The King's Speech

World War 2 seems to be an endless gold mine for filmmakers, and, while The King's Speech takes place mostly before the war to end all wars, it is the shadow of that war that hangs over Tom Hooper's film about The Duke of York's succession to the throne, after the death of his father King George V, and the abdication of the throne by his brother, King Edward VIII, right around the time that Hitler invades Poland and war is declared.

The film begins in the 1920's. The future King George VI (Colin Firth) is still The Duke of York, and is asked by his father, King George V (Michael Gambon) to start taking over the duty of giving speeches as part of his obligation of "public service" that comes along with his lineage and title. He fails miserably at this because of a pronounced stutter that makes it almost impossible for him to speak. As the years go by, he attempts many cures, under the guidance of various doctors and professionals, but none of them work. His wife, Queen Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), who is now known as the Queen Mother (her daughter now using the moniker of Queen Elizabeth) seeks out help from a highly regarded speech therapist, Lionel Logue (played by Geoffrey Rush). Logue takes on the task, but not without pitfalls - Bertie, as George VI is known to his family, refuses to get to a personal level with Logue, something Logue insists on to take the therapy as far as it can go. But, with constant situations in his personal life and World War 2 on the horizon, Bertie will have no choice but to put his trust in Logue, in order to become the man that his country needs.

The King's Speech is one of those films that you can't say anything bad about. It's so tightly made, and has just the right amount of everything. Firth's stammering had to be an incredible acting feet to pull off realistically, because, if I didn't know better, I would just assume that was the way he talked. He's way to convincing, which, I suppose, means that he's doing his job. That director Tom Hopper and writer David Seidler treat these members of the monarchy with such respect, and yet, let them be human beings is what, I think, makes the whole film. There's a romance to the monarchy which they manage to balance with the realism of just being human. Some of my favorite parts of the film were when Logue manages to get Bertie to open up to him. You see this man's public facade break down, no more stone faced and official, and the emotion begins to seep out of him, and eventually pour out. When Bertie makes allusions to never having had any friends, and having been made fun of by his family, you genuinely feel his isolation, you essentially become Logue - cheering him on, hoping and praying he keeps making forward steps, and disheartened when he moves backwards. A moment that broke my heart was when Bertie is asked by his daughter, Margaret, to tell her and Elizabeth a story. You can see the fear in Bertie's eyes, but, as a father, he doesn't want to let them down. He stammers through a very short story, trying hard to be the father his two young girls need, and finally gets through it. You breath the same sigh of relief that I'm sure Bertie let out when he finally finished. There are so many of these moments in the film, and that seems rare these days, to have a character who you can so completely be behind. He's not an anti-hero, he's not a character with deep flaws, and he's not an underdog. He's just a man, trying to do his best and do what is right, trying to be a good husband, a good father, and a good leader, and learning, for the first time, that he can do all of these things, as he learns in parallel, that the stutter that has caused him so much pain in his life is something he CAN conquer.

Sweeney Todd:The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

If I could sum up my reaction to Sweeney Todd in a simple gesture, it would be this - Picture me holding my nose with one hand, sticking my tongue out, and, with the other hand, starting in a thumbs up position, and then my hand moving in a counter-clockwise motion into a thumbs down position (trust me, it's a simple gesture when its acted out. Writing it takes a lot more effort).

Not a fan of the Todd (and there may actually be some Scrubs fans who get the inside joke in that statement). The film is about a man named Benjamin Barker, who is falsely accused of a crime and  sent to jail for life. The judge who accuses him and sentences him, then takes his wife and daughter and forces them under his care. Fast forward, roughly, twenty years or so, and Barker breaks out of prison and returns to England, seeking vengeance on Judge Turpin, the man who destroyed his life. Now, though, Barker is older and filled with piss and vinegar, and with a new hair-do and some fancy black duds, he is "reborn" as Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd resurrects Barkers old barber shop with the help of the buildings owner (and proprietor of the restaurant downstairs), Mrs. Lovett, but his plans aren't to rebuild his life, only to seek vengeance on the man who destroyed it. I'm not going to say too much else, or it feels like giving the plot away.

As you may have been able to tell from the opening paragraph, I wasn't exactly impressed by the film. Tim Burton, in general, has been on my bad side for a while. I just don't enjoy his work anymore. And the one thing I probably enjoyed the most, The Nightmare Before Christmas, isn't even really a Tim Burton film. It's just a "Tim Burton presents".

What was my issue with Sweeney Todd? Well, I can sum it up, mostly, in one word - Musical. I don't like musicals. Never have. If people are singing more than 25% of the time in a film, I'm pretty much out. If I wanted to sit and listen to people sing for 2 hours, I would go to live theater. On film, though, musicals are often boring and flat. They often times come off as pretentious, or lacking relevance, and there is very little anyone can do to fix this (on a personal note, I can't believe they made Mamma Mia! into a film. That looks like the most pointless piece of cinema this year).

It seems like Burton made this film so that he could fill in the blanks of that which was missing from the stage show, but, when you see the kinds of things he does with it, you're left to wonder if we, as an audience, need any of that stuff in the first place. Is the CGI London any more real because you can see a little more of it? Or because they do that fancy (computer generated) shot at the beginning? Are Todd's acts any more gruesome because, as a film, Burton can have a sliced throat spew blood almost endlessly? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that when a straight razor is dragged across someone's neck, it's probably going to cut them open, and they'll probably die. What I'm trying to say is - Burton's over the top, gothic  imagination, in my opinion, lends nothing to the story. 

All told, though, it wasn't a complete wash. The film is worth watching, at least on the big screen, just to see it. I wish I hadn't paid full price for it, though.