Fun to follow the epic battle between Snow White and Bilbo Baggins raging in a hashtag war now on Twitter for the  MTV Movie Award for Best Hero 2013. 

Here is the reason to #votebilbo

Lord of the Rings - The Chat Version

We all have our fandoms. LOTR is ours. Yahoo is introducing their new email/chat interface.

Bored....nothing to do...

So what did you do on your Christmas break when it was cold outside?

Miss(ed) Manners recreated the Battle of Pelennor Fields and the White City of Minas Tirith with...gummi bears and candy. Check their site for detailed photographs and a link to last year's effort, the Battle of Helm's Deep.



No gingerbread in sight.

Music: Lord of the Rings

It only took a few notes and people came running from every corner of the house to listen to this podcast about the LOTR film score.


A small bit of fun: Some interesting alternate versions of Howard Shore's themes, Peter Jackson's meddling and more information on the book about Shore and his magnificent film score.

Like the folks in the podcast, I wonder if this family's fascination with this subject will ever end?

Nope.



Film Score Monthly Podcast.

Anniversary: Downfall of Sauron

The Downfall of Sauron, March 25th

The Tolkien Society had many reasons for choosing this anniversary to celebrate Tolkien Reading Day, but I like this one best:

It is a date of renewal: the change from the Third Age to the Fourth, the change from fear and oppression to new hope. Re-reading Tolkien (or, for many, reading him for the first time) will be an act of renewal and refreshening their appreciation of his works.

Sounds like Spring!

Composer: Howard Shore

Howard Shore talks about his music and the ongoing work of preparing the complete recordings of the Lord of the Rings score:

CC: Now Doug Adams notes on the score reveals a level of depth that even those who have listened to film music for a long time might not pick up on...not at least until they read the notes and listen to complete recordings. Now you must have had this intricacy in mind as you were writing the music for the films all along.

HS: Yes. This is because the composition is based on Tolkien and the intricacy, the complexity of it is due to the complexity of the book. Even I didn't really see it all because it was like I was looking at in very small pieces. It wasn't until I assembled it all that I began to understand how it all related, which is what Doug's book is about. It's like we are discovering it now more than when I was actually writing it! It wasn't that it was perfectly planned. It's because the composition is describing Tolkien's world. It's inherent, then, that the music has the same complexity that Tolkien put into the book. It wouldn't be written correctly to his book if it were otherwise.

A very interesting interview

This music has been the soundtrack for my family's life since 2001. Shore is ready to start working on The Hobbit if they ever untangle the money issues.

Tip from Petrified Truth