Belated Happy Holidays to all. (Still New Years to come, so it's not totally late.) Don't feel like writing much. Bitching about politics gives me a headache, TV's all in reruns (although I have discovered the joys of Degrassi: The Next Generation on Noggin; when are they putting all the original stuff out on DVD instead of VHS?), so all I can really talk about are movies. Saw the new Peter Pan movie on Christmas, since Paycheck was sold out. I had wanted to see Pan on the big screen, since the commercials made the effects/cinematography look very Brian Froud, and it didn't disappoint. Loads of fun.

Can't say I had nearly as much fun with Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, which I also saw on opening day. Clearly, I wasn't in the mood to see a three-hour, humorless fantasy epic that day, because an hour into it, I wanted to hit pause and go get something to eat. But, since I was seeing it in the theater, that wasn't an option, so I sat through epic CGI battle after epic CGI battle, waiting for someone to make a joke that didn't sound like they were reading it off some translated stone tablet, and hoping that, at some point, the hobbits would quit whining and crying. I really liked the first two movies, and I'm pretty sure this one was good, too. But I completely failed to connect with it when I went to see it, and while I'm willing to concede that that's partly my fault... well, I'm not taking all the blame, is what I'm saying.

Still, there's still Paycheck for me to look forward to, I still kind of want to see Haunted Mansion, though it's not a burning desire, and I want to see Big Fish, though I'm trying to read the book first. And, in February, there's Kill Bill Volume 2 to look forward to, and in April there's Hellboy... And next fall, I can get Return of the King on DVD and watch it in manageable chunks, and probably enjoy it a great deal more that way.