Status-Q

Caught a bit of one of the Naked Gun films last night. Wonderfully silly stuff.

"Do you speak French, Lieutenant?" "Unfortunately, no. I kiss that way, though."

In general we watch almost no broadcast TV, and a very large number of movies, thanks to LoveFilm (the UK equivalent of NetFlix). When Rose told me last week that the film she had lined up was about "a guy who gets badly injured in WW1 and undergoes early reconstructive surgery", I can't say I was immediately enthusiastic. There seemed to be other, more fun, ways to spend a Friday evening after a long and tiring week.

But The Officers' Ward was, in fact, absolutely superb, with some really beautiful moments. Yes, there are some slightly gruesome bits, as you would imagine, but remarkably few, and it asks some very important questions. It won several awards and nominations in France when it came out in 2001, and rightly so, but I hadn't heard of it.

I'm glad I have now; highly recommended.

We saw The Golden Compass tonight. I'm a fan of the Philip Pullman books, and so was looking forward to this first instalment, but I knew it would have to be toned down somewhat and would be quite a challenge to bring to the screen, so I was also prepared to be disappointed.

In fact, I think they did rather a good job, and it would have been splendid but for one major problem: It should have been at least one and a half times as long. Everything, I felt, was exceedingly rushed. They had already simplified things for a younger audience -- I really think the books are aimed more at adults -- but an hour and three quarters was still too short for any detailed explanation of, or subtlety in, what was left. The Harry Potter films were given much more footage in which to develop infinitely inferior stories, and the second Pirates of the Caribbean was long enough for me to fall asleep at least twice.

Still, the effects here were impressive, the casting was good, and I certainly enjoyed it. Other young children will no doubt feel the same!

Perhaps the Lord of the Rings has spoiled me; Pullman is certainly no Tolkien, but New Line has shown what can be done with good stories if you have an extra hour or two to play with. In the end, I imagine, this was a more risky project, so the level of funding probably wasn't the same, and there's enough CGI that the costs must have been heavily dependent on the length.

But I hope they at least follow the LOTR model in producing a dramatically extended version for the DVD.

A couple more shots of the boat used as the Venture in Peter Jackson's King Kong. I wasn't a huge fan of the film, but the boat made for interesting arty photographs.

Most of the rust was painted on for the film, by the way.

And now for some lights on the Wellington waterfront:

There are some really beautiful woods just outside Wellington.

I was on a tour visiting some of the sites used in filming the Lord of the Rings movies. Fans should picture Frodo yelling "Get off the road!":

or me saying "Ooof! I think I broke something!":

Mmm. One of the good things about being on the far side of the world is that you don't have to endure your friends' pitying looks.

Others won't have a clue what I'm talking about and should just enjoy the views of Wellington scenery:

Or this fine bust of Arthur Wellesley looking out over the city that bears his name:

This is Weta Workshop, where much of the LOTR magic was created:

And the boat used in King Kong:

Rose found this nice report in the IMDB news:

Efforts by overseas film distributors to cut costs by outsourcing subtitle translations to such countries as India and Malaysia have resulted in creating dialog that makes little sense to local audiences, according to today's (Monday) London Times. The newspaper observed that translators with little understanding of the nuances of English are taking the place of British subtitlers, many with long careers in the business. Kenn Nakata Steffenson, who translates English films into Danish and Japanese films into English, cited one film in which the line "Jim is a Vietnam vet" became "Jim is veterinarian from Vietnam" in the farmed-out Danish subtitles. In another film, the words "flying into an asteroid field" became "flying into a steroid field." In yet another, "She died in a freak rugby accident" became "She died in a rugby match for people with deformities." In My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Uma Thurman's line, "We have a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment" was translated into Taiwanese as "We hold the highest standards for sexual harassment." The Times said that Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro was so upset with the English subtitles for his 2001 film The Devil's Backbone that he himself worked on the subtitles for last year's award-winning Pan's Labyrinth.

I remember watching one of the Die Hard movies in Malaysia, where the censor had been hard at work, especially on Bruce Willis's stronger language, simply by cutting and splicing the film. I particularly recall one of the less subtle bits of editing where Willis turns to another character and says, "Yeah? Well I've got two words for you. Off!"

I must confess I felt that the last Bond film was evidence that the franchise was in terminal decline, and after seeing it decided I probably wouldn't bother with any future ones.

But then, through a slight connection with a charity of which Judi Dench is a patron, we had a chance to get early preview tickets for Casino Royale, and went to see it tonight. And I have to say that my faith has been restored. This is not just a significant improvement on the last couple of movies - I think it could qualify as one of the best of the bunch.

It's rather more serious than most Bond films because they've cut much of the buffoonery. Fond as I am of John Cleese, for example, I always thought him a little out of place, and wasn't sad to lose him. The acting is good and the script well above average; chiefly, perhaps, because it is remarkably close to Fleming's original story.

Recommended.

As an aside, though, every time I've been to a film in the last few years I've found them almost painfully loud, with the exception of those in our local arts picturehouse. Does that just mean I'm getting old, or is the volume creeping ever upwards? I'm going to try and borrow a decibel meter from somebody next time I go. In the meantime, it's just one more reason to watch things at home. Perhaps the cinemas think that demonstrating the power of their amplifiers is a way to emphasise their difference from home cinema. Well, it worked, but not quite in the way they wanted!

The Prestige. Saw it last night. Loved it. Recommended.

We watched "The Spanish Prisoner" last night. I've been a fan of David Mamet's since seeing, buying and watching several times his version of The Winslow Boy. The Spanish Prisoner comes halfway between that and The Usual Suspects! Both recommended, if you don't know them.

Mamet's wife, Rebecca Pidgeon, stars in both films, with a somewhat less flattering coiffure than shown here. Her acting style (or perhaps it's more his directing style) is a little unusual, but I think she's great.