Earn your spurs

Although he wouldn't have been my pick to play Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings movies, ain't no denyin' that Viggo Mortensen is a horseman through and through, that rare modern actor who can ride well. It was just a tiny bit distracting that he was the only rider in the Rohirrim scenes whose horse was collected into a classical frame. There have been plenty of equine glitches in modern movies, like the final scene of "Hidalgo" (itself a terribly cheesy flick) in which the title pony is released to join his wild brethren and takes off after them, showing his...ach, damn, showing his neatly shod heels, the moral equivalent of showing Queen Elizabeth I with braces, but you can't fault Mortensen's work in the saddle.

The fact that he is in a position to grant wishes for his fellow fanatics behind the scenes is really just icing on the cake.