Actually, this is an issue I have in general -- if people are supposed to be speaking their native language in an English-language movie, they shouldn't have a "foreign" accent anyway, so American or British accents make as much sense as anything else to me.
I've always had a bug about this one too. If someone is playing a Russian historical figure, why is it more authentic and critically praise worthy to have them speak English with an OMG IT'S A REAL RUSSIAN ACCENT than it is to have them just speak English?
The worst that I can remember (okay, other than Mme Giry in Phantom), was in The Messenger, when the French characters were given the default BBC-accents-of-poshness, but when the English turned up, they all had Scottish accents. It was maddeningly stupid. Much like the rest of the film.
I think, in the case of drama set in the ancient world, that it doesn't matter too much what accent one uses, as long as it's consistent. I find the slight Italian accent Cashmere mentioned kind of cute, and probably as close to the Latin as anything might be. But I, for one, would be fine with a generic American accent - I think there's enough foreign-ness in a period drama (setting, clothes, the way people behave) that you don't need a "foreign" accent to signify "these people are not from your space-time location." I think in period drama, the British accent is generally signifying "the Romans were all upscale and shit, you know that 'cause only high class people study Latin, and the British are all upscale and shit too, everyone knows that, they all grow up studying Latin, so (to sum up) this is one real high-class movie." Which amuses me. (Not least because I know enough of Britain to know it's not all upper-class posh twits - but the assumption is, most Americans don't.)
The best solution is to choose accents and stick to them; all Romans speak BBC English, German tribes speak in Lancastrian accents, Phoenicians are all Valley Girls, etc.
The worst that I can remember (okay, other than Mme Giry in Phantom), was in The Messenger, when the French characters were given the default BBC-accents-of-poshness, but when the English turned up, they all had Scottish accents. It was maddeningly stupid. Much like the rest of the film.
Mightn't the Scottishness be historically accurate, though? I know that recreations I've heard of Elizabethan speech sound weirdly Cockney with a Scottish tinge. I'm wondering if 170 years earlier the latter could be much more pronounced.
Well, the Rs at least would have sounded more Scottish. The R-dropping that we consider to be "posh" English didn't become anything like standard until after Shakespeare.
And not just for reasons whitefonted.
Although that doesn't hurt.
I don't know how wide a release it's getting, but Grizzly Man is an amazing documentary, highly recommended.
I will warn people that despite the inspirationally-toned poster, this is definitely not March of the Grizzlies. It's much more about Timothy Treadwell's inner life than about the bears themselves, and it's not always pretty. His own footage from living with the grizzlies (which he did for 13 summers before he was killed) is intercut with interviews done after his death from friends, family, and wildlife experts. It's not always an objective presentation, but I think it's a fair one, and it's just a fascinating movie.
For fans of the oldies, found an obscure one on TCM: After Office Hours. In high concept terms, it's His Girl Friday five years earlier.
Clark Gable plays the Cary Grant role of the newspaper editor without scruples, and Constance Bennett plays the wealthy young woman who's a reporter on the paper. Gable both loves Bennett and uses her to get scoops on the private lives of three persons in her social circle (a married couple and the is-he-or-isn't-he her lover who's going to run for office).
Then, a murder. Not a whodunit because we know who's guilty even before the victim is dead. But the characters need to figure out whodunit.
So, it's a combination screwball comedy and mystery. Plus Billie Burke doing her usual shtik in a supporting role as Bennett's mother. All in a zippy hour and a quarter.
