The Sheila Variations

What, you didn't like Big Trouble in Little China? (Actually, that's one of those guilty pleasures I'm not really that guilty about.) All kidding aside, Miracle does look to be good.

Calling Big Trouble in Little China a guilty pleasure is a rather grandiose understatement; I've never understood why they canned the proposed sequel. ;-)

1.Kurt Russell was pretty good in Dark Blue.

2.Of course Matt and Ben did the accent - they are local boys. As for Robin,well, I have never heard a non-native do a proper Boston accent. Simply not possible.

For the record, I think Boston accents are hideous. HIDEOUS. My apologies...

And I can't wait for the movie, either. Given the subject, I hope it doesn't disappoint.

I have loved Kurt Russell ever since I saw "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes" in 6th grade. I loved Big Trouble in Little China, too.

And Dan - but when you have someone like Meryl Streep speaking German in a POLISH accent in Sophie's Choice - and even Poles cannot tell the difference - it raises the bar a bit for other actors. No excuse!

And weirdly enough - Holly Hunter did a movie where she had to do a Boston accent - and her own accent is so pronounced I thought she couldn't possibly do a good job - but you know what? She did. It was that movie with Richard Dreyfus.

The accent itself may be very grating, but to me it says "family"..."home"...

ive been a kurt russell fan
since those tacky disney flicks
he made when he was a teeny bopper
love that man
and he rarely has a roll
that shows what he can do
im happy for him

Rossi -

When he played Dexter Riley. I loved Dexter Riley!

Hideous Emily? Hideous?

Sheesh...I bet you don't even know what a frappe is...

To be said in a Boston accent:

"I loved takin' the trolley downtown to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox when I was a kid."

I believe we watched "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes" in the "Multi-purpose" room.

I lived in Boston when I was a kid, and if memory serves, frappe is a stupid word for "milkshake"...

Sheila...any chance of a phoenetic transcription of that sentence?

Betsy -

Yes. We were in the multi-purpose room. Bless you.

Emily -

A STUPID word for milkshake?? What??

That actually would be another funny post - to discuss regionalisms. List them out. In Rhode Island, a "frappe" or a "milkshake" is known as a "cabinet".

Okay, so let me try a phonetic rendering of that sentence:

"I loved takin' the trawllee dOWntown to Fenway Pahk to see the Red Sawx when I was a kid."

More:

"We would pahk th' cah in Hahv'd Yahd and then grab the trawlley."

"...and it was wicked cool."

A frappe is not a milkshake. Entirely different animal.

Just ribbin' yah, O'Malley.

I remember the "Pahk tha cah" thing being a big joke for my family and I when we moved from Boston to Germany. We didn't notice until we got to Europe that we'd picked up pieces of the regional dialect...

A cabinet's not REALLY a milkshake either ... it's not an A to B correlation.

"yeah, goin' to see the Sawx is always wicked cool."

"Wicked"! I'd forgotten. Everything was "wicked". Rick Springfield, in particlar, was "wicked awsome".

Rhode Island regionalisms can be embarrassing - if you assume that people from other states will know what you are talking about.

I remember the first time I saw the word "bubbler" to someone not from Rhode Island - and the look of incomprehension and amazement on this person's face.

A "bubbler" is a water fountain.

Actually, to be accurate, the word, in the Rhode Island dialect, is "bubb-lah."

Rick Springfield was definitely "wicked awesome". Especially in his Jessie's Girl/Dr. Noah Drake incarnation.

Oops, meant to write: "the first time I USED the word 'bubbler' to someone not from Rhode Island"...

"Bubbler" is also used heavily in the Milwaukee area. I'd see water fountains labeled "Bubbler" in libraries. I've also heard it used in some areas of Washington state.

Rodya -

Wow! I had no idea! Cool.

"I am excited on mulitple levels."

I believe there is a DSM-IV code for that.

[smile]

Ha!! I've always got multiple levels goin' on. I definitely need some code.

Russell went through an excellent period there with Used Cars, Silkwood and Swing Shift. Hasn't been in a lot of high-quality movies or roles since, though. I think Overboard was where things started going downhill...

The term bubbler is also in use in MA. OR was when I was a kid.

Some other regionalisms from my long lost youth:

jimmies: they go on your Sundae; what the ill-informed refer to as 'sprinkles.'

huck: to toss or to throw as in 'He hucked the ball over the wall.'

Dan -

HUCK! Wow. Forgot about "huck". We Rhode Islanders used "huck", too.

Jimmies rock. But aren't they also called "shot"? As in (written in Boston accent): "Gimme a scoop a' chawklit with chawklit shot, please."

Also - my dad calls soda "tonic". Isn't that a Boston thing, too?

And MikeR -

Oh yeah, Silkwood was amazing. I should see that again.

Yes, tonic is correct.

I can't believe I missed so much of this conversation. Emily, you are shunned: Boston accents are wicked cool. ;-) For the record, I don't naturally have one (both parents being from NYC), but I easily switch into one.

Sheewee -

Somewhere I have all their autographs... Jim Craig, Mike Eruzionie, etc. I'll find em for ya. Hotties all.

J

Jackie -

I would love that! You can say, "I was there! I was there!"

For a great Boston accent - you can tune into my favorite train wreck, Average Joe, and have a listen to Brian (described as Department of Homeland Security Auditor)

Sheila,

Water fountains are referred to as "bubblers" in Wisconsin as well, at least in the area I'm from. I didn't realize it was a regional word, until I was at Sea World in Orlando, at the age of 12, asking a lady working there "where's the nearest bubbler?" She looked at me like "what the hell are you talking about you dumb kid?" I love regional lingo, or the infamous 'pop vs. soda' debate.

Laura, in some parts of the South, it isn't "pop" or "soda," but "coke"--as generic a term as kleenex or xerox. Freaked me out the first time I heard it, too.

Dave,
Yep - my mom, aunts, and grandfather called virtually all sodapop "Coke". Even if it was Pepsi, it was a "coke".

Regionalisms can get confusing. I was having breakfast at a hotel in Memphis, TN and wanted tea for breakfast so I ordered "tea". The waitress turned to me and said "We don't normally brew that on Sunday" and I was thinking 'brew?!? just boil some water and gimme a tea bag'. Turned out in the south 'tea' means 'iced tea'. I had to explain that I wanted 'hot tea'.

I've always liked Kurt Russell, even when the movie is bad he turns in a good performance. Someone mentioned Dark Blue, hated it, but he was fantastic.

Bill -

Yeah, he definitely is a fine actor. I am hoping that Herb Brooks will be one of "those" roles that may catapult him to another level.

I like comedies, and I loved him in Overboard, it's a goofy movie, but hysterical.

I loved Overboard.

That scene where Goldie Hawn is making the kids' lunches for the first time, and she's just throwing random handfuls of M&M's into their brown bags. She beckons one of the kids, saying "twin...oh, twin..."

Emily -

Oh my God, I forgot about that. That's hysterical. She can be so damn funny.

Has anyone seen "Seems Like Old Times"? With her, Chevy Chase and Charles Grodin? I remember that as being a damn funny movie.

I've seen Overboard way too many times to find it funny anymore. It was one of those "watch with the whole family" films that got watched around here waaaaay too much.

I haven't seen it for a couple years, it's on my list of DVDs I'd like to own at some point...although there are plenty more ahead of it, but it's one of those movies I watch every now and then, and truly enjoy.

BTW...if you can't wait, they're doing sneak previews on Saturday night.

Thanks for the heads up, Bill, I just looked and the big theater in Pittsburgh is doing a sneak preview so I ordered some tickets from Fandango.

Hey Sheila, nice post. The game against the USSR(long time since I wrote that)team was hugely uplifting for me. At the time I was 18, a freshman in college, and generally pissed off. The Iranians held our diplomats hostage. The economy was heading into recession. The USSR was making all sorts of trouble in Central America. OPEC had just finished handing us our butt on oil. We had probably the lamest President of the 20th Century (Jimmy Carter was, and still is, the epitome of the banality of evil...how a person can do tremendous harm by good intentions disconnected from reality). Things were bleak.

And one day I'm listening on the radio(the game was televised later)as this group of kids took on the USSR, the giant of hockey. I live in Minnesota, hockey is a passion here as in New England. And these kids, my peers, were hanging tough against those professional amateurs. Then they won. What a great moment. The New England kids, the Minnesota kids, Herb Brooks(RIP).

It probably seems trivial to most now, but it was so profound then. I hope the movie does all of them, and us, justice.

Take care,
Dave

Dave -

Your comment brought some tears to my eyes. It WAS that meaningful, wasn't it? I was in grade school at the time - so didn't have the global perspective that you did - I just knew that those kids looked so happy, and everyone seemed to be just FREAKING OUT. I got swept away by it all.

It was only later that I understood the implications. The HBO documentary perfectly captures the tenor of the world at the time - that you describe so well.

Sneak preview this Saturday night ... I may have to blow some other people off and go see it.

I was about 4 when this happened, so I virtually have no memory of it. As I grew older, and learned of it, and all the factors surrounding this magnificant feat, I realized it was something pretty damn special, and regretted not being old enough to have really lived the moment. It was so much more than a sports story, it was a defining moment for that time in history.

I wasn't a big hockey fan yet in 1984, but I did pay attention to the Olympic tournament and I knew we were playing well enough to have a theoretical chance against the Russians. But to actually DO it, against what was the equivalent of an NHL All-Star Team, it kinda left you at a loss for words.

The real test was the gold medal game against Finland, though. The Finns weren't nearly as good as the Russians, but historically they had been plenty good enough to beat us. To come down emotionally from one of the greatest upsets in sports history and be forced to play another game for the gold was at least as enormous task as beating the Russians in the first place.

I hope the new movie will be good, but the film history for these sorts of stories is not a particularly happy one.

Disney, especially, does not have a good track record with "inspirational event" films. Still, I hope they did well with this story. But I really wish I wasn't too young to remember when it happened.

Well, Seabiscuit was an amazing movie. The Rookie was awesome. I will continue to hope. And another thing:

(and this is just me) If i believe so strongly that something SHOULD be good, a lot of times it does APPEAR to me that it IS good, even if it is not.

I'm an optimist. Which has given me a lot of trouble, I'll tell ya.

I get that way too, for a few weeks. Then I look back and say "that really sucked" and want to take back all the good things I said.

For example: I didn't realize that "The Phantom Menace" was bad until I endured it in a Virginia hotel room six months and five viewings later.

Sheila-It was that meaningful. Strange now that a game would have so much meaning attached to it but that was the cold war...symbolism meant so much when the alternative was MAD.

Back to regionalisms for a second- My sister Meredith just called from the parking lot at a funeral here in RI. She was sharing how she was about to head home to NH with food from Twin Oaks,and Allie's Donuts. She said, "Now if I can just squeeze in a stop to Newport Creamery or Dell's, it'll be the perfect trifecta." That girl is too much!!!!!!

We went to a sneak preview of "Miracle" tonight. It was a very enjoyable movie and it felt at least like a fairly accurate history of what happened. Go see it.