First Looks category archive

Relax and discuss politics and everything else in a liberal atmosphere.

When: Wednesday, December 19, 6:00 p.

Where:
Greene Turtle
Greenbrier Mall (between Sears and Macy’s)
1401 Greenbrier Pkwy, #2260
Chesapeake, VA (map)

It’s safe to attend. I have to go to Williamsburg.

We went to see The Hobbit yesterday.

It’s a fun flick.

Here are some random observations; if you aren’t familiar with the story, many of them may be meaningless to you:

We saw the 3D version. I don’t expect 3D to change the world of movies; it seems to me that the persons most interested in pushing 3D are those who want to push everyone to buy new 3D televisions.

That said, the 3D was quite well-done–after a while you didn’t really notice it, but just watched the show. There were a couple of gimmicky effects, such as a butterfly and bird flying out and away, but they were done tastefully; on the whole, Peter Jackson restrained himself from Disneyesque gimmicks, such as spears flying into the audience, to force the 3D on you.

The movie started slowly. In trying to stretch one slim book into three movies, Jackson built scenes based on the planning of Bilbo’s birthday party (which takes place in the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring) into the beginning of this movie and added unnecessary, and unnecessarily silly, Three Stooges-like slapstick to the arrival of the Dwarves at Bag End.

Once the quest started, though, it was non-stop action with some nice touches of comedy. It’s been a long time since I read the book (I’ve read The Hobbit only once; I’ve read The Lord of the Rings five times, not to mention Bored of the Rings three times), but there were battle scenes that seemed much more elaborate and complex than I remember from the book. I got a sense that this was another symptom of stretching a little story into a big trilogy.

At times, the CGI was overbuilt, but it was overbuilt quite skillfully. The whole thing’s a fantasy anyway, for Pete’s sake. Lighten up!

All in all, Hamlet it’s not, but the film was whacking good fun. Of our group, I think I was the most deeply read in Tolkien’s fantasy world of Middle Earth, but all of four of us enjoyed the movie.

Providing some continuity with Jackson’s Lord of the Rings cycle, Ian McKellar returns as Gandalf the Grey; Cate Blanchett, as Galadriel; Christopher Lee, always sinister, as Saruman; Hugo Weaving, as Elrond; and Elijah Wood, as Frodo in the opening scenes.

Addendum:

The scene with Bilbo and Gollum at the underground river was quite well done, though it might have been improved by being about three minutes shorter.

Click for a larger image.

The ceremonies are ceremonied and the family is ungathering.

My mother lies beside her husband of 59 and 11/12 years (almost to the day) and life goes on.

Holdovers from Feudalism enter the twitterverse.

Case in point.

The kids are arriving. Late, but arriving.

The grandkids survived the plane ride from the Left Coast in wonderfully good form.

For the second straight year, the chief executives of 36 private U.S. colleges or universities earned more than $1 million in 2010, according to an annual study by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

(snip)

“The reality is that the highest-paid presidents are often serving institutions that have great fund-raising success,” Stripling said. “It’s not uncommon to hear board members say that they’re getting an incredible return on their investment. And there’s little question that on most campuses, the president is the fund-raiser-in-chief.”

Why not just pay them commission and stop pretending they are educators?

The findings for public colleges are released in the spring.

The Booman sums up Congress’s poll ratings.

I’ve added a new link to the Old Time Radio portion of the sidebar. Check it out.

I shall be in and out for a few days.

My mother died late Thursday afternoon eight years short of a century.

She is released from the prison of Alzheimer’s.

Now we are occupied in bringing home the grandkids and great grandkids, who are scattered across the land, and giving them a chance to say farewell.

Waste no sympathy on me.

I am not grieving.

My grieving has been done, done in the years of watching and visiting the person who used to be.

She is freed

As my girlfriend said most eloquently, it was time for her soul to be free, free to find a new home.

And life goes on . . . . .

Dead one day short of 92 years old.

Family health crisis. On the road.

When I worked in Thorofare, New Jersey, I would sometimes want a change from the interstate. My alternate route would take me right by this bridge.

A freight train derailed Friday on an old railroad bridge that has had problems before, toppling two tanker cars partially into a creek and causing a leak of hazardous gas that was blamed for sickening dozens of people, authorities said.

Pictures at the link.

Spent most of the last two days editing another podcast for HPR. I’ll let you all know when it comes out. Bloggery is likely to remain light for a couple of days. Things to do.

In a study to be published January in the Journal of Sex Research, the team led by assistant professor Megan Moreno from the University of Wisconsin–Madison found that sexual references and revealing photographs posted to Facebook by 18-year-old college freshmen were not associated with the students’ sexual experience. However, the sexual content was associated with an increased likelihood of initiating sexual activity.

Details at the link.

As near as I can decipher this story, it means that horny college students talk about sex, even if they aren’t getting any, but, the more they talk about it, the more likely they are to try to get some. (In other news, water wet.)

The researchers suggest that the voyeurs who run Facebook should increase ads about safe sex to said college students, based on their posts.

Shaun Mullen remembers the late Jon Swift’s paean to Thanksgiving upon its abolishment by the liberals following the 2008 election.

I doubt that, master satirist that he was, even Jon Swift would have dared predict that Walmart would abolish it in 2012.