Listening to Things: The Return of the King, original score by Howard Shore

After a weeklong hiatus, I'm back with this little "let's listen to all the music that won the Academy Award for Best Original Score in the twenty-first century" project with Howard Shore's score for The Return of the King. How many times have I listened to this? A lot. I couldn't begin to tell you … Continue reading Listening to Things: The Return of the King, original score by Howard Shore

Listening to Things: The Fellowship of the Ring original score by Howard Shore

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ringby Howard Shore I couldn't begin to guess at how many times I've listened to this music. The soundtrack came out a few weeks before the movie did, and you can bet that I bought the CD as soon as I could. There were four promotional … Continue reading Listening to Things: The Fellowship of the Ring original score by Howard Shore

The Rings of Power: What We Know From the Trailer

The teaser trailer for Amazon Prime's upcoming show The Rings of Power (due out September 2) premiered during the Super Bowl on Sunday night, and as of this writing, the not-quite-minute-long teaser has been viewed nearly 19 million times and been the subject of much speculation among Tolkien fans. But what do we really know … Continue reading The Rings of Power: What We Know From the Trailer

Vanity Fair: The Rings of Power, a First Look

Yesterday morning (Feb. 10), the magazine Vanity Fair published an article that provides a preview of the upcoming Amazon Prime show, The Rings of Power. It features an interview with showrunners Patrick McKay and JD Payne and gives a very vague synopsis of the overarching plot, as well as providing some character information-- primarily dealing … Continue reading Vanity Fair: The Rings of Power, a First Look

Book Haul: The Lord of the Rings, illustrated edition

Last spring or so, I found out that a new edition of The Lord of the Rings was coming out and that it would include illustrations by Tolkien himself, who in addition to being a philologist, Oxford don, husband, and father, was also a wonderful illustrator. While some editions of The Lord of the Rings … Continue reading Book Haul: The Lord of the Rings, illustrated edition

Sunday Sum-Up: September 19, 2021

The weather is continuing to slowly cool down. Over the past several evenings I've had the windows open with the breeze blowing in, and the cicadas have finally stopped buzzing. So now, instead of having their ear-piercing static song droning all through the night, we're getting crickets. Crickets are much quieter and more melodious than … Continue reading Sunday Sum-Up: September 19, 2021