Erin Go Good Morning everybody !! And a Happy Saint Patrick's Day to one and all...Aaaah, Saint Patrick's Day, the one day a year when everyone's Irish, except(to quote Kent Brockman)"...The gays and the Italians."...But I kid...I kid...
I kid because I'm drunk...Because as we all know, as an Irishman, I'm always drunk...Technically, I don't even need to imbibe spirits, my 100 % Irish blood is actually 10 % alcohol by volume, and has been since my birth into an small Irish Catholic family of 26. Aah yes, we Irish loooove the booze and reject the birth control...A very healthy and...um...productive combination...Hee-Hee...
On St. Patrick's Day, besides drinking even more than usual...I like to take a stroll down cinematic memory lane and revisit all of the HORRENDOUS Irish accents we have had to endure...The first one that always comes to mind is Mickey Rourke in a "Prayer For The Dying"...Now, I loves me some Mickey Rourke, he's in "Diner", the greatest movie of all time for Jaysus' sake(but it's about Jews in Baltimore, not the Irish, so I shan't discuss it further)...Hell, I even saw "Harley Davidson & The Marlboro Man" in the bloody theater...And I feckin' LIKED it, but ever since watching "A Prayer For The Dying"(or most of it anyway- I honestly can't remember if I finished it..I was drunk)..I have had the line " You dooon't knoow!!!" emblazoned on my brain, if you have ever spent time with me(and I'm sorry if you have), you have probably heard me mutter it a few times...It's hard to get the butchered accent across in print, but take my word for it...Or give me a call, I'll do the impression for you...
And then there's Brad Pitt in "The Devil's Own"...Sweet Jaysus, why did he even bother ? I don't even know how to characterize it, i just makes me have more respect for Kevin Costner for just not doing an accent in Robin Hood, rather than butchering one(oh, and whilst I'm on a tangent, how the feck does Kevin Costner get raked over the coals for that, but fecking Russell Crowe wins a feckin' OSCAR for his portrayal of a Spaniard with an AUSTRALIAN ACCENT in that heaping pile of shite called "Gladiator"?!!? Just how in the feck does that happen ?)...But I digress...
Now, no discussion of bad Irish accents would be complete without discussing Maggie from "Caddyshack"...Quite possibly the worst Irish accent I have ever heard( I think it's even worse than John Candy's deliberately bad Irish accent as an actor(probably Johnny LaRue) playing JFK in an SCTV sketch.."And you say they'll be landin'..At the bay o' pigs ?" and then he winces and shakes his head..To quote the Guinness commercial.. BRILLIANT !!)...For those of you who might not watch the movie on a regular basis(it was number 4 1/2 on the Four Movies I watch Over And Over Tag)...Maggie(full name Maggie O'Hooligan) is the waitress at the Country Club/girlfriend of our hero Danny Noonan(himself a strong Irish character...I think there are about 15 kids in his family a the beginning of the movie), she is played by Sarah Holcomb, who delivers some of the most painfully bad Irish accented dialogue EVER(in fact, in the I'm pregnant scene, I think her accent disappears altogether for a few seconds...
Speaking of vanishing accents, have you ever noticed that in the first couple of scenes of "The Big Chill", Kevin Kline has a southern accent, and then all of a sudden, he doesn't anymore ? And, by the way, Kevin Costner shot scenes as the friend who kills himself in that movie...I wonder if they never made the movie because he couldn't do an English accent ?)
Sorry, back to the horrible Irish accents...Oh, Miss. Maggie has so many bad moments, how to pick merely a couple...I'll just go with my favorites...Speaking about another female character, Lacey Underall, she tells Danny, "She's been plucked more times than the roose of Tralee, biggest whooore on 5th Avenue, I'm told." Again, I don't know that the print is doing it justice, but I'm cracking myself up, and if you have seen the movie, i think you know what I'm saying...And the best one, after Danny says that he's willing to marry her, a sobbing Maggie( I almost accidentally typed Magaggie..Hee-hee) responds with "Oh yah ? Well, tanks fer nuttin'!!"...Oh, mercy...Well, that's all I can think of right now...
If anyone has any to share, please feel free...Now, I'm off to boil some things for a traditional Irish meal...Have Happy Saint Patrick's Day, my friends..And I will leave you once again with my favorite Irish proverb..."Let those that love us, love us...For those that don't love us, may God turn their hearts..If God cannot turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles, so we will know them by their limping." Amen, praise Jaysus, and gimme a pint of Harp, you old bastard...."You doon't knoow !!"
1 comment:
Noonan!
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