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Author Topic:   The Movie Thread
1.61803
Member (Idle past 1504 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


Message 46 of 55 (782618)
04-26-2016 3:56 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by dwise1
04-26-2016 3:06 AM


Re: a couple I liked
Hi dwise1,
Very thought out response and much appreciated.
quote:
In two years of high school German, I learned far more about English grammar than I ever did in twelve years of English classes.
I can see how this can be so. I do actually like the German language because it is so direct and clear. There is very little misunderstanding things spoken in German. Its "die ja oder nein."
quote:
is German your first foreign language?
Actually it is Spanish. I have been exposed to more Spanish in my life than German. I have found that watching German soap opera mit mein frau has helped me with my vocabulary considerably. When we were first dating I needed her to translate constantly. Today I can almost get through the whole 30 min soap with minimal translation.
quote:
I was watching a German TV movie version of "Valkyre" and there was a scene at the family dinner table where the conversation was in small fragments that all made perfect sense in German, but which had the subtitles scrambling to keep up.
Don't I know it! There are subtletys packed with meaning in many languages that can only be picked up from living in and among the people. Reminds me of that scene in 'Inglorious Basterds' where the English spy Captain,(impersonating a SS officer) raises three fingers in English fashion rather than like eine Deutsche mann and blows his cover.
quote:
I already talked about the verb systems in English (a West Germanic language, as is German) and German being very similar. But only about 25% of English vocabulary is related to German (ignoring the French words that German also borrowed), so vocabulary learning is a bit more difficult.
Genau.
the word for frog is frosch, kind of close but one wouldn't know it.
The word for French is also frosch. Ok bad joke.
Btw I was in Germany twice in my life. The first time in 1973 like you. Then again when I joined the Army in 1985. I am looking forward to going back again some day. So I have some movies to watch. If you get a chance Youtube has lots of Marchens that are true classics and are good for novices like myself who already know the plots and can stumble along the dialog.
Edited by 1.61803, : ya for ja
Edited by 1.61803, : No reason given.

"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Son Goku
Inactive Member


Message 47 of 55 (782675)
04-27-2016 1:41 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by dwise1
04-26-2016 3:06 AM


Re: a couple I liked
Wow, cool post!
I think it's suspected that Indo-European had an allative as well, but this didn't survive into any of the daughter languages, even the earliest attested ones.
There are some really interesting cases in non-IE languages.

This message is a reply to:
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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 48 of 55 (782680)
04-27-2016 4:35 PM
Reply to: Message 47 by Son Goku
04-27-2016 1:41 PM


Re: a couple I liked
I have nothing to say on the German language, my knowledge ending after the beers are ordered, but if we're talking German films I would recommend Das Leben der Anderen ('The Lives of Others'), a film about the Stasi in East Germany; and Funny Games, a film which is difficult to sum up briefly and would probably be spoilt a little if I tried. For those who don't like foreign films, the latter was remade in English for the American market. Not seen the remake, but it's the same writer and director so I'd assume it's a similar film.
Edited by caffeine, : tags
Edited by caffeine, : No reason given.
Edited by caffeine, : No reason given.

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 49 of 55 (783241)
05-04-2016 2:46 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by 1.61803
04-26-2016 3:56 PM


Re: a couple I liked
Sorry, been very busy. Still am, actually.
One of my German textbooks (circa 1973) contained an essay by Mark Twain, "The Awful German Language", in which he complains of the difficulties in learning that language. A student of German can appreciate a lot of the inside jokes in that piece, though some of his complaints apply to other languages as well (eg, he makes much about the illogic of grammatical gender, including a few literal translations into English).
Some years ago (c. 2011) I found and downloaded a PDF file of a brochure produced by the US Consulate in Berlin and intended for a German audience. It contains that essay and more, including "Die Schrecken Der Deutschen Sprache" and a letter that Twain wrote "in German", though with a lot of English mixed in (eg, "Ich habe gecalled"). The table of contents:
quote:
Inhalt
7 Gruwort von US-Botschafter Philip D. Murphy
9 Mark Twain: The Awful German Language
35 Mark Twain: Die Schrecken der Deutschen Sprache.
Rede im Concordia Club in Wien
42 Brief von Mark Twain an Bayard Taylor
45 Prof. Holger Kersten: Mark Twain, der treueste Freund der deutschen Sprache
60 Kurze Biographie von Mark Twain
When I searched for it the other night from home, the search took me to a Google page that required a log-in, so I couldn't get to the document. However, when I did the same at work (starting at the link at the bottom of the Wikipedia page), I hit the same redirection page, but it let me through without a log-in. I'll give you that link and, in case that doesn't work, I uploaded the PDF to my own site:
https://drive.google.com/...B4xHZbr3vgOmYm5teGlsSzQ4a28/view
http://dwise1.net/...n/Mark%20Twain%20Awful%20Broschuere.pdf
There's not much on my Sprachen page anymore, except a free DOS program for practicing Spanish verb conjugation. On my old site (on AOL before they abruptly dropped the hosting business in 2008) I had a well-developed set of pages describing how to type the special characters that you need in other languages (eg, accented and umlauted vowels, , , , , , ). However, a lot changed with Windows XP and then again with Win7 and I just never had the time to get back to updating it.
The utility, charmap, is a great standby for getting to any special character in any font. Unfortunately, it can be cumbersome to use when you're typing a lot. There are some short-cut tricks in which you can use the numeric keypad with the Alt key to punch in the code for the character you want -- you can get those codes from charmap, which are displayed in the lower right corner when you select a character. You press the Alt key, punch in the 4-digit number on the keypad (the numbers at the top of the keyboard won't work) and release Alt; eg, in charmap in the lower right corner, for it says "Keystroke: Alt+0177", which I just now used to enter that character. You get weird results when you leave out the leading zero.
Another answer would be to install extra keyboards for the languages you use. In earlier OSes you had to reboot every time you wanted to switch keyboards, but later you were able to switch between keyboards on the fly and even have different keyboards associated with individual applications. A disadvantage to that is that each keyboard has a different layout. Some languages are very much like QWERTY, though some letters may be switched around (eg, in German the "z" is much more common than the "y", opposite to how it is in English, so the German keyboard layout swaps those two keys creating a QWERTZ keyboard). Other languages, such as French, are completely different. Even on a QWERTY-esque layout, punctuation marks and accented vowels can be moved around so that you need something to tell you which keys are what. The OS does not provide that documentation. I once found a comprehensive Wikipedia page that listed them all, but I cannot find it anymore. It looks like you may need to look up keyboard layouts for individual languages.
The short answer for installing a keyboard on Windows XP through Win7 is that you go to the Control Panel and open something like "Region and Languages" (the details seem to change in every version of Windows -- "Thank you very much, sir. May I have another one please?"). In some versions of Windows, in the Control Panel you would open Keyboard, which would have a Languages tab -- Windows 95/98 had that, but I can't find it on XP. Then under the Languages (or Input Languages) tab you will find where you can add a language, though you may have to click through a button.
In that dialog under a language's keyboard you may find alternative keyboards, such as Dvorak under English. Another very useful alternative keyboard under the English language is US International. It's a standard English keyboard, but the right Alt key provides you access to special characters. It also uses "dead keys" to allow you to accent and umlaut vowels -- press " and nothing happens (it's a "dead key") but then press a and you get .
The US International layout is described in Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#US-International. Not only does it explain the layout and describes the use of "dead keys" in detail, but it also has a graphic of the keyboard showing you what's on each key. Click on a graphic and you go to a page displaying that graphic file in full size, from which you can save it or print it, as I had done.
If you haven't already worked out another way to type in German or in Spanish, you might want to check this one out.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by 1.61803, posted 04-26-2016 3:56 PM 1.61803 has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 50 of 55 (783242)
05-04-2016 2:53 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by 1.61803
04-26-2016 3:56 PM


Re: a couple I liked
I had suggested that you might find some local German communities in Texas. My friend was an Air Force brat who wound up in San Antonio for high school when her father retired (then the moment she graduated she headed right back to Southern California for college and career). When I brought up the question of German communities in Texas, she immediately responded with New Braunfels and Fredricksburg. Starting from those two towns, I drilled down through Wikipedia to a page about the Texas German dialect, which contained this section that names German towns:
quote:
Current distribution and population
Some 1,035 people report speaking German at home in Fredericksburg, the town with the largest community of Texas German speakers, representing 12.48% of the total population, 840 in New Braunfels, 150 in Schulenburg, 85 in Stonewall, 70 in Boerne, 65 in Harper, 45 in Comfort and 19 in Weimar, all of which except for Schulenburg and Weimar, lie in the traditional Texas German heartland of the Hill Country. Gillespie County, with the communities of Fredericksburg, Harper, Stonewall, and Luckenbach, has a German-speaking population of 2,270, 11.51% of the county's total. In all, 82,100 German-speakers reside in the state of Texas, including European German speakers.
From one of the articles I read that these immigrants mainly arrived in the mid-1840's, unlike the Germans from Russia who immigrated in the late 1800's and settled mainly in North Dakota, western Minnesota, and the plains provinces of Canada, seeking the kind of farmland they left in the Ukraine. Anyway, it looks like most of the German towns in Texas are near San Antonio.
Also, about a year ago (June 2015), Sundance TV showed an 8-episode German series, Deutschland 83. The Stasi "recruits" a young East German soldier (or Vopo, I forget which) to pose as a Bundeswehr Oberleutnant in order to spy on NATO's deployment of Pershing II missiles in Germany. The Soviets (fed with bad intel from the Stasi, according to this show) believed that the upcoming exercise, Able Archer 83, was actually a cover for a first-strike nuclear attack on the Eastern Block and so readied Operation RYaN to beat us to the punch with their own first strike. Some historians think it was the closest we have ever come to nuclear war.
It was funny when he went in to steal a secret NATO document and was baffled when he found it was a 5.25" floppy ("It's a plastic square with a hole in the middle."). He got it back to the Stasi who likewise were baffled as to what to do with it. They had the latest, most modern Soviet PC which still had an 8" floppy drive and the Stasi chief just stood there trying to figure out how to insert the 5.25" floppy into the 8" drive. Finally, his tech guy prevailed and they were able to smuggle an IBM PC out of the West. There they both were looking at the PC:
quote:
Techniker: Cool!
Chef: Sage nicht "cool"!
Techniker: OK.
Chef: Sage nicht "OK"!
Anyway, with any luck SundanceTV may at some time reshow the series as daytime filler. It just occurred to me that it might also show up on a sibling channel, such as AMC (see below). Also, the Wikipedia page linked to above mentions that they're planning a second series, Deutschland 86 (not green-lit yet), to be followed by a third, Deutschland 89. We can guess what the third series will be about, since that is when the Wall went down. Not sure what D-86 would cover, though the German page for 1986 makes references to Glasnost and to terrorist attacks by the Rote Armee Fraktion.
I followed the SundanceTV link to its parent company, AMC Networks, where they list its channels:
quote:
AMC Networks Inc. is an American entertainment company headquartered in 11 Penn Plaza, New York, that owns the cable channels AMC, IFC, WE tv, BBC America (with BBC Worldwide), and SundanceTV; the art house movie theater IFC Center in New York City, and the independent film company IFC Films.
So then Deutschland 83 could conceivably show up on any of those channels. Though BBC America is less likely even though they sometimes have to really stretch far to claim a British connection with some of the movies they show.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by 1.61803, posted 04-26-2016 3:56 PM 1.61803 has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 51 of 55 (783244)
05-04-2016 3:06 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by 1.61803
04-26-2016 3:56 PM


Re: a couple I liked
Btw I was in Germany twice in my life. The first time in 1973 like you. Then again when I joined the Army in 1985.
I was there as a Werkstudent in the summer of 1973 and again in summer 1974. What with three weeks of vacation in the summer and again in the winter, most German companies would gear down and operate with half their normal staff. Those times coincided with breaks between semesters, so the university students would also be out. So Germany had a special tax status for students, Werkstudent, which allowed them to work tax-free between semesters so that they could earn enough to live during that next semester. The companies on half-staff would hire Werkstudenten and the regular workers would train and supervise them on the job.
In 1973, I worked for a Baufirma in Villingen-Schwenningen and then in 1974 I went to Bblingen-Sindelfingen to work at the Daimler-Benz factory drilling holes in the engine compartment of car bodies. My first day on the job in Villingen was my first exposure to the Schwbish dialect. My German was pretty good, but I couldn't understand a word he said. It was about a decade later that I learned that my German ancestor (4 generations back, but he gave us the family name) had come Baden in 1853, so basically I had lived in the region where we had come from.
I do plan on returning, but first I need to spend a week or longer in Salt Lake City tracking him down. The earliest record we have is him is as a 19-year-old boarding the ship in Le Havre in 1853. Family tradition is that he was from Baden-Baden, but I don't trust that story. German records are slowly coming on-line, but I haven't found him yet.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by 1.61803, posted 04-26-2016 3:56 PM 1.61803 has replied

Replies to this message:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 52 of 55 (783245)
05-04-2016 3:12 PM
Reply to: Message 48 by caffeine
04-27-2016 4:35 PM


Re: a couple I liked
Thanks for the recommendations. Unfortunately, I'm restricted to what's available on this side of the Pond, mainly through Netflix. Actually, almost entirely through Netflix, since local video stores almost never carry German films: the last one was "Downfall" and the only one before that was "Goodbye, Lenin."
I'll keep my eye open and will try to track down the remake of "Funny Games", though I usually prefer the original over the remake. For a while there, it seemed like the newest thing in Hollywood would be a remake of a French movie (eg, "L'homme qui aimait les femmes", the original of which I did catch on Netflix but have never seen the John Ritter remake).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 48 by caffeine, posted 04-27-2016 4:35 PM caffeine has seen this message but not replied

  
1.61803
Member (Idle past 1504 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


Message 53 of 55 (783547)
05-06-2016 10:35 AM
Reply to: Message 51 by dwise1
05-04-2016 3:06 PM


Re: a couple I liked
Very interesting stuff dwise1.
I was in Germany in 72-75 because my dad was stationed at Baumholder near the French side of Germany, Saarland.
As things would have it I joined the Army in 85 and my first duty station was...you guessed it Baumholder.
It gets even better. I was a combat medic assigned to a Division Artillery Brigade who then further assigned me to a Field artillery unit.
When I got to the orderly room I was looking at old company photos and in one of the pictures was my dad. The unit was renamed but it I was in his old unit. That is just crazy.
I want to go back too. My wifes parents are in Wieden.
In keeping with the Movie thread: I did not find "Dirty Girl" From either title. I wonder if it was yanked form Netflix. I'll try Amazon.
I did watch the French movie: Female Agents with Sophie Marceau what a beauty . I saw Caffeine's suggestion "The Lives of Others"
and was very touched by it. My wife sometimes has a hard time with East German historical pieces because she actually grew up on the other side of the wall back in the late 70s all the way until it came down in 89. The bullshit that government ,(DDR)put people through is just nuts.

"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs

This message is a reply to:
 Message 51 by dwise1, posted 05-04-2016 3:06 PM dwise1 has not replied

  
anglagard
Member (Idle past 837 days)
Posts: 2339
From: Socorro, New Mexico USA
Joined: 03-18-2006


Message 54 of 55 (848466)
02-06-2019 12:42 AM


Andhadhun
Well I be chillin' in Socorro, close to sacred ground and away from West Texas. Guess one has to live in purgatory for awhile to truly appreciate paradise.
A kickass movie just popped out of nowhere - currently #21 on IMDB top 250 - Andhadhun Its's on Netflix right now in the USA,
Buckle up, it's one hell of a ride!
Edited by anglagard, : too much alliteration.

Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. - Francis Bacon

  
anglagard
Member (Idle past 837 days)
Posts: 2339
From: Socorro, New Mexico USA
Joined: 03-18-2006


Message 55 of 55 (889012)
10-29-2021 12:48 PM


Dune Done Right
I saw the new Dune movie at an IMAX in Albuquerque on Monday. Long story short - just as Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings is the best fantasy movie, Dune is the best science fiction movie. I have read the original 4X so I feel I can comment. Both movies stray little from the source material, Dune least of the two. Do not watch on small screen.
Perhaps the best way to illuminate why this movie is so good, let's compare it to the 1982 version.
Overall look - 1982 Dune - Pee Wee's Playhouse. 2021 Dune - Saving Private Ryan.
Cinematography - 1982 Dune (see above), 2021 Dune - Lawrence of Arabia (one reason for IMAX).
Effects - 1982 Dune (1982), 2021 Dune (2021) outstanding, other reason for IMAX
Casting - Dune 1982 - miscasts, waste of talent, Dune 2021 - damn near perfect.
Plot - Villanueve's Dune follows the book closely and where it strays,it is usually an improvement. (ex. - Duncan Idaho, Leit Keynes)
I suppose I could go on in detail but risk spoilers. Just see the damn thing on an IMAX ASAP.
Best damn movie I seen in years.

The problem with knowing everything is learning nothing.

If you don't know what you're doing, find someone who does, and do what they do.

Republican = death


  
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