The Powhiri ceremony was performed on the first day of filming The Hobbit on 21 March 2011
Video provided by Peter Jackson -- Start of The Hobbit: 10min Behind the Scenes (Besides his prominent role in the Powhiri ceremony, Richard is seen in Bilbo Baggins cozy hobbit hole sitting with other cast members at one end of the table. You can only see the back of his head and shoulder of his leather jacket - That's alright, we won't be greedy;) after his leading role in the traditional Maori ceremony.
Around frame 00:58 of the above video, if you're extremely attentive, you can see RA for a split second rehearsing a Thorin fight scene. Screencaps posted on twitter by @RAnetdotcom..
Might only be rehearsal but he looks ferocious, doesn't he;) grrrrr, make my day baddies!
For those keeping count - that's one down and 4 more to go..
http://www.richardarmitagenet.com/images/gallery/Hobbit/Powhiri-21Mar11/album/index.html
Look how attentive Rob Kazinsky is...sitting straight as an arrow,,shoulders back:) I'm rarely drawn to blondes..he's starting to grow on me. *young enough to almost need burping*...I know;)
Didn't RA leave the Spooks set to help find the setting below for the journalist's photo?
Recently a new series starring Ashley Judd and Sean Bean(Cornwell's Sharpe series & LoTR) was announced. At first I was slightly concerned that Bean might've accepted a role not worthy of him; however, upon reading an outline of the series plot realized it sounds rather interesting. I'll soon post more information about the show.
I've noticed many RA supporters also enjoy actor Bean's projects, in particular the aforementioned Napoleonic War adventures written by Bernard Cornwell. After reading this recent comment to a below post, decided to update this blog with Bean highlights as well as RA's. Both men were born in northern England - RA in Leicestershire and SB in Yorkshire.
[Comment referred to: >The Sharpe series was utter delight. Mr. SB managed to make a thoroughly conscientious character (who might have stereotype boring) hero very interesting.Could have been better cast as Robin in BBC RH than JA? Just speculating, as I think JA did some good stuff there, just not quite up to the level of Mr. A at that point of acting development. As for some remarks made by Mr. A in interviews, I take some with grain of salt. There is a (somewhat?) mischievious, slightly teasing? quality. Rather English. fitzg<]
[
My reply to the comment: >Hey there fitzg...almost missed your interesting comment down here. I know how that can happen however, after posting a question recently for Dezz at his website. When I returned to see the answer, had difficulty finding it because I'd placed my query in one of his older posts;) Being a hollywood spy no doubt helped, for he managed to find my post and replied. Hubby & I have just finished watching the complete Sharpe series. We'd watched episodes whenever available here and there over the yrs. DH was so happy to see each entire ep without editing for tv ads. Sean Bean is a courageous man as well as actor. He recently stated in a prominent interview that he believes Mel Gibson is a fine man. That took unbelieveable courage, since the often vicious and incorrect media had scourged Gibson after a girlfriend made abuse charges against him. I have no idea whether or not all the charges are true about Mel, but I do know Sean Bean seemed unconcerned that the show biz media might consider him a target in the future. It took major backbone on Major Sharpe's;) part. Will post more info about Sean Bean's new tv series w/Ashley Judd. It sounds interesting.]
By RiCrAr in former post comments: 'Clive Standen's Tweet Compliment for RA +Spooks 9'
PLOT Description for Sean Bean's upcoming new TV series:
Sean Bean's new series might be entitled 'MISSING' but he certainly isn't missing these days from very many screens across the globe...
>Apparently because he still has an hour or two to kill between all the movies and TV work he’s already got lined up, Sean Bean has joined Ashley Judd’s new show on ABC called “Missing”, which sounds like a cross between “Taken” and “Not Without my Daughter”. Bean will play Judd’s husband on the show, who is killed early in the pilot, but returns in flashbacks throughout the season.
The plot: The story centers on a worried mom who, after her son disappears in Italy while overseas for a summer internship, takes it upon herself to travel to Europe and track him down. It soon becomes clear that this isn’t any ordinary woman, but a former CIA agent who will stop at nothing to bring her son home alive.
Unlike his ex-CIA wife, though, Bean’s character Paul on the show will be your average husband … who gets blown up in the pilot.
Bean is one busy man. Besides a number of movie projects, including “Silent Hill 2″, he’s also got HBO’s “Game of Thrones” where he plays the male lead.
http://www.influence-film.com/2011/04/sean-bean-joins-ashley-judd%E2%80%99s-taken-ish-tv-show-missing.html
Oooh, pastels..Spring is here, can Easter be far away...
Here's the reason THE HOBBIT is currently in production. There's a famous US saying "follow the money" :) Comparison is with THE EAGLE which has only been in release for 8wks. It's budget was merely 1/4 that of Jackson's The Two Towers. The Eagle will definitely make millions more before fading to tv movie channels, BUT there are very few movies with the box office totals garnered by the LOTR trilogy. These are the stunning figures for the middle film of the series..
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Worldwide Total Gross: $925, 282, 504
Distributor: New Line Release Date: December 18, 2002
Genre: Fantasy Runtime: 2 hrs. 59 min.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 Production Budget: $94 million
The Eagle
Starring: Channing Tatum and Jamie Bell
Worldwide Boxoffice Total as of
Apr. 7, 2011: $32, 708, 156 In release: 8 weeks
Distributor: Focus Features Release Date: February 11, 2011
Genre: Period Action Runtime: 1 hrs. 54 min.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 Production Budget: $25 million
**GAME OF THRONES**
I'd agreed with Sepinwall when he rated Camelot as better than The Borgias, therefore decided to read his following review, despite the fact I'd refrained from reading others. They are afterall coming fast and furious these last few days leading up to GoT's global premiere on Sunday. After reading a sentence in one of the first paragraphs where the writer stated he's never been a fan of fantasy productions, said to myself - "aha! something else on which we agree."
We can return to his review following ep 1 for further comment...
EXCERPT from Review by Alan Sepinwall:
HBO put the "It's not TV. It's HBO." slogan into semi-retirement a couple of years ago. (followed by a few paragraphs describing it's history)...
The slogan's gone, but HBO has been mounting a comeback over the last year thanks to new blood like "Treme" and "Boardwalk Empire." Now comes "Game of Thrones" (it debuts Sunday night at 9), the expensive adaptation of George R.R. Martin's fantasy novel series "A Song of Ice and Fire," which is trying to do for the fantasy genre what the classic HBO dramas did for cops, cowboys and wiseguys.
And for the most part, it works - stunningly well.
Where I went into "The Wire" and "Deadwood" with a lot of built-in affection for their respective genres, I've never had much sentimental attachment for fantasy. I love the "Lord of the Rings" movies, but for the most part what gets adapted for movies and television is either laughably cheap-looking, more interested in fetishizing all the stuff about magic and kings and swords than in telling a good story, or both.
"Game of Thrones" is not that. Yes, it takes place in an alternate version of the Middle Ages - in an ancient collection of seven kingdoms where magic may have once existed, but which hasn't been seen in centuries - but it takes its world, its characters, and its stories seriously. There are kings and queens and knights, but they are always treated (by Martin in the books, and by producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss in the show) as people first, titles second.
The titles are important, but only in the sense that nearly everyone is jockeying for the big one: ruler of the seven kingdoms of Westeros. Martin loosely adapted the books' story from England's War of the Roses, and as we enter the world, Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy) has been king long enough to acquire a colorful and large rogues gallery of contenders and pretenders for the throne. His wife Cersei (Lena Headey) and her twin brother Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) are conspiring behind his back, eager to see Cersei's son Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) take the crown as soon as possible. Viserys Targaryen (Harry Lloyd) and his sister Daenerys (Emilia Clarke), the children of the murdered previous king, live in exile and are trying to amass an army to cross the sea and reclaim their birthright. Each of the king's advisors is running his own individual hustle, and Robert himself is a gluttonous, spiteful drunk.
There are times when it seems the only man in Westeros actually suited to running the place is the one man who doesn't want the job: strong, fair, noble Eddard "Ned" Stark (Sean Bean), Robert's best friend, who controls the northernmost part of Westeros.
Those oddly-spelled names above represent only a small portion of the huge cast of characters in "Game of Thrones." Ned Stark alone has a wife, five legitimate kids, a bastard son, a "ward" and various close friends and advisors, almost all of them getting significant screen time. .
Friends have been recommending Martin's books to me for a while, but I chose not to read them (for now, at least), wanting to see if the series could stand on its own and be both comprehensible and interesting to a newcomer. And it is....
These characters all share complicated histories with one another...
But the characters are so richly-drawn, and so wonderfully-played, that the exposition ultimately isn't that great a stumbling block. I wanted to know more about these characters, and within an episode or so was eager for any bit of backstory that helped better clarify all the relationships.
The casting on this is really exceptional, from the well-known actors like Bean (who has the difficult task of making a man largely defined by his goodness not seem dull), Addy (fierce and commanding and completely unrecognizable from either "Still Standing" or "The Full Monty") and Peter Dinklage (having the time of his life as the Lannister twins' clever dwarf brother Tyrion) as well as relative unknowns like Clarke (who makes the virginal Daenerys' growing awareness of her power, sexual and otherwise, into one of the series' strongest ongoing arcs) and Maisie Williams (a delight as Ned's tomboy daughter Arya).
It's a mark of how well-crafted the show is that I didn't find my attention wandering during scenes involving the types of characters who usually put me to sleep on other series, fantasy or otherwise. I usually find bratty, willfully ignorant kids a chore to watch (take Elizabeth Mitchell's "V" son - please), but I found myself understanding (if not particularly liking) Ned's snotty, status-conscious daughter Sansa (Sophie Turner). Ditto the Lannister twins themselves, as I rarely have any interest in the catty scheming types; Headey, Coster-Waldau and the writers make them into three-dimensional, interesting figures.
And even as the series is demonstrating its ample commitment to story and character, it still offers all the nifty visual bells and whistles that you find in abundance in more shallow fantasy stories.
The pilot episode (mostly directed by HBO veteran Timothy Van Patten after an earlier version by Tom McCarthy was largely scrapped) is a feast for the eyes. The different corners of the world all have their own memorable looks: the arctic chill of the giant wall separating Westeros from its primitive, deadly neighbors to the far north; the lazy tropical ambience of the nation's capital; and the mix of seaside beauty and Great Plains simplicity of Daenerys' new homeland. A later episode brings us to the Eyrie, a mountain stronghold that has one of the most diabolically simple fictional prisons I've ever seen.
There's also abundant violence (it's like a masterclass in beheading techniques) and sex ...It's an adult series in every possible way. But where a comparable show like Starz's new "Camelot" might throw in the nudity just as a lure to get people to watch, the sex scenes in "Game of Thrones" almost always have major narrative value, whether they're establishing a foreign culture or telling us more about a character who plays things close to the vest outside the bedroom.
It's far too early to say whether "Game of Thrones" will ultimately belong in the HBO pantheon, but it has so many things in common with those shows.
Like the best of the HBO dramas, "Game of Thrones" has more on its mind than telling a good story within its chosen genre...
...it has one hell of an opening title sequence: a soaring tour through a map of Westeros and its different corners, with each kingdom or garrison rising up from the ground like clockwork toys. Not only does it help orient newcomers like me to this sprawling place, but it says so much about how this world is one incredible playset, first for Martin, and now for Benioff, Weiss and company. It was a place for Martin's imagination to run wild on the page, and now for everyone else (including Martin himself, who wrote one of the later episodes) to bring that imagination to three-dimensional life.
There's so much going on in this series - so many people and places and rules to learn - that I feared I would be completely lost without the books as a roadmap. But as with the cream of the HBO crop, "Game of Thrones" deposits me in a world I never expected to visit and doesn't leave me feeling stranded and adrift, but eager to immerse myself in the local culture.
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/review-hbos-game-of-thrones-an-epic-mature-well-crafted-fantasy-series
Angie definitely has a talent for creating weekend inspiration :)
Wicked Game: Guy & Marian (Richard Armitage fanvid) from
angie long on
Vimeo.
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