Ringer Spy Nerdanel reports on the Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards dinner.
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association presented their 2003 awards Monday night at the St. Regis Hotel in Century City. (These awards were announced January 7.) The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King won two awards: Best Production Design (Grant Major) and Best Director (Peter Jackson). Barrie Osborne accepted the award for Grant Major, who is in New Zealand working on King Kong, reading from an email from Major. At one point Osborne said “and then he thanks me, but I’ll skip that,” which got him heckled by Peter Jackson.
Peter Jackson accepted his own award. He thanked, among others, Fran Walsh, also in attendance. He explained that he had met Walsh 18 years ago when she was recommended to him as someone who was good with scripts. At the time, Jackson was working on Bad Taste, which had no script, so he asked her to paint part of a set. She was not very good at that, he said, but he discovered she was indeed good with scripts.
In a conversation with Ringer Spy Nerdanel after dinner, Jackson said he had just finished editing the Extended Edition of RotK and that it was 4 hours and 10 minutes. Nerdanel was either too polite or too dense to ask whether that includes the credits.
— nerdanel50
