LoTR, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen as Sirius Black

[professor_monkshood]

A little 'I told you so': I have been an advocate of Ian McKellen as 
Dumbledore for a long time.  He is a great actor with range.  He has 
worked with Daniel Radcliff in David Copperfield and was 
instrumental in getting him to reconsider doing HP, which is 
important as the mentor/student relationship between Dumbledore and 
Harry develops later on.  Plus he has blue eyes that twinkled!  

I dislike Richard Harris's peformance not because it was humourless 
but because it was stone cold.  Harris's Dumbledore did not care -- 
a fatal flaw whatever your interpretation of the character.

While we are on the topic, I'm surprised no one mention Viggo 
Mortensen as Sirius Black.  He has the mixture of warmth, anger and 
unpredictability that a good Sirius Black would need.  And he's dead 
sexy!

I must say I am one of those who have mixed feelings about LoTR the 
book and find it unreadable and tedious.  The movie, however, is 
brilliant and fast-paced.

May be we should petition for Peter Jackson as Director?

LoTR/HP comparison
The first thing I noticed in LoTR is how effortlessly the script 
summarised the Hobbits and cut down on the part before Riverdell, 
maintaining the continunity, adding more jokes into the story.  
Steve Kloves should take note.  (I'm not signing a petiton to axe 
Kloves yet but if he dared to take out Snape's 'May be he's waiting 
to hear why you two didn't arrive on the school train.' in CoS, I 
will personally make sure that he's expelled :-))