Bernard Hill has written a piece for the Times Online about his first car crash: "When I left school I planned to be a quantity surveyor but soon realised that I wanted to be an actor and was wasting their time and mine. I needed a stop-gap job and a friend of mine was a manager in a fish warehouse. Deliveries of fish would come into the warehouse in Manchester and were then sent to the shops..." [More]

Ostadan writes: Fantasy Flight Games' page of 'rants' has two items of interest to Tolkien fans; both are expansions of existing games. Lord of the Rings: Battlefields: "In August, Reiner Knizia gives us a new expansion for the classic Lord of the Rings board game. Each of the boards from the main game has a corresponding battlefield, and players maneuver heroes and villains on these battlefields to improve their position in the fully integrated main game. We'll have more information from Reiner on this expansion at the end of this month, so stay tuned!" [More]

Ostadan writes: Fantasy Flight Games' page of 'rants' has two items of interest to Tolkien fans; both are expansions of existing games. War of the Ring: Battles of the Third Age: "Battles of the Third Age is also both a companion game and an expansion for the original. The tactical companion game allows you to recreate the battles of Gondor and Rohan on an all new double-sided game board. [More]

New to DVD 'A History of Violence': David Cronenberg's drama of a small town husband and father (Viggo Mortensen) whose small town act of heroism -- saving the patrons of his diner by killing a pair of criminal psychopaths -- reveals his own repressed past as a brutal criminal is one of the best American films of the last year. The film turns the vigilante hero story on its head as it portrays his history of violence as a hibernating virus that emerges like a reflex when his family comes under attack, and shows the reverberations of the revelation through his small town family. [More]

Be sure to tune into FOX tonight at 9PM EST to catch a new episode of "24" with Sean Astin. Sean has joined the cast of the hit show in it's fifth season, he plays a savvy government agent who has taken control of 'CTU' the Counter Terrorism Unit.

Sean Astin is slated to be a guest on 'The Tonight Show with Jay Leno' on Thursday, March 16th. He is there to promote his work on the award winning drama "24". 'The Tonight Show' airs on NBC at 11:35PM. "24" airs every Monday night on FOX.

The folks from Billy's Loons Charities write: Scottish Youth Theatre is heading out to New York City to perform their new musical, Geordie. Please see the flyer for more details. Mark Irwin, the Marketing Manager of the Scottish Youth Theatre, sent BLC the following message regarding this new venture. "It would be lovely if some of the BBLoons where able to make it to the production, it would be especially nice to actually thank, in person, those people who have been so generous towards Scottish Youth Theatre." [More]

TORONTO - After months of rehearsals in a shabby warehouse on the edge of the Don River Valley in Toronto, a lavish stage version of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" is coming to life in previews at the Princess of Wales Theatre. If Tolkien's three-part saga about that elusive ring is one of those mammoth, legendary adventures, a quest to end all quests, it has nothing on the task of turning the author's lengthy, meticulously detailed world into a piece of theater. Yet, here it comes - a three-hour-plus adaptation of Tolkien's trilogy. Set for a grand opening March 23, the show has a cast of nearly 60 actors and costs upward of $23 million - and counting. By comparison, "The Phantom of the Opera," which cost a record $8 million when it opened on Broadway in 1988, would have a $12 million price tag today. [More]

Entmaiden writes: As you know, The Hobbit movie rights are split between New Line, which has the rights to produce the movie, and MGM, which has the rights to distribute it. Even though EVERYONE wants to see this movie made, the two studios have to come to agreement before that can start. There's an article in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, March 9, that offers a glimmer of hope that the path to agreement might be unfolding. MGM, after an 18-month hiatus since it's acquisition by a group of investors including Sony and Comcast, looks like it might be re-entering the movie distribution business and is looking for partners to produce movies. Let the Hobbit Happen! [More] [thehobbitfilm.com]

As part of our popular Movie Watch chats, tonight TORn's IRC gang will be settling in to watch the third of the four Harry Potter films, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban." We will conclude this movie series with "Goblet of Fire" on March 25th. [More]

Join us tonight in the #moviechat channel on our IRC server at 5:30 pm EST when we pop our copies of the film into the DVD player. After the usual confusion we'll all press play on our individual players and proceed to cheer and jeer (or discuss and argue, if you like!) the finer points of the film.

For information on IRC chat and how to take part in the fun, visit our FAQ. Chat is family-friendly and easy in TORn's lively chat rooms. If you've never checked it out, this is a great chance to meet the regulars and have some fun. [Join the chat now!]

Meghan, Online Community Manager for The Lord of the Rings Online writes: Last Friday we announced our partnership with Codemasters as our European publisher and distributor. Yesterday, we posted concept art for Trestlebridge, an area the LOTRO team created specifically for the game. This is the first piece we've shown by concept artist Todd Rueping, who has been working on concepting the environments in the game. [More]

TORONTO – Few things could be harder than staging the most expensive theatrical production in history. Fewer still could be harder than adapting 1,200 plot- and action-filled pages, each of them worshiped by generations of readers, to a 3-1/2 hour show and setting it to music. But perhaps the hardest part of bringing "The Lord of the Rings" to the stage is having to make major revisions just weeks before opening night. Tell the ruthless, faceless Orcs to put down their swords before giving them the news. Mount stilts, duck the stage lights, and look a three-story-high Treebeard in the eye when you break it to him. Bounce the revisions off Gollum and wait for him to say that he's of two minds about it. [More]

Kristen, Susannah and Sharon The ‘Letters to PJ’ Organisers write: Susannah and Kristen have recently returned from New Zealand where the completed ‘Letters to PJ’ book was successfully delivered to Peter Jackson through his associates. We encourage you to visit our website, letterstopj.com, for photographs and information about our trip. Get to it- our website shuts down in just a few months. If you have any additional questions or comments regarding the project and our time overseas, please fell free to send us an e-mail. We would love to hear from you! However, it could take us a while to reply- e-mails are flooding in and it’s taking a long time just to thank everybody! Thank you so much for contributing and/or assisting the project. Your support and enthusiasm did not go astray! ‘Letters to PJ’ has been an amazing, unforgettable experience in which you have played an immeasurable part. It has been lovely to meet you all and share stories. We hope that the Lord of the Rings will always be with you, just as the ‘Letters to PJ’ book and its heartfelt message will remain with Peter Jackson and all who made these films.

Anthony and Jessica of the North East Tolkien Society write: The proceedings from the 2004 Marquette University LOTR Conference have now been published. New research by twenty scholars of J.R.R. Tolkien is now available from the Marquette University Press. The articles were originally presented at the October 2004 conference, "The Lord of the Rings, 1954-2004: Scholarship in Honor of Richard E. Blackwelder," organized by the Marquette Libraries' Department of Special Collections and University Archives. The international conference celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Tolkien's masterpiece, as well as the opening of Marquette's new John P. Raynor, S.J., Library. More information and ordering is found here. [More]

LOS ANGELES, March 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Weta Digital's Joe Letteri, who was a member of the Academy Award©-wining Weta Digital teams that created the visual effects for "King Kong," "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" will serve as the visual effects supervisor on the upcoming Walden Media, Beacon Pictures and Revolution Studios co-production "The Water Horse." Most recently Letteri, along with Weta Digital colleagues Brian Van't Hul, Christian Rivers and Richard Taylor, won the Oscar© for Achievement in Visual Effects for the groundbreaking work on "King Kong" at the 78th Annual Academy Awards on March 5th. [More]