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A Tolkien trail: Where to find the real-life Middle-earth

A Tolkien trail: Where to find the real-life Middle-earth

From the BBC
Daniel Stables
Find the article, with gorgeous photographs, here.
Getty Images Aerial view of Fiordland National Park, New Zealand (Credit: Getty Images)Getty Images

While Tolkien’s stories take place in the fictional realm of Middle-earth, the awe-inspiring landscapes of the books, films and TV shows are closer than you might imagine.

The first book in J R R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, was released 70 years ago, in the summer of 1954. However, that’s not the only recent milestone for Tolkien’s legendarium: the second season of the epic TV series, The Rings of Power, was  released on 29 August 2024.

As befits the ultimate epic fantasy series, the settings are gorgeous, ranging from bucolic, rolling countryside to plunging valleys and desolate deserts. And while Tolkien’s stories take place in the fictional realm of Middle-earth, the awe-inspiring landscapes of the books, films and TV shows are not as otherworldly as you might imagine. Many of them are based on real-world locations and visiting them brings to life both the landscapes themselves and the imaginary worlds they inspired Tolkien to create.

The Tolkien Trail: Lancashire, England

While writing The Lord of the Rings in the 1940s, Tolkien lived for a while at Stonyhurst College, a prestigious boarding school in Lancashire where his son was a teacher. The elder Tolkien was known to walk often through the woodlands and rolling hills of the surrounding Ribble Valley, and is thought to have taken inspiration from the place while creating the Shire, the rural homeland of the hobbits.

Daniel Stables The seven-mile Tolkien Trail reveals how the writer was inspired by Lancashire’s beautiful landscapes (Credit: Daniel Stables)
The seven-mile Tolkien Trail reveals how the writer was inspired by Lancashire’s beautiful landscapes (Credit: Daniel Stables)

Today, fans can explore the area on the Tolkien Trail, which opened in 2002 and takes hikers through the very landscapes that inspired the author. The route starts in the village of Hurst Green at the atmospheric 17th-Century Shireburn Arms pub, where Tolkien was a regular. It then winds for around seven easy miles through undulating farmland, past the grand buildings of Stonyhurst College, and across historic landmarks like Cromwell’s Bridge, an overgrown packhorse bridge once used by Oliver Cromwell in the English Civil War.

See the rest of this story, complete with gorgeous photographs of LotR sites. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240917-a-tolkien-trail-where-to-find-the-real-life-middle-earth

Movies

Tribute to John Williams at PDA

Tribute to John Williams at PDA

 Saturday, May 18, 2024, 7:30PM

Re-discover the enchanting world of John Williams on a journey spanning four decades of the composer’s work, from Jaws to Star Wars, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, and more!

Led by Maestro Francis Choiniere, an army of 81 musicians and 100 choristers will deliver moving performances of Hymn to the Fallen, Double Trouble, and the electrifying Duel of the Fates. Don’t miss out on this unique tribute to the world’s most legendary film music composer, John Williams.

A riveting orchestral experience awaits!

https://placedesarts.com/en/event/lunivers-symphonique-du-cinema-hommage-john-williams?
Movies

The Canadian behind The Flash explains what it takes to design a blockbuster

Oscar-winning production designer Paul Austerberry melded multiple universes in DC super hero film

Jackson Weaver · CBC News ·
A man in a purple gingham shirt stands in a kitchen. On the table in front of him are two Batman figurines, a toy Batman motorcycle and a large emblem of The Flash.
The Oscar-winning Canadian production designer Paul Austerberry poses with Batman and Flash memorabilia. Austerberry is one of the creative forces behind the upcoming super hero movie The Flash. (Craig Chivers/CBC)

It hasn’t been an easy journey for The Flash. The movie has been hampered by a floundering, then rebooted DC expanded cinematic universe that lags far behind Marvel’s, a heavy schedule of reshoots and a lead actor in and out of legal trouble.

But at CinemaCon film festival this week, that all faded into the background as audiences got their first preview six weeks ahead of the rest of the public. The reactions were, for the most part, glowing: some called it superb, one of DC’s best and funniest, and also one of the great all-time super hero movies.

While that’s a triumph for director Andy Muschietti, there’s another talent behind the screen — even if few are aware.

“My job is very detail oriented,” Paul Austerberry explained to CBC News. “Half the things we do, some people will see, some people won’t.”

READ MORE, watch trailer

Movies, Stop Motion

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Post-production
Expected December 2022
A darker version of the classic children's fairy tale of a wooden puppet that transforms into a real living boy.

Movies

Star Wars: Millennium Falcon Pembrokeshire exhibition to open

See the pictures and video  here. —cpl

It is the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy and capable of completing the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.

What is less well known about the Millennium Falcon is it truly was the last ship to be built at the Royal Pembroke Dockyard.

The life-size model was built in Pembroke Dock in 1979 before being shipped to movie studios

Now an exhibition will tell the story of how Han Solo’s beloved spaceship was built in an aircraft hangar in the Pembrokeshire town in spring 1979.

It will tell the story with photographs, film, models and costumes.

The project was so secret it was codenamed The Magic Roundabout, but eventually word of the “UFO” being built in the western hangar got out.

A BBC Wales crew even paid a visit to the team at Marcon Fabrications who were tasked with building the gigantic intergalactic cruiser.

The engineers normally worked for petrochemical and oil companies.

It took three months to build before being transported to Elstree Studios for production of the Oscar-winning The Empire Strikes Back.

READ MORE

Movies

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror

Nosferatu: The monster who still terrifies, 100 years on

From the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220303-nosferatu-the-monster-who-still-terrifies-100-years-on
From his shadow to his gaunt face, the vampire Count Orlok in 1922’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror remains one of film’s most spine-tingling creations. Nicholas Barber examines why.

It was exactly 100 years ago, in March 1922, that Berlin’s movers and shakers attended the premiere of FW Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony Of Horror, and saw the nightmarish Count Orlok springing bolt upright from his coffin. Those unsuspecting viewers could well have witnessed the first great jump scare in the history of horror movies. They had certainly witnessed its first great monster. An unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula – hence the Count’s name-change from Dracula to Orlok – this silent masterpiece pioneered techniques and established horror tropes that have been used ever since. But the creation of the iconic Orlok, played by Max Schreck, is its supreme achievement. He is, says Cristina Massaccesi, in her guide to Nosferatu for the Devil’s Advocates horror history series, “the Ur-Vampire, the father of all undead creatures lurking in the darkest recesses of a cinema screen”.

 He is also one of the few monsters to be instantly recognisable, even in silhouette. Murnau makes spine-tingling use of his shadow – and once you see the outline of Orlok’s domed, bald head, his pointed ears, his hunched shoulders, his stick-thin body and his snaking talons, you know who’s on the prowl. Then you see his gaunt, chalk-white face. More animal than human, Orlok has huge bushy eyebrows, sunken eyes, a beaky nose, and a rodent’s incisors in the centre of his mouth (far odder than the sharp canines possessed by later screen vampires). As Kevin Jackson says in Constellation of Genius, his survey of 1922 in the arts, Orlok “must be the strangest and most hideous leading man in all cinema”.

Count Orlok was the distinctive vision of producer Albin Grau – and his original sketches are even creepier than in the finished film (Credit: Getty Images)
Count Orlok was the distinctive vision of producer Albin Grau – and his original sketches are even creepier than in the finished film (Credit: Getty Images)

Much of the credit for this strangeness should go to the producer of Nosferatu, Albin Grau. A student of the occult, he wrote an article claiming that, during World War One, a Serbian peasant had told him of his own encounters with vampires: “Before this wretched war, I was over in Romania,” said the peasant, allegedly. “You can laugh about this superstition, but I swear on the mother of God, that I myself knew that horrible thing of seeing an undead… or Nosferatu, as vampires are called over there.” In 1921, Grau set up an independent studio, Prana Film, but he also worked closely with Murnau as the designer of Nosferatu. With no earlier vampire films to copy or to react against, Grau had to dream up something new – and his sketches of Orlok, a spindly, demonic alien with glowing eyes, are even creepier than the version in the finished film.

READ the full article: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220303-nosferatu-the-monster-who-still-terrifies-100-years-on

 Still creepy, after all these years! Watch it on Youtube:

Movies

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim

Release Date announced for LoTR: The War of the Rohirrim

Read the full story, https://variety.com/2022/film/news/lord-of-the-rings-the-war-of-the-rohirrim-release-date-1235181646/

“The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” — the original anime feature from New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. Animation — is set for release on April 12, 2024 from Warner Bros. Pictures, Variety can report exclusively.

Set roughly two centuries before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings,” “The War of the Rohirrim” will explore the exploits of Helm Hammerhand, the King of Rohan, and the creation of Helm’s Deep, the stronghold featured in Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.”

Kenji Kamiyama (the TV series “Blade Runner: Black Lotus” and “Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex”) is directing with “Blade Runner: Black Lotus” producer Joseph Chou through his anime studio Sola Entertainment, which has been working on the film since it was announced in June 2021.

 

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Movies

How World War II shaped ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’

This is a really interesting article, especially following Keith’s presentation at our Dec 12th meeting. NBC will be showing “It’s a Wonderful LIfe” on Christmas Eve.  –Cathy 

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Actor Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey, hugs his daughter, in a still from director Frank Capra's classic film, 'It's a Wonderful Life.'
Actor Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey, hugs his daughter, in a still from director Frank Capra’s classic film, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’

By Rachael Scott, CNN

Updated 11:29 AM ET, Sat December 19, 2020

(CNN)It’s George Bailey’s crucial moment. Disheveled and desperate, he offers up a Hail-Mary prayer to a God he’s not sure is listening: “I’m not a praying man, but if you’re up there and you can hear me, show me the way. I’m at the end of my rope.”

Actor Jimmy Stewarts’ emotion is palpable in this scene, one that acclaimed actress Carol Burnett called one of the finest pieces of acting ever on the screen. What may have escaped audiences watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” over 70 years after its making, is that the tears running down Stewart’s face are real, the actor later shared.

Stewart had just returned home from serving as a flight leader in World War II and this 1946 film was his first movie since witnessing the horrors of war. With this postwar mentality, Stewart and director Frank Capra take a film titled “It’s a Wonderful Life” and antithetically crescendo into a failed suicide attempt.

READ more –-this is a really interesting article, especially following Keith’s presentation at our Dec 12th meeting. This scene was filmed in one take, the tears were not originally part of the script.

Movies

Monster Hunter reviewed in Montreal Gazette

A WHOLE LOT OF SOUND AND FURY Monster Hunter a noisy survivor tale that leaves the viewer wanting more

  • Montreal Gazette, CHRIS KNIGHT

SONY PICTURES Milla Jovovich, left, and Tony Jaa star in Monster Hunter, a dull and familiar tale of survival in a sci-fi wasteland.

In the latest video-game-inspired shoot-’em-up from director Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil), Milla Jovovich spends the first 30 or so minutes being targeted by a variety of giant dragon-esque armoured beasties that travel beneath the desert sand.

She stars as Artemis, a U.S. solder who has somehow got whisked into an alternate reality by a giant electrical storm. It’s a bit of a Wizard of Oz scenario, if the flying monkeys were the size of airplanes. Also, in place of Munchkins, giant spiders.

Artemis loses touch with her fellow soldiers early in the confusion, but picks up a companion played by Tony Jaa, who somehow combines the heart, brains and intellect of Dorothy’s companions from that other movie. Since neither of them speaks the other’s language, the conversation is modest, consisting mostly of nouns — “Chocolate.” “Velcro.” “Bait.” — and the occasional scream of pain or fear. All Artemis wants is to get home, which in this case requires a visit to a place called the Sky Tower. It looks as if someone had moved into Mordor at the end of The Lord of the Rings and then really let the place go.

The special effects are decent, and fans of the video game will either be amused or horrified to see what the movie has done to Meowscular Chef, a sentient feline pirate and cook. Also in the cast is Ron Perlman, whose unique bone structure needs no computer enhancement to make him look otherworldly. His character informs Artemis that he’s been studying her language, so well that he even uses English slang and contractions. (“S’matta” for “What’s the matter?” etc.)

In our own alternate universe (i.e., a world without COVID-19), Monster Hunter would have opened in September and probably have been forgotten by now. Dec. 18 was the original release date for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, another science-fiction story featuring huge subterranean predators.

I fear that between the ones in Monster Hunter and the recent sand-worm-type creatures in The Mandalorian, Dune is going to look like an imitator by the time it finally comes out next Christmas.

But that’s likely to be the only comparison between Dune and this noisy, dull survival story. Monster Hunter rambles on to a final act that will only surprise those who have never played a video game or watched a movie based on one. And it ends on a huge tease, like a game from another era asking if you’d like to insert another quarter to continue.

Thanks, but I’m out.

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