Monday

Monday is a national holiday in New Zealand.

I lie.  But from all the publicity it's getting, I wouldn't be surprised if they let the kids out of school.

In case you missed it (and you may have), "Return of the King" is having its world premiere in Wellington on Monday.  (Insert much fanfare here.)  This is a HUGE deal.  Massive.  I mean, the news was promising "full coverage starting at 5:00."  The NEWS!  Covering "the red carpet, all the stars, and the man himself."  "The man" of course being Peter Jackson.  They don't even call him by name.  He is truly the man.  Today's newspaper had a special section on the movie.  They discussed how Viggo Mortenson showed up at his own press conference barefoot.  Am I the only one who thinks this is odd?  Not that he was barefoot -- that he had his own press conference??

I seriously miscalculated the impact of this movie series on this country.  I think this is because I come from Los Angeles.  In L.A., movie filmings take place everywhere, and the acceptable response to them is bemused annoyance.  We're LOCALS.  We're ABOVE THAT.

Not so here.  I mean, yeah, I expect there's a bazillion fly-by-night operations trying to capitalize on the success of the movies.  But beyond that, there's just this whole feeling of national pride over them, and a genuine excitement about the opening.  Kinda nice to see.