I think it needs batteries - Because someone might care... [entries|archive|friends|userinfo]
I think it needs batteries

[ userinfo | jf userinfo ]
[ archive | journal archive ]

Because someone might care... [Aug. 12th, 2008|10:48 pm]
Previous Entry Add to Memories Tell a Friend Next Entry
[Tags|]
[Current Music |Morning Song - Jewel]

Accents in movies, particularly ones (ostensibly) from the Southern United States:

*  Sawyer from LOST:  Supposedly from Alabama; Josh Holloway (who was, himself, raised in Georgia) does a respectable job.  I could believe he's a Walker County boy.
*  Everyone but Dennis Quaid did an okay job in The Big Easy.  When Bree and I watched it, she was confused by how many of the New Orleans cops sounded like New Yorkers.  I was like, "They're Yats!!"  But Quaid's accent was WAY overdone.  In fact, the only really good Cajun performance that pops to mind is Michael Jeter's turn as Eduard Delacroix in The Green Mile.
*  Speaking of Tom Hanks movies, Sally Field did a damn good job of an "Old South" accent in Forrest Gump.  Ditto Kevin Spacey in Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil...sort of.  LOL
*  Sissy Spacek in Coal Miner's Daughter.  Solid fucking gold, people.  That's a West Virginia girl, right thar.  Of course, she had a particular accent to copy, so...
*  Do not, under any circumstances, ever believe that Nic Cage's accent in Con Air even remotely resembles an actual Mobile accent.  D:

I think I'm done ranting for now.
LinkReply

Comments:
[User Picture]From: [info]breecita
2008-08-13 05:29 am (UTC)

(Link)

PUT. THE BUNNY. DOWN.
[User Picture]From: [info]donna
2008-08-13 05:58 am (UTC)

(Link)

GRAWR. >: (
[User Picture]From: [info]barankhy
2008-08-13 07:25 am (UTC)

(Link)

So, um, what do you think of Kyra Sedgwick's accent on The Closer?

I personally love it, but as I generally can't tell a Californian from a New Yorker, I might not be the best person in the world to judge.
[User Picture]From: [info]donna
2008-08-13 07:39 am (UTC)

(Link)

...I generally can't tell a Californian from a New Yorker...

She does okay. But if you want to hear her do an awesome Southern accent, the 1995 movie Something to Talk About is totally what you should watch. You'll have to suffer Julia Roberts, but it also has Robert Duvall and Gena Rowlands - always a plus.

Anyway, Kyra does a great accent in her normal voice, which is a lot huskier and less annoying than her character in The Closer. I'm thinking the accent is Georgian, since the family has a horse breeding/training operation very much like the ones you find in equestrian-centered areas of central Georgia. But it could also have been Tennessee. Either way, it was good.

...I'm obsessive about this, aren't I? >: (
[User Picture]From: [info]barankhy
2008-08-13 08:04 am (UTC)

(Link)

...but... JULIA ROBERTS? Nothing against her as a person, of course, I don't know, but god, she annoys the living fuck out of me in movies.

The fact that she was first working in Atlanta also supports this.

Maybe a bit, but I find this awesome. Besides, I got a weak spot for Southern accents* (as long as the thing they say in it isn't something along the lines of "Jaaaay-zuz sez y'all's fixin' ta burn in HECK"), so I find this where-can-I-find-good-Southern interesting :D

* To the point where I speak in a weird German/British/Southern accent mishmash. British because that's what you learn at school, so I usually drop my postvocalic r's, but I tend to twang vowels and I totally use y'all. And all y'all.
[User Picture]From: [info]donna
2008-08-13 08:27 am (UTC)

(Link)

I KNOW, Julia Roberts grates on my nerves SO BAD. I can barely watch her. But, if it makes it any better, a lot of her scenes are about Dennis Quaid cheating on her irritating ass.

Hahaha, I actually posted this because I was reminded of a conversation a bunch of us had in Bree's living room a couple of weeks ago. I don't remember what we were talking about, exactly, but we got on the subject of Southern accents in movies and how annoying they were.

If I remember any more, I'll definitely let you know. Or I could, you know, record something for you to listen to. LOL

OH! Good Redneck - Brad Pitt in Kalifornia.
[User Picture]From: [info]breecita
2008-08-13 11:37 am (UTC)

(Link)

We were watching Burn Notice and you were complaining that the Texas accent was awful and I was pointing out that the only accents I can say for a fact are awful are New England ones, which are always sooooo wrong in movies.

And then you said something amazingly southern and I giggled. But I don't remember what it was.

You know, my yank friends are starting to accuse me of hints of the south in my voice. Mostly the Minnesotans, though, who I think can't tell the difference between that and falling back into some of the accent habits I had as a child which are also common around here.
[User Picture]From: [info]donna
2008-08-13 04:48 pm (UTC)

(Link)

HAHAHAHA, that's RIGHT!

I think I said something like, "Michael Jeter does a wonderful Cajun accent. Well, he doesn't do anything anymore. He's dead now." Only...in a weird way. LOL
[User Picture]From: [info]llama_treats
2008-08-13 01:45 pm (UTC)

(Link)

You know what's equally bad? English folks trying to do American accents and failing miserably. Case in point: Dead Again. Also, almost anyone doing an American accent in Doctor Who. I swear, Peri used to make my ears bleed, and Barrowman should really know how Americans pronounce "schedule" and "Meredith" by now.

(I think the guy who plays Sawyer is from Tennessee originally.)
[User Picture]From: [info]donna
2008-08-13 04:46 pm (UTC)

(Link)

La la la la, I love the movie Dead Again with such a burning passion that I can overlook ANYTHING. Though I think we need to ask Bree how Branagh's Austrian accent was. *giggles*

And I am Doctor Who stupid. :(

You know, I thought THE SAME THING about Josh Holloway, so I had to look it up. But no, born in CA and raised in GA. Where the hell did we hear the TN thing?
[User Picture]From: [info]llama_treats
2008-08-13 04:52 pm (UTC)

(Link)

Maybe his character was supposed to be from TN at some point? I got nothin'.

Don't get me wrong, I love Dead Again in all its tacky reincarnation glory, as well, but thank whoever that Emma Thompson at least improved her American accent after that movie, even if Branagh didn't (I just remembered that Woody Allen flick he was in...kill me now.)

Imagine this: someone attempting to say "reticular vector gauge" in a bad American accent. It's so very painful. :(
[User Picture]From: [info]donna
2008-08-13 05:00 pm (UTC)

(Link)

...Andy Garcia was so effin' hot in that movie. *drools*

Reticular vect...Jesus Christ. :(
[User Picture]From: [info]puipui
2008-08-13 08:20 pm (UTC)

(Link)

The amazing thing about Barrowman, though, is that that's his actual accent. That's the way he really speaks. Apparently his mom is Scottish and his dad's American (or something) and he was raised in Scotland until the age of ten or something, then moved to Indiana and stayed there until an adult, and now he lives in Britain and speaks mainly with an American accent except with some British pronunciations ("estrogen" was the one that really threw me, personally) and word choices. I always excuse it for Captain Jack on account of how he's from the 51st century and all.

Of course, there's no excuse for Peri. She was just bad. Along with pretty much anyone else who's ever appeared in Doctor Who with an American accent; there's a guy in "Tomb of the Cyberman" that I didn't even realize was supposed to be American until I'd seen it about half a dozen times, and then I pointed it out to my daughter and she refused to believe me.
[User Picture]From: [info]llama_treats
2008-08-13 08:28 pm (UTC)

(Link)

I know! That's what drives me insane about him - he should know how to pronounce those words American-ly. *shakes fist* My vote for worst American Doctor Who accents would have to be those two FBI guys in Delta and the Bannermen. Ouch.
[User Picture]From: [info]puipui
2008-08-13 09:09 pm (UTC)

(Link)

Have you ever seen "The War Games"? There's a spot there that's supposed to take place during the American Civil War, and it's absolutely painful. Like, worse than Peri painful. Although, really, the worst thing about Peri's accent was the scripting; if she'd had any sort of decent scripting, she might have almost pulled it off, nearly. Or at least enough for her two big talents to be adequately distracting.

I also quite like the accents in that "Guys and Daleks" two-parter from New Who S3. And by "quite like" I mean "generally alternate between LOLing hysterically over and wanting to stab someone in the face for, and sometimes both at once".
[User Picture]From: [info]llama_treats
2008-08-13 09:17 pm (UTC)

(Link)

I tried to forget. Also, "The Gunfighters".

Why did you do this to me? ;_;
[User Picture]From: [info]puipui
2008-08-13 09:21 pm (UTC)

(Link)

I haven't seen "The Gunfighters" yet! I've heard that the accents in that one are absolutely epically bad, I'm looking forward to it!
[User Picture]From: [info]polygamouse
2008-08-13 08:53 pm (UTC)

(Link)

I liked the pseudo-CNN chick on... one of the new Who episodes. You could tell that she was concentrating really hard on that fake American accent and then she blew it on "any minute now."

Added accent fun: Watching Cold Mountain in an Australian cinema with a bunch of Aussies, and being stared at for laughing in inappropriate places at bad southern accents. Ah, fun times.
[User Picture]From: [info]donna
2008-08-13 09:04 pm (UTC)

(Link)

Added accent fun: Watching Cold Mountain in an Australian cinema with a bunch of Aussies, and being stared at for laughing in inappropriate places at bad southern accents. Ah, fun times.

Oh dear. LOL I'd have been right there with you.

I am especially interested in how accents from other regions and countries are portrayed in cinema because, a large portion of the time, I've no clue if they're accurate or not. Like, I always wondered if little Texas-raised Renee Zellwegger really did well with her Bridget Jones accent, or if that was just lip service everyone was throwing at her.
[User Picture]From: [info]puipui
2008-08-13 09:19 pm (UTC)

(Link)

I'm always so distracted by pseudo-CNN chick always being the same pseudo-CNN chick that I don't even pay attention to her accent anymore. She generally does okay, IIRC, it's usually the word choice that throws her.

My very favorite fake Americans in the new series have been the ones during the S3 finale, sitting around in a big group yelling at their TV in sports jerseys while eating fried chicken and pizza, it was keen. Someone had to point out to me that they were supposed to be American, that's how incredibly accurate they were. They didn't have any dialogue, though, which is a pity, because that would've been incredibly entertaining, I'm sure.
[User Picture]From: [info]polygamouse
2008-08-14 03:17 am (UTC)

(Link)

My very favorite fake Americans in the new series have been the ones during the S3 finale

...Those were Americans? I did not know that. I kind of love the BBC.
[User Picture]From: [info]puipui
2008-08-14 05:59 pm (UTC)

(Link)

I have been assured that they were meant to be Americans, yes. I LOL'd.
[User Picture]From: [info]notjo
2009-05-10 06:15 pm (UTC)

(Link)

Happy Mother's Day, Donna!