Close Encounters And Other Movie Title Translations

Posted By Mark on Sep 3, 2015

I happened upon an old Japanese poster for the science fiction movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind recently (pictured below) and was pleased to see it contained the title that the film was released under in Japan. If you’re not familiar with the Japanese language then it roughly says “The aliens who keep stealing our stuff are back” which, I think you’ll agree, is a much more descriptive title for the immensely flawed (yet enjoyable) film. Close Encounters isn’t the only film with a better title in a foreign market release. Here are a few others you might already know: 1972’s science fiction movie Silent Running was known in Iceland as Crazy Space Gardener. The distributors of 1980’s Caddyshack in Portugal knew they’d get better attendance with a film called Disruptive Golf Course Rodent. Also from 1980, the comedy 9 To 5 became known in Saudi Arabia as This Is Why Women Should Not Work In Offices. Fantastic Voyage was given a 1966 release in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) as Very Small Donald Pleasence Movie. It was the same reverence for the actor that also saw Upper Volta give a 1980 release for The Pumaman as Donald Pleasence Versus The Flying Man And The Giant. The excellent 1982 Steve Martin movie Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid has a wonderfully surreal title in English but in Nepalese it makes far more sense as Monochromatic Film With Most Amusing Coffee-Making Scene. In 1989 the modern classic Road House was released and the following year saw the film make an appearance in Honduras as Incompetent Doorman Keeps Getting Employed. The distributors of Afghanistan were obviously a little confused with Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris in 1972, hence the title of its limited release, Not Entirely Certain What Is Happening Outer Space Film. Of course, you can’t have a list of oddly-translated movie titles without including (and finishing off with) 1977’s surprise hit, Star Wars. In Lesotho: The Princess In The Sky Ball. In Tonga: Colourful Sword Warriors In Space. In Czechoslovakia: Gold Robot And White Robot In Robot Story. And, finally, in Guyana, demonstrating that sometimes cinema distributors just use the posters as guidelines: White Couple Erotic Adventures In The Great Black...

Compute! Full Page Adverts

Posted By Mark on Sep 1, 2015

I never collected Compute! magazine – there were computer magazines better suited to my Sinclair ZX Spectrum – but happening upon the Compute! Magazine Archive online brought back warm memories of listings, technical talk (some of which is still beyond my understanding and I’ve worked in the industry for decades), and wonderful adverts. It’s probably because I’ve not been as interested in other subjects in quite the same way I’ve been interested in computers (although, again, decades of working in the industry does take some of that shine off it all) but computer magazine adverts hold a fascination that adverts today don’t. If marketing people could take a piece of that charm from old adverts and inject them into modern attempts to track us and get us buying stuff we don’t need I might even consider whitelisting some of the sites. Probably not. Anyway, here’s a selection of full page adverts, some good, some less so, all just lovely anyway. An office at United Microware’s game division headquarters: “Gentlemen, it’s time to market our games. It’s time to market the hell out of them!” “Which games are these again, Jeff?” “It’s mostly our exceptional science fiction games, Ted. Meteor Run, Alien Blitz, and so on.” “Gotcha! What’s our strategy?” “Ginger-haired female clown looking quite surprised that there’s a pile of computer games under her hand.” “Your wife’s a clown, isn’t she?” “What of it?” “She’s a redhead too, isn’t she?” “And? What are you trying to say?” “Nothing. Nothing. I’m completely on board with this marketing approach.” Great, colourful artwork, a sci-fi theme, and a subtle message, easily missed completely, that this game might – only might, mind you – contain hyperspikes. Hyperspikes! Fair play to Small Systems Engineering for grabbing my attention and getting me excited for… a BASIC compiler! You can sort things at lightning speed! That’s the power of bald, grumpy-looking aliens who’ve been working out and can squeeze into their power armour. A great piece of advertising here evoking thoughts of a thrilling cinema experience in what you know is probably a disappointing 2D block graphics lump of misery. Still, there’s all the thrill of the nighttime game mode where your car has to avoid the ghosts. I guess they can clog up the demister or something. Then it’s blurry viewing and a traffic stop for driving without due care and attention. And ghosticide, which is a real crime. An office at Mimic System Inc’s software division headquarters: “People want to emulate an Apple II+ on their Commodore 64 and now, thanks to us, they can!” “Hoorah!” “Next step! Advertising. And I think you’ll like...

Photography By David Stewart

Posted By Mark on Aug 25, 2015

There’s a very distinctive style to David Stewart‘s photography – especially the pictures of his that really caught my eye, anyway – and that’s one of very staged, very clean, very coordinated, very well lit, often very static shots, with occasional touches of humour or absurdity. Click on the photos below to view the images in their full glory on David’s site, along with a great many others. Four beautiful books of his photos are also available to...

Vintage Japanese Travel Posters

Posted By Mark on Aug 22, 2015

Is there anything the Japanese can’t do and somehow make a little bit weird? That’s a rhetorical question, of course. Boosting travel to a country whilst standing out from the crowd of other countries also trying to boost travel is a tricky business but Japan certainly seemed to have a flair for it with this series of posters from the early-to-mid twentieth century promoting their nation as the destination of choice for travellers looking for something a little bit different. There’s a wonderful stylishness in the artwork and they’re certain to have stopped would-be vacationers in their tracks whilst perusing the local travel agent...

Dreamcatcher

Posted By Mark on Aug 19, 2015