THE KING'S SPEECH

Confession: I hate Tom Hooper's directing.

THE KING'S SPEECH: Two and a half out of five stars.

This film, despite a brilliant performance by Colin Firth as King George VI, was certainly not worth the Oscar.  Overly sentimental at times and predictable at others, Firth and Geoffrey Rush as his speech therapist, Lionel Logue are the two driving forces behind this otherwise overrated movie.  Hooper's filmmaking style either focuses on unrelenting closeups - which, in this case at least, works when used - or epilepsy inducing shaky cam combined with strangely angled camera shots.

THE KING'S SPEECH, thankfully, does not have a lot of Hooper-isms that I've come to hate.  At times the pacing of the film borders on the monotonous and, most despairingly, the film ends up being a toothless ode to the monarchy - avoiding any hints of darker and deeper within the palace.  I much enjoyed THE QUEEN for its unflinching look at the monarchy than this film.

I feel that one could almost compare this, beat for beat, for a buddy cop comedy.  Two polar opposites forced together by extenuating circumstances find themselves initially at odds, grow to respect each other, fall apart, then come back again to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.  Cue music, cue credits, cue applause, cue Oscar victory.

Film List:
January 1: THERE WILL BE BLOOD (5/5)
January 2: BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (3.5/5)

January 3: THE ARTIST (5/5)

January 4: THE KING'S SPEECH (2.5/5)

January 5: UPSTREAM COLOR