The King's Speech (2010)
What an amazing, powerful film. It focuses on the United Kingdom's King George VI, and more specifically, his speech impediment, his stammer. I'm not sure just how much of this stammer affected his life and how much was exaggerated for movie-effect, but it makes for a very interesting and gripping story nonetheless. There are themes of courage, will-power, human relationships, all that tie together in a beautiful film.
Of course, The King's Speech is out and about in theatres still because of the post-Oscar hype, but who's complaining? It's a great film that won Best Picture, Colin Firth won Best Actor, and it also took away the awards for Direction and Original Screenplay Writing, not to mention all the other numerous nominations. Geoffrey Rush was nominated for Best Supporting Actor (as he is very well-deserving of it) but Christian Bale took it for his role in The Fighter. Hm. I thought Rush was amazing in The King's Speech. Looks like I'll have to see how Bale did.
All in all, if you haven't seen The King's Speech, I highly recommend it.
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Shall We Dance (2004) & Take the Lead (2006)
Yeah. Judge me. But hey, I've got a ballroom bug, so I just had to check out these movies.
Honestly though I've seen Shall We Dance before, but I didn't remember much. What I found out this time around is that this film is actually a remake of a Japanese film of the same title, year 1996. Accountant is bored with his content, predictable life, sees a stunning woman gazing out the window of a dance studio, and he decides to take up ballroom lessons. Except in the Hollywood version, Richard Gere plays an Estate Lawyer, not an accountant. Minor discrepancies aside, it's an entertaining film and still makes me want to learn more ballroom. However, I'm also rather curious to find a copy of the original Japanese film.
Meanwhile, Take the Lead is another someone-changes-lives-of-delinquent-students. Except with ballroom! Apparently this movie is inspired by the life of Pierre Dulaine, whom Antonio Banderas portrays, and how he started his program Dancing Classrooms, a social development program for fifth graders that uses ballroom instruction as a way to change the lives of the children and their families. Except in the film, Dulaine starts his program as a means to help teenagers in high school detention. The dance sequences are flashy, especially at the end, but I can see how part of the goal might be to spark an interest in younger people about ballroom.
I like trying to be a (beginner) tango nut, so I'll briefly compare the tango scenes in the films, ok? The scene in Lead is definitely hotter, but I love the energy that was in Dance. Like I said: brief, right?
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A Raisin in the Sun
I was channel surfing last night and saw A Raisin in the Sun (2008) was on. I only watched probably the first several beginning scenes, up through where Asagai visits the Younger's home. Then I stopped, mainly because I couldn't stand Sean Combs as Walter, bahaha (Being pop-culturally daft, I didn't realize Combs = P. Diddy until I looked it up. Fail.) He should stick with...uh. Whatever he originally does, and leave the acting for the folks who can do it. He had the same intonation in all of his lines, so his character was rather flat and unassuming. Yeah. Still can't say much about the film overall, since I didn't finish it.
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Gosh I think I'll be watching quite a number of movies during this break. Woo.
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