cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/16093338

Austria in the 18th century. Forests surround villages. Killing a baby gets a woman sentenced to death. Agnes readies for married life with her beloved. But her mind and heart grow heavy. A gloomy path alone, evil thoughts arising.

IMDb

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/15843547

Ten years ago, musician Usman Riaz grabbed a pencil and started to sketch.

He might have hoped, but didn't know at the time, that it would start him on a path to making history.

That initial drawing became The Glassworker - Pakistan's first ever hand-drawn animated feature film.

It follows the story of young Vincent and his father Tomas, who run a glass workshop, and a war that threatens to upend their lives.

Vincent's relationship with violinist Alliz, the daughter of a military colonel, begins to test the bond between father and son.

Usman tells BBC Asian Network the characters ultimately come to learn "that life is beautiful but fragile, like glass”.

He describes The Glassworker as an "anti-war film" set in an ambiguous and fantastical world that takes inspiration from his home country.

...

The country doesn't have the thriving film industry of neighbouring India and there is no government support or incentive for budding creatives like Usman.

So The Glassworker was a passion project, he says.

“These 10 years for me have just been purely driven with passion and obsession.

“Since I was a child, I have loved hand-drawn animation and there's something so magical about it.

"The beauty of the lines drawn and painted by the human hand always resonated with me.”

Usman says he travelled the world looking for mentors and his search took him to Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli.

...

Usman says the industry veterans at Ghibli were also the ones who encouraged him to start the production himself.

After raising $116,000 through a 2016 crowdfunding campaign he founded his own studio, Mano Animations.

From there it's been a painstaking process, especially since full production started in 2019.

“What you are watching is essentially a moving painting,” says Usman.

“Every single frame you see, whether it's a background or the character moving, it's all drawn by hand.”

Usman says that, so far, he hasn't made any money from the project and has been unable to pay his wife Maryam and cousin Khizer, who he recruited to help him.

But there's hope that the labour of love could be the start of something bigger.

These archived versions might give you an idea.

• Archive.org - German
• Archive.org - Russian
• Archive.org - French
• Archive.org - Italian

To be honest, I don't know about the PDF versions you can find in Anna's Archive or similar archives/libraries. These methods had apparently been optimized for printed, pocket-sized books.

I consider these methods among those things that have not been necessarily superseded "just because" we have more advanced technology. They were very sophisticated for their time, marketed like many courses of this type to the busy working person, and at the same time were effective and entertaining.

We always had a couple of those books lying around the house (German and French). The annotations and explanations for native English speakers are superb, and the overall presentation of the volumes was of very high quality with minimal typos and errors. I only have found a couple omissions over some three hunded pages or sth which is virtually excellent.

With a good command of the English language that many possess, these books are accessible and effective in language learning, and if I don't omit some books, then you can teach yourself German, French, Italian, and Russian, using these methods. Let me add, they have accompanying cassette tapes (yes! Tapes!) which you can also find ripped in some online libraries.

The texts are tastefully chosen, they involve funny stories, anecdotes, proverbs. The culture and gender roles depicted in these books are dated of course, but it is like traveling back in time to simpler times, where you have to call the music teacher on their landline to tell them they forgot their umbrella, but you don't find him at home, so you have to leave a message to the housemaid, whatever. I look at these stories with a time traveler's curiosity. I do find this kind of thing enjoyable, but this might be a matter of taste.

There is no need to say that the grammar progression is gradual. and there is some opinionated, sublime structure you can vaguely discern, but well perhaps ...you shouldn't? The books make you feel you are in the good hands of some wiser people who have in store for you more and more tips on the language you are trying to learn, which is comforting and takes a load of your head. At some point you do have to pull up a notebook for some grammar stuff, but unless you are serious about learning the language you can as well skip this part and consult the self-contained appendices all the same.

Now there are several things that I think are quite special about this series.

Page numbers are transcribed in a simplified pronunciation system. Lessons are numbered too. Under the text you can find a phonetic transcription, which is not IPA but a custom system, that somehow makes sense to a speaker of English, for instance u with umlaut in German sounds like the last syllable of "view". This is not a novelty of course, but it is very well thought out how discretely it is placed on the page, that you can seamlessly ignore it for pages and pages over, without ever looking at it, but when you actually need it, it is consistently there.

Then, there are some footnotes, as well as some proper notes that are part of the subject matter. These are very thoughtful. Every time you wonder "what now?" about either a grammatical or a cultural thing, you will find the explanation right in the notes.

Everything is made to fit in pairs of pages (English on the left, Target language on the right), so you can look up translations both ways. Everything is discretely numbered so you can cross-reference everything: sentences, notes, lessons, appendices. (See note 7 in lesson 24). After the various stories and episodes that form the main lesson, there is one exercise (also numbered and phonetically transcribed) that delves deeper in grammar stuff and is more bland/repetitive, but usually relates to the main story. The hidden treat here is the comic. Yes, there is a comic strip next to the boring exercise always , so you are tempted to go right through the exercise to get the joke. Every now and then there are some revision chapters that are blocks of English text breaking down different grammar phenomena.

That is enough said about the design. Everything is designed and placed on the page with taste and sophistication that not all modern apps provide. The whole book fits in a pocket and is dense with compressed, promptly retrievable, information for a language learner.

Design issues aside there is the actual method. At first you just read the texts and the exercises. When you start to get better at it, you have to be able to translate the whole lesson and the exercise. At some point they ask you to get back to first lessons and try to reverse translate from target language to English. Later on they ask you to stop memorizing the main text, but you have to keep on memorizing the exercise and continue the reverse translating. Each lesson can take you up to 20 minutes tops.

Anyway, I don't know if this works for everybody or if it is demonstrably any better than other methods or apps, but I think it is very advanced for its era because every little thing seems to be very well thought out, and it is very smartly designed, so it has set some standards for me personally as to what a good piece of work should look like, be it on paper or on screen. The stories are enjoyable to me, and I reach out to these books as a pastime quite often, and I have picked up some German and French on the way. Now I have found the whole series in Anna's Archive and I am tempted to look into Russian and Italian too, but let me tell you, these books really shine in the printed book format for which they are designed. I tried to use them with a PDF viewer and they are not as easy to handle as the printed book. So if you happen across any of them in a thrift store or something give them a chance, they might become treasured items of your collection, especially if you are into languages.

Still bugs me how this level of detailed organization and proof-reading was even possible before computers, but it is really impressive!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18182906

Source
Linux currently 29.1%

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/15581017

Near the start of “Only the River Flows,” police officers set up an office in a closing movie theater. That backdrop suits this Chinese noir, the third feature from the director Wei Shujun, which, at times, feels like it unfolds in a universe of other films.

Tangled, unresolved procedurals like Bong Joon Ho’s “Memories of Murder” and David Fincher’s “Zodiac” loom large. Much of the score, on the other hand, is taken, strangely, from David Cronenberg’s “Crash” — not a murder mystery, but perhaps a clue to the kind of mind-body disconnect and existential stakes that Wei’s film means to ponder.

...

But “Only the River Flows,” based on a work by the author Yu Hua, is not the pure pulp a summary suggests. (An opening quotation from Albert Camus is fair warning.) As Ma Zhe’s personal life and the investigation begin to merge in his mind, Wei’s film increasingly blurs the line between the real and the imagined. The filmmaker has a gift for disorientation — a chilling cut connects a scene of a pregnancy ultrasound to Ma Zhe flipping through slides of murder evidence — that partly compensates for the muddiness of the plot.

Trailer

IMDb

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/15487624

Sam Quah’s Chinese remake of his own Malaysian thriller from 2022 is a film literally dripping in sin. It’s set in 2006 during the clean-up after the tsunami, with the ceiling at the local high school leaking due to the incessant rain. After the pupils punt origami boats out on the college lake, mute loner Tong (Shengdi Wang) is smeared in glue and tortured by the resident girl gang. So if liquid-sloshing Quah hasn’t seen Hideo Nakata’s Dark Water, by the time a mackintosh-sporting psycho is dicing up the bullies it’s clear he must be a fan of I Know What You Did Last Summer.

IMDb:

• A Place Called Silence (2024)
• A Place Called Silence (2022)

#nojeans makes life more interesting, you've got to explore more options instead of the bland lazy one

Here are some options in order of formality –

Thai fisherman pants

Workman's trousers like Snickers and stuff

Heavy woollen trousers (as opposed to woollen slacks, which are suit-level formal)

Linen trousers

Slacks

I 🇨🇦 went to see this movie last night with my girlfriend 🇨🇳. I'm pretty sure I was the only white guy in the theatre 😅

It's got an interesting tone, swinging between really funny and really serious very quickly. Sometimes you'll be raucously laughing at some goofy humour one second, and then something dark and heavy will happen and give you whiplash. In that sense, it felt a bit like a Wes Anderson film to me.

The main source of comedy in the movie comes from the dynamic between the protagonist, his wife, and his coworker/ex-girlfriend. The wife plays up the "nagging wife" trope pretty perfectly, and contrasts the diligent coworker. At times it can be hard to tell if you're supposed to believe that the protagonist is a bumbling fool, or a competent investigator. In that sense, the comedy bits reminded me a lot of Steve Martin in the Pink Panther.

The theme is interesting. It examines what the punishment should be for people who use what could be called "excessive force" in self defense. A bit high-minded at times and the ending felt a bit cheesy, but overall I liked he way the movie's core theme was repeated across many different subplots.

Overall I think it's worth watching if you like comedy/drama.

• IMDB – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16565742 – Follows the story of underground workers who risked their lives to send intelligence and defend the motherland, set after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor when the Wang Jingwei regime declared war on Britain and the U.S. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The following day, the Wang False Government followed Japan's declaration of war against Britain and the United States, and Japan symbolically occupied all of Shanghai. With the outbreak of the Pacific War, the situation of China's war effort changed completely. Members of the Chinese Communist Party underground risked sending out information to break the peace between Japan and Chiang and to defend the motherland.

• Trailer – https://yewtu.be/watch?v=yzZ_oHR5wRE

• Watch – https://moviesjoy.is/movie/hidden-blade-98590

https://invidious.fdn.fr/watch?v=oc8DWEOwnKM&listen=1

https://iv.melmac.space/watch?v=oc8DWEOwnKM&listen=1

https://yt.artemislena.eu/watch?v=oc8DWEOwnKM&listen=1

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=oc8DWEOwnKM&listen=1

(Wikipedia isn't exactly American culture, but I'm posting Ecured because it's cool and interesting. Wikipedia doesn't have to be eliminated, but Ecured helps get a global polycentric perspective)

• IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29515560/

• Watch: https://www.iq.com/play/the-bionic-life-episode-1-143t6lfgm7w and on similar sites you can easily find

This is the near future. Gene-editing technology has developed rapidly. A scientific life form called "humanoid" has been created. The physiological structure of humanoids is almost the same as that of humans. The only difference is that the neurons in their brains have been gene-edited in a certain way. They have a sole initial obsession that must be obeyed. They can be loyal spouses until the end of their life. They can be meek and filial children. They can be employees loyal to their boss. These custom-made humanoids started to circulate as commercial goods in the worldwide. Even in some countries where production and selling of humanoids are illegal, there are still outlaws who bring humanoids into their country without permission and sell them secretly. Along with the wide spread of humanoids, their risks gradually emerge. More and more people started to be addicted to the fake emotions provided by humanoids. And for humanoids themselves, their thoughts and emotions are easily deformed under the restriction of the initial obsession. Many malignant incidents happened due to that. In the face of the more and more serious situation, the international society quickly held a meeting. The production ban and recall of humanoids were approved unanimously. According to the agreement, all nations will stop producing humanoids immediately. They should also recall and centrally manage all the humanoids in their country.

This fantasy adventure series is set in the 7th Century and follows the lives of the occupants of the Carpathian basin, at the time before the union of Slav tribes.

The Slavs, the most expensive Slovak TV series to date, is described as a “fictional reconstruction of a historical period with fantastic and supernatural elements”, inspired by Slovak and Ukrainian myths and fairy tales.

Trailer: https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=U5fq444m1B4 – https://invidious.slipfox.xyz/watch?v=U5fq444m1B4 – https://yt.drgnz.club/watch?v=U5fq444m1B4 – https://iv.nboeck.de/watch?v=U5fq444m1B4 – https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=U5fq444m1B4

Watch: https://moviesjoy.is/tv/the-slavs-104290

This show is making a splash in Russia right now. There are 8 episode, about 52 minutes each.

• Wikipedia: In the late 1980s, when “perestroika” was taking place in the USSR and the era of the Soviet Union was about to collapse, life became unstable and very different. The 1980s brought not only freedom, but also waves of crime on the city streets. While some young people began to ‘grew up’ on the streets, others found it difficult to find their place in this unpredictable reality.

• IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28429213/

• Trailer: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=CDYwliWsAa8

• Watch: https://moviesjoy.is/tv/boys-word-blood-on-the-asphalt-105061

Most countries have a canon of Great or Classic national literature.

Chinese actress and director Jia Ling (贾玲) has been trending on Weibo thanks to her upcoming film YOLO (热辣滚烫) and her remarkable weight loss transformation.

Jia Ling is a famous Chinese comedian actress, known for her annual Spring Festival Gala performances. She has been especially successful in the previous years as she made her directorial debut in 2021 with the award-winning box office hit Hi, Mom (Chinese title Hi, Li Huanying 你好,李焕英), in which she also stars as the female protagonist. That same year, audiences saw her as Wu Ge in Embrace Again (穿过寒冬拥抱你).

It has been a while since we’ve heard from Jia Ling, but on January 11, she resurfaced with a Weibo post in which she explained her absence from the limelight.

In her post, Jia wrote that she has spent the entire year working on the YOLO (热辣滚烫) movie, for which she lost a staggering 100 pounds (50 kg). Just as with Hi, Mum, Jia is both the director of YOLO and the lead actress.

According to Jia, it was a tiring and “hungry” year, during which she ended up “looking like a boxer.” She added that the movie, set to premiere during the Spring Festival, is not necessarily about weight loss at all, but about learning to love yourself.

Within a single day, Jia Ling’s post received nearly 60,000 replies and over 855,000 likes.....

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13492196/ – This is the untold story of a generation; chronicling a hotel frequented by Charlie Chaplin, Konrad Adenauer, and Adolf Hitler