December 09, 2001
I've got a friend who works for a newspaper as an entertainment editor, and as a magnet for hate-mail. His name is Eric, and he got to see the Lord of the Rings movie yesterday. At dinner he told me about it.Some of the best news he had for me is that it's one hundred and seventy-eight minutes long. That's just two minutes short of three hours, and that makes me very, very happy. I've been waiting for this movie since the first web teasers two years ago (or so), and by gum, I'd better get to sit in the theater for more than 120 minutes.
The funny thing is that I could tell you everything he told me, and scoop his article by nearly a week. Only that wouldn't be funny. I mean, he'd get mad at me, and stop telling me stuff.
He liked the movie, though. He liked it more than the Harry Potter movie (which I enjoyed quite a bit), and when I grilled him for details about stuff that's in and stuff that's out of the movie, he cheerfully obliged. But I'm not gonna scoop him, in case he wants the privilege of telling die-hard Tom Bombadil fans to stay home.
Err... forget I said that.