My The King's Speech Rant Of The Day

Think I can keep this up for 25 days?

Today's rant was inspired by three words in Lisa Schwartzbaum's article about the absurdity of Tom Hooper winning the DGA award.

"privileged fellow’s triumph" in reference to what The King's Speech is actually about.

And this got me thinking.

Lots of people complain that The Social Network is just a movie about some bratty nerds making a website that people will forget about next week and The King's Speech is about World War II and will last forever.

A. Incorrect

B. Let me provide you with a different perspective.

The King's Speech is about a rich royal who feels like he isn't good enough because he has a stutter. Did I mention he is rich as balls and the King and never has to want for anything and also that he never mentioned maybe his nazi sympathizer brother shouldn't be King, oh, because he's a nazi sympathizer, not just cause he fell for a divorced woman? Oh yeah, marrying someone who was married once before is SO much worse than being a nazi-lover. Yup. So: privileged entitled King to be gets over his stutter with the help of a failed actor who isn't as rich cause he isn't PART OF THE ROYAL FAMILY and they become friends, despite the fact that again, one of them isn't part of the royal family, OMG. ...

As opposed to a film about someone who could be called privileged if being a genius is a privilege. Someone who was flawed and fucked up emotionally but managed to use his smarts to LITERALLY CHANGE THE WORLD. THE WHOLE WORLD. ACTUALLY. It's about young people yes, young people who eventually have a shit load of money, some young people who have money already, like Eduardo - but they all *worked* for it, they all used their minds to get into school, to make money, to eventually revolutionize the way people communicate.

If we're talking purely subject matter, all people are from now on forbidden from positing that The King's Speech, because it's all warm & fuzzy, is somehow more important. Excuse me for being more interested in seeing how someone my age, born into nothing particularly special, except a mind and the determination to use it, changes the world and loses the only people he cares about in the process, versus a movie about someone born into royalty who has one fault and it's his stutter, but through friendship, he fixes it zzzzzzzzzzzz. Give me a break. And give The Social Network its damn Oscar.

Muse out.

Updated with response (in comments) -

It's only my vitriol, unfortunately...

Definitely see them. Both. Then read my 2000 word article on why The Social Network should win, haha.

The King's Speech is a perfectly lovely film. I saw it before all the hype, before it was a front runner, before all of this. It didn't move me. It didn't impress me. I thought Colin Firth was a GENIUS, but that's it. Then all of a sudden, it's winning everything and Harvey Weinstein is hiring lawyers to defend its historical accuracy (Check this out - http://www.slate.com/id/2282194/) and wanting to recut the movie without the "fucks" so middle america will see it and making all sorts of phone calls and claims about how TKS is *actually* the timely, yet timeless one. So my "Oh, I liked it!" has turned into "FUCK THAT GOD DAMN MOVIE, EFFING GOD DAMNIT"

And while it's true that these kids were from middle to upper middle class families, they didn't *have* to go to Harvard, they didn't *have* to revolutionize communication as we know it. They could have been asshole idiots. But they were smart and knew how to use their smarts they made that shit happen.

The truth is though, subject matter is the least of my arguments for TSN and against TKS. I'm sick of people all of a sudden saying TKS will last forever cause World War II blah and TSN will be forgotten about cause it's about nerds, which makes me want to laugh and/or choke on my own vomit.

The King's Speech is totally delightful. Would sweep at the Emmys. But it's the most conventional, safe, boringly shot, uncreatively made, least cinematic movie of what has been generally an *incredible* Oscar season.

And it didn't even move me, for all it's supposed fuzziness. Another Year moved me. Toy Story 3 at least manipulated me so perversely that I couldn't feel my face afterwards from all the tears. Black Swan and Inception made me cry out of sheer goosebumpy awe. Yet TKS, supposedly the best and most moving of the bunch? Not a tear. And keep in mind, when I saw it, I WANTED to love it. Was before any of this.

So that's that. Definitely see those two, see True Grit, keep an open mind. I just hate that Harvey Weinstein has shoved a perfectly fine movie with one incredible performance down everyone's throats so much that now it's gonna win Best Picture. In 2011. In a year with The Social Network, Black Swan, Inception, True Grit, The Kids Are All Right, I just...ugh..