China Part 4: To Be Continued

You are so fucking lucky. Initially, I wrote a paragraph about how my rent is going up, so I'm moving. You can thank me for deleting that paragraph and replacing it with these three boring sentences.

China.

This is a small one, but there's something about an airplane that makes a man order tomato juice. I don't know what it is, but every time I'm on a plane I start jonesing for it. This time, so many people had my condition that on the first beverage cart trip, they ran out of tomato juice before they got to me. The entire row in front of me and my entire row asked for it. If you're a sociologist, can you please study this? Note that I have never desired tomato juice while standing on the Earth.

I probably have 30 China-related stories to relay. This is one from the flight to China. At each seat, we had a screen where we could watch any of 400 movies and 100 TV shows. I decided that 18 hours captive on a loud plain was a great time to watch some great movies. I've had this problem over the years that I don't know classic movies. I know Citizen Kane and Casablanca, and movies like that. But I don't know the ones that people reference on a daily basis. I have a friend who references The Godfather and Scarface all the time. I have no idea of what he's talking about. Others quote Pulp Fiction. Hadn't seen it. On the other hand, I've seen:

-Roadhouse at least 10 times.

-Guns x6

-Enemy Gold x4

-The Dallas Connection x3

-Picasso Trigger x3

-Boxing Helena x6

-American Ninja Parts 1-4 x4 or 5

So, I watch a lot of movies, just not the good ones. With any kind of art, other than music, I prefer the shittiest each genre has to offer. I love great movies and TV shows as well. But I get bored when something is just okay or pretty good. So, if it's not great, it better be awful.

On this flight, I decided to watch all the greats. Then I would be able to have conversations with people. I started with Pulp Fiction. Wow, what a great movie. I can't believe I hadn't seen it for 10 years. It's ridiculous. I saw Inglorious Basterds before I saw Pulp Fiction. There's no excuse for that.

Others that I wanted to see include: The Godfather Trilogy, Chinatown, Taxi Driver, The Pianist and A Beautiful Mind.

Those all seemed a little heavy for after Pulp Fiction, so I decided to watch something that had won a lot of awards, but was light. I chose Sideways. It was a really entertaining movie. Not great, but good enough for me to enjoy it. However, there was one big problem. At the beginning of the movie, a message came up that said the film had been modified to fit the screen, et cetera. The same message came up for Pulp Fiction, but none of the dialogue was changed, and there was a scene that would have been really uncomfortable to watch if a kid was sitting next to me. I wasn't bothered by the message.

During the first scene, Paul Giamatti (Giamatti from now on) said, "Oh, fiddlesticks." I thought, "Hmm, that's odd. Maybe he's being ironic. Or, the character is a teacher. Maybe he's really like that." Eventually, I discovered that wasn't the case, and I was watching a TV edit with terrible dubs. There was actually white noise in the background when there was a dub. I still muscled through and watched the whole movie, changing the dialogue in my head. Here is some sample dialogue, followed by what I assume was the original dialogue.

Thomas Hayden Church (Wings from now on) and Giamatti were sitting in a diner when Wings said, "I'm gonna get you loved on this trip. Shut the flip up. I'm gonna get you loved." That's when I knew it was a TV edit. The original dialogue was obviously, "I'm gonna get you lovin' this cock. Shut the flip top. I'm gonna get inside you." No dude on dude rape threats on flights. Kids are on flights.

After Wings had sex with a woman, he told Giamatti about the experience. Wings: "This girl talks different. She talks like an animal." Clearly that was originally, "This girl talks different. She talks like a deaf person." Not an animal. We can't say "deaf person" when kids are watching.

I forgot who said the line, but I think Wings said it to Giamatti: "Your father was a flobbin' tuna fish." The original line had to be cut, it was so perverted. It was originally, "My father was a flobbin' tuna fish."

The best edit was when Wings said to the guy who played the comic book creator in that other movie, "Don't you want to feel that crazy little fox sniffing around your gravy pipe?" This one, I can't even tell if it was an edit. That was horrible grammar. Anyway, it sounds as vulgar as anything can sound. I'm guessing the original was something like, "Hey, I tried this thing where I put cornbread on my ass and have the deaf-sounding girl put gravy on it. My father would never do that. He was a flobbin' tuna fish. Dude, either way, I'm gonna get inside you and you're gonna love this cock." But you can't say that on a plane.

I haven't seen the original version of Sideways, but I think I did a pretty good job of guessing the dialogue.

Another good edit was Snakes on a Plane. Sam Jackson's famous, "I've had it with these motherfuckin' snakes on this motherfuckin' plane," was changed to "I've had it with these monkey-fightin' snakes on this Monday through Friday plane."

And, relating this to China... In China, the movie title was translated to Mid-Air Snake Emergency, which might be an even better name. Fun fact: Sam Jackson agreed to the movie when he heard the title. He knew it would be a shit fest. Then he was told that they would change to title to something like, Chaos in the Air. Sam responded, "Then I'm out. I didn't sign up for Chaos in the Air. I signed up for Snakes on a Plane."