Year: 2017

Arrival (2016)

I love books. I love languages. I built welovetranslations.com. 

You can read this post on that site!

I’m so glad a friend who wanted to see it it invited me along or I would surely have overlooked this gem.

In Arrival, lonely linguistics professor Louise gets called in by the top army brass alongside your more typical math/physics guy to try to figure out how to communicate with the aliens in one of twelve lens-shaped black ships hovering over different parts of the world (the answer: coffee rings!), but the clock is ticking because the win/lose approach favored by the Chinese (and by some rogue American soldiers, for that matter) could result in catastrophic alien retaliation.

Arrival is not very actiony; there’s a lot of quiet drama in with the sci-fi. There are a couple of nice themes, but nothing overbearing. The film never even gets near the “hold hands and sing kum ba yah” cliche, which I perhaps was dreading. The black lenses recall Arthur C. Clarke’s monoliths, but that’s the only similarity Arrival has with 2001:A Space Odyssey. Nor did it have the nonsensical transcendent mystery of Close Encounters. Nor was it anything like Independence Day (1995). The movies it’s being compared to are all movies I haven’t yet seen (Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian).

The movie has been described as “sophisticated”, “intellectual”, “thoughtful”, “pensive”, and “cerebral”. That’s great. Quibble how you will about inaccuracies in the depiction of linguistics, the fact that Hollywood deigns to depict a linguist at all is nice.

I further approve of this movie because it didn’t announce that it has a heroine (rather than a hero). Arrival contains absolutely no obtrusive feminist rhetoric, spunky, defensive or otherwise. There’s just a likable woman smack at the center of the story. The heroine is played by Amy Adams, seen ten years ago in Disney’s Enchanted. The male scientist (played by Jeremy Renner, Marvel’s Hawkeye) for all his supposed skills, is just along for the ride.

It’s a wild ride, difficult to describe without giving the game away, somewhat like Predestination (2014). I’m also reminded of The Three-Body Problem, which also dramatizes the effect of aliens on humanity.

Since the not-fictional Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is part of the backdrop of the movie, I would like to point out that learning a new language—learning anything—does change your brain, but not like science fiction (or even the real Sapir and Whorf) would have you believe.

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Keep reading 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.

Also see below for a brief comparison of the movie and the short story it was based on.

Continue reading Arrival (2016)

Shop theft is a crime

The guy who posed for this ubiquitous crime-fighting cardboard cutout is a minor celebrity in Singapore. His marriage was much celebrated—and much mourned.

I’d like to point out that “low crime does not mean no crime”. Singapore is safer and cleaner than just about anywhere else, but it’s not utopia.

I’d also like to point out that the phrasing of the sign is just weird, even if you’re accustomed to the term “shop theft” rather than “shoplifting”.

I would understand if it said “shoplifting is a crime”. Maybe there are people who rationalize the act referred to as “shoplifting” by thinking of it as the harmless liberation or redistribution of small items. Euphemisms, slang, and jargon all obscure what they refer to: the word businesses use for “unexplained” decreases in inventory—decreases largely due to theft—is “shrinkage”.

As it is, the sign is just providing an intuitive definition. It’s as if someone put up a sign that said “cars are vehicles”. Duh! I can’t imagine anyone being able to construe the word “theft” in any way that doesn’t involve crime.

I would understand if the sign said “shop theft is stupid”, because then the sign would be assuming you know what shop theft consisted of but not how it should be characterized.

Just because the message is a tautology with almost no moral weight doesn’t mean the sign is useless, however. At least one of the pop-psychology books I’ve read said studies show that displaying faces, even if they are cartoon faces, can decrease bad behavior by making people subconsciously feel that someone is watching and judging them. The abstract idea of someone’s eyes pointed in your direction is sometimes enough to tip the balance! The cardboard cutout is not magic, but it does help.

Royal Magic by Ruth Chew

I like the plot of Royal Magic. Reminds me a bit of the Laotian movie The Rocket, in that there’s a society that thinks twins are bad luck.

Ruth Chew writes books that take kids on magic adventures. The only magic in Royal Magic is the fact that two kids are accidentally transported to someplace else when they go to the natural history museum in New York.

When and Why I Read Royal Magic

I was trying to figure out whether the plot involved time travel because a book blogger asked me about it.

Genre: children’s fiction (fantasy)
Date started / date finished:  22-Jan-17 to 22-Jan-17
Length: 127 pages
ISBN: 0590447424 (paperback)
Originally published in: 1991
Amazon link: Royal Magic

Wrong Way Around Magic by Ruth Chew

Ruth Chew writes books that take kids on magic adventures. In Wrong Way Around Magic, the only magic is a pair of field glasses (binoculars) that takes two kids to some place which is probably pre-modern China, though the text never really says.

When and Why I Read Wrong Way Around Magic

I was trying to figure out whether the plot involved time travel because a book blogger asked me about it.

Genre: children’s fiction (fantasy)
Date started / date finished:  22-Jan-17 to 22-Jan-17
Length: 128 pages
ISBN: 0590460234 (paperback)
Originally published in: 1993
Amazon link: Wrong Way Around Magic

 

Ice truck slogans

I’m fascinated by the commercial vehicles in Singapore, especially JM Ice trucks.

J.M. Ice: There’s always a better service!

This bizarre slogan is struggling mightily to convey the message, “Our service is always better!” but unfortunately suggests that “There’s always a better service than ours!”

Iceman: You ring, we bring.

Descriptive, concise, memorable. Could apply to anything being delivered, though.

Tuck Lee: Have ice will revel.

So pithy, clever and downright hip, it’s no wonder they trademarked it! You win, Tuck Lee.

Jackie Chan comes to Plaza Singapura to launch Kung Fu Yoga

When I went to see Railroad Tigers, I saw signs heralding Jackie Chan’s visit to Plaza Singapura, so I made sure I was there. I should have made sure I was there earlier…

Below are the best of the lousy photos I managed to snap amidst the forest of arms. Clearly I was not cut out for the life of the paparazzi. Still, I did get to hear and glimpse one of my favorite movie stars, which is a thing I never really expected would happen—especially because Jackie Chan routinely almost dies.

Continue reading Jackie Chan comes to Plaza Singapura to launch Kung Fu Yoga

Railroad Tigers (2016)

In Railroad Tigers, Jackie Chan’s character is a Chinese villager living under the yoke of the Japanese army during WWII. He is the leader of a secret rebel group, the Flying Tigers. He leads the small, patriotic group on raids to harass and steal from Japanese soldiers stationed on the trains that pass through his village. They aren’t soldiers, though, and although they constantly risk getting caught, they never really accomplish much. What can they do to truly help their country? When a wounded soldier tells them he has failed in his mission to blow up an important bridge nearby, they know what to do… but not how to do it. Will they succeed?

Almost the whole film happens on a train, though there are some scenes in the village as well. I laughed a lot and thoroughly enjoyed it. Those who have disparaging things to say may have found the pro-China and anti-Japanese themes distasteful; or they may dislike silly action movies, since many action movies these days are gritty, dark, or at least largely serious in tone; or perhaps it’s partly just that they’re English speakers who don’t like having to experience jokes via subtitles.

In fact I wish my Mandarin (and my Japanese) were stronger, because then I’d have been able to appreciate the dialog better. Nevertheless, even though I mostly had to rely on the English subtitles to understand the dialog, it was still hilarious. And you don’t need subtitles for the slapstick comedy, anyway; you could get a fair amount of enjoyment from the movie even with the subtitles off—assuming you like slapstick.

In fact, the main reasons I like Jackie Chan’s movies are: (a) they’re silly, and (b) each of his characters is charmingly and effectively protective. Moreover, as other reviewers unfailingly point out, it’s amazing that Jackie Chan is still not just alive but also kicking. Hats off to an amazing and very dedicated lifelong artist!

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I’m looking forward to the next Jackie Chan movie already, and I don’t have long to wait: Kung Fu Yoga is being released in Singapore this week.