English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Mitch

20:09

@FaheemMitha What did you think of (if you saw it) the movie RRR:

RRR is a 2022 Indian Telugu-language epic action drama film directed by S. S. Rajamouli who wrote the film with V. Vijayendra Prasad. It is produced by D. V. V. Danayya of DVV Entertainment. The film stars N. T. Rama Rao Jr., Ram Charan, Ajay Devgn, Alia Bhatt, Shriya Saran, Samuthirakani, Ray Stevenson, Alison Doody, and Olivia Morris. It is a fictional story about two real-life Indian revolutionaries, Alluri Sitarama Raju (Charan) and Komaram Bheem (Rama Rao), and their fight against the British Raj. Set in 1920, the plot explores the undocumented period in their lives when both the revolutionaries...

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch I haven't watched it. I rarely watch Indian films.

M.A.R.

@Mitch watched Everything Everywhere All at Once

Mitch

It's very anti-British.

@M.A.R. and...?

M.A.R.

A bit too eccentric, typical A24. I did thoroughly enjoy it though, typical A24

tchrist

> Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid
Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,
And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,
Be shook to airy air.

Mitch

20:11

@FaheemMitha It strangely appeared here in some selected movie theaters, very rare to see Indian movies in the US.

@M.A.R. Your opinion, typical A24

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch And the last time I set foot in a cinema anywhere was in 2008. That was in Durham NC. One of the Harry Potter films. And I walked out of that one.

Mitch

By the way, what is A24?

@FaheemMitha Which one of them?

Had you read all the books?

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Oh. Yes, I imagine it's rare.

@Mitch Probably "Order of the Phoenix".

@Mitch I have, yes.

Mitch

What got you to walk out?

The sheer inanity?

The lack of realism in presentation of magic?

The unrealistic expectations of child actors?

Which one os Order of the Phoenix? is that #5?

M.A.R.

I like how much the movie struggles to show us the logical integrity of optimism. It's the ultimate proof it's one of the hardest battles you can choose to fight

Faheem Mitha

20:14

@Mitch I think I just got bored. The HP films were mostly not very good. I wanted my dinner. And I just went in out of impulse. Once upon a time I used to enjoy impromptu visits to the cinema.

Mitch

@M.A.R. Wait... there was a moral to the story? What about the fight scenes man? That lady is 60 years old and still doing her own stunts!

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch It's 5th in the book series, yes.

M.A.R.

Melancholy and cynicism are way more easily trusted, perhaps as a survival strategy. But we're no longer being chased by predators in the wild, might as well upgrade our firmware

Mitch

@FaheemMitha It takes a lot for me to walk out of a movie...I always feel like near the very end -something- in the plot will occur that will reinterpret and redeem the up to then idiocy that may have seemed.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch It's a bit hard to imagine a pro-British Indian film. Though such a thing might exist. I don't know.

Mitch

20:16

@M.A.R. We're chased by predators of the mind.

M.A.R.

@Mitch I never cared all that much about "doing own stunts". I mean, it was cool at first, oh yeah, cool, Jackie Chan breaks his leg while filming, oh, Tom Cruise does it too?! But nowadays it's like the cheapest compliment you can give an actor or actress

Mitch

Optimization of every small thing in our lives.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch I'd already read the book, so I knew what was going to happen, more or less. Otherwise I might have stayed. Also, it kind of depends on ones mood, you know.

That day I think I thought it would be more fun to go home and have dinner, so I did.

M.A.R.

If I can believe for the moment that an actor is a serial killer, I can also easily make the leap that they're doing all the wild stuff too, as long as it looks cool.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha I feel like the British appear as tea-drinking effetes, or on the whole not awful but a handful of bastards that ruin things.

Robusto

20:18

> I solved today's Redactle (#81) in 74 guesses with an accuracy of 33.78%. Played at redactle.com

This one was hard.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha oh, one of those days

Faheem Mitha

US cinema tickets were very expensive then. I imagine they are even more now. But apparently people are still going, for some reason.

M.A.R.

tries to resist cynicism and melancholy

Mitch

Hmm.. I'm think Gandhi, or Passage to India, which are, I realize, not made by Indians

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Oh, they were quite awful. But they were also tea-drinking bastards. Both things are/were true.

Robusto

20:19

@Mitch Those were what Pauline Kael used to call "coffee-table movies."

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch What do you think of the HP books, if anything? And have you seen any of the films?

M.A.R.

@Mitch I believe and I hate that I believe that awful is awfully malleable. The whole "[decent person] was okay with slavery back at 1800s"

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Those are both British films. The Gandhi one is basically a live-action cartoon. I can't remember much about the Forster one.

Mitch

@M.A.R. I've never really cared that Tom Cruise does his own stunts. Big whoop. The stunts aren't that great and don't (seem to) take much skill, look no different from green screen.

But Jackie Chan stunts are crazy.

tchrist

Age           Moviegoers   Population
---------------------------------------
2-11          13%           13%
12-17         10%           8%
18-24         11%           9%
25-39         24%           21%
40-49         13%           13%
50-59         12%           14%
60+           17%           22%

@FaheemMitha Disproportionately the young, as shown above.

M.A.R.

20:22

@Mitch I mean, still. You watch a movie, and everyone is going crazy about this scene or the other, and your contribution to a conversation would be "Did you know X does his own stunts?" Lame.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha I thought RRR was appropriately representation of the Brits (deservedly demonized, like with one OK Brit). I had never seen that before in an Indian movie (wither about or by Indians)

M.A.R.

@tchrist actually way more proportionate than I thought

Faheem Mitha

@tchrist Well, not that young. But I take your point.

@Mitch Never seen what before?

Mitch

@Robusto Which have their place. But really, she didn't think they had ... import?

@FaheemMitha My opinion of HP? You want my opinion of HP? OMG strap in you're in for a ride...

They're OK.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Heh. Is that it?

M.A.R.

20:24

HP makes heavy laptops

Also we have this HP printer that's been working for as long as I can remember, like a universal constant. Never needed anything besides a few cartridge changes.

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Different HP.

M.A.R.

That's what they want you to think

Mitch

@FaheemMitha I love movies, and love watching them in movie theaters (and sadly couldn't do it for most of that last 2 years). But that part of the entertainment industry is slowly slowly fading.

Cerberus

@tchrist But that's a fairly small difference, perhaps except for old people.

Robusto

@Mitch She didn't classify those as such, I was just borrowing her expression. But it fits any sumptuously photographed, ponderously IMPORTANT and genteel film that leaves one feeling unsatisfied.

Mitch

20:26

I know I live in a special area but I feel like whenever I go out to the live movie theaters, I'm in the younger part of the audience. (I'm old)

Faheem Mitha

@tchrist So 42% for people over 40. I'm surprised it's that high. Don't people have other things to do with their money? And I assume those are domestic US figures.

Mitch

@M.A.R. keeps quiet

Faheem Mitha

So average US ticket prices? USD 15? USD 20?

Robusto

I seldom go to movies anymore. For one thing, there are so few worth seeing. For another, I have the patience to wait until they hit my home screen.

M.A.R.

I've gone to great lengths to ignore Harry Potter, because I'm yet to be convinced it's worth reading, and to be fair, I haven't used such discretion for any other series or books

Mitch

20:27

@M.A.R. You've just plumbed the depths of my analytical expertise.

Not even a puddle

Robusto

Nov 15, 2018 at 15:33, by Robusto

When my sons were reading all the Harry Potter books I tried to read the first one ... and collapsed in an epic fail after only 50 pages.

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. The books are OK. They don't improve as they go on, that's for sure. But they're mildly addictive. And quite re-readable, actually.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha We will have to agree to disagree on that.

Faheem Mitha

The first one is quite poor, ironically. The third one is much better. Probably close to the best in the series.

Prisoner of Azkaban.

Mitch

@Robusto 'IMPORTANT and genteel' works for me.

M.A.R.

20:29

@FaheemMitha understandable. When I read Discworld too much, I get the feeling I could find something more fulfilling to read, even if it's addictive

Robusto

They are cotton candy, and poorly spun cotton candy at that.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Agree to disagree on what?

Robusto

Rowling.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha $11-$12 Boston area

M.A.R.

@Robusto not sure Faheem disagrees. Even processed food can be addictive

Faheem Mitha

20:31

@M.A.R. Pratchett is probably a better writer than Rowling. And he is funny, at least some of the time. And he knows how to turn a sentence. And sometimes he says quite profound things, even when he's trying to be silly.

Mitch

@M.A.R. They're really great world building, but it's just very square in the middle 'young adult novel'

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto What do we disagree about re Rowling? That she has poor table manners? That she talks too much?

Robusto

@FaheemMitha That her books are shite.

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Addictive wasn't intended as a compliment. Heroin is addictive too. And smoking.

@Robusto Ah. That's what you think of them?

Robusto

I don't think I could have made it any plainer.

Faheem Mitha

20:32

@Robusto Ok. Well, fair enough.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha well you're saying they're like Discworld if you took everything remotely likeable about Discworld out of it?

Mitch

@FaheemMitha The major opinion I have of them, which is really borrowed from someone much more impressive, is that the books 4 through 7 really needed an editor to cut out about half the pages (or more, but because the first ones were so popular, the editor didn't feel like they had the power to say 'No, all that teenage whining is awful, cut it out'

Robusto

My idea of fantasy novels would be the Wizard of Earthsea series by Ursula K. LeGuin.

Jan 4 at 15:01, by Robusto

Read A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin if you want to read a fantasy novel I thought was excellent.

And the rest in the series as well.

Faheem Mitha

"Prisoner of Azkaban" is actually relatively well written and plotted. And short. A virtue which she seems to forget about in her later books. She's not much of a prose stylist, that's for sure.

M.A.R.

The first trilogy is awesome

Cerberus

20:34

@M.A.R. I am exactly like you.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha How dare she!

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Yes, I'm familiar with them. I've always thought the first would make an excellent film. Though finding a director who would do it justice would be almost impossible. Especially these days.

Cerberus

Harry Potter has too much of a Narnia / Star Wars sheen on it.

Mitch

@Cerberus Look man, HP is not for the faint of heart. Not everyone can handle magic.

Cerberus

Pah.

Magic.

Faheem Mitha

20:36

Like that part when that girl tries to seduce him, and her husband turns up and attacks them with some flying mythological creatures. Her name was Serret, I seem to recall. Something about the Lord of the Keep? He turns into his namesake, the sparrowhawk, and flies away.

Mitch

OK.

M.A.R.

I think the "these days" argument might be a bit of Golden age fallacy

Mitch

So you can't handle it.

M.A.R.

There's some truth to it, of course.

But when you're thinking of movies from the 90s, you remember Goodfellas, not Con Air.

Robusto

@Mitch Not only is her plotting perfunctory and her prose style awful, but she simply doesn't understand how to create a game. I mean, quidditch? It doesn't make any sense at all.

Mitch

20:37

@M.A.R. I have forgotten Con Air many times

Faheem Mitha

It's also implied that Serret (who turns into a gull) ends up dead.

M.A.R.

@Mitch but it keeps coming back because it's such a unique piece of art

Mitch

@Robusto OK...on that particular oddity I think I can explain.

Faheem Mitha

I never quite understood what she was trying to do there, though.

Disclaimer: I'm working off very old memories here.

Robusto

> Quidditch has been criticised for its emphasis on catching the Snitch.[17] Rowling claims that Quidditch is a sport that "infuriates" men in particular, who are bothered by the unrealistic scoring system.[1] Because of the emphasis on the Snitch, legal scholar William Baude called Quidditch "a really stupid game".[18]

Faheem Mitha

20:38

Anyway, that would have made a great scene. Also, I think I'm talking to myself here.

Mitch

Yes, it is a goddawful creation, -but- it is a perfect creation of what sportsball feels like to people who don't understand or follow sports.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Yes, that game is ridiculous. Rowling isn't much good at world building, either. Much of her world makes no sense.

Robusto

@Mitch You don't have to be a fan to at least understand a sport, and how scoring works.

Mitch

The whole 'capture the snitch for a bakjillion pts' is just the worst arbitrary plotting device ever to get out of a hole.

Faheem Mitha

Like the sapient people in the portraits. And when real people die, they come back as portrait people? Please.

Robusto

20:39

She should have had the kids playing cricket. At least that has fathomable rules.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Yes, the later ones are much too long. Though still readable. So you have read them, then?

@Robusto Magical cricket? Perhaps the ball would have wings.

Mitch

@Robusto I think the target audience, nerd kids who like the idea of magic, is very much disjoint from kids who give an inkling of interest in sports. And so quidditch sort of gives them this fun-house mirror version of what they might think that sports looks like.

M.A.R.

It'd say "ouch" in a deep voice every time it's hit

Robusto

@FaheemMitha Why does it have to be magical? I could also ask, "Why does a book about magic have to be so damned boring?"

Mitch

@FaheemMitha You realize that there is more insanity to it... there are real life quidditch matches.

Faheem Mitha

20:41

@M.A.R. Sorry, I didn't follow that question.

@Mitch Yes, there was one in the first "Pitch Perfect" movie. In the background. But perhaps that doesn't count.

Robusto

@Mitch That feels like an explanation in search of a justification.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha If you're looking for realism, I hear Rowling is writing an opera based on Trainspotting

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Her version of magic isn't great, I agree. She plasters it everywhere.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha it's regarding this response of yours. You're saying what makes Pratchett enjoyable is lacking in Rowling, only that they're both addictive

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Ugh. Pass. Though you're probably joking.

Mitch

20:43

@FaheemMitha Yeah I read all of them. They're easy to read, because they're written well for the target demographic, young teenagers.

Cerberus

Well spotted!

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. I'd say most of that is lacking, yes. She's not much of a writer, she's rarely funny, and she doesn't have much to say about anything, really.

Robusto

@Mitch A tiny sliver of the tiny geek market for LARP. Not even as popular as beer pong for the collegiate nerd.

Mind you, I consider myself, quite realistically, to be both geek and nerd.

M.A.R.

Well, I'd say this conversation was even more encouraging on keeping HP at bay. And full of black ink.

Faheem Mitha

But her books move well, and they're engaging. And the characters are sympathetic. I thought Hermione Grainger was a standout, though she's a bit too good at everything. Really, those books should be called "Hermoine Grainger and. .."

Cerberus

20:45

Hmm I really like Pratchett's humour, but I didn't really like any of the books that I read. The plot was just not interesting. I'm not sure whether jokery had the body to fill a fantasy novel.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Did you read them when they first came out, then?

Mitch

@Robusto Sorry. Are you looking for well-thought out and supported argiuments?

Robusto

@Mitch Sadly, yes. But I didn't come here for an argiument.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha opium for the young people then.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha haha. totally joking. I think the overlap is they're both Scottish?

Faheem Mitha

20:46

@M.A.R. That's true of a lot of writing.

@Mitch She's Scottish, yes. And the film is set in Glasgow, isn't it?

M.A.R.

@Cerberus the plot is interesting in some Nights Watch novels, but a bit predictable if you sit down and give the books too much thought

@FaheemMitha often, there's also something to be learned.

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus I wouldn't call his book very high quality literature, inasmuch such a thing exists, no.

Mitch

Cerberus

@M.A.R. I read the one on which the Discworld computer game was based (which had his great humour). Unless his books are so generic that they all look the same?

It was about the Nightwatch and a cult and a dragon.

M.A.R.

Wait, what's the difference between a geek and a need?

Robusto

20:48

@Mitch Venn are you going to stop posting diagrams?

Cerberus

@FaheemMitha No, but did you actually like reading them?

M.A.R.

The former is good with computers, the latter has bigger glasses and poorer eyesight?

Robusto

But I am perhaps too ept to be considered a nerd, in that context.

Mitch

Argument - Monty Python

►

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus I sort of enjoyed them at the time. I read some of the early ones when they first came out. Quite a long time ago, now. I guess late 80s, early 90s?

I wouldn't consider myself a Pratchett fan, though.

I probably haven't read most of them.

Robusto

20:50

@Mitch That was the reference, yes.

Cerberus

@FaheemMitha OK I see.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha The Trainspotting novel written by Irving Welsh who's from Scotland.

Faheem Mitha

If you want well written magical stories, one of the UKs leading exponents of that in the 20th century was Diana Wynne Jones. Though she's hardly as well known as Rowlings.

@Mitch Oh. I didn't know that. I didn't even know it was based on a novel.

M.A.R.

@Cerberus Guards! Guards! The novel was pretty funny, it was my first Pratchett novel, so I really enjoyed it. In the others, the humor has quite some overlap, and overall it's large swaths of characters doing stuff with small, profound chunks of reflection, and the good stuff compensates for whatever other stuff is in the book

Mitch

@M.A.R. That diagram doesn't really hold up well. From it one would infer that 'geek' is socially ept. Which is far from the expected case.

Faheem Mitha

20:53

Generally English writers are quite good at being funny. Both DWJ and Pratchett can do it when they want. Rowlings, not so much, I think. She's just not subtle enough a writer.

M.A.R.

They can be a bit too absurd for their own good, I admit. And if you read a couple of novels in succession, a lot of the messages about, say, prejudice and hate and whatever can be a bit repetitive.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha Which may explain her popularity.

Mitch

@Robusto cripes...jinxed from the past

M.A.R.

It's a great escape from studying pharmacotherapy though

@Mitch oh, that image was too morally corrupt to cross our conscientious censors.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Probably. Well, partly. It's a bunch of stuff, I think.

Robusto

20:54

@Mitch You need to read chat more closely, obviously. Such slacking will not pass here.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha THat's a good novel. Written in English and Scots English eye-dialect. It's not all broken needles and dead babies.

Robusto

The world has quite enough broken needles and dead babies, thank you very much.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Noted. Though I doubt I'll ever read it. I don't do much novel reading these days. Or any kind of reading, really. Other than things I need to read, and short articles.

Mitch

@M.A.R. well it has too many rainbow colors

so

also I used the direct URL as opposed to uploading

M.A.R.

@Mitch What were you thinking?! I might have turned hay

Faheem Mitha

20:56

It's actually an interesting question, what make the HP books so appealing to children. After all, there are lots of writers. They mostly don't become billionaires.

M.A.R.

Haha I'm keeping that autocorrect in

Mitch

@M.A.R. Did that show>?

M.A.R.

It did

Robusto

Nov 15, 2018 at 15:42, by Robusto

I'm totally sick of the Chosen One plot. It's been done to death.

M.A.R.

But my sexuality seems intact

Cerberus

20:57

> The first Discworld point-and-click adventure game borrowed heavily from the plot of Guards! Guards![3]

Yeah, that's the book I read.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Ged has a fair amount of Chosen One.

Cerberus

Sorry, it didn't do much for me.

M.A.R.

How dare you not like the things I like

Cerberus

I do apologize.

M.A.R.

I'll make a condescending Venn diagram about you

Cerberus

20:58

I tried.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha I disagree. For the "Chosen One" to be a valid characterization the protagonist needs to be destined to rule. That is clearly not Ged.

Mitch

@Robusto yeah it's a pretty weak plot line. very 'Mary Jane'

Cerberus

Please do, I'm sure I deserve it.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Neither Harry Potter nor Neo get to rule anything.

Robusto

And please, call him Sparrowhawk, lest to speak his name would give his enemies power.

Faheem Mitha

20:59

And Neo dies for a while

@Robusto That might be a bit confusing.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…