"in danger": an adverb or an adjective?

It is neither: it is a preposition phrase with (figurative) locative sense, usually followed by a preposition phrase with of defining the danger.

... in danger of contracting the virus
... in danger of being fired

The of phrase may be omitted when it is recoverable from context.

John has been exposed to the virus. He is in danger.

You will probably find it deployed most often as a predicate complement to the verb be, with adjectival sense modifying the subject:

John is in danger [of contracting the virus].

But it may also be deployed as an attributive adjectival. It will usually (and always when it is accompanied by the of phrase) be set after the noun or pronoun it modifies:

People/those in danger of contracting the virus are monitored closely.

If the of phrase is omitted in danger may be set before the noun modified; in this case it is a courtesy to readers to hyphenate it.

We monitor in-danger children particularly closely.

cinema history - What is the first instance of a disaster movie coming true?

Though not strictly a movie, there is the now infamous example of the pilot episode of the X-Files spin-off show, The Lone Gunmen.

Airing 6 months before the terrorist attack on 9/11, it depicts the hackers foiling an attempt by a shady organization to fly a plane into the WTC in order to catalyze a Mid-East attack.

Dodgy conspiracy theories aside, this is a prime example of the entertainment media prophesizing a real event/disaster.

production - What's taking Sin City 2 so long?

One of the issues that took so long was the funding, which Rodriguez only in August announced was in place.

No one is going to write a sequel on spec, so that was a big component. William Monahan was brought in at the end of the summer to rewrite Miller's screenplay. Rodriguez still claims that once the script is in place they can start shooting. It is clearly still "not in place."

Keep in mind, too, Frank Miller was in "movie jail" after the disaster that was The Spirit. This is an unspoken predicament that happens often in Hollywood where someone puts out a film that is a financial and critical disaster. They wind up having to wait a few years before getting a chance to jump back in to actual production.

biochemistry - How do I get the current "camera position" in PyMol so I can reuse it in scripts?

I have a few protein models I want to take pictures of with various ligands bound. It would be nice if I could do it from the same "position", but the only way I can figure out to repeat the same view is with zoom resi. 64, 152, 150 or the like, which isn't framed that well.

How can I manually position the viewport, capture it's parameters, and repeat it in the script?

---

I have found get_view, e.g.

PyMOL>get_view
### cut below here and paste into script ###
set_view (
     0.590180993,    0.670941532,    0.448923886,
    -0.507570565,    0.740831316,   -0.439937204,
    -0.627747774,    0.031782545,    0.777776182,
     0.000000000,    0.000000000, -417.497009277,
     0.741809845,    7.078243256,   16.473480225,
   329.157806396,  505.836212158,  -20.000000000 )
### cut above here and paste into script ###

but this doesn't work in a .py script, where I need to modify it to cmd.set_view(...), as it complains it wants just (or up to 5) arguments, not 18. The wiki is vague about it, it just says

PYMOL API

cmd.set_view(string-or-sequence view)

differences - “via” vs. “through”

Using via as a preposition in English is of comparatively recent provenance. It has substantially fewer primary senses, and therefore available uses, than does through. The OED gives only two main senses for via as a preposition, which I include here with a few of each one’s later citations:

1. By way of; by the route which passes through or over (a specified place).
   • 1958 A. Sillitoe Saturday Night & Sunday Morning iv. 60 — Arthur and his father walked via the scullery into the living-room.
   
   
   • 1959 M. Gilbert Blood & Judgement xiii. 138 — More··had come to the Police via the Lower Deck of the Royal Navy.
   
   
   • 1981 G. Household Summon Bright Water iii. 149 — He led me to talk of my interest in ancient economies and thus, via agriculture in the Forest of Dean, eased the way to my impressions of Broom Lodge.
   
   


2. By means of, with the aid of.
   • 1972 M. Kaye Lively Game of Death (1974) vii. 41 — Any deal··would have to be··concluded via contracts, attorneys, the whole schmeer.
   
   
   • 1977 Rep. Comm. Future of Broadcasting iv. 30 — It would in theory be possible to provide five more services with national coverage via satellite.
   
   

Here are some examples of through (taken from the OED’s citation list for that preposition) where you could not substitute in via in its stead:

• 1847 Tennyson Princess iv. 554 - Thy voice is heard thro’ rolling drums.


• 1848 Thackeray Van. Fair xxxii, — George··was lying··dead, with a bullet through his heart.


• 1852 R. S. Surtees Sponge’s Sp. Tour (1893) 85 — He was small and wiry, with legs that a pig could run through.


• 1886 Ad. Sergeant No Saint I. vi. 105 — An old land surveyor··put him through a long catechism.


• 1896 T. F. Tout Edw. I, iv. 80 — All through his reign, the Lusignans helped him in Gascony.


• 1903 Times 14 Mar. 14/5 — The Oxonians showed good form through choppy water.


• 1975 Nature 10 Apr. 501/2 — Nine recognised glaze types, ranging in colour from pale blue, through green, to yellow, brown and red.


• 1981 L. Deighton XPD xliii. 342 - A··notice stating that deliveries were only accepted between eight and eleven Monday through Friday.


• Mod. — There is a path through the wood.


• Mod. — It has passed through many hands since then.

In contrast, in these examples from the same source, one perhaps might be able to make that swap:

• 1852 Dickens Bleak Ho. viii, — Mrs. Pardiggle··had been regarding him through her spectacles.


• 1885 Act 48 & 49 Vict. c. 53 §15 — Every notice··sent through the post in a prepaid registered letter.


• 1894 J. J. Fowler Adamnan Introd. 56 — The southern Picts··embraced the truth through the preaching of St. Ninian.

So even though though there are a few places where you can use via or through — or else via and by — interchangeably as prepositions, there are many others where you cannot.

Finally, it should be noted that there are substantive, adjectival, and adverbial uses of both words, and that these non-prepositional uses are never interchangeable.

What makes a movie a "cult classic"?

A cult film has cult following, and a film will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base. eg.- Fight Club, Memento, Rounders etc.
These movies were not commercial success, but their fan base is very passionate about them.
Though it is not necessary for a cult movie to receive critical and commercial acclaim, sometimes a cult movie achieves it eg. - Pulp Fiction, the 1975 indian movie Sholay etc. These movies not only have a cult folllowing they also had commercial and critical success. This when a cult movie becomes a

Cult Classic

How did Sherlock know the combo for Adlers safe?

When a woman has clothes made, the tailor generally needs her measurements - the distance around in inches at chest, waist and hips. These three numbers made up the combination. Apparently, Irene Adler's measurements are 32-24-34 according to random websites.

grammar - Not only.... but also

Yes, there is something wrong with this sentence, and it does have to do with omitting the subject in the second clause. "But" is a coordinate conjunction which (like "and" and "or") connects phrases of the same type. It can connect two sentences, two verb phrases, or two of various other things. In your example, since the subject of the second clause is omitted, "but" must be connecting two verb phrases.

Now, coordinate constructions have a peculiar property, discovered and investigated by John Ross, which he called the Coordinate Structure Constraint (CSC). As McCawley phrases it, it requires both parts of a coordinate structure to be treated equally by any grammatical process. I think that is what has gone wrong in your example: the first verb phrase of the two that are connected with "but" is not treated the same way as the second one.

The "s" at the end of "likes" expresses the present tense of the verb, of course, and although in the second verb phrase, it appears at the end of the verb where it belongs, in the first verb phrase it is missing. The "s" present ending in the first verb phrase had to be moved to the left, because of the "not", and the auxiliary verb "do" was added to carry the tense.

The CSC does not allow this, because the "s" was moved away from the verb of the first verb phrase, but the same thing did not happen to the corresponding verb of the second verb phrase.

This was a difficult example, and I hope I got it right.

"She did her best to convince me that she was still in love with me"

I think the ambiguity concerning whether Ilsa is really in love with Rick or with Laszlo is one of the elements that makes Casablanca such a timeless classic. Ingrid Bergman's performance convinced me that she was in love with both of them. Watch her in scenes with Paul Henreid (Laszlo) and you can see what looks like genuine adoration on her face. But the passion between Ilsa and Rick seems just as genuine. So, why couldn't she be truly in love with both of them? These are two very different men that she met at different times in her life, under very different circumstances. Even the kind of love she would have felt for the two men was different.

To answer your questions, yes I do think Ilsa is still in love with Rick at the end, but I don't think she's any less in love with Laszlo. Laszlo is probably (desperately) willing to believe that she isn't. "She did her best to convince me that she was still in love with me, but that was all over long ago" is a lie that both Rick and Ilsa are probably willing to live with so that they can both go on with their lives, and so that Ilsa at least can be happy.

Why did Jason Bourne put a laser with his bank account number in his body

I personally think the implant of the laser was to reveal Bourns own identity to himself if any accident happens.

It was likely from the beginning that Bourne may get amnesia due to the drug effect. So if anything of that happens, he can get back his identity easily(Like the movie went on). Maybe they thought, it will create pain in the implanted area and he would eventually find it. But I guess, his employer did not think that after committing to the plan, he would turn against them.

The doctor found the laser because he wanted to examine an severely wounded body thoroughly. So he found the scar, felt something inside it and made it out.

Captain Miller's thought process in Private Ryan "School Teacher" scene?

As Captain Miller says to "gear up" after releasing the hostage, one of the sub-ordinates refuses. What I am trying to understand is what the movie was trying to portray in that minute or so when Captain Miller didn't say a word.

The scene shows him as gearing up, is it supposed to be showing Captain Miller's trust in his sub-ordinate to follow orders or is he generally in shock at the current situation.

In the small speech at the end where he says he is a school teacher and does not care who is Ryan, I am thinking the fact that camera does not spend much focus on him that this is how it was to be portrayed; those few minutes of mute were meant to show he didn't care.

Is this the correct thought process for the scene?

fundamental astronomy - IDL (particularly GBTIDL) velocity axis explanation?

I have been working with GBTIDL (the Green Bank Telescope version of IDL I suppose) to look at some spectra, and in addition to having the x-axis be frequency or wavelength, you can also have it in velocity. I'm a little confused on how this works, because we only have the observed frequency from the spectra, and we would need a rest frequency to find out what velocity the object is moving at, so how can it give me a velocity axis without that information?

Thank you.

prometheus - Where did the worm that appeared in the black goo chamber come from?

"We've changed the atmosphere of the room" - Dr. Shaw

Presumably the door acted as an air lock. Maybe the room was sealed off to halt the biological processes of EVERYTHING in the room (which is why the head is perfectly preserved), and the worms where already in the soil. By breaking the seal for the room, the biological processes are able to continue - maybe there was some sort of cryogenic freezing happening because of the room being sealed.

Once the seal is broken, and the biological processes have started again, the "black goo" begins to ... "unthaw" (for want of a better word), the worms begin to crawl around in the room.

At least, that was my interpretation of it.

identify this tv show - TV series about a suburban town digging up a space ship?

You call this a TV series, but you could mean a TV movie miniseries of a Stephen King novel Tommyknockers. It starred Jimmy Smits of NYPD Blue fame (and LA Law) and Marg Helgenberger, then just off the TV series China Beach, and lately from CSI.

Here's the description from IMDB:

A buried UFO slowly turns local inhabitants into gizmo-building alien mutates [sic]. (mutants is correct)

It also starred Traci Lords who I submitted in this earlier movies.stackexchange question Adult to Non-Adult movies full time.

Interesting IMDB movie citations:

Marg Helgenberger's mother, Kay, appeared in the movie (her only IMDB acting credit), as did Alan Rosenberg, Marg's then-husband; they divorced in 2010. A real family affair.

Did Dempsey and Makepeace have some intimacy together?

As the Wikipedia article cited in the question says,

Much of the show's draw came from the good natured "will they or won't they" interplay and a suspected slowly evolving romance between the main protagonists, made possible by the obvious chemistry between the two lead actors. The show ended with an episode directed by Michael Brandon himself where Dempsey and Makepeace are forced to confront at least some of their feelings for one another.

That sounds like the answer is no; but to make it explicit, we have the following from an
IMDb user review:

My only complaint is that they never got together romatically and I think that they should have.

However, there is a kicker to this story (described nicely on this fan page): As
mentioned, there was "chemistry" between the
lead actors, Michael Brandon (Dempsey) and Glynis Barber (Makepeace). A year after the
show ended, having been separated by work at various locations, they decided to renew
their partnership and make it permanent in real life. They married on 19 November 1989,
and are still together after more than twenty-three years.

How accurate was the portrayal of Autism in Rain Man?

It is realistic in the sense that it is not impossible for someone to be like this.
However, this sort of person is extremely rare and is the combination of several different character, mental and physical traits all at once.

My daughter is autistic and she has the following out of your list:

•Eidetic memory (she remembers things from years ago, a big deal when you are 3)

•Obsessive compulsive about schedule (pretty standard for autistics)

•"Random" fears (she is terrified of some loud noises, dogs etc).

•Minimal interest in people (she lives in her own world a lot of the time but interacts happily with alter egos)

However, some of these are typical for a 3 year old anyway.

I have mild autism and I had several of these traits but have learned coping strategies. I used to have very good memory for things I had heard and could repeat some conversations from years previously word for word, if I watched a film a few times I pretty much knew the script etc. This has lessened now - now that it would be very useful.

phrases - draw my attention/ catches my eye/ attracts my attention

Can I use the three phrases in the title interchangeably? For example:

The woman in the tight black dress definitely draws my attention/
catches my eye/ attracts my attention.

One of the most neglected aspects of English and one of the most important is context. Without context they are not interchangeable.

A.
She draws my attention == My attention is drawn to her.

B.
She attracts my attention == My attention is attracted to her.

or

She attracts my attention == She signals to me that she wants to communicate—typically by waving.

C.
She catches my eye == I like the look of her.

or

She catches my eye == She maintains eye contact with me in order to initiate communication.

However

In your comment you add some context: You say, "But what if I say the example sentence to a friend while we are looking at a group of beautiful women at a party. Would the phrases be interchangeable in that particular context?"

In that case you have forced the expressions to mean the same thing so they become interchangeable.

Then you have to ask, are they idiomatic in this context? That depends on a number of factors including your own mode of speaking, how formal the conversation is and whether or not each expression is customarily used in the context of commenting on people's beauty.

grammar - Change "The boys kicked the ball through the window" into passive voice

I was wondering which one would feel more natural.

1. The ball was kicked through the window by the boys.


2. The ball was kicked by the boys through the window.

Personally I feel "kicked" should be followed immediately by "the boys". But I'm not a native English speaker, so I would like your opinion.

Also, it said in the direction that it's not always necessary to include who carried out the action. Should I include it here?
Thank you.

12 monkeys - Is Jeffrey involved in the virus plot or just the animal-release plot?

After pondering this question obsessively, I agree with the conclusion that the other respondents find obvious: Jeffrey was not involved in the virus plot. However, my conclusion is based on two pieces of evidence not yet mentioned.

First is a seemingly throw-away line uttered by one of Jeffrey's henchmen in the pivotal scene where Leland Goines has been kidnapped. The henchman jokingly says "if you guys get caught... I've never seen you before in my life." This line feels unnecessary at first, and probably wouldn't fit at all if the henchman was involved in a plot as serious as killing humanity with a virus. But the line would make sense as a way to show the audience that Jeffrey's plot is the much-more-mundane releasing of zoo animals.

Second piece of evidence comes from the following excerpt from the production draft of the script, which made it obvious that Jeffrey did not know of the virus. Of course, in the actual movie, this dialogue is significantly different. But after much deliberation, I'd guess the revision was not intended to change Jeffrey's role, but just to make the reveal less blatantly obvious than originally written here (and that his revised comment "Too late!" was just his insane mind not understanding what his father was talking about):

"Kidnapping Leland Goines" scene as written in production draft of script:

LELAND: I took myself out of the loop! I don't have the code anymore. I don't have access to the virus. So, go ahead -- torture me, but you can't extract anything of use to yourself.

The ACTIVISTS are all exchanging puzzled looks.

JEFFREY: What...virus?

LELAND: She knew about it, Jeffrey. She knew you were going to try this.

JEFFREY: What virus are we talking about, Dad?

LELAND: You're insane, Jeffrey.

JEFFREY: You "develop" viruses and you're calling me insane? Typical. What does this virus attack? Don't tell me, you sick fuck, it doesn't matter. (to the others) Have I ever "developed" a virus? Do I put helpless animals in cages and measure their reactions to electrical stimuli? Do I inject radioactive substances into living creatures and examine their bowel movements? Wow! And I'm crazy!

LELAND: Please tell me, Jeffrey, what exactly are you going to do? I don't have to tell you I'm afraid.

JEFFREY: THIS IS A FUCKING EXPERIMENT! YOU'RE OUR HELPLESS LITTLE TEST ANIMAL, DADDY. GOT THAT? NOW -- WHAT FUCKING VIRUS HAVE YOU COME UP WITH, YOU DEMENTED FUCKING MANIAC?

[end of scene]

Can young surface of Venus be caused by early oceans instead of global resurface event?

There is evidence of a global resurface event on Venus: the craters are young and evenly distributed.

Is it possible that there is another reason: Venus had a very deep ocean in the past, and that hindered formation of craters on the young planet

Venus is believed to have had a large amount of water when it formed, but the water molecule has been broken down due to lacking magnetic field for protection, and the hydrogen released has escaped from the planet.

My hypothesis is:

1. In ancient times, Venus had a very deep ocean




2. The very deep ocean prevents formation of impact craters on the ancient planet, so no old impact craters are found on the surface of Venus




3. Later, the water in the ocean was broken down into hydrogen and oxygen by solar activity, so the water level decreased.




4. When most water had escaped from planet, asteroids can strike the crust directly and form impact craters.




5. As most impact craters can only be formed after the water escaped, so we can only find young craters at the surface of Venus.

Is my hypothesis possible?

Use of personal pronouns in papers (research, etc.)

Back at university, I remember being told to never use personal pronouns in my dissertations. I was never given a reason, but I was told to avoid statements like

The evidence leads me to believe.

or

After researching similar techniques I had settled on ....

I remember spending a lot of time constructing sentences that used "the author" rather than "I" or similar. These are some very bad examples (as I submitted my final dissertation back in 2008).

Since then however, when I've read research papers, scientific articles and dissertations the authors have referred to themselves as "I" or "us" (when collaborated on). This seems to fly in the face of what I was told at university.

Is there a hard-and-fast rule to this, or is it down to personal preference?

What is the word that actors use to describe the process of getting familiar with a script?

The term I'm familiar with for initial familiarization with a script is first read-through—but that's not very zippy. Wiktionary's glossary of theatre terms suggests two other terms that might be relevant:

cold reading A reading from a script or other text without any prior rehearsal, usually in the context of an audition or workshop.

and

run Italians To speak one's lines very fast, either individually or as a cast; thought to assist in committing lines and cues to memory.

According to Angela Mitchell at About.com Performing Arts, a cold reading may also be used "as a precursor to the start of the rehearsal process."

What does the ending of The Tree of Life mean?

My interpretation is that we have to take into consideration the other symbols that the director had been placing before us throughout the movie: the forces of such grand scale that dwarf our lives and our attempts to make sense of them. The beach is the connection between the water, the earth, and the heavens, and what we're seeing is a visual interpretation of the meeting point where our lives are intersecting with these greater forces, showing us and how we fit in the bigger picture. To me, it's a very naturalist, non-religious vision.

grammar - The pronoun before the antecedent

When the pronoun "it" comes before the antecedent, it is known as a Postcedent.

Wikipedia lists common examples of this

• When it is ready, I'll have a cup of coffee. - Noun as postcedent




• In her bed, my friend spends the entire morning. - Noun phrase as postcedent




• It bothered me that she did not call. - Clause as postcedent, example of it-extraposition




• Two violinists were there, at the party. - Prepositional phrase as postcedent




• Sam tries to work then, when it is raining. - Clause as postcedent

Now, we can see from these examples that is is mostly clunky but sometimes very natural (3rd example).

So yes, it's technically fine, but very clunky. Part of the issue is that "it" is very ambiguous and makes no sense to separate it from what "it" is referring to while also not saying what exactly needs helping. It makes the 2nd clause seem like an afterthought, which is fine in speech and dialogue because that is how humans often function.

A better way to write it would be

Joe says the cost of the drug falling to 10$ helps.

However, the paper wanted to give the feeling that the drug is currently falling while also implying that Joe is saying something in reaction to the drug price falling. The other way to write it isn't much better.

As the cost of the drug falls to $10, Joe says it helps.

The biggest issue is their need to force Joe and the action of the price falling into the same sentence. You can mess with the tense of the sentence and switch around "as" to "when" or "while" but it still comes out clunky.

It's just a product of trying to make a sentence accomplish too much.

phrase requests - What would be the word used to name a person who is a professional video sharer?

Someone who is actively creating and publishing original content to an audience on one or more media platforms.

Wikipedia explains in detail about Content creation. Click to read more.

Content creation is the contribution of information to any media and most especially to digital media for an end-user/audience in specific contexts. Content is "something that is to be expressed through some medium, as speech, writing or any of various arts" for self-expression, distribution, marketing and/or publication. Typical forms of content creation include maintaining and updating web sites, blogging, photography, videography, online commentary, the maintenance of social media accounts, and editing and distribution of digital media. A Pew survey described content creation as the creation of "the material people contribute to the online world."

For the special case of videos, you may use "Video Content Creator", although I've only seen "content creator" used, generally.

After googling, I've found a lot of job profiles with the title "Video Content Creator", so there's that.

meaning - How to distinguish "wherefore" from "therefore"

The OED provides six different senses, with examples from the 13th century onward. This is the list of senses, and I have given the most recent examples of each.

I. Interrogative uses.
For the dependent or indirect interrogative use, and its distinction from the relative, cf. what pron., adj.1, and adv. I.

1. For what? esp. for what purpose or end? (Often scarcely distinguishable from 2.)

a1616  Shakespeare Comedy of Errors (1623) iii. i. 40 E.  Ant... Open the dore. S. Dro. Right sir, Ile tell you when, and you'll tell me wherefore. Ant. Wherefore? for my dinner.

1667  Milton Paradise Lost iv. 657  But wherfore all night long shine these..?

1846  A. Marsh Father Darcy xxix,  Here I am—wherefore come, I have to learn.

2. For what cause or reason? on what account? why? (Freq. with ellipsis; often coupled with why for emphasis.)

1853  Dickens Bleak House xx. 193  If he be ever asked how, why, when, or wherefore, he shuts up one eye and shakes his head.

1873  H. W. Longfellow Michael Angelo i. iv,  But wherefore should I jest?

II. Relative uses.

3. For which. Now distinguished by stress and spelling (whereˈfor).

1600  Shakespeare Henry V v. ii. 1  Peace to this meeting, wherefore we are met.

1913  Act 3 & 4 Geo. V c. 20 §118 (1) (d)  All sums (not exceeding..one hundred pounds) due in respect of compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906, the liability wherefor accrued before the said date.

4. On account of or because of which; in consequence or as a result of which. Chiefly with n. (esp. reason or cause) as antecedent. arch.

1597  R. Hooker Of Lawes Eccl. Politie v. lxiii. 151  The true reason wherfore Christ doth loue belieuers is because their belief is the gift of God.

1829  R. Southey Sir T. More II. 187  The reason is sufficiently manifest wherefore a preference for republican institutions should hitherto have been shown.

5. a. Introducing a clause expressing a consequence or inference from what has just been stated: On which account; for which reason; which being the case; and therefore. (Now always ˈwherefore.)

1842 Tennyson Morte d'Arthur in Poems (new ed.) II. 15 More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

1882 W. Besant All Sorts of Men II. xxix. 238 A person, you see, is an individual, or an indivisible thing. Wherefore, let us not despise our neighbour.

5b - obsolete

III.

6. as n. A question beginning with wherefore, or (more usually) the answer to such question; cause, reason. Often following why similarly used.

1838  Dickens Oliver Twist II. xxx. 184  They will have the why and the wherefore, and take nothing for granted.

1884  A. S. Swan Dorothea Kirke xiv,  I am carried back to the days when I rebelled and demanded the wherefore of all God's dealings with me.

Evaluating characters by means of description

I don't think this way of analyzing a character tells you the whole story.

When you describe a character without mentioning their appearance and occupation

It can be important to mention a character's occupation in order to demonstrate how the character relates to that occupation. "She is forced by circumstance to be a bounty hunter, as it's the only job she's qualified for, but as a pacifist and a rebel sympathizer she constantly experiences internal conflict." This begins to describe a complex and interesting character in a way that someone who has never seen Star Wars would understand, but it still mentioned the (imaginary) character's occupation.

I also think it's unfair to discount wardrobe as part of what makes a character interesting. Clothing and style are a large part of any person's identity, and movie characters are no different. Perhaps more so since a director and a costume designer choose wardrobe very carefully while considering what a character's clothing conveys about their personality and their circumstances.

If I were to simply say "You know Princess Leia, she's the one with the cinnamon bun hair," just to get my non-Star-Wars-watching friend to realize who I was talking about, then that would be a shallow and uninteresting description - but to me that doesn't mean that the character is shallow and uninteresting. Mentioning the character's clothing and occupation in order to describe them appropriately shouldn't disqualify them from being an interesting or complex character.

(n.b.: I have not seen the review you are referring to, so I'm not sure if this answer addresses your question completely. But this is my opinion on whether or not that's a "correct" way to analyze a character. And let's also keep in mind that I don't believe that there is only one "correct" way.)

etymology - A star is born!

For your (1), regarding the use of 'star', the earliest uses I could unearth of 'star' in the figurative sense,

5. fig. A person of brilliant reputation or talents.
   a. An actor, singer, etc. of exceptional celebrity, or one whose name is prominently advertised as a special attraction to the public...orig. Theatr.

["star, n.1". OED Online. December 2015. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/189081 (accessed January 05, 2016)]

first appear in print in articles and publications about the theater, with reference to David Garrick:

(From "Memoirs of David Garrick, Esq.", an article in the July 1765 edition of The Gentleman's and London Magazine.)

The earliest quote given for the theatrical star sense (5a) in OED Online, dated 1779, also refers to David Garrick, yet (as indicated by the square brackets surrounding it) "is relevant to the development of a sense but not directly illustrative of it":

[1779 J. Warner in J. H. Jesse G. Selwyn & his Contemp. (1844) IV. 30 The little stars, who hid their diminished rays in his [Garrick's] presence, begin to abuse him.]

The next attestation I could find for 'star' in the theatrical sense is this from 1812:

(From Biographia Dramatica: Authors and actors. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1812.)

That use also predates the first attestation in OED Online purported to be "directly illustrative" of the theatrical sense (5a), a quote from 1824 that refers to a star of pugilism:

1824 Compl. Hist. Murder Mr. Weare 219 Carter..was at a loss for a star in the pugilistic hemisphere to produce him a crowded house.

I did not uncover any evidence that 'star' was applied to the divas of opera before its use for leading characters of the stage.

---

For your (2), regarding the earliest application of the phrase "a star is born" to artists, that application seems to have begun or at least to have first become common with the release of the 1937 movie, A Star is Born. The script for the popular romantic drama starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric Marsh was written by William Wellman, Robert Carson, Dorothy Parker, and Alan Campbell. The plot concerns a young actress and an older Hollywood actor who helped launch her career.

Here is Dorothy:

(From "To Richard--With Love", by Dorothy Parker, reprinted from The Screen Guilds' Magazine, May 1936, in Celebrity Articles from the Screen Guild Magazine, Anna Kate Sterling, Scarecrow Press, 1987.)

kung fu panda - Is there any romantic angle suggested between Po and Tigeress?

The production staff before have stated in various interviews that it is an angle they all like a lot and would like to make happen at some stage. Jolie as well has said she believes it is a good idea to do and she likes Po and Tigress being together, though Black had said around the second film that it wasn't happening.

While a romance between Po and Tigress certainly hasn't happened yet across any of the films, series or shorts that have been produced, it certainly has been hinted at being in fruition in many places, both subtly and not so. In my view, considering they've planned for doing 6 movies, I think that the interactions between the two and the retrospective changes in attitude from Tigress are certainly building up towards something. Whether or not that blooms into a romantic relationship is something that can only be observed at a later date.

For now, no romantic relation of any kind between them, but there are hints of something growing.

identify this movie - Women's Blood Siphoned Out to Feed Invading Aliens

The film is in color and is probably from the late 1970s or the early 1980s. I could not see the ff. scene in Battle Beyond the Stars or Star Crash.

A woman is strapped on to a vertical plane, where another with tiny needles attached to transparent tubes is moved to her. Blood is slowly siphoned from her body. There is a brief close up showing her nipple as one of the tubes is attached to her breast.

I'm not sure, but I think the aliens (who are humanoids) need blood to stay alive, and plan to invade earth.

What exactly happened to Aaron Eckhart's character?

From the novel, The Last Ride, it wasn't Brake who was killed this way, but the killing was in it. From page 67:

He took a deep breath and then held it and slit the stitching of green thongs; the cowhide flaps spread wide, releasing a cloud of putrid-smelling steam, and Jones gagged on it, turning away. Death, in general, had never bothered him much. But this one did.

The body was curled in a tight ball and disfigured to the point it was almost unrecognizable. Nevertheless, he knew it wasn't Lily. He picked up one side of the cowhide and rolled the corpse onto its back. Mannito. The little Mexican was naked and covered with thousands of tiny puncture holes; but those had not killed him. His death had come from the green cowhide. The fire was slowly drying it, shrinking it, until it finally crushed his ribs and suffocated him.

...

Most likely they'd ambushed him and Lily, shooting the rancher and grabbing the girl, and then, later, been surprised by Mannito. Somehow they'd caught the little Mexican alive, stripped him naked, put a rope around his chest and dragged him back and forth through the prickly pear. Afterward, with a thousand cactus thorns impaling him, they'd beaten him with clubs and then sewn him up in the hide and hung him from the oak like a giant cocoon.

In the Novel, Brake was simply shot. Another character, Mannito, comes upon the girls and their captives and is caught and tortured. When Ken Kaufman turned Thomas Eidson's book into a screenplay, it was decided that the character of Mannito was to be removed, and what happened to Mannito was instead shown as happening to the character of Brake.

The Indians used un-cured cowhide (which was 'fresh' from the animal, versus having been stretched and cured into usable fabric), sewed Mannito/Brake into it, and hung him from an oak tree over an open fire. The heat of the fire caused the hide to shrink, eventually suffocating him.

This wasn't a 'ritualistic' killing in the sense that they did it for 'Power'; it was a means to ensure that a living victim died in as long and painful a way as possible, without them having to actually stay until the (inevitable) end. Dragging the man over/through the prickly pear ensured he was too wounded to have a chance of fighting his way out of the trap.

grammatical number - Plural of Friday 13th?

I would argue that "Friday the 13th" (with the the) is such a common set phrase that it behaves as a syntactic atom, i.e. something that shouldn't be split up by syntactic processes. In my experience, people almost never pause at any point when pronouncing the phrase "Friday the 13th", and it all has one continuous intonational contour.

This is all to back up my intuition that, as a native speaker (of American English), Friday the 13ths is the only plural form I can possibly imagine myself speaking here. It does look a little funny in writing, but so does Fridays the 13th, so I'd go with the more natural spoken form.

What did David say to the engineer in Prometheus?

Edit: Now we know. In an interview revealed at Total Film with Dr. Anil Biltoo:

Well, according to Dr. Anil Biltoo, the film’s official translator and linguistics consultant, David did as he was asked, translating his words as follows: “This man is here because he does not want to die. He believes you can give him more life.”

The rest of the text of this article stands unedited except for the interview inserts, in italics.

We are forced to reconcile the reaction of the Engineer with:

• His/it's original mission, to destroy the Earth.


• His/it's momentary pause as it analyzes the situation upon awakening


• His/it's decision to kill the team and continue its primary mission.

Does David betray his creator? His pathological hatred of all of humanity is obvious to us, but not necessarily to them. Would he use the opportunity to ask a different question than he was asked or would he comply out of duty (or programming). My suspicion is David asked exactly what he was told by Weyland. Not that it mattered, the Engineer answered only with his actions to kill the team.

My supposition still stands and is supported in the rest of the Total Film interview review:

So there we have it. David wasn’t up to anything sinister, it just turned out that the Engineer wasn’t best pleased to be interrupted by a member of the species he was charged with destroying. Apparently, the scene was initially written to involve a much longer conversation, so perhaps more details will emerge in the deleted material on the DVD. Or even in a sequel...

Why wouldn't David say what he had been asked to? He is not concerned with the question or the answer. For him, it is academic at best. He has already made his decision about humanity and given the information he has up to that point, he assumes the Engineers already have their own less than stellar opinion of humanity as well.

However, given the purported intelligence of the Engineers, and a time-table of their last visit (approximately 2,000 years ago, during a very warlike period on Earth) once he saw how violent, humanity had remained, he realized he would have to complete his mission. He did not seem conflicted in any way.

My suspicion was he recognized what David was and could extrapolate how long he had been asleep, which may have given him greater motivation to deliver his payload, fearing a galactic outbreak of this violent species. The Engineer did not seem surprised to see us, likely as a diminutive and less impressive form of itself.

I had the impression the Engineer did not fear humanity, so much as their lack of individual control. He was privy to, in a matter of seconds, hierarchical dominance behavior, aggression, anger, and directed violence. From the aspect of a species that creates life, certainly an undesirable outcome. Perhaps the same reaction we might have if a beloved pet suddenly attacked us. We would put it down, for its own good. The Engineer maintained a surprising level of apparent emotional control during his attack on the team and his subsequent launching of his ship. He did not appear to have any issues with completing his mission, so his belief in the necessity was apparent in his actions.

I would also have to credit this Engineer with some degree of forethought. He was the only one on this ship to make it back to stasis and secure himself before the pathogen was able to reach him. I suspect he thought it would be safer to be in stasis than dying in the halls.

David's experience of humanity soured him on meeting the Engineers and even though he was intellectually curious about their technology, he showed no real interest in the Engineers, themselves, likely considering them as potentially dangerous as he considered mankind. Maybe moreso, since humanity was based on their DNA. If he did give the Engineer an account of what happened or how they came to be here, rather than Wayland's requested information, I am certain, he was surprised with his/it's reaction. It was certainly not an expected outcome from David's perspective.

What does The Man from Another Place in Twin Peaks symbolize?

In FWWM, not only does he say "I am the arm", but at the end when Bob shows up with Leland after kiling Laura, he assumes the position of Mike's left arm and they say together "Bob, I want all MY garmonbozia." For Lynch, it doesn't get clearer than that for an answer.

etymology - Origins of the phase "smash-and-grab capitalism"

There are several hits in Google Books (it is possible to order and filter them by date, which helps). The full texts of the earliest hits are not available, so it is hard to see the full context, but some snippets show up in the search.
We have, for example:

When you say that a planned capitalism as a cure for the world crisis is so essentially contradictory that it will prove impossible as a lasting solution, I should wholly agree with you if you are referring to the smash-and-grab capitalism of the nineteenth century.

from The British Empire: its structure and its problems (Johannes Stoye, 1936); this is a translation by William T. Payne from the German original Das britische Weltreich: sein Gefüge und seine Probleme (1935). The original has just "den wilden Kapitalismus" ("wild capitalism") so it is the translator who introduced the more colourful phrase here.

A 1935 magazine article in The Adelphi has

Three hundred years of smash and grab capitalism have not made them capitalists or even bourgeois-minded or steeped in bourgeois morality, because they have never had any bourgeois teaching, only slave teaching.

Earlier uses of "smash and grab" seem to be talking about the actual crime act. There are some metaphorical uses, but not specifically about capitalism. The 1933 book Charles Lamb and his contemporaries by Edmund Blunden (cited under "smash and grab" in the Oxford English Dictionary) includes the phrase

... a literature of the smash-and-grab type or the semi-scientific seems to have some chance of superseding the thorough, persuasive, modulated and interwoven style ...

and from a 1931 debate in the UK Parliament, I found

... there are certain hon. Gentlemen who have been elected as supporters of the National Government and who stand less for a policy of give and take than for a policy of smash and grab.

In summary, the full phrase "smash and grab capitalism" does not seem to predate Reagan himself (born 1911), though it does not look like it was Reagan who originated it. Rather, these uses from the 1930s are from the other side of the pond, and are used with reference to the smash and grab burglaries that were becoming notorious at that time.

etymology - English words mockingly derived from French?

According to Wikipedia, up to 30% of English words come from French, and I'm interested in a special subset of them. Not "loan words", but words that seem potentially derived in jest.

For example, "hoosegow" seems to be a tongue-in-cheek corruption of the Spanish "jusgado".

Three possible examples of cheerful manglings of "Frank-ase" are:

I've seen Western old-timers obviously relishing the use of those words around their Creole acquaintances. And, thousands of French words made it into English, with less alteration, both before and since these two examples.

So, two questions:

1. What are some more of these words? Or better yet a good source of them? (My Google-fu has failed me.)


2. Any evidence to support or disprove the conjecture that these word-hijackings are mocking highfalutin French usage?

Why did they start killing people?

It might seem like a weak explanation, but LARP (Live Action Role-Playing) are taken very seriously, with people completely immersing themselves in their environment and character.

From Murtagh's point of view, he lost Evelyn (i.e. Princess Evlynia to him) and was embarassed by Erik. It seems this was enough of a trigger to send him over the edge.

You are totally correct in pointing out however that whilst this may have been enough to anger him, even to the point of murder, it doesn't remotely explain why all his followers are so eager to get involved. I think that simply has to be chalked down to the fact it made for an entertaining movie.

If you're interested, there is a fascinating thread over at the IMDB, found here, which is a review of the movie from an LARPer.

grammatical number - When should we use proximity rule in "either/or", and "neither/nor"?

The “proximity rule” you are referring to is that when you have a compound but disjunctive subject, the verb agrees in number with the closer — or in the case of three or more, the closest — of the subjects.
All these are correct, and :

• Either my brother or my sister is going to get it.


• Either my brothers or my sisters are going to get it.


• Either my brother or my sisters are going to get it.


• Either my brothers or my sister is going to get it.
  


• Either I or my brother is going to get it.


• Either my brother or I am going to get it.
  


• Either my brother or you are going to get it.


• Either you or my brother is going to get it.
  


• Either my brother or thou art doomed.

But it is often better to rephrase:

• Either my brother is going to get it, or my sisters are.


• Either my brother is going to get it, or I am.


• Either you are going to get it, or my brother is.


• Either my brother is going to get it, or you are.


• Either my brother is doomed, or thou art.

---

And then there was nor

This same rule applies (well, or can apply) to neither/nor sets as much as it does for either/or instances. So in all the examples just provided, you can change all instances of either into neither and of or into nor, and the verb remains unchanged. So:

• Neither my brother nor my sister is going to get it.


• Neither my brothers nor my sisters are going to get it.


• Neither my brother nor my sisters are going to get it.


• Neither my brothers nor my sister is going to get it.

All that being said, one can also find examples in writers of renown where neither is used with a plural verb despite both elements being singular themselves.

film techniques - Why is it a common trend to pan the camera past an object then back to it?

This has to do with communicating to the viewer what the intended subject is, when the subject may be ambiguous among other things.

A hunter is searching for his prey. A red bird sitting in an apple tree. He pans past several apples, then the bird and then returns to the bird. It's now clear that the red bird is not a red apple.

While some viewers may identify immediately that the bird is not like the others. There are still some who missed the difference. Panning back allows that item to be reevaluated by the viewer a second time.

It's based upon the idea that people sometimes have difficulty identifying slight differences in subjects. Sesame Street made a popular game for it called One of these things is not like the other.

While the technique has become over used. It is just a simple way for the film to highlight a subject. It's similar to techniques such as lighting an object separately from the rest of the scene, or suddenly changing the music when an object appears.

It's a mark or queue to the viewer that something is important. In this case, it's done with the camera movement.

Why did the Observers choose the year 2015?

The full Invader (i.e. the Observers who hatched the invasion plan) plan was first to send 12 Observers back in time, these 12 then (unknowingly) scout history to find suitable times to invade. These 12 were told they were just studying history, and were the Observers we saw all over the place in the first 4 seasons.

With the scouting complete, the Invaders then analyzed history and found likely targets for when to invade. They have the capability to predict futures, so they applied this ability to determine the best time to invade. They found this perfect time to invade in 2015, and so they launched their attack.

This is revealed in episode S05E11, The Boy Must Live, when Windmark requests authorization to travel back in time in the present to catch the Fringe time at a time and place he knows they were. He's not allowed, as they have rules about time traveling during the time of the invasion, as they fear doing so would disrupt their 99.9999% chance of succeeding in the invasion.

expressions - When expressing temperatures that are colder than freezing, do we say "more than freezing", "less than freezing", or something else?

The usual way to express this is below freezing, which clearly indicates a lower temperature than freezing.

The British National Corpus has 38 results for "below freezing," and none for "more than freezing" or "less than freezing." The Corpus of Contemporary American English has 256 results for "below freezing," and none for "more than freezing" or "less than freezing."

As you say, the temperature is "lower than zero" (if you're using degrees Celsius). We can also speak of temperatures "under zero degrees."

All of the above mainly refers to literal uses of the word "freezing." If you're using it non-literally to mean "very cold," I might prefer to say "colder than freezing," as you do in your title. Note that we would say "colder" than freezing (not "less cold"); this is probably why your brother feels like using "more." However, if your brother just says it is "more than freezing," he may be misunderstood.

How people actually use "more than freezing"

The one example of this phrase I found in the Google Books corpus refers to a temperature above freezing:

Damn, it's hardly more than freezing and I'm sweating like a stuck pig

(Shermans [sic] Creek: A Redneck Murder Mystery, by Ronald A. Hopkins)

And I found another example using Google search where it is used to mean "above 0 °C":

the NWS forecasts that Boone would warm to a little more than freezing
on Monday, while temperatures will drop back below freezing across the
region by midnight tonight.

("Winter Weather Advisory Issued for Tuesday, Warns Commuters of Freezing Rain, Snow, More Rain," by Jesse Wood, HCPress.com)

However, I did also find some people who used it like your brother:

MINUS TEN DEGREES CELSIUS (or -14 F).

That is not “cold.” That is freezing. Actually, that is more than
freezing.

("TOL: I Literally Almost Froze This Morning," Postcards From the Present)

When we got up this morning it was still -4C outside – and this was at
eight am!

("Day 364: More than Freezing," by Kathryn Dawson)

Q: It is -22 degrees Celsius in Winnipeg, more than FREEZING ( a
fact), where is global warming? (question listed on experts123.com)

For this reason, I'd say "more than freezing" is not only unusual wording; it is also ambiguous.

How people actually use "less than freezing"

In most cases, "less than freezing" seems to be used the way you'd think it would be used: to refer to colder temperatures than the freezing point of water. Examples:

However, I found one interesting example on Google Books where it seems to be used to mean the opposite, although I'm not entirely sure:

Snow and powdered ice that have ever been ſubjected to a cold leſs
than freezing are ſpoiled, or rendered much leſs fit for experiments
of this kind.

(A Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry and the Arts, Volume 1, by William Nicholson)

Are there running gags per series in Top Gear?

Yes, some of the series have series-contained running jokes. Wikipedia handily documents some of them on the Top Gear series-specific pages. Series 11 has:

The series included running jokes appearing in each episode: Clarkson showing an image he claims to have found on "the Internet" which is censored for the television broadcast; and, in the news section, May appearing to feign enthusiasm whilst presenting a brief news item about the Dacia Sandero with no further discussion before they move on to the next item.

Series 12 has:

The running joke regarding the Dacia Sandero continues from series 11, with the alteration that Clarkson is now the one making the announcement with feigned enthusiasm, to utter indifference from May (instead of vice versa). Each news segment also features one of the hosts wearing something unusual, like slippers or a garishly patterned shirt. The only reference to this is that one of the other hosts will, at some point in the segment, ask if they're wearing it for a bet.

Some of the episode summaries comment on running jokes as well.

speech - Stylistic / rhetorical device used by Obama over and over

The technical term is merism, the literary device of referring to a thing by enumerating some or all of its constituents.

A particular form of merism, which employs two polar terms to designate a totality, is frequently employed in the Hebrew Bible. Think for instance of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil, where knowledge of good and evil is understood by Hebrew scholars to mean not the ability to distinguish good from evil but the knowledge of all things.

It is frequently remarked that Obama's rhetoric owes a great deal to the pulpit style of African-American preachers, and I think it is no great stretch to see his fondness for this device as similarly founded.

marvel cinematic universe - What would have to happen to merge the Spider-man franchise and the Avengers franchise?

Ever since Marvel launched its shared movie universe, many fans have dreamed about seeing characters like the X-Men, The Amazing Spider-Man and Fantastic Four join Iron Man and the rest of The Avengers in various cinematic adventures. It would be great fun to see these characters crossing paths as they regularly do in the comics, but the big screen reality is complicated due to different movie studios owning the movie rights to these cash cow franchises.

The record-setting box office take of The Avengers proved that audiences crave this kind of movie team-up, and the subject of crossovers has been addressed by various parties in the past year or so. Hugh Jackman publicly mused that he’d love to share the screen with Robert Downey, Jr.’s Iron Man (and “kick his ass.”), X-Men franchise producer Lauren Shuler Donner loves the idea of an X-Men/Avengers team-up, and while Marvel Studios President of Production Kevin Feige essentially told everyone not to hold their breath, fans continue to wonder if it could someday happen.
If it was up to Avi Arad, however, Spider-Man and the Avengers would never meet on the silver screen. Arad is a former Marvel Studios executive and remains a producer on the studio’s various films, with a focus on Sony’s rebooted The Amazing Spider-Man franchise. Arad and producer Matthew Tolmach recently spoke to TotalFilm (via CBM) about the possibility.
Here’s what Arad had to say:

“I for one don’t see the value for us in it. I think we’re doing such a good job with the Spider-Man Universe. Spider-Man is arguably the number one character in the world. He shouldn’t make a cameo.”

Arad appears to have retracted his position a bit, though, having later said that the idea would be possible if they found:

“a natural alliance for some reason…I cannot talk for Sony.”

So Arad is clearly not speaking for the studio, which might mean the possibility remains alive. Still, Tolmach – who produced The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and is working on the Venom and Sinister Six spinoffs – chimed in with his point of view:

“The practical side of it is, look, how many movies have we just talked about? It’s all we can do to build that universe. We’re not going beyond that.”

From a practical, pragmatic point of view, it’s true that Sony, Arad, Tolmach and the rest of the creative team involved in developing a shared movie universe based on The Amazing Spider-Man have their hands full and plenty of characters and storylines to work with without negotiating with Marvel Studios or Fox about how and where they’ll be able to merge onscreen. Not to mention navigating the various schedules, salaries – and egos – of the stars of the franchises involved.

As for Arad’s comment on the “value” - he’s speaking about the studio and it’s willingness (or lack thereof) to share the profits and spotlight with any other franchise or studio. There would be tremendous value for fans of the characters and movies, and a potentially rewarding opportunity for the writers and directors to explore the facets of these different franchises. It’s very clear, however, that the Spider-Man, X-Men and Avengers movie universes are heading in very different directions. A crossover on this scale could happen in some form, eventually, but don’t expect it anytime soon.

What do you think? Do you want to see Spider-Man and the Avengers meet up on the big screen?

How do the professionals in the adult industry avoid contracting STDs?

Up until recently, this was all managed by the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation. Every performer was required to go through a complete suite of tests every 30 days. Under federal and state regulations, condoms are mandatory.

However, producers don't like to use them and no one is enforcing their use regularly, but the testing is mandatory and performers must bring an affidavit of their health to shoots

According to a few blog posts, "Talent Testing" is the new company that is helping manage the testing and certifying the health of the performers.

How come Ivan exists in the Machinist?

My opinion is that Ivan is his evil alter-ego. He is him on the day of the accident, the sun glasses the boots , the clothes, everything.

He comes back and haunts him until he needs to finally admit his guilt. He doesn t exists in reality that s why the carpet is empty when he wants to throw the body, people at the shop don t know him, his acid quotes "You caused the accident..not ME"..or "What have I done with Nicholas?" meaning "why u blaming me...u were the one who killed him", the sign that he makes at the shop by showing cut throat with his thumb and then the work accident occur, the fact that he can drive his car on red light not bumping into the other vehicles..etc.

Also we can say Ivan is the Death itself because we see that he took Nicolas with him into car and enter both into building. He took him from the day of the accident and they are both on the other plan of existence. "C mon you know he is dead (speaking of Nicholas).He try to kill him without success, he reappears at the pier "Who are you?" and he finally recognize his guild and regain sleep and peace.

Also I think they put the name Ivan to this character regarding the legendary russian figure Ivan the Terrible who killed his own son and made a lot of murders, a sadist and a maniac. There is the motive of the one-hand thing also.

One hand on the wheel during the accident, Miller lose his hand, mill---Miller word asociation, one hand drawn on the refrigerator, one hand on the ride in the amusement park and the premonitory quote of Miller :" Reznik I need a HAND!" However the picture with Reynolds and him fishing explain everything. All sees him in the picture only he is the only who doesn t want to admit.

And if u look very closely and rewind movie u will see for few seconds in the scene where he chase Ivan s Pontiac firebird car he try to write down the plate numbers. 743 CRN or something...when he lose the car and gets down from his van you can see his plate numbers is the vice-versa of Ivan car 347 NRC.

That's another clue we can figure that Ivan is actually himself.And I think the director wanted to make analogy with the old Christian Bale American Psycho movie because this word appear few times, Stevie quote "My ex he s a fucking psycho" and when he throw him away from her home "you re a fucking psycho..fucking psycho..."

However is a great movie which needs to be seen few times to be fully understood and in different states of mind.

Why was princess Leia not executed?

To elaborate on the great point about Always Save the Girl made by KillerZ, Leia was the entire plot device for Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. The reason the story takes place at all is because of Princess Leia. C-3P0 and R2-D2 seek out Obi-wan Kenobi because Leia asks R2-D2 to (C-3P0) is really just pulled along for the ride. While on their way to finding Obi-wan, the two droids are captured and subsequently sold to Owen Lars, Luke's uncle and caretaker. Through R2-D2 escaping custody of its new owners, Luke is led into meeting Obi-wan. R2-D2 plays the entire cry for help message to Obi-wan. This instigates Luke learning about his real father, the Force, and ultimately being taken a long to save Princess Leia.

If Leia were to be executed during this time, the driving force behind the story of A New Hope would have ended. There is a crossroads now. Yes, this can happen and the story can continue on in another direction. Or No, this cannot happen because then George Lucas can't tell the story he intended to tell. This ties into part of the origins of Star Wars in that this is almost exactly the same driving plot device as The Hidden Fortress. A very big influence on the creation of Star Wars, The Hidden Fortress follows General Rokurota Makabe, Tahei, and Matashichi as they escort their Kingdom's Princess safely back from enemy territory. The Princess (in Makabe's case) and her gold (in Tahei and Matashichi's cases) are the plot devices for this story. Had the gold been handled differently, or something different happened to the Princess, Kurosawa would have had to tell a different story.

Why is Mal sabotaging all/only professional dreams of Cobb?

Maybe I overlooked something, but Mal is trying to sabotage (killing his teammates) all dreams of Cobb concerned with his work (theft of information in dreams, inception of ideas). But during the training of Ariadne in the large industry hall, there is a scene, where he dreams on his own and then Ariadne joins the dream. When Mal sees her, she instantly gets angry.

Of course, Mal is a projection of Cobb, so why is she always sabotaging his professional dreams, when he seems to be able to dream of her as his loving wife?

film techniques - Actors acting the real actors inside a movie?

In the TV show Supernatural, Season 6, Episode 15, Sam and Dean find themselves pushed into an "alternate reality" where they are two actors acting in a TV show called Supernatural. And their names (in the alternate reality) are Jared Padalecki (Sam) and Jensen Ackles (Dean).

In real world, those two are the two main actors in Supernatural (in our time, our world). Its the same case with Misha Collins (Castiel) and Robert Singer (Producer and Bobby Singer). Also in this reality, Genevieve Padalecki is Sam's wife (this is also true in real life- Jared Padalecki is married to Genevieve Padalecki).

Is there any specific name for this kind of technique? The real actors acting as themselves in the perspective of their characters?

If there is, are there any specific reasons and work that go into this?

expressions - What is a better way to say "computer person with a lot of experience in multiple parts of computer-related areas"?

For any kind of "formal" context, I doubt terms like computer guru/veteran would be suitable.

Assuming OP particularly wishes to convey the three specific areas in which he has extensive experience, perhaps...

I have experience across a broad range of languages, applications, and team roles.

Personally, I'd be inclined to add (up to and including managing teams), because many people might assume team roles only goes up to team leader at best - and I personally would say that's a considerable step below manager.

What is Bruce's alibi in the end?

At the end of Dark Knight Rises, we see the twist of Bruce/Batman taking the bomb himself across the sea, presumably, to sacrifice himself to keep Gotham safe.

We know this isn't the case for Bruce Wayne is very much alive. Only Batman, is known as dead to the general public. We see at Bruce's supposed funeral, only Gordon, Blake, Fox and Alfred are present.

However, what is the reason the public knows Bruce to be dead, without revealing his identity to those who already know?

It is said on wiki that he is presumed dead by the riots, but that is never stated anywhere implicitly whether in papers of the movie, or by any character, nor is this referenced anywhere.

Is there anything official stating why Gotham thinks Bruce Wayne is dead, without assuming he is Batman?

expressions - wishing a happy week

There is nothing wrong saying "Happy week everyone", happy being an adjective and the week being a noun. But it will sound weird and out of the ordinary! something that the people are not used to hearing.

Being Native English speaker I would recommend saying "Have a good week(end) (ahead)" or just say "have a good one."

So, if you don't want to sound weird, don't use "happy week".

identify this movie - Spaghetti Western with a blind man

Could be Blind Justice (1994):

^Source

... a western about a blind gunfighter roaming the range with a baby in tow.

The enigmatic Canaan (Armand Assante) is a serape-clad vision in black, first glimpsed carrying a swaddled infant through Monument Valley

[...]

He gets sidetracked in a one-horse town, where a small band of federal cavalry is holed up guarding a ton of silver bullion. Meanwhile, evil bandit leader Alacran (Robert Davi) controls the only road out of town, , and has so far foiled all their attempts to send for help.

[...]

But Canaan surreptitiously outfits the casket with explosives, and manages to blow casket, church, and outlaw crew sky-high. Canaan loses his hearing in the blast, but he's able to identify Alacran by smell, and dispatches him in a final showdown.

  [Source]

grammar - stative verbs as gerunds

Stative verbs are used in the gerund form as second verbs, not in continuous tenses.

I love knowing that I've helped someone understand a point in English.

When two verbs are together, depending on the first verb, the second verb might be in the full or bare infinitive, a gerund, or to + gerund.

I want to believe it's true.

Let me believe in you, if no one else will.

I love knowing I've helped someone.

I look forward to understanding computers better, with your help.

Stative verbs as gerunds can start a sentence.

Believing in yourself is necessary to succeed in life.

From the source http://www.myenglishteacher.net/gerunds.html :

"Even stative verbs (those verbs that almost never have -ing) can be turned into gerunds. A native speaker of English would NEVER say I am believing you. However, a native speaker could say"

"Believing in God is important."

"Believing, here, is a gerund. It is NOT a verb. Believing in God is a gerund phrase."

http://www.myenglishteacher.net/gerunds.html

To qualify the source, because of a comment made, being a native speaker of English is no guarantee that the language will be used correctly. The obvious implication of the statement in the quote is a native speaker who speaks educated English.

Note: Some so-called stative verbs can be used in a continuous tense, but with a different meaning. For example: I see you now. I'm seeing the doctor tomorrow.

Is K unfaithful too his youth love / love interest from MiB in MiB 3?

In the first Men In Black movie it is made quite clear that K is still in love with the girl he left behind which he had to abandon to be a Man In Black.

But in MiB he flirts heavily with Agent O, even though the incident with the girl he left behind must not have been long ago. J even makes snide remarks about it.

From a narrative point, this plot line makes K look more human in MiB3 and adds a subplot with a love interest, but it completely disregards K's personality from MiB1.

Can it be assumed that the screenwriters just disregarded K's History to have a love interest in MiB3? Is K unfaithful too his youth love / love interest from MiB in MiB 3?

soundtrack - Is "The Merry-Go-Round of Life" from Howl's Moving Castle a song in the public domain?

The music was composed for the film by Joe Hisaishi (professional name of Mamoru Fujisawa), who was born in 1950. From wikipedia:

Another Miyazaki film, Howl's Moving Castle, for which Hisaishi
composed the score, was released on November 20, 2004 in Japan.

Here he is performing it himself. Very moving.

In Star Trek Into Darkness who was the saboteur?

They never implicated Carol Marcus during the film. She had the full trust of Spock, because she was the Admiral's daughter.

Kirk knew before anyone else that it was sabotage. When they are about to regain warp power and Chekov says "I take full responsibility for the failure". Kirk says "I don't think it was your fault." Or something like that.

The film states specifically that it was the Admiral. We could assume that he had someone do it for him, but his name is used to identify who did it. This is mentioned twice during the film. Once by Spock when he's talking to Kirk, and once by the Admiral when he's talking ship-to-ship with Kirk.

The Admiral's plan went wrong. The Enterprise was support to fire the torpedoes first before the ship broke down stranding them in Klingon space. Because it broke down first, Kirk takes a landing party to capture Khan. Kirk never intended to fire the torpedoes anyway.

They try to report back to Earth that they captured Khan alive, but they never get a response. Uhura says someone is blocking the signal, then the Admiral appears in his new ship to destroy the Enterprise.

The Admiral assumed the torpedoes would start a war, the stranded Enterprise would be destroyed by Klingon's covering up what the Admiral did.

game of thrones - In the title sequence, what is the strange futuristic noise/blinking effect?

I just got here, because I have to write an essay about this opening sequence. Here's what I wrote (hope it will be useful):
The opening sequence was designed by Santa Monica based Elastic design studio director Angus Wall working along with The Rock Paper Scissors group. Wall is an acclaimed film editor and title designer that rose to prominence during the 90's when he worked for David Fincher as his lead editorial consultant. The main function of the title sequence was to help the audience orient themselves within complex plots that affect and intertwine each other in the giant fictional world of Westeros and Essos. Elastic team was to introduce the world's maps and geography to the viewer, but also to avoid standard tropes for fantasy maps - aged parchment with Medieval-like inscriptions presented in the candle light. And although Tolkien maps of Middle-Earth was their starting point inspiration, whey had to move away from this kind of depiction.
The breakthrough happened when the design process moved from Middle Ages to more enlightened ones. Decorated initials and vignettes were exchanged for Da Vinci's sketches and models. The digitally created clockwork universe was born. To stay away from both – the archaic belief of flat earth and the illuminated spherical earth models – Angus Wall and his team created an inverted world that surfaces on the inside of a sphere. To marry helio- and geocentric models of the universe, the sun is placed in the centre of the world, within a celestial armillary sphere. What's surprising, the sun itself became a flat object – a disc constrained within the innermost ring of the astrolabe, rotating within the machine. Rings of the astrolabe are engraved with scenes from Westeros history that occurred prior to the action in the books and the tv series – three of those are shown – the Targaryen invasion of Westeros (burning city, dragon and an army), Robert's Rebellion (a wolf, a lion and a stag killing a three-headed dragon) and Robert's ride to power (a stag with a halo with other animals paying homage to it). "We cut to those three times in the title sequence, so you actually see a history of Westeros and Essos. The third time we see all the animals [representing] the different houses bowing down to the Baratheon stag, which brings us to the present, where there's a Baratheon king. We wanted to be very, very faithful to the book because we knew there would be a large fan base that will be looking at this very carefully," says Angus Wall.
In the digitally-created environment, the camera (or rather illusion of it) swoops down from the sun towards the surface of the map (speeded up with few lens snicks – another invention for the mechanism-themed opening). At the surface, a single cogwheel with a crest starts to turn and the whole clockwork model of a city emerges from the ground. The camera travels from place to place, showing more cities and castles, each being erected in the like manner. This part represents the ruling houses with their machinations being the propelling force of “Game of Thrones” world. Also, it informs the viewer where the action of the episode will take place. This creates an unprecedented result, as the opening scores animation evolves from episode to episode as multiple plots develop. In the first season alone there is four varying openings, or “map paths”. The rest of the map is a topographic representation in 3D, having distinct angular shapes (contour intervals are presented literally) and small amount of features, generalised only to main roads (lines), forests (green spiked pyramids) and rocks (grey polygons). Names of notable places are integral part of the map, the style of the font resembles quill and ink writing, similar one to the one used in Tolkien maps for “Lord of the Rings”.

Identify a movie about an autistic woman learning to speak?

A man and a woman work together to teach another, young woman to speak, or are caring for her. Maybe the young woman is autistic. All I can remember is the woman saying "razor" and "mirror" and something that sounded like "check-a may-may." I thought that Jodie Foster was in it (as the woman learning to speak)...maybe someone that looks like her? Would have been from the 1980s or early 90s.

single word requests - What is it called when someone does an action they don't fully understand?

I think cargo-culting might be an appropriate phrase. I see it used often in the programming world but the concept is applicable anywhere.

Here's the history of the phrase: Cargo cult

Metaphorical uses of the term

The term "cargo cult" has been used metaphorically to describe an
attempt to recreate successful outcomes by replicating circumstances
associated with those outcomes, although those circumstances are
either unrelated to the causes of outcomes or insufficient to produce
them by themselves. In the former case, this is an instance of the
post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

The metaphorical use of "cargo cult" was popularized by physicist
Richard Feynman at a 1974 Caltech commencement speech, which later
became a chapter in his book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, where
he coined the phrase "cargo cult science" to describe activity that
had some of the trappings of real science (such as publication in
scientific journals) but lacked a basis in honest experimentation.

What was the first live-action movie to feature a talking animal?

Predating all of the above, but not necessarily considered features (if the length of the film is of concern) the Dogville Comedies featured talking dogs in a variety of situations.
These shorts began being shown in 1929, not long after the advent of sound in motion pictures.
These can often be seen on TCM, or you can can see an example here on Youtube.

Idiom or expression for criticizing people who ignore you right after getting what they wanted/ were after

There is an idiom in Persian that literally says: "(to be ignored right after) somebody's donkey has crossed or passed (over) the bridge"

We use it in situations where someone (now feels relieved and) ignores or treats us much differently after:

• We have helped them to overcome or reach a solution to a problem, but as soon as they feel relieved, they start treating us as if we are now strangers or even annoying to them! (i.e. They totally forget the help they received.)




• We have provided them with something they needed (like a piece of information or news, a confirmation, an acceptance or agreement, money, etc), but since their need has been met, they don't think twice about ignoring us.

As you know, donkeys are stubborn and when they perceive danger, you can't force them to do anything. So I think the origin of this idiom might have been like this: someone's donkey refrained from crossing the bridge, so they asked a friend to help them get the donkey over the bridge, but after being on the other side, they forgot about their friend or treated them ungratefully.

Example scenarios:

1. Your friend calls and desperately asks you to lend a large sum of money otherwise they will go to jail. They promise to pay back the sum in two months. You lend the money and they say you are their best friend.
   After three months they still haven't paid you back. You need the money, so you call and ask them when they would repay it. They promise the following month! A month goes by and still no sign. So you call them again on the 6th month. They get angry and scold you about why you have called them over that trivial (!!) sum of money and ask you not to waste their precious time with these annoying phone calls since they would definitely pay you back as soon as possible! At this point you say:

"Okay, you are talking like this because your donkey has already passed over the bridge and you feel safe and relieved now, but are you sure it was your last problem??! I will never help you anymore even if you are about to be executed!"

2. Joe and Jane have been dating for five years, during all those years Joe's behavior has been exemplary; he really wanted to marry her (so he was just acting according to Jane's wishes and requests).
   After Jane accepted his proposal of marriage and they got married, Joe started to show his other side and gradually ignored Jane's requests. So Jane told him sarcastically:

"Oh, yeah! now that you've got my "yes", you are ignoring me and the reason is clear: your donkey has just crossed over the bridge!"

Is there any equivalent idiom, expression or proverb in English to criticize such people?

Who hired Malcolm Crowe?

No one hired Malcolm Crowe to look after Cole. Over the course of the movie it is established that Cole can see dead people and that reason the dead haven't moved on is because they have something they still need to see accomplished on earth (for example, the little girl who's mother had poisoned her wanted her father to know the truth).

In all the pictures of Cole there is always a white streak around his head to signify that dead people that were always around him. Though it is never specifically spelled out, it is suggested that both Cole and Vincent (the patient that shot Malcolm) are inundated with the spirits of the dead. I don't think the dead even understand that they are drawn to the people with this gift, it just happens - like steel to a magnet.

Thus, Malcolm was drawn to Cole (instinctively) and as he (Malcolm) did not realize he was dead, he automatically fell into the roles and rites of his job - thus assuming that he was there to help Cole as a therapist. What was really happening though is that he was dead and had not moved on because of his guilt about not helping Vincent etc.

If you watch carefully, after Malcolm is shot nobody speaks to him other than Cole for the rest of the movie.

Literary term for an obvious understatement to emphasize excess

There's litotes - a figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite. But that would be exemplified by "Bill Gates isn't doing too bad".

OP's "doing well for himself" is just plain understatement. If OP really wants a literary term, there's meiosis, but it's a very rare literary term these days (I have a degree in literature, but until I read Robusto's answer here I only knew this word in its biological cell division sense).

For anyone who wants to dig deeper, OED says it's from Gr. µείωσις lessening, f. µειοῦν, to lessen, f. µείων less. It's used in the "cell division" sense because the two "daughter" cells each have half as many chromosomes as the "parent".

Personally I'd avoid meiosis for rhetorical understatement. It's English, Jim, but not as we know it.

grammar - How to pied-pipe "only in respect to which ... by ... rule"?

I'm trying to pied-pipe the last dependent clause for simplicity, following Prof Lawler's comment:

...but not to legislative facts that will produce adverse consequences to them [//]
only in respect to which[,] they are members of a class adversely affected by the legislative rule.

Please advise on, correct, or improve my attempt? Please show all steps and thought processes.

Abbreviate legislative facts ... to them by *.
Then the present clause becomes:

1. but not to *, only in respect to which[,] they are members of a class adversely affected by the legislative rule


2. = but not to *, which they are members of a class adversely affected by the legislative rule only in respect to.


3. = but not, they are members of a class adversely affected by the legislative rule only in respect to *.

He later remarked:

Pied piping doesn't affect adverbs, so switching around only is on your own hook. Only has a focus and has its own rules about where it may appear (basically right before the focus word, or right before a constituent containing the focus word)...