Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Finding Neverland: Two Thumbs Up

Well, the two thumbs are both mine. But you know what I'm sayin'. FN is the movie about JM Barrie, the author of Peter Pan. It dramatizes how he met the family of boys who inspired him to write the story after a string of failed plays and books. I avoided seeing it because I figured it would be boring. Wrong. This movie was so good I could have cried. It was wonderful for many, many reasons but I will give you the top two:

1. Johnny Depp
2. Johnny Depp with a rock-solid Scottish accent

Ain't nuthin' finer than Mr. Johnny Depp speaking Scottish. It's as delightful to me as french fries and chocolate on one yummy plate.

Most critically, extra points go to JDepp for learning it and doing it RIGHT. So many movie Scottish accents sound like Groundskeeper Willie from The Simpsons or Scotty from Star Trek, both of which nail my dad's accent but not really anyone else's in Scotland.

Bad Scottish movie accents are much like the many bad Boston accents perpetrated upon moviegoing audiences. By "bad Boston accent" I am of course referring to "The Kennedy" patois that Hollywood uses for almost all New Englanders. The Kennedys are NOT Bostonian!! NO ONE sounds like the Kennedys--in Massachusetts or anywhere else. Their accent is their own creation; a combination of Teddy Roosevelt and Katharine Hepburn which no self-respecting Masshole would ever desire to imitate. Even less so if you go a little bit south of Boston (ie, Southie) or a little bit north of Boston (to my old digs in the Merrimack Valley). Any kid who talked like John Kennedy would have gotten his a** soundly kicked at my high school for being a "total wicked loozah." For a real Masshole accent you either need to watch Ben Affleck on Saturday Night Live in the "Sully" skit with Jimmy Fallon [Massachusetts has more boys nicknamed "Sully" per capita than any other region on earth], or you just need to hear my parents' video tape of me getting ready for my senior prom with my big huge permed hair and my date with his hot pink cummerbund, hockey mullet and (I kid you not) tail in the back of his hair:

"Oh my freakin' goh-ad, can you hurry up and take the pic-chah? I'm so wicked hot out hee-ah. And my hay-ah's goin' flat."

Scary. Even scarier is the fact that Johnny Depp, back when I was dating a boy who shared my love for all things Def Leppard, was a fresh-faced young heartthrob on 21 Jump Street about whom I could not have cared less.

Can you blame me? After all, he didn't even have a mullet...

5 comments:

Joe Tornatore said...

nice post and use of language.

Geoff said...

Mullets aren't cool. As a child, I had one that could only be described by one word.

"Mammoth."

Integrated Systems said...

I always wondered...what is "Sully" a nickname for? Is it short for something? Is it "sally" pronounced funny? What? I mean, I've been wondering this since the early 70s, since there's a garbageman puppet on Sesame Street goes by that name.

E said...

Aah. Miko. You have articulated a universal question in the minds of people not from Massachusetts.

It is short for "Sullivan," and this being MA and not CA or CT, it is NOT a first name. It is always the last name Sullivan. Who is friends/cousins with [every MA town has them] The McCarthy Brothers: Patrick, Sean and Kevin. Sometimes one of them will be a Brendan McCarthy, but most likely the three previously listed.

Integrated Systems said...

Ah-HA! My mind is at rest.