Brad Moore At War

I can still remember back in middle school when it took most of the people in my class to convince one of our teachers that “Bilbo Baggins” was actually NOT a dirty name to call someone. The times they are-a-changin.

If you care much about The Hobbit movie or Lord of the Rings or any of that stuff, then you’ve probably already heard/read all about the world premier down on Courtenay Place last week. But just in case you don’t and/or haven’t… well, the world premier of the movie happened down on Courtenay Place last week.

True to its devious ways, Wellington came out of several sort of windy/cloudy days in a row and then seriously turned on the charm for red-carpet day. I walked the couple blocks from work to check it out, and basically joined half of the Wellingtonians I know for a giant holiday in the street. We already had people walking around with bright and shiny sunburns by early afternoon. Not that this is anything really special for a nation that leads the world in skin cancer – but for a weekday in Wellington? I think it was Mark Twain who said “the difference between writing truth and fiction is that fiction has to be believable.” Let’s just say that Kaffee Eis was making A BANK and that yours truly was more than happy to contribute.

We actually had journalists from Auckland raving about the “tropical” temperatures. Not only that, but we had the top executives from MGM and Time Warner down here in New Zealand saying that they had never seen a premier quite like this one. Dignitaries making speeches. Reporters asking the same stupid questions to a long line of movie stars. Goblins and trolls from Weta, hanging around the middle of downtown with people who were dressed like they could have been likewise (but actually weren’t… I think). The longest red carpet in the world – which apparently represented a tragic opportunity lost to NZ’s sheep farmers because it was synthetic. Can’t win ‘em all, right? Oh yeah – and a random squad of drunken gay dudes taking a bunch of suggestive and actually-pretty-funny pictures with aforementioned red carpet after it was all rolled up and sitting on the street. I love this town.