Movie Madness

In my last blog I forgot to write about one other illegal thing that I’ve been doing. In fact, I did it as recently as this morning. I’ve been buying bootleg DVDs. Frankly, it’s not like I have any choice. It is simply not possible to get a legal copy of a movie here. Even the movie rental places only have copies of bootleg movies. So the choice is to pay 3,000 TSH per night to rent a movie (and risk running up charges if you don’t return it right away), or buying the damn film for 5,000 TSH and owning it forever.

So I buy.

A few months ago I wrote about my struggle with finding a copy of the DaVinchi Code that actually plays in English. See, most of the bootleg films here are made in China. Their quality varies tremendously. And they don’t always work in English. When the original voice version is available forget about using the English subtitles. They are totally gibberish… text inputted into a bad translation program spitting back not a single sentence that makes sense.

Because of this risk, I’ve learned to remember where I buy my films and the name of the guy who sold it to me. That way I can always return it. And I have several times.

But the thing that has been amusing me most about these films are the critic’s quotations on the covers. Clearly these are chosen off the internet and by someone who doesn’t speak English.

I did a survey of the 12 films I've purchased so far. Half of them had a bad review or a non-sensical comment on the cover. I thought it might be fun to share these with you here.

Crazy Movie Reviews on DVD Covers

You, Me and Dupree: “Between you and me, Dupree is a dud.”

World Trade Center: “World Trade Center feels too much like it was made for nostalgia purposes: Hey, do you remember that? How you felt? Well, yeah, all too vividly, actually.”

Untied 93: “A mesmerizing masterpiece of the underexpected!”

The Devil Wears Prada: “Their longtime family vacation home.” (Seriously that's what it says on the front cover.)

The Break Up: “There’s little enough real humor to call this woeful little orphan a comedy, and only the faintest glimmerings of romance.”

Jesus is Magic: “Enjoy yourself…. It’s loter than you think!”

The DaVinci Code: "The DaVinci Code is not nearly as bad as you've heard. It is a medium quality thriller that runs a bit long."

I suppose based on some of these reviews I should have not even bought the films in the first place.

But alas, it is worth buying them just to read the covers.