One Dragon, One Party menu signed by Dean O’Gorman, Craig Parker and Adam Brown
We ran a simple lottery for a nifty little prize in the form of a Menu from last year’s One Dragon, One Party signed by several cast members. The contest is now over and we have ourselves a very surprised and happy fan in Texas by the name of Susan H. The nice thing is, she does not have to wait to see if the campaign will be successful, she will be receiving this signed item in the next few days.
We have other really cool items already in the campaign, as well as new ones coming up to add to the campaign as either Perks for specific pledge levels, or other Lottery prizes. We may even do something extra special just for the Professor’s Birthday this weekend. And if you are unable to join us at the party, please don’t despair, we have now added a perk specifically for a Live Stream from the party.
Join us in Los Angeles in February at The One Last Party
We’re hosting a Party of Special Magnificence next February — a toast to all SIX movies, both LOTR trilogy and The Hobbit. We’ve hit and surpassed the 50% mark of our funding goal and there’s 18 days to go. Even if you can’t make it to Hollywood, there are still ways to help out if you’re keen, and some neat perks you can pick up too!
What do you get people who have everything? The extremely talented folks in front of and behind the camera in the film industry typically have very nice jobs. They get to travel all over the world, they make a decent salary, they are beloved by millions, and they get to create great art. Come awards season, if their work has been deemed excellent by their peers, they are nominated in their respective fields. And then they are wined and dined and gifted until their houses are full of chochkis, or sometimes really cool stuff. So I ask again, what do you get these people?
Well, if you are TheOneRing.net, you simply get them a little Luck, in the form of a pin they can wear at the ceremony, or not, as they see fit. Most of them wait to put their pins on until they get to one of our parties. It always sort of acts as an automatic pass to get in, we don’t have to look their names up on the list.
We wouldn’t have these pins to give if it weren’t for our wonderfully geeky and talented friends at Badali Jewelry, who began this tradition with the Fellowship of the Ring, and above you see the 5th installment of the Good Luck pin. Today several of these pins were delivered to current nominees, through torrential rain in case anyone was wondering. If you find that you are a nominee and you don’t have one of these waiting for you at your hotel, feel free to ping us at Oscarparty@TheOneRing.net so we can rectify the situation.
To the right you see Peter Jackson winning one of his 3 Oscars on February 29, 2004 while wearing the ROTK Good Luck pin. So that might just be a hint that wearing the pin during the ceremony is Good Luck.
Here at TheOneRing.net we would like to extend our heartfelt congratulations and wish you the best of luck to everyone listed below. While you are all sitting at the Dolby trying not to bite all of your nails off, we will be over at the Cat & Fiddle cheering you on, and drinking a toast to you, as we always do come Oscar night.
The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug nominees
Sound Editing – Brent Burge and Chris Ward
Sound Mixing – Christopher Boyes, Michael Hedges, Michael Semanick and Tony Johnson
Visual Effects – Joe Lettery, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and Eric Reynolds
Middle-earth nominees in other projects
Best Actress – Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine
Short: Live Action – The Voorman Problem, which stars Martin Freeman
And it comes with lots and lots of water from the sky. Sorry, we’ve been in the midst of very long drought here in So Cal, so it was easy to overlook the fact that this is supposed to be our wettest month. Guess nature is trying to reassert herself here.
That being said, we are still planning to have the ‘Ringer’s Take Disneyland’ event Saturday morning. We may curtail some of the meet ups, we don’t want anyone to get sick. So we will have the 10am meet up and then a group photo upon entering, and then we will have a lunch meet up around 12:30pm in the Pizza Port next to Space Mountain. Beyond that, we leave it up to you to stay or leave as your soggy shoes see fit.
Please meet at 10am on the giant compass in the middle of the entrance pavilion halfway between Disneyland and California Adventure. For those who frequent Disney a lot, you already know this means being in the parking lot by 9:45am in order to take the tram and walk this distance. For those needing to either buy their tickets, or convert an online purchase to an active ticket, you will want to hit the parking lot no later than 9:30am, possibly earlier. If you are early and it is raining, jump into the La Brea Bakery for a coffee or croissant or something before braving the rain. It is just before the box offices.
For more details, please visit our Facebook event page at https://www.facebook.com/events/704747639545289 including the special ticket offer, but hurry up, it expires at 9pm pacific time. I will shortly be adding a Note on TORn’s main facebook page that is the little scavenger hunt game we will be playing, weather permitting. Feel free to print and bring with you, as soon as I get it up.
On a quick note about the Oscar Party on Sunday afternoon, try to arrive around 4pm or so, just because parking will be easier on you. The Telecast begins at 5:30pm, but we will be showing the Red Carpet arrivals too. Dress code is fairly casual, just think cocktail party, business casual, or Hollywood Chic. Costumes are also welcome, or what we like to call Costume-lite. Because it may still be fairly moist and cool, most of you will probably just want to show up in sweaters and nice slacks.
We will have a few items to auction off, and there will be an Oscar Pool game, those notes will also appear very shortly on the TORn’s main facebook page. And last but not least, we will be closing down tickets for the Oscar party at Midnight tonight. Details about the party and tickets can be found on the Event page https://www.facebook.com/events/806336542716595/ As usual, we must remind you that while we have had cast and crew attend the parties in the past, their presence has never been promised or guaranteed. They all have been invited, but they also all have very busy schedules and a lot of commitments on their time with all the other Academy Award events that happen on the same night. This party is for us, the fans, to meet and hang out together and cheer them on and then go back to having our fun.
We are just a week and a half from ‘Ringers take Disneyland’ and our Feast of Starlight celebration at the ‘One Dragon, One Party’ event at the Cat & Fiddle.
So, here are a few little updates for each event to help you better plan your weekend.
One Dragon, One Party
The Cat & Fiddle needs a fairly accurate head count for the party in order to schedule staff, so we will close Pre-registration for the ‘One Dragon, One Party’ event on Sunday, Feb. 23 at Midnight, PST.
We’re getting closer to the “One Dragon, One Party”! As part of this special event, we’ll be holding a live auction and raffle with unique items we hope all attendees will enjoy. We’re excited to highlight a generous auction donation from talented artist Sean Robinson.
For our party, Sean has donated one 20 ounce green mug and one 24 ounce brown mug featuring a Prancing Pony medallion. Both mugs are dishwasher, oven and microwave safe. They are thrown with a mid-fire stoneware clay and the medallion is washed with iron oxide to bring out the details. Continue reading “Prancing Pony original craftwork inspired by Middle-earth”
There is just over two weeks remaining before the 2014 Academy Awards telecast and our own Feast of Starlight celebration at the ‘One Dragon, One Party’ event on March 2. Make sure you don’t wait to get your tickets, this is a much smaller venue than in past years and tickets are going fast. You can find all the party info at our previous Party Post.
Let’s take you on a little tour of our venue, the historic Cat & Fiddle Restaurant and Pub in Hollywood, just to put you in the proper party mood for this little moot.
Long before there was a restaurant at 6530 Sunset Blvd., there was a Spanish Shopping Court built by Fred Thompson, housing numerous shops including Travis Banton’s dress shop. Banton, the chief costume designer at the time for Paramount Pictures, was one of the most important Hollywood designers in the 1930’s. Fred Thompson was both a famed Western acting star with Paramount Pictures, as you can see in the photo above on the left, and was a leading business man in Hollywood, with the Thompson Building being one of his lasting legacies.
As you can see, the front entrance to the building has barely changed in the 85 years since it was built. Like so many buildings in the Southern California area, this is built in the classic Spanish style noted for it’s solid white stone walls, arched entrance, wrought iron fences and railings and the red tiled roof.
Once inside the arched entrance there is a brick lined courtyard filled with trees and other plants. Back when it was built, there was a functioning well at the center of the courtyard, but today the centerpiece is a delightful fountain. The Mediterranean climate of Southern California makes dining outside on the courtyard patio a real treat nearly year round. Weather permitting, we plan to have a large screen outdoors on the patio so that you may watch the Oscar telecast while sitting under the stars.
While very Spanish looking on the outside, the inside of the Cat & Fiddle Restaurant and Pub is every bit the English Pub you would expect, complete with warm, cozy hearth, a dart board and comfortable tables and booths. The room on the right is called the Casablanca Room and sits at the far end of the restaurant with a window overlooking the courtyard. And while you may think it only natural that a restaurant in Hollywood would name one of their rooms after a famous movie, in this case, it earned that name because part of Casablanca was actually filmed on location here.
In the 1980’s, a British rock musician and a New Orleans fashionista relocated to Hollywood and opened up the first British pub in the Hollywood area. The Thompson Building’s back area went from Mary Helen’s Tea Room to the Cat & Fiddle Restaurant and Pub, and is still run by the same family that opened it 30 years ago. It is this authentic British style pub and lovely courtyard setting has brought the Tolkien fan community back to this venue time and again for Golden Globes viewing parties, Tolkien Toasts and TORn moots and it is why it was the obvious choice for a smaller, more intimate party this year. The fact that the Cat & Fiddle is less than a mile from the Dolby theater, home of the Academy Awards ceremony doesn’t hurt either.
So don’t delay, get your Tickets now before they sell out. The beautiful LA weather on Oscar Sunday at a wonderful venue like this, you just never know who may show up.
The Merry Inn Song
by J.R.R. Tolkien, first two stanzas as sung by Frodo in the Prancing Pony
“There is an inn, a merry old inn beneath an old grey hill. And there they brew a beer so brown that the Man in the Moon himself came down on night to drink his fill.
The ostler has a tipsy cat that plays a five-stringed fiddle; and up and down he runs his bow, now squeaking high, now purring low, now sawing in the middle.”
We’re hosting a Party of Special Magnificence next February — a toast to all SIX movies, both LOTR trilogy and The Hobbit. We’ve hit and surpassed the 50% mark of our funding goal and there’s 18 days to go. Even if you can’t make it to Hollywood, there are still ways to help out if you’re keen, and some neat perks you can pick up too!
