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Movie Natters: August 24, 2006 Archive

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The news on Cruise

Posted at 2:29 PM on August 24, 2006 by Euan Kerr

The news about Paramount splitting with erstwhile golden boy Tom Cruise is the most thought-provoking gossip to come out of Tinseltown in some time. How strange that Sumner Redstone would throw out the issue of bizarre behavior as the reason for the divorce, while everyone thinks it's really because Mission Impossible III didn't make enough doh-ray-me.

In years past wouldn't the excuse have been the other way round, with a studio citing a stars lack of earning power rather than couch jumping and religious beliefs as why they must part?

And then there is the financial equation. Yes, a million here and a million there and pretty soon you are talking real money. Given that many, make that most, Hollywood films don't break even at the box office, and MI III pulled in almost $400,000,000, could the Paramount decision be wildly penny wise pound foolish?

No doubt there is more. Maybe we'll learn sometime.

Subtleties in subtitles

Posted at 3:50 PM on August 24, 2006 by Euan Kerr

Following my current interest in Chinese star Wen Jiang, I spent the evening with "Warriors of Heaven and Earth" last night, and noticed something troubling when browsing the extras on the DVD.

The translation of dialog in the subtitles in the extracts used in the "making of" featurette is markedly different from the translation of the same scenes in the film itself. There was much more detail in the featurette: names were longer, the speech more lyrical.

It was just better.

There's probably a desire to keep things simple for the folks who are about to read their way through a two hour flick. Wouldn't it be great if DVD producers used some of that extra space on the disk to provide alternate subtitles for the who want more detail?

August 2006
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