I’m gonna regret getting into this…
What, precisely, is that? Can you give me an example of a single person who speaks “accentless, classless, dialectless English”?
Crowe seemed to be going for a BBC English accent with a slight Aussie twang - a good choice, considering his character (an educated military man with a humble, non-Roman background). He seemed to carry it off very well.
Besides, acting isn’t a precision sport. In fact, it isn’t a sport at all.
I remember, a long time ago, when I first used Yahoo chat, I had a conversation with a guy from New York. The Internet was all so new to me at the time and I was so inept that I lost any connection with him. But the conversation was about romance. Specifically it was about how he could listen to songs with American references in them and find them romantic - songs like Only Living Boy in New York, Rocky Mountain High, Sweet Home Alabama etc - but how songs with references in them to my home town made me cringe. I know this point of view is hard to understand - I come from a very new country and that, I suspect, has a lot to do with it. But that’s why I find Crowe’s accent so annoying, I think. It destroys the romance, mystique whatever you want to call it, for me. I don’t want to pay good money to hear Gladiators speaking Australian. It’s just a waste of money.
G. Nome, I guess my question is…how does YOUR personal preference for who’s got a good accent make the nomination of Russell Crowe UNETHICAL?
Also, as an actress who’s had to do dialects I must say this…if you’re so caught up in every word being exactly perfect, you must not be entertained by anything around you. once again, I must draw in suspension of disbelief. and once again, I must ask what makes it unethical.
jarbaby
Yeah, and you know what bothers ME about movies? How they’re always messing around with time. I mean I’ve seen films that will cut directly from one scene to another that takes place days later! Or it’s daytime in one scene, and in the very next scene, whoosh, it’s night!!! What’s up with that? How can they expect me to enjoy such an unrealistic display of time!? And the fact that these films are getting nominated for awards… why, it’s positively unethical!
Seriously, G. Nome. How do you enjoy any film if things like that bug you?
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*Originally posted by jarbabyj *
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Nitpickety old me…
That should probably be German and Yiddish…
Just looking at lists of nominees, I can’t see how this is true. The Academy has always preferred big historical epics over anything else, and has NEVER been particularly kind to arthouse films. As a matter of fact, if anything arthouse films are doing better now than they used to.
The Academy’s choices in the 1980s for Best Picture are a string of long, boring historical epics. The 1970s were a little better in terms of variety but arthouse films were pretty much shut out of consideration altogether. The 1960s were a mixed bag, but no arthouse films. Virtually ALL the movies that have ever won a lot of Oscars are long historical epics. The Academy has always nominated the same kind of movies, and probably always will.
The word Ethical was just a part of a hastily put together subject line. I could have called this thread Alternative Academy Awards, People who should have received awards…anything at all. The reference to Russell Crowe’s acting ability was just an aside as well, just a bit of filler. Unfortunately for me it completely took over. I was just asking for other contributions to a list of “should have won awards.”
Alessan: In my opinion an example of a British person who speaks accentless, classless, dialectless English is Gavin Rossdale from Bush. Can you give me an example of an American who speaks perfect American English?
Anamorphic: I have enjoyed Miami Blues, Being John Malkovich, Dogma, Exixtenz, Go, Very Bad Things, Gross Pointe Blank, U-Turn, Breaking the Waves, Chasing Amy, Beautiful Girls, Twelve Monkeys, The Usual Suspects, American Psycho, True Romance, Creasemaster, Cheeks 2 Emanuelle Goes to…I think I better stop. Thank you for allowing me to reminisce.