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Oh, fun! - Edit 1

Before modification by Legolas at 26/09/2009 03:40:18 PM

Do you enjoy watching foreign movies? Animated or live-action?

Well, considering that American and British movies are just as "foreign" to me as French or Italian or Asian ones, yes. Funnily enough, I very rarely watch movies that *aren't* foreign, as Belgium doesn't make that many movies and even then I tend not to see them.

But for the sake of the survey I'll define foreign as non-English-spoken. In which case, yes, though I don't really consider it a different genre... makes more sense to compare a French comedy to an American one than a French comedy to a French horror movie, just because the latter two are both "foreign", you know? And mostly live-action.
What are your all time favorites?

This is gonna be long. :P I'll go by language/country/region:

French (France, Canada or Belgium):
La Reine Margot (Queen Margot)
Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amelie)
La Promesse
Le Déclin de l'Empire Américain (The Decline of the American Empire)
Persepolis

Spanish and Latin-American:
Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes, remade as Vanilla Sky)
Hable Con Ella (Talk To Her)
Amores Perros
Cidade de Deus (City of God, Brazilian, among the best in this whole list)

Italian:
La Meglio Gioventu

German:
Gegen die Wand (Head-On, part Turkish)
Goodbye Lenin

Japanese:
Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke)

Scandinavian:
Festen (Danish)
Vi pa Saltkrokan (Swedish, actually a TV series and not a movie)

Middle East:
Imarat Yacoubian (The Yacoubian Building, Egypt)
Waltzing with Bashir (Israel)


Of course, there's a bunch that I would probably include in here if I had actually seen them, such as Das Leben des Anderen, Rosetta, Auf die anderen Seite, and so on.
Which cultures (nations) films do you find yourself most interested in?

None in particular, I guess, but in some nations (French-language countries in particular) I'm more familiar with the actors and directors and may be interested in a movie because of that.
Do you prefer dubs over original language, in live-action and/or animated?

Original language is of course always better, but for animated it's not a disaster to watch the movie dubbed, with exceptions - sure, Persepolis' original version was unrealistic in terms of language already, with the Iranian characters all speaking French, but watching it dubbed by Americans is rather jarring. :P
How did you find yourself becoming interested in foreign films, (i.e. Audrey Tautou obsession, Asian horror obsession, general interest in foreign culture)?

Some of them get as much attention or more here than most American movies, so those don't require any particular way of finding out about them. Others through various ways, sometimes indeed the actors or directors involved.
What 'hyped' foreign film has let you down upon viewing it (if any)?

The Chinese historical martial arts movies - Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero, House of Flying Daggers - were not really bad and entertaining enough to watch, but disappointed me because of rather weak plots. Other East-Asian movies like 2046, Samaritan Girl,... were disappointing to me as well, evidently I'm just not a fan of Chinese and Korean cinema.
How do you feel about remakes, are there any that have been pulled off successfully?

There are some that aren't necessarily bad - Vanilla Sky was a decent movie, partially because of Penelope Cruz reprising her own original role. I imagine many people don't even know that one *is* a remake. But it's getting ridiculous, the way some remakes are started almost before the original is even released, like now with that new Swedish horror movie, or the American remakes of Japanese horror movies like The Ring and The Grudge.

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