I would have loved to have heard Grant speak in his native Bristolian accent. I wonder if he ever did it, as an in joke, in any of his films, however briefly?
Here’s a video with people in 1977 in Bristol speaking (but of course this is long after Grant left, and it may be a different social class than the one Grant grew up in). This system won’t let me leave a link to it. Find it in YouTube by putting in
1977: The BRISTOL Dialect | Nationwide | Voice of the People | BBC Archive
Prisoner’s Daughter on Hulu. Kate Beckinsale, Brian Cox. Predictable movie about a criminal (Cox) trying to reconcile with his daughter and grandson before he dies. Not badly done, but don’t expect any surprises.
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Recommended.
A surprisingly good action movie, which is not the genre this movie really is placed in. It’s a zombie movie of course, but it has set pieces of action that are really well done, especially for 1978 on a relatively low budget. George Romero wasn’t a hack by any means; he really knew how to make a movie.
The zombie effects/makeup did not turn out and I see that the makeup supervisor was disappointed. Despite the intention of them looking dead, many look blue instead of grey. Despite this, the movie thrills and the acting is good enough that we are cheering for them to make it out.
I liked it, though it was overlong at 140 minutes.
Fingernails (2023)
Not recommended.
If a man and a woman contribute a fingernail to scientists, they can run them through a machine and determine whether they are truly in love or not. Despite a neat premise, the movie commits the worst sin of movies. It’s boring and slow. Could have been 85 minutes long. I found myself looking at the time remaining quite a bit and being disappointed at the half-way point, which felt like the movie was nearly over.
Boring. This was a Black Mirror show type premise, but many Black Mirror episodes are much better.
Skip it.
Fright Night (2011)
Somewhat recommended.
Cute movie, well acted. Fun to watch, worth your time, but does nothing bold to really justify its existence as a remake. A neighbor movies in who is a vampire and everyone proceeds to kill him before he turns or kills the neighborhood.
Anton Yelchin is the lead, does well, but it is rather difficult to see him in movies knowing his extremely odd and tragic death followed just a few years later.
Anyway, fun, but not hugely amazing.
The original was much better.
Here’s a video with someone speaking a West Country accent. Bristol is part of the West Country. Again, Grant left Bristol long ago. Again, it won’t let me post the video, so you need to enter the words
Nicolas Doesn’t Understand The West Country Accent | Hot Fuzz | Screen Bites
into YouTube.
For another Bristol accent video put
Bristol Accents
into YouTube.
Somewhere around 1980, Dawn of the Dead went into permanent midnight-movie rotation with a handful of other films at the theater near us, and we saw it over and over. It was different from anything I’d seen up to then, that mix of violence, gore, social commentary, and dark humor, and over time a lot of audience interaction developed. Man did I love that film, even though I still had to squint or look away at specific scenes.
I’m not sure I would see it again now. I did watch the remake, and didn’t love it (though it’s great for an early Sarah Polley sighting).
So helpful.
100 percent agree with this. Scorcese and his need to drag out every.last.fucking.thing is ridiculous. And they are suing theaters who put an intermission break in because “that’s not how the movie was intended to be viewed”
Well fuck you.
Day of the Dead (1985)
Recommended.
Also a really great movie. I’m very impressed with George Romero as a filmmaker. I liked Martin and both of the “Dead” movies I’ve seen from him.
I liked this one more than Dawn of the Dead, to be honest. I think the underground bunker setting was very claustrophobic and created a great setting to be dealing with zombies.
I’d check this one out.
Are you being sarcastic here? This system we have for the SDMB doesn’t allow you to put in the URL for some YouTube videos. The only way I can get people to see them is to give the name of the YouTube video and tell them to search YouTube for it. In any case, there are a number of videos on YouTube that have lots of examples of Bristol accents.
This is not correct. I’d explain the following (for the twentieth time, but I’m just tired of doing this).
Would someone please explain this to me?
British imports James Mason, Cary Grant, and also Ray Milland and David Niven: all born while Edward VII was on the throne (or perhaps while he was in that specially-built chair in Paris), enough to carry some of the old era’s graciousness without the weight borne by those actors a bit older who’d sacrificed for it in the trenches (Basil Rathbone, Ronald Coleman, Claude Rains blind in one eye from gas, Herbert Marshal with a leg lost to a sniper). I’ll watch just about anything any of these four unique actors did, even if his head is stitched to Rosie Grier’s body. (which is why Errol Flynn’s omission from this list is not an oversight)
Although Grant was the most prima donna of them. IMHO, None but the Lonely Heart was his best bit of acting, but it and Slyvia Scarlet were the only two films where he’d deigned to drop the phony transatlantic accent. Even though he physically resembled General Allenby more than Jack Hawkins, he turned down Lawrence of Arabia because he wouldn’t have been the star, and it required him to be bald.
Again, would someone please explain to me how to link to all YouTube videos without getting a message from the system saying that I can’t link to them.
Here:
This is a good summary of what is now a very long thread about the subject.
Quiz Lady - streams on Hulu!
Highly recommended.
I love happy surprises and this movie is one of the biggest surprises of the year for me. A couple days ago, I hadn’t even heard of this movie and now it is in my top 10 of the year. A comedy that is funny! Genuinely funny! So hard to to do, but I and my wife both laughed a lot during this movie. It was a real gem.
It’s streams on Hulu and you should definitely check it out. Great movie.