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.

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."

On the down side, there is Tony Curtis, "I taught da classix to da children of my meastah." American Broadcaster English, okay, but hearing Brooklyn out of a Roman slave is pretty effin weird.

(In Spartacus, Kirk Douglas talked Strangely Enunciated American, but was surrounded mostly by Brits -- Olivier and Ustinov as the lords, and the lovely Jean Wossname as a fellow slave, all talking Beeb English. As mish-mashes go, probably nobody cared about accent.)

(Then again, I just don't want to hear Tony Curtis attempt an accent of any kind, the way you don't want Tom Cruise or Kevin Costner to attempt an accent.)

I saw Funny Face for the first time the other night. Hello to the garish 60s design! The titles were done by Richard Avedon -- who knew? (I mean, besides the whole rest of the world?)

From Slashdot:

"Marvel has raised $525 million to independently finance 10 movies based on its comics over seven years. The titles named are Captain America, The Avengers, Nick Fury, Black Panther, Ant-Man, Cloak & Dagger, Dr. Strange, Hawkeye, Power Pack and Shang-Chi. The company's also changing its name from Marvel Enterprises to Marvel Entertainment."

Ant-Man! He has the strength of a human!

The only encoding-foreign-language-as-accents thing that ever really made sense to me was having French people sound British (when there's no "English" spoken. Then it gets complicated). The US:UK::Canadian French:French French always made sense to me.

I just saw The Aristocrats, and my face hurts from laughing.

I saw Funny Face for the first time the other night. Hello to the garish 60s design! The titles were done by Richard Avedon -- who knew? (I mean, besides the whole rest of the world?)

He also shot the photos of Audrey Hepburn during the fashion shoots. I love Funny Face for the fashion thing more than the dancing, sad to say (considering it's an Astaire pic).