Peter Jackson is back on for both (yes, both) Hobbit films

Film, News

It looks like New Line lived up to my previously-expressed hopes: they resolved their dispute with Peter Jackson, so he’s going to be writing and producing two Hobbit films. According to an Entertainment Weekly article:

It’s back to Middle Earth for Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and the boys from New Line. Finally, the years of disputes have ended, and the partners (including co-producer and co-distributor MGM) are gearing up for two new Hobbit movies.

Jackson and his life/creative partner Walsh have always envisioned the big-screen adaptation of The Hobbit as two movies. The first would deal with the 80-year old novel. The second, imagined entirely by Jackson and Walsh, would link the conclusion of The Hobbit to the start of the first Lord of the Rings book, The Fellowship of the Rings. New Line and Jackson will develop the properties over the next year with hopes of entering into pre-production by 2009 for a 2010 and 2011 release.

So we can all do the dance of joy and then wait impatiently for 2010. Yays!

mirrors and moonbeams

Oddly Enough, Space, Travel

Moonlight collectorIs anyone interested in a road trip to Arizona for some moonshine? No, not that kind of moonshine. I’m talking about moonlight reflected off a five-story mirror array in the desert near Tuscon.

A Tucson-based inventor and businessman Richard Chapin and his wife Monica are behind the giant device, which gathers up and focuses the light of the moon.

The Chapins built the large, one-of-a-kind contraption that stands in the desert some 15 miles west of Tucson, Arizona, in the belief that moonlight might have applications for medicine, industry and agriculture.

“So much work has focused on the sun. We have just forgotten about this great object that has been here for billions of years, has affected us in all forms of our evolution,” said Chapin, who paid for the project with his own money.

I certainly don’t think there’s anything woo-woo about moonlight, even when concentrated, but I really do like the idea of being bathed in concentrated moonlight. Just thinking about the phenomenal distances involved in the light’s journey to you is awe-inspiring.