Monday 21 March 2011

"Attack The Block"

Trailer for THE big hit of SXSW - a group of teen-and-younger UK street toughs (and Nick Frost) defending their block (read: housing project) from alien invaders:



Stateside, the film's hype has been almost overshadowed by rumors that distributors are considering dubbing or subtitling it because of the thick English accents. Yes, this again.

Y'ever notice how this ONLY ever comes up with contemporary and/or urban-set British films? I think that's the real issue... whether people realize it or not: It's not so much that most Americans don't "understand" the accents, it's that they don't think of the UK as having an existence outside of cottage country or posh period-dramas. When Joe n' Jane Sixpack hear English accents coming out of these kids - who look just like "our" street kids - or the contemporary gangsters in Guy Ritchie movies, it doesn't "add up" to them: "Wait wait... they've got GHETTOS in England? Holy shit... they've got BLACK PEOPLE, too!!?? When did that happen!!!??"

(UK readers, seriously - "Harry Brown" was THE scariest movie that American middlebrow yuppie-scum saw last year, because they always only thought of your country as a wholly-pleasant, genteel place they might "escape" to if things just get too sketchy here.)

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