King's Speech Archives - chimesfreedom

The King’s Speech Wins Best Picture

Another Academy Awards show is over, ending minutes ago. The top six awards were:

Best Picture: The King’s Speech
Best Director: Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech
Best Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Best Actor: Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter

You may find a full list of winners and nominees at the website for The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Regarding the Oscar Predictions from the critics posted on Chimesfreedom a few days ago, only two got all of the top six awards correct: Jeff Johnson at Popdose and The Best Picture Project. Congratulations!

As for the show itself, several of your favorite newspapers and news sources will have articles about it tomorrow, but Entertainment Weekly already has something up. Overall, there were few surprises with the awards but the show had its moments, like Randy Newman’s acceptance speech and an appearance by Kirk Douglas. I liked that Steven Spielberg introduced the Best Picture nominees by reminding everyone of some of the great movies of the past that did not win the award (“Citizen Kane. . . Raging Bull!”). To paraphrase Director Peter Jackson, movies should not be made for winning the Oscars, they should be made for the audience. And now the awards are over and we can get back to focusing on the films.

What did you think of the 2011 Academy Awards telecast? What did you think of the hosts? Leave a comment.

2011 Oscar Predictions Roundup

That Time George Kennedy Gave a Great Movie Its Name

Gary Cooper’s Three Oscars

Marlon Brando’s Lonely Oscar

Video of Every Best Picture Winner

2013 Pawscars Award Winners Announced

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2011 Oscar Predictions Roundup

Most commentators agree on predictions for the top awards at tomorrow night’s 2011 Academy Awards presentations. According to them, the Oscar goes to:

– Best Picture: The King’s Speech (with The Social Network in second);
– Best Director: David Fincher for The Social Network, with Tom Hooper a close second for The King’s Speech;
– Best Actress: Natalie Portman from Black Swan (with Annette Bening from The Kids Are All Right in second);
– Best Actor: Colin Firth from The King’s Speech (with Jesse Eisenberg from The Social Network a distant second);
– Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo for The Fighter, with Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit a close second.
– Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale for The Fighter, with Geoffrey Rush for The King’s Speech a close second.

Anything outside these picks will be a big surprise, but surprises are always possible. The contested areas with close two-horse races are Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Supporting Actor Categories.

For a random sampling of predictions and other Oscar news around the Internet:

– For the three contested slots of Director/Supporting Actress/Supporting Actor, Roger Ebert opts for the non-Fighter leaders and is in the Hooper/Steinfeld/Rush category. While agreeing with the consensus on the other picks, he notes that if he were voting for Best Picture, he would opt for The Social Network even as he predicts The King’s Speech to win.

– Roger Ebert’s former TV co-host Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times goes a different route, opting for the Fincher/Leo/Bale combination. Also, he is one of the few who are still predicting The Social Network as the Best Picture, although he hedges his bets by saying it might be safer to go with The King’s Speech.

– Melenia Ryzik at The New York Times liked The Fighter and is in the Fincher/Leo/Bale category. Moviephone also liked The Fighter‘s supporting nominees and is in the Fincher/Leo/Bale category, as is Rick’s Predictions at Awards Wiz.

– Peter Hartlaub at the San Francisco Chronicle agrees, going with Fincher/Leo/Bale, although he thinks The Social Network will upset The King’s Speech.

– Gregory Ellwood at the HitFlix Blog bravely predicts a Fighter split with the Supporting Acting awards going to Steinfeld and Bale.

– Jeff Johnson over at Popdose also mixes it up a little bit, going with a Hooper/Leo/Bale combination, and The Best Picture Project agrees.

– Five critics at The Guardian UK differ among themselves, but with most saying the contested three categories will go to Fincher, Bale and . . . the country’s own Helena Bonham Carter for Best Supporting Actress (The King’s Speech)! Three of the five also pick The Social Network as Best Picture.

– For another take on the Ocars, Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street makes his predictions (Best Actor: “Colin Filth”).

– Cinematical has some interesting Oscar statistics. Did you know that the movie with the highest number of Oscars while winning 100% of nominated categories was The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) with 11 wins out of 11 nominations?

– For a trip down memory lane, Salon has a slide show of past Oscar Moments Everyone Should See.

Among other big categories, the sure things seem to be Toy Story 3 for Best Animated Feature and The Social Network for Best Adapted Screenplay. The Best Documentary category seems to be a battle between Exit Through the Gift Shop and Inside Job. See Chimesfreedom’s previous post on an industry’s campaign against another Best Documentary nominee, Gasland.

Conclusion on the Big Awards? It is always tricky to predict the winners because you are not selecting the “Best” but who you think others will say is the “Best.” So Chimesfreedom will leave the predictions to others (but see related posts below for thoughts on some of the contenders). From our random sampling, it will be a big surprise if The King’s Speech does not get Best Picture or if Natalie Portman does not get Best Actress or if Colin Firth does not get Best Actor. The difference in the close races will depend on whether or not the voters completely loved The King’s Speech and how much they liked The Fighter, as The Fighter lovers are going for Fincher/Leo/Bale while The King’s Speech lovers opt for Hopper/Steinfeld/Rush.

But if predictions were always right, we would not need the awards show. So our prediction is simply that somewhere along the line, there will be a surprise or two.

The King’s Speech Wins Best Picture

An Industry Attempts to Prevent Gasland from Winning an Oscar (Mad Movies)

True Grit ’10 vs. True Grit ’69

The King’s Speech (short review)

Although the Oscars Passed Over “Little Richard: I Am Everything,” You Shouldn’t

Times Like These by The Live Lounge All-Stars

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What are your thoughts on the predictions? Who do you think will win? Who should win? Leave a comment.

The King’s Speech (short review)

The King’s Speech (2010), about King George VI, is one of the best movies of the year. It is entertaining, interesting, and an excellent mix of drama, humor, and history.

Do not be deceived about the “king” in the title and be turned off or expect a story focusing on royalty. Although the movie does give great insight into the life of the royals, it is mainly a movie about human beings. The movie begins with the future king as the Duke of York, known to his friends as “Bertie.” He is second in line to the crown behind his father and older brother, but events beyond his control will later propel him toward the throne. In carrying out is royal duties, he sometimes has to give speeches, and his speaking is hindered by a severe stammer. After various experts failed to help him with his stammer, Bertie’s wife (Helena Bonham Carter) encourages Bertie to try one more expert, Lionel Logue, played by Geoffrey Rush.

When Rush enters the movie, it really takes off in its study of the relationship between the commoner and the future king. Rush is outstanding in the role, and Colin Firth is also exceptional in making the viewer come to understand the imperfect person underneath the king. The acting all around is excellent, including Carter and including Guy Pearce as King Edward VIII. Timothy Spall’s portrayal of Winston Churchill was the only weak point in the cast. But the problem may have been in the difficulty of portraying someone as recognizable as Churchill without slipping into caricature.

[This paragraph reveals small potential spoilers.] The title’s reference to “The King’s Speech” refers both to Bertiie’s difficulties in speaking and to the climactic speech at the end where he addresses the nation. While the focus on the former is compelling, the shift to the focus on the latter fell a little flat for a movie climax. Because of the tone throughout the movie, as well as maybe from previews, there was no suspense about whether the final speech would succeed. Plus, the uplifting movie’s ending foreshadows some dark clouds with the images of Hitler near the end and the introduction of Neville Chamberlain, who after the movie ends will have a policy of appeasement to the Nazis. So, the movie did not quite convince me of the speech’s importance, although it was important. It is hard to fault the movie for the climax, though, when it portrays true events and is not responsible for our knowledge of the upcoming events. But it is too bad that his speech alone could not have immediately defeated the Germans, in both the movie and in real life.

Conclusion? The story, acting, and movie are excellent. In a year of few great movies, The King’s Speech is near the top of the crop.

If you have not seen the movie, stop reading here and go see it. If you have seen the movie, you might enjoy hearing the actual speech from King George VI featured at the end of the movie here: