For the record, here is the bet between Felix Salmon and myself:

“BVC” shall mean “bottle of vintage champagne” throughout. “LOTR” shall mean “Lord of the Rings“.

Stefan shall provide Felix with one BVC immediately.

Then:

-If LOTR ever outgrosses “Jurassic Park” on http://us.imdb.com/Charts/usatopmovies, Felix shall give Stefan 2 BVCs.

-If LOTR wins both “Best Director” and “Best Picture” at the Oscars, Felix shall give Stefan 2 BVCs.

-If LOTR wins either “Best Director” or “Best Picture” at the Oscars (but not both), Felix shall give Stefan 1 BVC.

-If LOTR wins neither “Best Director” nor “Best Picture” at the Oscars, Stefan shall give Felix another 2 BVCs.

[Wed, Jan 02 2002 – 08:09] Uppers (email) Well, I saw it, and while it was OK, the dialogue was too crap for it to be a great film. e.g. right at the start between Gandalf and Dildo at Hobbiton, there was cloyingly chirpy and bouncy music, meant to convey the idea that the dialogue we were listening to was humourous. It turned me right off. My experience is that if you need something else to tell you the scene is humourous, other than the scene itself, the scene isn’t very effective. Also, there were too many fight and chase scenes. It got a bit dull after a while. The greek didn’t like it at all. Big grosser maybe, but not a best picture winner, like Star Wars movies aren’t. It’s amazing that people can spend ages and millions designing the belt an orc wears just like JRR Rowling would have imagined it, and forget the script sounds like it was written by a highly unimaginative D&D spastic with no sense of humour. Stefan, would you like to buy me a bottle of champagne, too?

[Fri, Jan 04 2002 – 12:07] Felix (www) (email) I haven’t seen the film (that was one of the reasons Stefan entered into the bet with me), but I’ve promised him that I’ll add my $10 to the domestic gross if LOTR gets one of those two nominations.

I think the jury’s still out on whether big grossers generally are or aren’t best picture winners: Titanic, the grand-daddy of them all, of course, did both, as did Forrest Gump, #6 on the big-grossers table. But after that, we have to go down to #39, Gone With the Wind.

As for Tolkien, he was a D&D spastic with no sense of humour avant la lettre. He was imaginative, but his prose was ridiculous, saved only by the page-turning properties of the plot. This is a man who despised Shakespeare for being far too modern, and who never read anything written after Chaucer. And there’s not so much as a chuckle in all 1400 pages, or however long your version is.

[Mon, Jan 07 2002 – 11:53] Uppers (email) Akshly, i started rereading the 1st book just after the movie in the hope of redeeming what i always thought was a good story, and noticed that the dialogue was EXACTLY the same in the 1st scene of the movie, the one that bothered me so much, as it is in chap 1 of the stupid book!! you must be right. that tolkein, what a total spazzer. but he’s right about shakespeare, though, cos he’s crap and his jokes are rubbish, and i remember a lot more laughs and graphic sex in chaucer. they should film that! that would be much more better. what does avant la lettre mean?

[Mon, Jan 07 2002 – 14:26] Felix (www) (email) It means “yeah, I know it’s an anachronism, but I want to describe him that way anyway”.

[Tue, Jan 08 2002 – 09:57] Uppers (email) ah then you would be referring to D&D before the letter as spastics and senses of humour pre-dated tolkein. just being pedantic, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

i would love to carry on reading the book to find out if the dialogue was as crap as you say, but some troll-like german must have stolen it from my backpack on the train. very unhappy. where is stefan? why doesn’t he write something pretentious on his site? i am bored.

[Wed, Jan 09 2002 – 19:02] Felix (www) (email) Well, if you’re really bored, you can hop on over to my site and tell me what you think of my review of the year in cinema.

[Thu, Jan 10 2002 – 07:17] Uppers (email) i shall not criticise criticism, unless the critic claims the movie “undermines the premise on which the nation state was built” and/or is belgian. but it was very good. i generally find franchise movies a bit disappointing too. they always make you like the preceding movies in the franchise more, except of course if they’re bond films.

[Thu, Jan 10 2002 – 15:12] Charles Kenny (www) (email) I’m up for winning a bottle off Stefan, too. It wasn’t bad –opening scene set the tone for a lot of nice special effects, the acting was pretty good considering, etc etc. But why did they feel like they had to edit everything but action out of the book, and then add a load more action on top (the battle between Gandalf and Sauruman, for example). By the end, I was vomiting over the person in front of me with a cortex-overload-induced migraine. And the Arwen/Aragorn love interest was hardly enough to satisfy my little pony owners while just a distraction for those of us who couldn’t wait for Boromir to try and strangle the little twerp.

Nonetheless, distinctly better than Gosford Park, which was unmitigated tripe. That annoying NPR woman who does culture bits was talking to the writier this morning, and obviously had damp knickers over the fact that he was the husband of a lady in waiting to the duchess of kent. Reviewers on the Washington Post were going on about Stephen Fry being better than Peter Sellers. But it was still crap. It was Remains of the Day without the plot, lines, direction, editor or point. It builds up to a murder two thirds of the way through the movie that could have been committed by anyone there, then does nothing much with it apart from having Fry make one or two investigative pratfalls and leave again. Agatha Christie on a double dose of Valium.

[Thu, Jan 10 2002 – 15:45] Felix (www) (email) Re Gosford Park: Agreed the WaPo has got it wrong. Even their entertainment listings say it stars “Michael Gambon, Jeremy Northam, Bob Balaban, Alan Bates, Stephen Fry” which is a truly bizarre list of people to pick out of the cast. Couldn’t find the Peter Sellers comparison in the WP reviews, but of course it’s a ridiculous notion — Fry does very little and is far outshone by his co-stars.

You’re right about it having no plot, but I can forgive it that just for Maggie Smith’s performance alone. If you treat it as a murder mystery, it’s dreadful, but if you just sit back and enjoy the social comedy, it’s rather good. My verdict? If you liked “Sweet and Lowdown” you’ll like this; if you thought S&L was incredibly boring, don’t even think about GP.

[Fri, Jan 11 2002 – 03:58] Uppers (email) charles, is pamela the owner of your little pony? on the lord of the rings issue, i found the book again, and have restarted rereading. charles, you are wrong and i think felix has it right. like the film, the book is really nothing but action interspersed with boring bits which Rowling had to put in to pad it out. sort of like Tom Clancy of middle earth. there’s a random bit with elves right now on the road to rivendell that’s not in the film, and i can’t wait to get past it. it’s crap! now i know you amongst all of us are more of the D&D type, and LOTR is therefore a holy book, but i think you would have to accept it’s not half as good a read at age 30 as it was when we were 13. the faults of the film are the faults of the book. they didn’t edit anything out.

[Fri, Jan 11 2002 – 13:25] Charles Kenny (www) (email) Maggie Smith is great, its true. But even she seems to be coasting. And as social comedy isn’t it a bit of a tired subject? I think its time for a new genre –perhaps a lightharted study of the Greco-Welsh communities of central Europe? That would get me to the front of the queue at the box office.

Meanwhile, that well known author of LoR, JK Rowling, did not put in the battle between Gandalf and Sauruman, nor ther stuff about the stairs collapsing in Moria (nor that stupid scene with the hobbits stealing the fireworks at the beginning, nor the half-cocked Arwen-Aragorn bit). He did put in a Suaruman who was not strightforwardly evil from the start, a better foreshadowing of future events in Lorien, along with lots of boring bits –not least the entire Tom Bombadil chapter. And the bits where Gandalf and Galadriel refuse the ring are way better in the film, as is that opeing battle sequence. But overall, I’d still argue the film is not nearly as compelling as the book.

I’m with you, John, that the book was better at 13, but to be fair that’s partially because you know what’s going to happen (a problem for the film, too). It could definitely do with a good edit, too, but its still a good book. And leave Pamela and ‘Shadowfax’ out of this.

[Mon, Jan 14 2002 – 09:37] Uppers (email) charles- “shadowfax” is a very strange name if what you’re referring to is your schlong. a movie based on the current working life of the greco-welsh community you might be referring to would be anything but lightharted (sic), more like bergman directing a script by kafka.

akshly, in the book there is a section about the firework display at the party, and the dragon firework is specifically mentioned. i don’t have a problem with collapsing stairs, and the book is devoid of sex, so a bit of love interest is forgiveable, even if the dialogue isn’t. at least the film is over in 3 hours, with no after-effects. the trilogy is incredibly long. it is strangely compelling, but i put the book down feeling empty. like the ring itself the fascination becomes unhealthy. in my copy of the FllwshpoftRng there is an advert in the back for a book of colour maps of middle earth painted over the course of TWENTY YEARS by some woman, whose only reward is a “. . .a useful guide” review extract in the “Bulletins of the Tolkein Society”. And of course there is the TWELVE VOLUME “History of Middle Earth” written by Rowling while sitting on the bog, no doubt, and edited by his son. These people are SICK SICK SICK, and i think, charles, you may be one of them.

[Mon, Jan 14 2002 – 11:14] Uppers (email) oh, and by the way, elvish and pretty much all the elvish names in all the stupid books, look and sound totally WELSH, unless you are a hobbit or human, and then you are english. all the elves are welsh, and they are the most attractive characters in the book.

[Mon, Jan 14 2002 – 12:18] Matthew (email) where is stefan? is he dead?

[Mon, Jan 14 2002 – 14:28] Charles Kenny (www) (email) In stupid books, the best characters are Welsh. Universal, that one.

Not to sound even more Tolkeinfreaky and petty than I do already, but while the Firework scene is mentioned, are Merry and Pippin stealing the dragon firework in the book?

Yours sick, and close to dead myself, C.

PS, Stefan could be dead. He probably tried to prove the nontheory of the handicap principle by jumping off the apartment building of his latest love interest.

[Tue, Jan 15 2002 – 07:52] Uppers (email) i totally believe that stefan would chop off his little pony if he thought it would impress someone. no, charles, terry and pippin do not steal the dragon firework in the book, but it doesn’t say they didn’t either. maybe rowling on page 1,892 of volume 3 of the “The Revised Companion to History of Middle Earth” writes that they in fact did do it but he hadn’t bothered to put in the book.

here’s a question for you, though: having seen Pulp Fiction, LOTR, and hopefully only the trailer of “The Grinch who Stole Christmas”, do you think Stefan is more like a) the Gimp, b) the Grinch, or c) Gollum?