Last night the Snook and I finally saw Amelie (or as it’s known in France, Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain). It was fantastic. Seriously, go see this film. Afterwards we met up with some people from work who were asking if it was a “chick flick” or “pretentious”. No no no. It’s not that kind of French film. Sure, it has subtitles, but if it was in English and starred Julia Roberts it’d be number one at the box office and snag Jules another trophy next year. (It’d suck, though, but I’m just tryin’ to make a point about American cultural elitism.) The theater was packed, which I really didn’t expect. And everybody was laughing! We were having a great time. It’s two hours long, but to be honest I didn’t even realize that until the end. It’s hilarious, it’s sweet, it’s got some awesome effects, and it’ll make you feel happy when you leave the theater. If/when this finally gets to America, make an effort to see it. You won’t regret it.
martin
October 22, 2001 — 10:07 am
Kris, you’re gonna flame me for this but I just couldn’t resist..
“American cultural elitism” Isn’t that like an oxymoron type phrase? 🙂
And Yes Amelie is a great film. It’s strange how the last 2 films I saw were based around Montmatre….
Kris
October 22, 2001 — 10:50 am
It’s not to an American. 🙂
Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the word “cultural” though. I kinda meant an absence of culture. Americans don’t like anything challenging, which is why they won’t go to the film, even though the only challenging thing about it is that you have to read subtitles, and there aren’t even that many. That’s what I meant.
martin
October 22, 2001 — 11:37 am
Maybe they’ll remake it with Julia and base it in Greenwich village then your fellow compatriots can see it.?
Brits can be like that about subtitled films too. Funny though as you don’t notice after a while and if you ignore subtitled fims then you’d miss classics like Crouching Tiger.., Cyrano De Bergerac, Life is Beautiful etc…
Once I visited a friend in germany and we went to see a film (subtitled in German) with some of his friends and I sat next to this American guy and he said “Its been so long since I’ve seen a film in American.” Might have been slightly less ironic had it not been Trainspotting! 🙂
Kris
October 22, 2001 — 12:02 pm
Don’t give them any ideas. They’ll do it.
Never underestimate the stubbornness of idiots who dislike subtitles (or letterboxing). Nick waited to see “Crouching Tiger” until it came out on DVD so he could watch the dubbed version. I couldn’t believe it.
martin
October 22, 2001 — 12:39 pm
Errrrm. Actually the dubbed version is very well done. We watched it the 2nd time as dubbed so we could look at the movie properly.
Kris
October 22, 2001 — 12:46 pm
Meaning what, that the voices matched the characters well and lined up with their lip movements? What about the fact that dubbing actually results in changed dialogue? You have to fit in the English version in the same amount of screen time, which might mean that you have to cut out certain nuances of the text. In a subtitle you can fit more in. There was a Roger Ebert article about this somewhere, but I can’t find it right now…
martin
October 22, 2001 — 1:26 pm
As in it seemed that at least the main characters were doing their own voices and well they did seem to match quite well.
We’d already seen the subtitled version anyway so its not like we were being philistines or anything. Besides it was an option on the DVD, had it been dubbed only or subtitled only then I would have bought the subtitled only but it wasn’t and I have a choice. I think I can watch Ep1:TPM in Manchurian if I wanna! 🙂
Kris
October 22, 2001 — 2:17 pm
Yeah, I wasn’t accusing you guys. Mostly just Nick. 🙂
I finally broke down and bought the TPM DVD myself the other day. Haven’t cracked it open yet though. It should’ve included a “Phantom Edit” version… 🙂
brigita
December 30, 2001 — 10:41 pm
i just saw it! so good. the only way it could have been better would have been if i’d seen it with The Mister but then he (A) had to work today and (B) doesn’t like to “read” his movies. i seriously had to trick him into seeing CTHD…