Book of Days: asher553

SOCIETY. Later this week, I'll be hosting a meeting of a conservative-leaning group that I've been a member of for several years. In the past, we met on a more or less monthly basis at a cafe in downtown Portland; later, we started meeting in private homes and (during the covid lockdowns) online. This will be my first time hosting, and I've invited a buddy who's a neighbor and fellow conservative to join us.

AUTOMOTIVE. My recently-acquired Nissan Versa sedan is now officially street legal! The shiny new license plates arrived today from the Oregon DMV.

ENTERTAINMENT. I saw 'Cruella' last weekend with a lady friend and enjoyed it enormously. Really, it is very very good. I don't want to say too much about it (because spoilers) but - and you can take this as coming from someone who generally has an exceedingly low opinion of Hollywood and its products these days - it's one terrific film.

My friend MW invited me to join him and his kids for the new 'Hobbit' movie last night. It was one of those things you do for kids.

After the film, I ventured that "it was a little longer than it needed to be." MW gave me a forlorn look and said, "It was the *shortest* of the Hobbit movies."

Oh.

And I hate to be a grinch, but the costumes in that latest Hobbit movie were just awful. Could the beards, bald caps, and plastic crown possibly have looked any cheaper or more fake? And the film was way too heavy in CGI action. There's only so many minutes that watching giant trolls throwing rocks at people can hold my interest.

I liked LOTR because there was a strong character story with the hobbits. The tension created by the temptation of the ring's power was palpable, as was the strain it put on the characters' friendships. Gollum's character - always addressed respectfully by his real name, Smeagol, by Frodo - was amazing. Nobody had seen that kind of expressiveness from a CGI character before, and nobody thought it could be done.

This is such a come-down from that, it's really sad. I'd say it was like watching a comic book of a movie, but that's unfair to comic books.