Saturday, October 10, 2015

What's on tv

And we're back! Last week's tv magazine finally arrived after a few days. This week's arrived on time. Just in time for the magazine's 25th anniversary issue. Big whoop. On the cover (and the fold-out extension of the cover) is a collection of current presenters/hosts from many of the channels featured in the guide. I recognize about a third of them.

I spared you the fold-out cover of this week's magazine.

What NOT to watch this week. Our tv magazine rates shows and movies using a star system: one star is ok, four stars is best. They use another symbol for really bad movies: the red dot. It means "à zapper" (change the channel!). The editors often include comments about the movie that make me laugh.

I don't know how the movie people decide when to use a foreign film's original title, when to translate it into French, and when to just make something up in either or both languages. All three methods are used all the time here. This one, "Angel Eyes," retains the original American title of the film, whereas the film mentioned in the review is a translation of its American title, with one word dropped out ("The Thin Red Line" becomes "The Red Line").

Angel Eyes. American drama. Directed by Luis Mandoki, 2001.
With Jennifer Lopez, Jim Caviezel, Jeremy Sisto, and Terrence Howard.
In the US, a young police woman feels attracted to a vagrant who saved her life.
A tragically bad film. Useless. Without interest. Caviezel is far from his superb work in "The Thin Red Line," and Jennifer Lopez leaves us cold in what should have been a moving role.
For adults and kids over 10.

3 comments:

  1. I would love the job of writing these kinds of reviews, but I fear I might feel sorry for the people involved and then put away my poison pen. However, that would NOT be the case when it comes to Jennifer Lopez films.

    We, too, can't figure out how Spain decides when to stick to original titles, directly translate, or rename in Spanish or English.

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  2. I am always keen to know what is the a zapper.

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  3. mitch, I'm not sure I know her films... maybe that's a good thing?

    michael, you can count on me!

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