My wife Christy and I recently decided that we would try to make Saturday night our "movie night." Once the kids had gone to sleep, we would watch either a movie we had rented from the local Blockbuster, or we'd watch something that I already own that she hadn't seen before.
Watching a movie together without the kids interrupting it every few seconds had been a challenge. When we were first living in a one bedroom apartment, the kids slept in the living room, so we really had no opportunities to watch "grown up" movies. If we wanted to watch a movie, it had to be a Disney movie or some other cartoon. We now, finally, have some freedom.
The challenge I face now is trying to find movies that have Mandarin Chinese subtitles. Christy can watch movies without the subtitles, but she often has no idea what's going on. Imagine someone whose primary language isn't English, trying to watch a Woody Allen movie without subtitles. You're just better off not watching it at all.
We have a blu-ray player in our house, and many blu-ray discs now feature Chinese subtitles, but not every one. And sometimes the movie is mis-labeled. The disc will say it has Chinese subtitles, but it will actually be either Cantonese, or "simplified" Chinese, which Christy hates.
It's really hit and miss to find something with Chinese subtitles. "Batman Returns", for example, has Chinese subtitles, but the sequel "The Dark Knight" does not. Why? It's bizarre. I wrote an email to Warner Brothers and I told them that they need to include the subtitles on more of their movies. Of course, they didn't reply back. On a "Region 1" blu-ray disc, Taiwan is listed as one of the territories, so why not include Chinese subtitles on every disc?
Sometimes, even when we DO have the subtitles, Christy still doesn't share my taste in movies. I tried to get her to watch "A Clockwork Orange" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" and she couldn't make it through either one. And she hated "A Clockwork Orange", even though she only watched about 40 minutes. Then last night we watched the James Bond classic "Goldfinger", and she didn't like that either.
"Oh, this is so bad. The acting is bad. The story is stupid. And he just treats women like they are his toys." Christy said. "I like the new James Bond movies better."
To some extent, I agreed with her. "Goldfinger" has some surprisingly banal dialogue. The villain, Goldfinger, keeps James Bond alive for FAR too long, just so he can kill him in the most dramatic way possible. What is the benefit of blowing up James Bond in Fort Knox when he could have been offed much sooner? And Goldfinger just lets Bond walk around his compound leisurely, drinking martinis and having sex with his pilot. What the hell? Then the pilot, Pussy Galore, suddenly has a change of heart at the end and decides to join Bond to defeat Goldfinger. Why? Because they had sex together? Give me a break.
We printed a list of Yahoo's "100 Movies to See Before You Die", and "Goldfinger" was on that list. Personally, after just watching it, I prefer the new "Casino Royale" with Daniel Craig. "Quantum of Solace", the newest one, is not quite so good. Our next movie together will most likely be "Blade Runner", another movie listed in the top 100. I have a feeling Christy won't make it through that either.
Watching a movie together without the kids interrupting it every few seconds had been a challenge. When we were first living in a one bedroom apartment, the kids slept in the living room, so we really had no opportunities to watch "grown up" movies. If we wanted to watch a movie, it had to be a Disney movie or some other cartoon. We now, finally, have some freedom.
The challenge I face now is trying to find movies that have Mandarin Chinese subtitles. Christy can watch movies without the subtitles, but she often has no idea what's going on. Imagine someone whose primary language isn't English, trying to watch a Woody Allen movie without subtitles. You're just better off not watching it at all.
We have a blu-ray player in our house, and many blu-ray discs now feature Chinese subtitles, but not every one. And sometimes the movie is mis-labeled. The disc will say it has Chinese subtitles, but it will actually be either Cantonese, or "simplified" Chinese, which Christy hates.
It's really hit and miss to find something with Chinese subtitles. "Batman Returns", for example, has Chinese subtitles, but the sequel "The Dark Knight" does not. Why? It's bizarre. I wrote an email to Warner Brothers and I told them that they need to include the subtitles on more of their movies. Of course, they didn't reply back. On a "Region 1" blu-ray disc, Taiwan is listed as one of the territories, so why not include Chinese subtitles on every disc?
Sometimes, even when we DO have the subtitles, Christy still doesn't share my taste in movies. I tried to get her to watch "A Clockwork Orange" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" and she couldn't make it through either one. And she hated "A Clockwork Orange", even though she only watched about 40 minutes. Then last night we watched the James Bond classic "Goldfinger", and she didn't like that either.
"Oh, this is so bad. The acting is bad. The story is stupid. And he just treats women like they are his toys." Christy said. "I like the new James Bond movies better."
To some extent, I agreed with her. "Goldfinger" has some surprisingly banal dialogue. The villain, Goldfinger, keeps James Bond alive for FAR too long, just so he can kill him in the most dramatic way possible. What is the benefit of blowing up James Bond in Fort Knox when he could have been offed much sooner? And Goldfinger just lets Bond walk around his compound leisurely, drinking martinis and having sex with his pilot. What the hell? Then the pilot, Pussy Galore, suddenly has a change of heart at the end and decides to join Bond to defeat Goldfinger. Why? Because they had sex together? Give me a break.
We printed a list of Yahoo's "100 Movies to See Before You Die", and "Goldfinger" was on that list. Personally, after just watching it, I prefer the new "Casino Royale" with Daniel Craig. "Quantum of Solace", the newest one, is not quite so good. Our next movie together will most likely be "Blade Runner", another movie listed in the top 100. I have a feeling Christy won't make it through that either.
Ken, tell me something about Clockwork Orange. I just looked it up and I'm reading that it was made in '71.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I seem to remember it being out in about '61 or 62.
The reason I remember it is that I used that movie one time when I wanted to go someplace my parents didn't approve, so I lied to them and told them I was going to a movie.
I could have sworn it was Clockwork Orange. And since I didn't really go to the movie, I had to try to find out what it was about, so I could tell them. Luckily, they didn't care, so I didn't have to do that, since I didn't get much info on the movie. I never did see it.
Now it's going to drive me nuts to not remember the correct movie. I would have sworn on a bible that it was CW.
Janet
Janet
No, it came out in 1971. It was very controversial when it came out, and I read somewhere that it was initially rated "X", and later changed to "R." It's about a gang of hoodlums running around in a futuristic version of London, raping and killing people, until the leader of the gang (played by Malcolm McDowell) is arrested. The second half of the movie is about the government trying to rehabilitate him by forcing his eyes open and making him sick at the site of violence.
ReplyDeleteI dont think that a movie can be subtitled in Cantonese as opposed to Mandarin as I believe that all Chinese languages and their dialects (Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese, etc.) use the same character system, though as you point out, the mainland uses the simplified characters while Taiwan, Hong Kong (and other parts of southern China) still use the more complex characters.
ReplyDeleteBryan said: "I dont think that a movie can be subtitled in Cantonese as opposed to Mandarin ..."
ReplyDeleteI have personally seen a distinction on DVDs. (And we are talking about subtitles here--not any kind of voice-overs.) It might have to do with humor.
Leaving English out of the discussion for a moment, you gotta figure that some nuances and 'plays on words' are possible in Cantonese, that might not directly translate into Mandarin.
We recently watched "The Simpsons Movie" subtitled in Cantonese. Even though my wife could understand most of the subtitles, there were a lot of expressions that my wife didn't understand. Cantonese is phrased differently than Mandarin.
ReplyDelete