h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I started reading Les Mis as it was free on Kindle.

Gave up at the beginning of a four page monologue. I can't stand long monologues.

The only two versions I know are a TV film they made several years back (with Depardieu and Malkovitch), and an audio version that my parents had (still have, presumably) on a *vinyl* disc. I used to love it and listen to it all the time when I was... oh, ten? eleven?

I'd like to see the movie when it's out * (next month, I think, here), but if they only provide the French *dubbed* version, that's a definite no-no.
I already had to endure the Hobbit dubbed in French.



* Come on, Wolverine, Catwoman, and Maximus together? Who could resist?

I think I would only watch it if it were dubbed into an interesting language... Say, Klingon?

Honestly, what's the point of dubbing a musical?
Either you have to translate the songs too (and it's awful), or you have to have dialogue in French, and singing in English (and it's awful).


Klingon, though.... I could see that working pretty well.

Heh-heh, yeah, a whole different opera...

I know what you mean about dubbing. For years, all films in German used the same dozen voice actors...John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart sounded exactly alike.

The thing that always throws me about dubbing:

You never really think about it, but in a film if someone's far away from camera, their voice is correspondingly quiet, and gets louder as they get nearer. When it's dubbed, though, the volume of the dialogue just remains constant all the time. For me it totally shatters the illusion of what you're seeing on-screen.

I agree.

Also, if you remove the voices for dubbing, then I guess you're removing all the background noises - doors shutting, traffic, rustling sounds etc - and these sounds then have to be recreated along with the new voices, which I suppose is why dubbed films often sound so empty.

I haven't come across a dubbed foreign film in the UK for some years - it seems to be pretty firmly subtitles now, which is a lot better. The best I've seen is Timur Berkmambatov's Night Watch, where the subtitles are made to be part of the film.

">>This regression to the 19th century has given the English language a new word, "Emo,"<< I don't understand, what has that word got to do with the 19th century? [Quotes]

I think you're probably right not to see a connection. I was assuming that Gothic and Emo were somehow connected -- there is, after all, an expression "Gothic emo." Turns out the two words don't belong together, as they are quite different. Sorry.

The popularity of Gothicness seemed very much like a return to motifs and themes popular in the 19th century.

An online Thesaurus gives this for the word "Gothic:"

gothic - characterized by gloom and mystery and the grotesque; "gothic novels like `Frankenstein'"
literature - creative writing of recognized artistic value
strange, unusual - being definitely out of the ordinary and unexpected; slightly odd or even a bit weird; "a strange exaltation that was indefinable"; "a strange fantastical mind"; "what a strange sense of humor she has"

Gloom and misery? There's a lot of that in "Les Miserables" and numerous other 19th century literary warhorses -- think the dark, shadowy houses in much of Dickens. The grotesque? How about the Hunchbach of Notre Dame? Frankenstein's monster was nothing if not grotesque, as were Dracula and the Phantom of the Opera. A bit weird? Well, much of Poe might arguably deserve that adjective.

Think about it: the Gothic subculture seemed to spring up at around the same time that 19th century literary warhorses were suddenly being resurrected and reimagined, a century or more after their original heydays. I'm painting this with a broad brush, based on vonnextions I've noticed, having lived through that period. I'm not trying to write a cultural history or defend a master's thesis. I just think I saw a cultural mindset shift.

Poe was one of H.P. Lovecraft's main influences, and Lovecraft identified his genre as "weird fiction", so yes.

Peanut


Well, it was by Joss Whedon and was a work of genius - the way he moved along three(?) plots in one episode just by having the characters tell the truth and not be able to help it...superb stuff.

Sadly, I have the DVD of it, the CD and the sheet music book of the episode...

Emos are arguably a subcategory of goths, though many goths would be likely to deny that. Both are hard words to define, but the illustrations here might help: http://gothsuptrees.net/.

TRiG.

Cf. http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=goats%20up%20trees

The Goths up trees - what a wonderful site. Wow. Elektra says, 'Who knew?'

We're fascinated.

I can't remember exactly who or where it was, but I know it was h2g2 which found me that site in the first place. Someone here posted a link to it.

TRiG.

I watched some of the Golden Globes ceremony last night, in which Les Miserables won many awards - or, as Hugh Jackman pronounced it, Les Miserab.

What happened to the "L" at the end? Dustin Hoffman later tried to say it and got Les MiseraBUH. Still no L.

If I ever do stand-up comedy, I want to be Les Miserable

"Emos are arguably a subcategory of goths"

Here's the argument.

Emo is more accurately a subcategory of punk, as it developed from the Washington DC hardcore scene in the mid-80s. It just so happens it hit the mainstream at about the same time as some of the bands took to wearing eyeliner and dropped some of the harder elements of their music. A few years earlier and it would have been all bowl haircuts and tight jumpers.

There's a town called Emo about 50 miles from where I live. There's a petrol company called Emo Oil who operate from there and have Emo petrol stations all around the midlands.

"If I ever do stand-up comedy, I want to be Les Miserable" [Icy North]

I don't want to think about the muzak at the Emo Petrol Station.