Hello I am really new to the site, but I'd just like to say a few things.
Dinky said "I am Dinky, and I watched Pride & Prejudice".
40 Year Old Virgin Fans say "You know how we know you're gay??"
About the whole Lord of the Rings thing. I enjoy the books, I really enjoyed the cartoon, I am really luke-warm about the films. I don't care whether they're "true to the books" or whatever, I just thought they were boring and unemotional. A bit more on the books: I disagree that they're the "greatest work of literature of the 20C". They might be the greatest work of fantasy world creation, but as for good literature or story, even within just the fantasy genre there was better written before and after in this century; eg The Worm Oroborous by Eddison or The Well and the Unicorn by Pratt for pre-Tolkien, anything by Gene Wolfe or Jack Vance for post-Tolkien (particularly Wolfe's Wizard Knight or XXX Sun books, or Vance's Dying Earth or Lyonesse). Grendel by John Gardner is much more powerful than LotR, and Gardner manages to pull this off in just over 150 pages.
I still think they're fantastic books though. I end up always crying at certain bits in them (thats how you know *I'm* gay

), but they also have parts which are just terribly boring. The main problem though is that there is no sex and everyone is always stopping for tea.
As for films I've watched recently, I saw Straight Into Darkness, which I really enjoyed. There was something really disturbing about the girl in the featureless face-mask running around with a machine-gun.
I also watched a load of those old B&W Val Lewton horror film like The Body Snatcher, The Ghost Ship, I Walked With a Zombie etc. They were OKish, the only one I kept being Dracula's Daughter.
I also watched the 3rd series of Knightmare (go Dungeoneers!) which was really fun

. It was kind of boring when I was a kid, no matter how much I was in to fantasy books and roleplaying, but now its just hilarious with how stupid and geeky some of the kids are. I tried to watch the 4th series but thats when everything went downhill, with the lame eye-shield and walking around that castle instead of being in the dungeon.
Currently, my top 3 films I've seen this year (even though they're older) have been:
Dead Man's Shoes
The Navigator - A Medieval Odyssey
Primer
So 1 drama/thriller, 1 fantasy, and 1 sci-fi.
No horror unfortunately, but The Collingswood Story or Devil's Rejects were close, and Possible Worlds for sci-fi.
BTW, is Rome worth it in the end? I watched half of the pilot and was put off by the pointless soft porn scenes.
PS Sorry for writing so much in my first post when I don't know anybody.