Beth Orton - "Love Like Laughter"
(I have been formally accused of having a bias for lonely, sad, autumnal music. I plead guilty to that with no hesitation.)
Went to Improv Olympic last night with Rita, Becky, Alex, and Cara. Everytime I go there, which has been twice, I fall in love with the place. The cast we've seen has been consistently smart and funny, but more than that I really like the whole neighborhood vibe I get from the patrons and the staff. I passed 5 cast members in the bathroom during intermission. Where else can I do that? Time and money-willing, I'm thinking of making these trips to Improv Olympic a weekly-to-regular thing. I feel this need to get to know the shows and the teams.
From what I saw on the train, the audience, the restaurant, and Boystown, the whole city was on a date last night. I'm talking about couples everywhere. It was like an old movie cliche, and it did, indeed, turn my thoughts to Kristen. We ate at the Pick-Me Up Cafe, which Rita told us had bad service and poor food (despite her weird insistence that we go there. That's right. It was weird), but had misinterpreted it and we all enjoyed ourselves. They played The Smiths during the meal. I've never eaten to The Smiths, but it did not, as you may have expected, ruin my appetite. Then "Asleep" came on, but nobody had read Perks, and I felt very far from home.
The previous night, I saw Return of the King for the third time (warning: here begins the LOTR portion of the blog). At the end of ROTK, when the hobbits are back in the Green Dragon, there's some extra who's carrying around a very fake-looking pumpkin. When he first enters the scene, somebody bumps into him and he says "Hey! I've got a pumpkin!" Really, that's what he says. Then as the primary hobbits are sitting around talking he takes a seat in the background where he proceeds to polish the pumpkin as other patrons come over and compliment his pumpkin. It's the strangest thing. I find myself wondering why this hobbit would bring a pumpkin with him to the local tavern. Presumably, he grew it himself and is showing it off to his drinking buddies, but something about him makes me think that he stole it. Maybe the extra found an over-sized pumpkin in the props room, and Peter Jackson just pointed to it and said "let's use that."
More things I noticed the third time around seeing ROTK:
As the orc army is pouring out of Minas Morgul, there's a statue of some sort of winged creature carved above the gate, and just above it sits the Witch King's nazgul in a position mimicking the statue.
During that scene where Frodo abandons Sam, there's a shot depicting Sam crying on the right side of the screen and on the left, Gollum crawls away at an angle where we can see the whip scars on his back. I don't know if it's intentional, but it's a nice thematic moment where you feel sorry for Sam, but you know exactly why Gollum has become like he is. It just so happens when people get dumped on, they proceed to dump on other people.
The orc who's in charge of catapulting the disembodied heads (very nice touch, by the way) has a human skull attached to the top of his helmet.
The captain of the dead army's leather work on his armor is designed in the shape of a rib cage.
The way Shelob kicks the Light of Elendil out of Sam's reach.
When Gollum pops up on Mount Doom ("Clever hobbits, to climb so high!"), there's a subtle crack of lightning over his shoulder just as he pounces on Frodo.
You know, three years ago I thought that Sean Astin was the worst part of the movie, but now he's become my favorite character. I wonder why. He definitely didn't change his acting style or his weird semi-British accent. I think maybe the particular story or script for ROTK served his character better than the other two movies. And when I consider it, Samwise Gamgee is a pretty difficult character to represent on film, so Sean Astin did do a pretty honorable job. I know he made me misty more than once.
Here ends the LOTR portion of this blog. But, alas, there is no more.
(I have been formally accused of having a bias for lonely, sad, autumnal music. I plead guilty to that with no hesitation.)
Went to Improv Olympic last night with Rita, Becky, Alex, and Cara. Everytime I go there, which has been twice, I fall in love with the place. The cast we've seen has been consistently smart and funny, but more than that I really like the whole neighborhood vibe I get from the patrons and the staff. I passed 5 cast members in the bathroom during intermission. Where else can I do that? Time and money-willing, I'm thinking of making these trips to Improv Olympic a weekly-to-regular thing. I feel this need to get to know the shows and the teams.
From what I saw on the train, the audience, the restaurant, and Boystown, the whole city was on a date last night. I'm talking about couples everywhere. It was like an old movie cliche, and it did, indeed, turn my thoughts to Kristen. We ate at the Pick-Me Up Cafe, which Rita told us had bad service and poor food (despite her weird insistence that we go there. That's right. It was weird), but had misinterpreted it and we all enjoyed ourselves. They played The Smiths during the meal. I've never eaten to The Smiths, but it did not, as you may have expected, ruin my appetite. Then "Asleep" came on, but nobody had read Perks, and I felt very far from home.
The previous night, I saw Return of the King for the third time (warning: here begins the LOTR portion of the blog). At the end of ROTK, when the hobbits are back in the Green Dragon, there's some extra who's carrying around a very fake-looking pumpkin. When he first enters the scene, somebody bumps into him and he says "Hey! I've got a pumpkin!" Really, that's what he says. Then as the primary hobbits are sitting around talking he takes a seat in the background where he proceeds to polish the pumpkin as other patrons come over and compliment his pumpkin. It's the strangest thing. I find myself wondering why this hobbit would bring a pumpkin with him to the local tavern. Presumably, he grew it himself and is showing it off to his drinking buddies, but something about him makes me think that he stole it. Maybe the extra found an over-sized pumpkin in the props room, and Peter Jackson just pointed to it and said "let's use that."
More things I noticed the third time around seeing ROTK:
As the orc army is pouring out of Minas Morgul, there's a statue of some sort of winged creature carved above the gate, and just above it sits the Witch King's nazgul in a position mimicking the statue.
During that scene where Frodo abandons Sam, there's a shot depicting Sam crying on the right side of the screen and on the left, Gollum crawls away at an angle where we can see the whip scars on his back. I don't know if it's intentional, but it's a nice thematic moment where you feel sorry for Sam, but you know exactly why Gollum has become like he is. It just so happens when people get dumped on, they proceed to dump on other people.
The orc who's in charge of catapulting the disembodied heads (very nice touch, by the way) has a human skull attached to the top of his helmet.
The captain of the dead army's leather work on his armor is designed in the shape of a rib cage.
The way Shelob kicks the Light of Elendil out of Sam's reach.
When Gollum pops up on Mount Doom ("Clever hobbits, to climb so high!"), there's a subtle crack of lightning over his shoulder just as he pounces on Frodo.
You know, three years ago I thought that Sean Astin was the worst part of the movie, but now he's become my favorite character. I wonder why. He definitely didn't change his acting style or his weird semi-British accent. I think maybe the particular story or script for ROTK served his character better than the other two movies. And when I consider it, Samwise Gamgee is a pretty difficult character to represent on film, so Sean Astin did do a pretty honorable job. I know he made me misty more than once.
Here ends the LOTR portion of this blog. But, alas, there is no more.
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