The other day I was talking with some students about the movie Cocoon. (I try to bring up the best in American pop-culture as examples.)

We got to talking about the film scene in the CR–which is actually quite good. Many famous movies, writers, and directors hail from this region and several movies have won Oscars in the recent past.

Film festivals are found just about every weekend here in Prague and I have seen several Czech films (subtitled in English) that I really enjoyed.

When American/British films come this way, they are either subtitled or dubbed for Czech viewers. Dubbing is something Czechs praise here as Czechs are (self-proclaimed) the best at dubbing films. (Guess this is more important/noticeable when 80% of your movies are from another language.)

I tried to reference some other movies, but apppppppparently, some of the ways titles which are translated into Czech are quite different from the original English title in order to appeal a wider audience here, or purely out of mis-guided translation:

For example, the 90’s movie Clueless is translated to Powerless. Hot Shots with Charlie Sheen is known as Warm Shots.

Those are tame, understandable. Here are some that left me giggling and then shocked…in both cases.

The classic Jamaican-coming-to-America-for-the-Olympics film Cool Runnings, had its title changed ever so slightly to Cocoa Peanuts on the Snow.

Not so PC, right?

And the obscene trilogy known to emulate American teenage angst/life/drama/hilarity American Pie has a much rougher translation here that translate into F**king, F**king, Little F**k!

We are in Europe. You going to go see a movie that seems to be about some tasty desert treat or a movie that promises audiences some T and A?

Oh, and tonight, one of my student’s, Lucie, gave me a copy of her favorite movie ever. I think she even told me it made her cry. It is called Hellboy. This one ought to be good…