Category: huh

More Spaceballs 2

Loose Cannons Poster

I posted last week about the Italian “sequel” to Spaceballs, Balle Spaziali 2 – La vendetta. In the comments, friend of the site bmj2k, of Mr Blog’s Tepid Ride, suggested I ask a mutual acquaintance (Mac, a musician and occasional alien) from the Relic Radio OTR forums, who happens to be Italian, if he had any insight into the hows and whys of Italy’s fake sequels.
Here’s what he had to say:

OK, let’s see if I can explain the horrible mess Italian distributors make (or used to make, as now there’s more information regarding films even before they are released here)…

For instance:

1 – the title gets changed in order to exploit the success of another film that has nothing to do with it. Around 20 years ago, a film called “Four-legged policemen” (I have no idea what the original title was, police dogs were the stars, I suppose) obtained some success over here. Soon afterwards, the film “Loose Cannons” was imported; while nothing else was changed, the title became “Two-legged policemen”. Invariably, the result of this kind of operation is that the few people who go see the movie are disappointed because it’s not a sequel at all and tell their friends not to go see it. The rest of the movie-going population who didn’t like the “first” film, do not go see the alleged sequel because they’re not interested. The result is – every freakin’ time – a complete flop. So why they keep/kept doing it, is way beyond me.

2 – the film is judged not interesting enough for the Italian audience, so – thanks to the devastating magic of dubbing – the whole film gets changed. Examples:

A dramatic film on cavemen and dinosaurs (from the 60’s) that didn’t have any dialogs (might be one million years bc, but I’m not sure) was turned into a supposedly funny film by having a guy talking over the whole film making what were supposed to be humorous comments on every scene. The result was depressing to say the least. The hilarious “Shaolin soccer” (which I saw in its original language with fairly correct English subtitles and really made me roll on the floor) was turned into the worst smelling cr*p I’ve ever seen by having it dubbed by famous soccer players who couldn’t act to save their humongous bank accounts and by using local (Italian) dialects, not to mention what was done to the original lines. Again, this kind of thing results in abismally unsuccessful films, so why they keep/kept doing it, is way beyond me.

There’s a lot more, but I guess you got the general idea.

I love the idea of famous soccer players dubbing Shaolin Soccer – it almost makes me want to see The Mighty Ducks dubbed by mush mouthed athletes from the NHL, or A League Of Their Own dubbed entirely by the starting line-up of the NY Yankees.
A League Of Their Own

After bmj2k questioned the legality of such a move, Mac added:

Because the title was in Italian (Balle Spaziali, where balls may mean both “lies” or “testicles” as in English – how refined…), so the rights are probably with the Italian distributor or whatever.

Copyrights are the craziest thing.

Regarding The Dutch

I recently learned that the Dutch weren’t big on surnames until Napoleon came through in 1811, conquering and forcing people to do paperwork. Until then they’d utilized patronymics – using their Father’s name as their own last name – or occasionally just the attachment of a profession or physical attribute: Abel The Baker, Jans The Friggin’ Huge, etc.

Once Napoleon arrived, he forced everyone to register their names in the format utilized by the French. Many of the Dutch thought the registry would be quickly forgotten, so they opted for comical names – allowing me to link to this fantastic example table from wikipedia.

Dutch surname Explanation English
De Keizer probably a wordplay on Napoleon when people registered their name; Who are you? I’m the emperor. Lit. “emperor”.
Rotmensen rot, adjective meaning “rotten” + mensen “people” Lit. “rotten people”.
Poepjes poep, noun meaning “poo/feces”, + jes plural diminutive Lit. “excrement; poopie”.
Piest piest, third-person singular form of the verb piesen meaning “to urinate/to piss” (He/She/It)“pisses/urinates”
Naaktgeboren naakt, adjective meaning “naked”, + geboren meaning “born” Lit. “born naked”
Zeldenthuis zelden, adverb meaning “seldom”, + thuismeaning “at home” Lit. “seldom at home”

Body Snatcher

Not to purposefully continue the morbidity today, but: this story, about a fellow who runs a free ambulance in Bangkok, caught my eye.

We’re called the “body snatchers” by locals. After a year or so I began working in the rescue vehicles collecting the dead from all over Bangkok and Thailand. I’ve being doing it ever since. – CNN

Body Snatcher? I know what he’d be called if he were here in North America.

(Hint: Socialist.)
It oughta be 'hero'.Image from CNN.com

He has a website up, which collects donations to replace his former ambulance.

MMR Vaccine & Autism

This comic is a fantastic overview of the “Mumps, Measles, & Rubella Vaccine Vs. Autism” situation.

Wakefield & MMR

It’s my feeling that a lot of the needle-hysteria that went around during last winter’s H5N1 scare was born out of the paranoia that Wakefield and his followers have fostered – if it hasn’t happened already, it’s just a matter of time before this kind of Luddism gets some sick kid killed.

Even if you don’t know anything about the issue, I encourage you to check out the piece: consider it a mental vaccination against a particularly vicious strain of bunko.

(A tip o’ the bowler to forgetomori for the original link.)

Dead TIME Quotes

Just a couple of random quotes from one of the more interesting TIME pieces (article might be stretching it) I’ve read lately.

The theft of Santa’s bones is still celebrated in Bari with an annual parade and fireworks.

Forty-three years later, Mussolini’s granddaughter Alessandro tipped off police that someone was selling glass vials alleged to hold the remaining brains and blood of Mussolini on eBay for 15,000 Euros. eBay promptly removed the listing.

People have been fixated on Napoleon’s penis … [it] has been compared over the years to a piece of leather, a shriveled eel and to beef jerky.

Fordlândia

Fordlandia, photographed in 2003 by Meg Belichick.Fordlandia, photographed in 2003 by Meg Belichick.

In 1928 Henry Ford, looking to cut costs, decided to do something about the high price of rubber: he bought his own mini-nation.

Ford intended to use Fordlândia to provide his company with a source of rubber for the tires on Ford cars, avoiding the dependence on British (Malayan) rubber. The land was hilly, rocky and infertile. None of Ford’s managers had the requisite knowledge of tropical agriculture. The rubber trees, packed closely together in plantations, as opposed to being widely spaced in the jungle, were easy prey for tree blight and insects[…]. The mostly indigenous workers on the plantations, given unfamiliar food such as hamburgers and forced to live in American-style housing, disliked the way they were treated — they had to wearID badges, and to work midday hours under the tropical sun — and would often refuse to work. In 1930, the native workers revolted against the managers, many of whom fled into the jungle for a few days until the Brazilian Army arrived and the revolt ended. – wikipedia

Oddly, if he’d actually succeeded in starting a modern round of corporate colonization his fiefdoms would probably look very much like a heavily enforced version of ‘The Ideal American Home’ of the 1950s, with sobriety and hamburger sammiches for everybody. Even the reality of the Ford “Sociological Department” was tough enough to live under, the idea of the Ford Ministry of Sociology seems like it would be a 1984 caricature.

At least until the labourers were “liberated” by a General Electric tank battalion.

The Latest Last Supper

The Last Snack by Tom Altany

From an LA Times article:

In a bid to uncover the roots of super-sized American fare, a pair of sibling scholars has turned to an unusual source: 52 artists’ renderings of the New Testament’s Last Supper.

…

Using the size of the diners’ heads as a basis for comparison, the Wansinks used computers to compare the sizes of the plates in front of the apostles, the food servings on those plates and the bread on the table.

…

Over the course of the millennium, the Wansinks found that the entrees depicted on the plates laid before Jesus’ followers grew by about 70%, and the bread by 23%.

As entree portions rose, so too did the size of the plates — by 65.6%.

A predictable result to a neat approach for a study, but it’s my terrible fear that all this proves is the ongoing shrinking of the human head.

I’ve always found the concept of the last supper an interesting choice as the last major signpost before Jesus’ imprisonment and death – that it’s not some burning bush or tripped-out series of doomsday prophecies, just a simple round of mastication.