Hobbits to Humans

Actor Dominic Monaghan and Designer Donatella Versace stopped by Jimmy Kimmel yesterday in Hollywood.

THE PRESTIGE Premiere
by Suzanne Philips

The premiere for the new Disney film THE PRESTIGE was held on Tuesday, October 17th at the historic El Capitan theatre on Hollywood Blvd. The film tells the story of two magicians in Turn of the Century England who engage in a bitter rivalry. The films stars Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Andy Serkis, and Piper Perabo were all in attendance. Other stars who came out to support the film included Jackie Collins, Jon Voight and William Fichtner.

Check out THE PRESTIGE when it opens in the US on October 20th.

Photos courtesy: Ruby Argumedo

Sir Ian McKellen, Zac Efron (from High School Musical) and the group Franz Ferdinand taped there Jimmy Kimmel Show tonight. Franz Ferdinand started the afternoon with a sound check on the outdoor Coors Light stage. All of the members stopped to sign autographs and personalize items for fans. I was pleased to hear that they were checking to make sure everyone was actually a fan and not an autograph hound. The music sounded really good, and if you haven't had time to check out their new album YOU COULD HAVE IT SO MUCH BETTER, pick it up!

Sir Ian McKellen and Zac Efron came in shortly before the show started and were gracious enough to sign for fans. Sir Ian also checked to make sure that the people were true fans.

I LOVE that celebrities are so fed up with the autograph hounds now that they are personalizing items and only signing one item per person. This is the only way the annoying collectors will go away.

THREE FOOLS FOR APRIL

Poetry Reading
Beyond Baroque
Venice, CA
April 1, 2006

by Suzanne Philips

Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center welcomed Scott Wannberg, Viggo Mortensen and Henry (Hank) Mortensen, known collectively as THREE FOOLS FOR APRIL, on Saturday for an evening of poetry and song. The facility hosted two 1-hour plus shows in the same evening, with different poems being highlighted in each session.

The three poets sat in a "kitchen table" type environment with the 70 seat audience in an intimate setting surrounding them on 3 sides.

Scott Wannberg, whose most recent book is HARVEY KEITEL, HARVEY KEITEL, HARVEY KEITEL, was quick witted and a great storyteller. His anti-war satire and anti-Bush sentiments resonated well with this audience. A moving rendition of his poem about the death of his mother was met with much approval and empathy from the audience. He also had the crowd in stitches with his politically satirical songs and was a big crowd favorite.

Viggo Mortensen, best known to many as one of the stars of THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY, has long been an accomplished poet and is on the board of directions of Beyond Baroque. Reading his own poetry as well as some works that audience members had given him, Viggo was clearly at ease in the room and his love for Poetry was clear to all. After stumbling over a word in one reading he informed the audience that he was " just an actor" who "reads the words they give me in the best way that I can". He also joked that unlike filmmaking "Tonight can't be fixed in post production!" Viggo's poetry was very visual and earthy, much like the man himself. His quiet delivery and low timbered voice was much appreciated by members of the audience.

Henry (Hank) Mortensen, Viggo's teenage son, made his debut tonight as featured poet. While having much in common with his famous father, Henry has a style all his own. His poetry is very biting and witty. Several of the pieces dealt with lost love and were very insightful for someone just leaving their teenage years. Henry also read several Haiku, one of which he had written in Japanese. After giving his dad a hard time for stumbling over words in one of the poems, Viggo responded with "The young are quick". Henry gave some back story on some of his poems and after spending a long time describing one poem, Viggo laughed and jokingly said "you should have seem him driving over here", but clarified that "no, actually he is a really good driver." Henry and Viggo had a great time riffing on each other and you could plainly see the love between father and son and how proud each was of the other.

The sold-out crowd was multi-cultural and very verbal with their praise for the readings. Many fans and friends had traveled from out of state and even out of the country to be there tonight.

After the show, the venue sold works by all three, including a limited edition spiral bound book that Henry had made up just for this show.

If you are interested in picking up works by any of these three guys, check out Perceval Press.

WORLD WITHOUT SUNDAYS
Sunday, January 22nd, 2006
WORLD WITHOUT SUNDAYS
Sunday, January 22nd, 2006
Old Towne Pub
Pasadena, CA
By Suzanne Philips

guitar
Guy Harrington - bass/vocals
Grecco Buratto - guitar/vocals
Adam Hurlbut - drums

*******
Last night, the Old Towne pub in Pasadena witnessed a crowd like it has probably never seen. WORLD WITHOUT SUNDAYS scheduled a free last minute show for the fans to coincide with the ORC convention taking place this weekend in Pasadena. The band was scheduled to go on at 8:00 pm and by 7:30 the small pub was already packed. The extremely tiny stage was a tight fit for the 4 guys, but they made the best of it and rocked the packed crowd with a great show! They played for about an hour and played lots of stuff from their CD including fan faves like “Drunk” and “Colorblind”. All of the guys seemed to be in a great mood and were joking with each other and laughing a lot throughout the show. Shox’s voice was in great form and Adam has now perfected throwing the drumstick with a twirl and catching it, much to my personal delight. Grecco had an amazing guitar solo in “Drunk” and Adam had a slammin drum solo that brought the house down.

Several times Shox started playing chords from different songs, mostly heavy metal, and Adam, Guy and Grecco would jump right in and continue playing and then Shox would drop out joking that he only knew the first few chords of most of the songs but the other guys could just pick it up and run with it, making him look bad! Actors and band friends Elijah Wood, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan were in attendance and Elijah even fought his way to the front of the stage to take photos, video and rock out during the show. (I still think you should have given him a business card and offered to host his pics on WWS.net Losillë)

When Shox announced that the band would only do one more number and thanked everyone for coming out, someone in the crowd shouted out a request for “No Diggity” (for those of you that don’t know, this is an old-school Rap/Hip-Hop song by the group Blackstreet), and Shox started singing the first verse a cappella. A real trip to hear Shox put his special vocal brand on Hip-Hop music. They ended as usual with a cover of “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie and the entire audience was singing and dancing to this great ending to a fabulous show.

By far one of the best WWS shows I have every attended.

The One Ring Celebration - 2006

Photo and Story

By Suzanne Phillips

   The One Ring Celebration
   January 20-22, 2006
   Pasadena, CA

Elijah Wood and Suzanne Phillips

Day 2, Saturday

My overall impressions of this years ORC convention are that it seems to be much smaller than last year. Less people and what seemed to me to be a lower turnout, less vendors than last year. One good thing I found was that there seemed to me to be less events which was actually kind of nice as you didn't have to run from one thing to another. I did, however, hear some grumbling from others about the number of guests and events going on throughout the weekend. They also had some major sound problems in the main auditorium and the mics kept cutting out. This was really annoying and even Elijah Wood made mention of it during his panel. More of the story

The Nature of Landscape and Independent Perception

Viggo Mortensen/Georg Gudni
Book signing and Exhibit Opening Night Reception
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Track 16 Gallery
Santa Monica, CA

By Suzanne Phillips

Yesterday in Santa Monica, Track 16 Gallery opened the new exhibit "The Nature of Landscape and Independent Perception" for a 5 week run. The exhibit features paintings by Icelandic artist Georg Gudni and photographs by Viggo Mortensen. To celebrate this opening, the gallery held a book signing with the two artists and an opening night reception. More of the Story

Industry big wigs sign on for 'Halo' movie

Microsoft vice president recruits Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, WETA for first video game movie. WETA has been signed for the special effects. more

The TuXperience is a fun site go check it out. Fidget is an incredible artist. The Fidget Gallery is full of fanciful beasts. I even found this pic of me...in my true form.

More Hooligans from Suzanne: I found this magazine today called Black Book, Sam Rockwell is on the cover it is the Spring 2005 issue and it had photos of both Charlie Hunnam and Leo Gregory from Hooligans inside. (Thanks Suzanne, lots of pretty men in this film.)

"Lexi Alexander the director is the girl in the photo, Leo Gregory is the blonde guy and Terence Jay is the guy with the dark hair."
(I love this poster, Losillë)

Note about Elijah Wood being gay rant: The rant has made it's way into Google. "Elijah Wood + gay" and is in the top 10 for how people find this website. Therefore, I have decided to down grade the language from R to PG-13. If people are offended by my language, they will be less likely to hear my message. (I am not as PO.d as I was when I wrote it so I don't think I am not selling out, but I might be.) New Sanitized Rant

Let me tell you upfront that some of Ala's responses may not be flattering. She thinks I am a high maintenance friend and sometimes she is mean and calls me Mr. Frodo. She calls me that cause she thinks I can't take care of myself. I might be a tad bid scatterbrained, but I am not high maintenance. I think the name calling may have started at the Lost Palantír when I left my purse and camera bag on the sidewalk.

Oh please! The only reason she wants me to go with her is because no-one in her family will let her out by herself. I swear, I think I have a pot or pan or two in my back pack and and some spare lembas bread. If there were no McDonald's where we're going she would starve. Like Sam, I just smile and indulge her until she sees reason (hasn't happened yet) or till the "end of all things", whichever comes first. :-)

PART ONE - This about our trip down and more importantly me scoring an Elijah Wood autograph ticket.

PART TWO - Jarl and Jorn Benzon, Sandro Kopp, Peter Tait, Bruce Hopkins, Dominic Monaghan, World Without Sundays

Most of the content here will be about Sean Astin, Elijah Wood, Dominic Monaghan or Billy Boyd. Do I know these people , you ask? Yes, but it was such a hassle -- they were always calling, emailing, wanting to come over -- I had to just say enough is enough and end the relationships. If you want to send one of them a message don't send it to me, ‘ cause I refuse to see them. (I spend my free time with a randy penguin.)