In 2013, there is a movie titled “In The House”. But I didn’t quite understand why they needed to call it that, other than for consumer convenience. “Dans La Maison” (its original title in 2012) was fine. The 2013 release in the US is in French with English subtitles and that’s fine with me, in fact I’m glad they didn’t try a full on revision (and gone are the days of dubbed over movies). Still, why remarket the title when having the title in French might help broadcast the movie name a bit better. “In the House” just sounds cheesier too (as if one of those dance-off movies from a few years back!)
However, this post isn’t about the movie above, which has done well in film festivals around the world. I haven’t really seen any of François Ozon’s movies, but have heard some hype and wouldn’t mind checking this film out.
Instead, it reminded me of two things (and a need to keep posting even though time is a hot commodity). One was a friend of mine who over the years loves to say “Dans la Maison”. Secondly was the annoyance behind movie titles finding the need to be translated. Unless its “that” bad a translation, where you find it amusing. Such as this excuse for making another top 10 list.
Top 10 Amusingly Translated Movie Titles:
The English Patient = Do Not Ask Me Who I Am – Ever. (China)
As Good as it Gets = Mr Cat Poop (China again, where allegedly the main characters name sounds like the word for Cat Poop)
Grease = Vaseline (Venezuela)
Never Been Kissed – Because She’s Ugly (Philippines)
Bad Santa – Santa is a Pervert (Czech republic)
Pretty Woman = I Will Marry a Prostitute to Save Money (also China, where they like to make the title very descriptive)
Die Hard – Mega Hard (Denmark), in fact several countries have odd translations for this series.
The Full Monty = released as “6 Naked Pigs” or “Six Stripped Warriors” in China based on language (Cantonese/Mandarin)
Dodgeball – Full of the Nuts (Germany)
Dr No = We Don’t Want a Doctor (Japan)
Kept this pretty slack, as it turns out there are loads of lists of these around the web, so if you’re looking for more, check out http://www.denofgeek.us/movies/13782/50-movie-titles-that-got-lost-in-translation or http://www.shortlist.com/entertainment/films/50-funniest-movie-title-translations – though you’ll see some of these might even be made up. For instance, “Matrix” in France was not what some of these people say it is.
Or for example, some say, Lost In Translation was translated to “Meetings and Failures in Meetings” over in Portugal. Not True. It was “o Amor É um Lugar Estranho” or “Love in Translation”. http://cinema.sapo.pt/filme/lost-in-translation/poster/73d1df369f0a10498386771da63e853d
In fact its weird where some of these came from, I guess its the whole ability to make up stuff online! Anyway, let us know any other good ones (real or rumoured) that you know of.
Ok, end of quick break, back to writing again.