Close Encounters And Other Movie Title Translations
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
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
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...
Far East Honeymoon Videos
Let’s get this straight right now: these aren’t those sorts of honeymoon videos. If you’re here for those sorts of honeymoon videos you’re going to be disappointed. If you’re not here for those sorts of honeymoon videos then you’ll probably still be disappointed but for completely different reasons. Way, way back in 2008 I got married and went on a trip to the Far East with my wife, cruising around the South China seas on the Diamond Princess and taking in a number of stops too: China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore, and Thailand. Not long after that I wrote about our general experience of cruising, specifically as it applied to Princess Cruises in this article: Your First Princess Cruise. But what I didn’t do on this website was go into the details of the trip, share pictures, or upload video. In the lattermost case the reason for that was quite simple; I neglected to upload any videos until very, very recently. I figure seven years is a reasonable time to wait for these things. By way of getting back into the habit of occasionally updating this site and justifying its hosting costs I thought I’d take advantage of the recent video uploading spree on YouTube and share some of the filmed experiences of my honeymoon. The entire set of videos can be found in this playlist – Honeymoon, November 2008 – and it’s mostly in the right sequence except for a few at the end which had stupid dates on the files and YouTube doesn’t really make it easy to rearrange the playlist order. Some “highlights”: Short pan from on the Great Wall of China showing some of the surrounding hills and large number of tourists, mostly from China, making some form of ascent. This was part of a trip lasting just a few hours and we only had a short time on the wall itself. Bizarrely, some people who came long with us seemed more content to do some shopping at the gift shop near the base rather than engage in any climbing. Not us, though. We made the most of our time by hiking up as much as we could before needing to turn around and return to the coach. We stopped often as we ascended. It was very steep in parts. And we were very unfit. We’re still very unfit. Tiananmen Square. Very large and while we were there it filled up quite quickly with tourists, again mostly from China. Now, you would think that tourists going to Tiananmen Square might want to queue up at the mausoleum or take in the sights and, generally,...
Architectural Photography By Weronika Dudka
Weronika Dudka is a Leicester-based design student who has discovered a fondness for photographing brutalist and modernist buildings. Understandably so, as I’ve got a similar love for those particular architectural styles which more often than not meets with much shaking of the head when I express it. There’s a beauty in the geometry, symmetry, and repetition that’s hard to get across to people who can’t see past the typical colour scheme of the buildings that features more shades of grey than an E. L. James novel and very little else. There’s also a mystique to brutalism that some people don’t get as the architect’s vision is usually transformed wildly and often darkly by the social structure in which the building is located; far more so in my opinion than any other type of architecture. Enough of my waffling about the glorious gorgeousness that is brutalist architecture and onto the reason for this post, which is to showcase some of Weronika’s photos, all of which were sourced from her Tumblr page: Veronicadelica. Brutalist photography is most often dark, oppressive, and impressive, but here’s a great example of injecting colour into the shot thanks to some great reflections from the Manchester sky. And colour looks good on less brutal, more modernist architecture too as seen in this photo from Birmingham. The more familiar black and white shot now most associated with brutalist architecture photography but you can hopefully see in this photo from Sheffield how the block design resembles a monochromatic Mondrian work of art. A great example of a typical brutalist external staircase, this from a building in Sheffield. You often see these simple rectangular blocks and parallelograms forming stairwells but the curved backside is great to spot too. What’s also really nice here is the paint job which shows off the potential for just how attractive this type of architecture can look in the right setting and with the right light. A nicely-framed photo from Manchester showcasing the geometry and the contrast of angles prevalent in brutalism. Spirals, zig-zags, and long, vertical lines come together in this photo from Birmingham. A colour version of the same shot can be seen here. To finish with, Carradale House in London shot by Weronika. The building is one of Goldfinger‘s listed modernist designs. Sky bridges and narrow windows reminiscent of medieval arrowslits merge to form another wonderful piece of architecture. Check out all of Weronika’s photos as well as the things she finds inspiring...
The Crackerjack Book Of Games
Found, appropriately enough, on the always excellent Found Objects are these pictures from the 1965 Crackerjack Book of Games. Pictures on that site, yes, but no text to go with them. Fortunately, though, I’ve been able to dig out some of the game instructions. 1965 was a very different time. The Microwave Game Here’s a fun activity for all you kids whose fathers are working with one of those new-fangled industrial microwave ovens in use at all the civic cremation zones. With a friend, or if/when you don’t have a friend any longer then against the clock, see how long you can withstand the intense heat inside these miracles of modern technology. Once you’re good enough why not see whose skin can form the largest blister before it explodes and the agony of tearing skin and exposed flesh to the electromagnetic radiation becomes too much for any juvenile human to bear? The Tower Of Power You’ll need building blocks to construct towers for this game so why not pop down to Woolworths and pick up a bargain bag of Woolworths Own Brand Cups ‘N’ Discs with your earnings from scarecrowing? Gather around a table with your best friends and race against one another to build a monument that stretches towards Heaven. The winner is the first person to become filled with the Power of God and finds him or herself compelled to yell Halleluia!. Extra points if the power causes your opponents’ towers to collapse. Mind Control Here’s a game that’s both relaxing and rewarding! Can you use your telekinetic powers to get a marble to roll out of a cup and up a piece of wood? You’ll need all your powers of concentration for this but if you succeed then get your mother or father to give the local government psychic warfare recruiting offices a call and get ready for a life of intrigue and riches beyond your wildest dreams! Old Billy Old Billy is the classic family game of make-believe and dress-up brought into the sixties with a way to win! Ask your parents for permission to use their copies of The National White Person when they’ve finished memorising it for the day and dress yourself up as that boozy rascal of a tramp, Old Billy. You’ll need to stay out overnight, probably down by the canal, but if you can return home without being set alight then you win a point and it’s time for your brother or sister to see if they can do the same. Who will get the highest score? Super Sense When Britain begins its conquest of Asia in the next decade...
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