Stand-Up Guy
Where would The King’s Speech be in the Best Picture race, impressionistically-speaking, without Entertainment Weekly‘s Dave Karger? The entire King’s Speech bandwagon, face it, is more or less depending on Karger’s allegiance. Okay, he’s not the only fellow with his finger in the dyke, but in the wake of Karger’s recent toe-to-toe with Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone it sure seems that way. Karger holds firm, mans up, refuses to turn tail, etc.
Dave Karger = totally a combination of BJ Novak, Robbie Williams and Carson Daly.
Still surprised by how much I liked King’s Speech. Good movie.
Hated KING’S SPEECH. Thought it was totally overrated. Pretentious, boring, slow-moving are just some of the adjectives that come to mind. I just didn’t give a shit about how some guy learns to get over his speech impediment. Let me ask you this: If this film was about Joe Blow with a speech impediment–would we give a damn about it?
I don’t really think it was ABOUT the speech impediment, any more than Social Network is about how the refresh button works on a computer keyboard.
I’m a regular, fifty-ish guy, probably balder than LexG, and I concur with Lex that The King’s Speech is no more about a schlep with a speech impediment than the latest Mike Leigh film is about a bunch of melancholy Brits.
At the packed Sunday matinee of TKS (in Phoenix) that my wife and I attended, some peeps stood up and applauded when the credits rolled.
I was also surprised how cool a visual style Tom Hooper has.
Kind of a cross between BARRY LYNDON and a FALCO VIDEO.
lol@”not the only fellow with his finger in the dyke”
Riddle me this, though: if TKS is not about a speech impediment, then what the FUCK is that film about, anyway?
Yeah, yeah, I’m sure someone will feed me some line about how it’s really about the class differences in England (maybe), or how important it is to always maintain your dignity through your struggles (doubtful), but when there are two grown-ass men reciting nursery rhymes to each other and jiggling their lips, how the hell can it be about anything other than one’s sheer and utter embarrassment of watching it?
Absolutely shocked you enjoyed this wannabe made-for-PBS movie dreck, Lex — this is easily 5 times as juvenile and overblown as anything Pixar has ever released.
Barry Lyndon? Are you fucking on a post-Christmas bender here, or what?
I cannot beeelieve what I am reading here.
Shit looks like Masterpiece Theater filtered through a dish of stale lime Jell-O.
Props to LexG – you are correct.
Tom Hooper went crazy with canted angles in HBO’s JOHN ADAMS. That whole series was like, hey, fuck symmetry! And fuck dolly tracks!
BOW TO THE KING!
– LexG
Karger looks like the offspring of a discreet, ravishing sauna encounter between Joe Torre and Richard Roeper.
@CitizenKaned4Life – I think that TKS is about friendship, and Bertie’s horrific upbringing.
The King’s Speech is a very good movie. But no one has yet given up the argument that the reason it should win and will win is because it is the best film of the year. So far it’s all about “because the Social Network can’t win.” And I don’t think that’s good enough. The King’s Speech is as good as the very best films this year for sure. But the question has to become, is it better than all of the other films this year.
The strength of The King’s Speech is in Geoffrey Rush, the dialogue, and the score. Other than that, Tom Hooper should probably only be directing fat kids to a Dairy Queen. That thing was just visually ugly, with that atrocious first reel rack focus that made the whole thing look like a farcical cartoon about a wacky monarch who can’t. Stop. Spittling.
Even without knowing the history behind it, Guy Pearce came down on his byplane and I was like SAVE ME FROM THIS TURGID PIECE OF MIDDLEBROW PABLUM LEONARD SHELBY. By far the most interesting character in the film, and the story treats him like, “Oh, what a prick” and “and his wife’s a tramp!” It felt like attending a Tea Party rally and hearing, “Obama isn’t a secret Muslim!” followed by, “But he sure as shit wasn’t born in America!”
If I saw this on the BBC, I would think, Huh, amusing. Maybe I’ll go research some of the real story. But I was fucking stunned when I realized I was watching this low-ambition history regurgitation with all the offending dark corners of the story edged out in a fucking THEATER.
“Let me ask you this: If this film was about Joe Blow with a speech impediment–would we give a damn about it?”
That’s a pretty lousy pitch. In this film, the speech impediment is significant in that, due to the time period in which he finds himself, he is required by his position to step up and rally the nation with a speech and, thus, the “impediment” to his “speech” is dramatic conflict. Can you give an example of a Joe Blow where the speech impediment would have such obvious dramatic conflict built into it? I mean, is this Joe Blow trying to get a job as a telemarketer? I just don’t seem the same level of conflict inherent to the story that you’re pitching when compared to the one you’re criticizing.
It’s a good film. Are there better films that were released this year? I think so. But I don’t think it’ll win Best Picture. Right now it seems to be more The Social Network vs. The Fighter, I think.
Will Colin Firth win the Oscar? Probably. Is it the best performance of the year? Maybe not. Is it as good as his work in Single Man? I don’t think so.
But this is how the game works, right? Crowe wins for Gladiator when he should have won for Insider. Denzel wins for Training Day when he should have won for Hurricane. Bridges wins, but it’s for Crazy Heart. Scorsese wins, but it’s for Departed. Etc, etc.
BarryLupo:
“In this film, the speech impediment is significant in that, due to the time period in which he finds himself, he is required by his position to step up and rally the nation with a speech and, thus, the “impediment” to his “speech” is dramatic conflict.”
See, that’s EXACTLY the part where I checked out of it – realizing that they didn’t trust the story to get people invested so they had to reframe it into: “OMG! If he can’t stop stuttering HITLER MIGHT WIN!!!!!!” It’s one overdramatic-zoom away from being a perfect parody of the “nazis = important-movie” angle.
Not JUST the Nazi thing, though… more the way it’s set up. Are we really supposed to “buy” that in the late-30s, in the context of shitty 30s radio technology, a few years BEFORE the entire planet was able to be prevented from knowing that FDR couldn’t walk, that it was ALL IMPORTANT for The King to make his own radio speech because somehow everyone will “know” if they have a stand-in or something?
The basic class/culture interplay between the two guys, the relationship with the father and brother, the obvious pain the guy is in when trying to speak in public, that would’ve been enough for a perfectly serviceable middleweight drama. Hell, the bit where he’s struggling to tell his kids a story, and the basic idea that the public – like his family – preferred his “cool” older brother; that’s PLENTY of conflict; all set-up to be a nice little movie for old people and Anglophiles. But no, it has to be IMPORTANT and win AWARDS, so in comes Hitler.
Everybody keeps comparing King’s Speech to Masterpiece Theatre, but no one points out that this story has already been on Masterpiece Theatre: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310733. Starring that notable mediocrity James Wilby, it’s unwatchable.
Movie Bob kind of touched on my problem with this movie. It was damned well acted etc etc but I couldn’t get the fundamental premise.
WWII has just been declared and everyone is weeping and smiling because this guy nailed his SPEECH?
I know you royals aren’t totally connected with The Common Man but more than 50 million of them are about to die, despite Bertie’s wonderful accomplishment. He didn’t save a single life or prevent the Holocaust or come up with Operation Overlord. He just stopped stuttering – and bully for him.
But when I read “Lionel and Bertie remained friends for years,” alI could think was, “You mean the years when 6 million Jews were being gassed? The years when Russians were holding the line at Stalingrad? The years when Americans were suffering at Okinawa and dropping nuclear weapons on Japan? Yeah…I’m so happy those two stayed close after all they went through.”
Oh, and Churchill’s WWII’s speeches are pretty much inarguably more historically significant when it comes to getting England through the Blitz etc.
…and to Movie Bob’s point, again, weren’t some of Churchill’s speeches actually done by an actor? Why couldn’t Bertie have had one?
One of the best this year. and it’s about courage in the greatest time of need.
If the King turned into a superhero, MovieBob would’ve came in his XXXLarge cargo pants.
lol
“Crowe wins for Gladiator when he should have won for Insider. Denzel wins for Training Day when he should have won for Hurricane.”
Eh, Crowe and Denzel’s performances were better for the roles they won for.
“Movie Bob kind of touched on my problem with this movie.”
Actually, reading through your post, it’s the exact opposite problem. Bob is complaining that the movie was only made because of WWII allusions, you’re complaining that they didn’t dwell more on WWII.
There’s an old saying that British films are about the generals and American films are about the privates. It certainly sounds as if both of your complaints boil down to the fact that (by those rules) the film is too British and not American enough.