Daily Archives: December 17, 2003

Contrasting Views of the Return of the King

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First from Moe Freedman at Occam’s Toothbrush:

I just returned from seeing the latest installment of the Lord of the Rings, and I have to say I just hated the hell out of it. It’s not that I’m not a fan, I am. I’ve seen the first two, and loved the books as a teenager but this one was just way, way, too long.
Peter Jackson decided to tell the story using the faces of his actors and the long, lingering close- ups go on forever.

Second from Ghost of a Flea:

Let’s see… at 3 hours and 12 minutes I figured I would want to stretch my legs at some point but for that first two and a half hours I was completely lost in the world of the film. Rushed, yes, even at three hours plus the story is rushed and abbreviated. I have high hopes for the extended version… there are points where scenes have almost clumsily been removed. At this point, however, I am prepared to give Peter Jackson almost any leeway. If not for the last half hour this would have been the greatest film I have ever seen (and others may be happier with the last half hour).

For those interested in such things the Flea also provides a link to Tolkien’s views on elf sex.

bush is busy

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Sawyer interviewing bush:

And he signaled to Sawyer he has a bit of a Rose Garden strategy in mind for the campaign:
�early in the process there�ll be all kinds of pressures to respond to this, or respond to that�
�and I just want to warn you, I�m going to do my job. I got a lot to do. As we say, the dance card is quite full these days.

Yep, fund raising takes a lot of time.
Via Skippy.

11 Lessons from the Vietnam War

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Bilmon posts these from Robert McNamara’s memoirs:

But for the most part, McNamara’s eleven points are a pretty good capsule summary of the lessons that should have been learned from Vietnam, but which weren’t — in large part because the people now running the foreign policy of the U.S. government have never even been able to face up to the fact that we lost the Vietnam War, much less understand why we lost it.

Go read them.