Part 257: Sexy Beast

RECORD STORE TALES Part 257:  Sexy Beast
Or: should a cockney accent be mistaken for a foreign language?

This guy, “Big Daddy Dave,” came into the store to return a movie he bought.  That DVD was Sexy Beast, starring Ben Kingsley and Ray Winstone. Great movie, British mobster flick. If you’ve seen it (and I recommend that you do) then you know the accents are quite thick — but also that the movie is still in English.  In fact I recommended the movie to Big Daddy Dave and was surprised to see him return with it in hand.

He walked up to the counter and said, “Yeah, I want a movie that’s in English.” So I explained to him that Sexy Beast was in English. Ray Winstone and Ben Kingsley are, in fact, both English. “That movie was in English? But I couldn’t understand a damned word they said!”

As my mother-in-law says, “You can’t fix stupid”.

BEAST

34 comments

  1. Ha, ha. Have you tried him with ‘Trainspotting’?

    One of biggest TV bugbears, actually, is the sometimes bizarre use of English accents on US TV. How come the northern Daphne (from Frasier) for example, has a brother with a southern accent? Not just ‘England’ either. Mrs. Doubtfire … what the hell kind of accent is that?! And I haven’t’ even mentioned Dick Van Dyke. Anyway, I’m sure Americans say the same about US accents on British TV!

    (ps As a Welshman, don’t get me started on the portrayal of Rugby Union in Friends!)

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    1. I’m still trying to figure out how a French Starfleet captain named Jean-Luc has a perfect British accent. Not to mention the Scottish engineer that sounds Canadian to me!

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  2. LOL. Sexy Beast is awesome. My two favorite rug-pissing movies, the other of course being Big Lebowski. If I woke up and found Ben Kingsley pissing on my rug, I’d just pretend to be sleeping until he went away.

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    1. I forgot about Kingsley doing a rug-piss in this. I think I agree with you, I’d just fake sleep until he’s gone. I remain convinced that Don Logan is one of the top five bad-ass characters in cinema!

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  5. Turn on the subtitles. Done.

    Also, I tried watching this movie. I understood it, but I didn’t want to. All Kingsley did was shout, and equate that with powerful acting. It was like trying to watch much of Pacino’s work in the 90s. Ugh.

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    1. I had to watch the Trailer Park Boys movie on subtitles during parts where I couldn’t tell what Ricky was saying. Turns out he was saying “Cocky-chop fuck-linker.”

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  6. Ha ha ha that’s incredible.

    I could understand if it was Trainspotting or as mentioned above, the travelers in Snatch sure, but actual characters from England, that’s pretty bad ha ha.

    Let’s hope he never watches something set in Newcastle ha ha.

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        1. For sure. But we had help with the slang — one of our long time employees was born in Scotland and lived there into his teens. So when Ewen McGregor says, “That’s me-fuckin’-dazza!” he could explain what that meant.

          Now the book on the other hand that is a whole other story, and I never got very far. Just can’t.

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        2. Ha ha. I love Irvine Welsh’s books. Trainspotting is particularly dense though, he kind of toned it down a bit with each new book.

          Glue and Crime are practically written in normal English.

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        7. I understand one word that starts with an “F”. I love this…this is right up my alley for comedic entertainment. Oooh I heard another word I understood: “shite”! Seems these guys like fightin’!

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  7. Hey also, a post called SEXY BEAST seems an appropriate place to be talking about me, right? RIGHT! So:

    SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION:
    ———————————————

    Any of you regular Lebrain readers wanna add to your reading list, I’ve been keeping a music review blog (if you didn’t already know this) over at keepsmealive.wordpress.com. I’ve been posting there, in a joint effort with my buddy James, since 2006. It’s totally unprofessional (unike Mike’s site), but we have some laughs.

    Anyway, it was my New Years resolution this year to get a crapload more content up there this year, so if you wanna bookmark it, I’ll fill your inboxes with all sorts of (generally breathless) crap about all kinds of things music-related that have crossed my path.

    I’m also curating a running list of everything I own (CDs, LPs, books, DVDs, etc) over at whatownsme.wordpress.com, mostly in case the house burns down, but also out of total geekery. I’ll be cross-linking to the keepsmealive too, so that everything I own will eventually have a review for it. It’s a labour of love (and many, many, many hours) but will ultimately be worth it, I think. It may never be finished. I keep adding new stuff I’ve just gotten to the damn thing!

    Anyway, if you wanna read my junk or troll my collection remotely, visit good ol’ isaacandsophie (Mikey’s Most Blabbemouth Commenter Of 2013, or Aaron, if you prefer) at:

    keepsmealive.wordpress.com

    and

    whatownsme.wordpress.com

    Cheers!

    -End of shameless self-promotion. As you were, folks.-

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      1. You betcha! I do realize thugh, same as you, that this may be an impossible task! And thanks for allowing the linkage, I was hoping you’d think that was alright. I’m not trying to steal your readers! Just… adding more beauty to their worlds? Haha, beauty? Or something.

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        2. I can’t keep up with all you guys on a daily basis so please don’t be insulted if I miss a few posts! There’s so much quality content here on WordPress. I’m never bored anyway.

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        3. Oh hell you’re the last guy who needs to worry about allowing linkages. You’re my friggin’ second reader! (Steve from ERTAS was first that I’m aware of, not counting Craig Fee who was coaching me at the start.)

          It’s mutual appreciation for a mental illness that we both share: MUSIC COLLECTING! And Mr. 1537 has the same goal as us, except for him it’s vinyl only. And that’s probably for the best, is 1,537 CDs enough to review?

          Considering the collections grow and grow faster than I can post, I realize this task will never end. But neither will collecting! Kiss will always have something new coming out, long after they’re dead. Guaranteed.

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        4. Yeah, I remember the early days of this blog. I don’t have the conversations in my inbox anymore but I recall helping talk it out a bit. Look at our little Mikey, how he’s grown! Hahahaha. Barring electricity shortage or ISP screw ups, you’ll likely find me over in the corner over this site, jibbering away…

          As for the KMA, I can’t promise it’ll all be the rawk, I have a wide range of stuff here. But the list at WOM will give you fair warning. I like a bit of everything!

          Also, 1537, how does that work. You own 1537 records? And you’ve stopped buying until you’ve reviewed them all, or what? I need to get over there and check this out…

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