Thom and I went to see the extended edition of The Two Towers last night. I have to say I like Fellowship better; I feel it’s more textured—though yes, I realize all three movies are to be taken as one whole narrative. All that war and violence in Towers gets me unsettled. It’s not so much the gore itself; it’s just that there’s so much of it, for endless minutes. For some reason, with so much large-scale violence taking place on screen, my mind starts to wander on to deeper, darker matters like what brings people to such anger?; survival instincts may be innate, but is evil?; and so on, to what I realize now is the most chilling question, am I capable of killing someone? And then the credits roll and the lights come up. Anyway.
(I just noticed that the Times review notes, “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned) for pounding, long scenes of sword and flaming-catapult action and unsettling mystic evil.” Ha. Indeed.)
So I told myself I’d finish reading The Return of the King before seeing the movie. I still have a good ways to go, but hopefully I’ll get it done before Thom and I return to the Uptown next week. Speaking of the Tolkien oeuvre, the Times has a special Lord of the Rings section, which includes archival book reviews, by Auden and others.
Lastly, check out the Jan. 2004 issue of Vanity Fair for a cover story on Viggo Mortensen. I never really had a thing for him as Aragorn, but all clean-cut I think he looks really good.
Ok, hon, cue the Twilight Zone theme again… I was just exploring that Times special section over lunch apparently as you were drafting and posting this.
Just so that we know that we actually are two separate people, though, I prefer the outdoorsy Aragorn Viggo to the clean-cut VF Viggo. Either way, he’s another attractive 40-something, eh, what?