***1/2 - On the list of stuff I despise, religion and hot weather are pretty solidly entrenched in the number one and two slots. In a relatively close tie for third place would be “American Idol” and the concept of royalty. As someone whose economic policies lean toward the extreme socialist end, I don’t think there is a more evil and inequitable way to concentrate wealth than that of the hereditary holdings of a family of good-for-nothing ponces. Nowhere in the world is this injustice more evident than in Great Britain where an enormous amount of the nation’s wealth is controlled by the crown, which nowadays acts as a combination tourist attraction, sideshow and laughing stock. Along with Stargazy pie (if you don’t know what that is, I dare you to Google it and not vomit) it is certainly one of the worst of British traditions. So, while I can’t abide the institution and all it represents and the ridiculous celebrity status of its members, I must be honest in pointing out that like pretty much any group of people that are great in number and have been around for a long time occasionally a fairly decent story is to be found somewhere in the trash heap. The story told in the 2010 multiple Oscar-winning “The King’s Speech” is one of those. Maybe this almost certainly heavily overdramatized screen adaptation of the accession of George VI is not the best story one could possibly dig up, but it is very artfully presented by the filmmaking team. It is surprisingly enjoyable for a movie of its slow pace and extreme Englishness, but how it won Best Picture and Best Director over “Inception” is beyond me. There are some pretty darn good performances in it, though.
I can see how it won best picture over Inception because Inception was not artfully acted as even you admit it was a good movie given it’s “Englishness” which I didn’t expect either. I didn’t realize that it is historically inaccurate until I started reading blogs about it, but it worked better as a movie obviously. I saw it in HD on my DISH Network employee receiver and honestly I was very impressed with the directing and how realistic it looked for the period it was set in. DISH has many movies in HD to choose from too on dishonline.com (http://bit.ly/dJzWgo)as well.
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