Twelve Monkeys (Terry Gilliam, 1995). A man sent back in time to investigate the destruction of mankind becomes part of destroying it. I’ve watched this wonderful film before, and really enjoyed re-watching it. It’s got time travel, Bruce Willis/Brad Pitt and is based on La Jetée. [10/10]

“WE DID IT” graffiti in Twelve Monkeys (1995).

Monster House (Gil Kenan, 2006). With a haunted house on their street, a couple of kids decide to uncover its secrets. A well-produced animated film; unfortunately, but not surprisingly, stronger in its special effects than in the story. [7/10]

Angry old man in Monster House (2006).

Saw II (Darren Lynn Bousman, 2005). A psychotic killer makes people perform tests that kill them if they fail. The first Saw was fresh and with twist that worked, but this film feels more forced. [6/10]

Saw III (Darren Lynn Bousman, 2006). More tests, this time by the psychotic killer’s apprentice. While the first film was OK, and the second passable, the third film is really, really bad. If you didn’t already know the bad news, you’d hope this would be the last installment of the series. [3/10]

So, if you want your propaganda to be effective get it in early, repeat it, give people reasons to be believe it (however irrelevant), and make yourself seem trustworthy.

(Mind Hacks: Infowar: strike early, strike often)

All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950). The fan of a famous actress starts to take over her life. I love Mankiewicz’s scriptwriting, both the characters and the story are interesting. [9/10]

A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951). A woman moves to her sister to recuperate, but is troubled by her sister’s husband. I like Marlon Brando, and he carries the picture together with Vivien Leigh. [7/10]

Viskningar och rop (English title: Cries and Whispers) (Ingmar Bergman, 1972). Three women watch over a fourth dying woman in a dreamlike 19th century mansion. While this isn’t my favorite Bergman film, excellent acting and harrowing scenes at the death bed still make this worth watching. [7/10]

The Scent of Green Papaya (original title: Mùi du du xanh - L’odeur de la papaye verte) (Anh Hung Tran, 1993). A young Vietnamese woman works for, and falls in love with, a pianist. Beautifully shot, simply and effectively told. [8/10]

Taxidermia (György Pálfi, 2006). Three generations of Hungarian men are all intimately involved in bodily functions in their own ways. A grotesque and disturbing film that portrays disgusting events in visually beautiful ways. [8/10]

Travellers and Magicians (Khyentse Norbu, 2003). A young man is tired of his small village in Bhutan and decides to go to New York. On the way he gets to know some fellow travellers. This is the first film produced in Bhutan, and a nice little story of strangers and casual friends. [9/10]

Possessed (Curtis Bernhardt, 1947). A woman with no memory reveals to her psychiatrist that she may have killed someone. The story is presented in flashbacks and gives an interesting portrait of a disturbed woman. [8/10]

Save the Green Planet (original title: Jigureul jikyeora!) (Joon-Hwan Jang, 2003). A young man convinced that aliens have infiltrated human society kidnaps a businessman and tortures him to reveal the aliens’ plans. For a long time you don’t know if the young man is correct or merely insane in this strange mix of horror, thriller, splatter, science fiction and comedy. [7/10]

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (Clint Eastwood, 1997). A local millionaire in Savannah, Georgia, is arrested for killing his young male lover. Kevin Spacey plays the millionaire and is good as usual. The story is good, but predictable. [7/10]

I recently switched once again, when Xubuntu 7.10 was released. I figured, since I have a 64-bit AMD processor I could try the 64-bit version of the operating system. Last time I tried was Gentoo a year ago, and I had trouble with getting flash to work in Firefox, plus a lot of other things that just weren’t mature enough. This time I haven’t had any problems yet, and I think 64-bit Linux has come a long way.

One of the main features of Ubuntu/Xubuntu is that everything works out of the box: you get Firefox and Thunderbird, it detects printers and scanners automatically and so on. But you also get a lot of stuff you don’t need, like media players and word processors you don’t always want anyway. I’ve wanted the option to choose what’s installed when installing Ubuntu, and this time I found out how. If you use the alternate CD you can install a basic command line system, without a graphical interface or any programs, and then complete the installation with the things you need. With one command from the freshly-installed command line I had Xfce, Firefox, Thunderbird and so on, without the extra media players and stuff. This slimmed the installation size and the system will hopefully run faster without extra processes running in the background.

I’ll list some pages that helped me, for later reference. Maybe I’ll add some more later.

• Adding repositories through the command line or graphical interface
• Installing Microsoft Fonts
• How to install LaTeX Style Files (.sty) on Ubuntu

If you’re curious about Linux and want to try something easy I recommend the Ubuntu default installation. You’ll get a complete system that keeps updating installed programs without nagging like that other operating system about authentication or illegal unlicensed downloads.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951). An alien lands and tries to stop the violence and wars of Earth. The film is a brilliant plea for pacifism, and one of the few non-corny 1950s science-fiction films. It was fun to learn where Army of Darkness (Sam Raimi, 1992) got the famous phrase “Klaatu barada nikto”. [9/10]

The robot Gort, able to destroy tanks with his deadly rays, in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).

Hearts in Atlantis (Scott Hicks, 2001). A young boy is befriended by an old man, who says he has secret powers and is chased by government agents. The original story is by Stephen King, and for some reason a lot of his works don’t translate well to cinema. This film is boring and predictable. [6/10]

The Thing from Another World (Christian Nyby and Howard Hawks, 1951). A spaceship crash lands in the Arctic and a team of scientists and soldiers fight it out with one of the surviving monsters. Nice mood, great tension between curious scientists and order-following soldiers, and special effects that still hold up good. Another good 1950s sci-fi. [9/10]

Hard Times (Walter Hill, 1975). During the Great Depression a tramp fights street boxing fights for money. A very simple film with few surprises, but interesting if you want to see a tough guy acting, well, tough, and beat people up for 93 minutes. [7/10]

À bout de souffle (English title: Breathless) (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960). A man kills a police officer in cold blood, runs from the scene and hooks up with a girl he wants to escape with. High tempo, unsympathetic characters, and a film that tries so hard to be cool it’s entertaining. [8/10]

Tempo di massacro (English title: Massacre Time) (Lucio Fulci, 1960). In the Italian wild west a man learns his home ranch has been taken over by a greedy, evil guy, so he returns home to fight them off. A violent western with the kind of one-dimensional characters you expect, but done with a sense of self distance that makes it highly enjoyable. [8/10]

Deliverance (John Boorman, 1972). Four men go on a canoe trip where nothing turns out the way they want to. I’ve heard a lot about this film, about the famous male rape scene where a character threatens he’s going to make his victim “squeal like a pig”, how the script is used in classes as an example of a perfection, and how Quentin Tarantino watched it age 8 without flinching, but cried when Bambi’s mother died. My expectations were high, and yes, the film is very good and a classic for good reasons, but parts of it felt contrived and over the top. [8/10]

Jade Warrior (original title: Jadesoturi) (Antti-Jussi Annila, 2006). A modern-day Finnish man learns he has mystical sword-fighting powers, and has to battle an ancient evil. The idea of a Finnish Kung fu film is cool, but the execution is less interesting. The fight scenes are OK, but the story has been told too many times to be fun anymore. [6/10]

Walk the Line (James Mangold, 2005). Singer Johnny Cash’s rise to fame, his drug addiction and broken marriage, and his determination to keep singing. You don’t need to like Cash’s music to enjoy the film, but it doesn’t hurt. My dad has the LP record At San Quentin, live from the prison, and I used to listen to it as a kid, so I’m familiar enough with Johnny Cash. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon performed all music themselves without dubbing, and even learned their instruments from scratch, which is most impressive. A good film, especially if you’re interested in the artists. [8/10]

Chiyoko Fujiwara as young and old in Millenium Actress (2001).

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Tom Tykwer, 2006). Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is an olfactory Wunderkind who develops an obsession with capturing smells. The story was good enough, but with silly gimmicks and a drawn out orgy scene at the end that didn’t add much. I haven’t read the book so I can’t compare the film to it. [6/10]

Bullets Over Broadway (Woody Allen, 1994). A struggling scriptwriter/director in New York in the 1920s desperate for getting his play performed has to compromise his artistic vision. A fun Woody Allen comedy with many memorable characters, characters that are stereotypes on theater people. I’ve seen it before, but from watching it again increased my rating from 6 to 8. [8/10]

Babel (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2006). Seemingly unrelated stories from around the world converge in this film on the necessity of communication. All stories are interesting on their own, and the way the film moves back and forth between them makes for an engaging experience. Brad Pitt is always good and in this film his character faces a really bad situation, but the character I empathized with the most was his child keeper played by Adriana Barraza. A very good film. [8/10]

The Illusionist (Neil Burger, 2006). A stage magician uses his tricks off stage to get the woman he wants. I like the actors Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti, and they do one of their usual good performances. The story is good, but not surprising or impressive enough to warrant a top rating. [6/10]

A street corner in The Illusionist (2006).

Only Yesterday (original title: Omohide poro poro) (Isao Takahata, 1991). A Japanese woman travels from Tokyo to the countryside and reminisce her childhood. A simple, realistic and engaging anime film. I would like to see more of these non-fantastic animes. The central love story actually works, as well, which is rare. [8/10]

Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006). Queen Marie Antoinette of King Louis XVI lives a sheltered life, but reality creeps up on her and the people revolt. Sofia Coppola has made three really good films, this one included. I like how the modern and the historical is mixed. [8/10]

Klute (Alan J. Pakula, 1971). Private detective John Klute tries to find a missing man, but gets drawn into something big. I’ve heard good things about this film, and Donald Sutherland is good as Klute, but it seemed like the story got lost somewhere during the film. When it ends it’s about something different than in the beginning. [6/10]

The Three Faces of Eve (Nunnally Johnson, 1957). Eve suffers from multiple personality disorder, and her different personalities all have ideas on what she should do with her life. This feels like a pretty accurate depiction of multiple personality disorder, even if it’s hard to tell what is fact and fiction. A good film, and a must-see if you’re interested in deviate behavior. [7/10]

Session 9 (Brad Anderson, 2001). An asbestos cleaning crew working on an old asylum wakes an old evil. So, it’s pretty cool to use shaky hand cameras with a visual style of home videos, because it makes the film seem real, but to convince the audience it’s real the characters need personalities. The film is quite good until the horror clichés start appearing too frequently. [4/10]

So are characters in One Can Have Her safe or unsafe? Safe for whom? For the audience and the creators, and no, they’re not safe. I’ll explain.

The audience of the story in roleplaying games is the game master and the players. At the same time they create the fiction of the story. Players are usually, not always, mostly interested in their own player character. They invest a lot into that one character and channel their hopes and wishes through it. What’s possibly unsafe about characters is that they can betray the player’s trust, they can let them down, or turn out in ways the player didn’t expect and maybe didn’t want.

In One Can Have Her the player of a character makes all decisions for that character. You can’t be forced to have your character kill another character or fall in love with someone unless you decide to. The character can be suspected for the murder even though he didn’t do it, and he can be chased by a jealous husband even though he has no interest in the husband’s wife. But the heart of the character belongs to the player. The ultimate fate of the character is always up to the player in the form of an epilogue. The characters don’t always turn out the way the player want to. Sometimes the player want the character to reach his life goal, but someone rats on him to the police and he dies. But the player still decides how he dies.

The shared story, on the other hand, is clearly out of the individual player’s control. That’s obvious, since the story is created collaboratively with the other players. The other players can have their characters do things that put your character in a totally different light. If he rats on them and their players portray them as stoic heroes that takes the punishment, that doesn’t make the squealer look very good. He’ll get his life goal and maybe the femme fatale, but at what cost?

When I played at OmniCon and my aggressive doctor actually reached his life goal I was both happy and disgusted. He was a rotten man, and he used his new-won fame to crush the only person connected with his old life, the young femme fatale.

If the story is unsafe and the story is made up of the player characters and their actions, they become unsafe too. When you start playing One Can Have Her you know your character has committed a crime, but you don’t know if he’ll somehow make up for it. Will he pay for it with his life or the rest of his life behind bars, or will he get away clean but undeserving? You don’t know until you’ve finished the story.