I never saw Star Trek IV, so thought I’d give it a look. Man, they weren’t even trying by then, were they? Didn’t make it past the early scene where somehow they attacked/didn’t attack the Klingon ship.
Did you mean VI? The fourth movie is considered one of the best Star Trek movies.
Has to be VI. In IV they were already flying the Klingon warbird at the start of the movie.
I’m curious what you are referencing. I haven’t seen most of the Star Trek movies since they were in the theater.
Well, “serviceable” is how it usually goes. But an accent that’s off can be distracting to a native of the region.
I don’t want to belabor the point here. Of course, producers and casting directors can hire anyone they want, and it goes both ways. Far as I know, no one in Britain complained about Meryl Streep as Thatcher (but that gal can do anything), but man did they gripe about Peter Dinklage, which is odd because in Game of Thrones he played a character from a fantasy world, it doesn’t exist! They should have only cast New Jerseyans in that one.
That made me genuinely LOL.
Assuming you meant Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, about the thaw in relations between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, tastes must really differ, because I really liked that one.
Jung_E
I was interested in this movie because it comes from the director of Train to Busan, a really excellent movie. This, however, was only OK. A somewhat obvious and on-the-nose examination of androids and storing our own minds in computers.
Not a lot new or innovative in this movie, but a competent movie overall. It was OK.
That’s the one. I thought the acting was forced, with each of the actors just waiting to deliver a fan-favorite bon mot.
I watched The Good Nurse, based on the true story of serial killer Charles Cullen, who may have killed upwards of several hundred patients in a long list of hospitals before he was caught. He’s eligible for parole in 2403. Pretty sure he’s not breathing free air anytime soon.
M3GAN - Not a very original movie (smart technology goes amok, violently), but saved by smart performances and a fantastic job of combining CGI and the physical performance of the actor portraying M3GAN. I found it to be entertaining, even though I could see most of the beats of the narrative coming.
Missing - A thriller made by the same crew that made Searching. Every bit of the film is on a device - laptop, phone, surveillance camera, tablet, etc. - but it all comes together in service of the plot and characters. Also, it does a fairly good job of showing how to hack into accounts if someone doesn’t pay attention to the advice about passwords. I enjoyed it, for what it was, an entertaining ride if you turn off some of your critical thinking. There was only one minor misstep:
Most of the activity is on a laptop belonging to our protagonist. This was also the case in Searching, but in that film the protagonist was a 35-45 year old, and in this film it’s an 18 year old girl. A middle aged person might spend a lot of time on the laptop, but these days an 18 year kid would spend 90% of her online activity on her phone. But it is obvious why they chose the laptop. It’s easier to show a significant window and windows beside one another for dramatic purposes. From the standpoint of keeping the audience involved, I think they chose right.
I was underwhelmed. I had actually been hearing a lot of positives about the movie, but it was fairly standard stuff in the end. I guess they are making a sequel, but I really wish M3gan would appear on the Chucky* TV show next year. That would be an interesting confrontation.
*If you haven’t seen Chucky, it’s excellent!
I believe a film’s setting is the important factor in whether or not an actor’s breakthrough accent is jarring or not. If Ralph Fiennes let his British accent break through in The Menu, I didn’t notice. But, a British accent for a haute cuisine chef in an ambiguously set restaurant is not something I would notice, as it seems perfectly appropriate.
I would however notice and find it jarring if an actor had a posh Queens English accent playing an Appalachian coal miner, or Billy the Kid. Although Billy with a cockney, or scouse accent would be kind of fun.
We watched The Princess 2022 this weekend, with no real knowledge of it beforehand, and quite enjoyed a fun medieval action movie.
Sometimes, Always, Never on Amazon Prime. A quirky and endearing indie film about a father, played wonderfully by Bill Nighy, whose teenage son stormed out from home during a Scrabble game 30 years ago and was never seen again. He’s been searching for him the entire time; the movie revolves around his relationship with his other son (younger brother to the missing boy, now grown and married) and his grandson (now a teenager). Sounds heavy when I type that out, but it’s not, really, despite dealing with grief and its aftermaths. Lots of understated, dry humor, a bit of mystery, and a heaping spoonful of quirky characters.
It’s not perfect, as I felt the ending was decidedly underwhelming, and the director decided - inconsistently - to try for a Wes Anderson whimsy in some of the visual effects, which did not work for me at all. On the plus side, there is a great appearance by Tim McInnerny of Blackadder fame. Overall I enjoyed it.
I saw that (Sometimes, Always, Never) the same week I saw Never Rarely Sometimes Always, a very different movie.
My Octopus Teacher: OK, I’m watching this now. Thanks Smid.
It wasn’t so much that his accent broke through, but that he was speaking so slowly and carefully, and it was very stilted. He drew attention to his way of speaking. It was mostly an occasional vowell that would ping my ear. But this is something I’m really sensitive to, and I don’t think most people would notice or care. Also, he claimed to be from Waterloo, Iowa. Not a chance.
I forgot to add Anya Tyler (Taylor?) Joy to my list. She was pretty decent, too.
One interesting example of actors who aren’t American doing American accents is Emilia Jones, who played the main character in the movie CODA. She is supposed to be an American, so she speaks with an American accent in the movie. She’s actually British. Since her character is supposed to supposed to be able to talk to her deaf parents and brother, she frequently used sign language in the film. One scene in the film shows her trying out for admission to Berklee College of Music by singing the song “Both Sides Now”. In that scene, since her parents and brother are watching her sing, she uses sign language so that they can understand what she is singing.
At that year’s BAFTA (approximately the British equivalent of the Oscars) award ceremonies, Jones sang the song there on the stage. There were two women, one on her right side and one of her left side, who translated the song into sign language. Why two of them? Because one was using American Sign Language and the other was using British Sign Language. American Sign Language and British Sign Language aren’t two dialects. They are actually different languages which aren’t mutually intelligible. In the movie all the signing was done in American Sign Language, of course. On the BAFTA stage, it was necessary to have the signing in both of them so that everyone (who lives in an English-speaking country but is deaf) watching the performance could understand the signing.
Anya Taylor-Joy
Here’s the BAFTA performance:
