Movie review

Tuesday, December 30, 2003 -- The boys and I stopped by Grandma's house on the way back from lunch at Chisholm today. Gail, the waitress who also happens to rent Grandma's "little house," said that she hasn't had any cold water since my repair job last week. I think it may have just been a valve I turned off temporarily and forgot to turn back on. The third try was a charm in our continuing attempts to see the Lord of the Rings Return of the King. We were a bit late arriving to the 4 o'clock matinee but where still able to sit in our favorite seats (the ones where you can put your feet up on the railing and the management gave up on telling everyone to stop). The movie was pretty impressive but the editing was flawed in my opinion. When the face of Sam's wife-to-be suddenly appears full frame near the end of the movie I thought it was jarringly out of place. Everything pretty much ground to a halt at that point as the audience waited impatiently for Frodo to hug each of his Hobbit buddies in turn. Despite the clunky ending, it was an impressive film. I thought the lighting of the beacon fires sequence was particulary moving and of course the catapults, oliphants, and giant screeching flying lizards plowing into horses were very cool.