The Hobbit is out on Blu-ray and I got to see it last night. It makes a fine prequel to the Lord of the Rings movies, with out-of-this world characters (of course : they’re from Middle Earth), and some wild battle scenes with the Orcs. The ‘unexpected journey’ takes a lot of twists and turns. Some of the turns take a little too long, though. The total movie time comes to 170 minutes. As for the characters, I liked the ogres around the fire, and afterwards I looked up the name of the foul, uncouth and bloated ‘king’ villain in the mountain (I have not read The Hobbit and I am not familiar with the Middle Earth characters at all! ). It turns out he is named Gorkin the Goblin King. I was shocked to learn the character is played by none other than -ready for this?- the Australian actor behind the outrageous stage show character ‘Dame Edna’, Barry Humphries (a sprightly 77).
*In March 2012, Humphries announced Dame Edna’s retirement from show business.
