Ylla!!!! I am sorry you have been feeling so low. :k

~ Mechtild

Yep, and he knows it, based on his other comments about making money. But ultimately, if he's happy with what he's doing, it's the right choice for him (and we just have to be content with that).I've noticed that George Clooney is back in favor by the number of his films back on cable tv this month. (OT not a fan myself) Audiences and critics seem to bestow accolades willy nilly...okay......Trying to align your acting career with audience favor also seems perilous to me. Trusting his(TOL) Gut and staying the course( passionate about the part or film) in his selection of parts may atleast give TOL some sense of control or satisfaction or achievement. But it ain't easy to be a fan and to be content with his absence from the big screen or the lack of appreciation from critics or audiences. It seem as his 25th birthday approaches that he has amassed a respectable career. Here's hoping the best is YET to come and that his strategy - staying true to his self - pays off for us as well. Of course :eek: it's not only his acting that is appealing. LOL :D :D Besides that incredibly attractive exterior, the interior is even more compelling.

Welcome sneaking. Yes I also think and hear Gollum when I see your name. :cool:
saile

But it ain't easy to be a fan and to be content with his absence from the big screen or the lack of appreciation from critics or audiences. It seem as his 25th birthday approaches that he has amassed a respectable career. Here's hoping the best is YET to come and that his strategy - staying true to his self - pays off for us as well. You're right, saile. I considered at one point making myself a t-shirt that says, "It takes a tough woman to be a fangirl." Watching your beloved being buffeted at every turn, especially knowing that he's the most talented guy out there, is very difficult -- I didn't mean to sound facetious in my comment, believe me. All in all, Elijah does us proud and I'm sure, will continue to do so, no matter where his life leads him, even if...Eru forbid...it is away from the big screen.

I considered at one point making myself a t-shirt that says, "It takes a tough woman to be a fangirl." Watching your beloved being buffeted at every turn, especially knowing that he's the most talented guy out there, is very difficult -- I didn't mean to sound facetious in my comment, believe me. All in all, Elijah does us proud and I'm sure, will continue to do so, no matter where his life leads him, even if...Eru forbid...it is away from the big screen.
Couldn't have said it as well as you have. Thanks. :k
saile

You're right, saile. I considered at one point making myself a t-shirt that says, "It takes a tough woman to be a fangirl." Watching your beloved being buffeted at every turn, especially knowing that he's the most talented guy out there, is very difficult.

My perspective is that it's a lot of fun anticipating word of the next project, and then the first pictures that leak out, and then the spate of magazine pictures and interviews, and talk shows, and finally opening night of the film.

As for those critics who like to lash out at our lad, I can't wait until they have to eat crow. The day will come when they'll have to put aside their scoffing, and sit up and take notice. And I'm having fun anticipationg that too!

Right now I'm anxiously awaiting word from the ORC-attendees. I hope they pepper him with quetions about the Iggy project! I can't wait to hear what he's been hiding under that hat all these months, and how skinny/ripped he's looking!

honey!

I'm not-particularly a squeee-type fan girl (although I have my moments). The type of actors I like are the Philip S Hoffman, William H Macy, John C Reilly, slight strange , very good actor character types.

I think TOL had two choices coming off the Lord of the Rings (with the typecasting risk it gave him). To try go the big star, big budget route (perhaps what happened to Orlando Bloom) or to go low budget, perhaps lower visibility and re-invent himself in the "name" character actor mode. Both paths are risky. He is not a classic leading man type and the first path is possibly impossible for him (careers can collapse very fast).

There is a section of the audience and the critics that refuses to take him seriously - primarily based on his appearance and on Frodo. I've never really understood why, but a lot of people seem to think he's laughable. In order to break through this prejudice, he has to allow some distance to build up between him and Frodo in their minds. Different roles might break down the barrier with different parts of this critical audience (e.g. guys who thought Frodo was soppy liking Kevin in Sin City).

Most of the actors of TOL's type that become successful do so relatively old, perhaps having built up a substantial resume, individual bits of which might not have got that much attention but over time a cumulative appreciation occurs. I think this must be what he is trying to do. Over the last couple of years, he's had a few small parts in reasonably high profile movies (Sin City, Eternal Sunshine). I think he needs to keep doing projects like that (to keep his name in there with more of the cinema viewing public) along side the little indie projects. His career could go a variety of ways at present. How the Iggy movie goes over with a wider public could have a big impact. I think he's going to spend some years being a character actor, doing character actor parts but that also means he'll keep working when some of the other young actors have almost disappeared.

I'm not-particularly a squeee-type fan girl (although I have my moments). The type of actors I like are the Philip S Hoffman, William H Macy, John C Reilly, slight strange , very good actor character types.Some great guys there, sneaking. I especially love William H. Macy (who's in Bobby with Elijah and that's really exciting to me).

I think TOL had two choices coming off the Lord of the Rings (with the typecasting risk it gave him). To try go the big star, big budget route (perhaps what happened to Orlando Bloom) or to go low budget, perhaps lower visibility and re-invent himself in the "name" character actor mode. Both paths are risky. He is not a classic leading man type and the first path is possibly impossible for him (careers can collapse very fast).I was going to post this anyway, and this' the perfect segue for it -- note what Christopher Lee had to say about young actors today (this was on IMDB today):


Lee Slams Hollywood Teenagers

British acting legend Christopher Lee has slammed Hollywood's obsession with youth, insisting the employment of beautiful but talentless teenagers is sabotaging modern movies. The Star Wars veteran, 83, is appalled by producers' willingness to cast young stars in emotionally-complex roles, and insists a backlash is on the horizon. And he fears for the reputations of young stars, condemning Los Angeles studios for pushing their protege's too far. He says, "The problem today, and I think it's a very dangerous one for the people concerned, is that there are quite large numbers of very young men and women from 18 to 30, and they are playing very large parts in huge films and they simply, through no fault of their own, don't have the background and the experience and the knowledge to pull if off. And it's dangerous for them because if they are in one failure after another, sooner or later people are going to say, 'Well, he may have a pretty face but he's not bringing the public in.' So many of these good-looking - sometimes even pretty - boys and girls are getting these good roles and it's not fair on them. At some point it's going to catch up." My take on this is that he's talking about Orlando in particular here, in light of all the recent articles about his career fizzing out.

There is a section of the audience and the critics that refuses to take him seriously - primarily based on his appearance and on Frodo. I've never really understood why, but a lot of people seem to think he's laughable. In order to break through this prejudice, he has to allow some distance to build up between him and Frodo in their minds. Different roles might break down the barrier with different parts of this critical audience (e.g. guys who thought Frodo was soppy liking Kevin in Sin City).This is very true. Elijah is also older now and does not look quite as androgynous as he did when he was Frodo, which can be off-putting to young males, not to mention the awkward emotions that that role may have engendered in them.

Most of the actors of TOL's type that become successful do so relatively old, perhaps having built up a substantial resume, individual bits of which might not have got that much attention but over time a cumulative appreciation occurs.Viz Dustin Hoffman, etc -- although TOL is far betting looking (or at least we think so).

This is very true. Elijah is also older now and does not look quite as androgynous as he did when he was Frodo, which can be off-putting to young males.

Viz Dustin Hoffman, etc -- although TOL is far betting looking (or at least we think so).

Yes, I agree. I think a lot of young guys found Frodo down right threatening because he was so pretty (for want of a better word). Like Al Pacino (who also looked very baby faced when young) didn't get serious parts until he was late twenties. Those big blue eyes aren't going anywhere though. Perhaps I should take back my non-squeeing comment.

Lots of good stuff in your post, sneaking!
There is a section of the audience and the critics that refuses to take him seriously - primarily based on his appearance and on Frodo. I've never really understood why, but a lot of people seem to think he's laughable. In order to break through this prejudice, he has to allow some distance to build up between him and Frodo in their minds. Different roles might break down the barrier with different parts of this critical audience (e.g. guys who thought Frodo was soppy liking Kevin in Sin City).


Although there have been those who loathed EJW's Frodo, I think there maybe another factor here: He was a former child star. As cynical as the current media is, there may exist a cretain segment of critics who are just waiting to see his "nice guy" image implode. A former child star being busted for drug possession, or checking himself into Betty Ford sells more papers.

Originally posted by Achila:Quote:
Lee Slams Hollywood Teenagers

British acting legend Christopher Lee has slammed Hollywood's obsession with youth, insisting the employment of beautiful but talentless teenagers is sabotaging modern movies. The Star Wars veteran, 83, is appalled by producers' willingness to cast young stars in emotionally-complex roles, and insists a backlash is on the horizon. And he fears for the reputations of young stars, condemning Los Angeles studios for pushing their protege's too far. He says, "The problem today, and I think it's a very dangerous one for the people concerned, is that there are quite large numbers of very young men and women from 18 to 30, and they are playing very large parts in huge films and they simply, through no fault of their own, don't have the background and the experience and the knowledge to pull if off. And it's dangerous for them because if they are in one failure after another, sooner or later people are going to say, 'Well, he may have a pretty face but he's not bringing the public in.' So many of these good-looking - sometimes even pretty - boys and girls are getting these good roles and it's not fair on them. At some point it's going to catch up."
My take on this is that he's talking about Orlando in particular here, in light of all the recent articles about his career fizzing out.

I wouldn't be surprised if Lee had EJW firmly in his sights on this one, Achila. I recall someone in the commentaries saying that Lee had read the book every year for the past 40+ years. An irreverent, potty-mouthed, chain-smoking, androgynous eighteen year old may have not been what he had in mind for the part.

My wish is that we'll see Elijah in the kind of movies, and eventually roles, that require more than a bit of intellectual involvement. I used to think he could go the leading man route, but I'm pretty well convinced that he's more of a character actor. I just hope we'll be watching build a fascinating body of work for years to come.

honey!

I wouldn't be surprised if Lee had EJW firmly in his sights on this one, Achila. I recall someone in the commentaries saying that Lee had read the book every year for the past 40+ years. An irreverent, potty-mouthed, chain-smoking, androgynous eighteen year old may have not been what he had in mind for the part. Except that he had nothing but glowing, wonderful things to say about Elijah, and it's Orli whose career has taken the turn he's describing here, not Lij's.

Oh! Well, good! Glowing is good! :) I guess I've missed, or more like forgotten, what Christopher Lee said.

Very interesting discussion!

Christopher Lee was also in Star Wars II and III, which probably gave him some more young actors to think about.

As far as being a former child actor, IMHO it hits Elijah from both directions--

1. The people who think of him as a child actor and who can't get beyond that (including waiting for him to somehow reveal whatever terrible problems he must be hiding :rolleyes: ).

2. The people who'd never heard of him before LotR, and who can't believe it when you tell them he'd been in two dozen movies before he played Frodo. (I can count 22, and I'm sure there must be a couple more out there that I'm not thinking of :p .)

The one thing in his favor here is that he was a child actor, and not a child star in the way Macauley Culkin was. Mickey Rooney, for example, probably had a harder time overcoming child-star status than Elijah will, in part because everybody knew him in that role, while a lot of people seem to think Elijah dropped out of the sky in 2001.

OTOH, that latter group are the ones who assume he's taking the roles he is to specifically distance himself from the Frodo image, while he's actually just doing what he's always done -- look for roles that are different from what he's played before. I've appreciated that he's talked about that whenever an interviewer has brought up the "Frodo type-casting" issue, because he makes it clear that he doesn't feel any particular need to distance himself from Frodo, any more than he would from any other character he's played. In one response to the "Do you worry that people will always think of you as Frodo?" question, he said that if people always connect him with Frodo he'd consider that an honor, which makes this Frodophile very happy, anyway :cool: . These are the people who don't seem to understand that LotR was the "aberration" in his career, not the small indie and indie-like movies he's gone back to.

I know this isn't the swoon thread, so I'll just so I'll just say with much reserve that I really like EW's hair from the ORC pictures. :)

Hi tg! Hi Alyon! Hi Blossum! Hi Sheryl! Hi Saile! Hi-- they drag Ezzie back to the Hall.

A transcript of EW and SA at ORC yesterday is posted on the main page of TORN. Enjoy!

C4

Hi, Ezzie!!!!!!!

Hey, the post isn't taking my commands--like quotes and smilies and all.

So, Ezzie....I like the hair, too!!!

Welcome to Sneaking--
and Ylla, take good care of yourself. Thinking of you....

Oh, and I had heard those quotes from Christopher Lee about young actors and he specifically talked about Orlando and bad management choices, as well.
Thanks for that, Achila

I've been out of town. So need to do a little catching up. HI to Everyone!!!
Alyon

Just dropped in to say that updates are published at frodolivesin.us - not much, but there are a lot of Mumble screencaps and, if I may say so ;) , a particularly good Froshadowing. All can be linked to from the What's New (http://www.frodolivesin.us/new) page.

Kinda wrung out right now. I've been spending too much time on a totally useless website (possiblity that it might make some money, but other than that... :rolleyes: ). Will catch the ORC stuff when I can see straight again.

Alyon -- Yeah, those board functions do blip out occasionally. Any smilies here are ones I put in by hand.

ETA: I forgot to mention that amazon.com has had a setback regarding the Hooligans DVD. Previously, they had it listed as upcoming with no specified release date, and you could sign up by email to be notified when it was available. When I went looking for it today, all I found was the Movie Showtimes page, which is for theater listings. No mention of a DVD at all. I hope it indicates only a problem at amazon, and not something more widespread. :(

ETA: I forgot to mention that amazon.com has had a setback regarding the Hooligans DVD. Previously, they had it listed as upcoming with no specified release date, and you could sign up by email to be notified when it was available. When I went looking for it today, all I found was the Movie Showtimes page, which is for theater listings. No mention of a DVD at all. I hope it indicates only a problem at amazon, and not something more widespread. :(It's still there, TG -- for some reason, it only shows up when you search "green street hooligans" in DVD. Here is the link:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005JOME/ref=pd_bbs_null_2/002-6589518-0476020?s=dvd&v=glance&n=130

That's really odd, Bunnie... thanks for reporting it. Really odd because they've never even called it Green Street Hooligans (and still aren't, it seems), and even weirder because a search at amazon is notorious for pulling up everything you could possibly imagine, whether it particularly fits or not. :rolleyes: Usually if you type in a word, it'll bring up anything with that word in the title, so don't know why it suddenly can't find "Hooligans" in "Green Street Hooligans." :confused: (But it can find EII as a "related search" :confused: :confused: .)

Tried searching for "Elijah Wood" and just the theater showtimes came up. No Hooligans DVD, but there was something called The Adventures of Huck and Rudyard - turned out to be the 2-disc Adventures of Huck Finn/Jungle Book combo. (Kinda makes sense if you think about it, but it's not a title I would have searched for :p .) Has anyone ever seen this thing in real life? There's one copy for sale, at $58.96, so the seller evidently knows it's a collector's item. [ETA, after having a cup of coffee: If I searched under the real name, there might be more than one copy :rolleyes: .] I collect Elijah's movies, but not various editions of them, so I won't be shelling out for it. Always makes me curious when I see that combo mentioned, though.

One nice thing on the Elijah Wood search results pages is that at least four "Listmania" lists popped up that weren't specifically Lij-centric but were "My favorite movies of 2005," listing ESOTSM.

Just thought I'd mention that in one of the ORC reports, Lij said that due to his Iggy workouts, his weight has reached 95 pounds! :eek: And not sure if everyone read the transcript from his Q&A session with Sean on Saturday, but he said that Iggy wasn't going to start filming until the end of the year, leaving him with not much to do besides working out and taking drum lessons (!) and looking for new work.

Achila

Lij said that due to his Iggy workouts, his weight has reached 95 pounds!

Oh my God...see my jaw hit the floor !!! :eek: :eek: :eek:

and for the benefit of all the Brits here, that is just 6 st. 11 lbs...

He's going to be seriously ill at that rate, ( although, I must say, he doesn't quite look that thin at the ORC Q & A Session with Sean )...

That weight-quote seriously worries me because I have just looked up the ideal weight ranges for men, and the under-weight range for 5ft 6 ins starts at 7 stone ( 98 lbs ), and he is telling us that he is less than that...
The chart I looked at is here :-

Weight Chart for Men (http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/logout/news_features/idealweight_m.htm)

He'll be anorexic before he knows it, if he doesn't look out...

That weight-quote seriously worries me because I have just looked up the ideal weight ranges for men, and the under-weight range for 5ft 6 ins starts at 7 stone ( 98 lbs ), and he is telling us that he is less than that...
The chart I looked at is here :-

Weight Chart for Men (http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/logout/news_features/idealweight_m.htm)

He'll be anorexic before he knows it, if he doesn't look out...I don't think there's really anything to worry about, Lady Wendy. It's only temporary -- look at how emaciated Christian Bale made himself for The Machinist, and he was fine (not to mention the fact that he was bulked up for his next film, Batman Begins). I don't think Elijah looks unhealthy, based on the pics I've seen and I highly doubt he'd do anything to seriously endanger himself, even if this is a role he greatly wants to do well in.

Just thought I'd mention that in one of the ORC reports, Lij said that due to his Iggy workouts, his weight has reached 95 pounds! Oh, my! :( I don't think I have seen the report that mentioned that (or I missed it in skimming). Do you suppose there is any chance that he was actually kidding? Like, just poking a bit of fun at how skinny he is? I just can't even comprehend that he could weigh so little! I mean... my eleven-year-old daughter probably weighs about that. :eek: Trying so hard not to worry, here... :rolleyes:

Oh, my! :( I don't think I have seen the report that mentioned that (or I missed it in skimming). Do you suppose there is any chance that he was actually kidding? Like, just poking a bit of fun at how skinny he is? I just can't even comprehend that he could weigh so little! I mean... my eleven-year-old daughter probably weighs about that. :eek: Trying so hard not to worry, here... :rolleyes:Don't know. I didn't see it for myself but a friend of mine did (serai1 reported it, btw). I know -- 95 pounds sounds awfully thin -- that means he couldn't have been much more than 110 pounds to begin with. But you saw the same pics I did, and he seemed OK, didn't he? Of course, his clothing looked like it belonged to his older brother (those were the same pants he wore last year to ORC, I think -- only more ripped now).

Wendy, I need glasses. I just looked at your weight chart for me, and to me it looked like the white "ideal" swath showed 5'6" starting at a hair under 10 stone (140 lbs.), not 7 stone. I couldn't imagine any 5' 6" male looking healthy at 98 pounds.

Poor EW. I'll bet he's had to give up every last bite of chocolate.

Ninety-five pounds. I haven't weighed that since I was 10. I don't see why he'd have to be that thin for the role. That nude photo of young Iggy I posted by Gerard Malanga showed a slender but very fit-looking, healthy-looking man, not an emaciated one. Later, when Iggy was not only thin but beat-up-looking (from drugs and the additional years), he did look pretty "skinny". But even then he had a lot of muscle for a thin person. Maybe EW is getting anorexic, as some have suggested.

P.S. Just for fun, I looked up weights and heights of jockeys. I found one for British racing. Jockeys who ride steeplechase have a higher weight limit than those who ride flat races, but the "riding weight" of the various jockeys who were 5' 6" were from 8.8 to 10.3 stone. I believe that means their weight with their silks, boots and riding tack. One famous jockey was described as being 5' 5", who was trim at 10 stone, but regularly speed-dieted (did diuretics, steam rooms, saunas, etc.) before a race to get himself donw to 8 stone 7 to make his riding weight. The lightest jockey on the list was a 5'4" man whose riding weight at 7.11 (109 pounds). He must be extremely thin. A famous jockey from the past had a body weight of 98 pounds, but he was 4' 11" tall.

P.P.S. Just for the purposes of comparison, I looked up Dominic Monaghan's weight, I man I would call slender if not verging on thin. I only found two listings, one for 144, one for 134. His height was usually given as 5' 7". Sean Astin was variously called 5' 6", 5' 5", and 5' 7". But he did say that he was very uncomfortable at his highest Sam weight, 195. His Sam was chubby but not rotund.

~ Mechtild

I don't believe Elijah weighs only 95 pounds. Firstly, I've had his arm around me twice, and it was heavy, as in muscular. Even if he 's lost a lot of weight, he won't have lost all that lean muscle, and muscle is heavy dense stuff.

I have a similar facial structure to Elijah's in cheekbones and jawline. (After that all similarity stops!) I'm 5'4" and when I was in my twenties, and about 120 lbs. my face had the same planes and angles that his shows now. I'm guessing that he weighs at least 130 lbs.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v377/honeyelf/P1000838.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v377/honeyelf/img_2424.jpg

Honeyelf said

...I've had his arm around me twice...
Show-off! :p

C4

Show-off! :p

C4

:( I was just offering my best evidence! ...Really! :( :(

I understand that the next ELF is in NY. You too could have his arm around you ever so briefly!

*C4 loooks at pictures of EW, then looks at numbers on bathroom scale :o , and imagines EW trying (and failing :eek: ) to get arm around C4 *

C-tossing scale out bathroom window-4

That's O.K. ceefour, you can always come down to SXSW in March. Elijah always makes the pilgrimige to promote independant films and music. He should have Simian Records up and running by then (?) and SHOULD be down here scoping out the new bands to sign up. You can drink a beer with him and try to get him drunk like the rest of us do. This time though, I promise to bring my leash... ;)

You can drink a beer with him and try to get him drunk like the rest of us do. This time though, I promise to bring my leash... ;)

:lol:

(giggling madly) (trying to bring it down to a dignified chuckle before stepping out for the day)

Hey -- Elijah's been nominated for a Moviefone Moviegoer Award for Vilest Villain!

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/060126/20060126005385.html?.v=1

Thanks, Achila -- We takes what we can gets, eh? :z: At least people are thinking of him, although it's not for the role I wish had people thinking about him.

Thanks, Achila -- We takes what we can gets, eh? :z: At least people are thinking of him, although it's not for the role I wish had people thinking about him.I know. :( To tell the truth, I just can't get excited about the Oscars, even though I've seen the majority of the films that will be nominated for major awards. 2005 turned out to be such a disappointment, in many ways, from our point of view. Well, at the very least, he won a couple of nice fan-given awards at ORC for those roles.

ETA -- And for those of you in Sweden and elsewhere in Europe -- Elijah will be appearing at the Scandinavian Sci-Fi Game and Film Convention in Gothenburg on March 4 and 5: http://www.propworld.nu/index_eng.html

tgshaw wrote: ...the role I wish had people thinking about him.

Kevin in Sin CIty, or Matt Buckner in TFFKAH ?

Kevin in Sin CIty, or Matt Buckner in TFFKAH ?
You mean which one got him nominated as "Vilest Villain"? :haha: He is getting noticed for Sin City.

You can vote for the Moviefone Moviegoer Awards at:
http://movies.aol.com/moviefone_moviegoer_movie_awards/2006

Apparently, Moviefone doesn't believe in voting early and voting often. ;)

C4

Apparently, Moviefone doesn't believe in voting early and voting often.Yep, I think you only get one go.

tgshaw wrote: You mean which one got him nominated as "Vilest Villain"? He is getting noticed for Sin City.

I was hoping for Matt Buckner. Not as Vilest Villian, but for some type of award/recognition. Kevin was only on screen for a relatively short time. Overall, the character Kevin was a bit part, but left the largest impact on the audience. The character Matt Buckner was a lead role which dominated screen time. It was "his story" afterall. Matt was a good vehicle for Elijah to show a much broader raange of emotion and action sequences. We rarely get to see that side of him. I was hoping that that character would have brought him more notice for his acting ability (sans Frodo) then it did.

I was talking about EII -- I haven't seen TMFKAH yet, and I'm sure I won't until the DVD comes out, which doesn't seem to have an actual release date yet (IIRC, it was supposed to be this past December). So Matt, whom I've only seen in a few stills, wasn't even in my mind. With all the positive press EII was getting in the film magazines, I had some hopes for it, but it never broke out of the art-house pack.

I was talking about EII -- I haven't seen TMFKAH yet, and I'm sure I won't until the DVD comes out, which doesn't seem to have an actual release date yet (IIRC, it was supposed to be this past December). So Matt, whom I've only seen in a few stills, wasn't even in my mind. With all the positive press EII was getting in the film magazines, I had some hopes for it, but it never broke out of the art-house pack.I guess Warner Independent decided that with the mixed reviews it was getting, it didn't benefit them to spend more $ releasing it wider. A tragedy, really. They threw this film away.

knock knock !!!

one very ashamed lady knocks on the door !!!! :(

first bec... i forgott yllas birthday !!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY YLLA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and second bec.. i ahven`t been here layely !!!!

i think of you all alot but RL is paining my a:::::::!!!!!!!

And thanks Achila for telling ylla to send me an e-mail about elijah comming to sweden !!!!!! :k :k :k

Is there anybody else going ???? hey plz pm me if thats the case !!!!!!

maybe we can met up !!!!!!

LOVE YOU ALL /WOOD

Hi, wood -- glad to see you got the message! :)

Hi, wood! :) :k

It's been kind of quiet in here lately. I think RL has caught up with a lot of us. But, then, I assume everyone is preparing for the big birthday celebration tomorrow, right? :p

Our little boy turning 25. It just doesn't seem possible. Seems like just yesterday he was playing Huck Finn... Wait, it was just yesterday - I had the DVD on. :haha:

But, seriously, it sure doesn't seem like it's been four years since we were worrying about what he might do on his 21st!

Achila - I totally agree about EII (but you probably knew that already ;) ). I still think it's one of those movies people will be discovering a few years from now and thinking, "How did I miss this?" At least I hope so.


[Disclaimer: I wasn't really watching Huck Finn yesterday... That was just a joke. :rolleyes: ;) ]


And if anybody else makes jokes about how young I look...!
http://www.frodolivesin.us/Pics/12b5e0c0.jpg

Hi, wood! :)

Maybe Warner Independent saw the potential for Good Night, and Good Luck and The March of the Penquins and focused all their publicity efforts on those movies at the expense of others.

C4

Hello All. I've been limited on computer time for awhile, but I was determined to make it back in time for Lij's BIRTHDAY TOMORROW!!!!! Yay!

I hope everyone is well and I've missed you all, (can't believe I missed 12 whole pages, I don't think i'll ever catch up) :(

But, as I said, I'm back before his birthday. Happy 25th Elijah!! Woo-hoo. :) :) :cool: :D

My friend Justin's birthday is tomorrow, too. He is four years younger then Elijah. The past two years I have told him how cool I thought it was that he had the same birthday as Elijah.

Also during the last few weeks, I have written a fanfic of the Faculty, adapting it to aliens taking over the Wal-Mart store that I work at. I would love for y'all to read it. If anyone is interested, PM me.

Again, missed everyone, and glad to be back!!! :k

P.S. I did skim some of the pages I missed, and loved the pics!

Hi, wood! :)

Maybe Warner Independent saw the potential for Good Night, and Good Luck and The March of the Penquins and focused all their publicity efforts on those movies at the expense of others.

C4

Probably. Also, only a few art house movies break out to a wider public so they do have to go for it when they do (it helps to pay for all the other films).

They are the type of films which rely more on very good reviews to draw a larger audience to movie theatres - especially if the movie is a little bit quirky or unusual. EII appeared to do pretty well at the festivals and then got mixed press reviews. It also got released on a weekend when Miramax was dumping a lot of indie films in it's niche which didn't help. WIP probably knew before they released it that it wasn't going to breakout - that's why it was released when it was before the oscar films started to come out. It still did respectably enough compared to many of the similar type of films and similar budgets (e.g. Bee Season, Separate Lies etc.).

DVD has dramatically changed how little movies like this make their money and I think WIP would view the cinema release as part of the promotion for the DVD. A lot of people seem to really like this film and word of mouth will work better for a DVD that anybody can get hold of compared to a fleeting arthouse cinema visit 20 miles away. I'm looking forward to getting a chance to see it when the DVD comes out.

*1 hour, 10 minutes early. Sorry, indoor soccer games in the morning*

Elijah, Happy 25th Birthday! Enjoy the day however you decide to spend it and with whomever you chose!! Since I could not come up with something witty, funny, or unique, I decided to go simple (not much choice actually) and post some favorite pictures I have of your work from the past year. So, let the show begin...

Favorite Fan Moment – Two lucky girls, what an awesome moment for them! ;) That's actually me on the left.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Shelbyshire/Edinburgh.jpg

Favorite Angst Pic - Gotta love it! Can't wait to see the movie.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Shelbyshire/Hooligans.jpg

2nd Favorite Angsty Pic - You just look so vulnerable in this one.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Shelbyshire/6e15b877.jpg

3rd Favorite Angst Pic – :cool: Yes, I know about my problem but thank you for your concern. Last one...I promise.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Shelbyshire/forDEBunnie.jpg

Favorite 2005 EJW Movie - Saw this in Indianapolis. Thanks, SandCastles, for finding it for us.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Shelbyshire/PICT1489.jpg

Favorite 2005 Vacation - Lord of the Rings Movie Exhibition in Indianapolis.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Shelbyshire/ca1d2d70.jpg

Favorite Press Pic - and others from Venice, Italy.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Shelbyshire/venice2_1.jpg

and lastly, my Favorite Harem Posted Pic – yup, it's pink!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Shelbyshire/7f4f68ca.jpg

Morning all !!!!


Don`t have any picture to share so i just say this !!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELIJAH !!!!!!

HOPE IT WILL BE A GOOD ONE BEC...YOU DESERVE THE BEST
AND MAY YOU BE HAPPY ALL YOUR LIFE !!!! :k :k :k :k :k :k


WOOD

:k :k Happy Birthday, Elijah! :k :k :k

No cleverness from me, I'm afraid; just gobs of affection! Thank you for all the lovely hours spent with your films! You're the best!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v377/honeyelf/flower11.jpg

Shelbyshire, that picture of you and Elijah is adorable. I love seeing pictures of him with people I "know" from on-line! It's proof that he's real! I know that makes no sense, I've 'proved' it myself! But there you have it!

Wood! Lovely to see you, girl! Don't make us wait until next January to see you again! :k

hugs to all my Faculty friends on this, our special day! :)

honey!

Happy birthday, Elijah!!!!

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a94/indiesnob/elwood111.jpg

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a94/indiesnob/elwood132.jpg

Well Honey i do my best to be here more often !!! :k

i can just say this you dont have to wait a year to see another post from me !! ;)

WOOD

Lovely pics, everyone. :)

25 TODAY!

Good grief - I feel positively ancient! :eek: :)

http://www.imag.us/x/blossom/HB-EW.jpg

May the future be healthy, happy and fulfilling. :k


Love to all, especially wood - waves. :k

Shelbyshire, that picture of you and Elijah is adorable. I love seeing pictures of him with people I "know" from on-line! It's proof that he's real! I know that makes no sense, I've 'proved' it myself! But there you have it! :o Honey, I'm sorry. That's not :( me. Just wishful thinking! Of course, Elijah and Edinburgh would have been beautiful to see. I do remember seeing a pic of Elijah and you so he must be real.

Can't post without a pic now can we? Wishing we ALL can give you a birthday hug someday, Elijah!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Shelbyshire/4a0d0bc0.jpg

HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ELWOOD*

(as NOT sung by Dolly Parton)


Happy, happy birthday, Elwood.
Celebrate with cake and brew!
Thought I’d drop a line right here,
Hoping that the coming year
Will bring more good scripts to you. :z:

Happy, happy birthday, Elwood,
With those captivating blue eyes.
Seems like years since Frodo’s grace
And that fascinating face
Took my heart all by surprise.

I can remember the names
That I used to call you.
I said you were creepy,
Because of McPhee;
I said you were bug-eyed. :o

Hope you have a lovely birthday.
I’d bring you chocolate if I could.**
Now I’ll close this note to you
With good luck and wishes, too:
Happy, happy birthday, Elwood! :D


*Of course, I wouldn’t presume to call him this; but it was a lot easier to rhyme than “Elijah” in the last verse.
** And porn, if you insist. ;)


(Sorry I've been away so long; and apologies for all the birthdays I've missed. But glad to see some lovely pictures for Our Man's birthday.)

waves back dear blossom !!! :k :k :k

And not only a wish for the most wonderful of days for our most wonderful of fellas, but also, a wish for all of us, that we continue to enjoy our hours in the dark together with him, for many years to come.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/aquila0212/bumblebee01.jpg
Beautiful!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/aquila0212/0c1b6670.jpg
Lovely Casey (this one is tg's)

And one for me --
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/aquila0212/e3_2004.jpg

Happy Quarter of A Century to Our Favorite Lad

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v480/ylla/Hooligansposter2.jpg


I chose this pic because I saw GSH this past week. Although I have to admit I didn't see it thru a totally legal manner :o
But sometimes a fan must do, what a fan must do :D and I'll make up for it by purchasing the DVD should it ever come out :rolleyes:
I truly liked this film..thought it was a good first effort by Lexi...liked the story (even though it was pretty predicable)and because I'm not a Brit, I can't say Charlie's Cockney accent was that annoying (but I appreciate a Brit's problem with it!!!I hate bad Bostonian accents in film... it will ruin an entire movie if I hear it :mad: )

Possible Spoilers for Those Who Have Been in a Cave For The Past 5 Months
Re: GSH!!!!

I thought Lij did a great job...and didn't have any problem with the notion that a guy like him would get caught up in "the firm".....it gave him a sense of family and belonging, something he didn't possess in his life. Plus he looks incredibly gorgeous for the very few of you who notice that type of thing :D :D :D
End of Possible ,But Not Probable Spoiler!

BTW....another Thank You is due to those of You who responded to my last post with Birthday and Feel Better Wishes...I can't even begin to tell You how much that meant to me....I'm hangin' in there....it's Hard to Keep an Irish Yankee Gal down for too long ;)
:k Ylla :k

Enjoying all the photos, thought I'd post one here as well as in Hugs.

Happy Birthday dear Elijah.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v404/billiep/beauty.jpg

saile

waves to wood, we miss you here and hugs for ylla. Be well.

Achila: Beautiful indeed!

ylla, I'm so glad that you finally saw TMFKAH, by whatever means (I'm not going to inquire), and even though you didn't get to see it with Achila, ceefour, and me. Although with the four of us all together, we might have been ejected by theater management for excessive swooning. This movie truly deserved a far better fate than it met.

And saile: So cute!

I'll have a go at a Happy Birthday! pic. A very old pic but one of my favourites.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f153/sneakingraptor/frodo.gif

Hopefully that works now...

Whoo Hoo! A little birthday present for The One Lad from our local paper:

BIRTHDAY GUY: Actor Elijah Wood, who sprang into prominence as the character Frodo Baggins in the blockbuster movie trilogy ``Lord of the Rings,'' was born in 1981 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on today's date. On his way to becoming a well rounded character actor he has accepted roles as a stalker in ``Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'' and as a truly demented serial killer in ``Sin City.'' He most recently had the lead in ``Everything Is Illuminated'' based on Jonathan Foer's best-selling book and will be part of the ensemble cast of the upcoming flick ``Bobby,'' written and directed by Emilio Estevez that explores the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 from the viewpoint of the hotel residents.

from here (http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/living/13643500.htm?source=rss&channel=mercurynews_living)

I just have to celebrate that bit I highlighted, since "The Murk" critics panned both GSH and EII. Maybe they're teachable yet!

...but also, a wish for all of us, that we continue to enjoy our hours in the dark together with him, for many years to come.


Well said, Achilla! :D I'll drink to that!

Ylla, I'm glad you enjoyed TMFKAH! With no release date in sight :mad: , I'm wondering just exactly what my options are, and how far my principles will stretch. :o

honey!

In honor of The One Lad's birthday, I've been doing laundry. ;) 5 loads done, 1 left.

Like a hobbit, he has given us a gift to celebrate his birthday. The gift of friendship, online and in real life.

C4

Ceefour:

The gift of friendship, online and in real life.

Very true :)

Happy Birthday, Elijah. :)

And can anybody tell me what fan awards he won at ORC???

Thanks much!!

And can anybody tell me what fan awards he won at ORC???I believe it was best supporting actor for Sin City, and best actor for Everything Is Illuminated.

Now I have to go check and make sure I'm not wrong...

Honey, thanks for posting that birthday note from the paper. It reminded me to check IMDb to see who came up as the "front page" birthday choice, which turned out to be, in fact, Elijah Wood (25) :cool: . #2 was Alan Alda (70), which isn't bad company. :)

Lovely pictures, all. I just want Bohemian to tell me that Elijah isn't eating the mouse :eek: . Whiteling, what was that definition of geeks, again? ...something about biting off heads of little animals? :eek:

So hard to choose what to add... But here's one that's larger than the pics I ususally put into the thread - Stu with some mischief in mind:

http://www.frodolivesin.us/Pics/203dcac0.jpg


I'm taking the rare occasion of having a bottle of Bacardi in the frig (left over from a get-together yesterday) to toast TOL fittingly. May he have a great year full of opportunities to do things he's passionate about (some of which we may even be able to see onscreen ;) ).

*hurries into the Faculty Lounge --- argh, too late :(! I'm too late for Ylla's birthday, and too late for Elijah's.... I'm sorry. My computer decided two weeks ago to quit working and since then I'm stealing little bits of on line time at hubby's machine... :rolleyes:

But now without further ado,
Happy belated birthday, Ylla! :k
and
Happy belated birthday, Elijah! :)

Enjoyed all the wonderful pictures, lovely, really lovely. You're the best. :k



Lovely pictures, all. I just want Bohemian to tell me that Elijah isn't eating the mouse :eek: . Whiteling, what was that definition of geeks, again? ...something about biting off heads of little animals? :eek:

Unfortunately you recall correctly, Tg - here is this unsavoury definition, this time from Wikipedia:
"GEEK" - A person who swallows live animals, bugs, etc., as a form of entertainment at fairs etc. This often included biting off the heads of chickens. The Geek would usually perform in a "geek pit". This probably comes from the Scottish geck, meaning 'fool', in turn from Middle Low German. (19th century.)

"WHAT must I do?"

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/whiteling/Frodomanips/fposterfrodo_chick.jpg

:eek: :eek: :eek:
:D

I, personally, tend to like the second definiton of GEEK a tad better (my emphasis):
A person with a devotion to something in a way that places him or her outside the mainstream. This could be due to the intensity, depth, or subject of their interest. This definition is very broad, and allows for mathematics geeks, aviation geeks, band geeks, computer geeks, gadget geeks, politics geeks, geography geeks, modelmaking geeks, geeks of the natural sciences, music geeks, theatre geeks, history geeks, Good Eats geeks (Briners or Yummies), linguistics geeks, sports geeks, figure skating geeks (;)), SCA geeks (SCAdians), gaming geeks, typography geeks, ham radio geeks, public transit geeks (metrophiles), anime and manga geeks (otaku), Stargate geeks (Stargate SG-1/Atlantis fans, Gaters), Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel geeks, Star Wars geeks, Star Trek geeks (Trekkies and Trekkers, the latter noted for costuming), Tolkien or fantasy geeks (Tolkienite) or Less Derogatory Terms (Tolkienologist or Ringer) , World of Warcraft geeks, and even Wikipedia geeks. (Late 20th century and early 21st century.)
----------

Hey, there's a new "face" - hello and welcome, Sneaking! :)

And hi, Wood! So good to see you again! :k (Will reply to your e-mail soon!)

*Hugs all around, signing off for tonight*

Oh, Whiteling, that was naughty - in the very best way! Scrolling down through that long, serious, beautiful picture just added to the :lol: at the end.

Afraid I'm the one who interjected "Tolkienite" into the lexicon. But I haven't meant it to be derogatory - just the opposite! The involvement is so strong that I've never been able to get myself to use the word "fan" when it comes to people who love Tolkien. I used to use "Tolkien reader," but with the involvement some people have with the movies that doesn't always fit anymore. "Ringers" is still a bit too new for me, especially with the common dictionary meaning being entirely negative (I've seen a couple of non-Tolkienite journalists make snide comments about that :mad: ). "Ringers" would also apply only to those whose major Tolkien interest is LotR, which would fit me and most of us who post in this thread/forum, but not everyone. "Tolkienologist" isn't bad, but it's kind of long to use in general conversation. Maybe the good, old-fashioned ;) "Tolkien geek" is still the best, now that it's lost some of its negative sense. :haha:

If you want to add to your list, I'm also a long-time Whovian [Dr. Who geek] :cool: . And I assume you omitted Elijah Wood geeks because that speaks for itself (unless a special term has been invented for it ;) ).

Fast Toadfoot - Good to see you back! :)

And I assume you omitted Elijah Wood geeks because that speaks for itself (unless a special term has been invented for it ;) ).
Erm, Wikipedia has left out us Elwoodianists then (how dare they?! :eek: ), since the list above is just a 'copy and paste' achievement of mine and not brain work I could claim for myself :p.
I'm not a native English speaker, but I never found the sound of "Tolkienite" in no way derogatory. Au contraire! :)
It's funny, having been and still being admirer and follower of various actors, authors, painters and other interesting people, I too avoided labelling myself as 'fan'. Dunno why, though. Probably these three letters sound just too insufficient as to cover all thoughts and feelings involved.

Whiteling -- I didn't realize you'd also copied that part of the definition from Wikipedia :o . So someone else must have thought of "Tolkienite," too. :p (Maybe I need to go to Wikipedia and add "Whovian"? :D And, no, I didn't make that one up. ;) )

I'll happily call myself a "fan" of Elijah Wood, but for Tolkien's writing, which has affected my entire life and the way I look at things since I was 15 years old, "fan" just doesn't do it.

More convention appearances for The One Lad -- ELF in NYC, the last week in July and RingCon in Germany in November.

And here's a little tidbit that's a slight bit OT but still somewhat relevant -- Courtney B. ("I almost puked up my livers, Jim") Vance and Angela Bassett are the proud parents of twins (I had no idea they were married) --

http://www.comcast.net/entertainment/index.jsp?cat=ENTERTAINMENT&fn=/2006/01/31/315793.html

Whiteling, loved the Frodo geek and chick picture. :lol:

tg, I would consider myself part of the LOTR geekis genre also, but I'm not fond of the 'Ringers' tag. Personally it reminds me too much of TORN people (since they talk about Ringers all the time) and not LOTR fandom in general. I'm not big on Tolk's other works, tho I admire the lengths he went through to create everybody. I guess I'll have to be happy with 'hobbit geek' or 'hobbitophile'. :D Oh yeah, and I'm a Whovian too. :)


P.S. If you're a figure collector, Sideshow Collectibles will soon be coming out with a 1/4 scale Frodo with real cloth clothing (and hopefully real hair). He's called Premier Frodo, and I'm hoping he's better than the polystone figures from Weta. I guess these Premier figures will be more closely based on the actors playing the parts, so I'm very eager to see the results (and hopefully in buying one). They've already come out with Lurtz, who stands 22" tall. I put the Premier Frodo link in the Harem, but it's only a sneak peek.

If you want to add to your list, I'm also a long-time Whovian [Dr. Who geek]

I was a big Whovian at one time... kind of faded after Peter Davidson left (just got too busy). Still haven't seen the latest incarnation. Probably liked Pertwee just a tad better than Davidson, but Baker remains my favorite. :) We absolutely must start showing those to the kids soon...

Hi, Ezzie! I see you got loose and got in here again. :D Who is this mysterious "they" who were dragging you off?

I like Tolkienite, although Tolken geek is okay with me (only I'm not, really - haven't even read all of the Silm :o ). I agree with Ezzie on Ringers - makes me think of ToRN, rather than LOTR fandom as a whole. Although this whole discussion makes me think of the Trekkie versus Trekker thing. :p

I'm really depressed there's no release date for TMFKAH. I should have made more of an effort to go see it when it was in Chicago. Kicks self.

Sheryl

shilohmm wrote: ...there's no release date for TMFKAH. I should have made more of an effort to go see it when it was in Chicago.

The last that I heard, the North American release "date" is still mid March.
Hooligans relied heavily on fan based support and word of mouth. If the fans didn't get off their duffs to help and support the film, is it a wonder that it died? HOOLIGANS-R-US

Hooligans relied heavily on fan based support and word of mouth. If the fans didn't get off their duffs to help and support the film, is it a wonder that it died? HOOLIGANS-R-USExcuse me, txtac but that's hardly fair. Many of us did as much as possible to get that film seen, including many here at The Faculty. That it died couldn't have possibly been our fault. :mad:

achila wrote: ...Many of us did as much as possible to get that film seen, including many here at The Faculty. That it died couldn't have possibly been our fault.
Nobody is saying that it is your fault, or the Facultyites fault. You are forgetting that I was there at the begining too and did my bit to help push the movie. I am speaking to all of Elijah's fans and hooligans who wanted to see the movie, but didn't get off of their duffs to actually go out and see his movie when it was in the theaters. It would have helped keep the film in the theaters longer. More people could have seen it. Time vs. money. The economics of film making and distribution.

Nobody is saying that it is your fault, or the Facultyites fault. You are forgetting that I was there at the begining too and did my bit to help push the movie. I am speaking to all of Elijah's fans and hooligans who wanted to see the movie, but didn't get off of their duffs to actually go out and see his movie when it was in the theaters. It would have helped keep the film in the theaters longer. More people could have seen it. Time vs. money. The economics of film making and distribution.

I'd still take issue with that, txtac. I think you'd be hard pressed to find an Elijah fan who didn't go see the film if it showed near them. And you can hardly blame them for not going if the film only came to a place a hundred miles away, or something. Most of us did make the effort to see it if at all possible. In fact, some of us bought tickets for showings on the other side of the country in an effort to keep it going. I don't know a soul in my fannish circles (and that's a lot of people) who simply were too lazy to go if the film came to their town.

I'd still take issue with that, txtac. I think you'd be hard pressed to find an Elijah fan who didn't go see the film if it showed near them. And as often as possible. We (Pelagia and I) saw it twice, and would've happily seen it more if it was playing somewhere nearby that was reasonable to get to.

And you can hardly blame them for not going if the film only came to a place a hundred miles away, or something. Most of us did make the effort to see it if at all possible. In fact, some of us bought tickets for showings on the other side of the country in an effort to keep it going. I don't know a soul in my fannish circles (and that's a lot of people) who simply were too lazy to go if the film came to their town.And Bunnie knows what she's talking about here -- she did this herself (Brava, Bunnie). No, the lack of a distributor is what sunk Hooligans -- not anything any of us did or didn't do.

And some of us (Who me? :eek: ) travelled 300+ miles to see it as many times as we could get in a weekend trying to fill seats any way we could (similar to Bunnie)
but oh what fun :D and got to meet up with Sandcastles as well :k .
saile

And what coulde i have done over here ?????? :(

it never came here at all !!!!!!!!!!!! :confused:

WOOD

Whenever something doesn't work out, there's always one more thing someone/everyone could have done (not knowing, of course, if it would have done any good). Otherwise, where would guilt trips come from? ;)

I could have gotten docked for a couple of days of work and driven the 700-800 miles (one way) to Texas or Chicago to see it. The people who had it playing nearby could have gone to see it one more time* (no matter how many times they went to see it) and/or dragged one more friend to it. Fans in Europe could have flown to England to see it (I imagine some did).

Things like that are always true, even with the more serious things in life such as accidental deaths and business failures. It doesn't have to hang on anyone's fault, although sometimes it feels like it does.

The people who were trying to market it probably said the same thing... "If I'd just [fill in blank]... maybe..."

...But if the intent was to get some activity in the thread, it was successful...

*My own EJW failure involves EII. I'd seen it three times and made it to the parking lot of the theater for #4 before I got stopped for having expired license plates. :rolleyes: Of course, even for something like that it takes forever for all the forms to get filled out, etc., so by the time it was all over the movie just about was, too, so I just drove home. :rolleyes: And, of course, that was right before the movie closed.

This just droped down in my mailbox!!!!!

Dear Hoolifans:
Thanks to one of our Hoolifans, we have learned
that GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS is nominated for a
Golden Groundhog Award.

The Golden Groundhog Awards are a new cinema
tradition, established
to recognize genuinely outstanding films from the
previous year that
lacked the distribution and marketing support
needed to propel them
into the public consciousness. To be eligible for
a Golden Groundhog,
a film must meet three criteria: the film must
have been released
during the previous year, grossed less than $1
million at the U.S.
box office, and received rave reviews from the
limited audiences who
watched the film. These are classic underground
hits – immensely
appreciated by the small audiences who have
discovered them, but
virtually unknown to the broader movie-going
audience.

The Golden Groundhog Awards take their name from
an unlikely American
hero – the groundhog. The groundhog hibernates in
an underground
burrow throughout the winter before emerging on
February 2nd to make
his annual winter weather prediction. The five
nominees for the
Golden Groundhog award are kindred spirits to the
groundhog,
underground movie hits waiting for their
opportunity to emerge and
take their rightful place in the spotlight of
American popular
culture. This February 2nd, the First Annual
Golden Groundhog will be
awarded and a new Hollywood darling will be born.
The whole Purpose of our organization is to
highlight the amazing
films that did not make it into the public
consciousness

THIS YEAR\'s FIVE ARE

Green Street Hooligans
Nine Lives
Mirrormask
Sunnyvale
Up for Grabs

Please support GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS by going to:


http://www.goldengroundhogs.com/index.php

and voting for GSH.

Thank you all again for all your continued help
and support.

Best,
The GSH Team

WOOD

As one fan who did her bit (saw EII and GSH 4 times each) I don't think the fans are to blame at all. As for GSH specifically, the public failed to embrace it. The blame for that can partly be laid at the door of Odd Lot who had the herculean task of both producing and distributing GSH, and on a limited budget at that. And then maybe the blame can be partly laid to the fact that independent female directors get no respect in an industry that would prefer the big pay-off at the box office. And that circles back around to the film-going public at large who would rather see Kicking and Screaming than Green Street Hooligans. I'm guessing that the moral to the story, if there is one, is that if you have a theater near you that runs independent films, opt to give them your ticket-buying dollars, rather than sitting through another "blockbuster" at the local cineplex. And that's the movie house that Jack Q. Public built! ;)

I'm simulposting with Wood who has good news, I see! :) Maybe we'll have a DVD released sooner rather than later! :z:

honey!

ETA: Remember a few months ago when we were discussing the future of film distribution, and I suggested (quoting a much more media-savvy friend) that the time would come when a film would be available in the theaters and on DVD on the same day? Steven Soderburg's Bubble is the first film in history to do just that. It was released to both theaters (rolling release) and to DVD on the same day. It's not ideal maybe, since the small screen isn't so effective at lingering on, say, and actor's eyes (just an example;) ). But at least maybe in the future we won't have to go to such lengths to see independent films as we have in the past.

And in closing:
|
|
V

As one fan who did her bit (saw EII and GSH 4 times each) I don't think the fans are to blame at all. As for GSH specifically, the public failed to embrace it. The blame for that can partly be laid at the door of Odd Lot who had the herculean task of both producing and distributing GSH, and on a limited budget at that. And then maybe the blame can be partly laid to the fact that independent female directors get no respect in an industry that would prefer the big pay-off at the box office. And also, let's not forget that a lot of the critics mostly missed the entire point of the film and kept harping on how miscast Elijah was....

Don't despair over Hooligans fate in the USA. It didn't do so well here in the UK at the box office, but more than a month after the DVD was released, I notice it is at something like No. 10 in the DVD charts. Word of mouth must be working.

I know several of you met and liked Lexi, but I think her being so vocal and prominent during the publicity campaigns did nothing to sell the film to the people who will be interested in it in the long run. Also, Charlie and Elijah are both perceived as rather 'girlie' types of men, and it may have been that the more macho blokes in society were put off by the combination of the 2 lead actors and Lexi, but can put those thoughts to the back of their minds when it comes to buying a small plastic box, as opposed to being seen walking into the cinema to watch a film that is in the news being classed as a laughing stock by some critics.

I'd love to see some breakdown of the demographic of the people who are buying the DVD.

Also, Charlie and Elijah are both perceived as rather 'girlie' types of men, and it may have been that the more macho blokes in society were put off by the combination of the 2 lead actors...

Oh! That's true! I know that Elijah is percieved that way here, but I tend to forget that Charlie is also perceived that way on your side of the pond. Most of us Yanks have never seen Queer as Folk.

When Charlie Hunnam was talking with us four "petition ladies" one of us asked him why he, a Brit actor, decided to relocate to Hollywood. He said that after QAF some of his more blokish compatriots would accost him in the street, yelling slurs at him, and even going so far as throwing stones!

As for Lexi's more abrasive personality traits, do you think they bother people generally, or just the more Hooliganesque types? I get a feeling that the real Hooligans don't particularly like any one of their number attempting to rise above the pack, or any hangers-on claiming membership. Is that a fair assessment?

h!

It's worth pointing out that Green Street Hooligans has taken the largest gross of any of the movies released through that Freestyle releasing company so far. To get any significant audience without a large marketing budget was always going to be next to impossible. And also, the ideal, target audience for the film (young, male) doesn't match up too well with the some of cinema screens they were probably getting (independents, not multiplexes) nor perhaps their marketing style.

The Guardian (http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,1698842,00.html) has an interview with the director of the Football Factory (the hooligan film with charming Danny Dyer). It's not that interesting but there was one thing that jumped out at me - the number of DVDs that he says his films sell. Assuming he's not telling porkie pies, the Football Factory sold 600,000 in the UK and the Business is having 138,000 copies for it's first weekend in the UK. I'd assume Green Street must be at similar levels as the Business. I did a recce round my high street the first weekend that Green Street came out. None of the shops had any copies of it left - just empty shelves space (Virgin had enterprisingly filled the space with copies of the Football Factory and ID). So it definitely has been selling OK. I don't know what the budget of the film was nor what UIP paid to distribute it in the UK (I thought it was somewhere in the £2-4 million mark for UIP but I'm not sure why I think that). With the critical drubbing the film got in the UK, it's not doing as badly as it might.

Especially considering the film, whilst it's got it's good features and parts, does have some flaws. I did enjoy it much more than I expected to but Charlie's accent almost kills the film stone dead (not a problem if you aren't British) and the writing is definitely dodgy in places.

As for Lexi's more abrasive personality traits, do you think they bother people generally, or just the more Hooliganesque types? I get a feeling that the real Hooligans don't particularly like any one of their number attempting to rise above the pack, or any hangers-on claiming membership. Is that a fair assessment?

I wasn't so much thinking of any particular personality traits, more that no matter what she reckons her experience is, she is a girl and comes to it from a female perspective - something she did admit. She cannot be the voice for the real 'hooligans', and by being so vocal about analysing why people get involved in such a world and where it can lead them, I think she was getting into the dangerous territory of emotions - a place men generally don't really want to go (or admit to going). I almost feel that she was pushed into a corner by having to defend the subject matter, in the same way that Elijah was, and I didn't think either of them really managed to sell the film all that well.

Now that all the publicity push is over and the public aren't having a supposed female hooligan and a pretty ex-hobbit shoved down their throats, people can pick up the film purely as another piece of entertainment. Once it can be seen simply for what it is - a decent story line, people you can care about, and a bit of action and tension - it will have a shelf life in the DVD and rental markets.

Sneaking I didn't realise you were a fellow UKer. I am glad to find someone else for who Charlie almost ruined the film. (But he did make up for it by being absolutely gorgeous in real life at the premiere. He and Leo Gregory had me swooning more than EJW did)

It's worth pointing out that Green Street Hooligans has taken the largest gross of any of the movies released through that Freestyle releasing company so far. To get any significant audience without a large marketing budget was always going to be next to impossible. And also, the ideal, target audience for the film (young, male) doesn't match up too well with the some of cinema screens they were probably getting (independents, not multiplexes) nor perhaps their marketing style.That's a good point. To be successful, this film HAD to find an audience outside EW fans, and it failed to do that -- for several reasons that we've all mentioned here.

Especially considering the film, whilst it's got it's good features and parts, does have some flaws. I did enjoy it much more than I expected to but Charlie's accent almost kills the film stone dead (not a problem if you aren't British) and the writing is definitely dodgy in places.I don't think any of us would argue that the film is brilliant, or that it's Elijah's best role, but by and large, it was not a bad effort. I guess it hadn't occurred to me (not being British, afterall) that the role of Pete would have just as much effect on the overall film as Matt. And if Pete didn't work for people, there went a big strike against it.

Someone mentioned yesterday that Charlie was also a "pretty boy" -- another good point. Was he a "credible hooligan"? From our point of view -- yes. He's a "type" that's being used for the same reason that Elijah is being used for Matt -- to show that anyone from any background or stature could be lured into this lifestyle. But to a Brit, the average hoolie thug is probably quite different, and right there is the problem. The main theme doesn't deliver. Audiences may have gotten too caught up in the "hey -- they're too pretty to be hoolies" issue, and never thought about what that really meant.

...But to a Brit, the average hoolie thug is probably quite different, and right there is the problem. The main theme doesn't deliver. Audiences may have gotten too caught up in the "hey -- they're too pretty to be hoolies" issue, and never thought about what that really meant.
IIRC, that was identified as a stereotype, too - That some people were suspecting that guys on the short side had been cast as extras in order to "fit" with Elijah better, when it turned out they were cast because they were actual hooligans or ex-hooligans. But stereotypes can be awfully hard to overcome.

Speaking of "girly men," :p in my latest Elijah Wood search at Amazon, this popped up. (When I first saw just the tiny icon, where I could barely make out the fact that there were two heads in the picture, my thought was, "Well, at least they got the appearance kind of right, if you include The Wig." But when I saw the pic a little larger, I realized I'd been looking at a female character :D :rolleyes: . It's animated, BTW, so at least I wasn't mistaking an actual person ;) ) Anyway, this is a totally new one to me, and I thought I was aware, at least, of just about everything TOL had ever been in (I even have his turn as Icarus on VHS, FGS!).

This was released in 1999, making it even a bit stranger that the only two cast members listed are Elijah and Liv Tyler. There's absolutely nothing on this movie at IMDb, at least not that I could find, under either of the actors or under the title. Lots of movies by the same title, even another animated one, but nothing that resembles this. I thought maybe it wasn't covered there because it went directly to video, but they have TAMTSNBN listed, so that doesn't seem to be the answer. Anyway, I haven't found any other cast listing besides Elijah and Liv in the Amazon entry (I haven't found any kind of listing except the Amazon one) and am wondering if the two LotR actors aren't really buried at the bottom of the cast list or even in "non-credited" parts instead of being in major roles. Can any of the great minds at the Faculty Lounge Research Center come up with anything more on this? There's only one available review on this, BTW, from a viewer who threw it away because it botched up the story so badly. No mention of the acting, positive or negative.

Prisoner of Zenda (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00003E46D/qid=1138801647/sr=1-20/ref=sr_1_20/002-3282844-7045647?s=dvd&v=glance&n=130)

And here's another one I hadn't seen before. This doesn't seem to qualify as acting - or maybe it does... Or maybe I just hope it does :eek: ! Andy Serkis, Sean Astin, Liv Tyler, Elijah Wood, and Peter Jackson (in that order) as part of the "depraved world of LA nightlife" :confused: :eek: :

Hollywood Wild in the Streets 1999 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00002EPGG/qid=1138803149/sr=1-25/ref=sr_1_25/002-3282844-7045647?s=dvd&v=glance&n=130)

(What was it about 1999?)

----Not meaning to totally derail the Hooligans discussion, but these have gotten me really curious, and we've always been able to carry on more than one discussion at a time, right? ;) I'm ready and willing to check out the animated one even if turns out to be really awful, but I'm not sure if my stomach can take diving into "the cesspool that is Hollywood," to quote the review of the second one :( .

I actually think of both films GSH and EII from an US perspective as foreign language films. I love foreign language films but a lot of folks won't make the effort. I missed a lot of dialogue from GSH the first viewing and there was not a lot of standard broadcast English in EII as well there were subtitles. Just a thought. yeah I did think GSH was a GOOD effort and thought EII a gem. :D
saile

This was released in 1999, making it even a bit stranger that the only two cast members listed are Elijah and Liv Tyler. I quickly looked it up on IMDB, and like you said, there's no mention of it anywhere. Really strange. Well, there are sellers on Amazon offering it for a few cents -- might be worth it just to see what it is.

ETA -- I Googled it and also came up with an animated version from Australia (with similar cover art but not quite the same) from 1988. Both the one listed on Amazon and this one appear to have originally been Region 2 DVDs. Hmm...the plot thickens. I bought a copy for $0.01 (the shipping was more than the DVD) -- I'll let you know.


And here's another one I hadn't seen before. This doesn't seem to qualify as acting - or maybe it does... Or maybe I just hope it does :eek: ! Andy Serkis, Sean Astin, Liv Tyler, Elijah Wood, and Peter Jackson (in that order) as part of the "depraved world of LA nightlife" :confused: :eeThis one sounds very weird. For them all to be together in 1999, they would've been in NZ, not LA, I would've thought. Cool finds though, TG.

ETA -- Googled this one too and found that it's mostly amateur video footage of celebs arriving or leaving Hollywood hotspots and includes some fights and whatnot. Don't know if they're really on this or not but it surely doesn't sound like it's worth spending the $ to find out.

Don't know if everyone knows about this, but the Ziegfield Theater in NYC is showing all three LOTR movies from 2/25 to 3/2, and ceefour and Pelagia and I are going on Sunday, 2/26 -- we'd love to meet anyone else in the NYC area who would be interested in joining us!

I missed a lot of dialogue from GSH the first viewing and there was not a lot of standard broadcast English in EII as well there were subtitles.
I think it's been mentioned before that people who understand what's really being said in EII, without the subtitles, say it's even funnier than the subtitles. Good job for the translators, since the book gave them no "original" language dialogue to work with.

Methinks I may be using the captions on the GSH DVD ;) . Although I wonder if, to American ears, a bad Cockney accent might be easier to understand than a good Cockney accent. :p

---Also regarding TMFKAH, I forgot to mention one finding from my recent amazon.com foray. That DVD has the "sign up for email notification" box available again, so anyone who hasn't yet can sign up to let them know people are actually waiting for this movie. (The "sign up for email notification" is not a pre-order, and doesn't obligate you to buy the DVD from amazon in the future; they'll just send you an email when they have an actual release date.)

----amazon can be very strange. You still have to search for "Green Street Hooligans" to find the DVD. Then it comes up with a page that tells you there were no exact matches, but gives a list of partial matches including this movie, under the title of Hooligans. When you get to the page for the DVD, the list of "related searches" includes Everything Is Illuminated and North, and EII is in the "You may also be interested in..." list, but GSH/TMFKAH does not show up in a search for "Elijah Wood." :confused: :confused: Is it any wonder these people can't get the HoMe books straight? :haha:

They also still have Eugene Hutz listed as the lead actor for EII, even though I (and probably a lot of other people) have sent them an "error on this page" note about it. :rolleyes:

---Achila, it seems the Australian PofZ (how would you pronounce that?) version you found on google is the 1988 animated one that IMDb has listed. The 1999 one at Amazon says the DVD is "no region," which is unusual for a commercial DVD, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if it had started out as something other than a Region 1.

[Reminder to all: Remember to "click for Moggy" whenever you do a google search by using a search box on this site. Not too difficult to do if you have the site bookmarked. January was a bad month for ad income, because number of visitors was down.]

OT, but...

Clicking on an ad for Moggy the other day, a site was having a clearance sale of LOTR action figures.
This Box Set is an exclusive for international market only which includes Canada. This item will not be released in the US.
C- :confused: -4

ETA-I've voted for GSH 5x for the Groundhog Award. Is that enough? :haha:

C4 -- I have seen that before. I assume it has something to do with licensing.

tg, I was amused by how the sentence could be read, due to the lack of punctuation.

Is it "...the international market only, which includes Canada."?

Or is it "...the international market, only which includes Canada."?

C4

ceefour wrote: ETA-I've voted for GSH 5x for the Groundhog Award. Is that enough?
No! Of course not! Keep going... We all are. ;)

Anyone know anything about this "new" movie? Elijah is in the credits along with Ryan Phillipe and Hayden Christiansen. Elijah is looking for another movie to do before shooting the Iggy Pop biopic, but I think that this "new" movie is old news. It was a project that never made ( could not get the financing for it...).
Anyone know anything about it? http://www.hollywood.com/movies/fulldetail/id/380769

Does anybody know what the cut-off time is for voting?

SandCastles :)

Anyone know anything about this "new" movie? Elijah is in the credits along with Ryan Phillipe and Hayden Christiansen. Elijah is looking for another movie to do before shooting the Iggy Pop biopic, but I think that this "new" movie is old news. It was a project that never made ( could not get the financing for it...).
Anyone know anything about it? http://www.hollywood.com/movies/fulldetail/id/380769From IMDB (this was posted in 2003):


i know that all of you are hoping to see this wonderful play written by steve martin turned into a movie, but unfortunately that isnt going to happen. I work for 20th century fox and i know for a fact that this screenplay was given in 1998 and it did not get past the readers. The coverage that these people gave this script after reading it was mostly fair/ good (very rarely do they give an excellent rating) in terms of the 4 criteria; premis, characterization, dialogue and storyline. The comments on the script were mostly negative and it did not get past the readers in my department.The script has been dead ever since. This film has been improperly posted on the imdb for over a year now and sadly has always been false. I read the script and found it just as funny and delightful as the stage play and i would love to see kevin kline and ryan phillipee take these roles, but all this hype is bogus. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reply. sorry, all.

It would have been another arthouse movie, I'm sure, but still would have been fun to see. Fox was likely not the best studio for it.

As far as Steve Martin material (IMVVHO, he's a better author than he is an actor, although when he's given material with something to it he can be a pretty good actor) -- Shop Girl made it to the screen. Elijah would be great as the lead in the novel that was published after that one, The Pleasure of My Company, but another introverted, strange, difficult-for-the-general-audience-to-relate-to character might not be the best move at the moment. :rolleyes: It's too bad (well, you know what I mean) that he's better than anyone else at playing them, which I put down to his ability to understand just about anyone --except Sandy, evidently ;) .

Actually, for my money, the thing that Steve Martin was the very best at was physical comedy -- the scene in "All of Me" where he and Lily Tomlin attempt to share the same body is still one of the most hysterical things I've ever seen.

Forgot to post this yesterday re: Iggy and the movie -- it's an interview from a New Zealand paper -- I took the link out cuz this is the pertinent bit:

All things considered, Iggy Pop has a pretty generous response to the news that Elijah Wood – yes, the little hobbit with the big, sensitive peepers – will be playing the role of Iggy in a film that director Nick Gomez is making about his early life. "Well, I think that's fine," Iggy says down the phone from Miami.

In any case, it has happened before. A Scottish actor called Ewan McGregor once had a go, Iggy says disdainfully. "I didn't see that film [Velvet Goldmine] because I didn't feel like watching coke get snorted off my *ss. I'd only seen Elijah Wood for five minutes, dressed as a hobbit on TV. Then I saw him on a chat show and y'know … I liked him!" Elijah can act, and besides … "You don't really need to be a dynamic, deranged stud to play me, you know? If he wants to have a go, I sort of think, well, let him have a go." Matter of fact, "if you have any friends in New Zealand who want to make an Iggy film", he adds, snorting with laughter, "that'd be okay, too".

ETA -- a really nice review of EII (it's still playing in some places), from The Olympian:

An illuminating story

By Chris Hewitt

Knight Ridder Newspapers

A complicated book becomes a very simple movie in “Everything Is Illuminated.”

Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel is about a guy named Jonathan Safran Foer who sets out to learn more about his family’s experiences during World War II. Jonathan goes on a misguided tour of Ukraine with a chauffeur who claims he’s blind and an interpreter named Alex who speaks fractured, hip-hop-influenced English (sample dialogue: “Many girls want to be carnal with me because I’m such a premium dancer.”).

The movie isn’t as funny as the book — there’s less of Alex’s hilariously broken English, and Foer’s uniquely droll voice doesn’t come through — but it’s more emotionally satisfying. Writer/
director Liev Schrieber finds beautiful ways to convey the sense of dislocation felt by Jonathan (Elijah Wood plays him,
borrowing his look from Milhouse on “The Simpsons”) and to show that, despite his emotional reserve, he longs to connect.

Because there are some things movies can do more gracefully and clearly than books — shift back and forth in time, for instance, or suggest relationships between things without having to resort to cumbersome descriptions — “Everything Is Illuminated” feels subtler and less pleased with itself than the book. But Schrieber maintains the novel’s melancholic/bemused tone. There are jokes, but they’re mostly about misery.

In paring down the book, Schrieber all but eliminated the flashbacks to World War II, when a young woman saved Jonathan’s family from extinction. That leaves a bit of a hole because the book and movie are so much about how the past still lives in us, even when we’re not aware of it.

But Schreiber finds visual ways to reveal that Jonathan is beginning to understand the world better. When the film opens, Wood wanders around in Coke-bottle glasses, but, by the end of the film, the lenses aren’t as thick. His eyes have been opened. He sees things more clearly.

We've been scouring the web, but found nothing. So we're just sitting here doing a bit of ...nibbling. :o

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v377/honeyelf/826hl.jpg

Did TMFKAH win the first ever Golden Groundhog or not??? I hope it did! That certainly might encourage the Odd Lot folks to release it to DVD! :z:

honey!

Hi Faculty!! Just popping in from work (and taking advantage of a computer that doesn't close itself down every five minutes :rolleyes: )

I've just heard from my friend Allie in Prague - she's been to see GSH at last - its just been released over there and she said it has been very well-received. A little quote from her letter:

After the first week in cinemas the tickets are sold out every day and each mags and movie reviews are very very positive. Which pleased me so much! And all reviews are full of respect of EW

Still no news on EII being released over there though - I find that amazing, considering its where the film was made :eek:

I am so curious about those very strange discoveries on Amazon - when I mentioned them on my LJ the general reaction seemed to be "this can't be right - it must be a mistake"!! I looked for them on the UK Amazon site and sure enough they're both there but it says they're not in stock at the moment but they can advise when they have one (in each case). If anyone does receive either one, I'll be very interested to hear the outcome :)

I must apologise for not being around to join in TOL's birthday festivities - I did attempt to post a pic and message on the day but my evil pc, who's timing is faultless, shut down just as I was about to send it. I did manage to post a birthday message on my LJ though - its so difficult to choose a pic for such a special occasion, especially when we're so spoilt for choice ;) - but this is the one I decided on:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v327/ShirelingUK/presscon.jpg

I missed this bit of symbolism in my 3 viewings...
When the film opens, Wood wanders around in Coke-bottle glasses, but, by the end of the film, the lenses aren’t as thick. His eyes have been opened. He sees things more clearly.
I do think that review gets the differences between book and movie just right.

Lovely pictures and interesting quotes since I've been here last. Thanks. :)

shireling -- I'm waiting, too, for some EII reaction from Eastern Europe. Especially the locations where no one needs the subtitles!

Bah. (http://www.goldengroundhogs.com/PR1.php)

Taking off for a weekend at the beach with hubby. Catch up with you then!

Bunnie said: 'Bah'

"...an honor just to be nominated...blah, blah, blah..." :rolleyes:

Oh well, at least the six or so people who visited the Golden Groundhog awards web-site, and aren't Elijah fans, have now heard of TMFKAH!

:rolleyes: honey! :rolleyes:

Well, to move on to a really bad movie, this is possibly good news. Believe it or not, I ran across the Prisoner of Zenda DVD Elijah is supposedly in at Walgreen's tonight (for $1.99). I watched it as soon as I got home, and as far as I can tell, neither Elijah nor Liv have anything to do with it. Definitely not listed in the credits. I tried to listen to the voices as carefully as I could, and didn't recognize anybody. (Although I still think Princess Antoinette bears a bit of a resemblance... ;) ) Of course, I could have missed something, if it was just a word or two. But I didn't see or hear any evidence of Elwood involvement, which is a relief - We don't need another AMTSNBN :eek: .

Of course, I could have missed something, if it was just a word or two. But I didn't see or hear any evidence of Elwood involvement, which is a relief - We don't need another AMTSNBN :eek: .Oh well -- there's a penny down the drain. But that's OK -- I'm glad not to have Lij (or Liv either, for that matter) associated with more dreck than is absolutely necessary in a Hollywood career! :)

The goldengroundhogs use of polls and statistics really made me giggle. I don't think you should be using statistics in press releases unless you've got some basic idea of what they are saying. I'm pretty bad at stats and haven't done any for years but what they are saying is hilarious!

They said:

Although the clear on-line winner was Green Street Hooligans with 72% of the vote (compared to 6% for Sunnyvale), the Golden Groundhog Award Committee considers a variety of factors in making its final determination, including the audience movie ratings collected by IMDB. Interestingly, while Green Street Hooligans received an extremely strong IMDB audience rating (7.4), Sunnyvale received an other-worldly 8.8, putting it in the company of such classic comedies as The Graduate (8.1), Monte Python & The Holy Grail (8.4), and Trainspotting (8.0).

Internet polls have self selecting participants which means they can't be taken seriously as a proper poll (where the participants are selected to reflect the general population). Internet polls where participants can vote more than once are even worse as they are liable to vote stuffing ( ;) ). So far so good, they aren't making any claims about their own poll.

However the IMDB bit is very daft. IMDB at least attempts to have one person per vote. It's harder (but not impossible) to votestuff with multiple votes. However, they are comparing a vote of 7.4 (3,723 voters) versus 8.8 (144 votes). Given that it is a self selecting poll and that the cast and crew of the movie, their friends and family etc. can all vote (and are the most likely to have seen a really small movie), quoting an 8.8 score from a small vote is lunacy. It's a feature of really small indie movies that the people involved do vote for it on IMDB because they are fighting to get attention of their work. For the record, the scores and votes of the other films mentioned: the Graduate (8.1 from 32527 votes), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (8.4 from 71,934 votes) and Trainspotting (8.0 from 61,591 votes). Comparing a vote from a probably partial sample of 144 with these sizes of votes is very bonkers indeed.

Interestingly, I wondered how votestuffed Green Street Hooligans IMDB rating was. Looking at the break down of votes (nearly 90% the voters are male) I don't think it's excessively votestuffed by TOL fans although the single quadrant appeal for young men might be applicable and distorting the score (both ways, they will also likely to be the 1 voters who vote too low). For Sunnyvale, the numbers in each section are really too small to make any comment however young guys really didn't like it (which surprised given the limited amount of knowledge I have about this film's subject) and neither did people not from the US (Although maybe we can't assume that those are not people against the movie who voted without see it). But really, nothing can be said other than the voting pattern for 30+ and especially 45+ are a bit suspicious for the subject matter (they usually the scores go down as people get older and more discerning and a bit less likely to go "OMG! That was the best film ever, ever" when they like a movie). Of course, Sunnyvale could just be a really good movie that every quadrant appeal except for young blokes - who is to know if no one has seen it? Or, perhaps, Mum (or Mom ) and Dad have been voting.

IMDB's use of statistics is a bit "individual" however their "top 1000 voters" is an attempt to get around sectional appeal and fanbases and so is probably the most reliable score number that you can get at IMDB. Although still a self-selecting set of participants (basically movie geeks who have seen a lot of movies). The top 1000 voters score for the movies mentioned is:

Green Street Hooligans: 6.8 (31 votes, too low to be meaningful)
The Graduate: 7.8 (703 votes)
The Holy Grail: 8.1 (698 votes)
Trainspotting: 7.1 (672 votes)
Sunnyvale: no votes (not surprising for a very sparingly seen film)

So in summary: from the IMDB results, nothing whatsoever can be said about how good Sunnyvale is (either way). To try and use it for a comparison against TMFKAH is not a good idea; to try and use it for a comparison against the classic films mentioned is so absurd as to reduce me to giggles (I may be strange in this).

I apologise for the length and number of numbers in this post. Also, as I said my stats abilities are rubbish and rusty so somebody who has been involved more in stats and sampling might be better placed to comment.

Well I'm the least 'math-y' person I know (that's not quite true; I can get myself around a knitting pattern, but anyway...) but I can see that your reasoning is sound, Sneaking! Their reasoning on this is utterly "whack"! Makes me wonder if they even watched the movies that were nominated??? Couldn't they trust their own eyes, funnybones, intellects, what-have-you, rather than saddle themselves with a bunch of bad numbers?

Makes me wonder if there'll be a Golden Groundhog around next year....

I sent e-mail to the Groundhogs last night suggesting - given the runaway success of GSH in their viewers poll - that they consider two awards for next year: one for "critics choice" (I wonder do they have any of those on board?) and one for "audience choice." (I should have also suggested that they have their poll set up so that you could only vote once, but I'd rather believe that GSH would have still won the poll, even without TOL's fandom "voting early and often! :D)

h!

I was thinking the Golden Groundhog was really just a way to publicize William Shatner's new website, more that anything else. Something sneaky that Captain Kirk would do. ("That was no tri-ox compound, that was a neural paralyzer!")

*C4 struggles and fails to think of something EW related to cover-up her Star Trek geekiness*

C- :o -4

C4 -- What? No corbomite?? :haha: (And that's about the level my brain is at today, so I think I'll quit there. ;) )

----

Geeks being geeks, after all, I had to come back and change corbamite to corbomite after checking Google and finding 1900 mentions of The Corbomite Maneuver and only 17 of The Corbamite Maneuver. :o

No, tg, no corbomite! The first scene of the first episode I ever saw was of Mr. Spock and the Horta. Father ceefour and I would watch it together.

"I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!" :lol:

C4

My favorite of the "I"m a doctor..." lines was "I'm a doctor, not an elevator!" :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Any Star Trek fans out there should have a look at TORC's Men of Star Trek pageant, running right now. This is a role-play, mostly participated in by non-role-players, just for fun.

There are characters participating from all versions of the series (except Enterprise). Characters involved are: Capt. James T. Kirk, Capt. Picard, Khan Noonien Singh, Sarek, Data, Spock, Bones, Q, Trelane, Worf, Scotty, Riker , Emergency Medical Hologram AK-1 (The Doctor) and Capt. Christopher Pike (Odo was represented, but the person sponsoring the character had to pull out).

http://forums.theonering.com/viewtopic.php?t=88947&postdays=0&postorder=desc&start=60&sid=25c30aa044bed099d38dc8eb487b780c

The pageant runs for all of February. Drop in and see how crazy it all gets! It's based on the Men of Middle Earth pageant, an annual event, and has some LOTR "characters" that have made the jump into the Star Trek universe. There's even a friendly fell beast scaring the pants off everyone who doesn't know it! The rules of the pageant? There are no rules!


Kumari

Since we are in Star Trek geekdom mode, where is the documentary on Trekers? We have Ringers, but no Trekers. Star Trek had a slightly larger impact on the culture that LOTR did (did I just write that? *slaps hand).

"I'm a doctor, not a Hooligan!"
"...but Capitan, I've given ya all the Hooligans we've got!"
"Beam me up Scotty, there's no intelligent Hooligans down here."

Does anyone remember Leonard Nemoy singing a song about Bilbo Baggins?
I believe it is on the Ringers DVD.

Since we are in Star Trek geekdom mode, where is the documentary on Trekers? We have Ringers, but no Trekers. Star Trek had a slightly larger impact on the culture that LOTR did (did I just write that? *slaps hand).There have been two docos on Trekkers, called, funnily enough, Trekkers (and Trekkers II) ;) . Apparently, it's nowhere near as loving as Ringers is.

Does anyone remember Leonard Nemoy singing a song about Bilbo Baggins? I believe it is on the Ringers DVD.I do -- Dr. Demento used to play it every once in a while on his radio show.

BTW, just noticed that the date for the DVD release of EII is 3/21 (according to Amazon), not 2/21 as we'd originally seen.

The officiall EII website still says "Available February 28th", but the Warner Home Movies site (http://whv.warnerbros.com/WHVPORTAL/Portal/product.jsp?OID=13110) seems to indicate it will be March 21st. I wish they'd make up their minds, already. :rolleyes:

Hi everyone !!!

im just wondering if any body is thinking of going to germany on ring con in november????

bec..of some family stuff i cant go to gothenburg in mars !!!!!!!!!!!! :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

and it is so near !!!! :( :( :( :( :(

but i told my friend to day that in november i am going
I AM GOING TO SEE HIM IN REAL LIFE BEFORE I DIE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i am so healthy so i will get my chances but missing this here in sweden is so f"""" painful!!!!!

but wht can i do ????

WOOD

wood cried out: I AM GOING TO SEE HIM IN REAL LIFE BEFORE I DIE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ...but wht can i do ????

Come to Austin in March and find him at the SXSW Music and Film Festival.
He usually comes unless he is in the middle of making another movie. He had a great time here last year with the "World Premier" of Hooligans. It's kind of fun watching him rock to the music and get drunk...

The SXSW Film Fest is March 10th to 18th with the Music Fest the following week. I do not know whether he will be here for the film fest as none of his films are going to be in it, but he should be here for the music fest a la working Simian Records. He wants to sign new bands- this is the place to do it!

I'll bet this has already been posted, but is there any solid news on the U.S. release of [Green Street] Hooligans on DVD? I have only heard rumours.

Thanks!

~ Mechtild :)

There is currently no release date scheduled, and it isn't looking good. A search at Amazon.com on Green Street Hooligans turns up nothing, but if you search for Hooligans you get a "movie show times" page. On that page you can sign up for e-mail notification when the dvd will be available for pre-order.

What rumors have you heard? Maybe you're better informed than Amazon.com? :z:

Happy Birthday, Alyon!

Something new on the amazon page now for the DVD. It's gone from just email sign-up for notification of release to email sign-up with this notice:

Availability: NOT YET RELEASED: The studio is currently not producing this title, but to be notified when it is available, enter your e-mail address at right. You'll also be voting for this release; we'll let the studio know how many customers are waiting for this title.

So, FES, if you haven't signed up yet, p-l-e-a-s-e go sign up. There's no commitment to buy involved - they'll just send you an email notification when (if? :( ) it's available. Here's a direct link:
Hooligans (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005JOME/ref=ase_afewworabo-20/002-3282844-7045647?s=dvd&v=glance&n=130&tagActionCode=afewworabo-20)

I don't know if it's a good sign, but there was one of these notices for Chain of Fools, too. It took awhile, but it finally came out.

----------
For Alyon's birthday, here's someone we don't see too often. Wren wants you to leave the party with him :p :

http://www.frodolivesin.us/Pics/0fa20780.jpg

Hope you have a great birthday!

Happy Birthday, Alyon! :k

Since I still have no access to my pictures and, even more annoying, to Photoshop :rolleyes:, I bring you the link to a photomanip I made some time ago (dear Elijah in truly yummy attire, just right for the occasion :) )

Elijah anno domini 1532 (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/whiteling/Frodomanips/Holbein_giszefrodo_72dpi.jpg)

Enjoy!

Happy Birthday, Alyon!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/aquila0212/ElijahWood--Flipper-03.jpg
(Don't know why this young feller looks so annoyed -- well, I did wake him up kind of early so he could join me in wishing you a wonderful day, but still...)

Happy Birthday, ALYON!!! :k :k :k

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v377/honeyelf/warpromo13.jpg

Stu heard a rumor that you've reached that "adventurous" age!
***
Availability: NOT YET RELEASED: The studio is currently not producing this title, but to be notified when it is available, enter your e-mail address at right. You'll also be voting for this release; we'll let the studio know how many customers are waiting for this title.

I didn't notice that last night, TG. But I did sign up for notification. I also added TMFKAH to my NetFlix "saved" (no release date) list, too.

Happy Birthday, Alyon!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v32/bunniebugs/Picspam/day2a-263.jpg
All set to serenade you on your special day!


Interesting that they've changed that to a "vote." I never thought that they would hesitate to put out this DVD, but maybe the ticket sales were so poor that they're having second thoughts. Interestingly, Green Street is doing quite well as a rental in the UK; I saw a "top ten rentals" list a couple of days ago, and GS was on it.

I plan to spam this email sign-up thing all over LJ-land. I've already re-signed up myself (you know, just in case :rolleyes: ) with all three of my functional addresses. :D

I plan to spam this email sign-up thing all over LJ-land. I've already re-signed up myself (you know, just in case :rolleyes: ) with all three of my functional addresses. :DWhat we really need to do is spam Odd Lot directly to show them that we want this DVD!

What we really need to do is spam Odd Lot directly to show them that we want this DVD!Do you think that would really help? I would think that getting as many addresses plugged in at Amazon as possible would be more effective than a few well-worded emails to Odd Lot. I'm willing to try anything, though! Whatever we can do to show that there is a demand for it... *composes thoughtful and heartfelt message*

BTW -- what is the address for Odd Lot? Or is that even the right place to send this sort of thing?

Do you think that would really help? I would think that getting as many addresses plugged in at Amazon as possible would be more effective than a few well-worded emails to Odd Lot.Except for the fact that I don't know if Amazon will pass those emails on to anyone or just store them until they know something (i.e., the actual # won't count for anything).BTW -- what is the address for Odd Lot? I was just gonna ask you that -- wasn't that where we emailed to get our wrist bands?Or is that even the right place to send this sort of thing?They self-distributed and produced the film, right? I would think they're the ones who have anything to say about whether the DVD gets produced or not.

I was just gonna ask you that -- wasn't that where we emailed to get our wrist bands?They self-distributed and produced the film, right? I would think they're the ones who have anything to say about whether the DVD gets produced or not. The wristbands were a sign-up directly on the website -- there was no email address involved. I know that Honey was in touch with Insignia PR, but they've probably done everything that they're going to do for the film (I'm just guessing, here). What was it that Odd Lot called their distribution company? Was it Odd Lot Entertainment? I'm trying to find more out by Googling it, but I'm not really getting anywhere...

EDIT: I found a website for Odd Lot Entertainment (http://www.oddlotentertainment.com/), but it seems to be mostly just a place holder. :confused:

I have one address for OddLot, but I'm really reluctant to post it publically. Should I e-mail my contact and ask him what the fans' best action is for getting GSH to DVD?

I have one address for OddLot, but I'm really reluctant to post it publically. Should I e-mail my contact and ask him what the fans' best action is for getting GSH to DVD?That would be wonderful, Honey! Better than just randomly sending out emails in the hope that it gets to the right people. :)

The wristbands were a sign-up directly on the website -- there was no email address involved.I meant, wasn't Odd Lot where the bands came from? Where we got emails from (duh -- of course they came from the website -- stupid me)?

Oh -- just saw Honey's post -- yes, asking your contact what the best course of action is would be wonderful!

There are a few of us around that still have Odd Lot's phone number in their Rolodexs. Anyone brave enough to call them for info on the DVD release date for TFFKAH?

I have the address for Odd Lot Entertainment, but I agree that it should not be posted publicly. E-mail me, or PM me and I will give it to you privately.

The name of their "new" distribution company is Odd Lot Releasing. It is a different address in Beverly Hills.

I guess that it is time to fire up the Hoolifans again and start pushing for the DVD release. Who is willing to call, e-mail and write slow mail to them? I will for starters.

Happy Birthday, Alyon!
A present for you...a modified radio flyer!!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Shelbyshire/PICT2073.jpg

And, of course, a picture of The One Lad... :k

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Shelbyshire/tok7.jpg

:cool: **goes back to entering the second of four email addresses for my multiple personalities at Amazon** :cool:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALYON!!

Hope you're having a lovely day :)

My birthday offering:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v327/ShirelingUK/49.jpg

I guess that it is time to fire up the Hoolifans again and start pushing for the DVD release. Who is willing to call, e-mail and write slow mail to them? I will for starters.

Go ahead, TxTac. Let us know what you find out. I'll hold off until you get a reply, as I think this is a case where all of us pestering them won't necessarily be for the best.

I'd suggest that you ask them how we can best show our interest in getting the film to DVD. And then maybe inquire about a date, too.

I love coming here. And I can't deny that all the lovely pictures just for me...(okay, I'll share) makes me want to linger. Thank you CeeFour, TG, Whiteling (wonderful manip), Achila, Honey, Bunnie, Shelbyshire, and Shireling!! I think I'll grab some wine and chocolate and sit down to gaze a little longer!! :k

As to GSH getting to DVD, it's possible they are trying to negotiate some TV sale first. I watched this process once and the person in charge of selling the movie (another indie) wanted to get a foreign sales and a TV deal before the DVD. The sales agent insisted on that order, and I have to say actually kind of ruined the deal by waiting too long.

You'd think this would have to come out on DVD...I'm just throwing the idea out as a possiblity that they are trying to get a Television sale first. It may not apply at all.

I'm going right now to Amazon --- better to push the process!!!!

Thanks again for the lovelies, dear lovelies!!
Alyon

Happy Birthday Alyon. (photo to come later.......... I promise :D )
Always enjoy your perspective.



Ahem.....ya know they are selling GSH DVDs (advertised region 1) on ebay. Can't explain it, just passing it on.......

saile

I'm very intermittently here, but very glad to come at the right time to wish Alyon a very happy birthday. :)

Hi, Prim! :k

RE Amazon -- I don't know what makes them put up that "voting" notice, but they don't do it very often, so I think it is more than the usual sign-up for email notification bit. The only other time I remember seeing it was for Chain of Fools - but, then, I only look for Elijah Wood movies :rolleyes: . I suspect it has something to do with searches/requests hitting a "critical mass," and that they do actually pass the word on to the distributor (if they can find the distributor, in this case...).

RE other contacts -- Agree that the best thing would be to see if Honey and/or txtac can get info on who's best to contact.

RE Ebay -- Thanks for that, saile :k . From what I can tell, the Region 1 DVD's seem to be mostly from the same seller in Indiana, who has a long track record, very good Ebay feedback, and seems to be legit (I'd hate to support a pirate effort). A big enough operation that I could see them getting their hands on a small supply of generally unavailable DVD's. They're all listed as "used."

Edited to add/correct: For anyone who read my post within the last few minutes, I was wrong about some of the DVD's from Indiana having "Buy Now" prices; those are all for UK versions. (I did say I was an Ebay virgin - I'd been looking at the shipping charges :o .) I've never gotten involved in an auction and to be honest they kind of :eek: me. The DVD's at this point have all received one bid at the opening bid of 88 cents, and the auctions seem to mostly end tomorrow (I don't know if they all end at the same time).

BTW, there are a lot of the DVD's on sale from the UK, as well as some from Australia and several Asian countries. I didn't check out the ones that didn't list a location.

----------

Alyon's idea about a TV deal is certainly possible: That's what happened with All I Want.

Regarding the DVD's on Ebay...would these play in my player (U.S.). I guess a little Region 101 might be in order, for me at least. :(

I really want to see this movie! :z:

ALYON.......yes I remember her. Happy Birthday to you ALYON.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v404/billiep/redshirt2.jpg

belatedly saile

Regarding the DVD's on Ebay...would these play in my player (U.S.).

Region 1 is for U.S. and Canadian machines only, so the DVD's being offered from the UK, Australia, etc., probably wouldn't play. But the ones being listed by this Indiana seller are listed as Region 1 and do seem to be ( :z: ) legitmate copies.

Since I wrote my last post, I've gone from home to the office, and while I sneak in some posting from here, I'm a little leery about having the Ebay screen showing on my monitor if someone walks by, so I'm not going to pop back over there at this time. But if you go to DVD's and search for "Green Street Hooligans," quite a few come up. If nothing has changed since I looked last, the Indiana ones are listed at a current bid of 88 cents, and the U.S. media shipping cost of $4.44. There are multiple copies, all from the same seller.

[Have I said recently that I love Elijah's ties when he's dressed up? :p ]

tgshaw wrote: ...and do seem to be legitmate copies.
I would be leary here. That little red flag of warning in the back of my mind is waving. If Odd Lot has not "officially" released any region 1 DVDs, than any copy that is for sale claiming to be region 1 is an illegal, or pirated copy. The "people" who sell pirated copies have the equipment and means to buy one legitimate DVD, say an asian edition, and then copy it through their equipment onto region 1 discs. The "copy" will play on region 1 players, but it is still considered a pirated copy thus illegitimate. I have seen several obviously pirated copies of GSH here in Texas and their quality is not up to the standards of a legitimate disc. Buyer Beware!

I will call Odd Lot later today and see what they say about a release date for TFFKAH and Region 1 discs already being sold.

Well, I got curious so I e-mailed Ms. Indiana, and here's what she says about her DVDs: I have the imported version, which is the same as a US version except for optional foreign subtitles. The cover art is the same, no foreign writing, and the dvd is formatted for Region 1 (US and Canadian dvd players). I hope this helps to answer your qustions. By the way, my dvds have a money back/replacement gaurantee!

So...the whole deal smells like Hong Kong piracy to me, and I think I'll be waiting until I can buy a nice legal copy. However long that takes...

honey!

http://overthebrandywine.com/birthdays/Alyon06EWmerge.jpg
http://overthebrandywine.com/birthdays/Alyon06.jpg

Belated birthday greetings to Alyon! :k

(Sorry, I’m late, I was fighting a trojan virus all weekend and just fell a little behind. Lost all my cookies during the repairs too, including the one for KD. All’s well now. :) )

With regard to region 2 (European) DVDs playing in the USA and Canada. Are you able to buy multi-region players over there as we can in the UK? I bought a cheap £30 multi-region player off Amazon and it works great. I also buy DVDs (new and second hand) through Amazon.com, Amazon.de (german) and Amazon.fr(french), without it costing over much on the postage, or being fleeced on exchange rates or extra charges on my credit card. If you can play any region, go onto Amazon.co.uk and get Hooligans from there - at least you know it is legit. There were many supposedly legal import copies on UK ebay before it was officially out.

While on the topic of other regions media forms, if any one would like American copies of the Radio Flyer and/or Ash Wednesday videos, PM me. They are just heading for the bin if unclaimed.

The official word is that the GSH DVD is being released by Warner Bros. on Father's Day. This comes from an LJ friend who emailed Odd Lot.

ETA -- ELF Wizard Circle Tickets are now available from Creation -- http://www.creationent.com/cal/elf.htm

Skater girl - You know us Americans: provincial to the last ;) . Everyone's supposed to be playing by our rules, after all. :rolleyes: I do think all-region DVD players are around, but not common; I just scrolled through Best Buy's two pages of offerings and didn't see any. I believe dividing the world into regions was meant to help the movie studios somehow, so the U.S. would probably be the last to change. But I suppose someone could buy an all-region DVD player from amazon.uk and use that??

Of course, my DVD drive = my DVD player (since DVD's were obviously invented for the purpose of making screencaps :cool: ), and it allows the region setting to be changed a few times (3 or 4, IIRC), in case the owner moves to a different country, but after that it locks you out, so you can't just switch back and forth.

----------

Just noticed Achila's post. Had to click on the link to see what ELF was. Yep, as has been said, west coast, east coast... :(

The official word is that the GSH DVD is being released by Warner Bros. on Father's Day. This comes from an LJ friend who emailed Odd Lot.

Yay!!! :D :D :D

Warner Bros...That's interesting!

But YAY!!! ***confetti***

Fathers Day?? That's a Sunday! :confused:

ETA: I'm trying to figure this one out. Are they releasing it on Fathers Day because it's "manly" entertainment?

Or because the kids can guilt/threaten dad into spending more time with them by suggesting that they'll become hooligans without a strong father figure?? :confused: :confused: :confused:

I'd have liked to be in the room when they came up with that date! *boggles*

:lol:

Warner Bros...That's interesting!A couple of months ago, it was announced that Warner Home Video bought the rights to distribute it, but when we heard from Amazon that there wasn't going to be a DVD, I figured that maybe the deal hadn't gone through or something.

Fathers Day?? That's a Sunday! :confused:I asked Lilithlotr about that -- DVDs are released on Tuesdays, so maybe it's being released the Tuesday before, to be in time for Father's Day? Dunno :confused: I'll let you know what she answers me.

ALYON...MANY HAPPY RETURNS FOR YESTERDAY !!!

I'm very sorry that I missed it, however, Elijah has dropped by to make sure that you know that I haven't really forgotten...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v449/wendylady1/Elijah/EJW54.jpg

and with all the Green Street Hooligans chat going on, I felt I must contribute this option to you Faculty people, although you may baulk at the thought of doing anything illegal...

The thing is that IF this film never gets to be released in the States...perish the thought, you could always download it from Bit-Torrent...here:-

Bit torrent (http://search.bittorrent.com/search.jsp?query=Green+Street+Hooligans&Submit2=Search)

Now, this HAS to be very definitely illegal, as the DVD hasn't been released in the US yet...don't make any mistake about that, but if there is no other way, then I'm just sayin'...


We use this site for many, many legal and legit TV show downloads - old "Doctor Who" series, and old episodes of UK comedies etc...and so, just out of curiosity, I put Green St. into their Search engine, and look, they came up with two downloads...and if you have one of those whizzy new DVD recorders with hard-drive memory, you can transfer it to a DVD disc of your choice...this is how the woman in the US came by her recordings, I'll bet you ...

ETA: I have just seen the post about the DVD being released on Father's Day...that's just FAB news !! Now you don't have to do it the illegal way after all...

Anyway. here's a little Green St Elijah to keep you going until this film comes to your shores !! :-
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v449/wendylady1/Elijah/GSE14.jpg

A couple of months ago, it was announced that Warner Home Video bought the rights to distribute it, but when we heard from Amazon that there wasn't going to be a DVD, I figured that maybe the deal hadn't gone through or something.
[Purely ignorant speculation] Or maybe that had something to do with amazon putting some effort into pushing it -- Warner Home Video also distributed Chain of Fools, IIRC. Maybe amazon figured if it worked once it might work again. And, who knows - Maybe it did. ;) [/Purely ignorant speculation]

And the wording at amazon doesn't say there won't be a DVD: "The studio is currently not producing this title."

Ooops!

BELATED BIRTHDAY WISHES, ALYON!

HERE'S (http://www.imag.us/x/blossom/Alyon.gif) someone else who's sorry he's late.

Hope you had a lovely day!

Blossom, that was a GREAT gif. The resolution was so good, too! Woo hoo!

Thanks, Alyon, for having a birthday, so that Blossom could make this and post it here!

(Just teasing: *smooch* (((((Alyon))))) ;) )

~ Mechtild :)

A second round of thanks for (lucky me) a second round of birthday wishes. So nice of you all--Saile, Prim, Lady Wendy, Ezzie, Blossom, and Mechtild. :k :k It really is appreciated. An my, my..the magic things you all can pull out of your pockets.... ;) Thank you for sharing :cool:

*** Belated Birthday wishes to Alyon ***

Jonfen makes a note of the date so he wont miss it next year. Its not like him to forget....

http://www.latinoreview.com/films_2005/wip/illuminated/images/eii-17a.jpg

I have had a chance to see EII as it came to an Arts Centre cinema near me, so here's my review.

SPOILERS
#
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This is the Elijah film that I was looking forward to the most out of EII and Green Street Hooligans. I am an Elijah fan but not so much a swooner except for a few photo sessions, live interviews and when he looks anything like Frodo. ;) The subject matter of his films has to appeal to me a little bit before I'll go see it so, I didnt see Sin City for example.

The subject matter appealed to me a lot with EII. I read and enjoyed the book, which actually I probably wouldnt have done had not EW been going to appear in the film.
I'm glad Liev Schrieber didnt try to film the Trachimbrod portions of the book but still, as a book reader my more detailed knowledge of the history of Trachimbrod made the film more emotional for me during those segments.

The opening shot of Elijah's face as he looked at his grandfathers grave, was beautiful. Despite the awful glasses I loved to see his face filling the whole screen. I confess to a mini-swoon right there, reminiscent of the first sight of Frolijah in LOTR. :)

The leaf blower in the cemetary turned out to be Jonathan Safran Foer himself which I only found out at the end credits. At first I thought it was a long shot of Elijah until I realised he was elsewhere in the frame. The similarity was very strong to my mind. A nice touch.

Eugene Hutz was perfect for the part of Alex. I loved the way he tactfully interpreted his Grandfathers comments to "Jonfen" and his Disco fantasy scene was a great way to show what he was all about. Longing for a better life. Having totally the wrong perception of American life and culture.

I havent read many reviews for EII but I know that some implied that Elijah didnt act but I have to disagree. Especially knowing how bubbly and enthusiastic he appears in real life. He seems so uptight and restrained as Jonfen who gradually relaxes as the story unfolds. Not that it was very obvious- even at the end of the film, but I noticed his hair was a little messier, his clothes more rumpled and his expressions less guarded. He is such a subtle actor that some people dont see it as acting. .

The Trachimbrod scenes had me reaching for my hanky. I had accidentally read the spoiler about Grandfather so I wasnt surprised but I was very moved all the same. I cant remember if the suicide was in the book anyway though?
The idea about the moon was very clever also the river having all the ziplock bags floating along it.
I loved how Lista's (sp?) house with its wall full of memories echoed Jonfen's wall of ziplock bags.

I will definately be getting the DVD when it comes out.

If I werent a fan of Elijah I wouldnt have sought this film out so I have his Frolijah to thank for it.
A line in the film says " We are here because of the ring"
And so was I in a way . :)
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END SPOILERS
Off to find the reviews I skipped over before....

I will finally get my chance at experiencing one degree of separation, as Gogol Bordello is performing here tonight! I only found out about it today, and I am very excited. I'll be working hard to leave there tonight with an autographed CD. I really enjoyed Eugene Lurtz in EII, and I'm sure I'll enjoy the band's performance, but I'll admit a part of me just wants to enjoy that one degree of separation. Living in the boonies as I do, this kind of chance doesn't come around often.

C4 to Mr. C4-"ELF will be in New York in July!"

Mr. C4 -"What does ELF stand for? Easterners Loving Frodo?"

I'll be working hard to leave there tonight with an autographed CD.Narya, I'm crossing my fingers that you'll get two autographs. The One Lad may be there too!

And, ceefour... Mr. C4 -"What does ELF stand for? Easterners Loving Frodo?"This could be fun! How about a faculty related one...

Educationally Learning thru Frodo
(((Faculty))) (((KD)))

24 hours later...hello?

Hello, Shelbyshire! You looked a little lonely in here, so I thought I'd drop by :)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on EII with us, Quicksilver. I'm so pleased you got to see it - eventually! :) I'm still waiting. :(

Hope you enjoyed the Gogol Bordello concert, Narya. Did The One Lad make an appearance?

I don't know if anyone here has been following the progress of the Canadian Stage LOTR, but there's a great review of last Saturday's preview performance at Torn. I posted the link in the Stage LOTR thread in The Mall, but I'll leave it here too, just in case anyone is curious.

Here be SPOILERS!!!

http://www.theonering.net/perl/newsview/7/1139327560

Glad you liked Alyon's birthday gif, Mech. Thanks for your kind comments. :)

"ELF"
THE LORD OF THE RINGS
EAST COAST FAN CONVENTION

SECAUCUS, NEW JERSEY
Fri., Sat. & Sun. July 28-30. 2006
Crowne Plaza Meadowlands Hotel
2 Harmon Plaza
(minutes from New York City)

http://www.creationent.com/cal/elf.htm

I don't know what the E-L-F stands for. Their west coast con is ORC - the One Ring Convention. I attended two days of 2005 and only Friday of this year's, had to travel for my company and missed day 2 and 3.

"ELF"
THE LORD OF THE RINGS
EAST COAST FAN CONVENTION
Pelagia, ceefour and I will be there -- hope to meet some of you -- we should definitely plan a little Faculty moot!

Thanks, Blossom, for pointing us towards the review of the LOTR play. Of course, like everyone else, I had no idea how they'd possibly recreate that entire story in a few hours, but they seemed to have done it and in the process, created something very unique. I really hope that gets to Broadway in 2007 (or I make it up to Toronto before then).

That was a pretty exciting review, Blossom. Thanks! :k

Happy Birthday, Achila! :)
Have a great and breezily day!

http://www.frodolivesin.us/RotK/4d3204d0.jpg

And isn't it obvious?
Eagles Love Frodo ;)


Tg, I hope it's ok with you - I borrowed the above picture from your web site.

Happy Birthday, Achila!

It's still snowing! Shall we build a Barney Snow-man to celebrate Achila's birthday?

C4

Thank you so much, Whiteling and ceefour! Yep, looks like our lovely plans for today will have to be postponed -- we're buried under about a foot of snow. Can't go to work tomorrow??? Oh geee.....(hey -- nice birthday present!) As I told Pelagia, I was born right after a huge blizzard, on a Sunday, so this' sort of fitting.

Thanks again!

“You mean Achila’s birthday party has been snowed out??”

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v653/Lalage/Frodoinsnow.jpg

Happy birthday, dear Achila, despite the grisly weather! Sit out the snowstorm in Bag End style, with a warm fire, some tasty food, and a mug of beer (well – maybe a glass of Sauvignon blanc). Here’s to a year ahead full of fun, friendship, roadtrips, laughter, chocolate and, of course, Elijah-stuff!

Happy Birthday, Achila!

In case you find yourself in need of research material -- here's the previously posted unretouched Angelino photo with *ahem* a few borders. The color of each of the borders was "lifted" from a different point in The Eyes in the photo. Can you match them up? :p Or have fun trying? ;)

http://www.frodolivesin.us/Pics/2d19ff50.jpg

ETA: Simulposted with Pelagia (well, actually with 4 or 5 people :) ). I still have to :D when I see the caption on that pre-release pic (that NewLine actually had on the official website). We found out later, of course, that Frodo's really glaring at Boromir! But maybe the "official" caption is more fitting if there's a good snowstorm going on. So, the ridiculously mild winter and lack of snow we've been having on the plains might not be due to global warming - it's all just skipping over us?

Instead of a Barney snowman, guess I'll just have to use...

http://www.frodolivesin.us/Pics/2d9cd980.jpg


-----

Whiteling - The "blanket permission" I gave a long time ago for anyone in the Faculty to link to images on my website still stands. The only thing hotlinking does is use up bandwidth every time someone opens this page, and I haven't had any problem with bandwidth usage. Just, y'know, don't use it to post a picture at TORN :eek: or another site that gets a lot of page views - or, if you do, at least put a backlink to my website (preferably the shopping mall, so I can pay for the extra bandwidth ;) ).

Sit out the snowstorm in Bag End style, with a warm fire, some tasty food, and a mug of beer (well – maybe a glass of Sauvignon blanc). Here’s to a year ahead full of fun, friendship, roadtrips, laughter, chocolate and, of course, Elijah-stuff!Thanks, luv :k

You must know I'm sitting here eating a lovely cinnamon roll and valiently trying not to get the icing all over the keys!

And TG, that pic is gorgeous -- thank you! That Angeleno spread is my very favorite. Research, eh? Oh yes, that's right -- that's what we call it around here. I forgot. A big :k to you too!

Here's a Barney Snow-man from me to all of you (it's my hobbity birthday present to everyone):
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/aquila0212/bumblebee01.jpg

tg, I wondered where that caption came from! I'm surprised that New Line itself was responsible for it. But I guess "Frodo marvels at the snow peaks" does sound better than "Frodo gives Boromir a dirty look."

As for bad weather skipping over the plains, this is actually the first big snowstorm that we have had all winter, here in Philadelphia. It's all very weird (esp. the thunder and lightning last night during the snow!).

Last night I was listening to a local radio talk show hosted by a man named Steve Freedman, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of movies. Someone called in talking about a film called Duma that had received very good reviews, but that had played in only a few cities. He himself had had to take his family to New York to see it. The movie was released in the US by Warner Brothers, and Steve started talking about how Warner (which, as we all know, was responsible for EII, through Warner Independent Pictures) has a reputation for picking up offbeat or specialized indies, and then just not distributing them widely, with the result that they never get a chance to develop an audience. I suppose it's some (cold) comfort to know that EII's plight wasn't unique.

DK if anyone has mentioned this, since I haven't been on here for a while, but the February issue of Total Film has a nice little review of the Green Street DVD. They say that the film: . . . mixes vicious flashes of authenticity with dopey cliche but scores a heartfelt, ragged wallop that rattles through your skull. Hobbit-gone-hardcore Elijah Wood holds his own as the milquetoast Harvard student stumbling into West Ham's hooligan firm. . . The same issue has a blurb about how Daniel Radcliffe, while filming in Australia, was mobbed by Elijah fans, who mistook him for TOL. He says that sometimes he has signed autographs ("Much love, Elijah Wood") for these people -- which strikes me as a bit unkind. The mag then posts small pix of the two actors, describing both as having: Cue-ball eyes, floppy hair, rent-boy grin . . . ;) (They really do look alarmingly alike, in the pictures that TF selected. Although Elijah is obviously far superior.)

Cue-ball eyes is not exactly a compliment.

I have Duma on my Netflix queue -- I'm pretty much a sucker for any film with animals in it (except Grizzly Man...oy....) And that DVD too is listed as "Release Date Unknown", just like GSH is. I have to say that I find this a ridiculous Catch-22. Why would Warner bother to make films that they have no intentions of distributing properly? If you look at the 5 Best Picture nominated films of this year, altogether they've made maybe $100M. And they didn't all get glowingly positive reviews either -- BBM may have but Crash certainly didn't at the beginning. In fact, BBM wasn't even selected to be shown at Cannes.

And even though BBM won the Golden Lion at Venice, EII got a 20-minute standing ovation. Surely that should've counted for something.

Pelagia, if I remember rightly, Daniel Radcliffe signed autographs as EW because he thought the autograph seekers would be disappointed if he signed his name and they realized he was not EW.

Does Bobby have a distributor? :z: Or will we be having the same conversation in the fall when it is supposed to be released? :rolleyes:

tg, not that Barney! :eek:

C-Michelle Kwan has withdrawn from the Olympics :( -4

Happy Birthday.... Achila!!!!

I hope the snow is more beautiful than a bother. :)

Pelagia, I enjoyed your Total Film quotes. :)

~ Mechtild

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ACHILA!

If you're peering out into the snowy landscape, hoping for guests to help you celebrate your big day, you might just be in luck...

Look who's planning a surprise visit! (http://www.imag.us/x/blossom/Achila.gif)

Have some brandy standing by - Frodo will need warming up when he arrives! ;)

Enjoy the rest of your day! :)

Thank you, Blossom! :k Now if Frodo will help me clear off my car, we'll be in business!

Happy Birthday Achila!!!!


I'll trade you a little rain for a little snow. Or how about I say I'll trade a lot of rain for one good day in the snow. (Though we had a break in the rain this week and now it's sunny--we had the wettest January here since 1953).

I hope you get the day off work tomorrow and can do something your heart desires. :) ;)

Achila wrote: Why would Warner bother to make films that they have no intentions of distributing properly? Probably the studio liked the idea of the project enough to back it in the first place, and then had qualms about the commercial potential when Warner saw the finished product. We know that they give “arty” or “risky” films like EII a slow release to see the degree to which good reviews and word of mouth generate interest. And (as with new TV series) distributors generally don’t seem to give films much time to prove themselves. The assumption seems to be that if a film doesn’t do well within the first few weeks, it’s not worth the cost of promoting further. The fact that the distributor’s cut of the box office take, as vs. that of a theater’s, decreases with every week that a film stays at that theater might also make the studio less willing to nurse a film along. (Why promote a slow starter if somebody else is going to reap a lot of the benefit?)

I have to say that when EII played here in Bryn Mawr, it didn’t do nearly as well for us as we (the theater) had thought it would, especially given the great interest in a free preview of the film that we held several weeks before its release. And we were one of the few theaters in the Philadelphia area (Achila – were we the only one?) that carried it. Presumably, Warner saw that it wasn’t performing strongly enough in an area where it would have been expected to; and if this also happened in other cities, Warner probably just decided not to bother with the expense of making more prints, doing more promotion, etc. In this case, for whatever reason, the word of mouth just wasn’t there. Compare that with Crash and Good Night, and Good Luck, which the distributors let us keep for months (even though they were also playing in other theaters, including some multiplexes), because we kept getting audiences for them. Neither one made a lot of money overall, but on a per-screen basis, I think they did pretty well. And Good Night was a strong starter (having George Clooney doesn’t hurt), while Crash had pretty good reviews and terrific word of mouth (if only because people were arguing about it).

Blossom – A perfect gif for a winter birthday! And Alyon, I’ll take some of your rain. A good downpour would wash a lot of the snow away.

Thank you, Alyon and Mechtild too!


I'll trade you a little rain for a little snow. Or how about I say I'll trade a lot of rain for one good day in the snow. C'mon over -- LOL

I hope you get the day off work tomorrow and can do something your heart desires. :) ;)You're so sweet -- thank you -- but actually, I'll have to work from home tomorrow if I can't make it in (and to tell the truth, the car is cleared off but of course, the snowplow blocked me in and although I shoveled (phew), I don't know what it will be like tomorrow morning).

Happy Birthday, Achila! :k :k :k

Sorry I'm a bit late. Here's a little, cozy, cheeky something to warm you up on a cold winter night.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v377/honeyelf/WoodElijah_59261.jpg
***

Warning: honeyelf ramblings ahead.

Took a look at Parade magazine in my local paper yesterday, and it set me off on two seperate trains of thought.

Somebody asked Walter Scott who the most under-rated actors in Hollywood are. His answers: Donald Sutherland, Richard Gere, Kevin Bacon, Gary Oldman, Steve Buscemi, Alan Rickman, John Cusack, Steve Martin, Forest Whitaker, and Brian Dennehy. Of all those guys John Cusack is the youngest at 39. Our Lij may have many years to go before he gets the respect he deserves. Interesting that male actors seem to get more respect as they get older. Parade invites us to go to parade.com and vote for our favorite actors who don't get no respect, and you can submit up to three names, but since you have no opportunity to comment on why you think your actor(s) is/are so good, or deserve more respect, I didn't bother.

The other thing in this week's issue was an article about Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood. I must have been bored yesterday, because I read it. (I'm not a fan of them or their music.) A few weeks ago my husband and I went to see Walk The Line, and I told him that I felt like I'd already seen that movie two years ago, only it was called Ray then. Well, the GB/TY article was the same old same old; first marriage to a woman who didn't understand him, pretty girl singer's life interersects with his, they fall for each other.... Only thing it lacked was the seemingly requisite sibling who dies in childhood under tragic circumstances.

I don't mean to be flip, and no disrespect intended. But the Walk The Line experience helped me firm up what it is I hate about bio-pics; the stories are so often similar to one another, that perhaps only a true fan of the singer/actor/artist in question can really appreciate them.

Unless, perhaps, they hold surprises, or reveal something of someone who is perhaps a bit mysterious. And that's how I've come to having a bit of hope for the Iggy Pop bio-pic.

Iggy is completely foreign to me. Here's a guy who has appeared on stage wearing peanut butter and a loin cloth! Now in his sixties, and suffering from scoliosis he apparently roams town in one cowboy boot and one slipper rather than having a bunch of designer shoes fitted with the correct orthotics. (The guy never got Elton John type wealthy, but he owns a villa in South Beach FL, so he could afford it if he wanted to.) He's a cypher! He clearly "thinks different", so this could be a very interesting, and at times, somewhat disturbing film experience. But I don't think we'll be leaving the theater saying "seen it before!"

[/rambling]

honey!

Thanks, honeyelf!

Of course, what also makes the biopic different is the performance. You can certainly see Edward R. Murrow in David Strathairn's portrayal of him in Goodnight and Good Luck, but it's far from an imitation. To me, that's acting. It's like a band singing the 1,000th remake of Blowing in the Wind -- unless they bring something of themselves to it, who needs it? In some cases, there are personalities like Capote and Ray Charles and Johnny Cash, etc., who are very well-known and iconic. It's impossible to get around bringing their idiosyncrasies into their biopic -- otherwise, the audience would scratch their heads and say, "That was supposed to be Capote?" Or...whoever.

So yes, perhaps there is a real advantage in a biopic about someone who isn't as well known but is still really fascinating. We shall see.

Oh Happy Birthday Achilaa little late
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v404/billiep/sweet.jpg

Okay it's a BIG DEAL........HAPPY BIRTHDAY ACHILA
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v404/billiep/charade.jpg

Always depend upon you for the latest news...thanks.
saile

Thanks, sweetie :)

Pelagia, thanks for the insight into theater operation - helps to make a bit more sense out of things. (We kept EII for three weeks in Omaha.)

Does Bobby have a distributor? :z: Or will we be having the same conversation in the fall when it is supposed to be released? :rolleyes:
With the cast list for that movie, it had better get some distribution or there's something seriously wrong in... uhhh... Hollywood :rolleyes: ... What am I saying?! :eek:

tg, not that Barney! :eek:
No, no, the other Barney is the iceman :p . Which, come to think of it, we've had more of than snow around here this year.

C-Michelle Kwan has withdrawn from the Olympics :( -4
:( that the situation had to come up at all, but under the circumstances I think she did the right thing and is going out as the class act she's always been.

honeyelf wrote: Interesting that male actors seem to get more respect as they get older. Maybe that’s due in part to the fact that they get better roles as they get older. I’ve probably said this here before (I know I’ve said it to Achila, and probably to ceefour): IMHO, Elijah is at a kind of “awkward age” at the moment, in terms of the kinds of parts that are available to him. As he himself has said, there are not all that many good scripts out there. And I think that the proportion of those good scripts that have young male leads is even smaller. Look at the five Best Actor Oscar nominees this year. Heath Ledger is the only one who is under 30, and he (unlike Elijah) looks his age.* Look at the five Best Picture nominees. None of them really has a male lead that would have been appropriate for EW (too young for Capote, Good Night, and Munich; can’t really see him as a sheep wrangler; Crash doesn’t really have any leads). And some other excellent films that didn’t get nominated (A History of Violence – Viggo, you wuz robbed!; The Constant Gardener) also have older leads.

*BTW, just for comparison: three of this year’s five Best Actress nominees are age 30 or under. Also BTW, I second Achila's comment about David Straithairn. He is brilliant in Good Night, and Good Luck, and his subtle performance is far more than just an impersonation. You don't have to have ever seen or heard Murrow to appreciate Straithairn.

Ylla:
There is Noooo Excuse for Missing Achila's Birthday
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v480/ylla/alliwant-1.jpg




Disappointed in You,
Jones


Happy Belated Birthday Achila
Ylla

:( I'm sorry to be late...Happy Belated Birthday, Achilla!

From a snowbound, although fake snow, hobbit...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Shelbyshire/cap497.jpg

*puts on sunglasses to hide behind for this next part* :cool:

Yes, I bought one of the GSH DVD's on sale at Ebay. Just couldn't resist. However, I always manage to overpay. I bidded on one, lost, then went ahead and bought one. Then I got a message for a second chance offering. Basically, the one I bidded on and lost turned out to be mine since the actually winner declined it. So, long story short, I went ahead and bought both. They arrived today and both work in my DVD player. One of them seems stuck on the English subtitles but I did buy them as "used". Of course, after watching some of the movie, I may need the subtitles. I'm not sure how to tell if they're "pirated". The only thing missing is a chapter list sheet but I know some DVD's do come without that. Since I have two, and I did purchase them with good intention, would someone like to borrow the second one (see the ETA). Awhile back, Sean's book was mailed around for those who wanted to read it. The same could be done with this DVD. Or, would that be frowned upon?

I'm just happy to finally be able to see it. I do have a major exam tomorrow so I'm going to wait and watch the movie later tonight when my brain just refuses to hold anymore information anyways. Plus the kids will be in bed by then. PM me if your interested. I'll ship it to the first reply.

:k Matt is kinda cute!

ETA: The DVD was like gone in 60 seconds! :)

shelbyshire wrote: Sean's book was mailed around for those who wanted to read it. The same could be done with this DVD. Or, would that be frowned upon?
That actually sounds like a good idea. Several of us have spare copies that could be donated to "The Faculty Library." We have several members who live outside the U.S. who have a substantial waiting time before Elijah's "new" movies gets to them to see- if at all (TFFKAH). If we start a lending library, it would afford our members the ability of keeping up to speed with the rest of us by being able to borrow and see Elijah's movies, books... The "borrowing" would be free, just pay for the postage. You lose/keep it- you buy it! Who volunteers to be Elijah's Librarian?

Who volunteers to be Elijah's Librarian? I would. I'd love to. There's still 2 Elijah movies I haven't seen. Day-O and The Witness. Of course, if faculty members would like to do that.

Gotta go study for awhile and then movie time. Txtac would like to "check out" GSH so I'll mail it tomorrow or Wednesday.

Thank you for your birthday greetings, Shelbyshire and Ylla -- very much appreciated.

There is a review of Happy Feet up at Aint it Cool News -- Go see for yourself (since I can't provide the link but you'll see it on the main page). One person liked it, the other loathed it, but mostly because of Robin Williams, who appears to be every third character. Sigh.

On Happy Feet and AICN (thanks for the heads-up on the reviews, Achila) - I think some of the "fan boys" might be less disappointed if they remembered the director has done other things besides Mad Maxx - like, maybe, Babe? :rolleyes:

Shelbyshire, with the understanding that Day-O and The Witness are in a completely different league of rarity than Sean's book, here's what I've got:

On Day-O - Still the Holy Grail of Elijah Wood movies in its original English. Over the years, I've followed several leads, but have yet to track it down. All anyone has found (and I believe Whiteling deserves some kind of research award for this) is a German-dubbed version taped from TV. I have one DVD of it that doesn't work in my computer, and one DVD that does (along with a synopsis in English, courtesy of skatergirl), from which I made the screencaps on my site. Assuming the original VHS is still safe and sound in some fire-proof vault :eek: , I'd be willing to send the DVDs to someone -- send both, maybe, as they seem to work in different machines? Or possibly more DVDs could be made? This is one movie I have no qualms about making or using copies of, as there just is no other way to get it. And if anyone ever sees it listed to run on TV in English... :z:

On The Witness - I just checked good ol' yesasia.com (ah, the nostalgia: I still have the VCD's of Chain of Fools and Flipper I bought from there before they were available on DVD). It's still the only place I know of that's ever had Perverse Destiny III available. The other "volumes" of Perverse Destiny are in stock, but they're out of III. There's a "sign up and we'll email you when more are available" notice, but I have no idea how temporary/permanent the lack is. This is the VCD, of course; as far as I know, it's not on DVD, or VHS for that matter. I have one, actual, legitimate VCD of Perverse Destiny III that I bought from yesasia.com. If I know that somewhere out there in Faculty-land there is another copy of Perverse Destiny III, just in case the worst happens :eek: , I'd be willing to send mine out. (IIRC, Sheryl had a downloadable version of The Witness some years ago, and there might be others out there somewhere - not legal, but this is another movie that's so hard to find that I wouldn't quibble with anyone getting hold of it in a different way.)

----Now, of course, if either of these could get passed from hand-to-hand in person I'd have no problem with doing that. Maybe a Faculty meeting for the purpose of viewing rare artifacts is called for. :cool:

----I do get a kick out of the fact that yesasia.com always has Elijah Wood listed first in the cast of Perverse Destiny III, even though his character doesn't say a word, and The Witness is only one of several shorts on the disk :p . I think Elijah Wood fans rather mobbed them for Chain of Fools, so that may have had some effect on how they look at things ;) .

TG, I'd be happy to copy "The Witness" to put it into Faculty circulation -- just let me know where to send it.

BTW, when Pelagia and ceefour and I went to see "The New World", there was a screen in the lobby over the ticket booths that played the Happy Feet trailer over and over. It was the one from "March of the Penguins", of just Mumble dancing to Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" -- man, soo cute!

ETA -- DAYO SIGHTING! I just happened to Google it and found that a VHS copy showed up on the Australian Ebay (unfortunately, the auction already ended). So kiddies, keep your eyes open -- it's out there! According to the seller, it's a rare Disney VHS (PAL, of course, but we could do something with that) that was only released in Australia.

IIRC, Sheryl had a downloadable version of The Witness some years ago.

Hmmm. I might have; can't remember. :p I know we had Chain of Fools up for a while (without subtitles!) back when it was completely unavailable stateside, although best I can tell no one from the Faculty ever managed to download it. :( I do have Perverse Destiny III and could probably get The Witness copied off of that, either putting it on the 'net or onto a disc for Shelbyshire to keep track of. :) Personally, I feel no guilt copying stuff that (a) was on TV at some point anyhow and/or (b) is a good year or more old and has never been released in America and doesn't look likely to be anytime soon.

I got Sean's book from the library, myself. ;)

Sheryl

Edit:
Simulposted. :) Guess Shelbyshire has her choice of sources. :D

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY ,,Achila and everybody else i forgott :o :o :o

And Happy Valentines day to you all !!! :k :k :k


WOOD

On Day-O - Still the Holy Grail of Elijah Wood movies in its original English. Over the years, I've followed several leads, but have yet to track it down. All anyone has found (and I believe Whiteling deserves some kind of research award for this) is a German-dubbed version taped from TV. I have one DVD of it that doesn't work in my computer, and one DVD that does (along with a synopsis in English, courtesy of skatergirl), from which I made the screencaps on my site. Assuming the original VHS is still safe and sound in some fire-proof vault :eek: , I'd be willing to send the DVDs to someone -- send both, maybe, as they seem to work in different machines? Or possibly more DVDs could be made? This is one movie I have no qualms about making or using copies of, as there just is no other way to get it. And if anyone ever sees it listed to run on TV in English... :z:


I'll happily make another DVD copy of Dayo for a library.

A Faculty library is a super idea, espcially if it used DVD copies of the older not in print films, since it is cheap to post DVDs, the originals wouldn't be at risk, and they do seem to play in any region as long as the DVD is made in the right region in the first place. I have a VCR that plays NTSC films, but when I made a DVD copy of my NTSC Avalon and Bumblebee films from it, the American formatting was transferred to DVD and they play strangly, even in my PC. Both these films and North unavailable in the UK on DVD and rare on video, and I know some people in America have had difficulty getting hold of Child in the Night (for which I made myself a DVD from my UK video copy that could go into the stock).

I'd love to borrow a copy of whatever it is where he plays McPhee. I'd forgotten about not having seen this till talk of a library came up and I think it is the only thing I thing I have missed seeing.

I don't have one of the machines that people can programme to tell them when an Elijah film is on TV. Can they be programmed with the name of the film rather than an actor, just in case DAYO is shown without having EJW's name against it? In a way, I don't want to see this film in English now, in case the voices spoil it for me. For many years, I cherished a dubbed version of Heidi that I got off German TV, and when I finally managed to get the original American video of it, I hated it. It just wasn't the same.

Thanks for the birthday wishes, wood!

I have McPhee -- I could do him....er....better rephrase that (sorry) -- I can copy that DVD. :D

Going through my general disorganization after I got home from work last night, The Witness is a moot point right now, as it's not with the rest of my Elwood stuff. Because it's a VCD, I'm guessing it got mixed in with smaller items (I don't see CofF, either). As with most things, I know it's here somewhere... :rolleyes: I did find both Day-O DVDs.

I'll have to bug the person at work again about transferring VHS to DVD. I've been asking her about it for months now, and she keeps saying she hasn't tried it yet, so doesn't want to take a chance with someone else's tape - and doesn't even know if she'll be able to make it work. If skatergirl already has Child in the Night on DVD, maybe I don't have to worry about that one? North isn't on DVD for Region 1, so all I have of it is a VHS - don't know if anyone has a DVD/VCD version of that? (It's the only one of Elijah's "feature films" not on Region 1 DVD now, so I keep hoping... :( )

I think the only other non-generally-available thing I have is a (Region 1) VHS of Elijah's turn as Icarus in an episode of Adventures from the Book of Virtues, that I bought used. If I can't get my co-worker to move on the VHS-to-DVD thing, I wouldn't mind sending that to someone who has the equipment to make the transfer. (I just checked amazon, and at the moment they have 41 used copies of "Responsibility" - the episode in question - starting at 22 cents - so the VHS is certainly replaceable, but it's nowhere available on DVD.) I don't know how widespread the interest would be in that, since it's animated and since it is, after all, Adventures from the Book of Virtues :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: , but he does get to fall into the sea and drown :p (being irresponsible, and all :rolleyes: ).

:eek: Test at 1:00 today. Wish me luck!

I'll be back tonight to catch up on the library discussion since I've been mostly away since my last post.

:D Watched GSH finally!! :D Loved it!!! Well, not the violence but The One Lad's acting. I'll have more later.

I'll happily make another DVD copy of Dayo for a library. .......and I know some people in America have had difficulty getting hold of Child in the Night (for which I made myself a DVD from my UK video copy that could go into the stock).

Oh how do I sign up :D :D .......I would Love to borrow from the library a DVD of both Dayo and Child in the Night. Neither are available here.

Shelbyshire....I am sending you a copy of Perverse Destiny /The Witness. It is a VCD. I bought mine on ebay and it took 6 weeks to get here (usa) from Hong Kong. It plays in both my computer and regular ole DVD player.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v404/billiep/Thewitness.jpg

I too have a nice collection and some nifty software and would be happy to contribute to the library.
saile

Wow, you have been busy! I like the idea of an Elwood Library system for lending tapes, dvds and the like! TxTac, great idea! :k

I have both Child in the Night and North on tape. I also have a couple of video tapes, and burned disks of interviews and the like that I could help out with. Perhaps I can make copies for people of those. Don't know if that kind of stuff is being sought out though.

h!

I love the idea of some sort of sharing library, too! It might be the only way that some of us ever get to see stuff like Day-O.

Off the current topic just a bit, I ran into a brief but lovely review of EII here (http://www.listener.co.nz/default,5514.sm). I'll just quote the entire thing, if I may, as it's so short: Elijah Wood, too, has a quality that sets him apart from the pack, in this case, a sweet strangeness that he's free to push further now he's not being Frodo. Actor-turned-director Liev Schreiber (The Hurricane) has cast him in his adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel Everything Is Illuminated, in which Jonathan (Wood) travels to the Ukraine to seek out his Jewish grandfather's roots, and Wood happily exploits his strangeness, donning coke-bottle spectacles to make his eyes even larger, and a buttoned-down look that suggests Clark Kent, only shorter and more anxious.

Jonathan hires Alex (gypsy-punk muso Eugene Hutz), Alex's grumpy grandfather and their ancient sky-blue Trabant to drive him around the idyllic countryside looking for the village of Trachimbrod. Alex, who narrates (an unexpected but wise choice, since he has much more attitude), is as loose-limbed as Jonathan is straitlaced, a hilarious mangler of English, and he and Grandad have some fun at the expense of "the Jew". But as they near their target, darker memories are stirred and the three discover unexpectedly, poignantly – if a little too coincidentally – that they have more in common than they think.

It's a fish-out-of-water road movie that's gently eccentric, cleverly paying homage to the deadpan style and humour of Eastern European cinema (think Emir Kusturica), and peopled with faces full of stories. Schreiber understands subtext and visual storytelling and his script is tight and funny, his use of freeze frames and visual effect just enough without becoming pretentious. Add in the music, and it's a quirky little charmer. This review illustrates very nicely the difference between reviews by those who read the book first and those who didn't, I think. It's sort of a capsule version of how I felt about the film (though I would have gone on a bit longer about Mr. Wood, of course ;)), which I saw first and actually ended up liking better than the book, by the time I read it.

Thank you, Bunnie! ! That is a lovely film review! I especially like that the reviewer is comparing Elijah to Philip Seymour Hoffman, saying that they both have something which sets them "apart from the pack"! :)

TG, I have a DVR and can create DVDs from VHS. I could've sworn that Adventures from the Book of Virtues was online somewhere at some point -- possibly at frodoandsam.net (where we first met, in fact, :k ) but it's one I don't have. So I could do that for you, if you'd like, along with North and Child in the Night (I've been meaning to do that with my own).

I have had a problem trying to play DVDs that were copied from the original.
Some work, some don't. It all depends on the software used to burn the copy. If the DVD will not play, the software used to burn the copy can be downloaded from the net- usually for free- and then the DVD can be played.

It would be helpful if whoever burns a copy for the library, states what software was used to burn the copy. The software can then be made available, or hunted down before the DVD arrives, thus saving Faculty members from the anguish of recieving a DVD that they can not play. :z:

:) As honeyelf said, "Wow, you have been busy!" I'm not sure where to start... Shelbyshire....I am sending you a copy of Perverse Destiny /The Witness. It is a VCD. I bought mine on ebay and it took 6 weeks to get here (usa) from Hong Kong. It plays in both my computer and regular ole DVD player. Saile That would be great! Thank you!! I have both Child in the Night and North on tape. I also have a couple of video tapes, and burned disks of interviews and the like that I could help out with. Perhaps I can make copies for people of those. Don't know if that kind of stuff is being sought out though. Honeyelf I imagine they would. And don't forget about the short and I mean real short time he is in the Paula Abdul music video. I also taped, on VHS, the Saturday Night Live show which my kids and I still watch. Our favorite skit is the Choir one. I even bought The Osbourne's first season just for EJW's episode. Of course, Hannah is also in it. I could investigate some local resources for making copies of those also. Especially SNL, he actually did quite well.

Requested to be checked out:

Skater girl - would like McPhee
Saile - would like Day-O and Child in the Night
Shelbyshire - would like Day-O

To be sent to the library:

Achila and/or Shilohmm - copy of The Witness
Skater girl - Day-O DVD
HoneyElf - Miscellaneous interviews, Child in the Night and North?

I'm sure I have missed something. Please forgive me if I have. I guess I'll just say to feel free to send whatever can be copied easily, extra copies, and I can always post a "Library Inventory" from time to time. Or, if there are ideas or suggestions, I am definitely open to them. Wow...it's midnight already. Today has been one long day.

Sweet dreams... :k

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Shelbyshire/sweetdreams.jpg

just to be clear, when we say "copy" as regards our collective Elwood Video Library, we do mean only copying things like real rarities (The Witness, Day-O). or possibly personal vids of old interviews and the like, as opposed to violating copyright by copying stuff that is currently available throught legit channels, right?

I don't want to be reading "Elijah Wood fans netted in piracy scheme!" in my Yahoo! Alerts. :eek: Nor do I want the feds bursting through my front door, as my hankering for a copy of TMFKAH might be a bit hard to explain to some of my RL friends! ;)

honey!

just to be clear, when we say "copy" as regards our collective Elwood Video Library, we do mean only copying things like real rarities (The Witness, Day-O). or possibly personal vids of old interviews and the like, as opposed to violating copyright by copying stuff that is currently available throught legit channels, right?
honey!

I take it to mean things that aren't available new from Amazon, who seem to sell pretty well everything that is out. The question does arise as to where the copyright would apply. The film Avalon, for instance, is readily available on DVD in America and an NTSC region 1 DVD can be purchased through Amazon.co.uk, but for a UK resident to get a copy of the film that plays on our regular PAL/region2 machines, they have to resort to a used PAL video.

Txtac - I wonder if the problems are caused only when people do the copying on a PC. I bought a sealed unit panasonic DVD recorder some time back, and the DVDs I make on this this don't seem to have been problem for anyone from Australia to America once I finalize them. CDs that I burn on the computer, however, are quite temperamental when it comes to be played elsewhere, and hubby admitted recently that it may be down to an incomplete install of the burning software.

Skater Girl wrote: I wonder if the problems are caused only when people do the copying on a PC. ...CDs that I burn on the computer, however, are quite temperamental when it comes to be played elsewhere, and hubby admitted recently that it may be down to an incomplete install of the burning software.
I think that that is true. A copied disc may not run on my PC, but it will play in a DVD player. I am sure that it is the software in my PC. Once I find out what software the copied disc is using, I can find the software on line and download it. There is always a risk of picking up something nasty, but so far, I've been lucky.

If the Faculty members who burn discs could use the same software/program for burning discs for the library, it would make life a little easier for the rest of us computer knuckle draggers. ;)
__________________________________________

The DVD store that I frequent is going out of business (not enough Elijah movies ;)). They are having a close-out 50% to 70% off sale. If anyone wants to pick up something cheap, let me know and I will see if they still have it on the shelf. I know that they have a few copies of The Faculty left (until I finish buying them out...) I will dig around and see if I can find any other Elijah movies hidden away that I haven't kept an eye on. I do know that Sin City was sold out before Christmas and not restocked.
Who wants what?

just to be clear, when we say "copy" as regards our collective Elwood Video Library, we do mean only copying things like real rarities (The Witness, Day-O). or possibly personal vids of old interviews and the like, as opposed to violating copyright by copying stuff that is currently available throught legit channels, right?

That would be the way I'd look at it - of course, sending around legitimate copies of things, as was done with Sean A's book, would be different. For example, if someone wanted to borrow my "Homicide" DVD to watch the episode, because they didn't want it permanently (I haven't sprung for the Osbornes or Frasier - yet :p ).

---I asked my co-worker again today about the VHS-to-DVD transfer, and told her I could send it to someone to do it if she couldn't. She said, "Oh, no, don't do that." So she's going to try to figure it out this weekend. If that doesn't succeed, I can send whatever tapes are needed (North? Icarus?) to Achila.

BTW, EJW's Paula Abdul video is on her new "Video Hits" DVD, which is $5.98 new or $3.98 used at amazon. :p

A little SSP: If you go to Elwood's (http://www.frodolivesin.us/Bywater/id11.htm) and click on "Non-movie items," you'll find lots of wonderful things. ;) In fact, when I went there just now to copy the URL, I learned something new myself - "The Most Beautiful Gift" is now available again as a new cassette. Used cassettes and the download option are still available, too. So, I'll have to change that listing. (And, yeah, I know I said I was going to have the holly down by Feb. 2... :o :rolleyes: I have one heavy-duty session left on the "other website" I've been building - then I can get back to more important things like Elijah and Tolkien. :) )

ETA: Also noticed that amazon has given up the charade of being able to offer Child in the Night as a "special order" new VHS. Four used copies are available at the moment.

:)
Requested to be checked out:

Saile - would like Day-O and Child in the Night

Thanks Shelbyshire :k . A modification to my request. I HAVE (from Amazon) the VHS version of Child in the Night. I am looking for a DVD version to play on my computer. Doesn't matter what region. I'd be happy with ANY version of Day-O. Oh and I forgot about North. I have it in VHS version. Would love a DVD version.
saile :D

---I asked my co-worker again today about the VHS-to-DVD transfer, and told her I could send it to someone to do it if she couldn't. She said, "Oh, no, don't do that." So she's going to try to figure it out this weekend. If that doesn't succeed, I can send whatever tapes are needed (North? Icarus?) to Achila. No problem, TG -- that's fine. I have North, so there's no need to send it if she can't do it -- I'll just burn the copy from mine.


I learned something new myself - "The Most Beautiful Gift" is now available again as a new cassette. Used cassettes and the download option are still available, too. This' one I'd never heard of. I downloaded it from Audible but beware anyone that tries to do it this way -- it's not straightforward. You first have to download Audible's software and you pretty much have to have iTunes.


ETA -- Someone on LJ has The Witness as a download. Is there somewhere we can keep the file, for everyone to see?

Off the current topic just a bit, I ran into a brief but lovely review of EII here.

That's an NZ review and you just beat me to it Bunnie! I thought it a great review too, and to put it into perspective: the NZ Listener is a mainstream , widely read and very respected magazine known for its thoughtful reviews so it has quite an impact on NZ viewer choices. :)

ETA -- Someone on LJ has The Witness as a download. Is there somewhere we can keep the file, for everyone to see?I don't have a clue :eek: Achila on that one. Puzzling here. Amused to see the accompanying add/links now referencing vhs consolidation.
saile

I don't have a clue :eek: Achila on that one. Puzzling here. Amused to see the accompanying add/links now referencing vhs consolidation. Well, saile, if someone figures it out, I have it as a download.

Saile wrote: Is there somewhere we can keep the file, for everyone to see?
achila wrote: if someone figures it out, I have it as a download.
Does anyone own their own server? They are getting pretty cheap now-a-days, or access to one that we can use as a Faculty Video Library?

I just IM'd my darling husband. He says we can host some files on our server "as long as we have the space." So now, how do I get that Witness thingy down the pipes to my garage? :)

honey!

I just IM'd my darling husband. He says we can host some files on our server "as long as we have the space." So now, how do I get that Witness thingy down the pipes to my garage? :) Honey, I can PM you where to download it -- howz about that?

Oooh, coming back here after several computerless days I see that you have very busy :)! The idea of a Faculty library sounds absolutely fabulous! :k



On Day-O - Still the Holy Grail of Elijah Wood movies in its original English. Over the years, I've followed several leads, but have yet to track it down. All anyone has found (and I believe Whiteling deserves some kind of research award for this) is a German-dubbed version taped from TV. I have one DVD of it that doesn't work in my computer, and one DVD that does (along with a synopsis in English, courtesy of skatergirl), from which I made the screencaps on my site. Assuming the original VHS is still safe and sound in some fire-proof vault :eek: , I'd be willing to send the DVDs to someone (...).
A fire-proof vault? Sure! :D

And now that I've boarded hubby's PC I can show you my cunning plan I got from your discussion:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/whiteling/scotlands-secret-bunker.jpg

Beneath the lovely hills of the German Eifel you can find one of the most secret and wanted gems of Elwoodology. Deep hidden under the inconspiciuous surface there is a place where an important milestone of the occident's Faculty research quest lies in deep slumber --- Day-O cough *in German* cough....


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/whiteling/Stahltuer.jpg

Behind this high-security door the treasure awaits visitors from all over the world.... the vault is water proof, fire-proof, burglary-resitant and, as a matter of fact, resistant to nuclear radiation.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/whiteling/Day-O_wink.jpg

Have the fun of your lifetime and book a Guided Tour to Day-O today! Families welcome.


Hmmm, I think this could be my new, enjoyable incidental earnings. :cool:
(Entrance free for Faculty members , natch!) ;)

Honey, I can PM you where to download it -- howz about that?

Lovely! :D

OK -- that means I have to remember who I got it from! :D

OK -- that means I have to remember who I got it from! :Ddutch_eowyn and anatsuno both have links up, if that helps at all. :)

dutch_eowyn and anatsuno both have links up, if that helps at all. :)Thanks, luv -- I remembered! :k

WOOD you believe it?! I finally had the chance to see EII on the "big" screen (well, as it was shown in a tiny "Studio" theatre, it wasn't exactly what you would call big)!
The film is scheduled for only a week - 4 showings that is, actually, and in the middle of the night. :( It seems the distributor wants to avoid at all costs that people get to see it! I asked the ticketseller whether he'd knew why this film had such few copies all over the country, but he couldn't tell. My friend (who loved the book and was very keen on seeing the film version) and I kept shaking our heads over this unfair and simply bad marketing. In spite of the very late hour the cinema was almost full. About 35 people had come, mostly folk in their twenties, mostly couples, and a few people over 40.

Still not knowing the book, I immersed myself in the film quite unspoiled.

Beware! Spoilery comments on EII until end of post.

I loved it. What a deep moving story, with wonderful music, hauting images, and wonderful acting. Interestingly, I noticed that I was riveted on all the performances of the main characters to such an extent, that I couldn't single Elijah out. You know what I mean? Usually, I am so concentrated on Elijah that I don't pay as much attention to his screen partners as on him, at least not when watching a film with him in it for the first time. This time, I was so intrigued with every single character that I wasn't fixed only on "Jonfen" - Alex, Grandfather, Lissa (?) and even Sammy Davis jr.jr. had the same weight and importance to me. I felt reminded of my first viewing of Fellowship where I was overwhelmed by the sheer power of the film in all its glory, not being able to single out someone or something (in a good way, of course!)

In some reviews of EII I read something like, "Elijah Wood as Jonathan acts on the verge of non-acting". I think this is quite an apt description for what he is doing with his character - he acts non-acting, and the result is a kind of meaningful "stupor", an active passiveness, so to speak; the most impressive image, I thought, was the view from Jonathan's rear, with him standing at the river banks and seeing himself on the other side. Pure Magritte! Wow - come to think of it, many images had a surreal meaning. For example, the image of the moon. In the depth psychology, the moon is a symbol for the unconsciousness, for long forgotten and buried matters - it was wonderfully done, how Grandfather's looks up to the moon evoked the feeling of a deep hidden memory inside of him. As I am writing this, I have goosebumps on my arms. The whole movie has a dreamlike layer... magical realism turned into film images. Wonderful. This magical movie's impressions will linger for long time.
Thanks, Jonathan Safran Foer for writing the book and thanks, Liev, thanks, Elijah, Eugene, Boris, Laryssa for a moving and enriching film experience!

I've been quiet but I'm still here, reading every few days. I think the idea of a library is excellent and would be happy to offer the McFee episode which I have currently as a 1.5Gb avi file. I could put this on a dvd as the avi file, which I think would avoid any compatibility problems, and post it or I could compress it further and put it up on yousendit.com or similar. On yousendit it looks as if I have to put in recipients' email addresses.

There are two VCDs of Perverse Destiny 3 (which includes The Witness) on ebay at the moment for less than $2 (plus postage). (I've put a bid on the dvd that's up there; please don't bid against me.)

A thoughtful and perceptive review of EII posted on the EII yahoo group

Fine acting and writing make "Illuminated" shine
Tuesday, February 17, 2006
By James Sanford

"When you're trying to articulate a character who's basically an
observer, it's all about the eyes," Liev Schreiber told an audience
last September at a screening of his directorial debut, "Everything
Is Illuminated," at the Toronto International Film Festival. "They
say the eyes are the doors to the soul -- and Elijah's got garage
doors."

Schreiber was referring to Elijah Wood, who stars in "Everything" as
Jonathan, an American writer trying to piece together his family
history during a trip to the Ukraine in the early 1980s.

Schreiber has handed Wood a challenging role: Jonathan is almost
entirely reactive, a guy who stands on the sidelines, absorbing
what's going on but rarely getting into the thick of it. Passivity is
not a quality that ordinarily grabs an audience's attention, and it's
sometimes easy to forget that Jonathan is the central figure
of "Everything." Most of the characters he meets in the course of his
journey -- including Boris Leskin as a nearly blind tour guide and,
particularly, Eugene Hutz as the irrepressible Alex, who serves as
Jonathan's translator -- are far livelier than Jonathan. But the
sense of quiet curiosity Wood brings to the role eventually becomes
an anchor for "Everything," a movie full of restlessness and
frustration, oddball humor and great sorrow.

It's risky material for a first-time director since "Everything,"
based on Jonathan Safran Foer's novel races across a lot of emotional
ground as it moves from culture-clash comedy to a meditation on some
of the darkest moments in human history. But Schreiber's involving
screenplay and his remarkably assured handling of the material
somehow brings it all together into an effective, charmingly offbeat
whole.

Schreiber uses a wonderful kind of cinematic shorthand to communicate
major events in a brief amount of time. For example, when Jonathan
and Alex pass by a ransacked apartment building, Jonathan asks "What
is it?" "Soviets," Alex replies. "What happened?" Jonathan
asks. "Independence," Alex answers.

That style is well-suited to "Everything," which focuses on the power
of objects as receptacles of memories, emotions and keys to someone's
personality. Jonathan is a collector whose room is filled with
hundreds of little Ziploc bags containing souvenirs and tiny
treasures. Although sealing up the past in airtight containers may
preserve it, the thrust of the story is that in order to fully
appreciate your heritage and the struggles of your ancestors you must
make a physical connection. History can hide anywhere: in a pendant,
or in a magnificent field of sunflowers.

"Everything" comes down to Schreiber's contrasting of two utterly
different young men. Wood's Jonathan is reticent, his eyes --
magnified to almost comic effect by the clunky glasses Jonathan
wears -- always searching for clues, while the constantly talking
Alex is the trip's motivating force. Hutz, the intensely charismatic
lead singer of "gypsy punk" band Gogol Bordello, gives a terrific
performance in a role almost as tricky and demanding as Wood's. While
Jonathan and Alex seem to have nothing in common, Schreiber
eventually reveals them to be a perfect combination: Jonathan is the
brain, Alex is the heart, and they function far better together than
they ever could alone.

http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/kzgazette/index.ssf?/base/features-
0/1140195062197540.xml&coll=7

I like the idea of brain and heart. By the end of the film they have moved towards one another; Jonathan has begun to feel more and Alex has started to think.

I'm still busy with thinking over EII... I'm looking forward to reading the book finally. Funny thing is, when I went back to several of EII reviews many of you have written in the past, I noticed the plot alteration regarding grandfather.

EII SPOILERS
In the film grandfather is jewish. He is not so in the book?! But he does commit suicide in the book as well, right? I thought his ending in the film was quite "logical", if I may say so, and this just because of the fact that he himself was jewish. In all the years that have gone by since his surviving of the genocide in Trachimbrod he started a familiy and all, but it seems that he never was really happy again in his life (like Alex said, only in death grandfather looked as though he'd be finally comfortable); the survivor's guilt lay heavily on him (only survivers often can't take the gift of life afterwards and feel they should be dead like the others who weren't as lucky). Jonathan giving him the bagged Trachimbrod soil, I think, was the point where grandfather couldn't deny longer that he was "from the same root" as "the Jew". Heavens, that was such an incredibly moving moment in the film! And then Lista's question "Is the war over?" meant to grandfather not only that WW II was over, but that his own war had come to an end. With what he had had experienced, he could neither live nor die until that day (that fits to Alex's notice that grandfather "seems to be in a dream"). I could understand that he, now that he eventually acknowledged what really had happend, could finally say yes to his roots and as though awakening from a long dream, say yes to death, whom he cheated so long time ago. Now he could go in peace.
Forgive me for rambling, I know there is an EII thread in the Book Shop forum, but I think, it was Tg who said some time ago here, she wondered how grandfather's death would come over to someone who hasn't read the book. Well, yes. I'm curious what book grandfather's story is.
End SPOILERS


Brummie, thanks for that EII review. :cool: Like the brain and heart idea, too.

Tg, the Georgia O'Keeffe quote in your sig is wonderful! Absolutely spot-on. :)

Thanks, Bunnie and Brummie for the insightful EII reviews. Thanks, Prim, for the note on the newspaper - it makes the review even better!

--Still waiting to find out about VHS-DVD transfer at this end.

Whiteling, so glad you enjoyed EII! And, yes, I did ask about what people who hadn't read the book would think about Grandfather's death, so thanks for that. Interesting to read all the pieces that came together for you, and that Liev probably meant to come together. I'd noticed some of them but not all, and hadn't combined them into a whole as you did. Like with the LotR movies, the first thing I noticed was what was different from the book; it takes awhile to see the entire film from the standpoint of what the director's doing overall. I don't want to spoil the book for you by telling you how the stories are different - Grandfather's story is told so perfectly in the book, from Alex's POV as he learns about it, that it really needs to be experienced. And his death ties in with a thread that's almost completely left out of the movie. So, I dunno, maybe it was best to change it for the movie, in order to focus it more on the central story. I also appreciate that Liev made the movie in large part to tell his own grandfather's story, so I wouldn't be surprised if some things were changed because of that.

One thing the book's version does is put the reader face-to-face with a very difficult issue, which the movie's version avoids. My initial disappointment was in large part because it felt like the movie had changed the story specifically in order to avoid having to deal with that issue. But, as with the LotR movies, after a few viewings I'm starting to see the movie as a separate entity with its own purposes (but now I need the DVD in order to watch it again :( !)

In general (that is, regarding more than just Grandfather's story), the movie answers some questions that are left unanswered in the book, and I enjoyed being left with some speculation about possibilities involving even the central story - being a Tolkien reader and all :p . Led to some interesting discussions in the thread about the book in the Library forum, which I'd advise you not to read until you've finished the book (I'd say the same thing to anyone else who's planning to read the book). But it'd be great to have some new people come into the discussion - it hasn't been added to in quite some time.

Of course, one thing that was added to the movie that I like is Jonathan as an actual character :) - he's almost a "non-person" in the book.

--Also, Whiteling, I need to say that your "Day-O Guided Tours" had me :lol: . Maybe we should hire Heritage Touring to handle the job :D , since there's already a mascot:

http://www.frodolivesin.us/Pics/1962c3a0.jpg


Glad you like the Georgia O'Keeffe quote. I ran across it while working on my "other website," which is mostly made up of background tiles, some based on the works of various artists. While doing one of my "hunting expeditions" at amazon (see, the Faculty doesn't get all the "benefits" :haha: of those), I discovered that O'Keeffe made calligraphy versions of some wonderful quotes, and that was one of them. It fit in so well with the EII quote that it seemed like a good addition. Now I should find a related one from Tolkien to add - if Moggy doesn't kick me out for having a sig that's too long. :p

I've been quiet but I'm still here, reading every few days. I think the idea of a library is excellent and would be happy to offer the McFee episode which I have currently as a 1.5Gb avi file. I could put this on a dvd as the avi file, which I think would avoid any compatibility problems, and post it or I could compress it further and put it up on yousendit.com or similar. On yousendit it looks as if I have to put in recipients' email addresses.

I'm not picking on you particularly, Brummie, but this brings up a point that I wanted to address. I'm uncomfortable hosting things on my server that can be obtained through legal means. What I am willing to host on the server at the moment, is stuff like Day-O and The Witness both of which are exceedingly rare. As soon as those two movies come available on DVD :z: they will be off of my server. I'm also willing to host things like TV interviews.

I am exceedingly uncomfortable hosting things like Deep Impact, The Faculty, or any of the other movies that one can obtain through normal channels. The McPhee episode can be obtained in the boxed set of Homocide: Life on the Street, so I don't want to host it no my server.
There are copies of it on disc that I'm sure people would be willing to lend out.

hoping you'll all understand,
honey!

:) LIBRARY POST

I'm not sure what the general concensus about the Green Street Hooligan DVD, Region 1, that was purchased on eBay is, but it is available to borrow. If you want to see it, PM me and I'll start a list. TxTac will mail it to the first person on that list and then I'll let that person know who to send it to next. That way there won't be a post about it again.

Nice to see GSHooligan clips on youtube.com. :D
One is "honored" as 7th most viewed this week. You can vote on it as well.

youtube.com (http://www.youtube.com/)...... :eek:
updated the link..best to go to youtube and then search for Hooligans and scroll down until you find the one.

saile

Led to some interesting discussions in the thread about the book in the Library forum, which I'd advise you not to read until you've finished the book (I'd say the same thing to anyone else who's planning to read the book).
Thanks, Tg for your comments and for that advice. I will avoid said thread like the devil the holy water (as a German saying goes) ;), until I'm done with the book.
The EII DVD will be released here on 21st April. --- *writes list of wishes to Easter bunny*
Oh, and Tg, I happily accept your charming officious mascot for the guided tours. :D


Saile, the Hooligans clip wouldn't work for me. The first two seconds seemed to play, then my computer decided to stay a hooligan-free area and nothing further happened. :p But anyway, thanks for the link.

Honey posted: I'm also willing to host things like TV interviews.
Most of Elijah's interviews can already be found at Elijahfan.com. What we need is someplace for the esoteric stuff like the Howard Stern Radio show, the BBC Radio shows, Elijah's book readings...

The McPhee episode can be obtained in the boxed set of Homocide: Life on the Street, so I don't want to host it no my server.
There are copies of it on disc that I'm sure people would be willing to lend out
This is more what I would like to see in the Library, a single disc that has Elijah in __________. I do not want to have to buy a complete boxed set of any TV program that I did not watch and do not care to watch just to see one episode of Elijah in it. It would help if someone could burn a copy of it and donate it to the library. Same thing for a copy of Elijah's book readings. If you have it saved to your computer, burn a disc of it and donate it to the "Faculty Library." "The Faculty Online Library" ???

This is more what I would like to see in the Library, a single disc that has Elijah in __________. I do not want to have to buy a complete boxed set of any TV program that I did not watch and do not care to watch just to see one episode of Elijah in it. It would help if someone could burn a copy of it and donate it to the library. Same thing for a copy of Elijah's book readings. If you have it saved to your computer, burn a disc of it and donate it to the "Faculty Library." "The Faculty Online Library" ???

Not much time for an in-depth post but it was recommended to post an address for "donations". They may be sent to:

Shelby M.
P.O. Box 901
Harrison, MI 48625

And, as always, they are appreciated!

Once things come in, I'll post what I got. At the moment, there is GSH on DVD, Region 1 and after I watch it :haha: a DVD of The Witness segment only courtesy of Saile. I haven't gotten it yet, but I did buy off eBay, a PAL DVD of North. I hope it will play on my computer, if not, maybe someone can convert it. It should arrive from Down Under shortly.

Thats all for now.

Shelby, I have Elijah's episode of Homicide on DVD (all by itself) and would be happy to contribute a copy of it to the lending library.

I know, more of a lurker than a discusser. But I wanted to offer a quicktime version of "Me and My cat" read by one E. J. Wood to the lending library, if it is needed. What a lovely idea! A true public service! I don't have much else that isn't available commercially, but I heartily recommend this little tidbit to anyone who hasn't seen it. :)

Achila and peaceweaver, both of those would be great! Thank you!! The library address is in the above post.

Hey, can I be known as "The One Librarian"? :D

I was having a bad day recently when this pic was taken. Thank goodness things have gotten better since. But, I highly recommend this book. The story within is quite full of suspense. I believe it was Gimli who carried this one out of Moria. Am I correct, tgshaw? He then graciously donated it to our growing library.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Shelbyshire/RF19.jpg

Most of Elijah's interviews can already be found at Elijahfan.com. What we need is someplace for the esoteric stuff like the Howard Stern Radio show, the BBC Radio shows, Elijah's book readings...

TxTac, I've got all of those on disc. My husband and I continue to work in bringing a server up. We could funnel everything through our Yahoo! Faculty group, and I'd feel much safer about having stuff on coming through there than just out in the open as it were. You all would be able to upload stuff to it, too, if we get it set up right. And that way no one's library materials need risk going astray in the mail system.

Long story short, if you can all hang in, we can get the files up on or server very soon now, you all can contribute however you see fit to it, and we all have *cough*deniability*cough*. :D

honey!

Dayo and Child in the Night will be winging their way to Shelby on Friday. 5 days seems to be the average for shipments to cross the Atlantic.

If anyone is interested in them, I can also send make a DVD holding the entire 1 hour show of Elijah on Graham Norton with John Malkovich in 2004, the full half hour of the comedy news programme Graham Norton hosted during the Hooligans publicity and the in depth interview from a programme called Heaven and Earth around the same period.

Goodness, things are really moving along! All I have to offer at this point is the original link to Me and My Cat?. They've started a new season, so you have to click on "more stories" to get to that one and to Sean A.'s A Bad Case of Stripes. (It's one of those sites that "frames" everything, so there's only one URL for the entire site - meaning there's no specific URL to post for a particular story.) For anyone who has kids, there are lots of other great stories and "good readers" ;) on the site.

http://www.storylineonline.net/

And now that things are moving along so fast, we're only 9 posts away from needing to start a new thread (limit's now 500 posts instead of 1000, for anyone who missed that the last time around). So, if someone wants to take advantage of any break in the conversation to start #12 (does that mean we graduate from high school at the end of this one? :p ), that would be great. And I'll try to find the right button to hit to lock the thread this time so there's a link to the new thread at the end of this one :rolleyes: .

7 posts and counting down...

Skater Girl posted: If anyone is interested in them, I can also send make a DVD holding the entire 1 hour show of Elijah on Graham Norton with John Malkovich in 2004, the full half hour of the comedy news programme Graham Norton hosted during the Hooligans publicity and the in depth interview from a programme called Heaven and Earth around the same period.

Skater Girl That is exactly what I was refering to in starting a library.
I do not get the Graham Norton show down here. I would love to see the shennanigans that Graham put Elijah through. Thank you for offering to send it in.

Shelbyshire, when Skater Girl's package comes in, please shoot it down my way. Thank You!

Re: the library -- I think we need some sort of queue, that can be handled away from the main community -- perhaps it's something that would be best done via PMs to Shelby?

OK ladies and gentlemen. The Witness is now available for study at http://greybook.thefarmers.org/FanFiles/ ( http://greybook.thefarmers.org/FanFiles/) It's a zip file, so you'll have to right-click-save it. The file itself is a .avi.That's the old grey book site as you can see; pm me if you can't remember the user name, and password (they're still the same. I'll be out most of the day, so I'm going to PM TxTac with the username and password right now. PM either him or me.) : We don't have so much room on our current server as we thought, so I'm going to leave the The Witness up there for a couple of weeks, and then we'll put up something else up instead. We may be getting a used server soon, so maybe we'll be able to have more than one film running at a time.

yipee!
honey!

ps. tgshaw, I think when we get to thread number XII, (erm maybe that should be 14 ?) we should definetly matriculate to an institution of higher learning! (Please read that in a bad cockney accent, Pete-inflected, or Dodger-flavored, your choice!)

Wow......lots of activity here. :D I fixed the link above from earlier post. Shelbyshire and Honey I'm sending you PMs........
saile

3 postings to go...

Honeyelf suggested: we should definetly matriculate to an institution of higher learning!
Shouldn't that be "patriculate?" Afterall, Elwood IS a "guy!" :lol:

Don't we already have an institute of higher learning? The Elwoodian School of Squeesearchtology ? We've already got "the Faculty" and now our very own "The Library." All we need is a dorm and the date for the beer party! :haha: I suggest mid March (SXSW Music Festival). TOL will be in town and we might be able to get him to be our very first guest lecturer! :z: Who better than the One himself to talk about fan based Squeetology :eek:

Honey Do you want me to look around here (Dell Computer's backyard) for a new server at their "scratch and dent" sale?

Shouldn't that be "patriculate?" Afterall, Elwood IS a "guy!" :lol:

TxTac needs a remedial viewing of Oliver Twist! :D

Don't we already have an institute of higher learning? The Elwoodian School of Squeesearchtology ? We've already got "the Faculty" and now our very own "The Library." All we need is a dorm and the date for the beer party! :haha: I suggest mid March (SXSW Music Festival). TOL will be in town and we might be able to get him to be our very first guest lecturer! :z: Who better than the One himself to talk about fan based Squeetology :eek:

You make me wanna buy a plane ticket! :eek:

Honey Do you want me to look around here (Dell Computer's backyard) for a new server at their "scratch and dent" sale?

I live in the silicon valley and hubby is in the high-tech industry! All the fruit orchards have been plowed under, mores the pity :( , and while servers don't quite grow on trees, they're pretty readily available!

BTW folks, I may have left the erroneous impression earlier that I was seeking monetary contributions against the cost of running the server. That was not my intention at all. I am, however, seeking any and all appropriate digital files for sharing amoungst my Faculty siblings!

honey!

One more post to go! Come on, someone else pop in here and let's kill this puppy to start page 12.

Honeyelf wrote: TxTac needs a remedial viewing of Oliver Twist!
Why? Was he dressed like a girl??? :lol:

You make me wanna buy a plane ticket!
Come on down. The wristbands to get into the music events went on sale yesterday.
They sold out in an hour and a half! SXSW is getting HUGE!
Last year, Elijah bought his own Platinum badge so that he could get into both the film fest AND the music fest. He was promoting TFFKAH, so at least the cost of the badge ($800.00+) was tax deductible. This year, I do not believe that he will be coming to the film fest unless he flies straight in from Sweden. I think that he will only make the music fest promo-ing Simian Records- if he comes at all. Nothing definite has been heard yet.

Shelbyshire, the copy of McPhee is done and all set to send to you. You should know that it's the copy of the disc from the set so there are other episodes of the show on it. The one that we're interested in is the last one on the disc. I'll be popping it in the post on Monday, so I would say, start looking for it Wednesday/Thursday.