Go on, Say it in French..."Cleef-anger."

I stayed up way too late last night watching "Cliffhanger" with Hubster.

I always do this to him, I surf around the channels until I find something that will hold my ADD brain in place for a few minutes, just long enough to get Hubster sucked in as well, and then I announce I'm going to bed. This drives him nuts.

"How can you not want to know what happens," he always asks?

Last night, he persuaded me to stay and try to watch the film through to the end. He did this by basically sitting on me and Whoopsie.

I have to say, that, overall, watching Sylvester Stallone as a rock climbing guide could have been a hell of a lot worse. I would love to have been able to nail a toe hold like he did with those steel enforced boots, but it's a movie and I'll let that slide. What saved it for me this time was the dubbing.

Normally, I can not stand it when English or American movies are dubbed over in French. Not because I don't like hearing French or following the translation, it's that the dubbing sometimes does not match what I know to be the true voice of the actor, and hence, really screws up my whole opinion of a movie. For example, Harrison Ford dubed over in "Six Days, Seven Nights" sounds like a loopy frat boy who sidelined with the Chipmunks in an all boys choir rather then the honey voiced, weather beaten drunk he played in English.

Watching "Dirty Harry" dubbed over nearly kills me too. Clint Eastwood does not sound like that! No, not at all! And Julia Roberts in "Erin Brockovich," same thing. Even cartoons can send me over the edge with this change in tonality. "Noddy" (aka "Oui-Oui") just sounds way too chipper in French!

That being said, Sly was saved last night. The French voice used for him actually made him sound intelligent, sensitive, coherent, and oh my gosh, human rather than a bumbling hulk of a man trying to speak through cotton balls shoved in his mouth. It almost seemed like Sly could act!

In fact, the dubbing was so good, I actually got into the movie and stayed squished under Hubster until the very end. Seeing John Lithgow playing a psycho path is always nice right before bed and I thank the French voice of Mr. Lithgow for really helping me appreciate the nuances of well spoken French cuss words.

In that light, dubbing does have it's good points. Heck, since I dropped out of my French classes last year, I gotta keep up with my vocabulary somehow, don't I?