moviePig <pwallace@moviepig.com> wrote:

> As I think I've mentioned (and I still don't know the extent of this
> practice), I've noticed that (Verizon's) ppv movies feature a
> soundtrack that constantly "re-balances" whenever there's dialogue,
> dimming out any background noise, music, etc. Since I haven't heard it
> advertised, I wonder if it's meant to reduce "unintelligible speech"
> rebates.

This is often caused by too-eager compression of audio levels,
perhaps due to "loudness wars".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
--
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Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> wrote:

>>> Because needing to read subtitles makes watch a movie utterly
>>> pointless - you're so busy trying to read what is being said that
>>> you miss all the visuals, or you try to watch the visuals and don't
>>> have any idea what they're saying.
>
> The vast majority of movie goers and TV watchers fit my desciption
> above - they simply cannot be bothered with reading lots of subtitles.

You apparently have no knowledge of eg. Chinese cinema, do you?

Besides mandarin and cantonese, China has many mutually-unintelligible
dialects/topolects and there are huge differences between spoken and
written languages. The written version (colloquially "Simplified Chinese")
however is the same all through West Taiwan. Subtitles are also required
by officials to push Mandarin/putonghua hegemony, because it does improve
literacy and to support the hard of hearing.

--
/* * * Otto J. Makela <om@iki.fi> * * * * * * * * * */
/* Phone: +358 40 765 5772, ICBM: N 60 10' E 24 55' */
/* Mail: Mechelininkatu 26 B 27, FI-00100 Helsinki */
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On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 9:04:52 AM UTC-5, Otto J. Makela wrote:

> You apparently have no knowledge of eg. Chinese cinema, do you?
>
Or that the most recent Best Picture Academy Award went to a film with subtitles. Granted, they were Korean titles but subtitles nonetheless.

On 2021-12-15 13:35:56 +0000, Otto J. Makela said:

> Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> wrote:
>
>> On 2021-12-09 09:16:15 +0000, Otto J. Makela said:
>>> Like with Tolkien (where LotR was ostensibly translated from Westron
>>> to English), most movies follow the convention of using modern
>>> English to represent whatever language the people in the story are
>>> "really" speaking.
>>> https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TranslationConvention
>>
>> Because needing to read subtitles makes watch a movie utterly
>> pointless - you're so busy trying to read what is being said that you
>> miss all the visuals, or you try to watch the visuals and don't have
>> any idea what they're saying. It's also the reason why the big movies
>> are usually dubbed in their native language in non-English countries,
>> and a few non-English movies are dubbed into English.
>
>> That's why most people simply don't bother going to things like
>> "foreign language" film festivals. The people who do go usually
>> understand the language so can ignore the subtitles. That of course
>> can't work for movies that have invented languages from other planets
>> or fantasy worlds. [...]
>
> I'm sure you'll admit yourself that your rant against subtitles has
> nothing to do with what I wrote about the "translation convention".
> Having everyone continually speak an invented language on-screen would
> of course make very little sense story-telling-wise.
<snip>

Another braindead idiot with zero reading comprehension ability for my
killfile. :-\

On 12/7/2021 3:32 PM, moviePig wrote:
> On 10/24/2021 7:39 PM, william ahearn wrote:
>> Hey,
>>
>> This isn’t a review. It’s more of an observation and I have no need to
>> get in the whole debate about this film. It looks fabulous. What threw
>> me out of the film – in about 20 minutes – is the costumes and the
>> dialog. When I was a kid and watched outer space-oriented movies from
>> Hollywood, I would wonder why the aliens or people from the future
>> dressed up as ancient Greeks. Same thing on the Star Trek TV show. In
>> this film, they look as if they studied Middle Ages paintings. And
>> that dialog is ridiculous and sounds ridiculous. What is this? Game of
>> Thrones in Space? Tired and played out notions of the future don’t get
>> better when they’re presented beautifully. All you get is a
>> gift-wrapped nothingness.
>
> Did you read the book?

It's unclear if willie can read at all. He might be using speech to
text to post here.

On 12/8/2021 7:30 PM, william ahearn wrote:
> On Tuesday, December 7, 2021 at 4:32:27 PM UTC-5, pwal...@moviepig.com wrote:
>> On 10/24/2021 7:39 PM, william ahearn wrote:
>>> Hey,
>>>
>>> This isn’t a review. It’s more of an observation and I have no need to get in the whole debate about this film. It looks fabulous. What threw me out of the film – in about 20 minutes – is the costumes and the dialog. When I was a kid and watched outer space-oriented movies from Hollywood, I would wonder why the aliens or people from the future dressed up as ancient Greeks. Same thing on the Star Trek TV show. In this film, they look as if they studied Middle Ages paintings. And that dialog is ridiculous and sounds ridiculous. What is this? Game of Thrones in Space? Tired and played out notions of the future don’t get better when they’re presented beautifully. All you get is a gift-wrapped nothingness.
>> Did you read the book?
>
> A long time ago.Not sure if I finished it.

Yeah, that tracks. I read the first three, the first one being the best.

On 12/8/2021 10:30 PM, william ahearn wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 8, 2021 at 10:27:42 PM UTC-5, pwal...@moviepig.com wrote:
>
>> Unlike GoT, DUNE was written as sci-fi blended with sincere mysticism.
>> Its empire politics stemmed from the human condition rather than plot
>> devices. I don't think it could've dispensed with the "ancient Greek"
>> pageantry and still maintained credible contact with the source
>> material. Truth be told, I'm hoping the second half will lean even
>> more into the mythos ...though I may be biased by my recall of the book.
>
> The dialog was also ridiculous. Imagining the future by looting the past never pays off.

There is no substantiation for what time frame the story occurs in, so
that's a horseshit thing to say.

On 12/15/2021 1:57 PM, william ahearn wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 9:04:52 AM UTC-5, Otto J. Makela wrote:
>
>> You apparently have no knowledge of eg. Chinese cinema, do you?
>>
> Or that the most recent Best Picture Academy Award went to a film with subtitles. Granted, they were Korean titles but subtitles nonetheless.

What about eg. subtitles? What the fuck was Hugh Masakela trying to say?

On 12/13/2021 6:53 PM, william ahearn wrote:
> On Monday, December 13, 2021 at 7:38:33 PM UTC-5, Ed Stasiak wrote:
>>> moviepig
>>>> Ed Stasiak
>>>>
>>>> A Chinese or Hispanic viewer is FAR more likely to already
>>>> understand English to some extent and will have an easier time
>>>> watching and enjoying the production (even with native subtitles
>>>> turned on) if it’s also available in English.
>>>
>>> There's probably an optimal percentage for how much of the world's
>>> language should be "non-majority", and it's probably not zero.
>> If the studio and investors want to lose money, that’s fine with me
>> but I’d suggest if you want to compete with the Hollywood behemoth,
>> the best way is to beat them at their own game by providing English
>> language productions.
>
> That's nonsense. You can't beat Hollywood at its own game without massive budgets. It's funny that the best movies are coming out of niche players.

What an odd discussion. I watch all movies with subtitles because I
don't want to miss anything if I'm not sure what was said. It doesn't
take long before they become second nature.

On 12/10/2021 5:38 PM, william ahearn wrote:
> On Friday, December 10, 2021 at 4:33:35 PM UTC-5, pwal...@moviepig.com wrote:
>
>> Well, you might get some pushback about 'irrelevant'...
>
> The pushback is about the obvious. If you check out what's happening with language in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, you'll see a movement for those indigenous peoples trying to regain their language and culture. You see the same thing with the people of the First Nation and the Canadian government. There are numerous other examples. To say that the French should make English language films because you only knew merican is a sort of passive-aggressive imperialism. Or laziness. It's the height of privilege.

Why English? I think the various countries should make deals with each
other: France makes a couple in Italian and vice versa. It would drive
moviepig nuts.

On 12/9/2021 9:35 PM, william ahearn wrote:
> On Thursday, December 9, 2021 at 10:15:20 PM UTC-5, Your Name wrote:
>> On 2021-12-10 02:07:40 +0000, william ahearn said:
>>
>>> On Thursday, December 9, 2021 at 7:31:14 PM UTC-5, Your Name wrote:
>>>> On 2021-12-09 22:04:38 +0000, william ahearn said:
>>>>> On Thursday, December 9, 2021 at 3:11:12 PM UTC-5, Your Name wrote:
>>>>>> On 2021-12-09 09:16:15 +0000, Otto J. Makela said:
>>>>>>> william ahearn <wlah...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The dialog was also ridiculous. Imagining the future by looting the
>>>>>>>> past never pays off. The only person to get it close to right was
>>>>>>>> Anthony Burgess. In the year that Dune takes place in, will contain a
>>>>>>>> language none of us will easily understand.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Like with Tolkien (where LotR was ostensibly translated from Westron to
>>>>>>> English), most movies follow the convention of using modern English to
>>>>>>> represent whatever language the people in the story are "really" speaking.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TranslationConvention
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Because needing to read subtitles makes watch a movie utterly pointless
>>>>>> - you're so busy trying to read what is being said that you miss all
>>>>>> the visuals, or you try to watch the visuals and don't have any idea
>>>>>> what they're saying. It's also the reason why the big movies are
>>>>>> usually dubbed in their native language in non-English countries, and a
>>>>>> few non-English movies are dubbed into English.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That's why most people simply don't bother going to things like
>>>>>> "foreign language" film festivals. The people who do go usually
>>>>>> understand the language so can ignore the subtitles. That of course
>>>>>> can't work for movies that have invented languages from other planets
>>>>>> or fantasy worlds.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There are some TV shows and movies that are actually filmed twice so
>>>>>> they can be released in different langauges. For example, a few UK TV
>>>>>> shows are done in both separate Welsh and English speaking versions.
>>>>>
>>>>> Different language productions have been done since the inception of
>>>>> sound movies. The rest of your post is just as ridiculous as it is
>>>>> wrong.
>>>> The vast majority of movie goers and TV watchers fit my desciption
>>>> above - they simply cannot be bothered with reading lots of subtitles.
>>>
>>> They don't but you're assuming a reason. You don't "know" shit from shinola.
>> Another brainless dried dog turd for the killfile. :-\
> Oh, please throw me in that briar patch. You add nothing to what little is here.

Don't mind that guy, he's the worst New Zealand has to offer. I'd
rather have a discussion with an actual kiwi.