I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.
Eleven Oscars? Not a clue. Over a billion dollars total box office? Domestically? Beats me. The seeming adulation of millions of fans, the country across, the world across, streaming in devoted queues to the multiplex or local one-screen, for often multiple viewings of the same three-hour epics?
What the bloody hell’s the big deal?
If I see Peter Jackson’s big shambling face one more time, I think I’m going to explode. That, or Sean Astin’s doughy doe-eyes, or Elijah Wood’s gigantic forehead, or that crazy producer/writer chick’s crazy flower-decked hair. Ian McKellen and Liv Tyler-you’re off the hook, the former ’cause you’re classy, the latter on account of your so-damn-prettiness. Viggo Mortensen? Dude, you get a pass for now, but that “Hidalgo” flick looks mighty treacherous. Watch your step, boy.
The rest of you-hobbits, wizards, elfins, dwarves, ores, kings, big talking trees-be gone with you. Go away forever. I don’t ever want to see you again, polluting the box office chart or the weekend marquee or the Academy Awards with your overblown multi-million-dollar nonsense. “Samwise Gamgee?” What kind of a name is that??? How do people think that’s great? “Oh, Mister Frodo, Mister Frodo!” I swear, if porky Sam was any more Frodo’s bitch in those stupid movies, they would’ve been slapped with an NC-17. And Sam didn’t even get props! The stupid Lord of the stupid Rings is Frodo, and all he spent his nine hours doing was making big sad eyes at the sky and whining about “oh, it’s too much, it’s too much.” Maybe if Gandalf-grey or white-had popped his frazzled protege in the jaw a couple times, along with a “buck up” or two, things would’ve picked up their pace a bit and I would’ve been saved around four or five hours of my life. As it is, the third-plus of a day I spent slogging through this epic trilogy ain’t coming back any time soon, and for that alone “The Lord of the Rings” owes me a lifetime free of its bulky, wretched self.
Of course, it won’t happen. Too many ways has this Godforsaken chunk of cinema welded its way into everyday life. Gollum impersonations alone have made Austin Powers obsolete, something for which I’d generally be thankful if it didn’t mean hearing about “the PRECIOUS” every other day of the week. Cadenza’s own Jess Minnen has made a genuine sport out of comparing my likeness to Elijah Wood’s, and so occasionally in greeting her I’m faced with inquiries as to how my friends Sam and Pippin are doing lately. (Jess herself bears a mild spiritual/physical resemblance to “Saved By the Bell’s” Jessie Spano, but just mild enough so that when I retort with it, it sounds lame and uninspired.) Even my parents have been infected with the stupid “LOTR” bug, an illness that-given my folks’ remarkable ability to cleave devotedly to flick routines long past their sell-by date-pretty much assures I’ll be hearing Smeagol references for about the next twelve Christmas vacations. “Oh, Ty, do the ‘precious’ voice, you used to be able to do it so well.”
“Mom. It scares the innocence out of my newborn son. Michelle doesn’t like having to serenade out the memory of her husband’s shoddy impersonations.”
“Yeah, me, Michelle, Tyler’s wife. Michelle Branch. Mother of his child. Object of many thanks in his Oscar acceptance speech. I don’t like the damn ‘Lord of the Rings’ either. Come on, Mrs. Weaver, cut us a break.”
“Hey Ty! I don’t think your wife Michelle Branch should talk to your mother like that. Pass the, uh, turkey there.”
Etc. “The Lord of the Rings” is causing me domestic squabble a decade into the future. Thanks a lot, Peter Jackson. As if you weren’t annoying me enough in the present tense. Could you and your lot vanish now, promptly, please? You’ve got your eleven Oscars-eleven Oscars!-which is eleven more than Marty Scorsese, ten more than Orson Welles, another ten more than Cameron Crowe, and considerably more than my future wife, although I don’t think that really counts. (It will, of course, when I need a Best Original Score for my masterpieces.) Hell, y’all’ve even got nine more than Mel Gibson, a man who-if the weekend box office is to be believed-has in his corner the son of God Himself. Isn’t it about time you shifted to the sidelines and let, like, enjoyable movies hog the spotlight?
Some people might think I’m being bitter or-even worse-entirely wrongheaded in my pure uninhibited indifference towards these stupid movies. To those people, I offer this, my best attempt at a reasoned, intelligent explanation: I can’t get my heart into “The Lord of the Rings” and their ilk. I’ve never been a fantasy guy. It’s all a little too little for me. I prefer a film that’ll work not only my eyes, but my soul. It kinda pisses me off when a big empty blockbuster like “Return of the King”-for all its technical admirability-stomps in and crushes with its big Monty Python foot the award hopes of something masterful like “Lost in Translation,” or something memorable like “Mystic River.” Those are films that affected me in some way-made me feel sad or uplifted, wounded, inspired. All “Lord of the Rings” made me feel was tired-especially when it started rolling through that litany of about thirty-five different endings, at least one of which seemed bizarrely reminiscent of “American Pie.”
But then again, that’s just me. You might not give a damn what I think. You might be the biggest “LOTR” fan Wash U’s got. And in that case, well, I tip my hat to you and say-To each their own. Dork.