Filmstrut - worst accents?
Diamante_D
215 Posts
Right then dudes, I watched the abomination that is 'Green Street' this weekend and have to say that that blonde skinhead bloke had the WORST cockney accent I've EVER heard. It was all like 'BLEEDING 'ELL GUVNER' then he slips back into his own American accent for a few words, then it's 'CUP A FACKIN ROSEY LEE' again. This was hands down the most excruciating regional accent I've endured since Don Cheadle's in Oceans 11. Question is, what are other examples of duff accents on celluloid? I'm especially interested in hearing from American Strutters, because it's tough for me to tell what's a bad -say- Texas accent. I heard Brad Pitt does a stinker of patois in 'Meet Joe Black', but I've not witnessed that first hand, so I really can't comment.
Comments
The Dude: Well, they finally did it. They killed my fucking car.
Nihilist: Ve vant ze money, Lebowski.
Nihilist #2: Ja, uzzervize ve kill ze girl.
Nihilist: Ve don't care. Ve still vant ze money, Lebowski, or ve fuck you up.
???and so on
One of my favorite movies, by the way. I know that accent is intentionally bad, and Stormare and Voges are swedish and german, but that's like the blueprint of faux-german accents. The worst thing is, there are a zillion 'serious' american war movies with german accents excactly as bad. In fact anytime americans try to sound french, swedish, british, italian, greek, whatever - it's absolutely cringe-worthy. They just can't do it, and it's plain embarrasing.
If you really need that old world element, at least get it right and get an actor who speaks the language to do it.
Do:
Don't:
(Disclaimer: this is in no way an endorsement of feel-good romantic comedies)
Then again, the door swings both ways:
"Ess narrdar tumar!!!"[/b]
I do think my countryman Connie Nielsen does a good job, though. Hot too.
Ziyi Zhang doing a Japanese accent in English in Memoirs of a Geisha was pretty damn bad. Tho she was really good in the snow dance scene.
I'll bet there's quite a few heads pissed off over the casting of predominantly Chinese actors to play Japanese roles in that one. But hey, all asians look the same though - right? What next? getting a brit to play Ghandi!
I saw a commercial for a remake of a Pink Panther movie last night with Steve Martin as Clouseau - that looks like a turd of a movie - and it seemed the french accent was particularly bad.
'This storm will slow them down'?
You must be awfully 'pride'.
I bet there's more than a few heads...
I don't understand this whole "All asians look alike deal". It's not like anyone can look at someone thats white and tell me if he's from or where someone black is from.
Most of my "asian" friends can't tell who's who either.
But I understand in part wut people are saying...
Whatever.. Like I said... I thought the movie itself was pretty good (Girlfriend dragged me). The first half mostly. Suzuka Ohgo was really good as Chiyo. I thought she killed it. And eventhough I thought Ziyi Zhang wrecked things with the accent and that they could have picked a Japanese actress for the part no problem. She still did a really good job in the snow dance scene. But really it was the ending that wrecked the film for me. I hate when I'm enjoying 2/3 of a movie and it goes to shite...
Kick me if i'm missing internet sarcasm but although I have no doubt that this film will be shit the whole point of Martin's accent should be that it's atrocious.
Actually, already covered this one, Kingsley's birth name is Krishna Bhanji.
Anything where Michael Caine isn't supposed to be a cockney is normally pretty painful accents wise.
Costner's accent in Robin Hood is beyond shite.
Peter Sellers in the old Panther movies is a special case, because his comedic talent made it work. P. Sellers can do no wrong in my book.
I used to love Steve Martin during the Carl Reiner era (Jerk, Plaid, Two Brains et.c.), but he fell of in the 90s, and him playing Closeau is .
The worst recent film was The Brothers Grimm. The accents were atrocious, By everyone. Even the 2 "brothers" had different accents.
But i hate stupid American films like Costner's version of Robin Hood 'Prince of Thieves' that is dominated by US accents... A severely English tale is mauled to death by misplaced voices.
Anyone ever see Yves Simoneau's Napolean TV series. THE WORST example of an accent slaughterhouse. More American accents playing Euros. So distracting. I'd rather watch the French dubbed version (never thought I'd say that).
how about an irishman playing alexander.....with the accent
Hello, I'm a russhian shubmarine captian
Hello, I'm an English Shecret Shervice agent
Hello, I'm an Irish-American police shargent
Thankfully, Caine and Sean Connery hardly ever bother to do accents.
But there is a difference between bad = humorous (Sellers) and bad = shite (Martin).
what is the deal with getting non southern actors to play southern people can't they just speak in their real accent and pretend to be southerners? for instance i don't ever recall billy bob thornton to be asked ot play a northeastern mobster ever.
are there really that few good southern actors ?
dave
Man, I did not know that. Dude's a quality actor whatever way you look at it and did a good job in that particular pic anyway.
He's also good in Sexy Beast (with a cockney accent I was convinced by).
...and Cool Hand Luke.
Also 99% of all Americans do garbage Lucky Charms Irish accents. Tom Cruise in Far and Away, Brad Pitt in Devil's Own, Spacey was in some awful Northern Ireland movie too. Cameron Diaz takes the cake for Gangs of New York though.
John Turturro's Southern accent is a close second[/b]
Yeah point taken. Unfortunately Martin's funny period has now been gone almost 20 years.
Actually though TV rather than film, can't ignore Jane Leeves in Frasier who manages to deliver a fucking awful mockney accent despite being british and from Ilford.
Naw, she's supposed to be a manc - surely
OH SHIT!!!
classic.
haha
YOU'RE THE MAN NOW DAWG!!!!!![/b]
Top Secret was really funny, when they just played the scene backwards. Splash was pretty weird. And the list goes on...
Regarding Big Lebowski - Stormares band is called Nagelbett (meaning nailbite in Swedish, possibly in German too). Good name for a krautrock band, that.
I didnt think it was that bad in starwars though since he had to make his voice sound all posh like alec guinness'.
My friend from North Caroline taught me about bad Southern accents. From gone with the wind to Street Car Named Desire up to today films set in the South have messed up accents. There was one not long ago about 4 women from a Southern town. The cast all Southern acctress and ended up with a Texas accent a Tennesse accent and so on.
Dan