Faulty Electrics

[poliphilo]

The thing that was wrong with the boiler was the same thing that was wrong with it in January- the electrics had been flooded with some sort of light, oily, slightly sticky, liquid stuff. The guy in January was mystified. The guy yesterday said it was caused by "the coating coming off the wires". He replaced a part- not the part the other guy replaced- and things are working again.

I watched bits of The Fellowship of the Rings yesterday evening. I don't like it any better than I ever did. Tolkien's book is about the industrialisation of the Midlands- with occasional flashbacks to the First World War- and is the product of a peculiarly English, conservative-romantic imagination.  Peter Jackson doesn't understand the first thing about it- and his film is a coarse, empty, dim-witted travesty. 

Comments

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Criticising Jackson's movies? Aren't we the brave one.

I think WWI had somewhat more influence, but otherwise tend to agree. Jackson's elves are horrid. Gimli the Dwarf is reduced to a pathetic, two-dimensional thing, embarrassing to watch and fit for little more than comic relief. By the end of the third film, I began to cringe every time Sam and Frodo appeared on the screen.

I also doubt we could have got a better movie and think it could have been far, far worse. I liked the costuming and set design. The combat choreography was done rather well, I thought.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

The interior set design was good, but the setting itself was painful: Tolkien's Middle Earth to me was British, and the landscape wasn't so... New Zealandy in my mind. Given his attention to describing the land as they traversed it, it was particularly awful to me to see it look... well, nothing like he'd described. :/

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Having never been to either New Zealand or Britain, I don't think that was a problem for me.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Jackson doesn't have Tolkien's feel for landscape. The landscapes in the movie, though often magnificent, are generic and unloved.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

What can I say? I think there are some good performances. I think Ian McKellen did himself proud. I suppose I have to applaud the ambition...