221B Baker Street wrote:

ancientsgate wrote:

We Americans don't have an in-pouring of movies and TV from other countries-- we get a tiny bit from Britain, but that's all. There are some foreign films released here, with subtitles or voice overs, but not many. So we don't get to "see" people from other countries, except as I say a bit from Britain, the way you guys get to see us in entertainment vehicles. I wish we could.

I'm a little bit surprised at that, as we have a huge amount of imported films all over the world. Most of the films I watch are produced in Britain and America, sometimes France, as I don't like Russian films that much. Perhaps USA has some kind of 'not-let-foreign-films-in' policy?

I disagree with that. My Netflix queue is probably 80% foreign films and I own hard copies of several. The thing is that most of them don't play at the local movie theater chains, and so people think they aren't here. It is my opinion that they just aren't looking. I have two small, independent theaters in my town that play foreign films quite a bit. So they're definitely here, and in abundance, but most Americans don't think beyond the next installment of the Spider-Man franchise so they miss them.

LoveBug54 wrote:

Banbha wrote:

Oh, we have Jeremy Kyle. I've never watched the show though. We have far to many trash talk shows and "real" life court shows. Although, Andrew Scott said that he appreciated a little Judge Judy after dealing with a heavy Ibsen play all day. Judge Judy doesn't suffer fools.

You have Judge Judy? Man, I would NOT want to get on her wrong side!

Yes we do. And I agree with you; she's a tough cookie.

Banbha wrote:

[ My Netflix queue is probably 80% foreign films and I own hard copies of several. The thing is that most of them don't play at the local movie theater chains, and so people think they aren't here. It is my opinion that they just aren't looking. I have two small, independent theaters in my town that play foreign films quite a bit. So they're definitely here, and in abundance, but most Americans don't think beyond the next installment of the Spider-Man franchise so they miss them.

You have to search them out-- you only confirm my point. They're there, but you have to look. You have to be patient with subtitles and voice-overs, which not everyone is. You have to pay extra (like with the NetFlix service, or with cable premium channels).  Big Business Movie-Making in Hollywood skews to the male 18-35 crowd, since that's where the $$$ are to be had-- and let's face it, the big studios are into making big bucks. I wouldn't blame the American public for that-- we're not stupid or uneducated or generally speaking shallow, IMO. But we live in a capitalistic society where the almighty dollar is king, so....  yes, we can find that "fine wine" of movie-making if we look, but just as fine wine is not available in the grocery store for $5 a bottle, a good French flick is not available at most mall cinemas for $8 a ticket.

Reading subtitles takes effort. Amelie was fairly big over here. A few of my other faves (and I'm sorry, I'm not typing accents in where appropriate) were Y Tu Mama Tambien, The Motorcycle Diaries, and Amorres Perros. I kind of had a thing for Gael Garcia Bernal for a while there.

Okay, I apologize for steering away from movies, but I have a question. I was recently reading an article about redheads. Basically, the science of ancestry (genetic incidence) and history. Much of the history part was how redheads were perceived--basically as being from the devil--and how they're perceived today. I read that The UK and Ireland have the highest percentages and that there is also some big discrimination of redheads. An example given in the article was a person who was stabbed in the back because they had red hair and...there were other examples but I can't remember them. My question is what is the perception (from your perspective), and why is it the case? I'm very curious.

By the way, if you weren't aware, I have loads of red, curly hair on my head. I look like Merida from "Brave" when my hair is down.

Last edited by Banbha (September 5, 2012 12:46 pm)

Let's start a separate red-heads thread. Can you post in the thread I am about to make? It is an interesting topic.


Ok, made a new thread called The Red-headed League. Still in Other section.

Last edited by Davina (September 5, 2012 1:16 pm)