Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! [spont.]

[rant]
Can't someone just agree with me that LotR does not deserve all of the awards?!!! Heck, it doesn't deserve any (save Best Art Direction, maybe).

Fine, so I haven't actually watched the last 2 of the films, or dragged myself through the books, but that doesn't mean that I can't judge them and tell people that it's not deserving!!!

First of all, whatever happened to giving awards to movies that actually meant something to people and had a lasting message to tell, like 'Casablanca' or 'A Man for All Seasons'? LotR was just your plain and simple good vs. evil and loyalty thing, and besides from that, it had a freakin' cult of fans behind it lauding it and everything. I mean the scenery was pretty, but movies that have lots of special effects and gruesome battle scenes doesn't mean that it's that good and deserving of everything. Even 'Gladiator' and 'Chicago' were artistically better achievements.

Just because I'm not technically 'qualified' to make a decision because I haven't seen it doesn't mean that I'm wrong...take a look inside yourselves, people. Think about why it truly is that you think LotR deserves this treatment. You'll see that it's hardly based on artistic merit.

Stop thinking that opinions have to be based on fact. Some things just can't be argued that way.

We've forgotten what art is. We see only art in that stimulates our senses and not what stimulates the mind.

We've made life a popularity contest. Only the popular win. Whether popular equals quality or not doesn't matter anymore, and that is why I have never gotten a leadership role, so much I try. It's because I think about 'what is the purpose of life,' not 'what/who looks best?' Apparently philosophy just doesn't matter to anyone anymore, and we don't care what we do with our lives except what's there to make us happy and excited in the short term. Do we even see what's so wrong with our society? It's all in what we think is 'good' entertainment!

I'll bet you anything that I won't get to be the valedictorian. Just because I didn't deliver a sweet 'thanks-for-everything,-we'll-always-remember-high-school' speech at my audition. That's because sweetness is wasteful unless it really means something. And in this world, it doesn't.

I'm mad at the world for what we've made ourselves into.

Why is it that people are drawn so much to 'epics' like LotR but yet don't strive to live in one of their own?

[/rant]

I hate to say it but the more people who can't see and understand what's happening to the backbones of society, the more we're never going to have happiness.

This is the sort of thing that makes me either want to break down and cry in a corner (which I'm doing right now) or go out and slaughter a bunch of people (which I'm seriously considering but I know I don't have the means to).



Note of clarification: I have been trying to read through the books since grade 4 (that's 8 years ago or so). I've tried starting over and over again and it just hasn't been possible for me to get through it understanding the text. Hence "dragging."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! (continued, part 2 the sequel)

Thou hast forgot what merits art enough to have the honour of the "best."

Thou hast given praise ignorantly, let popularity sway thee, let false grandness sway thee, let fictitious battles sway thee.

Thou hast attributed achievement to a man's great effort that resulted in anything but achievement, some overrated adaptation of a work of cult following and little artistic merit itself.

There are three types of people -- those who defend the merit of the text and the films to the death; those who defend the text but denounce the films, and myself. I would very well slaughter the other two if I could.

Thou hast failed thy world!

Why dost thou flock to see these 'epics' yet not strive to become part of one? (Lo, what else is in such spectacles, none other than the spectacles of war! Is that what it is thou cravest, thou savages that inherited this earth? Answer me! Do not blame thy elders; blame thyselves for endosing it alone, without epic context. Blame thyselves for thy own wasting!) And beholdeth those who tryeth to live their epic: thou punisheth them to death, to prison, to deprive them of their role in their personal epic. If that is punishment, then thou hast only punished thyself to stagnation. Break free, I say! Remove thyself from thy own imprisonment and cut thine own path to physical triumph! Fell those who strangle thine ability to carve thine own adventure, and carry ever forward, slaying, not yielding to, the enemies of thine heroic hearts.