@Semiclassical did you actually watch imitation game? interesting/ informative review but think you should form your own opinion :)

I didn't, but that essay was enough to convince me that I had absolutely no interest in it.

@Semiclassical saw it & dont think the minor issues spoil the movie. mountain out of a molehill )(

As a film, perhaps.

But as a depiction of Alan Turing and the people he worked with, they're plenty major

@Semiclassical think reviewer missed "big picture" so to speak :P ... think a lot of humanity shines thru...

Since I don't know Alan Turing personally, the movie was enjoyable

and it did depict how cruel his punishment was

but I gather they added in the whole "lonely genius" bit

yes he seemed to be rather social by accounts. but a person can be "both"...

also the bit where the code breakers are the ones responsible for alerting people or not

and then putting the responsibility on Turing's shoulders for deaths that they don't avert

@enumaris think that was a dramatization of some of the inherent quandaries/ (ethical) dilemmas of classified work.

yeah, but those decisions were certainly made higher up

there was absolutely no reason that Alan Turing should have been the decision maker there

@enumaris think it is likely lowlevel employees had very sensitive targeting (attack) information.

but I don't think there is any evidence that those employees withheld that information from their superiors in the way that Turing did in the movie

@enumaris dont remember him withholding info on an attack. you mean about the unidentified spy?

the Brits did do what he did, which is only act on certain information and construct plausible leak channels so the Germans wouldn't know that Enigma was broken. But they did that at a much higher level of decision making than Turing's level.

@vzn In the movie, Turing purposefully didn't alert higher command of pending attacks because "that would let the Germans know Enigma was broken". So him and his group made up some algorithm to see what information they could share and what information they can't share.

that was totally dramatization

@enumaris dont recall that in the movie. but saw it a few yrs ago. recall the scene where they debated about (leaking) an attack because someone on the team knew someone there personally.

yeah it's that part

the "answer" they found was to not alerting the Admiralty of the attack

and Turing took all responsibility for that decision

in real life, no way he's the one making that decision

To be sure, the question of what info to release to commanders was tolls real one

But that was not a Turing-level decision

yes

that was my point

@enumaris agreed that was unrealistic. dont recall that decision in the movie. thought it was ambiguous in the end.

If anything it’d be Dennison in his capacity as director

the movie made it out that it was Turing's decision to make

that's why that young kid hated Turing so much at the end of it

cus his brother died

they wanted that drama

@enumaris he possibly faced similar decisions/ moral dliemmas during his work.

It's possible, but from what I've read about the situation, those decisions were made higher up

And I think Churchill overruled him a few times, eg releasing info on the Eastern front to the Russians

Bletchley Park definitely regarded that as insecure

@enumaris if you see the scene as (less literally) low-level employees facing conscience/ anguish/ stress over their work based on classification/ secrecy, its not unrealistic. eg think manhattan project. see strong parallels there.

yeah, but it's unrealistic to put 100% of the responsibility on Turing's shoulders

that was one part of the movie that made me lose a little suspension of disbelief

@enumaris as movie protagonist hes a standin for others who made absolutely similar decisions.

cus I can't imagine that those decisions were his responsibility

yeah but the movie is about Turing, not about a general sense of "who's responsible for war"

Here: winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-150/…

@enumaris exactly

@enumaris ofc the movie has deeper themes/ meanings than merely Turing.

I felt that part of the movie could have been better

but otherwise I enjoyed the movie :)

@enumaris admittedly it stuck out at me (and others) also, think it was mentioned in other reviews, but tried to look at it from different angles.

Maybe so. But it was a movie ostensibly about Alan Turing which really had little to do with Alan Turing the actual person

well I wouldn't say "little"...they definitely dramatized a lot of it

@Semiclassical a not uncommon accusation but seems like you would have to watch it & do your own research to really make that determination (rather than take others word for it...).

but the fact that he did work at Bletchley Park, and he worked to crack Enigma, and he was homosexual, and he was persecuted for that, and those kinds of thematic pieces were all there

Or, I could trust someone who has actually done their research and whose account matches what I’d already encountered in prior readings

in the end it's a movie

watch it for enjoyment lol

if you don't enjoy that kind of stuff, then don't watch it

@Semiclassical lol personally think movies are not ('entirely") about verisimilitude and too much emphasis on that aspect can spoil the experience...

to each their own

:D

I still generally quite enjoyed the movie, even with all the dramatizations

I’d be more okay with that were Turing a well-known and well-understood figure in the public consciousness

After all, I didn't go watch a historical documentary for a reason lol

@enumaris exactly, there are a few of those also (not bad).

But he’s not. As such, the Turing that most viewers will have in their mind after seeing the film is the one the movie presents

@Semiclassical but it is not an unsympathetic/ starkly inaccurate portrait.

Therefore, it is critical to get him right if you’re going to build the film around him

@vzn You can't have it both ways - either he needs to do his research, or he needs to put less emphasis on verisimilitude. If you're not after verisimilitude, then what are you researching? Also, for the last time: Stop responding to others' earnest messages with "lol". It's rude and comes across very much as you laughing about your conversational partner.

uh oh time to run... :( did not say "lol" for quite awhile... o_O

What’s the old Vonnegut line? “ 'We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

I can see Semiclassical's problems with the movie. Those problems don't really change my enjoyment of the movie though.

The same goes, to some extent, to how we pretend others to be

but after most movies, I actually do tend to spend some time to research the subject matter myself

lol

That’s why I can’t find any enthusiasm for a film llije that, whatever artistic or technical merits it may otherwise have

well, you are certainly entitled to your own tastes :D

If you’re going to use Turing as a vehicle, I want it done right

you do filter out a lot of movies with that criteria though

Ok, I’d best stop ranting

most historical dramas are historical fiction...and employ vast amounts of dramatization

Most don’t accidentally turn their protagonist into a traitor by implication tho

for the part about him not reporting the spy?

I think few would read into that part of the movie and label Turing a traitor because of it. The tone of the movie was always sympathetic to Turing.

Right. See the Guardian piece here: theguardian.com/film/2014/nov/20/…

movies are a lot about feelings...

I feel like that article is taking one piece of the movie and discarding all context and tone

the movie, I felt, never meant to accuse Turing of being a traitor. The time he discovers the spy and to the time he reveals the spy is very short.

And even then, it is revealed that the spy is already known anyways.

and was being used by MI6 to hand information to the soviets to better fight the war

I really think very few viewers would get the implication "Turing is a traitor" by watching the movie

Maybe? But it was the filmmaker’s choice to portray him that way. That construction was not forced upon them

← lol master of yin-yang so sometimes does have it both ways :P

yeah, I think they should have left it out of the movie, but the article is being a bit disingenuous by saying the movie makers painted Turing as a traitor - without specifying any context.

Had the movie been the same in everything but the characters names, I don’t think I’d be rankled by it

But they chose to present it as a story about Alan Turing, and that matters

@Semiclassical apparently doesnt matter enough to see the movie... still wonder how much it would really "rankle" :P

It matters enough that, given the opportunity to see if, I wouldn’t want to

Life’s too short for that

← in contrast not "rankled" much by movies havent seen ;)

Not when they’ve been out of the park bloc eye, no

But The Imitation Game won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay (from Alan Hodges’ biography of him)

@Semiclassical Probably worth noting that nothing says the adaptation needs to be faithful - just "best" :P

Sigh.

To be clear, I share your concerns - just pointing out that faithfulness is not really what people seem to be looking for.

@Semiclassical it wasnt that good tho

idk why i linked to ur comment

But I’ll note here: this is all in response to my saying why I had no interest in seeing the movie, and subsequently being harangued about not seeing it

misclick

...(to be fair) this reminds me of the reviewer/ critic/ public split that goes on esp with some movies.

Idle musing: Do they leave the Best Adapted Screenplay category empty if there's no good adaptation at all that year?

unlikely to happen

it was kind of an example of overly produced saccharine oscar bait

lol yeah maybe thats why it won right? "best of the worst"? kinda like our last election? :P

more likely for there to be no original screenplays

I.e. is "nothing" a valid choice for the jurors? It is e.g. at the Hugos.

Lol

oscars are a billion(s) dollar operation, cant let quality of movies get in the way of that juggernaut :P

that's not an "i.e." that's a separate but related question :P

@Semiclassical "harangue"? you mentioned "ranting"... maybe some dramatization there, not exactly accurate? :P

@enumaris You wanna get into technicalities again? :)

I'm game.

XD

i can totally see someone getting harangued for not watching the imitation game back when it came out

harangue needling :P

@vzn Maybe take it as an indication of how your insistence that he should see the movie came across, rather than "haranguing" him about calling it haranguing?

The only Oscar category I get annoyed with frequency is Best Animated Feature

sorry SC if you felt some discomfort/ stress o_O

@Semiclassical you mean the "did disney/pixar make a movie this year" award

Lol

I mean, I don’t object to Disney/Pixar having yearly nominations

coco was aight

@EricSilva liked it too yeah good family movie... hard to go wrong with pixar :)

What I do mind is the lack of nominations for other deserving films

spirited away won that category before

it tugged at my latinoness too much for me to not enjoy it

Spirited Away ftw!

Yeah, no objection there.

@Semiclassical all the big award shows are kind of trashy tho and dont represent the "best" stuff

mostly just the most commercially impactful stuff that also has like a semblance of quality

Spirited Away is sooooooo good

Though it’s worth noting that Disney were the ones who dubbed SA into English (which is more generally true for Studio Ghibli)

@EricSilva How could what's most successful on the free market not be best? </snark>

@ACuriousMind pls

@Semiclassical Haven't watched it dubbed, so don't really know what that's like

the disney dubs of ghibli films are like solidly good

Which suggests that SA was a lot better positioned to be seen by Oscar voters than most non-US animated features

Overall my issue tho is the extent to which the Oscars view animated features as being for kids

I enjoyed the Dubbed version of Howl's Moving Castle

Which to be fair is reflective of US culture as a whole

about as much as I enjoyed the Subbed version

They are both my favorite Studio Ghibli film

That’s not to say that such features are inherently bad. But if that’s the only kind of feature you see then it’s such s limited view

@Semiclassical shrek won it and that's not a "kids" movie strictly

also shrek won it

shrek

I remember watching Shrek on TV as a kid and being annoyed that it was interrupted by the pope dying.

(The actual pope. The station interrupted the showing for live coverage)

Ehhh. Content/tone aside, Shrek is about as American as an animated feature can be

And iirc it wasn’t lacking in US marketing

oh it's super american

it's just not good

it just makes it apparent to me that the oscars were always a sham

tbf tho

if we put as much money into turning like a serious award show into a big thing like the oscars most people would be like "wtf i havent heard of any of these films what is this"

Mostly this reflects the fact that Oscar viewers aren’t going to nominate or vote for films they haven’t seen

Well, about that...

Bah, source digging

I thought Shrek (original one) was actually pretty good

kind of an original concept too

Here: vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/1/19/16909002/…

im not like offended by shrek but like

its presence denigrates the award when compared to something like spirited away imo

I think Shrek is much more...geared towards children?

like I enjoyed Shrek a lot cus I was a kid when it came out lol. But probably these days, I would enjoy it much less. But Spirited Away would be something I could enjoy even now.

assuming I haven't watched those movies before

Towards teens more than kids I think

idt it's really geared towards children it's just geared for like the general american sensibility circa 2000 or whenever it came out

The humor is more PG than G

hmm

well I put it in the similar class of movies as like Adam Sandler movies - really funny and enjoyable when you're young...but then get less so when you grow older

idk dude my dad laughs at adam sandler movies and he's like 55

lol

maybe it's just me then

Sure, but I think the audience for a typical Disney film is at least a few years younger than Shrek was

Both would tend to be younger audiences in general, but different demographics

So my friend's sister invited me to an event tonight. I have told my g . . . . . . * f* . Also I think I will be wearing my good watch tonight. Should be an interesting night, hopefully not too interesting. Seems there will be a lot of powerful and important people there. hmm I did not feel like I should go ;) but I got convinced over the phone. I still need to get final permission from my g . . . . . . . . . .*f*

disney films are for kids but some of them are p serious

lilo and stitch comes to mind as having like a really dark and political subplot that most people glance over

what's a g . . . . . . . . . f

=D

:D

guardian force?

I’ve heard Inside Out is rather good in terms of how it talks about emotions

you play FFVIII?

@EricSilva Is it bad for stuff for kids to be serious in some way?

yes let's go with guardian force lol

@ACuriousMind no it gud

kids are smarter than ppl treat them and should be exposed to serious shit

@Semiclassical great movie very strangely similar to a viral youtube clip (similar premise with dating)...

@EricSilva Maybe not the best phrasing but I agree :P

Huh. Shrek was also nominated for Best Adaptef Screenplay

So I will be in Culver City this evening

Did not know thet

@Semiclassical shrek is a biopic dude

Probably an autobiography

The review for Inside Out I remember is this one: schlockmercenary.com/blog/inside-out-movie-review

i think i kind of vibe on this review

the movie struck me as being deeper than it seemed at first glance

Yeah

Like I said, I have no problem with Disney/Pixar features aimed at younger audiences being nominated

But those aren’t the only achievements in animation and they shouldn’t be the only ones at the table

imo they basically should never win tbh cause there's too much really good indie animation

even though they're actually pretty good sometimes

i'm not prepared to judge either way there, since there's just so much to consider

but I am entirely prepared to be judgmental about some films being entirely ignored

@enumaris I remember playing some version of final fantasy on playstation (the first one) sometime ago. It was a great time, my brother had purchased a playstation and a few cd's along with it including that, and I think crash bandicoot, tekken and so forth. Good times.

FFVIII will always have a special place in my heart

as the first PS game

and first FF game

I got into

wow

yeah I loved it too

May be I should play it again to see if I can feel exactly how I felt back then :P

heh, if they release a remastered version I might play it

but the graphics are a bit too low for me to just go back to the original version lol

You sound a bit like my cousin lol

speaking of movies + FF try this one imdb.com/title/tt0173840

which movie is that

I can't access imdb

final fantasy spirits within 2001

He and I used to play video games all the time. He ended up getting a degree in physics. He lives in the bay area now and works as a programmer for some company . Hmm may be I should see what he is up to these days

watched that

it didn't really seem to be a final fantasy

tho

no?

like I didn't get a huge final fantasy vibe from it...more like...they just used the name...

where are the big swords and leveling up...it seemed much more like a straight up sci-fi movie that was animated and had the name final fantasy attached

heh yeah guess so

Advent Children was much more final-fantasy-esque...but of course that was a sequel to FFVII

speaking of video games + movies try Jumanji remake with duwayne johnson, not bad imdb.com/title/tt2283362

omg, jumanji hehe

oh this is the remake

I watched the first one

loved it!!

bet you will like II :)

hehe

I watched the first one as a kid on vhs and stuff

I remember them playing the game, and being legitimately scared

wait this one is a video game?

the first one was a board game

what have they done lol

I guess there is more adventure now :P

so you have a hot date tonite? :)

hehehe, no, no . . . I'm hanging out with my friend's sister at an event :P

so whats the event

you get permission from your friend to date his sister? In my experience (of 0) it's good to ask for permission.

lol

The event is a bi-yearly meeting where some group of people talk about what they've been doing and how they are working towards meeting their global goals and so forth and their experiences. I am not part of them, but my friend is , and his sister is actually quite active too. She thought it would be a fun idea to show me a few things and introduce me to some people

@enumaris Let's not perpetuate the sexist idea that brothers somehow should control their sister's dating life, please.

lol wut

hehe

Cows never specified his friend was a man

I never specified that his friend was the brother

I did use "his"

@enumaris So why did you use "his" there?

I guess I can use "his/her"

I use "his" for all unknown gendered people

generically

also my comment was obviously tongue in cheek, nor do I imply that there "should" be control

@enumaris The idea of needing someone else's "permission" to date someone very much implies that they control the other person's life to some extent, doesn't it?

I didn't say permission was needed

I said it's good to ask for permission

Just like I might ask for permission from my fiance's parents to marry her as a sign of respect...there is no implication that my fiance's life is controlled by her parents.

plus it should be completely apparent that my statement was made tongue in cheek

I think we are all good :D

hehe

@enumaris I do think that "permission" carries with it some notion of formal authorization - and to grant authorization you must wield authority, i.e. control, and most dictionary definitions agree.

There is certainly NO implication that someone's life SHOULD BE controlled by someone else. If you read THAT MUCH into my comment, then there's a fundamental problem of communication between us.

::sigh:: and yet again you've tricked me into discussing technicalities :)

:)

@enumaris If you really didn't mean to imply that, I apologize.

I really didn't mean to imply that. No worries. We're good. :)

woah, this RL book is using some fancy language...

raison d'etre

dunno how to use the correct accent on the e there

I keep thinking that by "RL book" you just mean a book that's actual paper and not a PDF or an ebook

It's a PDF lol

and it's not published yet which is why I have access to it. The authors put up a pre-print for free. :P

they also used another term that I had to look up in the dictionary...

Alternatively, a "real life book" could just be a book set in our contemporary world, I guess...

something meaning a gap...but in fancy words...

can't remember the word now :(

oh found it

lacuna

who uses lacuna in a textbook? Apparently these guys...XD

@ACuriousMind lol I only just now got "RL book"...I guess if I said "IRL Book" it would be actual paper?

hmmm

woot, posted a question in a stack exchange...first question in a long while lol

yeah!!

if the probability of a photon to be reflected from a beam splitter is R and to be transmitted is T and R+T=1, then is RT = 0?

why should that be?