This is what happens when you vote a bunch of paranoid, xenophobic, egotistical morons into office. Clearly, their ultimate goal is a scared populace imprisoned in their own land with no real experience or consciousness of the outside world and what it's like. Then they'll be able to fiddle while the country burns, pissing away our funds, land and resources while we all sit here like frightened mice.

Ya gets whatcha pay for, as the poet said.

You want love and commitment? Then go find a woman who isn't married. If you get involved with someone who's taken, you're not going to get everything you want. Besides the fact that you're trespassing where you shouldn't.

Stop being such a sleazy whiner and do what's right, for gods' sakes.

To quote Lewis Black: "That's just enough to remind you how FUCKED you are!"

It's chilling how often one hears those words these days.

A fitting epitaph for our species, I'd say.

I completely agree. It puzzles me how anyone could think of trying to film Lovecraft. The essence of his stories is that you can't relate them visually, since they are about circumstances that cannot exist in our world. To try and film them would be to drag them down into the mundane, thus losing everything about them that is so mind-bendingly horrific, that can only ever be imagined but never seen in real life. No matter who tries to film Lovecraft, they will always fail spectacularly. Some books should stay books; it's as simple as that.

P, don't be talking to me about Spain and Franco. My family is from Spain, my father grew up under Franco and served in the military in that country, I've lived there, my sister and her family lives there. I know all about the history and the war and all the stuff that happened. That has nothing to do with the fact that PL is a depressing, ugly, cliched film. As Lincoln said, for those that like that sort of thing, I guess it's just the sort of thing that they like, which apparently includes you.

I, however, do not believe that fantasy is a medium which mixes well with the ugly realities of real life. The whole point to the genre known as "fantasy" is that the stories told there are metaphors. You might as well have a centaur riding a motorcycle if you're going to get into the kind of dull, literalistic crap that del Toro indulged in with PL. He ended up trivializing both the fantastical and the real life aspects of the story - the result was awkward, dark and yes, fucking depressing. That may be your cup of tea, but it's not mine, and I'll thank you to allow me my tastes in cinema, just as you have yours.

And next time, try checking to see who you're talking to before you go spouting off about how much more you know on a subject. Because in my book, you're looking even more foolish and self-involved than you usually do.

Nope. Del Toro is posting over at theonering.net, and has gone on the record saying that the first film will be the adaptation of The Hobbit, while the second film will deal with Tolkien's information regarding the 60 years between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. There will definitely be a lot of gap-filling in the writing, as Tolkien only wrote briefly about that time period (most of it published in The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales).

This smells like a disaster to me, too. All my LOTR-loving friends are squealing about how great it is, and I'm grimacing with distaste. I was not impressed by Pan's Labyrinth AT ALL. I found it claustrophobic, bleak and depressing, and hearing your quote of del Toro's views on fantasy, I'm not the slightest bit surprised. His style is about as far from Jackson's enthusiastic, loving tribute to Tolkien as it would be possible to get, I'd think. Why in the WORLD anyone thinks this will work is beyond me.

I really wish they'd gone with Sam Raimi, whose name was bandied about before del Toro came on the scene. Raimi comes from the same background as Jackson, has a similar portfolio, and has a frigging SENSE OF HUMOR to boot. He would have been far more suited to the material, better able to balance the scary with the light-hearted, and put his obvious love of the supernatural and fantasy to good use here. But it was not to be, I guess.

Like you, I hope it goes well. I really do. My love of Jackson's LOTR is deep, and I really hate the idea of it getting fucked up by the wrong hands. But there's a feeling of doom to this, and I'm afraid we may end up with another Matrix-style fiasco, wherein the first section soared and the rest crashed. If it comes to that, it'll be a truly sad day.

*sigh*