Movies you've recently watched

[Admiral Yi]

It could have something to do with linguistic politics.  French has delusions of importance and is very jealous of English, so they dub their movies.  And Flemish is a big deal for the Flems, so they follow suit.

I read somewhere that the French insistence on dubbing has something to do with their surprisingly high illiteracy rate.

[The Larch]

French in most parts of the city, Flemish in the Flemish part of the city.

Not surprising on the French part.  The French usually dub movies.

AFAIK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy are the main culprits of cinema dubbing.

[The Larch]

Speaking of dubbed versions, I was surprised when I was in Brussels that so many movies were actually dubbed. In Poland, the standard is to have subtitles - only the really kid movies are dubbed, and even then you have about a 1:2 ratio of dubbed to subtitled movies.

At least it was not Polish "dubbing". 

That's actually something that has always been encountered only on TV (at least in my memory)*. Movies have either been subtitled or properly dubbed.

*I assume you are referring to the practice of having one person read all the lines in Polish while there is the original soundtrack heard in the background.

You assumed correctly.  That was quite a shock the first time I saw it. Is it done anywhere else in the former Eastern Bloc or is it something entirely Polish?

[Darth Wagtaros]

Watching some Canuck show calld Being Erica.  This loser redhead's therapist sends her to pivotal moments in her life that she believes she can fix.  Usually ends up fucking it up and winding up almost as miserable as she was before. 

Pivotal moment 1: Going back to her prom or something because she wanted to fuck this guy in his car.  A 30 something almost raping this high school guy is pure win until her emotional breakdown with her head in his lap.

Wait, she's physically going back in time? When I read the first paragraph I was envision more a Quantum Leap type of mechanism with her being limited to her younger self.

You are correct. It is like that.

A creepy Our Town feeling is developing.  Like at the end it will have turned out that she's been dead the whole time.

[Grey Fox]

Not so much.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

Big Fan. Patton Oswalt does a DeNiro esque turn in this film that sjows you the real dangers of being a sports fan. Getting beat up by famous athletes. surprising on many levels, especially the depth of Oswalt's performance. great little movie.

8.1111 homo erotic dream sequences that have no irony to them whatsoever outta 10

[Queequeg]

Synecdoche, New York

Kafka, Lynch and Wes Anderson had a baby, and that baby appears to be addicted to Ambien.  I will need some time to really think about it.  But that is, oddly enough, a pretty big compliment. 

[Syt]

I don't feel the need to rush out to watch it again right away, though

Turns out a friend got tickets for a screening in English in IMAX, so I guess I'll have to see it again.

Thinking about it, I'm actually looking forward to seeing it again. Yes, the story has been told quite a few times before, but not with such glorious visuals.

[Eddie Teach]

Why couldn't he still be in high school on the show?

Because the actor is over 30.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Not so much.

Yes.

[The Brain]

Why couldn't he still be in high school on the show?

Because the actor is over 30.

Plenty of Americans are still in high school at 30.

[Savonarola]

Sita Sings the Blues

A retelling of the Ramayana with musical interludes set to 1920's Annette Hanshaw blues numbers and interspersed with the story of the directors own divorce.  It's interesting, but a bit too much of a film school project.

In the Rmayana, when Sita jumps on the funeral pyre and is unharmed due to remarkable purity; why don't her clothes burn?

[frunk]

I really liked it, despite its amateurish qualities.  I thought the arguments over the exact interpretation of the story were quite entertaining.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

Three Monkeys. latest by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Not quite as awesome as my recently reviewed films of his: Climates, and Distance, but well worth seeing if you like slow artsy gorgeously shot fare. I do. Just didn't connect with this one quite as much. A chauffer for a politician does a favor for said politico, comes to regret it as his family gets even more messed up than it already was. Interesting take on mother/son relationships.

7.3444 Big Turkish Mustaches outta 10

[Savonarola]

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

The Mexican government denied permission to shoot the film locally when they heard that the film depicted Mexicans in a bad light.  They relented upon learning more about the film.  Since the film shows banditos with sombreros and bandoliers delivering lines like "We don't need to show you no stinkin' badges," I'm not sure what the Mexican government thought was going to be in the film that was worse.

Simply wonderful film, though, John Huston and Humphrey Bogart at their finest and even with that Walter Huston (John's father) manages to steal every scene.