Be Kind, Please Rewind

He’s a Succession Story. He’s the…

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Week of April 22, 2011

Queen Elizabeth II is a clone of the original. First up…

The King’s Speech

Oh, great! A British king is about to speak, now I’m going to need a Cockney slang to lucid English dictionary.

And while the articulating monarch in this drama ain’t ‘aving a giraffe, his North and South is all out of sorts.

Following a public decree, where he stumbled over his words, Prince Albert (Colin Firth), on the behest of his wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), seeks the aid of an experimental speech therapist, Lionel (Geoffrey Rush), in an attempt to alleviate his speech impediment.

Apprehensive with the unorthodox treatment at first, when he ascends to the throne of England, Albert finds remedy in his friend’s madness, as well as a secret past.

Though a superlative cast graces it, this recounting of actual events is nothing but a pretentious factoid prolonged into a humdrum historical recollection.

And while a stuttering king is startling, it’s not as shocking as a lisping queen.  0

Gulliver’s Travels

While traveling, the easiest way to verbally communicate with locals–no matter the dialect–is to verbalize in the King’s English at a much slower, voluminous tone.

Fortunately, the peripatetic person in this comedy awoke in an English-speaking kingdom.

While on assignment in the Bermuda Triangle, posing as a travel journalist to impress a colleague (Amanda Peet), Gulliver (Jack Black) shipwrecks on the island of Lilliput.

A giant amongst the microscopic inhabitants, Gulliver’s enslaved and put to work. But when he saves the king (Billy Connolly), he is canonized as a hero.

Now, he must unite a prisoner (Jason Segel) with his love (Emily Blunt), and do battle against an oversized robot.

A crude, modernized version vaguely resembling its classic literary inspiration, Gulliver’s Travels is a grossly conceived farce that lacks decency and humour.

Besides, the only sailors getting lost out at sea nowadays are overachieving teenagers with rich parents.  0

***Carried Away with Words***

Speechless

Being a speechwriter must be very erotic, since you have to imagine your audience not wearing any clothes.

However, the only people that the speechwriters in this romantic-comedy want to see nude are each other.

Two insomniac writers, Kevin (Michael Keaton) and Julia (Geena Davis), form a sexual relationship during sleepless nights at an all-night diner.

Solidifying their relationship based on the knowledge that each other is in the writing profession, both are later stunned when they find out that they are being pitted against each other on either side of a heated political battle.

Matters are made worse when Julia’s old flame, a hotshot war correspondent (Christopher Reeve), returns.

A sharply written love story that encompasses two strange bedfellows, Speechless delivers both bipartisan belly laughs and relevant musings on working relationships.

And while dating a rival speechwriter sounds hot, flirting through the elderly male candidates could get awkward.

He’s a Figure of Speechwriter. He’s the…

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