Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit

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  • nzlemming,

    Bloody leftie troublemaker

    Waikanae • Since Nov 2006 • 2937 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    It's culture, that's what it is

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • nzlemming,

    Don't give me culcha
    I'm not feeling you Rob

    Waikanae • Since Nov 2006 • 2937 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Don't let the twatcocks get you down

    there's another one

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Blake Monkley,

    Oh, looks like the press release is out:

    This year’s SPADA conference kicks off with a hiss and a roar with the key plenary session on The Hobbit – What Really Happened. Chaired by Russell Brown, the panel will include Philippa Boyens (co-writer The Hobbit), SPADA’s CEO Penelope Borland and Executive Member Richard Fletcher.

    I hope there's someone a but more "other side" added to the panel, or I might have to go rogue on them ;-)

    Open to non delegates. Really?

    The sun will be shining....

    Auckland • Since Jul 2008 • 215 posts Report Reply

  • Rob Stowell,

    Love that 'death dealer' Joe.

    It's only minimal tax in-so-far as what you can claim to be expenses related to having to do your job. You have to way that up with the benefits of holiday pay, etc.

    Yeah. A lot of mention of the joyous tax deductibles involved in being a contractor, but in my experience it's over-rated. I 'spect if you are in a high tax bracket, have lots to legitimately claim, and the sort of highly ordered mind that just loves filing receipts and filling in log-books, there's a fairly extensive benefit.
    Also if you love to push the boundaries and charge shoes, lunches, and half the mortgage to 'the business, cos "it's all business, really."
    Otherwise, there may be a mild benefit. But that's offset by: no holiday or sick pay, no help with training or professional development, no employment contribution to your super, irregular income and ahem, the unpaid drudgery of doing one's accounts.
    I know what I prefer :)
    Still. I'll be up for hours yet, having fun getting the gst done before Sunday.

    Whakaraupo • Since Nov 2006 • 2120 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    Still. I'll be up for hours yet, having fun getting the gst done before Sunday.

    Er, Rob... it was due yesterday.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    bugger

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Peter Cox,

    It's only minimal tax in-so-far as what you can claim to be expenses related to having to do your job. You have to way that up with the benefits of holiday pay, etc.

    Oh, I meant 'weigh' obviously. Embarrassing...

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 312 posts Report Reply

  • Geoff Lealand,

    This year’s SPADA conference kicks off with a hiss and a roar with the key plenary session on The Hobbit – What Really Happened. ...I hope there's someone a but more "other side" added to the panel, or I might have to go rogue on them ;-)

    I hope so too, for otherwise I will get rilly, rilly annoyed and may shout out something rude from the back stalls..

    The SPADA programme looks a but under-nourished so far, given how much they charge for registration (which I have to fork out as my uni is so mean).

    Screen & Media Studies, U… • Since Oct 2007 • 2562 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Embarrassing

    Jeez, writers these days :)

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Rob Stowell,

    it was due yesterday.

    What Sacha said. I should read all those fascinating pamphlets that come out, and take note of actual dates, shouldn't I.
    Still. If it's post-marked tomorrow, a day or two's latitude isn't beyond the IRD these days, thankfully.

    Whakaraupo • Since Nov 2006 • 2120 posts Report Reply

  • Jacqui Dunn,

    If it's post-marked tomorrow, a day or two's latitude isn't beyond the IRD these days, thankfully.

    Depends, Rob. Refund for you, yes, you won't be penalized. Payment for you, well....good luck with that.

    Deepest, darkest Avondale… • Since Jul 2010 • 585 posts Report Reply

  • Ian Dalziel,

    I'm flabbergasted (isn't that a splendid word?) that RB and GT should be singled out by other sites, though. However, it's more of the same really, isn't it? All heat and no light.

    ...it's not so much Reading the Maps
    as Spamming the Reds!
    ;- )

    This is what's happened in the US where "permatemps" have sued for employee status and benefits after the fact...

    Hey, us contra-temps will work for barter or worse, unfortunately...

    Does nobody go to work around here?

    as an amateur-crastinator I'm working towards going pro!

    "Tintin books are movies already"

    Hergé (George Remi) says he originally saw the Tintin stories as movies, but could only afford to do them as comics... glad he did!

    Mourning: I've never seen *my* perfect Tarzan movie either...and I've seen them all.

    Now if Jackson could film Nigel Cox's Tarzan Presley as written (and before the US lawyers for Edgar Rice Burroughs came down like a ton of bricks, probably followed by a phalanx from Gracelands) that would be great - Giant wetas and all!


    Bakshi, Baksheesh and other tipping points...
    It was the constant reusing of scenes that got to me in his LOTR animated epic...
    and his version of Robert Crumb's Fritz the Cat felt like Charlie Brown on speed...

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report Reply

  • Just thinking,

    Joe great clips.

    Tin Tin lends himself so well to gay pron. A bit of splicing is required here.

    Wombles as archetypal eco-anachists, love it.

    Putaringamotu • Since Apr 2009 • 1158 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen,

    "your treachery will not be forgotten"

    Tee-shirt. Dare you.

    and on the back

    People are kinda stupid sometimes.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Meanwhile, we have Hobbit related #Heraldfail bingo, with a fatuous John Roughan column:

    Cult books have a short shelf life. Tolkien had done his dash by 1972 and I can't recall much discussion of his books for the next 30 years. Then Peter Jackson remembered it. He would have been a child when the book was being read and he made a child's movie of it.

    Since the film was shot in New Zealand it was almost obligatory to see it. Again I tried. I couldn't recognise anything of this country in the digitally doctored scenery, let alone the story, if there was one.

    Strange little computerised hordes in halloween costumes kept rushing across the screen to cut each other up and chase a sappy boy hero who had a couple of older gents in tow. Very odd.

    I know I wasn't alone in this response but not many have admitted it out loud. People who don't share the national infatuation hesitate to say so.

    I can't put my response better than this Tweet from @LachlanForsyth:

    It's part of the Heralds ongoing 'two facts max' campaign

    Buuuurn...

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Tony Parker,

    Craig: I don't have much truck with what Roughan says but he has a point here. Not everyone drinks from the PJ/LOR cool aid. I haven't seen one LOR film, not interested in the Hobbit movies-does this make me a national traitor? I just hope for everyones sake the movies are a success after all the trouble. If they're not some heads are gonna roll.

    Napier • Since Nov 2008 • 232 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Craig: I don't have much truck with what Roughan says but he has a point here. Not everyone drinks from the PJ/LOR cool aid.

    @Tony: PAS regulars will know I think "the trilogy" is over-produced, over-long and I spent the last half hour of Return of the King chanting "get on the fucking boat and go already..." I also find the book utterly meh-some -- having read it when I caught chicken pox at boarding school, and was in isolation for a week with nothing else to read. Would rather re-read Gene Wolfe's magisterial Book of the New Sun, but it would be intellectually honest to note that plenty of people beg to differ and they're not all Kool-Aid drinking idiots who deserve to be sneered at.

    But I can express my disdain without 1) being a condescending twatcock, and, 2) being typically careless about basic matters of fact. Roughan might not "recall much discussion of his books for the next 30 years" but that says more about Roughan's cultural illiteracy and general ignorance of the publishing industry and matters literary than anything else.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    Indeed Craig, it's the very fact that a great many PASers actually dislike both the books and the movies, and have strong beliefs about the value of unionism, and yet managed to keep level heads about what was both fair and pragmatic, that made this debate on this forum heartening.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    For that matter, Tony, PAS had a rather lively and useful discussion on the merits (and otherwise) of Avatar -- didn't recall a lot of patriotic Kool-Aid being quaffed to lubricate the Wellywood celebrity anilingus. Then again, its a good rule of thumb that on any given topic a random page of PAS will contain more wit, insight, analysis, fact and useful provocation than your average Herald column.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    PAS had a rather lively and useful discussion on the merits (and otherwise) of Avatar

    O-THER-WISE! O-THER-WISE!

    With the announcement of the Avatar sequels going to Weta it's all but guaranteed that four of the worst films of the coming decade will be made right here, in our fair country. One's heart fills with pride.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Heather W.,

    In my humble opinion today's piece by Derek Cheng is a reasonable attempt by a Herald columnist. A Hobbit's tale (revised). Might quibble on a couple of points but okay overall at presenting 'what really happened'.

    North Shore • Since Nov 2008 • 189 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    Cult books have a short shelf life. Tolkien had done his dash by 1972 and I can't recall much discussion of his books for the next 30 years.

    So... given LOTR was published in 1954, a short shelf life is around twenty years? Even if that were true, which it isn't? (I, like my peers, by which I mean now-30-something geeks, read it in the 80s.) It's sold over 150 million copies.

    I couldn't recognise anything of this country in the digitally doctored scenery

    It's true, the Sky Tower didn't appear. So he wouldn't.

    And yet, I'm not a big fan of the books. Witness the beginning, and large portions of the middle, of this discussion. Roughan sounds like he just doesn't like speculative fiction, "childish" being one of the main criticisms of that school of thought. But if even geeks are happy to have a go at the quality of both the books and the movies, perhaps someone has been making himself a wee straw man, just in time for Guy Fawkes.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Jacqui Dunn,

    Hey, off-topic, but the teachers are having a rally today. My sister, who teaches small autistic kids in a satellite class for a special school, has gone to join her colleagues, and I would be there to support them, if I didn't need support myself (crutches! bah!).

    Go, teachers!!!

    Deepest, darkest Avondale… • Since Jul 2010 • 585 posts Report Reply

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