The Pretty Good 4

For me, it's better to jump into things with few expectations. It leaves little room for disappointment and lots of room for surprise. Instead of getting all excited and saying "I'm gonna do this, this and this, it's gonna be great," I approach it more like "Hmm, I wonder what it will be like. Should be interesting!" I tell myself that viewing things this way allows you to sort of prepare yourself for anything, and then adapt to whatever happens, but it might also just be that I don't want to be disappointed.

Anyway, so I'm trying not to play Japan up too much in my mind, but the other day I randomly hit up the website of this club I hung out at last time I was in Yokkaichi, and was pleased to see that it looks like it's doing pretty well, and most of the people I met are still working there. It'll be fun to catch a J-Punk show or two there again.

Oh, but speaking of hype, I watched a few movie trailers yesterday, and was astonished to see that Fantastic 4 doesn't look bloody awful. Well, it looks stupid but pretty, and I'm glad to see they treated lines like "Flame on" and "It's clobberin' time" with the respect they deserve. But style over substance is something I can selectively forgive. The thing is, I'll have to see this particular movie in Japan, and if it's subtitled into Japanese the way it's done in this trailer, I'll be the only one in the theater who even stands a chance of enjoying it. I know I complain a lot about movies having poor/inaccurate English subtitles, but apparently it goes both ways. For example,

SUE: Don't even think about it!
JOHNNY: (jumping out window) I never do.

becomes

SUE: Stop, it's crazy!
JOHNNY: (jumping out window) It's okay.

If you take the one-liners out, what's going to be left?? Though I do like the fact that "It's clobberin' time" is translated as "Now, it is that time." The Japanese have no word for clobberin'? How are you supposed to know when you're about to get clobbered??