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darchildre) wrote2012-10-10 09:58 pm
darchildre) wrote2012-10-10 09:58 pm
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Things:
- I am mostly better! Not entirely - I still have a bit of a cough and more mucous than I'd like - but mostly. So that's good.
- I put the BBC radio production of LotR on my mp3 player today and started listening to it for the first time in a long time. It is still amazing and wonderful. It occurred to me today, as I was listening to it, that it was my very first introduction to audio drama. I was probably...11 or 12 when I first listened to it. I'd listened to audiobooks before - I nearly wore out my library's copy of Dragonsong, for example - and one day, the library had this set labeled The Two Towers. Which was (and probably still is) my favorite of the books in the trilogy*, so I snatched it and took it home. And it had sound effects! And music! And different actors for all the different parts! I hadn't realized you could do things like that in an audiobook** - it was seriously a revelation. I listened to The Two Towers and The Return of the King (the library never had Fellowship) so many times that there are entire sections of the book that I am not capable of reading without hearing those actors' voices in my head. It is still, for my money, the best adaptation of LotR there is. And although there are a couple actors I might quibble about (I've never really liked their Bilbo and I have reservations about Aragorn), it has the very best Sam. Which is, of course, the most important thing.
- Oh man, it has been years since I actually read those books, I should totally do that. I should buy it for my kindle - my copy is one of those all-in-one omnibus things which is too heavy to carry around. Apparently they are including materials from the appendices in the Hobbit movie? I should reacquaint myself with those.
- Tonight was movie night at Bainbridge. We watched The Wolf Man, which I had not seen in years. I have never been a big Wolf Man fan, I must admit. I do, however, very much like Claude Rains and he is lovely in it. And the yak hair is still hilarious, and I still find it charming that after his first transformation, Larry Talbot apparently decides to change his clothes before stalking the moors in search of prey. And I had fun during the discussion afterwards, because we got to talk about how much werewolf "lore" comes from this film, and about Werewolf of London (which is neat, because it was made before this movie and so doesn't use a lot of that "lore"), and about Universal monster films in general. There was a moment of I Have Opinions, when one of the guys who runs the movie night said that he thought that Dracula was the best of the Universal monster movies, because that is obviously wrong. Now, I love Dracula as I'm sure we all know, but I am fully willing to admit that it's not actually what you could call a good movie. The Transylvania bits are awesome and Mr Lugosi is lovely throughout, but everything that happens in London is so boring. And also incoherent and nonsensical. (What happens to vampire!Lucy, you guys? We never find out.) I vote Bride of Frankenstein for best Universal monster movie, but it's possible that I'm biased. What do you guys think?
*It has the Rohirrim, and Saruman, and Wormtongue, and the Ents, and Faramir, and the Uruk-hai, and Theoden, and Shelob, and Gandalf's return, and the Dead Marshes, and Shadowfax, and Eowyn, and did I mention the folk of Rohan? Look, I was a proto-heathen kid who was still really into horses the first time I read these books. The Rohirrim are the best thing ever. Anyway, Fellowship takes a while to get going (I used to skip straight to the Council of Elrond and go from there, after the first few times I read them) and Return is the depressing one, whereas Two Towers is nothing but awesome.
**Not that it's properly an audiobook, but as a tiny person, I did not really know that.
- I am mostly better! Not entirely - I still have a bit of a cough and more mucous than I'd like - but mostly. So that's good.
- I put the BBC radio production of LotR on my mp3 player today and started listening to it for the first time in a long time. It is still amazing and wonderful. It occurred to me today, as I was listening to it, that it was my very first introduction to audio drama. I was probably...11 or 12 when I first listened to it. I'd listened to audiobooks before - I nearly wore out my library's copy of Dragonsong, for example - and one day, the library had this set labeled The Two Towers. Which was (and probably still is) my favorite of the books in the trilogy*, so I snatched it and took it home. And it had sound effects! And music! And different actors for all the different parts! I hadn't realized you could do things like that in an audiobook** - it was seriously a revelation. I listened to The Two Towers and The Return of the King (the library never had Fellowship) so many times that there are entire sections of the book that I am not capable of reading without hearing those actors' voices in my head. It is still, for my money, the best adaptation of LotR there is. And although there are a couple actors I might quibble about (I've never really liked their Bilbo and I have reservations about Aragorn), it has the very best Sam. Which is, of course, the most important thing.
- Oh man, it has been years since I actually read those books, I should totally do that. I should buy it for my kindle - my copy is one of those all-in-one omnibus things which is too heavy to carry around. Apparently they are including materials from the appendices in the Hobbit movie? I should reacquaint myself with those.
- Tonight was movie night at Bainbridge. We watched The Wolf Man, which I had not seen in years. I have never been a big Wolf Man fan, I must admit. I do, however, very much like Claude Rains and he is lovely in it. And the yak hair is still hilarious, and I still find it charming that after his first transformation, Larry Talbot apparently decides to change his clothes before stalking the moors in search of prey. And I had fun during the discussion afterwards, because we got to talk about how much werewolf "lore" comes from this film, and about Werewolf of London (which is neat, because it was made before this movie and so doesn't use a lot of that "lore"), and about Universal monster films in general. There was a moment of I Have Opinions, when one of the guys who runs the movie night said that he thought that Dracula was the best of the Universal monster movies, because that is obviously wrong. Now, I love Dracula as I'm sure we all know, but I am fully willing to admit that it's not actually what you could call a good movie. The Transylvania bits are awesome and Mr Lugosi is lovely throughout, but everything that happens in London is so boring. And also incoherent and nonsensical. (What happens to vampire!Lucy, you guys? We never find out.) I vote Bride of Frankenstein for best Universal monster movie, but it's possible that I'm biased. What do you guys think?
*It has the Rohirrim, and Saruman, and Wormtongue, and the Ents, and Faramir, and the Uruk-hai, and Theoden, and Shelob, and Gandalf's return, and the Dead Marshes, and Shadowfax, and Eowyn, and did I mention the folk of Rohan? Look, I was a proto-heathen kid who was still really into horses the first time I read these books. The Rohirrim are the best thing ever. Anyway, Fellowship takes a while to get going (I used to skip straight to the Council of Elrond and go from there, after the first few times I read them) and Return is the depressing one, whereas Two Towers is nothing but awesome.
**Not that it's properly an audiobook, but as a tiny person, I did not really know that.