buddhu wrote:
As for bad ones, may I nominate Robin Williams in Mrs Doubtfire... Oy vey...
I thought that he was intentionally trying to poorly mimic the accent. Didn't Pierce Brosnan have a line in the movie where he says something like "I can't place your accent. It sounds muddled".
And as for LotR, is there anyone here who has a recording of someone from Middle Earth speaking?
I teleported home one night
With Ron and Sid and Meg.
Ron stole Meggie's heart away
And I got Sidney's leg.
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daveboling wrote:And as for LotR, is there anyone here who has a recording of someone from Middle Earth speaking?
I don't think you have to go that far. Tolien wrote Sam's dialogue with such a thick accent that it takes no imagination to realize Sean Astin wasn't even close to the mark. And Sam was smaller than Frodo IIRC. Why they cast Astin (or so many of their other casting choices) is beyond me.
djm
I'd rather be atop the foothills than beneath them.
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The first time I saw Bob Hoskins in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, I thought he was American. Don't know if the accent's good or not, but it fooled me. But then I imagine playing such an over-the-top character in broad slapstick is easier. You don't have to worry about the subtlties as much.
How about Americans who can do an accent?
I was never a fan of Brad Pitt, he was eye candy for the ladies and was awful in 'Legends of the fall'. When I heard his Pikie accent in 'Snatch' I cracked up laughing, he was so good at it! I am Irish and know about the itinerant families that travel far and wide, and Brad Pitt in Snatch could well have been one of them if I didn't know it was him.
To the other extreme, another really awful attempt at an Irish accent was Kevin Spacey in 'Ordinary decent criminal', I cringed every time he spoke.
daveboling wrote:...I thought that he was intentionally trying to poorly mimic the accent. Didn't Pierce Brosnan have a line in the movie where he says something like "I can't place your accent. It sounds muddled"...
No idea. Can't bear to pay close attention to that movie. I don't own enough buckets...
And whether the blood be highland, lowland or no.
And whether the skin be black or white as the snow.
Of kith and of kin we are one, be it right, be it wrong.
As long as our hearts beat true to the lilt of a song.
There are a lot of really bad attempts at Irish accents out there, but one of the absolute worst has to be Julia Roberts in Michael Collins...That one seriously makes me cringe...Aidan Quinn's Dublin accent in that movie was good, but he's spent time living in Dublin and I think his parents are Irish...
Dale's point on bad Southern accents in movies is a good one: even actors from the South sometimes get things wrong because they use an accent or certain expressions that would not be used in the region their characters are supposed to be from. For you Brits out there, the effect would be like a Mancunian speaking Scouse.
Some pretty convincing accents:
-Jonny Lee Miller (an Englishman) doing a Leith (Edinburgh) accent in "Trainspotting."
-Robert Carlyle (a Glaswegian) portraying a factory worker from Sheffield in "The Full Monty." He also did a great job as a psychotic Liverpool FC fan in the "Cracker" TV series...
-The English guy that plays "Apollo" in the new "Battlestar Galactica" series (can't remember his name). What are people from distant galaxies doing talking like Americans, anyway?
-Stephen Dorff (an American) did a very good Liverpool accent playing Stuart Sutcliffe in "Backbeat."
How about speaking in a different language in movies?
Jodie Foster's French was flawless in "A Very Long Engagement" (I've heard she dubs her own voice for French versions of her films). Peter Coyote seems to do a fair bit of work in French movies too, for some reason. Johnny Depp had a short cameo in a French Film called "Happily Ever After" and it sounded okay...
By contrast, Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu's attempts to speak Japanese in "Kill Bill" were beyond atrocious. I saw the first part of "Kill Bill" in Japan and people were giggling in the theater at how bad they sounded. Tom Cruise's attempt at Japanese in "Last Samurai" was similarly bad, but Timothy Spall's Japanese in that movie was surprisingly good.
The Japanese actor Takeshi Kaneshiro is probably more famous for his work in Cantonese ("Chungking Express") and Mandarin ("House of Flying Daggers"). He also apparently speaks pretty good English...
There's a German film called "The Tunnel" where one of the actors is a German playing an American, and he has to deliver his lines in German with an American accent...Pretty funny.
Anyone seen that new Irish film "Kings" yet? It's in Irish and Colm Meaney apparently has to deliver all his lines as Gaeilge. I wonder if he sounded convincing...
The Sporting Pitchfork wrote:
By contrast, Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu's attempts to speak Japanese in "Kill Bill" were beyond atrocious. I saw the first part of "Kill Bill" in Japan and people were giggling in the theater at how bad they sounded. Tom Cruise's attempt at Japanese in "Last Samurai" was similarly bad, but Timothy Spall's Japanese in that movie was surprisingly good.
Speaking of accents in movies... On thing I can´t stand is when the actors speak with a fake russian, french or german accent the whole movie trough. It´s just annoying. All these thick fake russian accent in GoldenEye! In movies about WWII all the actor used this fake accent but in modern film the roles as germans are often done by german actors. In The hunt for Red October (with Connery) the solution to the problem was elegant. The film begins with the actors speaking russian, so the audience will get the atmosphere, an then after a few minutes shifts to standard english. Conners scottish accent can then be interpreted for instance as a russian dialect.
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fyffer wrote:And, though I hate to admit it, Aussie Mel Gibson sounds completely American in most of his movies.
He was born in the USA. Didn't move to Australia till he was more than half grown.
Twelve years old is hardly half grown.
Go dig up some of his early, early stuff; he's hardly understandable
Accents come and go (didn't we have a thread about this some time ago?)
I was born here in 'Merica, and only spent a few years in Canada, but people still insist I talk with a western Canadian accent.
“First lesson: money is not wealth; Second lesson: experiences are more valuable than possessions; Third lesson: by the time you arrive at your goal it’s never what you imagined it would be so learn to enjoy the process” - unknown
Tell us something.: I've picked up the tinwhistle again after several years, and have recently purchased a Chieftain v5 from Kerry Whistles that I cannot wait to get (why can't we beam stuff yet, come on Captain Kirk, get me my Low D!)
The Sporting Pitchfork wrote:
-The English guy that plays "Apollo" in the new "Battlestar Galactica" series (can't remember his name). What are people from distant galaxies doing talking like Americans, anyway?
-..
Jaimie Bamber
For the record, more than half thecast members of Battlestar Galactica are Canadian; only five are American, with about as many coming from the UK and South Africa. The general accent is not "American;" it's North American.
Makes sense if you think about it... Paid for and produced by americans, cast comprising of a variety of English speakers, shot in British Columbia for the english speaking television market.
Oh, my goodness! What in the world? did you expect, Swahili?
“First lesson: money is not wealth; Second lesson: experiences are more valuable than possessions; Third lesson: by the time you arrive at your goal it’s never what you imagined it would be so learn to enjoy the process” - unknown
Shows you how attentive I am to such details.
