Tearing Down Hollywood's Worst Obsession

[@stonkotron319]

Film junkie just casually drops well pronounced Chinese

[@hi-ez7iy]

Fr

[@spyderling7498]

As a dutch person, Oppenheimer “speaking dutch” was funny as fuck in my cinema cuz no one knew what the fuck he was saying

[@Julian-pw5mv]

Yeah I thought it was German so I went and looked up why a lecturer in Leiden would be speaking German, only to learn it was supposed to be Dutch.

[@kukuc96]

And in the same film the actor playing Edward Teller did a reasonably convincing Hungarian accent (in English). So it's odd that they are linguistically all over the place.

[@piefighter36]

There's a section of mgsv where the enemy soldiers speak afrikaans, and it's flawless. They swear how we swear, they joke how we joke, the accents are realistically correlated to the speaker's race, it's brilliant. And everyone involved in production were Japanese, impressed cannot begin to describe me with that game

[@khweziyoudontneedtoknow9043]

As a South African, I remember watching Black Panther and being completely appauled at how badly they spoke so called "Xhosa/Zulu." It was one of the first few lines of the movie and it was so bad I thought I had a pirated version or something (Nevermind the fact that they speak so called "IsiXhosa/IsiZulu" while having clearly Nigerian/Ghanaian accents). The worst part was after Civil War, Black Panther was easily my new favourite superhero and they did him dirty like that. I still like the movie even though it's hated by everyone else in my family.😂 Edit: Top tier vid as usual. Film Junkie is easily top ten channels for me now

[@Romir0s]

What surprised me the most in that theme, is that Keanu Reeves butchered his Russian line of a few words in multi million John Wick 2 and 3, while Batista did a 8/10 job on his line of a few words in the B-tier action flick The Killer Game. If actor wants - he trains. While this is a funny detail, in movies where characters supposed to be spies, it hurts the story. i.e. Tom Cruise in Kremlin.

[@spacemoai]

The use of Vine boom fucking killed me

[@pg_beatz]

This is why Inglorious Basterds is linguistically really good, as a french/American person I was impressed with the accuracy of Christoph Waltz's pronunciation

[@asiberiantiger188]

It was so satisfying

[@Cadollan]

i believe it helps that Christopher Waltz speaks all the languages for real he uses in that movie.

[@domtoretto6493]

Christoph Waltz is just an insanely goated polyglot besides being an incredible actor

[@smizzmeister]

And Brad Pitt's Italian, of course.

[@bacongaming9179]

Damn i did not expect Film junkie to know Mandarin 😅

[@Cadollan]

A few excellent exeptions: X-Men First class had Willem Dafoe speaking German. At first I thought he had a funny accent, until I realized he did a prussian accent, which is a dying dialect for historical reasons and which was an excellent choice for a east German KZ Commander. Triple X russians goons speak actuall russian and talk about believeable stuff like the food, weather and other apparently none scripted dialog. The "Company of Heroes" games have good voice actors for the German Antagonist, especially the low level grunts in cut scenes. Every time an actor cars about their accent, or have a history, like Sandra Bullock speaking 10/10 German, because... she is.

[@CodEknifE1]

Kevin Bacon*

[@KayZenShoGün]

It's simple. Hollywood is just being performative. As you said, there's no other reason than to show off how 'great' Hollywood looks. Notice I said, 'looks' not 'is'. I first noticed it in Bourne Identity, when the Wombosi goes to the morgue to check on his supposed assailant that he shot. He spoke to his companion in what is supposed to be Yoruba language. His words were translated as "This is not the guy" But what he actually said was "I told you before" 😂 Hollywood is quite insular and hubristic, the only time they leave their bubble is to film overseas and attend award shows. Their hubris feeds their assumption that the perception of Hollywood as the pinnacle of films means that people would assume they're saying it right. There are exceptions though. Anything with Christoph Waltz speaking French, German or Italian would be accurate.

[@dju-dju]

Well, Christoph Waltz is German, not American, which explains why he uses language properly. Like Judy Foster (Half French), Timothée Chalamet (Half French) and Diane Kruger (German). The fact that Tarantino, in Inglorious Basterds, chose Christoph Waltz and Diane Kruger to portray characters who are fluent in other languages, and Brad Pitt as the stupid American who thinks he can get away with mumbling Italian cliché words is one of the best parts of the movie.

[@KayZenShoGün]

@dju-dju That's right

[@en4833]

@@dju-dju Brad Pitt's character didn't think he could get away with with it. It was literally their only option at the time.

[@dju-dju]

@@en4833 He says he speaks italian when they make their last plan. That's why it's so funny when we see he doesn't actually speak. So yes, he thought he could get away with it

[@hanskiffer]

After watching this, the Limitless movie starts to look like a psychological horror in which Lindy starts to realise that Eddie Morra is not the Eddie she knew and starts to slowly become terrified of him.

[@BoneChillingPictures]

"My whole cinema gasped" I'm dead😂

[@Soguwe]

For Hollywood to understand foreign languages, the US would have to care about other countries. That's never gonna happen.

[@bagel-u7p]

Nice " Go go random language "'- Hollywood

[@m1ndles459]

As a malaysian who speaks mandrin hokkien cantonese (3 different types of chinese) english and malay well, speaking different languages doesnt make you look smart

[@RabayaBosry-vq6zg]

I just read your comment and I think you are smart! speaking different languages does make you smart, but pretending to know different language makes you stupid!

[@sparking023]

It does for most americans because they're accostumed to everyone speaking English instead, so why know a second language?

[@josephwallace24]

Remember how bad the English speaking actors were in Squid Game? That was always funny to me and I wondered if non-English speakers noticed

[@jehutyinp]

One sorta Example I remember was in 2017 Logan, when Laura reveals she speaks fluent Spanish to Logan, he gets frustrated and does this common expression I've seen in other Hollywood movie where the character adds "oh" to the end of their words in an attempt to sound more spanish......(o_o)

[@hungariandragon8783]

It took me a long a while to understand that they were trying to speak Hungarian in the cell block tango in Chicago

[@LynnLyns]

As a spanish speaker i just hate when hollywood actors speak spanish only with a mexican accent don't matter the place where is being filmed the scene or the context. If they have to speak spanish its mexican style spanish, fk go with spanish from spain or even neutral spanish but stop using mexican accent for everyone who speak spanish

[@ajiththomas2465]

Honestly, Breaking Bad is a masterpiece of a show but the scenes involving Spanish being spoken are surprisingly bad. RSG2's "The Worst Thing About Breaking Bad" video points this out, about how the flashback scenes involving Gus and his past feature cartel members who speak embarrassingly amateur Spanish.

[@ahegpbtrftcotu]

Whenever actors get Spanish lines, they're nine times out of ten going to be coached by someone speaking Español instead of Castellano regardless of the film's setting unfortunately

[@rileylavid5025]

I guess thank heaven I live in a small country with a language Hollywood rarely tries to speak in their movies, so no movie is ruined for me.

[@jchen4167]

Wow film junkie’s Chinese is super good

[@bramschiebroek1413]

Just a small example but I had this with the "Dutch" quote in Oppenheimer. It's just a one liner but me and my friends were totally out of the movie for a sec just because they didn't bother to do some basic consulting on pronounciation. It was complete gibberish that sounded German but was supposed to be Dutch.

[@johnsmith-jq1uc]

thank god for this guy

[@arturmihhailov7095]

amazing content man thought you had like over a mil subs but wow i was suprised, youll make it big in no type with this quality of videos keep it up man

[@chrrmin1979]

Im sad you didn't use Charlie from Its Always Sunny as an example of a good use of bad Mandarin

[@Br3ttM]

Sometimes it's bad enough someone who isn't even familiar with the language can tell. Sometimes it just flows like someone reciting a line, rather than really speaking, but in the worst cases, it sounds messy or slurred.

[@worsel555]

Thing is though with Bradley Cooper at 0:36 is that he is fluent in French and has done numerous interviews completely in that language over the years, all can be found here on KZbin. The comment that you quoted has their head up their butt, cause even though I am going deaf I could understand that he was asking her about Asians in Hawaii.

[@SoMang92]

This reminds me of Black Panther’s Busan scene before the underground casino. The old korean lady absolutely butchered the language - i think Nakia spoke far better surprisingly

[@kochiyamochiya]

I'm from Indonesia. and I remember when I was watching John Wick 3 at cinema. After beating the 2 Indo assassins, he simply says "Sampai jumpa" which goodbye in our language the audience cheers I know it's just a simple goodbye. but simply making he says it correctly gave so much respect to our language idk why with hundred millions budget they can't just simply hire translators or someone who fluent in those language to wrote those dialogues

[@M.J.A.]

Just finished Arcane 1 & 2

[@FilmJunk1e]

pls no spoilers! I just finished act 2 and haven't gotten to watching act 3 yet :D

[@M.J.A.]

@FilmJunk1e Sorry for glazing hard about Arcane out of nowhere lol, I also haven't spoiled anyone

[@faqihsampurno1224]

YES! I had the same problem with John Wick 3 when Yayan and Cecep speaks in Indonesian. Both of them are Indonesian, and are native speakers of the language. But, my problem is in a world where there are gangsters and and assasins, it is highly unlikely for these two Indonesian men to be speaking in the FORMAL VERSION of Indonesian (people like to call it "Bahasa", but "Bahasa" it self means Language. So to call it Bahasa makes 0 sense). They were speakinh to John Wick as if they were a shakespearean character. The writers shouldnt probably just put the English dialogue into Google translate and call it a day....

[@fabiocapezzuoli3377]

You could see it as a sign of respect for a person they admired. Though it is probably a bit overdone.

[@badral-kebsi8503]

I couldn't watch "lost" because the ARABIC character speaks a language that sounds like an american reading Arabic written in English letters. Complete gibberish 😿

[@ajiththomas2465]

Honestly, Breaking Bad is a masterpiece of a show but the scenes involving Spanish being spoken are surprisingly bad. RSG2's "The Worst Thing About Breaking Bad" video points this out, about how the flashback scenes involving Gus and his past feature cartel members who speak embarrassingly amateur Spanish. .

[@asiberiantiger188]

You're telling me you can't get someone that speaks FUCKING SPANISH in FUCKING NEW MEXICO

[@S3npeye]

Im south African it's normal to know up to 5 languages

[@FilmJunk1e]

That's actually super impressive, I know 3 but am only fluent in one.

[@EB-ep9jv]

Couldn’t agree more! I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard French being butchered into some gibberish nonsense. Just speak it with a thick American accent… it would at least be decipherable 😄 The weird thing is, Bradley Cooper does speak some French, so I’m not sure what happened there. On the other end of the spectrum, I can’t speak for his Italian, which was apparently not great, but Christoph Waltz’s French was sublime in Inglourious Basterds! I remember thinking I must have chosen the wrong showtime and that it was a dubbed version at first 😂🙌🏼🙌🏼

[@sankarist]

I haven't seen a hollywood movie yet where the brazilian character speaks portuguese like we do and if I did, I don't remember. Fast Five, for example, was shot in Rio and featured Joaquim de Almeida, which is a fairly good actor, but not brazilian. The result? Neither him nor the policemen look like they were from or in Brasil, which breaks the experience a lot when you watch it with subtitles. This gets funnier because Jordana Brewster, Toretto's sister, has brazilian ascendence, spent four years in Rio and speaks brazilian portuguese very well, so it shows how they cared so little for the language and the country (a lot of inconsistencies, like a lot a lot). Also we have brazilian actors that could have easily played Joaquim's part I heard that there are some brazilian characters in one of the Transformers movies, but I feel like it would be a waste of time to check it out

[@ungezoockt]

For german, this also often just becomes cringe when actor use german but dont actaully speak it, often because they then use words no one uses and often speak like a goverment officials using long words and compound words because they want to impress american audiences. Screaming "KRANKENWAGEN" and whatever. However when done right and even go beyond and even take in cultural aspects as for examples that germans heavily use idoms in conversations, use specific filler words often and then take into account the regional slang they want to potray the character in, it becomes an instant 10/10. i sadly dont really have a movie or series in mind that does this besides i think inglorious bastards, though i do have example of localization in mind that these perfectly and makes the characters so much more enjoyable because of it.

[@bayanakabismar4622]

The Rush Hour Got Me Dying

[@habbathejutt5749]

I dont now know why, but you cant apply this to german. Never saw a Hollywood film with butchered german. Yes, the pronauciation is often not perfect, but the grammar is.

[@donstarlancer]

English is a Germanic language to begin with so the margin of error would be smaller. It's also not to hard too find someone with German ties, even socially. If someone on the crew is from Ohio or has a friend or something there, they'll mostly nail the production.

[@kailovi]

Agreed. Even though its annoying when Hollywood makes a historical film about any European country and all the characters speak English (Brits do this too), I much prefer that than them speaking English with a "french accent". If you want to make a film, especially historically anyway relevant one from another country, why not then get actors from said country and film there? (I know, I know, because money). Film is an art form, if you want accuracy, you NEED to aim for accuracy in all details, if it's just about an epic story then not so much. BUT, also as a kid seeing the Charlies Angels film where their "secret language" is Finnish, I never realised this as I was reading the subtitles, but as an adult I looked at the scene again and it's so freaking funny 😂 I mean, Lucy Liu is actually understandable, her pronunciation is the best, the only problem is she smoshes all the words together, Barrymore is the second best she just sounds like she's doing a weird silly accent (it's too soft to sound finnish) and my girl Diaz...let's just say I could understand her maybe at the 6th time listening to the scene. It helps that in the context of the film it only has to be good enough for them to understand it between themselves, plus it's a comedy. It's a very good secret language choice since no Finn would understand them either! I was a bit bummed out that Tatiana Maslany (in Orphan Black) plays one Finnish character, speaking english but her "finnish" accent completely off. And I get it, ralli-enkku is a very hard accent to master and not a pretty one, but she's doing a lot of other accents fairly well (to my untrained ear, at least you can guess without knowing that Katja is German and Helena is from eastern Europe) so I'm guessing she didn't have anyone to help her and with the hectic schedule not enough time to prep for the Finnish character.

[@paul6618]

I'm African, I'm going to just say this and most people won't agree with me. We criticise Hollywood because they try. They talk about it and they try because its performative and they want a standard. Ive watched lots of movies from different regions and especially in asian films from South asian to East asia, whenever there's an African, any African in the movie, they make him do the clicking noises without any rhythm and pass it off as him speaking his language. Worse of all, the protagonist joins in. Why not talk about that, why criticise Hollywood because they even try at all?

[@donstarlancer]

Just a guess but the audience may not even be familiar with most of those films.

[@ali-up6lz]

Doing a sex scene is also an obsession that has nothing to do with the plot , it's like they just want to create an inappropriate scene for the film or the series

[@Griot-Guild]

Yooo mandarin is crazy you just made me want to learn it

[@IcyMan143]

I’d like to hear what he has to say on the John wick movies with other languages

[@stonkotron319]

have you ever thought about making a video about bullet train? its a cinematic masterpeice and ide love to hear your take on it

[@Sickness4daThickness]

I love how we are not far from seeing "pig mud's rope day" as an actual set of subtitles for a movie since many of them are done through AI nowadays.

[@leewilson3839]

thank god they didn't make a sequel to rush hour 2

[@simplythecat4068]

That was a thing for a while, I remember when in, I think it was one of the old Borne movies, when the main character was infiltrating a soviet country so they show a fake russian passport and all the text in russian is just complete gibberish.

[@malexponce]

How long till they just clone the actors' voices with AI and make them perfectly fluent in any language? Personally, I don't prefer AI over a true human performance however imperfect it may be.

[@bluemassgamer17]

Movies should do move what the 13th warrior language translation

[@iissamiam]

I’m curious if it’s connected to the fact that native English speakers are generally better at understanding people with heavy accents and poor grammar than native speakers of other language. And as a result, English speakers may be less sensitive to the exacting rhetoric of other languages. Someone with a thick Chinese accent can swapping Ls and Rs, mistaking tenses, and say words in the wrong grammatical order likely will still be understood. But you put the wrong inflections on mandarin and it turns to absolute gibberish.

[@ragingbull5883]

The German is Inglorious Basterds was very good though.

[@NoCluYT]

Tarantino is all about authenticity.

[@ragingbull5883]

@@NoCluYT Love his work, although I haven't seen all of it, I loved Once Upon a Time in Holywood, and Django obviously. Something about his movies always stands out. I recently watched The Nice Guys, and it reminded me a lot of that American Made, Once Upon a Time in Holywood, Wardogs vibe.

[@ragingbull5883]

@@NoCluYT Love his work, have yet to see all of it but Django, Inglorious Bastards, and Once Upon a Time in Holywood were amazing watches, something about his movies always strikes me. I also recently seen The Nice Guys, with Russel Crowe one of my favorite actors. Same kind of vibe, late 70's comedy action, although some of the dates are VERY convoluted. In the opening i says 1977, and then it skips an undescript amount of time, and we see an ID for someone the characters are looking for, born in 1978, but said person is around 20 years old in the movie... But the movie is still taking place in the 70's...

[@NoCluYT]

Chinese is VERY easy to get wrong, so if you're gonna do it, make sure it is perfect.

[@VulReid]

Bro i missed you, where you been

[@FilmJunk1e]

So much family related stuff happened recently and ate up basically all my free time, but now i'm actually back. Videos coming every 2 weeks consistently, you can count on it!

[@VulReid]

@FilmJunk1e last time you said that we waited like idk 2 months now? Still, glad to have you back.

[@FilmJunk1e]

@@VulReid Yeah sorry about that, the next video is dropping on december 7th no matter what.

[@ZawaOnYoutube]

I miss Chris Tucker man

[@Exercese]

I like where your head is at but I also have to disagree. It’s not uncommon for a film to use a foreign language to build some intrigue for the contents of that conversation. If the rolls were reversed, and you had to read 3 pages of subtitles to learn something you just heard, it would be far more irritating than it would be to listen to 3-10 seconds of gibberish the way everyone who doesn’t speak that language already is.

[@Exercese]

Some shows use these instances to drop jokes or Easter eggs, which I think is the best way to go about it

[@elsxmpo]

filmjunkie with another cult classic

[@giovanniebrady966]

Film Junkie, I didn’t know you were Asian, or spoke Chinese lol 😂

[@leewilson3839]

Brilliant movies kung fu hustle and rush hour 1 and 2

[@moritzamstutz7462]

Algorithmus

[@yebisl8906]

Mr. Robot, one of the best show ever created, ruined by the characters FREQUENTLY speaks broken Chinese. The worst part is the characters are supposed to be Chinese. Love the show btw, but can’t rewatch it for this reason.

[@aerotheepic]

Ehh if I was watching a foreign film and they tried speaking English, I wouldn’t bitch about it I’d just appreciate them trying. The alternative is everything spoken in English always which I don’t think anybody wants. Maybe just don’t be so sensitive and enjoy the movie for what it is: entertainment.

[@Candy_McK]

Have you seen Codename UNCLE? Henry Cavill, playing a super spy in East Berlin... really with this accent, he could also have put on a cowboy hat. I was laughing my ass of for the rest of the movie.

[@NoCluYT]

Problem is that in Hollywood, they try to portray these characters as being native speakers of the language or really smart. It's one thing to have a foreigner with a poor accent or bad grammar for the sake of the character, but when you're trying to portray a high intellectual that can't even get their grammar right, it becomes really annoying. It's not like Hollywood doesn't have the resources to find someone that can verify accents and help rewrite scripts to fit the language.