Pass the Popcorn, Please

Over the last couple weeks I've actually been using my Netflix account (instead of keeping the discs for 4 months at a time) and have watched four foreign films in a row. Three were the "Dragon Tattoo" trilogy. (Truth be told, the third in the trilogy isn't out on DVD yet, but we watched it on pay-per-view.) I hear Hollywood is making an American version of these movies, but I bet they won't be as good. Watching a movie that takes place in Sweden is much more authentic when it's shot in Swedish.

Watching sub-titled films is also interesting because you've got to watch. You can't just wander up to the kitchen to fix a snack keeping an ear on the movie, all you hear is Swedish dialog, and unless you've interned in Stockholm, you've got to hit pause to get that snack. You still have to have the sound up when you're reading the subtitles so you can hear the intonation and emotion in the voices.

The forth movie was "Bread and Tulips," an Italian film made in 2000 about a woman who gets inadvertently left at a rest stop while on a vacation bus tour. She decides to go to Venice before meeting back up with her family at home, but she misses the train home and the rest of the story unfolds. Italian men yell a lot. I never read the subtitles with as much force as I heard from the voices. Americans wouldn't do it justice.

I can't remember how this film got added to my Netflix queue, I'm sure it's been there for years and finally just bubbled to the top. I think a French spy spoof is next. That should be fun. More subtitles!

What have you watched lately?