Speed Racer (2008)

The colorful fantasy car racing scenes are magical, but they’re also emotional, because the underdog main character’s victory is a victory for Justice itself. Speed Racer demonstrates that integrity matters, that you can win by being honest (though not by being naive), that cheaters, in fact, never prosper in the long run. It’s not subtle. It’s not realistic. But it has an awesome kind of purity. There’s nothing quite like it.

It scrambles the timeline in the sequence at the beginning, which seems like genius to me now that I know who all the characters are and where the plot is going, having seen the movie several times. It probably didn’t make nearly as much sense the first time through.

See below for a detailed plot summary with SPOILERS in the form of a beat sheet in the style described in Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat.

BTW, this story perfectly fits the Save the Cat genre called “institutionalized,” in which the main character encounters a group or a system and has to join, escape, or destroy it.

Continue reading Speed Racer (2008)

Superman (2025)

Some scattered thoughts:

  • I didn’t realize, until I read some reviews online, that this movie was… politically divisive. (Sigh. Can we please not polarize everything? Or is it already too late?)
  • You may love dogs in spite of what they destroy, but me? I don’t want anything to do with such agents of chaos. That being said, Krypto was a pretty convincing CGI dog. (And has nothing to do with cryptocurrency.)
  • I found it distracting that Lex Luthor had so many supporters who were emotionally invested in his success. I wanted the movie to reveal their motivation. (It didn’t.)
  • It took me a while to recognize Nathan Fillion. (Green Lantern’s haircut truly is awful.) I didn’t recognize Alan Tudyk. (He voiced a robot.)
  • Hawk Girl (played by Isabela Merced) reminded me of the character Skye (played by Chloe Bennet) in Agents of Shield.
  • In the positive column: someone on the CGI team must have been familiar with bismuth crystals! They’re gorgeous.
  • The fight scene at the site of the entrance to the pocket universe was a lot of fun.
  • The best aspect of the movie might be the theme: you are not your destiny, as determined by your blood or your parents’ wishes; you are who you choose to be. Whatever else is going on in the movie, it does uphold that theme.
The Chinese name for the movie (and the character) is literally “Super Man”.

It was really weird seeing different actors for Superman/Clark, Lois, Jimmy, Perry White, and Clark’s parents, because I’ve been watching the 1990s Lois and Clark TV series. That show belongs to a completely different era. (I like the show better than this movie. No contest.)

F1: The Movie (2025)

You might think car racing films are all the same. The main character is a driver with a tragic backstory or an attitude problem (or both), and he needs to move on or grow up (or both). But, just like no two murder mysteries are really the same, the details make each car racing story different.

For example, what makes The Love Bug special is that the eponymous Volkswagen beetle is sentient and can drive by itself.

What makes Speed Racer special is that it’s about an honest underdog fighting a dishonest system.

What makes Death Race special is the stakes: prisoners enter car races to win their freedom—or die trying.

Cardboard Brad Pitt at our local mall’s movie theater.

What makes F1: The Movie special is that the main character, driver Sonny Hayes, “the best that never was,” doesn’t care about being in the spotlight. Eventually the story reveals why that is, and transforms this detachment from a weakness into a strength. Meanwhile, the audacious stuff he does is absolutely hilarious, albeit unrealistic.

See below for a plot summary with SPOILERS in the form of a beat sheet in the style described in Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat.

Continue reading F1: The Movie (2025)

What’s the best translation of Gargantua and Pantagruel?

There are eight complete translations of Gargantua and Pantagruel, plus one of just the first two parts.

For lots of details on all nine translations, please visit We Love Translations: World Literature in English:

» What’s the best translation of Gargantua and Pantagruel?

There are three modern translations in print, plus various updated versions of the original English translation from 1694, by Thomas Urquhart and Peter Anthony Motteux.

Urquhart’s parts of the translation are, like a lot of old, initial translations into English, not very exact. But maybe they don’t have to be; maybe energy, enthusiasm, and humor are more important in some sense, especially for a work like this one. Urquhart’s might not be the best translation, but it’s been around for hundreds of years; it’s a classic in its own right.

See below for a timeline and quotes describing some of the many various editions of the early translation efforts of Urquhart, and Motteux, who finished what Urquhart began.

Continue reading What’s the best translation of Gargantua and Pantagruel?

IMAX How to Train Your Dragon (2025)

After watching the 2025 remake of How to Train Your Dragon and reading people’s reactions on Reddit, I conceived a desire to see the movie on an IMAX screen. Siqi humored me, and we bought tickets and went and watched the movie again, at a slightly-father-away theater.

IMAX HTTYD 2025 Chinese movie poster.

See below for a detailed save-the-cat beat sheet plot summary of How to Train Your Dragon (2025). Beware SPOILERS.

Continue reading IMAX How to Train Your Dragon (2025)

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

This work, published in 1722 and attributed to Daniel Defoe but set in 1600s England with interludes in Virginia, is a fictional first-person account of the life of the narrator, “Moll Flanders” (not her real name), the daughter of a Newgate prisoner. Although she is penniless as a child, she manages to give herself the appearance of a gentlewoman. Her fortunes and her identity pass through a number of transformations during the course of her life, which is marred by a series of deceptions and misdeeds, which she eventually comes to repent of.

Wikipedia says this novel, like Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (which I enjoyed very much), is an example of “spiritual autobiography.”

See below for what I thought. (I am not a fan.)

Continue reading Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

When and Why I Read Moll Flanders

Another famous book by the author of Robinson Crusoe, which I enjoyed.

Genre: English literature
Date started / date finished: 09-Jun-25 to 15-Jun-25
Length: 307 pages
Originally published in: 1722/1995/2023
Source link: Moll Flanders

How to Train Your Dragon (2025)

This movie is a remake of the 2010 animated movie How to Train Your Dragon. That means it’s time once again to play Spot the Differences!

Although there are some changes that I personally don’t like, I think they did a great job overall. (Still, the original was better.)

DreamWorks did less revamping than Disney has been doing in their live-action remakes of animated classics. It may be that few changes seemed necessary because 2010 wasn’t that long ago (the live-action Cinderella movie was made 65 years after the 1950 original), or it may be because DreamWorks made a conscious decision to change as little as possible, or it may be both. (Often it’s both.)

So what did change, and why?

You probably don’t want to read this post if you haven’t seen the new movie, and it won’t make sense at all if you haven’t seen the new movie or the old movie. Instead, please enjoy this photo of the counter where I bought gelato after exiting the cinema.

I chose sea-salt coconut, tiramisu, and blueberry. Mmmm!

EDIT: I added some notes after I watched it again.

Continue reading How to Train Your Dragon (2025)

Short trip to Shenzhen

I was invited (with my boss and another colleague) to the International Quantum Academy in Shenzhen to give a talk after I edited Single-Electron Spin Qubits in Silicon for Quantum Computing, a paper written by some researchers who are based there. Siqi came with me, and spent Friday as a tourist on his own. (He went to Huaqiangbei electronics market.) Then we spent Saturday as tourists together.

  • Thursday, June 5 – flight from Hangzhou to Shenzhen
  • Friday, June 6 – talk at the International Quantum Academy
  • Saturday, June 7 – visit to Dafen Oil Painting Village and Sungang Home Furnishings Market
  • Sunday, June 8 – return flight from Shenzhen to Hangzhou

Continue reading Short trip to Shenzhen