the corner office

I'm an open-minded kind of bloke. I've seen some weird stuff in my time and done some off-the-wall things myself. But tonight I saw someone who took the cat and fscked it so badly that the inhabitants of Middle Earth could probably hear the poor thing wailing.

Ronwen & I went off to Cresta this evening. Quick munch at the new Dros (so-so food), and then went to watch Return of the King, for the second time. Amazing movie, enjoying, great, fun, etc etc. And then, at the end, when they crown Aragorn, some spiked-peroxide-blonde chap, who'd taken a seat way down in the front row of the theatre, STOOD UP and raised his arms to the heavens. He then stood rigid, arms a-praisin', with the sniggering and general mirth in the movie theatre slowly growing, until the point where everyone (on-screen) bows to the hobbits, whereupon he bowed as well, throwing his arms forward and resting his head upon the cheap popcorn covered carpet, prostrated before the celluloid halflings on their perch atop Minas Tirith.

As if that wasn't bad enough, when we got to the harbour scene at the end, our Tolkein fan sat with his arms raised again, hands and fingers lattice-crossed above his head in a real pretty elves-meet-Irene-Cara pose. He didn't take them down until the ship sailed out of the harbour. That's quite a long bloody scene.

On the one raised-up hand, good luck to him and the voices in his head, but on the other Dear-Lord-Frodo hand, I couldn't help but think that this attention-seeking mullet was just plain inconsiderate. No matter how hardcore you're trying to be, why ruin it for everyone else? Sure, it was a good chuckle, but it also punctured the magic. Assuming you could ignore this fool to the bottom-right of the screen, the inevitable sniggers and unrest ruined those scenes and the entire mood for the last part of the movie.

I'm sure he'll sleep soundly knowing that he's proved to the world that he's more of a fan than anyone else.

As for the movie itself, it rocked as much the second time around as it did the first. There were a number of scenes (apart from the crowning and harbour scenes, which I can't remember much of), that I didn't even remember from the first viewing. With a more critical eye, certain parts of the story grate a little more, while other clever, subtle points became apparent. I heard mention that the extended version would be more than 5 hours long. That would be great: there are certainly a few places in the story where things could be fleshed out. First time around you're so busy following the story you don't notice, but this time I noticed a few places where the dialog felt a little choppy.

Once again, the special effects were a marvel to see. Sod becoming a fireman, when I grow up I wanna work on the kind of software they used to make that movie.