In ‘Game of Thrones,’ a Language to Make the World Feel Real - NYTimes.com

People have made a career out of this?

“There’s been a sea change in Hollywood. They realize there’s a fan base out there that wants constructed languages,” said Matt Pearson, a linguistics professor at Reed College in Portland, Ore. He created Thhtmaa (pronounced tukhh-t’-mah), the language of termite-like aliens in the short-lived NBC series “Dark Skies.”

“Game of Thrones,” based on the best-selling series of novels “A Song of Ice and Fire” by George R. R. Martin, may be the biggest television showcase for an invented language. The books, which primarily follow feuding kingdoms in the fictional land of Westeros, had a scattering of Dothraki words, but the show’s executive producers wanted a fully formed language.

I remember from my school days, there was a kid who was learning to speak Klingon. Predictably, he came in for a lot of mockery. He’s probably consulting on one of these TV shows by now.

Source Code – review | Film | The Guardian

Having seen this film, I was left in the paradoxical state of scratching both my head (puzzled) and my chin (thoughtful). Quoting this review from Peter Bradshaw, only because of some unusually insightful comments towards the end:

Source Code is glitzy and hi-tech in a 21st-century way, but also has something from an earlier age: it is a story from the Twilight Zone, with hints of Philip K Dick, and traces of the television world of The Prisoner and The Fugitive. With its weird deployment of playing cards in one scene, Jones has channelled The Manchurian Candidate – perhaps specifically through Jonathan Demme’s Iraq-themed remake – and the overall effect is smart and to the point.

In its own way, Source Code also aspires slightly to the status of comedy, and Colter’s increasingly wan and desperate conversations with Goodwin from his mysterious pod reminded me a little of David Niven’s radio conversations with Kim Hunter’s June in A Matter of Life and Death – as he plummets to his certain death, Niven’s character exploits his prerogative as a dying man to flirt with this radio operator.

The script is pretty muddled, so the film doesn’t entirely make clear whether the plot revolves around time travel or parallel universes. Perhaps it’s both? But it is commendable for throwing hard science-fiction elements into a mainstream Hollywood popcorn flick, and doing it well.

Also, while there is an obstensibly “happy ending”, if you dwell on it for longer than five minutes then you realise that the conclusion is rather sinister. To say much more would give the plot away, so go see and judge for yourself.

Cutter's Way Review. Movie Reviews - Film - Time Out London

Saw this at the NFT last night:

‘Cutter’s Way’ feels like a farewell to the ’70s: to honest political activism, social responsibility, excessive but essentially good-natured drug and alcohol abuse, Vietnam, California and the young Bridges. His character, Richard Bone, clings to his fading prime the way his best friend and mentor, crippled war veteran Alex Cutter (John Heard) clings to his walking stick. Together, the two men attempt to solve a murder, but that’s window dressing: this is a tale of friendship, endurance and loss, and one of the saddest movies ever made.

Indeed it is, indeed it is. There was quite a bit of sniffling in the auditorium by the final reel. But what’s also striking is how the premise of the film is virtually identical to The Big Lebowski. This observation is corroborated elsewhere by Geoff Andrew, Head of Film Programme at the BFI, in an interview with Park Circus (the film distribution company behind the limited re-release of Cutter’s Way):

It’s set in and around LA, Bridges plays a beach-bum, he has a deranged Vietnam veteran friend, and the third person in the line-up is a nice person the other two tend to treat as a doormat and who ends up… well, I don’t want to give the game away. But these three ne’er-do-wells go up against a rich and famous Mr Big. Sound familiar?

So, effectively, The Coen Brothers took “one of the saddest movies ever made” and remade it as a comedy. It kind of detracts from the stoned majesty of The Big Lebowski, knowing that it wasn’t cut from wholy original cloth (and yes, I know it was also parodying The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye). But it’s also a lesson in storytelling, in the way that two markedly different emotional responses can be evoked by one dramatic setup.

Elizabeth Taylor - Child Actress to Film Queen - NYTimes.com

Q: What makes this obituary so distinctive?

In a world of flickering images, Elizabeth Taylor was a constant star. First appearing on screen at age 10, she grew up there, never passing through an awkward age. It was one quick leap from “National Velvet” to “A Place in the Sun” and from there to “Cleopatra,” as she was indelibly transformed from a vulnerable child actress into a voluptuous film queen.

A: The guy who wrote it died before his subject…

Mel Gussow, the principal writer of this article, died in 2005. William McDonald, William Grimes and Daniel E. Slotnik contributed updated reporting.

Apparently, the only other Hollywood legend to share this achievement is Bob Hope, who died in 2003. His obituary writer died in 2000.