The original is something like "Xšayāršā" (the "x" there is a "kh").

I don't think you can really call it a result of his reaction to the book. It was originally an unrelated script called Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine. Someone noticed similarities to Starship Troopers and they bought the rights. So he was already planning to make the film before he read, or had even heard of, the book. …

Based on an image search, the answer is "it didn't, really, it looked really weird". But yes, just flat flesh tone.

I've thought about were-whales before, and even before you get to the question of whether they're much of a threat, I just don't think they're sustainable, assuming they work like werewolves.

Leela Punyaratabandhu's second book came out in May, actually. It's called Bangkok.

Simply consult your copy of the Unicode standard to identify U+1F64C PERSON RAISING BOTH HANDS IN CELEBRATION.

I remember that game, though I only ever played the demo.

It's like Finnegans Wake.

I agree that "girls trip" is not grammatically impossible, but it is relatively rare to use a plural like that in compounds in English. E.g. to me at least, "men trip" sounds significantly worse than either "men's trip" or "man trip".

Top Gun 2: Pretty Good Jet Pilot.

Not to exaggerate the importance of this but… I'm not sure you used it correctly in the modern sense either. I mean, it's difficult to say definitively from the context what semantics you were going for, but it reads to me as though you were using it as a synonym of "annihilate" or "destroy". The usual meaning is to…

Under most traditional definitions, moons are not planets. For example the IAU in 2006 defined a planet as «A celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has…

Or, for that matter, the "remote ice world of Hoth" in the previous movie's opening crawl.

Avatar might actually be the worst movie I've seen in a theater, but that is definitely because I don't go to the theater very much. (Also the effects, which were the only reason I was interested in watching it, were perfectly satisfactory.)

The leaves of an Indian tree, Cinnamomum tamala, are often called "(Indian) bay leaves". Also known as tej patta. I've not got around to getting any myself, so I don't know if they match your description of the taste; they're related to cinnamon. If the leaves have three longitudinal veins running their whole…

Also, if you need them dried for some reason, in my experience they dry out pretty well in about half an hour in a low oven.

What about Mothra's tiny women, do they count as human?

This seems like it would have benefited from being an audio interview.

According to Wikipedia, the 2013 one "makes a pair with [writer Paula Milne's] 1995 drama The Politician's Wife", so, I'd say so.

Yes, the Simpsons have come a long way since an old drunk made humans out of his rabbit characters to pay off his gambling debts. Who knows what adventures they'll have between now and the time the show becomes unprofitable?