Subtitles for the emotionally unprepared.

Imagine sitting down to watch a movie with a hot pizza and something cold to drink only to discover that after I have gotten through all the previews and ads and public service announcements, I cannot understand a word that is being said on the actual film.

The other night the subtitles didn't work at all. Tonight there was only one subtitle for every three or four minutes of dialogue.

Even that might have been tolerable, but the person who put them there didn't appear to speak either language fluently.

There were lines like this, "Woman shocked herself to hear the unbelievable words" and those words or anything about them is never mention again.

And there were lines like this, "Satellite explode lights in sky all over." Of course the scene was in a dim hospital room with almost no lights and absolutely no sky at all.

Like the past two movies that I rented from Netflix, I tried to report the problem with no success. I just ended up in a useless loop, so I sealed it up in its signature little red envelope and placed on the table to go back in the mail tomorrow. Then in a fury I wrote on the outside that the nonsensical subtitles made the film incomprehensible and Netflix would not let me notify them on line.

There! I got them! Let the world read my words as this piece of mail goes hand over hand through the US mail back to Netflix. Except that anyone reading it will probably laugh at my exasperation and Netflix will probably open it without even noticing.

I figure I have several choices, including learning seven more languages, or watching only English language films. Neither is likely to happen so I play Russian Roulette with my evenings, never knowing until it is too late if I am going to be having dinner and a movie, or dinner and a fit.

I have to believe that I am not the first English speaking Netflix customer to rent this DVD, who does not speak German. I just have to wonder what the others thought. Surely they must have noticed!

Along with PG and G and all those other ratings, we need one that warns us this movie is not for the language challenged and emotionally impaired viewer like me.