Seen any good films lately?

I don't think it's that American audiences are too stupid to read subtitles, but more that they are (or are feared to be) too stubborn to read them. There is a strong bias towards the English language for a lot of American (especially white middle-class Americans). I think this ties into a general distrust of people who come to American but don't speak English (or "American" ) in a lot of U.S. society. That's speculation but I think there's something to it. However, in my experience, dedicated American movie-lovers are as willing to overlook subtitles as any other country's cinephiles.

I think stupid is far from the mark, but certainly laziness figures into the equation, especially during theatrical release when people have paid good money to see a movie for entertainment, and often prefer to be pampered.

I remember back in the 80's when "The Mission" had done well in limited art house release (I loved it, by the way). They gave it a grand general release with major TV ads, talk show appearances etc. but it bombed. I was in the audience one night when probably 1/3 walked out in a huff. Not that they couldn't follow it, it's just that they thought they'd paid for an action adventure and they were not interested in being challenged on several levels at once.

The distributors learned their lesson. A few years later when Das Boot became a big art house hit, they did a major re-dub into English before the general release. It did very well.

Of course not everybody feels this way, but it's common enough that standard wisdom is to NEVER take a date to a foreign language film until you know each other very, very well.

I've found this to be sound advice.

Das Boot dubbed!!!! Oh dear America. I hate, loathe get extremely crabbit over dubbing. Give me subtitles every time. I refused to watch Troll Hunter until I could get a subtitled version.

Is troll hunter dubbed O___O

First version I went to watch was- I switched it off soon as I realised there was no subtitle option. The version I eventually saw however was subtitled thank Eru.

wisely done

Didn't want to miss out on that Nordic twang! Besides I enjoy hearing how close many of the sounds in our languages are and in our accents- theres been a fair bit of cross pollination over the centuries and if you listen carefully you can still hear it.

really! how cool. I've heard that the northen norwegain "melody in speakin" is very similar to the scottish "melody of speaking", so we can talk scottish quite easily if we want to. I've heard

There's a dubbed version of troll hunter? Sell outs...

Have you seen Rare Exports? Finnish movie. Good stuff!

I find that with enough buckie my ability to speak other languages is hugely increased.

Not seen Rare Exports- will have to go look it up.

It's good to watch around Christmas time, gives you a new perspective on things.
There might be a pure Finnish version too. The one we saw was in English (not dubbed), with a bit of Finnish in between. I don't understand a word of Finnish. http://www.rareexportsmovie.com/

"I don't understand a word of Finnish."- Amarie

You must need more buckie then.

I don't know if its from watching very badly dubbed martial arts films in the 70's or that I just find the out of synchness of dubbing too annoying, but I just cant watch a dubbed film any more. Always go with the subtitle option or simply dont watch.

Just back from seeing the women in black. Solid thriller and probably one of the scarier 12a flicks floating around at the mo. Radcliffe still only had that one expres​sion(with slight variations of pleasure and fear) but hand on heart I think he's slowly improving. I enjoyed the film.

I'm looking forward to this movie: Kon-Tiki. Thor Heyerdahl has been a hero to me since I was a little girl. (And they have captured his dreadful accent perfectly!)

I want to see that movie sooo badly!!

Looks very interesting indeed- on the other hand could be three hours of 1 man on 5ft square of wood growing a beard slowly!

More like 5 men fighting sharks and such. And it's a true story.

Fighting sharks- well they were kind of asking for it rafting across shark infested waters- what did they think was going to happen?

I am quite sure they knew there would be sharks before they left. They expected to prove a theory and possibly die trying.

Just watched The Eagle, 5000 romans go missing in Scotland. Hadrian builds the wall because of the devastating loss.
The lost Captains son goes to Scotland with his slave to recapture the Standard (The Eagle)
Quite a good film, i enjoyed it.

If you watch it Petty, make sure you watch the extras (the making of the eagle) Some great scenery of Scotland.

Its a wild and lonely place.

It's been awhile since I’ve read The Eagle of the Ninth but if I remember correctly it's a really close adaptation to the book! It's a lovely Roman adventure, and a great film/book!

saw Blueberry with Juliette lewis and loads of top flight European actors. its one of the most beautiful and visually arresting films I have seen in a very very very long time

Mrs Figg posted Solomon Kane images in another thread. I'm wondering what folks here think of it. I don't think we'll get it in North America for a few months or years. The Ways of Hollywood are Mystery.

I'll confess I'm looking forward to it with a little dread. I was a big R E Howard fan back in my testosterone-driven youth, but I've always been disappointed whenever they've tried to "adapt" his stories to film. They always put in too much plot!

Well I dont want to post any spoilers but I did like the actor who played Solomon, he did a good job with what he was given. The calibre of actors was high, like the Late Great Pete Postlethwaite, The visuals were great, and the story very interesting, but in the hands of a better director it could have been much better and less cliche, but on the whole I liked it, if you dont take it too seriously.

That actually sound quite promising. Howard's stories are from pulp fiction magazines which is part of their charm, so they would lose a lot if they didn't have a bit of a cheesy flavor