French Movies

So today was my "Mr. English" haircut appointment. It's a bit scary going into a salon not speaking the language, and since I'm half blind without my glasses, not having any idea what she's doing to my hair before it's done, but it all ended up OK. I wrote I note that I had Google Translate translate into English, and it seemed to make enough sense to her. I tipped her well, and will be back next month, and Kara's probably going to try them as well too.

Today we went to see our first movie in France: Gravity. Movies from the US are typically presented as-is, though with French subtitles, which makes it very convinent. The movie listings are marked as "VO" (Version Originale) in that case, while French-language only films can be identified by their French title of course, but also marked with "VF". Apparently it can get a bit tricky for some foreign films which may be marked "VO" but it just means it's in the original German/Chinese/etc and subtitled French which wouldn't really help us out. "Gravity" was excellent by the way, I highly recommend it!

The movie experience was a bit different too. The commercials don't start until the published start time, and then there are a lot of trailers (mostly for French films, so all in French) so the movie didn't actually start for almost 25 minutes after the published time. Some of those French films looked really cool though, and made me wish I could comprehend more French since there's no English subtitling option here. I'll just have to wait for it to come out on DVD I guess.

Also since I can read French somewhat, I could see just how much is cut out when subtitling something, as well as the interesting culture differences they tweak like "listen to NPR" turns into "listening to cultural radio". Also the 3D glasses are active type, and not passive, so they're much heavier. You also get an anti-bacteria wipe to clean them off before you put them on since they can't wash them like the passive ones.

One really cool thing about movies in France though is you can buy subscriptions. For 20 euro a month you can see all the movies you want. Which is an incredible deal since one ticket is over 10 euro. You have to sign up for the whole year, but I'd buy one in a heart beat if I could (I'm not sure of the legal repercussions if I bounced their withdraws after I left??). They also have deals where if can get two tickets for $35 a month, and 5 movies for $35 euro, which is what we'll do for next time.