Director John Scott crafts this look at the curious life of his longtime friend John Stiles — an aspiring writer and former telephone marketer whose midlife meltdown worked wonders for his career. Stiles was down on his luck working as a telemarketer in Toronto when, one day, he threw out his pre-written script and began speaking to customers in curious character voices inspired by his upbringing in Nova Scotia. That month, Stiles made the most sales of any employee and earned a free DVD player for his efforts. In the following years, Stiles threw caution to the wind, venturing out to local open mic nights — where he developed a substantial cult following — and later publishing a pair of books with Insomniac press.
Self
Director John Scott crafts this look at the curious life of his longtime friend John Stiles — an aspiring writer and former telephone marketer whose midlife meltdown worked wonders for his career. Stiles was down on his luck working as a telemarketer in Toronto when, one day, he threw out his pre-written script and began speaking to customers in curious character voices inspired by his upbringing in Nova Scotia. That month, Stiles made the most sales of any employee and earned a free DVD player for his efforts. In the following years, Stiles threw caution to the wind, venturing out to local open mic nights — where he developed a substantial cult following — and later publishing a pair of books with Insomniac press.
2007-04-25
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Givver Jimmie Givver!
Alex Norton discovers how showbusiness has handled the portrayal of the Scottish accent. For over 100 years audiences have struggled to understand our braw brogue: silent Harry Lauder films attempted an accent in the captions, and in Hollywood's golden era , everyone wanted to paint their tonsils tartan- but as examples from Katharine Hepburn, Orson Welles and Richard Chamberlain show, they couldnae. Then Disney made Brave and proved that it disnae have to be all bad!
Three images of a person running in the void through the movement of speed and abstract images
The story of the New York accent, as told by New Yorkers.
Rich in humor and regional color, this sometimes hilarious film uses the prism of language to reveal our attitudes about the way other people speak. From Boston Brahmins to Black Louisiana teenagers, from Texas cowboys to New York professionals, American Tongues elicits funny, perceptive, sometimes shocking, and always telling comments on American English in all its diversity. (PBS)
How is our dialect faring in the globalized age? When the "railroad age" began 160 years ago, Switzerland feared that High German would supplant the dialect. The opposite has happened. The dialect persists and continues to blossom.
The œuvre of poet Raffaello Baldini (1924-2005) through the words of those who knew him, the poems he himself read, the fragments of his monologues, his beloved Romagna landscapes.
A postmodern Swiss-Tyrolean ensemble ventures into remote mountainous regions, embracing the sonorous variety of local vernaculars. A poetic road movie with stunning shots and an emphatic approach to a new alpine aesthetics.
The three speakers represent two of the dialects, with the most common one - the middle dialect spoken in Riga and central parts of Latvia - not featured in the film. In intimate surroundings, a farmer, a schoolteacher, and a herder of ostriches talk about perceived differences between Latvian speakers, and about language policy and their lives.
The celebration of a city is held every year and nostalgia is the main guest. Around the city there is nothing but ruins and in the distance, four men walk the streets of a city that was once great.
A story of a small town in southern Poland, residents of which immigrated to Poland in the 13th century from the present territories of the Netherlands and Belgium. Some of the residents still speak their ancient language.
When married couple Egon and Maren lose their adult son, their family, which includes their daughter Lily, is paralyzed with grief. As it turns out, the three of them have very different ways of coping with grief and soon find themselves slipping apart. Now the three of them need to find their way back to life and to reconstitute the family.
Gerardo, an aspiring actor, trying unsuccessfully to cross over from comedy to tragedy, is involved, due to his ability to mimic dialects of Italy, in a scam concocted by Lallo against a rich cloth-merchant.
Finnish telemarketing company founder Miksu has died under mysterious circumstances. He has left behind tens of thousands of debt. Miksu's employees Jere and Henkka has been dragged for questioning. Both of them had a motive to kill their old boss and mentor.
A dicey murder investigation. A fuming best friend. A chaotic living situation. Village police officer Franz Eberhofer has a lot on his plate right now.
Borrowing from an anthropological study initiated through the University of California in 1969, The Taste of The Name is a fantasia on universality. As a parallel to the elusive “umami” and its gradual scientific acceptance as a primary taste, we consider what is perceivable, knowable, and namable. Through the blue spectrum of various hermetic artifices, we are fed fables of Jules Verne's Nautilus and resurface in a virtual tanning bed, turning over in a slippery navigation of language.
Being a stranger doesn’t necessarily mean to be coming from the farthest away. Karl and his mother are about to learn this when they move from the west coast of Denmark to the ethnically and religiously mixed area of Nørrebro in Copenhagen. Sawsan, a Danish-Turkish girl in Karl’s new class, takes him under her wings and tries to integrate him into the big city, with all its slang and hipness. Sawsan is far more experienced and blunt than most – especially compared to Karl, this young Danish boy from the provinces. Sawsan’s big dream comes true when one of her songs is chosen for the Danish version of the Eurovision Song Contest for kids. Sawsan’s father of course says no, but Karl has a plan.
A man has to endure a series of physical abuses by a mysterious being until the dominant realizes something that will change how he thinks of himself and others.
Although living a comfortable life in Salon-de-Provence, a charming town in the South of France, Julie has been feeling depressed for a while. To please her, Philippe Abrams, a post office administrator, her husband, tries to obtain a transfer to a seaside town, on the French Riviera, at any cost. The trouble is that he is caught red-handed while trying to scam an inspector. Philippe is immediately banished to the distant unheard of town of Bergues, in the Far North of France...