"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction at all, both are transformed.”

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MOVIE REVIEW: THE KING'S SPEECH

I was more than a little skeptical walking into the theater to see The King's Speech. It appeared to me that the movie was calculatingly put together to win an Oscar. It has every ingredient known to lure the Academy: rich history, the Royal Family, perfect costuming, impending war, a disability and a skilled and seasoned cast. Before I even sat down I was feeling manipulated. In case you haven’t noticed, I expect a lot from a movie. I’m restless by nature and for me to sit in a movie theater for over 2 hours; I want to be entertained and so engrossed, I don’t notice the time. Regardless of the movies’ occasional slow moments, the Weinstein brothers (The Reader, A Single Man and watch for Blue Vlanetine) pull it off. I loved it. The movie is about an unlikely but profound friendship. With all its lavishness, it is just that simple.

World War II is heating up and the recently crowned King George VI (played perfectly and brilliantly by Collin Firth), has a big problem. It's up to him to bring England together as a nation, to boost morale and strengthen its resolve against Hitler. But that's hard to do when you can’t string two words together. The king is seriously hampered by a very nasty speech impediment and he must give the crucial rallying speech to his nation and not only not stutter; he must give the speech of a lifetime. Can he do it?

Fortunately, at the advice of his always-supportive wife, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (Helena Bonham Carter) he's been meeting with a groundbreaking speech instructor, Lionel Logue - actually an unsuccessful actor, played by Geoffrey Rush (who manages to do incredible things with this role). The relationship between the two men, although adversarial at first, inevitably develops into something quite close, and crucial. Yes, there are the peripheral details of the war, the stammer, the cold and abusive father but it is the friendship of these two men that is not just the heart of the film, but also the point of the film.

The period set decoration and costumes are impeccable. The direction of Tom Hooper (best known for helming the HBO John Adams mini-series) is never dull, as he keeps things moving along at a respectable pace. Along the way, Michael Gambon and Guy Pearce show up in supporting roles as members of the royal family. Timothy Spall plays Winston Churchill for the second time in his career (previously in Jackboots On Whitehall) The involvement of these actors is always a good thing.

You will walk out of the movie theater thinking, “This is not the best movie I have ever seen but an excellent one”. And… it will stay with you long after you leave the theater. I love that.

Lionel Logue and his wife Mertyle Gruenert

p.s. In a newly-discovered handwritten letter on Buckingham Palace notepaper, dated February 28, 1952, Queen Elizabeth told Logue that her husband had owed him a debt of gratitude for helping him not merely with his stutter, but his whole life.

"I think that I know perhaps better than anyone just how much you helped the King, not only with his speech, but, through that, his whole life, and outlook on life," she wrote to Logue one year before his death. "I shall always be deeply grateful to you for all you did for him." Of the King, she added: "He was such a splendid person, and I don't believe that he ever thought of himself at all. I did so hope that he might have been allowed a few years of comparative peace after the many anguished years he had to battle through so bravely. But it was not to be." Queen Elizabeth's letter to Logue was unearthed by the Australian speech therapist's grandson, Mark, among family papers a few months ago.

MOVIE REVIEW: True Grit

I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t love this movie as much as everybody else. I liked it, I didn’t love it. In “True Grit,” the Coen brothers play it very straight. The masters of caustic satire return to the western, but not with the tension of “Blood Simple” or the bizarre wickedness of “No Country for Old Men.” Instead, their adaptation of the 1968 Charles Portis novel (and not, it must be stressed, the 1969 Academy Award-winning John Wayne vehicle) is largely a return to the genre’s classical form.

The elements for a success — albeit not of the sort one typically expects from the Coens — are there: sharp banter, flawed lawmen and the imposingly beautiful Roger Deakins-helmed images of characters set against the endless Texan (Arkansas in the tale) countryside. In true Coen fashion, a classic is repeatedly evoked: “The Night of the Hunter,” in the haunting rendition of “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” on the soundtrack, figures facing an unknown, tangible terror and the ways pockets and bursts of light illuminate the characters’ hardened faces.

Yet in spite of all the movie does right, it succumbs to a pervasive rote quality that latches onto the journey of United States Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) and 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), who has hired the former to avenge the murder of her father.

“True Grit” is never funny enough or tense enough for the approach to work. The humor is found in Mr. Bridges’s misguided approach to Cogburn, playing him as an indecipherable drunk, and the character’s growling about Texas versus Arkansas boys, etc., with Mr. Damon’s better-conceived egotistical LaBoeuf. The search for Chaney is secondary to the squabbling and as such — despite the best efforts of newcomer Hailee Steinfeld — never takes on the urgency that should accompany the pursuit. The danger of such an ambitious sojourn through lawless territory is submerged by its overarching one-dimensionality, the bad guy’s overall lack of screen time and the concurrent downgrading of the proceedings from a life-or-death struggle to a fun adventure for the trio.

If you’re dead set on seeing it, you better run out and see it soon. I don’t see it sticking around for long regardless of its great reviews. It is not worth renting as the best thing about the movie, the cinematography, will be lost on a TV (unless you have a 72 inch flat screen).