My Tag Answers for My 2024 Tolkien Blog Party

My twelfth Tolkien Blog Party is winding down.  But it's not over -- you can still enter the giveaway through midnight (EDT) tonight, and still play the games!  And still take a few minutes to fill out the tag, like I'm doing.

1. The Shire: What place in Middle-earth do you think you would feel the most like home for you? 

Probably the Shire, actually.  I spent my childhood in the rural Midwest, in farming country, and then spent my teen years in western North Carolina (which, yes, is experiencing a lot of distress right now -- pray for the flooding to ease up!).  I think the Shire is the closest place in Middle-earth to both of those.

2. Bree: If you could create a Middle-earth-themed restaurant, what would you serve there? 

Oooooooh, lots of yummy things!  Rabbit stew and roasted vegetables and hearty meat-and-potato dishes.  Fruit pies and tea cakes and delicate little pastries that look like they were created by elves.  And lembas, but only on the to-go menu.  I actually have several Middle-earth-inspired cookbooks, and made several things from them last weekend!

(Mine from my Instagram)

3. Rivendell: Where in Middle-earth would you like to hang out with your friends for a week or so? 

Rivendell.  I'd love to visit there, peruse the library, listen to the songs and stories, enjoy the food... but I think once I was well-rested, I would get bored and want to go elsewhere again.

4. Moria: Have you ever delved into the history of Middle-earth (or the history of Tolkien's creative process)? If so, did you learn anything cool you'd like to share? 

I have, somewhat!  I have learned that Tolkien was absolutely a pantser -- he did not plan out his plots.  When he was writing the first draft of The Lord of the Rings, he had no idea who Strider really was when he showed up in a dark corner of the Prancing Pony.  I find that funny, relatable, and awesome.

5. Lothlorien: Would you like to sleep in a tree? 

Yes, if the elves were there to ensure I wouldn't roll over and fall out while asleep.  I do enjoy climbing trees.

6. Edoras: Do you like horses? 

I love them :-)

7. Minas Tirith: Have you ever dressed as a Tolkien character, whether for a convention or Halloween or anything else? (Bonus fake internet points if you share a photo!) 

I dressed as Goldberry for Halloween last year, and my husband dressed as Tom Bombadil!

8. Erebor: Do you have any Middle-earth merchandise you particularly treasure? 

I have a copy of The Lord of the Rings all in one volume that I bought in a bookstore a week or so after the first movie came out in 2021.  I'm reading that copy for the tenth time right now, and my husband has also read it multiple times, as well as one of my kids.  It has a host of memories for me, and I have used a different color of pen to make notes in it each time I read it, so it's really fun to see what I was particularly noticing during different reads!

(Also mine from my Instagram)

I also love my Boromir mug that Carrie at A Fine Quotation designed especially with me in mind a few years ago.

(Also mine from my Instagram)

9. Mordor: Have you ever read anything by Tolkien that wasn't about Middle-earth? 

Yes!  I've read Mr. Bliss, Roverandom, and Letters from Father Christmas.  All are charming, but that last one is my favorite.

10. The Grey Havens: How long has it been since you last ventured into Middle-earth via book or film?

About seven hours?  I'm reading The Return of the King right now, and was deeply involved in it while my daughter was at her physical therapy session this morning.  In fact, I was crying because Sam woke up and saw Gandalf was alive, and I was wishing I had brought in some tissues, and also hoping everyone there assumed it was just the day's high pollen count making me sniffle...

The Slumming Angel: Raymond Chandler

In his essay “The Simple Art of Murder,” Raymond Chandler explores detective fiction in general, but especially the hard-boiled kind he perfected. It includes my favorite bit of writing advice: “When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.” By which he meant, if you’re not sure what should happen next, make things worse in the most exciting way you can. Which is exactly how his books and stories work—everything goes from bad to worse to the worst imaginable… and then somehow turns out all right in the end. 

Novelist Ross MacDonald said Raymond Chandler “wrote like a slumming angel.” He set his books in the seedy underbelly of 1930s, ’40s, and '50s Los Angeles and its surrounding cities, showing the grime and moral decay that Hollywood glossed over with its movies. The California sun beat down on ugliness and beauty alike, and Chandler strove to capture that combination in his writing. 

I was probably sixteen when I read my first Raymond Chandler mystery, The Big Sleep. It entranced me, and the power of his writing impressed me so much, I fell in love with hard-boiled detective stories and their cousin, film noir, all on the strength of that one novel. 

I love Raymond Chandler’s books more for how he writes them than what he writes about. Yes, I love mysteries, but find his plots often convoluted. They don’t always resolve the way I’d like them to. He himself admitted that he didn’t know who killed one particular character in The Big Sleep. But the way he writes? I am continually in awe. Here are a few quotations from his books to show you what I mean:

Montmar Vista was a few dozen houses of various sizes and shapes hanging by their teeth and eyebrows to a spur of mountain and looking as if a good sneeze would drop them down among the box lunches on the beach. —Farewell, My Lovely 

There was a sad fellow over on a bar stool talking to the bartender, who was polishing a glass and listening with that plastic smile people wear when they are trying not to scream. —The Long Goodbye 

The minutes went by on tiptoe, with their fingers to their lips. — The Lady in the Lake 

It was a nice face, a face you get to like. Pretty, but not so pretty that you would have to wear brass knuckles every time you took it out. — Farewell, My Lovely 

I was as empty of life as a scarecrow’s pockets. — The Big Sleep 

 I went out to the kitchen to make coffee—yards of coffee. Rich, strong, bitter, boiling hot, ruthless, depraved. The life-blood of tired men. — The Long Goodbye 

As you’ve probably gathered, Chandler’s books don’t shy away from subjects that might be shocking, or even taboo. Murder, greed, lust, drug use, blackmail, alcoholism, deviant behavior, and theft all make appearances, some regularly. What’s remarkable about his writing is that he can include subjects like these without making his books dirty. 

My sixteen-year-old self didn’t really get some of the things alluded to in The Big Sleep. I figured out that someone was being blackmailed with a photo of them naked, but I missed the other hints about even seedier subjects. This is because Chandler writes about these things obliquely, not glorifying them by dwelling on them. Instead, he glosses over them so they don’t gain importance from his attention. They exist, but he will not dwell on them. 

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out how he strikes that balance. And I think something else he wrote in “The Simple Art of Murder” goes a long way to explain it. When discussing the sort of detectives he wrote, Chandler said, “Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.” His fictional hero, Philip Marlowe, is such a man. He’s innately honorable, moral, unflinching, and even kind. Though he touches dirt in his cases, he doesn’t become dirty himself. Therefore, neither do his readers. 

I know I’m practically turning this whole article into one long string of quotations, but I want to include one more. Why? Because it so perfectly encapsulates why I love to read detective fiction. When he addressed that question in “The Simple Art of Murder,” he said that it all boils down to the fact that everyone “must escape at times from the deadly rhythm of their private thoughts.” Reading fiction, especially mysteries, is my favorite way to do that. And Raymond Chandler’s books delight me most of all.

(This post originally appeared in Femnista magazine on October 20, 2018.)

"Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" (2023)

This movie surprised me over and over and over.

I first watched Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) about a year ago on an airplane.  My kids all play D&D, and my son is even in a teen D&D group at our local library.  Most of the other teens in that group saw this movie and praised it, so he really wanted to see it too.  But I'm pretty cautious about letting my kids, even my teens, watch movies I haven't seen before, so I told him I'd need to see it first.  I meant to get it out of the library sometime, but then we flew out to visit my parents last fall, and this was one of the in-flight movie options, so I figured, why not?

This movie made me laugh out loud.  Repeatedly.  On an airplane.  It was so smart, so funny, so delightful, that I just couldn't help laughing with glee over it!  I tried to be quiet, but I'm pretty sure I startled my seatmates more than once.  (My kids were all in a row ahead of me, where I could keep an eye on them, but I was sitting by strangers).

D&D: HAT centers on Edgin (Chris Pine), a wryly charming thief who escapes from prison with his best friend, the potato-obsessed warrior, Holga (Michelle Rodriguez).  They set off to rescue Edgin's daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman), who was left alone when Edgin and Holga were imprisoned after a heist gone wrong.  They discover that Kira is being raised by their erstwhile pal Forge (Hugh Grant), who has somehow managed to become lord of the land.  Forge has been lying to Kira, saying that Edgin doesn't love her, abandoned her on purpose, and so on, because he wants to raise her as his own daughter.  He tries to have Edgin and Holga killed, but Holga is not the sort of person who is killed easily.

Edgin and Holga escape and put together a small group of people willing to help them rescue Kira, including a magician with confidence issues named Simon (Justice Smith) and a shapeshifting rebel named Doric (Sophia Lillis).  They try to figure out how to steal Kira away from Forge, but end up uncovering Forge's sinister plot to destroy the whole kingdom.  In order to save Kira, they have to save the kingdom too.

And, lest my kids yell at me, I need to also mention Xenk (Regé-Jean Page), a mystical former warrior who dispenses gifts and advice in the most literal and hilariously dead-pan way possible.  I probably laugh more over Xenk's scenes than all the rest.

I have seen this movie at least five times now, and it delights me every time.  The storytelling is incredibly smart, one of those stories where every piece slots right in where it needs to.  Things that seem random at the beginning are shown to be important later.  It's like one of those pretty 3-D crystal puzzles where you slowly see the whole story take shape and appreciate it more and more as you get to see how things fit together.  

And yet!  The movie also feels like this could be a D&D campaign with a bunch of people making the story up as it goes along.  The dialog is simultaneously witty and sharp and funny, yet also feels like things people would say because they think their character will sound cool saying them.  That is an incredibly tricky balance, but they pull it off.  

Also, although I laugh a lot over this movie, there is a part at the end that always makes me cry, too.  It's not just all funny hijinks.  This movie centers around relatable, individual relationships.  Parents and children.  Friends.  Husbands and wives.  That's what forms the core for the film, which is really what elevates it above the usual slash-and-bash sort of fantasy films, for me.

The whole film totally works for someone like me, who hasn't played D&D (though I do have a general sense of how it works).  But my kids, who do play D&D, love it on a whole different level.  They're always explaining to me how most of what's in the movie comes straight from the game, like owlbears, gelatinous cubes that dissolve people, a coin that lets you talk to dead people, and so many other things.  I love that this movie is able to stand on its own, work for dedicated fans of the game, and ALSO gently spoof fantasy movies, all at once!  Wow.

Oh, and one other thing I love?  The unabashedly platonic friendship between Edgin and Holga.  They are a wonderful team, but they've never been in love, nor do they fall in love during this adventure, nor are they likely to ever fall in love in the future, and they are both totally happy with that.

Is this movie family friendly?  Well, it has quite a bit of bad language.  There's a bit of rude humor (mostly from the reanimated corpses in one very funny section, which are a bit gross) and some very, very subtle innuendo here and there.  But there's no smut, there's only a hint of possible romance between two side characters, and the violence is all quite stylized and fantastical and unrealistic.  All three of my kids have seen this repeatedly, and they are ages 12+.  It's a great movie for teens and more mature tweens.

This has been my contribution to this weekend's Barbarians at the Gates blogathon co-hosted by myself here at Hamlette's Soliloquy and by Quiggy over at The Midnite Drive-In.  

The Barbarians at the Gates Blogathon is Here!

Welcome to the Barbarians at the Gates blogathon, hosted by myself and Quiggy over at The Midnite Drive-In!  We're here to celebrate "sword-and-sorcery" stories in all their unique glory.  

Once again, the blogathon rules:

1. Anything that fits the idea of "sword-and-sorcery" will be allowed. 

2. Only one person/post per film or idea (but you can get around that a little bit).  

3. We would like to limit the entries per person to 3 (if you are that ambitious). 

When your blogathon post is live, simply leave a link to it in the comments on either this post or the similar one over at The Midnite Drive-In, and we'll add you to the official roster.  And then take a few minutes to enjoy each others' posts!

The Roster

Review of The Beastmaster (1982)

at Realweegiemidget Reviews

Review of Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

at Hamlette's Soliloquy

Review of Hercules in the Haunted World (1961)

at Speakeasy

A Conan double feature 

at The Midnite Drive-In

Review of Willow (1988)

at 18 Cinema Lane

Review of The Scorpion King (2002)

at Taking Up Room

Review of Sleeping Beauty (1959)

at Whimsically Classic

Double the Summer Sunshine Awards

Both Taking Up Room and Nitrate Glow have nominated me for a Sunshine Award!  Thank you, lovely movie mavens!  I'm going to answer ALL their questions in this post :-D  ::flexes fingers::

Zee usual Sunshine Award Rules:

• Display the award’s official logo somewhere on your blog
• Thank the person who nominated you
• Provide a link to your nominator’s blog
• Answer your nominator’s questions
• Nominate up to 11 bloggers
• Ask your nominees 11 questions
• Notify your nominees by commenting on at least one of their blog posts

Here are my answers to Taking Up Room's questions:

1. Which movie of 2024 has been your favorite so far? Your least favorite? 

If we're saying strictly movies released in 2024, my favorite has definitely been Horizon: An American Saga, Chapter One (2024), and my least-favorite has been The Ministry for Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024), and that is entirely misleading and horrible to say, because I enjoyed Ungentlemanly Warfare enough to buy a DVD copy for my shelves -- but those are the ONLY new movies made in 2024 I have seen this year.  It has been a sucky year for movies, yo.  There have been a few others I wouldn't mind seeing at some point, but I didn't want to see them enough to get me in the theater.

Now, if you want me to pick from all the movies I have watched for the first time in 2024, that's more interesting.  Then my favorite is probably The Train (1964), which is spellbinding, and my least-favorite has absolutely been Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady (1991), which was so abysmal I couldn't even finish it, not even for Christopher Lee's sake.

2. Do you like superhero movies or are you over them? 

I love them.  I'm so excited that my kids are getting old enough to really dig them!  But, at the same time, I am no longer watching the new MCU movies and shows because the first couple that came after Avengers: Endgame (2019) soured me deeply on where they were taking the franchise, so I am simply choosing to end the MCU there in my headcanon.

3. You have the chance to visit any movie studio or any movie production at the height of the studio era. Which studio or movie do you pick and why? 

I pick the production of The Blue Dahlia (1946) because it gives me the best shot at meeting both my favorite author, Raymond Chandler, and my dearly beloved Alan Ladd.  Plus his best friend, William Bendix

4. What do you like best about your favorite film genre? 

I love westerns because they make me happy.  I simply can't be uncheered by a cowboy!

5. Who are your favorite film critics? 

My blogging friends.  I pay basically no attention to "real" movie critics.  If they agree with me, it doesn't change anything, and if I disagree with them, I often get mad at their wrongness, and who needs more anger in their life?  Not me.

6. Are there any movies you regret reviewing? 

Ugh, yes.  I made a list nineteen years ago of my bottom 10 movies, and I really wish I could go back in time and stop myself from watching them.

7. Have you ever changed your opinion of a movie and if so, which movie was it? 

Goodness, yes!  Many times.  Especially as I gradually revisit movies I disliked when I was a teen.  3:10 to Yuma (1957), Hour of the Gun (1967), and The Proud Rebel (1958) are all movies I disliked or found boring as a teen, but dearly love now.

8. What are some of the other things you like doing besides blogging? 

I homeschool my kids, I read a lot of books, I write and publish books, I teach literature, I grow flowers and bake yummy snacks and take pretty pictures of books for Bookstagram.  I crochet.  I write a monthly newspaper column on Old West history.

9. Are there any movies that you think might make good video games? If you have any interest in video games, that is. 

I do enjoy video games now and then, particularly if they are movie-related.  I get a big kick out of the Lego Hobbit game, for instance.  It would be really fun to have a sort of film noir mash-up game where you get to choose what classic noir detective you want to be, and then you go around solving cases inspired by noir films.

10. If you could write about any celeb or other film-related topic, what or who do you write about? 

You mean, if I could write, like, a newspaper column on movies?  I could write about western movies and shows for months/years.  Or, if you mean, who or what could I write a nonfiction, film-related book about, again, westerns!  Maybe Alan Ladd's westerns, specifically.  Or Hamlet adaptations.  I keep watching more of those, and I could totally write a book reviewing a few dozen of them.  Which doesn't sound like a bad idea for a book, actually...

11. Who do you most enjoy seeing movies with?

I enjoy watching movies with people who are ready to enjoy them.  If I'm in a theater, give me a crowd that is going to laugh aloud at funny things, maybe clap at something awesome.  If I'm at home, give me companions who are NOT going to talk over the dialog all the time, but who are ready to laugh and maybe clap, maybe gasp, maybe quick share a "that's so cool!" kind of reaction.

Here are my answers to Nitrate Glow's questions:

1. What is the best theatrical experience you have ever had? 

When I was fifteen, we went to see Apollo 13 (1995) in the theater.  At the end, when the big, happy, wonderful reveal happens, the stoic Iowa farmers in that theater around us stood up and clapped.  I get tears in my eyes just remembering it.

2. Any opinions on the future of movie theaters?

I think theaters that are showing classic films alongside new ones will stay strong.  Theaters that only show new releases are going to struggle.  This is entirely based on my personal experience, in that I have gone to see two new releases this year, but by the end of this month, I'll have been to 9 re-releases of older films.

3. Is there a universally despised movie you think isn’t so bad? 

Well, The Lone Ranger (2013) is in my top five for all-time favorites...

4. Name a movie you enjoy from a genre you don’t usually like. 

I don't watch horror much at all, but I really like Dracula Untold (2014).  They put a very unique spin on his origins that I very much dig, as a writer.  Also, Luke Evans.  ::insert heart-eyes emoji here::

5. What do you think your best post to date is? 

I've been blogging for 22 years.  One best post?  Ouch.  Hmm.

Here are three I'm very proud of:

• My fake review of Murder Most Foul (1943)
• My poetic analysis of the song "Hurt" melded with Hamlet
• My post about finally figuring out why I love Hamlet so much

6. What is your favorite film from 1939? 

Destry Rides Again.  So quotable!

7. What are some classic film related books you would recommend? 

I really loved Sixguns and Society: A Structural Study of the Western by Will Wright.  Film Noir: Light and Shadow by Alain Silver and James Ursini is a delight.  I learned a lot from We'll Always Have Casablanca by Noah Isenberg.

8. What movie has the best cinematography you’ve ever seen? 

Well, this is tricky, because what does "best" mean?  Most-sweeping visuals?  Best composition?  Most striking use of color?  Gotta say, the best one I have seen in a long time is Midway (2019) -- they don't waste anything in their frames, and their shots showing what it was like to actually be in a dive bomber, diving on an enemy ship -- they're spectacular.

9. Name an underrated filmmaker/performer/creative in the industry you always champion. 

Have you heard me natter on for pages on end about Alan Ladd and how under-loved he is these days, how really good he was in serious roles even though the critics usually dismissed him as just a tough guy, how sweet and kind he was as a person?  If not, you must have not been reading my blog much for the past eight years...

10. Favorite movie soundtrack? 

I love a lot of soundtracks, so I'm just gonna go with Bruce Rowland's score for The Man from Snowy River (1982) because that's my favorite movie.  And the soundtrack is the first CD I ever bought.  And all three of my kids were born while that soundtrack was playing in the birthing room.

11. What movie are you itching to write about but haven’t yet?

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) -- but I'll be reviewing it this weekend for the Barbarians at the Gate blogathon I'm co-hosting!

And now, the nominees are...

Nobody.  I just got nominated with a third Sunshine Blogger Award a couple days ago, so I'm going to save my tagging for when I answer that one...

Ranking Alan Ladd's Movies by Favorite

(This is from Lucky Jordan)

Since I just reviewed one of Alan Ladd's movies very recently, I decided to do something a little different to celebrate his birthday today.  I'm arranging all 32 of Alan's movies that I have seen in order of how well I like them.  I've reviewed 29 of those here, but have watched three others only once each -- I want to watch them a second time before I review them, as is my wont.

Like my Ten Favorite Lists, this is arranged by my own personal preference, not by which of his movies I think is objectively the best.

You might notice that my top ten list is slightly different from the list of my Ten Favorite Alan Ladd Movies that I shared back in 2017.  Part of that is because I simply hadn't yet seen some of these movies when I made that list.  And part of it is because my affections have shifted a little after many rewatches.  I should probably make an updated Ten Favorites list for him!

1. Branded (1950)

2. Shane (1953)

3. And Now Tomorrow (1944)

4. The Blue Dahlia (1946)

5. The Great Gatsby (1949)

6. Whispering Smith (1948)

7. China (1943)

8. Calcutta (1946)

9. Red Mountain (1951)

10. This Gun for Hire (1942)

(On the set of Shane)

Movies 11-20 are all extremely rewatchable, I simply haven't felt pulled to rewatch them quite as often as I have my top ten picks.  But they're all solidly enjoyable, and Alan is lovely in them.

11. Captain Carey, USA (1949)

12. Saigon (1947)

13. The Proud Rebel (1958)

14. Appointment with Danger (1950)

15. Saskatchewan (1954)

16. The Glass Key (1942)

17. Drum Beat (1954)

18. O.S.S. (1946)

19. Santiago (1956)

20. Hell on Frisco Bay (1955)

(With his son David Ladd on the set of Saskatchewan)

Movies 21-25 are all really good too.  I'd say the top twenty-five of my favorites are films that can be enjoyed by basically anyone, whether they're an Alan Ladd fan or not.  They're all-around good stuff.  Movies 26-32 might be a little less so... but I've seen two of those only once, so they might move up on this list after another watching.

21. Chicago Deadline (1949)

22. The Iron Mistress (1952)

23. The Big Land (1957)

24. Two Years Before the Mast (1946)

25. Lucky Jordan (1942)

26. Botany Bay (1952)

27. Guns of the Timberland (1960)

28. Wild Harvest (1947)

29. The Light of Western Stars (1940)

30. Her First Romance (1940)

Alan has minor roles in The Light of Western Stars, Her First Romance, and Paper Bullets, so it's not shocking that I don't put them high on this list.  He's undeniably the star of One Foot in Hell, but if you read my review of it from a week or so ago, you'll see that it's an unpleasant movie.  I can appreciate it, but I don't like it, so it goes at the bottom.

31. Paper Bullets (Gangs, Inc.) (1941)

32. One Foot in Hell (1960)

(This is from Her First Romance)

Happy birthday, Alan Ladd!  <3