What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

The Strawman Argument

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Kumiko: The Treasure Hunter

Saw Kumiko a few months back and was pretty surprised by it, didn't know what to make it of it at the time. Didn't help that it was one of those Q&A screenings where a load of people ask ridiculous questions afterwards which just stop me from processing the film correctly. It's definitely not perfect but has grown on me a lot since. I can see it being a film that's going to get a hell of a lot more exposure and a more negative reception than it deserves due to premise for a variety of reasons; being so easily marketable to a certain type of filmgoer while not seeming like it'll appeal to everyone that much. Would argue that Bradshaw's negative review there is somewhat influenced by what he expected from the premise as opposed to the actual film he got.

Pierce_1991 wrote: »

Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
...Got an English dubbed version which was a bit annoying as I'd probably have preferred the subs...

Have to say, the dubbing job on the little girl pretty much ruined the film for me on first viewing. Would recommend anyone who hasn't seen it to check out the subtitled version instead.
Maybe I was just in a crappy mood that day though, I love the movie now!

Tony EH

NEVER watch a dubbed version of any film...ever.

Track down the original.

Dair76

Tony EH wrote: »

NEVER watch a dubbed version of any film...ever.

There is one exception.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL1Qwj9ukt0

Tony EH

You know, you're right. Bollocks to what I said.

That film is probably the greatest film ever made.

FloatingVoter

Tony EH wrote: »

NEVER watch a dubbed version of any film...ever.

Track down the original.

..and I do remember watching some great 1950s Italian movies with sea monsters and jumbo jets (dubbed bad English acting as bonus). Being drunk and stoned while watching is recommended for younger viewers.
Seriously, I had this debate with a bunch of English-2nd language speaking people not so long ago and everyone more or less agreed that subtitles are the way to go over dubbing.
For my own sake, my schoolboy German came along in spades when I watched Downfall with the subs turned off.

johnny_ultimate

No debate to be had (aside from the handful of legitimate reasons why somebody may not be able to read subtitles)! If my options are to watch a film dubbed or never watch it, I'd probably be inclined to go with the latter. It just changes a film completely and for the worse.

The Strawman Argument wrote: »

Would argue that Bradshaw's negative review there is somewhat influenced by what he expected from the premise as opposed to the actual film he got.

It does seem like the response of somebody who had already made up their mind. The concept certainly has the potential to be an obnoxious, twee 'indie' comedy, but the film itself is much more complicated than that, and if anything actively subverts some of those expectations. Kumiko as a character is like the darker flip side of a manic pixie dream girl (the scene where she tries to kiss the officer, for example, would almost definitely have a very different denouncement in more traditional quirky comedy).

MagicMarker

Tony EH wrote: »

NEVER watch a dubbed version of any film...ever.

Track down the original.

Disagree, some films are great dubbed. Martial arts movies especially.

NyOmnishambles

Tony EH wrote: »

NEVER watch a dubbed version of any film...ever.

Track down the original.

The dubbed version of District 13 was hilarious, I had watched it originally in French but watching it with the Dub a couple of the characters have brilliant skanger Dublin accents

Tony EH

MagicMarker wrote: »

Disagree, some films are great dubbed. Martial arts movies especially.

Well, personally, I wouldn't class any martial arts film as great, but anyway. The dubbing in those certainly adds some comic value.

My point is if I have a choice between watching a serious film like 'Stalingrad', I'll endeavour to watch it in its original German as the English dub subtracts from the experience and lessens the film.

Right Turn Clyde

Tony EH wrote: »

NEVER watch a dubbed version of any film...ever.

Track down the original.

With some films there is no 'original'. Look at the Italian giallo genre. Most of Dario Argento's films were shot with Italian actors speaking English phonetically, i.e. without understanding a word of what they were saying. This was then dubbed over in Italian for the domestic market. Then it was dubbed and lip-synced with English speaking actors for other markets. So the most authentic versions of these films are actually the English-language dubs, because it's what the director intended.

There's also a case to be made for animation. I prefer to watch Sudio Ghilbi productions in their original Japanese, but if you're a fan, you might wish to see the dubbed versions because they can often create a different mood. Not better, or worse, but different. They also attract strong casts, giving good voice performances, such as Patrick Stewart, Christian Bale, Billy Crystal, Matt Damon and Cate Blanchett. I particularly enjoyed Liam Neeson's delivery in Ponyo.

Right Turn Clyde

I seen Pickpocket last night. It was my first Robert Bresson film. All of the characters were unlikeable, which for me is typical of French films from that general period, particularly those of Eric Rohmer. I could see Taxi Driver and Nightcrawler in here, particularly the former. It's very sharply edited. I'm one of those people that doesn't really notice good editing, only bad editing. But on this occasion it really stood out for me. There's a sequence in a train station where three pickpockets are at work, and it's put together very skilfully. We've grown up with that kind of editing, but it must have been exhilirating when it was first released. I can't think of anything else like it from that era.

Tony EH

Right Turn Clyde wrote: »

With some films there is no 'original'. Look at the Italian giallo genre. Most of Dario Argento's films were shot with Italian actors speaking English phonetically, i.e. without understanding a word of what they were saying. This was then dubbed over in Italian for the domestic market. Then it was dubbed and lip-synced with English speaking actors for other markets. So the most authentic versions of these films are actually the English-language dubs, because it's what the director intended.

True, most Italian films were actually shot silent and over dubbed, not just in English, but with Italian too. It was just the way they did it over there.

However that's not what I mean. I am specifically talking about films that have been shot in their native language and overdubbed for an English speaking audience.

quickbeam

I'd agree for the most part - subtitles instead of dubbing for sure. But animated films can get away with dubbing a bit easier than a live action film.

Tony EH

Some animated films get away with it. Some don't. Early anime sounded stupid dubbed into English at times. 'Akira' sounds MUCH better in its native Japanese, than it does in its dubbed English. A lot of anime has English dubbing firing out lines at 100 miles an hour to compete with the Japanese soundtrack and it sounds ridiculous.

But modern animated films are created these days with foreign export in mind. There's often consideration given at dialogue and animation stage that a film will be sold to English speaking markets.

However, dubbing over animation is not really a good example. Animated characters are not acting. They're simply drawings, so a voice over can work ok, as acting nuance isn't an issue.

A good example of what I am talking about would be a film called 'The Battle of Neretva'. A Yugoslavian picture made in the late 60's with Yul Brynner, Franco Nero and Orson Welles. For a long time, you could only see a dubbed English version, where Yugoslavian partisans, Italians and Germans all spoke dubbed English and it sounded stupid in areas. I recently saw it again with it's original soundtrack and it was an entirely different and far more rewarding experience altogether.

no_car

sat down to watch the remake of total recall , just might be the worst - most pointless movie ive ever seen

eventually changed over

ButtersSuki

If any of you like Betty Blue (one of my all time faves) don't ever ever ever ever watch the dubbed version on the 2004 DVD release. Zorg is voiced by an actor with a very strong and boringly slow American accent. I didn't get to hear Betty's as I turned it off almost instantly.

Right Turn Clyde

Au Hasard Balthazar, my second, and possibly last, Robert Bresson film. Tedious rubbish from start to finish, full of stoney-faced, uninteresting characters. I longed for the scenes where the donkey was getting abused, because it at least stirred up some emotion. I don't think Robert Bresson is for me. I read that he done take after take with his actors, until they lost all trace of theatricality and acting. Well he accomplished that very successfully, because there's no acting on display here whatsoever. Finally, I didn't think I'd ever come across a character more irritating that 'Guillaume' from Eric Rohmer's Suzanne's Career, but 'Gerard' is a new contender for that dubious honour. A waste of 90 minutes.

Aidric

Watched Citizenfour last night. Best documentary I've seen since the Enron doc in 2005.

No narration, which I think helped, just a retelling of the timeline via the main protagonists. It was interesting to watch how the journalists digested the sheer volume of the data revealed to them by Snowden and then drip fed it to the media over the course of days and weeks. Greenwald, in particular, emerged with credit.

The human element was also fascinating. Snowden was calculating and seemingly prepared for the storm he was about to unleash. Nonetheless when it actually kicked off the sense of paranoia was palpable.

Certainly a documentary which makes you sit up and think.

Bipolar Joe

Tony EH wrote: »

Well, personally, I wouldn't class any martial arts film as great, but anyway. The dubbing in those certainly adds some comic value.

Someone hasn't seen Jackie Chan's Drunken Master movies.

Del.Monte

"Generation War" (2013) - German - made for TV mini series. On Netflix.



Excellent series showing WW.2. from the viewpoint of five idealistic young Germans who part company in Berlin in 1941 promising to meet again when the war ends. Well made with more action than you could shake a big stick at and if you like the anti-War genre you'll want to see this. Think "Das Boot" on dry land and you have it.

Running to 270 minutes, in German with English subtitles. 10/10

Tony EH

Bipolar Joe wrote: »

Someone hasn't seen Jackie Chan's Drunken Master movies.

Oh, I would beg to differ BJ.

And I actually like 'Police Story', but once you get by the spectacular stunt work, the film is still rubbish.

Tony EH

Del.Monte wrote: »

"Generation War" (2013) - German - made for TV mini series. On Netflix.



Excellent series showing WW.2. from the viewpoint of five idealistic young Germans who part company in Berlin in 1941 promising to meet again when the war ends. Well made with more action than you could shake a big stick at and if you like the anti-War genre you'll want to see this. Think "Das Boot" on dry land and you have it.

Running to 270 minutes, in German with English subtitles. 10/10

I STILL haven't watched this and I have no idea why.

Harry Palmr

Right Turn Clyde wrote: »

With some films there is no 'original'. Look at the Italian giallo genre. Most of Dario Argento's films were shot with Italian actors speaking English phonetically, i.e. without understanding a word of what they were saying. This was then dubbed over in Italian for the domestic market. Then it was dubbed and lip-synced with English speaking actors for other markets. So the most authentic versions of these films are actually the English-language dubs, because it's what the director intended.

Check out Deep Red I think is for the Italian cop with a Yorkshire accent!

A film like Shogun Assassin (two related films spliced together) doesn't have an original language soundtrack either really as the dialogue was been re-written to make the new storyline vaguely comprehensible.

EoghanIRL

The road .
Dissapointing overall.

Pierce_1991

Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

cursai

The Water Diviner. Good movie. Russell Crowe directed. Strange choice of actors to play turkish people but it kinda worked. Film would make a grown man cry though. Not that i did. 8/10. Great Debut from an actor to a director.

Black Sea. Jude Law goes all Das boot.
Good film, some good suspense and some dodgy acting and characters are a bit bipolar in their personalities. 7.6634/10

Mike Litoris

cursai wrote: »

Black Sea. Jude Law goes all Das boot.
Good film, some good suspense and some dodgy acting and characters are a bit bipolar in their personalities. 7.6634/10

This was way better than I expected. The director did a great job of maintaining the tension throughout.

Turtyturd

Gone Girl: This is a really like two movies joined together. The first half is a real good whodunit which had me jumping from theory to theory but once you

get to the reveal of Amy's disappearance it just goes downhill and becomes a series of more ridiculously OTT scenes. I had heard that there was a good twist in the end but even that revelation was flat because you never truly believed Nick was going to unveil her.

The use of music throughout it is very jarring, particularly in the flashback scenes.

Schadenfreudia

The Fog (2005)

On some TV station last night.

Not a patch on the 1980 version with Jamie Lee Curtis - not surprised it won the acclaimed award for Worst Film in Stinkers Bad Movie Awards and the prestigious Least Scary Horror Movie award.

If you want a "horror" movie that will put you to sleep - this is it!

The Strawman Argument

Love You More
The short that got Sam Taylor-Johnson the Fifty Shade of Grey job, I assume. I really liked it, nothing at all gratuitous and some nice... ehh... focusing(?) throughout, could've been obnoxious (especially with the structure of the main scene) but managed to be quite cute. She probably could do a really good feature length if she had better material to work off of.

The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness
It's nothing special at all in terms of how it approaches everything, but I loved it. Miyazaki having quite a bleak view of most things was somehow a pleasant surprise. The whole thing seemed to be done almost with an awareness that the studio was going to have to close up in the near future so it was just nice to see inside before that happened and it makes the dual retirements of Miyazaki and Takahata a good deal less depressing.

Hunt for Red October
Bit disappointed by this, has such high hopes for the director of Die Hard uniting with latter day Sean Connery too.

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him/Her
Bit of a mess, there's potentially a good idea in there which was enough to make me give it a shot (I think some kind of Delpy/Hawke-esque team who have a major input in the construction of the films might be able to pull it off), but it just felt like a gimmick to me here. Someone's since told me I'm supposed to watch the combined one after those two as well! :eek:

Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time
Some great shots, I'd imagine they'd look much better on a big screen too. Not sure how much it works beyond that, he doesn't really have anything to add in his interviews, which he seems quite aware of himself, but it keeps coming back to him trying to verbalise it.