Quoted from Death Monkey Have you seen On the Beach?

    
  

No, but Ava Gardner was quoted as saying “I couldn't imagine a better place [Australia] for making a film on the end of the world.”

Obviously she wasn't overly impressed with my fair country.  

But who could blame her? It would've been a cultural backwater in 1959.

I was thinking more along the lines of the Americans cast as Australians.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIHa8Mb_bL8

Fast forward to 2:10 an listen to their conversation. Donna Anderson and Anthony Perkins are both playing Australians.

But Ava Gardner is worse.

I just saw Talladega Nights and I have to say Sacha Baron Cohen's French accent was pretty horrendous. There's a good chance it was intentional but it was horrendous either way. There was also too much British in Clive Owen's American accent in Sin City.

As for the good, I thought Christian Bale's American accent in American Psycho was fantastic and was so flamboyant, it made everything he said funnier (yes, I thought American Psycho was funny; it's one of the best satires out there).

Those are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head. Honestly, it's hard for me to say which accents are good and which ones are bad considering I can't mimic accents on my life. Even the bad ones are better than anything I could try and pull off.

Quoted from Death Monkey I was thinking more along the lines of the Americans cast as Australians. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIHa8Mb_bL8 Fast forward to 2:10 an listen to their conversation. Donna Anderson and Anthony Perkins are both playing Australians. But Ava Gardner is worse.

Yeah. They sound like Brits.

Quoted from Takeshi Yeah. They sound like Brits.

I'd go so far as saying they sound like Americans trying to sound like Brits.

They still got the retroflex American R-thing going, and notice Donna Anderson's line "they must be giving you a ship of your own". The O in Own is American. And she pronounces the post-vocalic R in "ill oR something" which isn't pronounced in most English dialects. Maybe if you're from Bristol or something.

But her tone is definitely trying to emulate Englishness.

It's just a mess.  

Quoted from Death Monkey I'd go so far as saying they sound like Americans trying to sound like Brits. They still got the retroflex American R-thing going, and notice Donna Anderson's line "they must be giving you a ship of your own". The O in Own is American. And she pronounces the post-vocalic R in "ill oR something" which isn't pronounced in most English dialects. Maybe if you're from Bristol or something. But her tone is definitely trying to emulate Englishness. It's just a mess.

Yeah. It was ordinary. But if the American audiences didn't notice the studio wouldn't have cared.

I think back then people didn't care much about authentic accents. Dick van Dyke and Clark Gable could play brits and speak comepletely American.

Today, a good accent could win you an Oscar nomination.

Yeah. Leonardo DiCaprio did a great South African accent in Blood Diamond.

I'll probably get flamed by a South African now.  

And don't forget Sean Connery in Highlander and Hunt for Red October.


Phil

I was gonna say.  Dick Van Dyke's "English" accent in Mary Poppins is the biggest disaster since, uh, the Gorn fight in Star Trek.

Also Nicolas Cage in Con Air.  Makes the movie more fun but uh, not working.  Oh and Nicolas Cage  again in Vampire's Kiss.  If you can find that one, it's worth renting just to hear that freaking accent.

Al Pacino in Revolution, the movie so bad that he quit acting for four years.

As for good, hmm...that's no fun.  I'd prefer to pick on people.