h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Stuart Little

Posted Aug 1, 2000

So they messed with E.B. White's story, so Hugh Laurie is actually, like, English, so that small child who was actually quite good in 'Jerry Maguire' somehow now seems to be incapable of being believable as a small child... all of this pales in comparison when it comes to the beauty of the mouse itself. Himself. I'm twenty-one. I loved 'Stuart Little'. Bar the friend I lured with me to the cinema, I was the oldest person in there who wasn't chaperoning a sticky ice-cream coated child. But I still thoroughly enjoyed myself. I did, however, have one or two minor quibbles with the film itself...
Firstly: the evil contemporaries of the bad-acty small-child (who also needed to brush on their Stanislavskian techniques - or at least learn a few more facial expressions), who saw fit to pick on aforementioned bad-acty small-child and cruelly dub him a 'nerd', or a 'dweeb', were themselves all attired in blazers. Which were adorned with badges of ship's wheels and the like. And which were worn with roll-neck sweaters underneath. As the glorious Mark & Lard would have it, 'Ah hello Mr Pot, I'm Mr Kettle.'
And secondly: people KEPT wandering around in Central Park, late at night, without facing
a) a mugger
b) a murderer
c) a jogging mugger who'd kill you if you looked at him the wrong way
d) a skating mugger who was chasing the jogging mugger
e) a weirdo transvestite hoarding ladies shoes in a cave
f) any of the above
g) anyone AT ALL

Now I know 'Friends' is also set in New York, and that that is rarely 'true-to-life' (no really, most people don't get over their wife's revelation of adulterous lesbianism by buying a monkey and immersing themselves in paleontology...), but they do at least seem to make some sort of realism effort.

Also. Why are Americans incapable of saying Stuart? (Actually, just, why are they incapable of saying Stuart like I say Stuart?) We all know the general problems / hilarity that arises when a Brit says something seemingly innocuous, like, ooh, 'yoghurt', and a Yank responds with 'alLOOminum'. And, having recently watched a documentary on the making of 'Sleepy Hollow', I'm now gleefully enchanted with Caspar Van Dien's pronunciation of 'scythe' (he emphasised the 'c'!). But Stuart, is pronounced 'stew-urt'. Not 'thtoo-art'. The word ought to conjure up images of a hotpot, not the mincing lead in a boarding school romp set in the early Fifties. Honestly.

Discuss this Journal entry [1]

Latest reply: Aug 1, 2000