I watched The Fountain on DVD this past weekend. I enjoyed its gorgeousness and its creative twisting together of romance and nondualism. Have any of you seen it? I'd be interested to hear what you think.

One thing that struck me as I was watching it was that all of the the seventeenth-century Spaniards spoke English with a British accent. I'm not sure why I noticed it, because it seems like something I and most audiences wouldn't normally notice—would take for granted, even. Wouldn't it sound odd for them to speak English with an American accent? Or an Australian accent? British English seems to be the English-speaking world's shorthand for 'historical'. I'm guessing that has to do with Britain being the homeland of the language. I think I'd rather have heard seventeenth-century Spanish with English subtitles; I'm a snob that way. I wonder how the accent I take for British in that film sounds to native Britons—is it a sort of cheesy 'movie British' accent (cousin, perhaps, to Basic Faire Accent)?

Along similar lines, I couldn't help but notice the seventeenth-century Mayans in the film did not speak English but rather a Mayan language (with subtitles). Hmmm. A case of exoticism? Or a way to show the linguistic barrier between the Spanish protagonist and the Mayans he encountered?

Lately I've been hearing people at my workplace use “stand up” as a transitive verb meaning something along the lines of “establish.” As a vocabulary and grammar curmudgeon, I'm annoyed, but I don't think I've heard this usage outside of the office or before this year. Have you heard this usage of “stand up” before? If so, in what context?