For my first day of downtime (no work and no school for at least a week and a half), the kiddos and I cozied to 670 minutes (not including bathroom breaks) of extended version Lord of the Rings. The kids have been bugging me about this for months, and I finally made good on my promise.

It was time well spent.

Jana complained about the combined GQ expressed today. Not that she has any less of a geek quotient; she just chooses to express it in different ways.

Two brief observations, then I’m going to call it a night. First, I’m not one to cry at movies very often (though Schindler’s List leaves me blubbering), but I get misty-eyed and all choked up every time I watch the elves arrive at Helm’s Deep. The sentimentality of that scene overwhelms the Tolkien purist in me. *sniff*

Second, this is the first time I’ve looked at Lord of the Rings through feminist eyes. Tolkien is definitely from a different era. I wish he had included more women as central players on both sides. Compared to most Hollywood fantasy flicks, though, there aren’t any women in chain mail bikinis, and Jana agreed that there’s a lot of great male eye-candy (esp. between Viggo and Orlando). Eowyn, the woman who successfully breaks out of confining gender roles (in a kick-ass manner), is one of my favorite characters (though there is a special place in my heart for Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel). I also have an eye out for different kinds of masculinities, and there’s a greater range of homosociality and male-male expression of emotion (esp. between Frodo and Sam) than probably makes most men comfortable in American hetero society.

This watching movies all day is exhausting work. Good night!