Review of Screwtape Letters on stage from CNN

Well, this is interesting - it looks like the Screwtape Letters has been made into a play and has been running for some five months now in New York on an open-ended schedule, along with performances in Ohio and elsewhere from time to time. The first link has a short video sample as well, and it looks like something I'd definitely be willing to shell out the money for (starting at $40) if I lived in the US.

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Final Fantasy for the NES now available in Latin

A year after a Latin patch for Legend of Zelda was released, now the original Final Fantasy is available in Latin as well, a nice boost for the language on top of all the other recent good news. Legend of Zelda had barely any dialogue at all, but Final Fantasy had quite a bit of it and even the fighting screen had a lot of text so this is a much better way to get some practice in. This game was just about perfect, except for that one cave you had to go to using the ship instead of the airship later on in the game because it took forever to get there and in the meantime you got attacked every few steps by annoying easy sea monsters that wasted your time.

Thanks to Nathan for letting me know.

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Avatar science fallout: on whether moons around gas giant planets are more likely destinations for life than planets

I'm keeping track of science and space-related articles that deal with topics that were brought up in the movie Avatar, and here's the latest article (from The Register) dealing with the idea of moons around gas giant planets being capable of supporting life. Well, it claims that its authors prefer to think of Endor as the model for the article but the timing and the Avatar reference shows that it was thanks to the new movie that the article has been written now.

Edit: here's another article from today on the science in the movie.

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More Avatar science fallout: on the James Webb telescope and detecting Earth-like moons around gas giant planets

I'm keeping track of articles dealing with scientific concepts related to the recent release of Avatar, and another one here quotes Lisa Kaltenegger from the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on how long it will take to discover and learn about these moons - she predicts that it will happen within this decade, which will certainly be the case. A big part of this will be thanks to the James Webb Telescope, but by the time it launches (2014) we should already know of a few dozen Earth-like planets.

The movie shows a number of other moons visible from time to time, so perhaps Pandora would be located in a region similar to that where Ganymede is. Tidal locking would mean that the planet would be visible in the sky the entire time over half of the moon, and the other half of the moon would never see it, but of course the sun would rise and set normally.

A video from October showing what it would be like to have rings around Earth gives a bit of an idea of what it would be like to have an immovable object in the sky that only varies by location instead of time of day.

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Avatar movie review

I just got back from watching Avatar in Korea, so time to go over the film. I agree with Roger Ebert on most movies though and this one is no exception, so you could read his review as well to get a better perspective into how I found it. The first part of the review will be in regular text, and the rest will be in light grey in order to not spoil any of the story for those that don't want to know. You'll have to highlight it in order to see the rest.

First of all, I give the movie a near perfect rating. Perfect in the sense that it is perfect escapist entertainment, contains a relevant message, has characters that we care about and make sense, and has no annoying scenes or irritating comic relief or goofy characters. So if that happens to be your pet peeve then don't worry, you won't walk out annoyed. If you are looking for a movie with the most atypical surprise ending in the world (Memento, Usual Suspects, etc.) though you won't find it here.

The location itself is a moon around a gas giant around Alpha Centauri A, the closest star system to our own and a star similar to our own sun. There is good reason to believe that moons around gas giants may be the most plentiful places in the universe to find life (there are about two dozen fair-sized moons around the gas giants in our solar system for example), so this makes sense. Some models show that gas giant planets shouldn't exist around Alpha Centauri A, but the only one we're entirely sure about so far is Proxima Centauri, which we know doesn't have a Neptune-sized or larger planet within 1 AU. In perhaps a decade or so we'll have a better idea of whether most solar systems have more terrestrial planets or more gas giant moons on average, but that's impossible to know right now. The moon has a lower gravity than ours but still seems to be fairly massive, and given the way the characters interact there it's certainly more than half ours. Perhaps 75% of Earth's gravity. The surface area could be lager than the Earth, since the density of the moon is clearly lower than our planet.

Language: the Na'vi speak a language that was specifically made for the movie, and you can read about it here. I love how prominent a place the language was given in the film, because a lot of the time language in films is simply ignored, with everyone speaking the same language and no communication problems whatsoever. Here we have some Na'vi speaking English (those that interact most with humans), most don't, and sometimes an interpreter is used to fully communicate. Oh, and if you're watching the movie in Korea or another country be sure to remember that the Na'vi language is subtitled in the language of the country, not English. A few of my friends here in Korea that aren't good enough at Korean to follow the subtitles are a bit disappointed that they won't be able to watch it right away.

More on Alpha Centauri: Avatar is also nicely timed here. Apparently it was originally supposed to come out in 1999 but it's actually nice to see it now, since not only are special effects that much more impressive but also we're on the verge of discovering other Earth-like planets, and at the moment three missions are keeping an eye on Alpha Centauri to see what planets the trinary system possesses.

Now to the part with spoilers.

Unobtanium: the bit about one kilogram worth $20 million is actually pretty low for an interstellar mission, but then again the movie is about 150 years in the future so who knows what one dollar will be worth then. Turkey for example shaved six zeroes off of its currency a few years back. And money is only mentioned once in the entire film so suffice to say the material is worth enough for a company to bother sending troops all the way there.

Main character: I like the main character. He's basically a good person that figures out life as he goes along, and pretty much every act of his in the movie reflects this - going there in the first place, agreeing to report back to the general, getting to know and like the Na'vi, getting "married", fighting for them, and finally staying there for the rest of his life.

Other characters: also very believable. The person I watched the movie with thought that the people working for the company came off too much as bad guys, but I didn't really find that to be the case. They weren't bad in the sense that they had any weird desire to torture living creatures or cackle loudly when alone or make people cry just to watch them do it; no, they were just carrying out a mission in order to make money for the company and never diverged from it. And during the first half or so of the movie they came across as fairly decent people, since up to then the main character had never crossed them. Just like real life.

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In defense of role-playing games

An article here presents a fairly interesting idea about the difference between action and RPG video games. To get the full idea the argument makes you'll have to read it yourself, but it basically puts forth the idea that RPGs are inferior to action games, in that they simply reward time - anyone that puts in enough time into an RPG can eventually win it, whereas action games require real skill since without that you'll never be able to win. Action games can only be won when you, the player, have beaten the game, whereas RPGs usually just require one's character(s) to be strong in order to win.

It's an interesting argument but I don't agree. RPGs actually mimic real life in a much accurate way than action games do. Though they can take forever if you simply aren't good at the game, action games can be won in a quick hour if a player is good enough, and even the longest don't take much longer than that. Real life though is not so kind, and RPGs mimic this much better than action games do. RPGs are about a steady and long-term progression of skill, about succeeding at tasks that are just a bit beyond one's current level of skill, and this is what real life is about as well.

Crawling is learned after the baby learns to roll over, and only after that can walking be challenged. After a baby's first steps then the next challenge is to walk in a bit steadier fashion, and only after that can the child begin to run. Mathematics is the same as well, as is learning a language. In fact, every single marketable skill in the world is based on skill acquired over the long term, and just like in an RPG, once you have mastered one skill it then becomes easy and now it's time to move on to the next level. In a game like Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest) the hero can technically stay around the first town to fight slimes and babbles forever, but after going up a few levels the challenge diminishes, along with the reward, and it's simply too boring to stay around any longer. This is exactly the same as real life.

Finally, on top of all of this there's no reason that an RPG simply has to be about just putting in time. Ultima 7 provides a good example of a game that is both RPG and action - one's character goes up in levels and becomes stronger as time goes on, but action and battles still take place in real time. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is another good example of this. These games tend to be my favourite, as they approximate real life better than any others. They involve long-term effort, but at the same time real-time challenges that must be overcome at the moment they occur, and that's exactly what real life is about.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger still has his Conan sword, keeps it in his office

He uploaded the picture of it here just a few hours ago.


Three other recent pics I like: this, this, und dieses Bild.

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Nicolas Cage's The Weatherman is severely underrated

Every once in a while you'll find a movie on Rotten Tomatoes that is so far removed from the rating it has received it's not even funny. Before Sunrise for example has a 100% rating for example, and its sequel Before Sunset has almost the same, coming in at 94%. The problem with Before Sunset is best summed up in this review:

The experiences they talk about are like so many sound-bites; they haven't internalized the wisdom that the words suggest.

Because of that the characters come out flat, and the movie feels like little more than two characters being made to explain a few basic concepts on life and philosophy that those making the movie deemed to be important. This review is also right on target.

At the same time there are a number of extremely good movies that deserve a much better rating than they've received, and one of them is The Weather Man, a 2005 piece starring Nicolas Cage. The interesting thing about Nicolas Cage is that the bad movies he stars in are overrated and vice versa for the good movies he stars in, either through reviews or box office results ($37 million for Matchstick Men vs. $173 million for National Treasure). The Weather Man got even less than Matchstick Men with $12 million, which is a shame as it is one of the best movies put out that year.

The problem with the people that reviewed the film is that strangely enough they seemed to find it depressing. Comments like "I'm pretty sure it doesn't get more depressing than this", "A bleak, messy midlife crisis drama as unsure of itself as a weather forecast", "As much fun as standing outside in a blizzard for two hours without a coat", and so on. Very puzzling.

This reminds me a bit of this speech by Neil DeGrasse Tyson on the immensity of the cosmos and how the realization of this makes some people feel depressed (!), while those who truly understand what the cosmos is feel the opposite way - they feel large, part of something much bigger and much older than themselves, the end result of billions and billions of years of creation. If that doesn't make you feel large then I don't know what will.

The other quote it reminds me of is this one by Anthony DeMello:

You've got to drop something. You've got to drop illusions. You don't have to add anything in order to be happy; you've got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It's only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings.

So that seems to be the reaction of those that found The Weather Man to be a depressing film. They were expecting a film where the main character ends up falling madly in love with a French girl on the train, everybody is healthy and cheery, an old man comes to teach the main character to use The Force, who knows. But what they got was a movie about dealing with life exactly the way it is with no holds barred, and perhaps this was a bit of a shock. I don't want to spoil the ending but suffice to say it leaves you with a really great sort of sublime feeling afterward.

Also don't pay any attention to those that say the character of David Spritz is an uninteresting, unlikable one. It's actually quite the opposite. The main character is played so well that you feel like you've known him for years instead of less than two hours - as this review puts it, even his name tells you something important about what sort of person he is.

The other reason for the low reviews may have been the audacity of a director who made Pirates of the Caribbean attempting to make something this meaningful afterwards. As this review puts it:

Artistically, this may be Gore Verbinski's best film -- certainly it's his most ambitious and daring. And that in itself works against it in a twisted way with many film snobs crying out, "How dare this commercial filmmaker presume to tackle something weighty?" After this, they conclude that it's not weighty at all, thereby proving the wisdom of their ire over the very idea that the man who made Pirates of the Caribbean should so overstep his bounds. Personally, I'm reasonably convinced that this same film could have been signed by Alexander Payne and it would be proclaimed a masterpiece. (I am less convinced that Payne could have made a movie this good, but that's a separate issue.)

Due to the lack of commercial success for the film it's very likely that many of those reading this post will have never even heard about the film. If that's you then know that you're missing out. Not everyone seems to get the movie but those that do swear by it, and so do I. The best way to sum up the movie would be this comment from the first page on its Rotten Tomatoes page: There is, after the cloud cover burns off, a tantalizing sense of vitality and life.

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