On the job with Ellen Dubin as Jeri Slate in The Collector. Photo copyright of Wanstrom and Assoc.

She has helped expose alien conspiracies, risked her life to battle forest fires and even reigned as the Pope, all fictionally, of course. So who better than actress Ellen Dubin to take on the forces of darkness in the Canadian-made supernatural TV drama The Collector. As reporter Jeri Slate, she takes a keen interest in Morgan Pym, a onetime German monk who, centuries ago, made a deal with The Devil to collect the souls of others in exchange for 10 years with his one true love. In the present day, he spends 48 hours with each of his employer’s intended “victims,” helping them seek redemption. If they fail to do so, that person’s soul ends up going to Hell. Coincidentally, it was Dubin’s work in another Sci-Fi/Fantasy series that helped her get the role of Jeri Slate.

“I’d done a guest-spot on an episode of a show called First Wave, and the producer of that, Larry Sugar, also produced The Collector,” says the actress. “He remembered my ‘quiet strength,’ I think is what he said, from that episode, so when I read for The Collector I sort of had a leg up already because of that performance. You never know when one Sci-Fi show will lead to another one. I was doing a TV movie-of-the-week playing a firefighter and I auditioned for the Jeri Slate role during my lunch hour. I went in with soot and dirt all over my face and wearing a firefighter-type outfit. Larry asked me to do a crying scene for him, so I did, and then I left and subsequently ended up booking the job.

“Sometimes I guess it helps when you’re working on one project and you audition for another one because you don’t have time to think or get nervous or stressed out. My only worry was about making it back on time to shoot my first scene for this movie-of-the-week.”

Behind-the-scenes with The Collector's Chris Kramer (Morgan Pym) and Ellen Dubin. Photo copyright of Wanstrom and Assoc.

The actress makes her debut in The Collector in the first season opener, The Rapper, in which Morgan (Chris Kramer) must convince his client, a rap star (Adrian Holmes), that his past 10 years of success carries a steep price tag. Besides being a print journalist, Jeri Slate is also a widow and the single parent of an autistic son, Gabriel (Aidan Drummond). Juggling her character’s personal and professional lives provided Dubin with a variety of acting challenges.

“A number of my character’s scenes were done talking on the telephone, and those are always challenging when you have to do a lot of solo acting,” she notes. “I also worked a great deal with Aidan Drummond, a wonderful young actor who played Jeri’s son. I watched him grow from six years old to eight, and while I obviously couldn’t replace his real mom, I became his on-set mom. I’m not a parent in real life, but I am quite maternal, so I always felt very protective of Aidan and I think it came across in our work. He has a great sense of humor and the two of us humored each other,” jokes Dubin.

“In our first episode there was so much excitement with the cast and crew as far as starting something fresh. There’s the rush of adrenaline that carries you through the work of meeting new people and creating onscreen chemistry as well as relationships with characters, some that you’ve supposedly known for a long time. The first scene we shot was outside and it was one of those walks and talks that you see on many TV shows. I just recall being so nervous about making sure I could remember my lines and walk and talk at the same time,” laughs the actress.

A family portrait - Jeri and her son Gabriel (Aiden Drummond). Photo copyright of Wanstrom and Assoc.

“If I’m not mistaken, we didn’t actually shoot the episode that aired first. We did, I believe, either episode three or six, and by doing that, you get to create a certain tone. So by the time you shoot episode one, viewers watch it and go, ‘Oh, OK, they [the characters] sort of have their sea-legs already.’ So I think that was such a smart thing for the producers to do.”

Having been around for a while, Morgan knows how to handle himself when people start asking questions about him and his otherworldly dealings. At the same time, Jeri Slate is certainly no cub reporter and is determined to unravel the mystery surrounding him. This creates an interesting dynamic between the two.

“My character and Chris Kramer’s are caught up in a game of cat and mouse,” explains Dubin. “The audience doesn’t know exactly what their relationship is, and I still get letters asking, ‘Were they lovers, or did they hate one another?’ They weren’t lovers, but sometimes in a show where your characters are adversarial, it comes across as sensual and sexual because of the tension between them. In The Collector, though, it wasn’t meant to be that way at all because there were other women in the show that were Morgan’s love interests.

Ellen Dubin, Aidan Drummond and Chris Kramer. Photo copyright of Wanstrom and Assoc.

“Having said that, I find playing adversarial roles fascinating, and it just sort of happened with me and Chris. We both have a mischievous quality to our acting, which sparked our onscreen chemistry, and I think audiences responded to that. They seemed to enjoy watching our characters hitting that [proverbial] ball back and forth over the net. There’s a mystery to that relationship, and one that is intrinsic to the show’s overall plot. What’s with these two? Are they linked to the past? Is she reading his mind? Is he reading her mind? What do they truly know about each other? The fact that it wasn’t black and white between Jeri and Morgan is what really contributed to the viewers liking to see them together.”

When asked if she has a favorite episode from the first season of The Collector, one immediately comes to Dubin’s mind. “It’s The Medium, directed by Holly Dale and guest-starring Teryl Rothery [Dr. Janet Fraiser] from Stargate SG-1,” she says. “Teryl plays a medium and the story focuses a lot on peoples’ deaths and connections to the past. I thought it was really well-done, especially with regard to what other people yearned for and their lost loves as well as Jeri’s dead husband Danny’s relationship with their child. You actually saw some of my character’s vulnerability when she’s looking at old pictures of her husband, played by Andrew Jackson, and, again, the audience is wondering what’s up with him and Gabriel. Chris Kramer and I also have a neat confrontational scene about the supernatural in that episode, so it’s definitely my favorite.”

After months of trying to figure out just who Morgan Pym is, Jeri Slate’s curiosity about him intensifies, and understandably so, in the second season of The Collector. “Every time Morgan is in the room something weird happens,” notes Dubin, “so the hairs on the back of my character’s neck are on end and you begin to see the relationship between the two of them further develop. She’s starting to get close to the truth that something is not right with him and that we’re dealing with darker issues in terms of the supernatural. Jeri doesn’t know if it’s The Devil, Hell or what exactly; she can’t put her finger on it.

Jeri Slate follows up another lead on just who Morgan Pym really is. Photo copyright of Wanstrom and Assoc.

“The relationship between Jeri and her little boy changes as well in the second season. Gabriel is becoming a little bit undone. He’s autistic, but that doesn’t have anything to do with it. You see him spending a lot of time alone looking thorough his mother’s papers and old newspaper clippings. Gabriel is doing some odd things that most kids wouldn’t be doing, unless they were ‘possessed.’ As a result of all this, Jeri is becoming undone, too. She’s a strong woman in terms of knowing what she wants and going after it, but she begins acting a little nutty. Jeri starts to neglect her motherly duties and becomes possessed – excuse the pun – pretty much 24/7 by what’s going on with Morgan.”

The game of cat and mouse between Jeri and Morgan takes on a new dimension in season two’s The Campaign Manager, which presented Dubin with the opportunity to really sink her teeth into the story. “First of all, the episode was challenging because a good portion of it was filmed outside and we were dealing with weather issues,” recalls the actress.

“In this story I’m constantly chasing Chris Kramer’s character and getting very close to the fact that there’s something really not right with this man. Jeri is starting to realize that Morgan may have ties to The Devil, and the two of them have this long and slippery chase scene during a cold and rainy Vancouver day. It’s a very interesting story about politics as well as religion and what people will do to make that deal with The Devil and have a fabulous life for 10 years before things start to become undone.

A shot from "The Campaign Manager." Photo copyright of Wanstrom and Assoc.

“So everyone is going a little crazy, and the episode was an important one for me because I was nominated for a Canadian Gemini award, which is the equivalent of a U.S. Emmy. My character has a big emotional story arc from absolute sorrow to, ‘I’ve got to get to the bottom of this.’ Jeri becomes very driven and will stop at nothing to get to the truth that she’s been searching for.”

Although her character’s story arc came to an end in season two of The Collector, Dubin went on to appear in the show’s third and final year. “You see me playing versions of my character in a kind of virtual reality flashback episode,” she says. “Then I play another major character in season three. It’s actually quite brilliant on the parts of Jon Cooksey and Ali Matheson [series creators/writers/executive producers] as well as the other producers of the show when it comes to what they wrote for me in season three. Just when you think it’s all over, it’s not.

“I like eclectic, offbeat types of stories and in this case they made really good use of my talents. I mean, yes, this is a supernatural drama, but there is also a Law & Order quality to my character in terms of her being real. Jeri is not whacked-out and over-the-top. This is a very real woman experiencing real situations and being a single mother in a real world, even though supernatural things are occurring. But in season three you see a different edge to her and in some cases a more comedic side, too.”

Jeri and her son Gabriel share a quiet moment. Photo copyright of Wanstrom and Assoc.

The Collector may have ended production, but thanks to it being aired in 65 countries, Dubin still receives fan mail about her work in it. “I hear from fans in places like Serbia, China, Japan, there’s even a Russian fan club for the show,” enthuses the actress. “Some people don’t know it was cancelled, so they ask me about season four and what’s going on with my character. I like having fans in other countries because it reminds you of the power of television. It’s not just a North American thing. It’s wonderful to hear different viewpoints, and yet there are a lot of universal aspects of the show that appeal to everyone.”

Like her Jeri Slate character, Dubin does not like to sit still for very long when it comes to her work. The actress recently completed shooting another TV movie-of-the-week, Second Chances (a.k.a. Lesson of Fear), starring opposite Melissa George (Alias), and is about to start filming a new web-based series called The Resolve. Dubin also just finished doing voiceovers for a major video war game in which she plays multiple roles.

“There are some great women characters in this game, and I modelled two of mine after Eartha Kitt and Julie Newmar [Catwoman] in the old Batman TV series and gave them a purr-like quality,” she says. “They’re members of this tribe, and the other voice I did was closer to Cate Blanchett’s character [Galadriel] from The Lord of the Rings. So I went from a sort of dark and sexy purr to more of an ethereal, dreamy, mysterious type of character.

Ellen Dubin is all decked out for the Gemini Awards. Photo copyright of Wanstrom and Assoc.

“It was a real privilege to work on something like this. It’s a big game and my first foray into the world of voiceovers for video games. It’s a very tough market to break into in Los Angeles, so I was thrilled to be a part of it and I look forward to being able to talk about the game when it comes out in 2011. So I’ve recently had the chance to play three very different women, all of whom are strong ladies in their own right, which is pretty cool.”

Season two of The Collector was released earlier this week in Canada (Region 1 – US compatible) and can be ordered on-line from Amazon.ca. It can also be purchased at the Canadian branches of the following retail outlets – Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Future Shop, HMV, Indigo and London Drugs.

Steve Eramo

As noted above, all photos courtesy of and copyright of Wanstrom and Assoc., so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

First published on channel4.com/film

In which I peer into an alternate dimension for a look at the Lord Of The Rings films that might have been and never were. Starring John Lennon as Gollum, Xena Warrior Princess as Galadriel and Sean Connery as Gandalf

Shit artwork rule #1: Never apologise. Never explain.

1. The Tolkien Approved Version

As far back as 1957, just a couple of years after the publication of his best-selling fantasy epic, film folk were approaching Professor JRR Tolkien with the offer to take the One Ring on an epic journey to the silver screen. Among the first was a proposal from actor and writer Forrest J Ackerman, Morton Grady Zimmerman, and producer Al Brodax, suggesting a melange of animation and live action. The professor loved the concept art but wasn’t keen on the meagre paycheque and the project never came to be.

2. The Ringo Gamgee Version

An unlikely quartet also keen on bringing tales of Middle-earth to a screaming audience of fans were none other than the mop tops themselves, who wanted to do a live action version. In this Beatles incarnation, Paul McCartney would have been tempted by the ring as Frodo Baggins, Ringo Starr was all set to play faithful gardener Sam Gamgee, George Harrison was to don Gandalf’s beard leaving John Lennon to whisper “my precioussssss” and skulk around dank caves. Unfortunately for the world of comedy the plans came to nothing, and rumours that Yoko was to have played the Gollum-enslaving Sauron are unconfirmed.

3. The Stanley Kubrick Version

Legend has it that Kubrick considered adapting ‘The Lord Of The Rings’, but rejected the challenge as too epic. That’s the Stanley Kubrick who made Spartacus and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

4. The Sexed Up Version

Nothing to do with Alistair Campbell or dodgy dossiers, this: in the 1970s. Excalibur director John Boorman spoke with Tolkien and United Artists about a single-film version that saw the races of elves, men and dwarves get racier. The script by Boorman and Excalibur’s writer Rospo Pallenberg was a slash fan fiction aficionado’s dream, and saw Frodo get it on with Galadriel, and Aragorn paired with Eowyn, to whom he doled out a dose of kingly sexual healing on the battlefield. Arwen wouldn’t care: in this version, she’s an ethereal sprite more akin to Ariel in The Tempest than elven babe.
5. The Miramax Version

The first studio that hobbit-a-like director Peter Jackson managed to get interested in his version of events was Miramax, whose insistence on a one-film treatment looks laughable in the face of the over 11 hours runtime the combined extended editions of all three films would eventually clock up. Other Miramax-friendly tweaks included Arwen kicking ass at the Battle Of Helm’s Deep, much to the scorn of fans who frothed furiously over a leaked version of this treatment online. Peter Jackson then pitched a two film version to New Line who insisted it had to be three films – and the rest is film history. Except for the casting…

6. The Wizards That Never Were

It might be hard to imagine anyone other than Ian McKellen in the role now, but at one point, Gandalf could have been anybody’s. Actors who wanted but didn’t get the role included Saruman himself, Christopher Lee, and John Astin, who persuaded his step-son Sean to go for the role of Sam. In increasing order of bizarreness, other actors in the frame included Bernard Hill (who played Theoden), Sam Neill, and everyone’s favourite Timelord, Tom Baker. And James Bond himself – Sean Connery to you – declined an offer to play the role due to “not understanding the story”, while Patrick McGoohan knocked back the chance to battle Balrogs due to ill-health. Had Christopher Lee’s bid for Gandalf proven successful, Peter Jackson was keen on Tim Curry, Jeremy Irons or Malcolm McDowell for the role of treacherous Saruman, but there is no truth in internet gossip that Gordon Brown was approached for the role of Radagast.

7. Oh! You Pretty Elves

Orlando Bloom auditioned for the role of Boromir’s brother Faramir before he’d even graduated. As we know, he didn’t get the role. In a faintly excessive display of beginner’s luck the British drama student instead landed the bigger and way cooler part of Legolas instead. But far weirder alternative castings are a-foot in the land of the elves: none other than Labyrinth’s Goblin King, Mr David Bowie, was said to be keen on playing Lord Elrond, while Peter Jackson originally wanted Xena Warrior Princess aka Lucy Lawless for the role of Galadriel and Tarantino’s muse Uma Thurman as Arwen.

8. The Stuart Townsend Version

Although Viggo Mortensen’s performance was perhaps the most successful in the trilogy, Aragorn was the most problematic role to cast, with filming famously beginning with another actor in the role. Poor Stuart Townsend was ditched for being “too young” a few days into the shoot, something you might have thought they could have figured out earlier, especially since Peter Jackson’s first two choices for the role, Daniel Day-Lewis and Russell Crowe, are notably more in the Mortensen mould than Townsend.

9. The Donnie Darko Version

If the idea of Stuart Townsend as Aragorn seems weird, then how about Donnie Darko as Frodo? Jake Gyllenhaal auditioned for the role but we presume he was no match for Elijah Wood’s tactic of dressing as Frodo and making an audition tape that screamed “fanboy”.

10. The Authentic Dwarf Version

While we know and love John Rhys-Davies as Gimli, he originally auditioned for the role of Denethor, which would have left the part of feistiest dwarf in the Fellowship clear for a real small person, Warwick Davis, who was keen to play the part. As was Timothy Spall, who we don’t doubt would have done a cracking job if he could have fitted it around work on a certain other massive fantasy franchise.

11. The British Version

Originally, Peter Jackson planned to hire exclusively British actors for the roles of the main four hobbits, but he only got two in the end, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan. However, in a rare break from casting trends on Lord Of The Rings, Ian Holm was always Peter Jackson’s first choice to play the hobbit that started it all, Bilbo Baggins.

12. The Even Longer Version

Those who complain of the length of these films should thank their lucky stars they’re not longer. The original cut of The Fellowship Of The Ring ran to four hours and thirty minutes, don’t you know. And while The Return Of The King is famed – and in some quarters reviled – for its seemingly eternal parade of endings, if Jackson had worked to his original plan, there would have been even more of them. Scenes showing the eventual fates of Gimli and Legolas were shot and were to have been voiced over by Galadriel, before someone somewhere realised that you can have too much of a good thing.

Is a turd still a turd if you know it will be a turd?

I guess so.

I read Green Rider by Kristen Britain about a year ago and its sequel has been standing in my bookshelf for a while. So far I was afraid to touch it; after all bad writing might prove to be contagious, and I didn’t want to risk it while Express Delivery was still in the works. But now, in the lull between books, I have found myself once again in the mood for something… well… turdy.

First Riders Call picks up about a year after the story of the first book ends. For all intents and purposes it might be ten years or twenty, or even a prequel, seeing as almost all the character relationships are reset to zero. To be easy on the readers that are new to the series, I suspect. Personally, I don’t pick up a book unless I’m certain it is either a standalone or the start of a series. Readers Golden Rule #2.

But not to worry, everything will return to normal after a few hundred pages of headless chicken behaviour by our heroine, Karigan G’ladheon. Pardon, Galadriel. Erm… Galadheon, I mean.

The book’s originality is mind-numbing.

And don’t get me started on the Elves. Elf. Gargh! Elt, I mean. There. Tall, pale, forest dwellers. Shy and elusive. Users of earth magic. Wear pearly white armour and unable to bear the touch of iron. Ring a bell? Yes? Thought so. You’re a clever one, aren’t you?

Unlike our heroine. Karigan Galadriel herself never fails to stun with her razor-sharp powers of reasoning. The silly girl will gladly mistake a sailboat for a chicken if it helps to draw out the plot for another twenty pages. And I pray to God that the never comes up with the idea of setting up a relationship counselling service. That would surely mean the end of the world as we know it. Humanity would cease to reproduce, that is for sure. Miss Britain seems determined to make the inevitable, painful love story last until the final page of the series.  If we find the courage to read it, that is.

Also, and I really need to say this, sorry: if I have to read one more scene, in any book other than the Bible (which I’m highly unlikely to ever read, period) in which a Solomonic judgement is passed off as the next best idea since the invention of the cheesegrater, I’ll go mad. And then I’ll find the author and strangle him, slowly.

Now, any last words? Yes. If you’re in the mood for an easy read, something that will slip by your eyes in a heartbeat – reading light, so to speak, no intellect calories attached – then go ahead. First Rider’s Call is the book for you. If not you might find hitting yourself over the head with a cricket bat to be more pleasant and a better use of your time.

One of the things I love the most about traveling is the people.

One of the things I hate the most about traveling is the people.

Having nothing better to do on a Sunday morning, I decided to enjoy the cold front that I brought with me from Dallas to Houston. I parked myself at a corner starbucks and settled in with my copy of Tolkien’s masterpiece Lord of Charrings “The Lord of the Rings”. I have a tendency to get completely immersed in my book, and just as I burst into flaming glory proclaiming

“In place of a dark lord you shall have a QUEEN! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn, treacherous as the sea, stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love ME. And. Despair.”

..these two yuppies walked in, ordered their drinks, sat in the table behind me, and addressed the United Nations Peace Council. It wasn’t a volume that subtly hinted, “hey, it’s ok for you to hear this, we’re cool like that”. It was a volume that DEMANDED you drop everything you were doing, crane your neck to its breaking point, and pay some goddamned attention.

I’m dubious the world needed saving on a Sunday morning, and by two yuppies at that. And sure enough, their conversation was sinfully dull. What’s worse: they weren’t even talking to each other. They were both mouthing off on their respective bluetooth headsets.

Throwing caution to the wind (and forgetting that I am in the great state of Texas, where guns grow from trees), I picked up my blackberry and launched into an equally loud conversation with one of my personalities.

So I wake up and there are singles stuffed in my underwear. I’m confused, but pleasantly surprised. But it gets better. I stand and suddenly my butt explodes in a starburst of pain! I go into the hotel bathroom and realize there’s a dead cat’s head sticking out from my ass and what looks like jumper cable marks on my nipples. Cables that I then found in the tub, next to a passed out latino midget. I really need to figure out what the hell happened last night.

I look up and make eye contact with one of the assholes, and wink as his face crumbles into a look of sheer disgust.

They must’ve set some kind of Guiness record for fastest departure from a Starbucks.

And now back to the liberation of Rohan.

“The Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all….”

This statement by the elf queen Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings – Fellowship of the Ring, underscores a universal vulnerability. When we take a moment to reflect on our previous experiences, we realise how we now stand literarily as if upon the edge of a knife, and a slight negligence could set us very far backward, if not resulting in outright downfall and fatality. In the film, first of the trilogy directed by Peter Jackson and based on the 3-volume book, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, there is an incisive depiction of how a heart wrenching casualty is suffered where victory is almost achieved. It brings home again the fundamental point of how man is buoyed upon a carpet of myriad treads from past experiencing and every thought that engages his mind, every path that inclines his step, every word that forms his mouth should keep him awake and wary of the “many a slip between the hand and the lip”.

All these come to my mind as I contemplate a typewriting test I once took and in which I scored very poorly. My teacher, Mr Meshaiyeteh, in distributing the score sheets to us in class, profusely apologized saying that some of us were his friends and he could easily have helped us pass the test. Incidentally, he continued, he didn’t have a typewriting machine with which he could have retaken the test for us. I felt disappointed by this remark coming from my teacher and dear friend. First, he would seem to have subsumed me with some others in the class whom he described as just friends where I thought I was his special friend. Second, if really he meant to help, it shouldn’t have been too difficult to get a machine to retake the test.

Mr Meshaiyeteh continued, however, that even if he had been able to secure a typewriter, he still wouldn’t have been able to get enough papers for everyone. Common on, gentleman! I thought to myself. If you had hinted me, I should have been able to provide a considerable amount of papers for myself and some of the others. But then, continued Meshaiyeteh, even if he had sufficient papers, there still remained the question of how to get the vital ribbons without which manual typewriters could not be used. I said in my mind that this certainly wouldn’t have been a problem; we could have easily stolen some of the ribbons from school and no one would know!

But even if he had the vital ribbons, emphasized Mr Meshaiyeteh, there would then arise the problem of time which he couldn’t afford in view of the sundry other things he had to do. This is a false problem! I thought. You could have called me and I would have joined you at any secret location in town to get everything done!

In concluding, Mr Meshaiyeteh said that even if he had the time to retake the failed test for us, he really didn’t have the conscience. I gaped at him for a while as if in some trance. Well, truly, if it was about conscience, I said to myself feebly, I too couldn’t have the conscience to cheat. But why didn’t he say that from the beginning?

It wasn’t until his conclusion that I realised how I had been so cheaply compliant in my thoughts, easily malleable in my mind and an incredibly acquiescent tool for evil machinations. Although nobody saw what was happening inside me, I was deeply ashamed of myself. I needed to take another look in the mirror. It had not taken much for me to embark on a dreamy voyage of cheating and deceit. True, there was the good fortune of the absence of any intent for wrong doing on the part of my teacher. But what about individuals whose resistance is unresisting and for whom corruptive influences and suggestive indecencies are neither misleading jokes nor harmless comments, but ensnaring devices intentionally set to trap and entangle them before they can awaken and by which time it is too little too late?

Varying forces dominate the earth; good and evil are seated together in the same table of fraternity, the rays of light would seem limited, darkness would not disperse and everything is in the mix. Man treads thus upon the edge of a knife…

Yet he is not alone. Not abandoned. New enlightenment reveals that no matter how tough the temptation, no matter how overcoming the circumstance, delicate intuitive vibrations of your soul seek constantly to tear through even the thickest gloom with shafts of truth to lead you out of the darkening confusions.

We must listen closely and not fall out of guide.

Thought I would do a count down of my 10 favorite character’s in Lord of the Rings and why they are my favorites.

10.  Galadriel

I can think of three major reasons why she is in the top 10, even though across the three movies she does not feature very much. 1. She is an Elf, 2. She is powerful and 3. She is a woman. Yes ok those are not the best reasons but I really do think that Galadriel is just great and has so much power over a lot of people.

9. Arwen

Another Elf . . . yes I do love those Elves. She is the daughter of Lord Elrond and was due to leave Middle Earth when the battle broke out. But she could not go and leave Aragron, she ends up giving up her immortality to be with him. Which I just love her for.

8. Pippin

He is such an adorable hobbit, who gets himself into trouble and never really understands how dangerous the ring quest is. Until it is almost too late of course. He plays his part in the finale and is just great. I love when he has to sing for Deanthor.

7. Eowyn

She is in the list for the above picture . . . well I mean that part in the movie “I am no man” it is a brilliant moment. As she destroys the ring wraith !!!

6. Theoden

King Theoden of Rohan, has so much honor in the end when he goes to Gondor’s aid.

5. Legolas

He is an elf, elegant and just loves to fight. Plus his friendship with Gimli is just too cute.

4. Samwise Gamgee

He really grows up over the course of the three movies, and will do anything for “Mr.Frodo”. He never gives up hope for Frodo no matter how much the ring begins to consume him. He always knew Gollum was not being totally honest with them and still wanted to steal the ring.

3. Gollum/Smeagol

Such a strange and complex guy is Gollum or Smeagol as he was once known. This causes a double personality which is just so hilarious at times.

2. Gandalf

I really love Gandalf, I think he is such a fantastic character, with so much depth and history which is so difficult to tell at times. I also love his horse Shadowfax.

1. Aragorn

“Ranger from the North” is the King of Gondor . . . on the path to regain his thrown and give hope to the race of men. He is really just my absoulte favorite character (he was in the books as well). He has so much leadership and courage. He does not want anything to happen to the world of men. Plus his love of Arwen is just incredible. He does not want to live without her, but does not want her to give up anything for him.

Y’a le top Trois qui s’est fait attendre cette semaine… Disons qu’avec la journée d’hier, y’avait de quoi meubler notre occupation pis d’oublier le tout.

On s’est tappé un méga snack, un homme qui a perdu tout sa virilité en m’ouvrant la porte de la voiture à deux reprises (WTW?!?! ), un couple adorable, un vétéran de la guerre du Viet-Nam et sa douce aux yeux toujours si pétillants. Ça vaut de l’or et tous les kilomètres qui nous font chier de pas pouvoir se voir plus souvent!

En gros y’a Life Saveur et son combat contre le russe. Digne de Rocky IV

Ex-aequo pour la deuxième, Léa et Galadriel qui parlent d’une perte qui m’a rappellé celles de mes grands-parents

Pour boucler la boucle, l’Ensaignant qui m’a fait vivre un superbe moment jeudi dernier

Voilà, c’est tout pour ce soir! Bonne fin de fin de semaine

I found this personal information meme on Shonda’s blog and thought it looked like fun.

What are your current obsessions?

Considering I’m a writer, it’s safe to assume I always have an obsession or two. Right now, I’m interested in the concepts of marketing and personal branding.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time on Twitter, but I think the novelty of the experience is starting to wear off. I still love Twitter and consider it a great communication tool.

Which item from your wardrobe do you wear most often?

Blue jeans. Denim delivers a good amount of value because it stands up to all kinds of abuse, and — here in Texas at least — you can wear it just about anywhere.

What’s your favorite color?

Red. I also like blue, purple and black. I don’t like pink.

What’s the last thing you bought?

I bought Jeff Smith’s Bone Vol. 3: Eyes of the Storm at a Scholastic Book Fair. They didn’t have volume 1, and since I’d already read volumes 1 and 2 anyway I grabbed No. 3.

What are you listening to?

Texas Governor Rick Perry pointed me to UpChUcKy.CoM via Twitter. They have 20-song jukeboxes by year from 1955 to 1997 (as of this post).

If you could be anyone, who would you be and why?

Me. ‘Cause that’s who I was created to be. I’m not interested in being anyone or anything I’m not purposed to be.

What are your favorite holiday traditions?

My wife and I don’t celebrate many holidays, but we love Thanksgiving and Independence Day. We make a big deal out of both.

We’re getting some rain this year, and if it keeps up we should be able to put on a nice fireworks display in the driveway. I like to purchase the ones that look like little tanks and send them into battle against each other.

What are you reading right now?

Unsung Heroes of The Lord of the Rings: From the Page to the Screen by Lynnette R. Porter. I enjoy literary criticism. This book compares and contrasts the heroic portrayal of Merry, Pippin, Galadriel, Eowyn, Arwen, Legolas and Gimli in both the book and the film adaptation.

Which four words describe yourself?

Creative. Introspective. Analytical. Undisciplined.

What is your guilty pleasure?

Chocolate.

Who or what makes you laugh until you’re weak?

My wife and children (including the four-legged ones). I’m blessed to have such a wonderful family.

First Spring thing?

I love the time of year from Resurrection Sunday to Pentecost. The beginning of Spring is my personal new year. What better way to kick it off than Resurrection Sunday?

What is the best thing you ate or drank recently?

My wife is making a wedding cake for friends, and I’ve been scarfing the extra bits.

What is your favorite film?

Do you care to share some wisdom?

Expectation creates results.

What might surprise us about you?

I competed in archery competitions in high school.

 The rules for this meme are, “Rework and Respond.” Replace one question, answer the questions in a blog post of your own, and tag someone.

If you’re reading this, consider yourself tagged. If you don’t want to respond with a blog post, feel free to answer any or all of these questions in the comments below.

Daily Draw May 24th, 2009

From the Lord of the Rings Tarot:

XVII – THE STAR – The light of the Evening Star shines through Galadriel’s Ring

Oooh lovely, my first draw with this deck.

Galadriel’s ring is called Nenya and was one of the three rings of power given to the Elves. It is also called the Ring of Water; Nenya is derived from the Elvish word “nen” meaning “water.” Here is the direct reference for the card from the chapter The Mirror of Galadriel from the first book in the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring:

“She lifted up her white arms, and spread out her hands towards the East in a gesture of rejection and denial. Eärendil, the Evening Star, most beloved of the Elves, shone clear above. So bright was it that the figure of the Elven-lady cast a dim shadow on the ground. Its rays glanced upon a ring about her finger; it glittered like polished gold overlaid with silver light, and a white stone in it twinkled as if the Even-star had come down to rest upon her hand.”

Eärendil the Mariner, is a great seafarer in mythology who carried the morning star across the sky. His story is found in The Silmarillion, and he is referred to throughout The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien took the name Eärendil from Anglo Saxon, although there are also Germanic variations of the name.

The planet Venus is called the Evening Star when in the west and the Morning Star when in the east. Except for the moon, it is the brightest object in the night sky and reaches its brightest point just before sunrise or shortly after sunset.

I couldn’t find a direct reference to the Evening Star in the Edda, which doesn’t mean there isn’t one. In the Icelandic language it is called “aptan-stjarna” and is mentioned in Alexander’s Saga (about Alexander the Great), which is a piece of medieval Icelandic literature.

Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow both wrote poems about the evening star. Poe refers to the distant fire of the evening star which he admires more than the cold light of the moon. And dear old Longfellow, rhapsodizes:

Lo! in the painted oriel of the West,
Whose panes the sunken sun incarnadines,
Like a fair lady at her casement, shines
The evening star, the star of love and rest!
And then anon she doth herself divest
Of all her radiant garments, and reclines
Behind the sombre screen of yonder pines,
With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed.
O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus!
My morning and my evening star of love!
My best and gentlest lady! even thus,
As that fair planet in the sky above,
Dost thou retire unto thy rest at night,
And from thy darkened window fades the light.

“Oriel” is an archaic word for a bay window. Trust Longfellow, I once tried to read his translation of Dante. Never again. However, the lovely and poetic “Hesperus” is a classic name for the evening star.

“My best and gentlest lady” could describe Galadriel too. Like Galadriel and her mirror, the star shines and illuminates. She guides with her soft, peaceful light and brings us Hesperus renewal and healing.

Wunderbares Lothlórien, Elbenreich, Heimat der Galadhrim… Nach den langen Tagen in der Düsternis Morias ist die Erleichterung, endlich wieder nur den Himmel und einige Blätter über dem Kopf zu haben, unbeschreiblich. Selbst das von Orks durchstreifte und verheerte Schattenbachtal war schon eine Erleichterung, doch dieser Wald, dieser so unbeschreiblich alte Wald…

Es ist so, wie es mir bereits beschrieben wurde. Tatsächlich scheint hier die Zeit still zu stehen. Das Gefühl, hier unter einem der großen Bäume zu sitzen, ist einfach erhebend. Während ich diese Zeilen schreibe, lehne ich mit dem Rücken an einem der dicken weißen Stämme, hoch über mir ein Dach goldener Blätter. Hin und wieder hört man irgendwo dort oben eine Stimme singen, was gewöhnlich aus einer anderen Richtung beantwortet wird. Die Elben hier nennen diese auf und in die Bäume gesetzten Plattformen Talan. Einige sind tatsächlich nur einfache hölzerne Plattformen, besonders an den Rändern des Waldes, wo sie von den Wachen besetzt sind. Auf größeren Bäumen sind regelrechte Häuser erbaut. Erst, wenn man das einmal genau gesehen hat, macht man sich eine Vorstellung über die eigentliche Größe dieser Bäume.

Dabei war es zunächst gar nicht einfach, den Wald zu betreten. Ich musste erst verschiedene Aufgaben erledigen, quasi um mich des Zugangs würdig zu erweisen. Das habe ich allerdings gerne getan, und nachdem ich die Schönheit dieses Landes gesehen habe, kann ich die Vorsicht der Galadhrim gut verstehen. Und doch ist es hier nicht völlig sicher. Erst vor wenigen Stunden brachten die Wächter eine kleinere Gruppe Orks auf, die sich irgendwie über den Fluss, oder an dessen Ufer entlang, tiefer in den Wald gewagt hatten. Bei ihrem Weg durch Moria haben Gandalf und seine Gefährten in ein Hornissennest gestochen. Was auch immer es ist, die Orks sind hinter irgend etwas her, und ihre Gier – oder auch ihre Verzweiflung – ist so groß, dass sie auch vor den Pfeilen der praktisch unsichtbaren Wächter Lothlóriens nicht zurückschrecken.

Mithin glaube ich, glücklich sein zu können, dass ich dieses Land noch so vorfinden durfte. Mein Gefühl sagt mir, und das ist mit einem Gefühl großer Trauer verbunden, dass sich die Zeit Lothlóriens ihrem Ende nähert. Sollte die große Aufgabe gelingen, wird die Macht der Elben, und damit auch Lothlórien, vermindert und schließlich dahinschwinden. Und sollte sie scheitern… darüber möchte ich gar nicht erst nachdenken.

Ich hatte das große Glück und Vergnügen, einige Worte mit Herrn Celeborn und Frau Galadriel wechseln zu können. Dabei kam ich mir vor wie ein kleiner Junge, der vor die Eltern zitiert wird, nachdem er irgendwelchen Unsinn angestellt hat. Herr Celeborn ist unglaublich weise – das ist, glaube ich, die beste Beschreibung. Und Frau Galadriel… Ich weiss nicht, es fällt mir nicht das richtige Wort dafür ein. Sie sieht dir an deinen Augen vorbei direkt in das Herz. Wir hatten nicht mehr als einen Blick gewechselt, und doch hatte ich das Gefühl, sie würde mich schon seit Jahren kennen. Und als sie ihre Stimme erhob… ich will verdammt sein, wenn das nicht die gleiche Stimme ist, die ich seit einiger Zeit in meinen Träumen höre.

Ich werde noch einige Zeit hier verbringen. Dabei wird es schwer werden, die Zeit nicht aus den Augen zu verlieren, denn hier vergeht sie anders.

[See also: The Two Towers and The Return of the King.]

The rules of Randomisation:

1. Select a film on DVD. Eclectic choices are encouraged.

2. Using a random number generator, select three frames from the film. So, if the film is 100 minutes long, enter the numbers 1 and 100 into the randomiser and it will select three figures. Capture the frames which occur on the DVD on the minute mark. You might want to cut out the titles and end credits if they’re just text.

3. Use the three frames as a starting point for discussing the film. Focus on the composition of the image, the content of the frame and, if you’re familiar with it, how it might fit into the rest of the film’s narrative or visual style. The random selection of frames will hopefully force you out of habitual preoccupations and selective analysis and make you focus on points of the film you might otherwise have ignored. Sometimes the frames will be very revealing and illustrative of the film’s central themes, and sometimes they will seem inconsequential, but you will always find something to say about them, even if it wasn’t what you instinctively wanted to say about the film in the first place.

[For more Randomised reviews on this site, go here. See also the 10/40/70 posts at Digital Poetics, the origin this idea.]

What fun for the Easter holidays. A trilogy of randomised posts, and since these are extended editions of the films, I’ll be using four frames from each instead of the usual three. The Lord of the Rings; The Fellowship of the Ring, the first in the series is 192 minutes long if I cut out the end credits (which last for 25 minutes!). As usual, the frame grabs are randomly selected. Here’s hoping for some interesting images from the following minute marks: 27, 94, 166 and the bonus number … 180. I should say that I’m not an expert on these films, nor a devoted fan, so you might find these posts arrive from an unusual and productive angle, or you might hate, hate, hate me as a result…

Whenever I start these randomisation posts, I worry that I’ll be stuck with a bunch of pictures of people’s faces and struggle to say anything about them. The actor’s face seems to do its own thing, distinct from the composition and design of the rest of the film, and film scholars are rarely equipped to comment on bits of human beings that are not “cinematic” in the sense that the meaning of the shot arises from the dynamic combination of elements in a deliberate arrangement around the frame. The face serves its own agenda of mimicking the required emotions of the scene: it’s important to the plot but not especially interesting to analyse, since it is usually required to be illustrative of the character’s feelings. Bilbo Baggins’ is the trilogy’s veteran adventurer. A former owner of the ring, he is a figure who Frodo admires, an owner of the Ring whose degeneration into a craven and unending yearning for it, like a reformed alcoholic whose every experience is diminished by comparison to the internalised fulfilment he felt when he wore it serves as a measuring pole for Frodo’s own decline. There’s a jump-out-of-the-skin moment later on where his face erupts in a vampiric explosion of desire for its allure which must colour any viewer’s perception of his otherwise avuncular countenace. Here is almost pleading with Gandalf that he be allowed to keep the ring, but it is not a look of submission, but a reluctant admission of defeat. His upward eyeline is a clever-clever enforcement of the tricksy illusions that show the difference in height between Bilbo and Gandalf; lots of techniques are used in this and other scenes between Hobbits and other, larger species: midget doubles, forced perspective, digital compositing etc., but this is the simplest of all cinematic effects. The camera looks down on Bilbo, just at will look up to Gandalf in the reverse shot.

The sheer number and variety of locations in these films is daunting to the uninitiated. For those already well-versed in Tolkien’s imagined environments, one of the pleasures must come from seeing those places realised and rendered as a coherent, explorable world. The sheer compendious nature of the DVD collections is designed to supplement this sense of a place that is knowable through knowledge of the details. The linearity of the narrative, branching to follow the characters various pathways back to the same point, makes it a real journey film; mapping Middle Earth is a fan’s obsession, holding the films’ world in mind as a conceivable environment whose disparate locales hang in palpable tension with one another. Director Peter Jackson actually segregates his various spaces by applying different aesthetics to them. This is Rivendell, and it is a land of soft focus, magic-hour light, like a slightly cheap dream sequence. The elves seem to have the most privileged lifestyle of all; immortal, beautiful, pert-nosed (though seemingly incapable of convsering in anything other than lyrical, portentous terms). They hide well their boredom at the foibles of their mortal companions. This composition shows the Elves’ home as neatly arranged, autumnal (with an air of spring paradoxically everpresent) and ceremonial. Digital compositing allows little Frodo to appear at the centre of the scene to address the council, but the illusion is never quite perfect. I’ve often argued that the tell-tale traces of special effects are not crippling floors, but meaning-forming circumstances that add their own subtextual inflections to a scene. In this case, Frodo’s difference and separation is accentuated by the slightly ill fit of his inclusion in the shot. Though the spectator is invited to appreciate the achievement of a seamless composition, the response is just as likely to be one which sees Frodo as ontologically distant from his “fellowship”.

Now, be honest. If you weren’t an avid adherent of Tolkien’s world, and you wanted to know a bit about Galadriel (because the films don’t tell us a lot), and you started with Wikipedia, you’d be slightly put off by the following description:

She was a royal Elf of both the Noldor and the Teleri, being a grandchild of both King Finwë and King Olwë, and was also close kin of King Ingwë of the Vanyar through her grandmother Indis.

It’s like being at a friend-of-a-friend’s family gathering. The genealogical backstory lends convincing depth, an age that exceeds the limits of the text itself. This kind of expanded awareness, supplementing an onscreen depiction with a network of cross-references and paratexts, elludes me, so I’m stuck with gleaning something from the graphic depiction of Cate Blanchett bursting into a sudden revelation of power, usually hidden behind an ethereal and motherly beauty that lingers over Frodo like a fairy-godmother’s beneficence throughout the trilogy. Exploding into blue, a near-negative image, she gives away the sublimated, dictatorial omnipotence of the elves for an enduring instant. The lines of light could be seen as emanating from her, or alternatively sucking into her, a fearsome impression of potency that could so easily be corrupted by the temptation of the Ring.

It’s impressive that I got all the way through the film (thanks to the vicissitudes of random number generation) without seeing any images of fighting. This last picture shows Lurtz, leader of the Uruk-hai, being felled by Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) before he can finish off the mortally wounded Boromir (Sean Bean). I seem to recall that the trilogy is packed to the gills with these last-minute rescues, where a main character is saved from the threat of a death by mauling or hacking with micro-seconds to spare, but I may have imagined or exaggerated this. The motion blur here shows Lurtz being knocked out of his central position in the frame, his power thwarted. This is a trilogy of films in which evil is ugly: its inner nastiness is outwardly mainefest; it paints its face; it doesn’t brush its teeth; it snarls, sneers and relishes violence, while the heroes look pained and exerted by their requirement to kill. Thus we are made to mourn the losses on one side, and accept or ignore the massacres on the other. Actor Lawrence Makoare plays two other roles in the trilogy, the Witchking and Orc leader Gothmog. Is it troubling that a Maori man is used as such a transferable embodiment of unredeemed evil?

More:

Lord of the Rings official site.

Fansite The One Ring.

Kristin Thomson’s The Frodo Franchise website.

The Lord of the Rings Fanatics Network.

Erik Davis, “The Fellowship of the Ring” at Wired.

Suzanne Scott, “The Scouring of the Saga.“

Martin Barker, “Envisaging ‘Visualisation’: Some challenges from the
international Lord of the Rings audience project.”

CADAIR: Lord of the Rings research at the University of Aberystwyth.

Official Tolkien website.

Lord of the Rings articles at The Guardian.

Adaptation analysis at Books to Box Office.

Efter att av en slump ha hört ett barn tilltalas med namnet Legolas började jag och sambon leka lite med Statistiska Centralbyråns namnsökningsfunktion. Några Tolkien-inspirerade namn (i någon sorts topplisteform) är:

125 personer i Sverige heter Arwen, varav 29 har det som tilltalsnamn.

54 personer i Sverige heter Bilbo, varav 13 har det som tilltalsnamn.

34 personer i Sverige heter Eowyn, varav 7 har det som tilltalsnamn.

44 personer i Sverige heter Legolas, varav 6 har det som tilltalsnamn.

25 personer i Sverige heter Gandalf, varav 6 har det som tilltalsnamn.

43 personer i Sverige heter Aragorn, varav 3 har det som tilltalsnamn.

22 personer i Sverige heter Frodo, varav 3 har det som tilltalsnamn.

36 personer i Sverige heter Galadriel, varav 2 har det som tilltalsnamn.

6 personer i Sverige heter Sauron, varav 2 har det som tilltalsnamn.

13 personer i Sverige heter Gimli, varav 1 har det som tilltalsnamn.

2 personer i Sverige heter Radagast, varav 1 har det som tilltalsnamn.

17 personer i Sverige heter Vidstige, varav ingen har det som tilltalsnamn.

3 personer i Sverige heter Peregrin, varav ingen har det som tilltalsnamn.

3 personer i Sverige heter Samwise, varav noll personer har det som tilltalsnamn.

2 personer i Sverige heter Bombadill, varav ingen alls har det som tilltalsnamn.

2 personer i Sverige heter Meriadoc, varav inte en kotte har det som tilltalsnamn.

1 person i Sverige heter Boromir, varav ingen har det som tilltalsnamn.

1 person i Sverige heter Eomer, varav ingen har det som tilltalsnamn.

Frågan är hur vi ska tolka detta. Att Arwen kommer först är kanske inte så förvånande, eftersom det både a) låter som ett riktigt namn och b) är riktigt snyggt, vilket gör det mindre konstigt, något som de flesta föräldrar (men uppenbarligen inte alla) anser vara hyfsat viktigt när de namnger sina barn. Det kan konstateras att Bombadill är det enda namnet på listan som en man och en kvinna har som förnamn. Annars föjer namnvalen könsgränserna, då alla som heter Arwen är kvinnor, alla med namnet Aragorn är män, alla som heter Gandalf har skägg, etc.

Apropå skägg har alla valt att tolka Gimli som ett mansnamn, trots att dvärgen ifråga i princip skulle kunna vara kvinna, med tanke på Tolkien-dvärgarnas idiosynkratiska hållning till kön. Visserligen används manligt pronomen i böckerna, men hela verket ska ju föreställa en översättning till engelska från Adûni, så som jag ser det finns det gott om tolkningsmöjligheter för den hågade. Folk är så jämrans konservativa, helt enkelt.

Kanske är förekomsten av Vidstige en tyst protest mot nyöversättningen av Tolkiens böcker? Iofs är det möjligt att han heter detsamma i den nya översättningen, vad vet jag, ser jag ut som någon sorts kunskapsbank, eller? I vilket fall är Vidstige knöligt att uttala, men ändå en rätt sjysst översättning av originalets Strider. Det ska också nämnas att tio personer har Vidstige som efternamn.

Att Bilbo hamnar så högt på listan beror förmodligen på att det etablerades som svenskt förnamn för relativt länge sedan, långt innan filmerna av Peter Jackson kom ut, något som jag antar påverkat många av de övriga. Själv är jag lite extra glad att Radagast finns med. Jag har alltid gillat honom. I grunden god men upptagen av oväsentligheter och extremt lättlurad; sådana är vi, Radagast den Brune och jag.

/Olov L