of the talking rather than monopolizing the conversation himself. The results are at times hilarious. See for yourself...
Take the Quiz: Which Downton Abbey Character are you? [UPDATE: the link below leads you to the quiz page - not my result, which is Matthew Crawley haha...hmmm why him? perhaps because politics is one of my fav topics of conversation;]
The test identifying which Downton Abbey character you might be, obviously takes into consideration the cultural strait jackets for females in those days. A *lady* did not discuss politics in the early 20thC. Therefore, the century old computer programming *winks* gave me the Matthew Crawley result. Lol I don't really mind since he's such a cutie(as Mary finally realized:) http://www.weta.org/tv/picks/downtonabbey/quiz
Oooh, look at that - no Lucas cowlick above for a change. Must've been plastered down with an extra quantity of hair dressing of some sort, because the majority of the time both Lucas and John Porter had an adorable...
The talented pianist playing background music is also the videographer. New RA fans should know that the actor deliberately lost many pounds in preparation for playing Lucas North (the spy incarcerated 8yrs in a Russian prison) on his return in Spooks 7..
@merilyn066 They both do. Absolutely. And your boy does, too, btw.
7 Jan
@merilyn066Merilyn
@EricVespe PJ must have a wicked & dark sense of humour!
7 Jan
EricVespeEric Vespe
Before winning the Oscar for Into the West, Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson wrote this song (and it's even better): http://tinyurl.com/7fabll3
Following restaurant review is of interest to The Hobbit devotees. The main course is Beef Wellington but that fact doesn't signal it's location is in NZ - rather it's in California. Reading the menu descriptions has caused me to ponder whether Bilbo or Thorin would feel more at home partaking of a 7-course dinner at The Hobbit:
The dark arts of film demanded Jackson ham up the love story in LOTR, but bringing the Necromancer – later Sauron – into The Hobbit's denouement could break the story's spell altogether
Fans of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy who have also read the original JRR Tolkien books will no doubt remember the uncomfortable moment in The Return of the King when Hugo Weaving's Elrond rocks up rather randomly at Dunharrow and starts spouting nonsense about Arwen's fate being tied inextricably to the fate of the ring. It wasn't in the book, and it wouldn't have been in the movie had Jackson and his team not been determined to give the romance between Aragorn and his elven belle more screen time in line with Hollywood convention.
Never mind, most of us thought, forgiving a film-making team that had pulled off a minor miracle in bringing Tolkien's fantasy work to the big screen at all, and managed to do so with great care and brio. I wonder if we'll be so generous if new rumours that Jackson is planning to change the end of The Hobbit turn out to have any basis in fact.
Empire online spoke recently to Benedict Cumberbatch, the Sherlock star suspected of possessing his own magic ring that requires all major Hollywood directors to cast him in their latest productions. As well as voicing the dragon Smaug and the Necromancer (who morphs into evil eye Sauron for the Lord of the Rings) in Jackson's two-part take on The Hobbit, the British actor is also in line for a turn as the major villain in JJ Abrams's Star Trek II and is currently starring as Major Stewart in Steven Spielberg's Oscar-tipped War Horse. If you don't want to know anything about his Hobbity ventures before December 2013, when second instalment There and Back Again hits cinemas, TURN AWAY NOW.
"I'm playing Smaug through motion-capture and voicing the Necromancer, which is a character in the Five Legions War or something which I'm meant to understand," Cumberbatch told Empire. "He's not actually in the original Hobbit. It's something [Peter Jackson]'s taken from Lord of the Rings that he wants to put in there."
Hang on a minute. The Necromancer at the Battle of Five Armies (which is surely what Cumberbatch is referring to here)? Tolkienistas will know that the aforementioned conflict, a five-way rumpus involving dwarves, elves, goblins, wargs and men for the treasures of Erebor, marks the denouement of The Hobbit. There is little indication in the book that it has anything much to do with Sauron, who has recently been kicked out of Mirkwood by the White Council in events we hear about from Gandalf in retrospect. The idea that the Necromancer turns up to lead a battalion of (presumably) goblins seems to come from way out of left field. It's a bit like remaking the original Star Wars trilogy and inserting the ewoks in the first movie (OK, perhaps not quite that bad).
Could Cumberbatch have got it wrong? He does seem a little confused about his Tolkien terminology, so we can only hope that befuddlement is to blame here. With so many different roles to play in 2012 and beyond, who can blame him for getting a little mixed up?
Jackson has already shown a propensity towards presenting The Hobbit in a form which allows it to segue comfortably into the Lord of the Rings, and there's not much wrong with that. After all, Tolkien himself revised his earlier book after delving into deeper, darker territory in its three-part sequel. Few have complained that Galadriel, Saruman and even Legolas are due to appear in The Hobbit, since the book's background events offer Jackson some licence to include them, but allowing the Necromancer to play a major role in the film project's finale seems to me a step too far.
The Hobbit's major villain is Smaug, and nothing should be allowed to undermine that. The mean old worm may be an evil brute with a heart of frozen, inky darkness, but he is unconnected to Sauron and the dark lord's more ambitious machinations. Most would be happy to see the new films prefigure the rise of evil in Middle Earth, but few would expect to see the later books' villain promoted to a major antagonist before his time. By all means let's see the Necromancer get kicked out of Mirkwood, but please keep him well clear of the Lonely Mountain. Mordor is, after all, rather a long way south.
Have you listened to this RA radio interview about Spooks and Robin Hood? It also features the actor who played the Home Secretary in Spooks..forward to 13min for their interview(the host explains the clinking noises heard now and then are from Robt Glenister's tea cup:)
Rick Santorum was one of the contenders in the recent IOWA caucuses(cauci?? It‘s as bad as hypothalamus:) Mr Santorum, a former Republican member of the US Senate, came in second in almost a photo finish with the most likely person to win the presidential nomination - Mitt Romney. In Rick’s thank you message he referred to his wife by quoting C.S. Lewis..
The above incident gave me reason today to purr like a kitten, when hubby related Santorum’s message to me and repeated the quote. I’d not heard those C.S. Lewis words before and replied “what a lovely compliment to his wife." Then, “you do realize C.S. Lewis was British..and a friend of Tolkien’s?” DH’s mouth almost fell open - he said “how do you know that?” My response was to the effect I’d learned it while reading The Hobbit and subsequently the background of it’s writer. He shook his head and said “sometimes you amaze me.” *gloat, gloat* This fangurl condition can certainly have positive results:)
You just never know what a creative RA fan will think of next---do you have a burning desire to see John Thornton, Lucas North, John Porter with Guy of Gisborne series 3 hair? Your wish is someone's command...
CORRECT ANSWER to the Empire Mag Poll: The reviewer did indeed say Thorin "growls" and Armitage's "increasingly impressive" Thorin plus "spine tingling stuff" - they did not however mention "velvety voice."
