Movies! Movies! Movies!

I'm just now getting over a cold and my wife is caught in the throes. So we vegged this weekend and watched lots of movies:

Confidence
Spider-Man
Stand By Me
Then on Sunday, Return of the King

Confidence was a lender from a cow-orker. Sort of a modern The Sting as written by a David Mamet wannabe. Not bad, actually; although I wouldn't have paid to see it in the theater.
Spider-Man and Stand By Me were DVDs we had bought but not yet watched (although we'd seen the movies before).

Good thing about waiting three weeks to see ROTK: no lines. Bad thing: no audience participation. I mean, how can you not cheer when Eowyn says "I am no man"?
I have some blahing to do about ROTK, but I'll save it for another post.

LOTR - a contrary take

The success of Peter Jackson’s films have spawned a cottage industry of pundits relating the story to current events. (This is not unique to the Ring films. I recall seeing one particularly eye-rolling essay trying to shoehorn Harry Potter into "perfect Christian behavior", for example.)

Most of these are obvious stretches trying to make some political point. By far the worst I’ve read was Rush Limbaugh’s screed. I’ve also seen arguments from the left equating the Council of Elrond to the U.N. (Scendan’s post here is well written, I thought.)

With due deference, I think you all are mistaken.
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