23 January 2003
Marie and Kim have wonderfully scanned the article and picture from Sneak magazine (the one where Dom and others talk about the pranks they pulled on each other). They were posted on the Dominic Monaghan Forum, and I've gotten permission to put them up here. (Show your appreciation by visiting Bloomin' Marvelous, owned by Marie.)
If you live in the UK, or if you plan to visit next weekend (the first weekend of February), then do check out Sci-Fi London: The London Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Festival. One of the events is Shorts@Six, to be screened at the Curzon SOHO at 6pm on February 1 and 2. They will be screening a bunch of short films, and one of them is Sniper 470, a short film starring Billy Boyd (Pippin). According to the website, the movie is about a Gunner (or perhaps that's his name) whose main job is to destroy passing spaceships. Sounds interesting. If you do check it out, then email me a review or something. (At this rate, let's hope that 'An Insomniac's Nightmare' will find its way in more film festivals soon.)
If you recall, 'Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers' is up for the Orange Film of the Year, which is voted on by the public. Well, public, now's the time to vote! Check out the official website to vote for TTT and help LOTR win this award two years in a row!
With the first month of this year nearly done, I guess it's not too early to start counting down to 'Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.' ClockDown has released a desktop countdown timer to help you count the days until LOTR:ROTK. The timer comes with four skins: Aragorn, Gandalf, Gollum, and Sam+Frodo. The clock counts down to the North American release date (17 December 2003). Download it here.
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22 January 2003
Congratulations to Peter Jackson, nominated by the Directors Guild of America for Best Director for his work on (what else?) 'Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.' He's up against Stephen Daldry ('The Hours'), Rob Marshall ('Chicago'), Roman Polanski ('The Pianist'), and Martin Scorsese ('Gangs of New York'). Best of luck to Mr. Jackson!
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21 January 2003
'Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers' was shut out at the Golden Globes last Sunday. Peter Jackson lost in the Best Director category to Martin Scorsese (for 'Gangs of New York') while 'The Hours' won Best Motion Picture: Drama. Oh well, let's hope we fare better at other award ceremonies. Anyway, Sean Astin (Sam) and Barry Osbourne (one of the producers) attended the ceremony on the film's behalf, while Cate Blanchett presented Best Foreign Language Film (won by Pedro Almodovar's 'Talk to Her'). We've got pictures above, from Yahoo! News and Getty Images News. By the way, the nominees for the Director's Guild of America Awards will be released later today; let's hope Peter Jackson gets nominated!
Bag End Inn (an excellent site, by the way, all Dom and LOTR fans ought to check it out) posted a couple of pics/scans last month of Elijah and Dom in "some sort of odd event at an airport." Looks like we have the answer. Daily Record reports that "Elijah Wood helped give a pal a showbiz send-off at Los Angeles airport. Elijah and his boisterous group formed a circle around the friend, named only as Dave, and sang songs at him as he checked in for a flight to London. Brandishing jokey placards, they threw glitter over embarrassed Dave, blew party horns and did an impromptu conga." Yep, it certainly describes the event we see in the pictures here and here. It's a damn shame that the article doesn't mention Dom as one of the members of Lij's "boisterous group," and the article doesn't even have a picture. Oh well. Anyway, you can read the rest of the article (which isn't much longer, really) here.
Meg's Boyfriend of the Week has chosen Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd as her Boyfriends of the Week! Excellent choice, Meg. Quoting Meg, "So, cute, smart, funny, sweet, gorgeous, hilarious, adorable, cool, hip, talented, AND single. Both of them! If that doesn't make for the perfect menage, then I just don't know the meaning of the word anymore." For the rest of her analysis, go here.
How successful are 'Lord of the Rings' and 'Harry Potter'? It looks like some tourists are seeking vacations and trips to the series' fictional locations. Hogwarts, Mordor, and Rivendell are showing up as some of the top destinations visitors of travel websites search for. For more on this interesting phenomenon, check out Irish Examiner.
'Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers' is barely more than a month in theaters, but it's not too late to start the hype for the final film in the series, 'Return of the King.' This picture of Legolas and Aragorn has been circulating the internet; I saw it for the first time on War of the Ring. Check it out! (ROTK SPOILERS!)
Sean Astin's short film, 'The Long and Short of It,' is being screened at the Sundance Film Festival, but you can view it (or perhaps a clip of it, I'm not really sure, haven't downloaded it yet) here. Let's hope 'An Insomniac's Nightmare' will be available to us easily as well... soon.
Lastly, a site update. I've added a new affiliate, Beriain Edhellen (yet another site featuring the four hobbits and one elf). Check it out!
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19 January 2003
I've been busy for the last three days, and I expect to be busy for a few more days as well, so updates might be rare, but we'll see. Anyway, 'Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers' has been nominated by the Producers Guild of America for Best Picture. Other nominees are 'Adaptation,' 'Chicago,' 'Gangs of New York,' 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding,' and 'Road to Perdition.' Meanwhile, the Critics Choice Awards were handed out by the Broadcast Film Critics Association, and Gollum won Best Digital Performance over Yoda and Dobby. (The movie didn't do too well in the Best Picture race, playing second-to-last out of ten nominees. 'Chicago' took the award.) Lastly, the Golden Globe Awards are tonight. 'Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers' is up for Best Motion Picture, Drama, while Peter Jackson is nominated for Best Director, Motion Picture. We wish them luck. (Check local listings for broadcast times. And I have no idea if anyone from the cast is coming.)
Pictures from Orlando Bloom's summer blockbuster (or potential blockbuster anyway) 'Pirates of the Caribbean' are finally coming out, like this one from Coming Soon. More can be found at Orlando Bloom Multimedia.
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16 January 2003
This site update has been due for a while now, but I haven't gotten around to doing it. Anyway, Kate met (or caught a glimpse of) Dominic Monaghan at the not-so recent New Zealand premiere of The Two Towers. In fact, she got him (and Billy) to sign an autograph for her. I've got the pics here, but there are a couple more pics of interest at her website.
A lot has been said about the practical jokes on the set of 'Lord of the Rings.' Well, here are two more articles pretty much saying the same thing. At one point, Sean Bean (Boromir) and Orlando Bloom (Legolas) taped up Dom's trailer, leaving him stranded outside. Dom and Elijah Wood (Frodo) retaliated by "(making) some fake dog poo and covered the stairs to Orlando's trailer with it. We also sprayed all over the inside of his trailer with shaving foam and then squirted hairspray all over the taps so that everything was sticky." Uhh, eww? Anyway, check out the account of this story at Teen Hollywood and The Mirror.
Now for some 'Lord of the Rings' award news. 'Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers' is one of the ten movies nominated for Orange Film of the Year, to be handed out during the BAFTAs (the British equivalent of the Oscars) later this year. ('Fellowship of the Ring' won this award last year.) The other nominees are: 'Die Another Day,' 'Goldmember,' 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,' 'Men in Black II,' 'Monsters, Inc.,' 'Ocean's 11,' 'Scooby Doo,' 'Spider-man,' and 'Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones.' Ananova has the full story.
More Oscar precursor awards and nominations are being announced, and these are more interesting because most of these are voted on by members of the film industry, some of whom are members of the Academy (who'll vote at the Oscars). 'Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers' has been nominated at the USC Scripter Awards. This isn't an "industry" award, but it's still a pretty good judge of who may be nominated at the Oscars. Anyway, the Scripter is for films adapted from books, and the honor goes to both the screenwriters as well as the author of the book. TTT is up against tough competition: 'About Schmidt,' 'Adaptation,' 'The Hours,' and 'The Pianist.' The film is also nominated at the 7th Art Directors Guild Award for Best Production Design: Period or Fantasy Film. The award is for set design and set decoration. The film is up against 'Chicago,' 'Gangs of New York,' 'Minority Report,' and 'Road to Perdition.' Finally, later today, the Producers Guild of America will announce their five nominees for Best Picture; let's hope 'The Two Towers' gets a nod (like last year). For the latest awards information, check out Oscar Watch.
Lastly, Sir Ian McKellen has been working on his campaign that reduces London theater ticket prices so more people could watch plays and musicals. "Tickets for West End productions are being slashed to as little as £5 as part of the Get Into London Theatre campaign." (Oh, if only I could watch a play/musical at West End myself.) Again, Ananova has the full story.
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