Where have all the cowboys gone?

When I was younger, I watched movies much the same way most of you probably do. You allow the suspending of disbelief and the players to paint the vision of the world in which they are in to emerge into a story, sometimes actually worth watching. I remember watching with baited breath to see how Doc Brown was going to get Marty 'Back to the future!' The Ghost Busters had it under control in NYC even if the villain in the second one, or as I call it the 'unfortunate' one, was Vigo the oil painting with an attitude. The portal of movies was always something I loved and always filled me with a true wonderment.

Well, A few acting and film classes can shoot that magic right into the crapper.

Now I watch movie's or television shows and I notice how the camera pans into a shot, the way the lighting in certain areas indicate the intensity of the plot and mainly- How the actors can rattle off such odd and nonsensical jargon without having the foggiest clue of what in the shit they are saying!

The biggest offender of this is one of my favorite shows HOUSE M.D.

Every week we see the ensemble of HOUSE M.D. rattle off complex medical statements to the point where, when I learned first about this show, as I watched I thought.. "WTF ARE THEY SAYING!?"
I didn't want to be one of the people, like a few, who watch House in a daze until the next quip comes about.
Or as I like to call it "The Dennis Miller Syndrome"

SIDE NOTES

• People who say they are HUGE Dennis Miller fans... ARE LYING TO YOU!
• He's great and amazing and way too well read to have the common comedy central or HBO watcher to laugh knee slapping at every joke!
• I believe he's only famous because the people who manage him don't want to let on how stupid they are.

Well I educated myself about said jargon simply by watching and I learned a bit. I also became a big fan of Discovery health with their House-lite shows such as: Diagnosis Mystery, Mystery Diagnosis, Diagnosis X, Medical Mystery and other variations of the same show entitled by the same 5 words but jumbled. The library helped too. Now I have a new found respect for doctors, nurses and actors. Why actors?

So what do you consider a good actor? Being able to convey such emotion that it makes you have a genuine emotion for their character? Or the dead panned delivery of random scatological verbiage? I say "Why not both!"

Keep in mind this steams from how I look at television shows, it's the worst with Sci-Fi. I know this guy just woke up 2 hours before filming that day, looked over his script while drinking coffee in a make up chair, made his way to the set and then has to pretend he's a captain of the ship that is being shot at. All the while the Bob (Who still owes him 30 bucks) is dressed as an Alien and is really Lord Glakmoore from Sirius 7 and he's willing to negotiate a trade of one million kragors for the 3 hostages from his crew or a the red crystal he found on Paxil. I've never been into comics either.

Run on sentences aside, this is just how I feel when I watch shows like "FIREFLY." FireFly is an amazing show set so far in the future the language changed, so from time to time they will slide into this gibberish baby talk that was brought to my attention as being Chinese with no subtitles so you have to get what they are saying through body and facial language. I think the show is great and a damn shame it didn't last. It's filled with action, sexiness, and that special Joss Whedon humor you can't find anywhere else except his work. Come on, you know at one point or another they looked at the script and thought "You got to be fucking kidding me?" I also believe that no matter how professional the actors are they had to have wasted a ton of film laughing their asses off. British humor is very different than American humor too.

 As I mention before one of my favorite shows is HOUSE M.D. and as I watched I stare in awe, because Huge Laurie AKA Gregory House M.D. is British. Huge Laurie was born in Oxford, England and does an American accent (Yes, we have accents) seamlessly. We, as Americans, can't do an accent without sounding stereotypical to each other, my southern drawl sounds like Yosemite Sam, my Midwest sounds like Fargo, and I can't do a Jersey accent without sounding like a dumb-ass 'Situation' or Fran Drescher.
Which Begs the question..?

"Where have all the Cowboy's gone?"

Another show that I am getting into is "Sons of Anarchy" on FX. 'SOA' is a show about a out law bike gang that runs guns and all the politics that go along with it. The main Character Jackson 'Jax' Teller is played by Charlie Hunnam who was born Newcastle, England! Once again he has the American accent down pat. SOA takes place in California and Hunnam has that subtle west coast swagger without ever over doing it and sounding like a bad Saved by the Bell episode... I know, it's too easy of a joke.

Imagine, your an actor and you get a roll on a major BBC show where you play a British from Oxford, and you have to do this without sounding insulting. How much does it pay? Whats a pound?

AND THE BRITS JUST KEEP ON COMING!

When I say 'Edward Cullen' it generally elicits three different types of responses per any given group:

1. "OH MY GOD HE'S SO HAWT!"
2. "EW? TEAM JACOB! HE'S SO MUCH HOTTER!"
3. ::SIGH:: "The Twilight faggot?

Even though all these statements are proven facts it doesn't change the one fact that Robert Pattison was born in London, England. Yes, just another dirty foreigner coming here to take our jobs!

Seriously? Is the recession that bad that we have to outsource our actors too? Do they come cheaper? Well each member of 'Friend's' were getting 1 million dollars an episode as to where Huge Laurie is only getting 450,000 and  show... then again that was a happier administration.. I mean, time.

A bit o' research later I found out this has been happening for years!

Cary Grant was a dancing, acting machine and somehow in the folds of time we assume he's American. Born Archibald Alexander Leach in Bristol, England!


Remember Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles? Well the main character Lena Headey was born in Bermuda, where her father, a Yorkshire police cadet, was sent shortly before she was born. She was raised in Bermuda living on the ocean, until she was 5. Back in England, she was brought up in Yorkshire, before moving to London in her teens. - Yes I copied that from IMDB!

One that floored me was Charlie Chaplin! Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in Walworth, London, England. Again! his accent was... oh yeah.

As for the British 'Film' invasion no real harm or foul has been done, if anything I think it has made television and movie's a bit better. We already know that the musical British invasion of the 50's, 60's 70's and 80's went supremely well! Dusty Springfield, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Ozzy, Rolling Stones, Clapton! Madonna's pretentious accent?!?!  
So these 'Invasions' are going so much better than the first one - However I'm at a loss. Wasn't Los Angeles filled with actors and screen play writes, better known as waiters and exotic dancers? At Last check New York was still a beacon for people wishing to play the fame lottery? And isn't Orlando Still a shit hole?

So in my opinion since these talented British actors and actresses can fly under our radar so well it strikes me as a possibility we will never have another Cary Grant, or Chaplin. Let alone a flood of talented British actors that fill our screens and move us like the Beatles or Stones. It might be because they are acting like Americans.. Who knows! For all I know more British accents will pour into the mainstream, we do have 2 more Harry Potter's coming out. The show 'Lie To Me' On Fox is spearheaded by Tim Roth and he's SUPER British like really, really uber British. This might be the start of a major flux in our leading men and women! Maybe the British accent can stop being attached to the villain or side kick to make them more 'villainous' and side kicky because, as Americans, that accent has to be attached to a villain via our DNA and that can't be in charge right? Well I'm looking forward to more sexy British women as Bond girls and less Twilight.    

Well, provided this blog goes well, I'll make it a point to write more about whatever in the hell I wish, I hope you had some nice insights and maybe willing to give some shows a shot that you might not have heard or thought of trying.

Until next time I'll be here chuffed to bits imagining Kate Beckinsale, Emily Watson, Helena Bonham Carter, and Minnie Driver washing my manky Domestic car in nothing but their knickers while my trousers are around my ankles enjoying a wank.