I almost cried reading this.

Sullivan Ballou (March 28, 1829 - July 29, 1861) was a lawyer and politician from Rhode Island, and an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He is remembered for an eloquent letter he wrote to his wife one week before he was killed in the First Battle of Bull Run. A shortened version was incorporated ( Read more... )

From Quartz
Hat-tip to John Davis

Finally, a Hollywood sci-fi alien movie with a linguist as the hero

Review by Adam Epstein
August 18, 2016 Congratulations, linguists: You’re finally getting your big moment.

On Tuesday (Aug. 16), Paramount Pictures released the first full trailer for Arrival, a science-fiction film about a linguist (played by Amy ( Read more... )

I just watched Ida on Fandor. It is gripping in its ... austerity, and its story, and the title character's often minimal-seeming reactions to what is happening around her.

And after writing the first 1½ sentences above, I checked my mail and found a hold pickup notice from the library. I'm reading my way through Faye Kellerman's Decker/Lazarus ( Read more... )

I took in a movie today. International House of Philadelphia has a very nice year-round movie program; I've been there a few times before, but not lately. This afternoon I saw the 1986 Disney Flight of the Navigator; pretty good, I enjoyed it. (I also spotted a major physics goof and added it to Wikipedia and on IMDb (waiting for approval).) In a ( Read more... )

I've trimmed this down as much as I can and put all the graphics behind cuts. They don't contain any information.

A QUICK MESSAGE FROM PETER S. BEAGLE & CONNOR COCHRAN -- 1/2/2015Peter Beagle Webmaster Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 1:30 PM

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From Language Log, "Frozen" in Arabic.

The New Yorker blog has an online article by Elias Muhanna entitled "Translating 'Frozen' Into Arabic".  What's noteworthy is that Disney's "Frozen" was translated into Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), while previous Disney releases were translated into Egyptian Arabic.  Somewhat oddly, the author compares MSA ( Read more... )

Just sent to Steven Rea about his article in the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer about Pawel Pawlikowski's new movie Ida, "His quiet little ‘anti-film’".*

Thank you for your report on Ida. I had barely heard of this movie before, and now I'm hoping it will be released here and I'll be able to see it.

One correction: "a quiet, sheltered 18-year-old ( Read more... )

Anybody seen it? Is it fun? worth seeing?

η: Oops. Web saith, Release Feb. 8.
This entry was originally posted at http://thnidu.dreamwidth.org/1254759.html. You can comment here, or there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth ID.
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I'm sitting in a movie theater waiting for The Day of the Doctor to start, and intermittently looking up at the pre-show - which just looped back to the start as I write this. It's full of trivia questions to which I have no clue whatsoever, and trivia items that are, some of them, interesting.

I hope the 3-D glasses work well. [1]

The middle of the ( Read more... )

Anyone around Philadelphia interested in seeing the Whovian 50-year special in 3-D? Monday, Nov. 25, at the University City Penn 6, 4012 Walnut Street, 7:30 and 10:00. Tix are $13 (kids & seniors $10.25), for purchase at the link ↓↓.

DOCTOR WHO: The Day of the Doctor in 3D (NCM/Fathom Event)
Open Limited 11/25/13Runtime ( Read more... )