THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN

So finally I have seen it on DVD and--damn, y'all, that movie was so bad that my mother didn't even like it.

WE KNOW THAT YOU KNOW THAT WE KNOW

This cracks me up. Not only does Jo Blo have a potential, theoretical list of the Batman cast, but they also know that it may have been created just to throw them off:

"A scooper wrote in to Latino Review this week with word on the final cast for Christopher Nolan's BATMAN. According to the report, the cast includes 'Christian Bale [Batman], Michael Caine [Alfred], Judson Caspian [Viggo Mortensen], Cillian Murphy [Harvey Dent], Katie Holmes [Rachel Caspian], Chris Cooper [Gordon], Elle Fanning [Barbara], Noah Emmerich.' That sounds interesting enough but the spectacular Batman-on-Film site isn't so convinced. Apparently they've gotten very strong word that Warner Bros is ramping up a disinformation campaign designed to throw sites like theirs, Latino Review, JoBlo.com, Superhero Hype, etc., off the mark. And the casting news above appears slightly off as it has seemed likely lately that Judson Caspian - The Reaper - was not in the film at all. But we have heard that Viggo was up for a role in the film as was Cooper. So while some of this may be true, some of it may be WB's clever way of throwing all us web editors off."

SPEAKING OF AMERICAN IDOLS

IMDB: "'Idol' Star in Car Crash War

"American Idol runner-up Justin Guarini's Christmas has gone from bad to worse - a 2002 car collision has come back to haunt him. Guarini was dropped by his record label just before Christmas, and now motorist Louis Maiatico and his wife Adrienne are suing him after the car crash. Guarini's Nissan collided with Maiatico's car in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, while he was on his way to perform at a bar mitzvah 18 months ago, and was fined $100 by local police. But now the Maiaticos are demanding $50,000 in 'fair compensation'. The driver claims he has suffered whiplash ever since the accident and missed time at work, while his wife alleges the accident has deprived her of 'assistance, society and companionship'. "

Oh, honey. I'm so sorry.

TELEVISION WITHOUT PITY

Shack reviews Ruben's new album: "Unforgivable lyric: 'How can a loser ever win?' Try not losing so much. "

THIS ONE GOES UP TO ELEVEN

Now I am confused. Vladimir just pointed this out to me on a Reuters article, linked from TORN:

"'The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King' is a royal favorite of the Online Film Critics Society, which gave the final installment of Peter Jackson's epic trilogy a leading 10 nominations for its annual awards. New Line's 'King' picked up nods for best picture, director, supporting actor for Sean Astin, adapted screenplay for Jackson, Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh, and cinematography for Andrew Lesnie. Its other mentions came for original score for Howard Shore, visual effects, art direction, costume design and sound."

All right, very nice, very good.

"In the supporting actor category, Astin finds himself alongside Alec Baldwin for 'The Cooler,' Tim Robbins for 'Mystic River,' Peter Sarsgaard for 'Shattered Glass' and Gollum's human stand-in, Andy Serkis, for 'King.'"

So--can we not count, or did we just fabricate a nomination?

IN CONCLUSION

Saw this at fandom_wank, taken from an IMDB message board about the new Peter Pan, and you must see it, because it boggles:

So, in conclusion, Hook is one of the most spectacular, heart-wrenching drama action adventures ever (with heavy emphasis on DRAMA...sniffle). It has the fun of Harry Potter mixed with the drama of Schindler's List and the action of the Matrix/LOTR...and this new PETER PAN movie will have a tough time topping this magnum opus of joy, love, truth and dreams.

Yes, the bullet-time swordfight wherein Peter saves Wendy from the Lost Boy Train O' Genocide is very touching.

"NATION OF ISLAM DENIES TIES TO MICHAEL JACKSON"

Dude, Louis Farrakhan is the last thing Michael Jackson needs right now. Well, maybe second-to-last, after a resounding endorsement from O.J. Simpson, let's say.

RETURN OF THE INCOMPETENT ORCS

Valerie sent me this Teevee.org link via email: "So I saw 'Return of the King' the other day, and I thought it did an excellent job of of capturing Tolkein's message and portraying it on screen in a very moving and visually arresting way. And that message is: do not hire orcs."

DEATHS

Netscape: "Actor Earl Hindman, best known for playing a neighbor whose face was forever obscured by a fence on the television show 'Home Improvement,' died of lung cancer Monday in Stamford, Conn. He was 61."

DEATHS

IMDB: "Actor Alan Bates Dies at 69"

Actor Alan Bates, who came to fame as one of British cinema's 'angry young men' of the 60s and whose heralded stage and screen career was marked by a love of acting as opposed to fame, died Saturday night in London after a long battle with cancer; he was 69. Educated at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Bates indeed helped launch the genre of angry young men plays by starring in John Osbourne's Look Back in Anger in 1956, which started him on a stage career that was marked by innumerable roles created by classic playwrights. His first major film role in 1960 was opposite none other than Laurence Olivier in Osbourne's The Entertainer, in which Bates and a young Albert Finney played the sons of Olivier's shabby vaudevillian. Roles in Whistle Down the Wind, A Kind of Loving and The Running Man followed, but it was Bates' two successive performances in Zorba the Greek and Georgy Girl that helped make him a film star; the former film, in which he played a repressed Englishman opposite Anthony Quinn's life-affirming Zorba, received a Best Picture nomination. Bates himself received a Best Actor nomination for John Frankenheimer's The Fixer (1968), and a year later earned more fame and a bit of notoriety for Ken Russell's erotic adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love, in which he wrestled naked with Oliver Reed. Notable film roles also included Far From the Madding Crowd, An Unmarried Woman, The Rose and his turn as Claudius in Mel Gibson's Hamlet. Bates also won a Tony award in 2002 for Turgenev's Fortune's Fool and was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1995 and knighted last year. Most recently, Bates was seen onscreen in the thriller The Sum of All Fears, Robert Altman's Oscar-winning Gosford Park and this year's drama The Statement.

HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN

Lookit, Buckbeak!

VAN HELSING

I'm really interested in this movie, so I'm having a hard time keeping myself from muttering, "Those... are the three brides of Dracula? Uh... Did the one on the left just bust out of a WWF match, or...what?"

Oh, and Richard Roxburgh? Not looking like the Dracula I was hoping for. However, we must remember that this is a movie that is relegating David Wenham to the role of a monk. Named Carl. Carl. The Monk. Be afraid.

ROTK EXTENDED EDITION

And once again, it's time for the annual Stuff That Didn't Make It Into the Movie. I have a rough links-only version at my LJ (link above). Since it's inevitable that I'll get feedback ("That's not what that picture is!" "You forgot this one!" "This one is a better version!"), I'm going to let the dust settle in the comments section before I make a Digest layout with thumbnails in all.

Meanwhile, I currently have pictures from the cut Voice of Saruman scene (dude, these were pictures I hadn't even seen before), Frodo and Sam at the crossroads, a missing scene from the TTT trailer, Gandalf confronting the Witch King, the Houses of Healing, the Mouth of Sauron (well, his armor), and several other miscellaneous pictures. Feel free to leave a comment at the entry if you have any suggestions/corrections. Happy holidays, everyone.


P.S. Spoilers. Duh.

STAR WARS: EPISODE III

Look! New pictures that you don't even have to pay for! Wow, Darth Lucas, it really is Christmas! God bless us, each and every one!

OSCAR NOMINATIONS

TORN: "Beverly Hills, CA - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced the seven films being considered for Achievement in Visual Effects for the 76th Academy Awards®. The films in consideration are listed below in alphabetical order:

'The Hulk'
'The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King'
'Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World'
'Peter Pan'
'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl'
'Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines'
'X2'

Fifteen-minute clip reels from each of the seven films will be screened for the Visual Effects Award Nominating Committee on January 21. The members will then nominate three of these seven films for Oscar consideration."

MICHAEL JACKSON IS CHARGED

...and his picture is scary. But then, aren't they all?

RETURN OF THE KING

Holy shit, y'all: $34 million yesterday alone. On a weekday.

GOLDEN GLOBES

Wow, I'm still not used to this whole one-month-early jazz. Hit the link for the full list of nominations.

SPIDER-MAN 2

It's on Trailer Park as well, but I just wanted to put a quick note to the effect that the trailer's up.

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

Damn, these people work fast.

AIN'T THAT THE TRUTH?

ATTICA! ATTICA!

I'm still not sure what, exactly, was being protested by the French at the Paris ROTK premiere party. ("Down with American culture! As evidenced in a movie made in New Zealand from a book by a British guy with an international cast! BOOOO!") However, it turns out that the accompanying exhibition was not destroyed. The drinks, on the other hand, were not so fortunate.

FOXTROT

"WE GOT HIM"

Holy shit.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

...to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to meeeee, happy birthday to me.

CARNIVALE

WOOT!

BENJI?

At the IMDB gossip page: Gwyneth really did get married, Ozzy regained consciousness, the Vatican likes The Passion of the Christ, Vuitton drops J. Lo on her ass, and Liv Tyler (as Brassy pointed out on LOTR News) has an odd nickname for Ben Affleck.

MORE ROTKNESS

If you'd like to see the Entertainment Weekly review, I've posted it at LOTR News.

BATMAN

Viggo Mortensen? As the bad guy? What?

"HOBBIT-MAN: THE KING RETURNS"

God bless Neill Cumpston, whom you may remember from such reviews as Matrix: Kingdom of Asskicking and Blade Fuckin' 2: Fuck Yeah!:

(WARNING! Spoilers are later on in the review!)

"At the same time, the two other midget-men and the giant hippies have seriously fucked up that one evil guy’s tower (he was Count Duke in Star Wars: Every Cock in the Universe Up My Ass Part II), and they hook back up with Magneto, and also that chick with the bow and arrows and finally the Giant Midget with the Axe. Oh, and also that I Don’t Want to be the King/I Am Destined to Be the King Dude is with them, and he has this whole other story where he pretty much decides to be the King because, I mean, pussy for miles. This is where I started getting really confused, though, because they start talking about kingdoms and alliances and there’s a lot of lines like, “Rohan shall ride!” and “Gondor still stands!” and “Flabadan Son of Rectum must wear the mantle of Bloggith!” and also there’s some shit with the elves that’s like being in a fucking candle store for twenty minutes.

But the movie is only doing this to set up the BATTLE OF SHIT-YOUR-PANTS, which isn’t the actual name of the battle but SHOULD be because you will shit stuff you did not eat when you see it."

Whooba-dow! (Thanks, Vladimir)

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 2

..."Treasures of the Lost Abyss"?

GRRRRR

Okay, I am getting heartily sick of the Netscape homepage headlines (I use both IE and Netscape. It's a Neopets-being-fussy thing). Today, for example: "Oranges do WHAT?" And I'm thinking, Provide a natural source of crack cocaine? Pimp themselves out for rent money? Go down on you in a theater? WHAT?

So you get to the article itself, and the title is slightly different--I hate that, man; USAToday does it all the time--and this time it reads, "Who knew eating oranges did THIS?" I don't know! C. Everett Koop? Marilyn vos Savant? Nostradamus? Whoooooooo? WHAAAAAAAT?

"Oranges may help prevent cancer."

Man, fuck you, motherfucker. That was some perfectly good suspense you just used up there. Thanks a lot.

COMMENTS

Comment function? Still down. You can, however, still leave comments at the LJ in the interim.

"DO YOU OWN A PAIR OF LONG PANTS?"

Awesome Peter Jackson interview at IGN. Man... I seriously need to start updating the Digest again.

SECRET WINDOW

Some of you will be interested because this is a Stephen King movie. Most of you will be interested because it is a Johnny Depp movie. I'm still trying to figure out what's going on with his hair, but other than that, the two new stills are all good.

RUH-ROH!

NY Post: "Casey Kasem is about to be dethroned as radio's countdown king. Kasem, 71, whose name has been synonymous with the weekly 'American Top 40' radio show since he launched it on July 4, 1970, will be replaced next month by red-hot DJ Ryan Seacrest, 29, host of Fox's 'American Idol,' according to radio industry sources."

You know what? There's a weird logic to this that I almost understand.

OZZY GO BOOM

Yahoo: "Rocker Ozzy Osbourne underwent emergency surgery at a hospital in Britain after suffering serious injuries in an all-terrain vehicle crash on the grounds of his estate in Buckinghamshire, his publicist said on Monday. 'During examination, doctors found that Ozzy had broken his collarbone, six ribs and a vertebra in his neck,' publicist Cindy Guagenti said in a brief written statement, which added that the injuries were not considered life threatening."

Oh no. He's totally going to get hooked on painkillers again, isn't he?

SPAM OF THE DAY

Sender: Tom Cruise

Subject: Invitation to The Last Samauri

Wow! It's misspelled and it's already been out four days! Opportunities don't come any bigger than this!

NEWS OF THE WORLD

Wall Collapses on School, 1 Dead

Oh no, that's awful...

Teen Killed in School Bus Stabbing

Oh, that's terrible...

Gore to Endorse Howard Dean

Well, at least that isn't tragic...

Vicar Distributes Porn by Mistake

o_O

CATWOMAN

No, I don't see Halle Berry anywhere. No... nope, still looking... still don't see her. Are you sure she's in this picture somewhere?

PETER PAN

Oo! Even more pictures! (Dude... is that the Snuggles bear?)

TTT EE DVD

I'm sure IGN DVD will regret asking folks to write in if we flood them, but if you're like me, and I know I am, you've been cussing out the second disc of the Two Towers extended set. Right when I get to the Helm's Deep battle--it's night, they're on the wall, "Would you like me to get you a box?"--the disc starts skipping like all hell. It calms down a little after the entire battle (!) is over, but the rest of the disc is still pretty blinkered. Turns out I'm not the only one. If you're having problems with yours, let IGN know at the link above, and we may be able to get New Line to replace the faulty discs: "We got New Line to fess up the last time by providing overwhelming evidence, so if there's a problem, let's hear it."

THE HOBBIT

Sez Peter Jackson over at Entertainment Weekly: " 'I'd be interested in doing it because I think it would give continuity to the overall chapter,'' Jackson said of 'The Hobbit.' That book, which Tolkien wrote before 'The Lord of the Rings,' tells how hobbit Bilbo Baggins, whom the wizard Gandalf had sent out on an adventure with a group of dwarfs, spirited the Ring of Power away from cave-dweller Gollum, without any inkling of the Ring's evil nature or the havoc it would cause 60 years later for his nephew Frodo. A 'Hobbit' movie would bring back Ian McKellen's Gandalf, Andy Serkis' Gollum, and possibly even Liv Tyler's elf princess Arwen, Jackson said. No word on whether Ian Holm would return as Bilbo or whether Jackson would seek a younger actor."

I'm surprised that they're ignoring one of the most obvious characters to come back--Hugo Weaving's Elrond--but it would be sort of nifty to have Arwen in the background. And isn't Thranduil one of the aggrieved parties in the battle at the end? And isn't he Legolas' father? I'm just sayin'. Also: this is totally their chance to get the warg CGI up to standard.

LEMONY SNICKET

Yay! Billy Connolly will play Uncle Monty!

WHAT WE NEED...

...is cloaks ("We can put cargo pockets in 'em if you want, or line 'em with faux rabbit fur. Zippers and detachable hoods and shit, I don't care").

CTHULHU FOLLOW-UP

Goodness me, what do you get for the Lovecraft fan who has everything?

I know! Cthulhu plush slippers!

SNERK

Off Neil Gaiman's journal: Jack Chick + Cthulhu = fun stuff.

P.S. Go read this with a quickness--Chick doesn't appreciate parodies and has forced others to take theirs down.

IS IT... CRUNCHABLE SQUEE?

"Paper-Induced Dementia ...or, "Gollum and Sméagol Write a Term Paper: A Saga in Seven Parts":


Can't we go back to the criticses and the databases?

No! It burns! Don't make us go back to the databases, precious!

We must, precious! Good master says we must! At least six criticses, precious, for good master!

[Weeping]

LEGOLAS DIES

You know, it occurs to me that it's probably not too late to get your "Legolas Dies" (scare the fangirls!) or "Frodo/Merry/Pippin Is My Babydaddy" shirt to wear to ROTK.

MORE ROTKNESS

From a post I made over at LOTR News: THE BIGGEST STILLS KNOWN TO MAN! And some of them are actually new! Although I don't think there are any spoilers per se! Though I am also a bad judge of spoilers! (Look, if "Sam cries" [8.63 mb] and "Frodo falls down" [17.8 mb] are spoilers to you, you're beyond my help.) Also: Hi, Miranda Otto! It's nice to meet your fillings (4.38 mb)!

O TANNENBAUM

The LiveJournal version, by resonant8:

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
Your song defies translation.
You're always green.
That's too concise.
Perhaps we ought
To sing it twice.
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
Your song defies translation.

LOTR: VAST, GIGANTIC EDITION

We all knew they were going to do this. (Sigh.)

I SHIT YOU NOT, MAN

So I'm (still) writing my Yeats-Heaney-mythology paper, which is officially 24 hours late at this point, and I want to mention how Maud Gonne's daughter was the inspiration of some line in some poem (look, the footnote says it's true), so I go to the link above and look up her name, and I'll be goddamned. See, Maud Gonne was the love of Yeats' life; he proposed to her three times and all three times she turned him down, and finally married someone else. And before he finally got a clue and married someone else, he proposed to her daughter (PROPOSED! TO! HER DAUGHTER!), and SHE turned him down. And what was that daughter's name?

Iseult. That's a loaded name if I ever heard one.

BRRRRRRRRRRR

Jeezum crow, it's 41 degrees! (That's "5" for those of you Celsius freaks.) This is Alabama! It's not supposed be toe-breaking cold!

Ooo, maybe we'll have snow on my birthday...

OSCARWATCH

Just got the first newsletter of the season from Sasha at Oscar Watch:

The frontrunners in the best picture race are, in order of winning probability (according to me):

Best Picture
Return of the King
Mystic River
Seabiscuit
Cold Mountain
Master and Commander
The Last Samurai
House of Sand and Fog
In America
Big Fish
Lost in Translation
21 Grams

The acting categories, other than Sean Penn for Mystic River are a bit hazy.

Hmmm. Interesting. I have nothing against Seabiscuit, but I seriously feel no heat around it now. (You know how people claim to be able to see or feel your aura? I feel movies' heat. Yes, feel free to laugh.) I'm not feeling as much heat around 21 Grams as I thought I would. Mystic River's like a damn bonfire, though, so we LOTR folks might want to start making our peace with the Oscars now...

EPISODE III

You know, every time news comes out that there's some new picture that I, a non-paying reader, can't see, part of what little interest I already had dies.

GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING

Coming Soon has five new stills up.

YES, THE COMMENT FUNCTION IS DOWN

And thanks to Ed at Adoresixtyfour for pointing it out--I'd just assumed it was one of their periodic outages. Nope, it turns out our traffic is too heavy, and I can't access the account again until I pay $25. Which is nice and all, except that I've just finished my Christmas shopping and have no money. So until we get this straightened out, if you want to leave some sort of comment, hit the link and leave me one at my LiveJournal. (Seriously, man--I can't make cracks about tinhats and then not have a comment function, y'all.)

ETA: I'm going to keep post-dating this entry so that it stays on top to provide the link, in case you're wondering how this works. (Originally posted mid-afternoon 12/3.)

MORE ROTKNESS

John Howe, the Tolkien artist who was recruited with Alan Lee to design for the movies (for those of you with the TTT EE, he's the one who drew that sketch of Gollum Andy Serkis found so inspiring), has seen ROTK:

"Just returned from a press screening of the Return of the King this morning.

I have several things to say:

Definitely take Kleenex along.

Definitely don't get the king-size drink before going in.

Definitely plan what you're going to do afterwards.

Don't do what we did. My wife wanted to stay the afternoon in Lausanne to go shopping (undoubtedly Kleenexes will be the first item on the list) and I wanted to come back and work. The gas station attendant where I stopped to fill up said I should look after that cold before it got worse. ...

When my wife gets back, (I'll be curious to see if she actually did any shopping or just sniffled and snuffled in the shops) we'll probably just sit and hold hands and stare at whatever's in front of us- it could be the blank wall, it doesn't matter, our heads are still so full of images whatever you look at is not entirely there anyway. ...

THE REST OF THE WEEK
What was I up to for the rest of the week? Frankly, I can't quite recall."

BADGER BADGER ROHAN

See the "real" TTT:EE. (Confused? Make sure you watch the addictive original here.)

SPLITS

Whoa, I missed this yesterday: Spike Jonze and Sofia Coppola are breaking up.

THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST

Well, the Butt of the Cleo will be in another theater altogether, thank you very much.

BOM CHICK-A WOW WOW

I'm not sure which is more odd--that Bridget Jones would have "a lesbian fling," or that she would have it with a former Real Worlder.

ROLLING STONE'S TOP TEN OF 2003

Interestingly, this is another list that Mystic River has topped. Even more interesting? HBO's Angels in America sneaks in at #10. (Again, thanks to Eric.)

WOOT!

NY Newsday (thanks, Eric): "In a victory for independent film producers, a federal judge Friday blocked an industry ban on sending advance copies of films to some movie awards voters.

Large movie studios had claimed the ban was critical to stop the explosion of movie piracy. But the smaller houses said it limited awards voters' exposure to their movies -- hurting their chances for bigger box-office receipts.

U.S. District Judge Michael B. Mukasey sided with the independent producers, granting a temporary restraining order against the ban, which is enforced by the Motion Picture Association of America.

Mukasey said he was swayed by testimony that showed awards are critical to the success of smaller films, which do not have the hefty advertising budget of larger studios."

IS IT CRUNCHABLE?

Paper-induced dementia last night at the LiveJournal: "They don't care if we starves! They don't care if we sits up all night writing stupid nassty term paper! They eats all the snackses their fat selves! Oo, croutons..."

THE LAST SAMURAI

An interesting snippet from the CHUD review, especially considering that the National Board of Review ranked it #2 on their top ten: "It's a good movie, a solid movie with good acting particularly from Ken Watanabe who plays the main samurai, Katsumoto, and should have people lining up around the block this holiday season to check it out and have some fun. Is it Best Picture quality? Oh, hell no, which you may think going in seeing words like 'epic' and 'December release' and 'Oscar-winner Ed Zwick' tossed around in the press, but that doesn't make it any less worth checking out if you're a Cruise fan and interested in seeing an American take on battle scenes that were an Akira Kurosawa hallmark for decades."

HONEY

Yay! Eric's review is up!

TRAILER PARK

Heh. "Seabiscuit of Arabia."

FLORA PLUM

Is it back on? And is Ewan McGregor back in? Because last I'd heard, Russell Crowe had come back.

DEATHS

Yahoo/AP: "LONDON - David Hemmings, the British actor who attained international stardom as the existential fashion photographer in the 1966 film 'Blow Up,' has died at age 62, his agent said Thursday.

Hemmings, who also forged a successful career behind the camera directing for cinema and TV, died of a heart attack Wednesday while filming a movie role in Romania, said agent Liz Nelson. Paramedics on the film set of 'Samantha's Child' were unable to revive him, Nelson said. "

"CAN MEN BECOME ATTRACTED TO WOMEN WHO AREN'T THEIR PHYSICAL IDEAL?"

No. You should totally wait for the supermodel you so richly deserve, man.

NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW

I was wondering how the NBR could put out their top ten when Cold Mountain, a major piece of Oscar bait, hasn't come out yet, but there it is at #7. So at least they're not just ignoring these movies.

"THE EARTH, MY BUTT, AND OTHER ROUND THINGS"

Check out the recommendations on the Amazon page for Michael Jackson's new CD (Coping with Prison; Black Like Me; Captain Underpants). Brilliant.

BRIDGET JONES 2

These pictures are sort of spoilerish--not so very bad, from what I can tell--but they're great set pics.

MONSTER

Not so excited about the lesbian sex scenes now, are you?

WTF?

CNN: "Armin Meiwes, whose trial started on Wednesday, is charged with murder as no crime of cannibalism exists in Germany. The case is the first of its kind in the country.

Dressed in a dark suit, Meiwes -- from Rotenburg-an-der-fuld, in central Germany -- appeared relaxed as he sat next to his lawyer at the Kassel state court. Meiwes admitted to killing the victim and said there was 'hundreds, thousands' of people who wanted to eat humans or be eaten. He cut off part of the victim's body before the pair ate it together. Meiwes then cut up the victim, storing his body in a freezer and eating it over the following months.

'With every piece of flesh I ate I remembered him,' Meiwes told the judge. 'It was like taking communion.'"

Oh, Hannibal--see what you have wrought?

"'He told me he had had the desire since he was a child to be slaughtered and eaten,' Meiwes said. 'He was very intelligent and I didn't see any sign that he was disturbed.'"

Oh, totally, dude. Totally not disturbed at all.

FISHSTICKS!

Oh, God, Gwyneth Paltrow's spawning. Prepare yourself for all the fashion magazines fellating her fashion-icon maternity "style."

SHADOWSCAPES

Stephanie Pui-Mun Law has updated her site. I love her artwork--you may actually recognize her work from book covers and games if you take a look.

TINHAT ALERT

Elijah Wood's going to be on Leno tonight; maybe, if you watch very closely, he'll send you a sooper sekrit message regarding the status of his relationship with Dominic Monaghan. Or, you know, maybe his ear just itches.

MORE ROTKNESS

Ooo, looks like the LA premiere is tonight at Mann's Village Theatre. Stay tuned for more pretty-picture goodness.

PETER PAN

Yay! New pictures, including some verrry nice Captain Hook shots.

ON HIS OWN TERMS

I got an email from Eric last night reporting on the Honey screening, which he'll be writing up in a bit. In the meantime, check out this preview over at his site:

Eric: They'll be having one of those dance...uh, things where everyone stands in a circle and they take turns dancing in the middle.

David: Honey will clearly be the best dancer of them all.

Eric: That's the part in the trailer where she says, "I teach hip hop down at the centah" -- she says it like that because she talks "street" -- and everyone laughs at her and taunts her for not being poor enough.

David: Lil' Romeo kicks her in the groin.

Eric: No, he's not tall enough. He'd have to punch her.

David: Whatever. Everyone laughs at her because hip hop dancing is lame if it's taught at the centah.

Eric: But it's all good-natured teasing. They put a few bullets in her and head on home.

"THE REAL FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING"

Salon's got an interesting article up about C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, which is way too many initials for me this early in the morning, so I'll probably read it a bit later myself.

THE BROTHERS GRIMM

And here's your first look at Monica Bellucci as the wicked queen. Dude, my neck hurts just looking at that headdress.

WHAT A DOLL

Oh God, the Talking Ann Coulter Doll (soul not included).

EVEN MORE ROTKNESS

I'm posting a few of the best links of pictures from the Wellington parade this morning, mostly because the entire cast (sans Christopher Lee, sniffle) was out in force and up to their usual hijinx ("White light! White light!"). That, and the idea of a parade full of elves and Easterlings and Uruk-hai cracks my shit up.

A LiveJournal entry that will stomp a dial-up connection, but worth it

Two links from an FTer and his friend who were there (the first-person POV of the photographer shaking Ian McKellen's hand is trippy)

LIGHTS OUT MOVIEWEB

Man, I leave you people alone for a week, and you go and merge on me. WTF? AND WHERE ARE MY BIG PICTURES? Gahhhh.

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND

These posters are awesome.

MORE RETURN OF THE KINGNESS

One hundred thousand (100,000) people in attendance, yo.

COLD MOUNTAIN

Hmm. The poster totally doesn't look anything like what I thought it would. Not bad, though.

COMING SOON

Shitloads of new pictures over at CS--the ROTK premiere, Franka Potente in Creep, set pics from Kingdom of Heaven and Phantom of the Opera, a new shot of Hugh Jackman and a first look at Kate Beckinsale in Van Helsing, and more preview shots from 2004 movies.

UPDATES FROM MY OWN COMPUTER

And there was internet, and it was good.

Now I have to catch up on a week of blogging.