Arrival - How we feel the time

I've watched “Arrival", and just finished reading the screenplay. Yes, it's not new, but I can't miss it having some relation to the world of translators and being a fan of good sci-fi. What I like most about this film is its wonderful integrity – here are so many scenes, details, ideas whirling around one clear concept – time is just one of many dimensions. I have never sensed it like this in other sci-fi movies. But this idea is not just clearly-conveyed – it's served beautifully as a consolation for those whom we have lost once. The film creators seem to pull time out of the cloth of this world giving us a remarkable chance to feel how it may look... All other things, including language-related ones, work on this main idea, for example, that's why the alien's language represented in this movie doesn't have that cause-effect base as English does.       

The Circle - Who's in charge?

We've watched “The Circle”, a cyber-related movie, starring Emma Watson and Tom Hanks. The movie is really actual, with a theme, frequently discussed in social networks, and with an interesting ending. I don't want to share spoiling details here =) but, for me, personally, an ordinary & boring ending is when a cyber system is being destroyed, not giving any other way of social interactions. What “The Matrix” offers as an alternative way? The same military-based system that shows who exactly has created the matrix, that its roots are actually in our crooked souls. But it's different in “The Cirlce”. This film gives us a really great scene, open to different points of view. Perhaps, exactly this open ending and still unsolved conflict became the reason for low rate and low back-office of this film. There are still lots of talks about weaknesses of different elements of the story, but I loved this climax scene - it was really great and unique for Hollywood movies.  

The theme itself is also hot – how social networks use our personal data. It is given in a very vivid form here, aching with its uncertainty in actions and lines of the lead (Emma Watson). Perhaps, as ever, the truth is somewhere in a balance between transparency and privacy. The question is who determines this balance, this limit... Who's in charge? How easily it is to cross the line, beyond which the freedom turns into its opposite — total control...

I have heard about so-called narrow-targeted movies (for Spanish-speaking audience and for India), which could be a base for this film in a commercial sense - but they are not available in my country. I'm sure the audience in totalitarian countries like Russia or Iran, where social networks are usually associated with freedom and true democracy, movies of that kind play a special social awareness role. I'm very thankful to all the team involved into this project. They've done a great social job despite the box-office and possible intentions.

    

     

What is it?

Books, screenplays, pictures, music and other creative works become cheaper and cheaper as more and more such things come to the market. We need more and more strength to promote our works to be recognized or just read/listened, watched. It’s a general situation with small variations depending on quality of our talents. People say information should be free. Ok, nobody forces our brothers and sisters create anything, but they do and they will. We, almost all, say the same – that it’s our passion, our need. Note, it’s the need to produce information, despite its value for the others. What is it?

More and more texts, videos, pictures, sounds stream into our living space – almost everything what a human being can sense. Most of these are just informational noise, valueless for us. Clearness, filters and just silence turn to be our need too. Their prices slowly grow up. We are ready to pay for not sending us advertisement, for filtering our mails from spam, for search services. We are looking for something really valuable. What is it?

Just a chance

Many of my peer writers said that I was wrong speaking of a planet of writers. Exaggeration, sort of that. Ok, I'm ready to correct a bit my point of view =) because, in fact, we could say the same about artists, singers and other creative folk. What we really have is an increasing number of possibilities for people to be involved into realization of their creative potentials. That's it. Sure, it doesn't mean that anyone who starts a blog or an e-book will be a writer, as well as anyone who start his/her painting in the Internet will be a great artist. In the virtual space rules are pretty similar to those ones we have in the real world. You should do a great deal of marketing work to be noticed, even if you have a talent.

So, gentlemen and ladies, I was wrong. Our planet is populated not only by writers! =) God be praised! There is just such a chance for that ;)     

A Revolution of Writers

I would name this situation a revolution of writers. It’s the situation when a writer's product becomes one of a necessary need for every human being. Modern people can't feel fulfillment of their life until they don't create their informational products (in writing). That's not a caprice. That's a need, roots of which come from the depth of our existence. We've got a divine sparkle of our Creator inside, and it always will seek for a way to create something special. That's our part.

What's wrong with that in the surrounding world? Why are there so few people who are able to satisfy this need? No, my dear friends, let's not blame for our problems the publishing industry or any other mass media channels. As ever, the main reason why people don't feel themselves content even after publishing their book (or even some books) is within us. It may sound somewhat trite, but it's true. Let's better a bit change our point of view. Ask yourself if your book (or just its plot) the best for you (not for your readers even)? Be honest. Is it the best what you can write? Honesty is the way to make every your word worth living (and writing).   

We all are writers now

Hi, friends!

I’m a writer, as many of us this time =)

Yes, it’s an interesting fact that so many people become writers in the last ten years, not artists or actors, but exctly writers. Actually, Internet has been preparing us for that since our first steps in the virtual space. You gotta write, write and write here and there. Text is the most popular form of informational exchange in computer world, which rules over the planet now. All other channels are less represented. Some of them (smell) are not represented yet. It seems that our planet will be the planet of writers =) and readers, of course. It’s not good, not bad – it’s just a fact of our today’s living, and it has some interesting consequences… about which I'm going to speak here.