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One of the problems with being an incurable movies/animation/comics fan is the knowledge of all the wonderful projects that I'll most likely never see, since they'll get North American distribution on the 10th of Never!
Take this teaser for Asterix at the Olympic Games. Based on the internationally best-selling graphic novel. It's one of the most lavish European films ever made. It also looks funny as heck!
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Goro Miyazaki's Tales From Earthsea won't be seen in North America until after 2009, thanks to that crappy Sci-Fi Channel miniseries.
Of course, LeGuin has blasted it as being (in its way) just another ill-made, misguided misrepresentation of her fantasy-world, with only a couple of minor details that she enjoyed.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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For what it's worth, the last two live action Asterix films were not that good. Well, the first one (Asterix & Obelix Against Caesar) was total crap, probably one of the worst films I've ever seen. The second one (Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra) was watchable, and even surprisingly inventive at places, but sadly it couldn't sustain the fun all the way through.
They changed the entire cast apart from Asterix and Obelix between the first two films, and now it seems Gerard Depardieu as Obelix is the only actor they've kept from the second film. I have to admit I'm slightly excited to see Alain Delon as Julius Caesar in this new film.
The Goro Miyazaki Earthsea film is supposed to be extremely bad, I don't think I've seen a single good review of it.
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Ah man, my dad owns a ton of the Asterix graphic novels! I read them all the time when I was younger, until he yelled at me because they're "collector's items." Then I just read them when he wasn't around.
They are pretty fun, and they helped with my general knowledge of history. The majority of the times I've gotten into history arguments with someone using knowledge from the Asterix series, the series was found to be correct.
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That looked pretty funny. I didn't know that big style movies were made elsewhere - I must seem like such a jingoist, but it always seemed to me that America made all the big motion pictures.
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All I know about Asterix and Obelix is that those were the names of the characters in the horrible animated videos we had to watch in high school Latin class. I still don't know why we were forced to sit through those things, except perhaps that they were set in a time when Latin was not yet a dead language. Am I thinking of the same characters?
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If you're referring to the cartoons I think you are, most Asterix fans on both sides of the world will agree with you: Those old cartoons were terrible! Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:That looked pretty funny. I didn't know that big style movies were made elsewhere - I must seem like such a jingoist, but it always seemed to me that America made all the big motion pictures.
If you're interested in knowing about other big-style movies made outside the U.S.:
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Oh, yeah. The world over has big budget flicks.
The world over also has a liking for popcorn flicks...which tend to do great business internationally. (Think of EON Film's James Bond series, currently done in co-production with MGM.)
Akira Kurosawa's films are highly recommended.
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quote:That looked pretty funny. I didn't know that big style movies were made elsewhere - I must seem like such a jingoist, but it always seemed to me that America made all the big motion pictures.
Forgive me, but- what a limited worldview. I'm glad you are now enlightened. Consider going to an international film festival and seeing some non-American films.
About the film: Wow... I doubt it could be done in English or by an English-speaking country, but I think it's actually going to work, at least on some level. I laughed, and I was in my most critical mode watching the trailer.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Well, you can order the DVDs on Amazon, but be sure that your machine can play non-Region 1 discs.
In other words, if your DVD player and TV are from Europe and/or the UK, you'd be able to actually -watch- the darn thing.
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quote:In other words, if your DVD player and TV are from Europe and/or the UK, you'd be able to actually -watch- the darn thing.
The internet can help. Since my family has about equal parts UK/North American DVDs we have the players switched to Region 0 (all regions) via codes/instructions available on the internet. Not sure if this is true of all players, but considering the way you can't get a lot of stuff in one country or another, I think it's perfectly fair: we already have to own double video players or the really expensive kind that play both.
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That's why I plan to buy a cheap DVD player in the UK. I already have my laptop for region 1 dics.
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quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: If you're referring to the cartoons I think you are, most Asterix fans on both sides of the world will agree with you: Those old cartoons were terrible!
I beg to differ. Or rather, it depends on which cartoon films you mean.
I'd say the two cartoon films made in the 60's were pretty bad, and the ones made in the 80's and 90's have been, not bad necessarily but rather boringly average. On the same level with the live action films, I think.
But in the middle there was The Twelve Tasks of Asterix released in 1976, co-written and co-directed by Goscinny and Uderzo themselves. And, if you excuse a certain totally 70's music number which goes on for way too long, this film is right on par with the best Asterix graphic novels. There's one sequence in particular that contains some of the cleverest satire ever presented in the Asterix universe.
So yeah. If you're going to see just one Asterix film in your life you should make it this one.
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I've seen the 1960s ones. Just the English dub, but they were pretty darn bad. It's like they consciously decided to suck all the charm away.
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I'm glad you are now enlightened. Consider going to an international film festival and seeing some non-American films. 
