John C. Wright's Blog, page 202

Forgetting How to Make Action Films, addendum

A few days ago in this space I reviewed (read: "mocked") a number of movies I truly disliked. I railed on against the most recent version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, done with 3D computer animation by Zemeckis.

I forgot to mention one among the score of reasons I disliked the movie: the obligatory sucker-punch in my face all Leftiod filmmakers feel it necessary to put into their films: This one as a slap against organized religion.

Scrooge and the Spirit are hovering above a bakery. With no relation...

Chinese Paladin 3

Here is a link to the wuxu soap opera I found in China, fansubbed into English.

http://www.viikii.net/channels/goto/chinesepaladin3#

I hope it comes out in a real version in America at some point. It runs like a D&D game for most of its length, but there is an episode near the end where the Taoist monk starts to lose his faith, and a taunting demon grown from his own thoughts (like the Glebbeth haunting Sparrowhawk in Ursula K Leguin's A WIZARD OF EARTRHSEA) shows him the futility of life and ...

Did I Ever Tell You About The Christmas I Killed A Man?

Doings on other blogs:

Over at the Wonder Cabinet, James A. Owen tells about the time he killed a man at Christmas.

http://coppervale.livejournal.com/258662.html?nc=30

Heaven and Nature

I read with interest this article by Ross Douthat: http://pewforum.org/news/rss.php?NewsID=19306

He writes:
It’s fitting that James Cameron’s “Avatar” arrived in theaters at Christmastime. Like the holiday season itself, the science fiction epic is a crass embodiment of capitalistic excess wrapped around a deeply felt religious message. It’s at once the blockbuster to end all blockbusters, and the Gospel According to James.
 But not the Christian Gospel. Instead, “Avatar” is Cameron’s long...

Invidia

Health care so-called reform has passed in the Senate, voting along strictly partisan lines, the Dems halted a Republican filibuster. In an after-Midnight session, sometime in the dark hours of Monday morning, your government, O Americans, decided to increase taxes, to increase the health care premiums paid by independently insured parties, to increase the premiums paid by unions in their plans, to fund Abortions (prenatal infanticide) from your tax money, and to lower the salaries of Insuran...

Forgetting How to Make Action Films

A reader asks: "If you are looking for movies to discuss, how about the one due out this Friday, Avatar, what looks to be a classic science fiction vehicle?"

Discuss movies? You dare to ask me to discuss movies! Prepare yourself, then, for discussion! I will discuss and discuss til my discusser is sore!

But there is not much to say about AVATAR -- it looks from the commercials to be like an update of FERN GULLY, DANCES WITH WOLVES, and POCAHONTAS except without the really goodlooking Disney pr...

Actor blames Catholic Church for lack of Golden Compass sequels

Or so I read here: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/actor_blames_catholic_church_for_lack_of_golden_compass_sequels/

London, England, Dec 16, 2009 - Actor Sam Elliot has blamed the Catholic Church for stopping sequels from being made to the Golden Compass movie based on the first book of Philip Pullman’s atheistic trilogy His Dark Materials. The film, starring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and Eva Green, grossed more than $380 million worldwide after its Christmas 2007 release, but took...

Writing in One Lesson

My beautiful and talented wife has another post on writing advice from writers to writers. She explains the trick of writing.

http://arhyalon.livejournal.com/95601.html

There is, when you right down to it, only one trick in writing, which she here calls "the trick." It consists of raising the readers expectations, but satisfying those expectations in a logical yet unexpected way. The trick is that anything has more effect if the reader things the opposite is about to happen.

If you only learn ...

Chinese Paladin 3

I saw this show when I was in China, and was struck with infatuation for with it even though I could not understand a word. I have since found a subtitled version and am even more infatuated.

The plot concerns a wastrel pawnshop assistant (who, unbeknown to himself is the reincarnation of a god hunted by the dark lord of the demon world seeking to conclude their cosmic duel) which, finding a fragment of jade fallen from heaven is pulled into meeting the willful yet beautif...

Christianity has been demoted by the political class by Theodore Dalrymple

The skeptical doctor has published this piece in the Daily Express, which I reprint here without comment

From: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/145370

Christianity has been demoted by the political class

Friday December 11,2009
By Theodore Dalrymple

BY FAR the most significant thing about the case against Benjamin and Sharon Vogelenzang was that it reached a court of law in the first place. This evangelical Christian couple who run a hotel were accused of making derogatory remarks about the rel...