Movie of the Week

[rumint]

Our expectations at this time of year at the movie theatre are low, it being the graveyard turn between oscar season (Ben Button, Slumdawg etc) and the start of the summer blockbusters (Watchmen), hence we were very pleasantly surprised last night by 'The International'. Clive Owen & Naomi Watts were as watchable as ever plus the script and

Comments

[anonymous]

Thanks for the mini-review; adds to my desire to see it.

Unfortunately, it'll probably have to wait until DVD. That's because I'm presently in Germany. Unlike Belgium, where cinema is typically in the original language, with FR & NL sub-titles, films shown on the German circuit are all dubbed. This is very tedious, not least because dubbing often significantly changes the meaning. This fixation on dubbing _everything_ (including TV material) means that Germans' language skills are much less good than their smaller neighbours' - Dutch, Belgians, Danes.
Germans typically appear to Anglophones to speak very good English, for example, but most don't really (despite usually having had it at school since the age of 7 or 8) and even public notices in English are frequently error-ridden. The Germans you encounter on a day-to-day basis outside of Germany are really the cream of the linguistic crop.

Having said all that, I might catch the film if it's still on when I get to Blighty.

XXiii

IBBC

[anonymous]

Saw it tonight. Despite some small niggles (the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul is actually open to the public and nowhere near the Topkapi Palace), it was great. The shoot-out in the Guggenheim was particularly atmospheric.

pK.