The Light Of Daye

OK, during the summer movie season three comic book movies came out; Thor, Green Lantern and X-Men: First Class. I saw two of these movies in the cinema. Thor, which was decent enough, and Green Lantern which was kinda naff.

The movie I didn't see was X-Men. And I didn't see it because, well first the previous two X-Men movies weren't that great. And secondly it was a prequel, and prequels generally suck. Star Wars, Star Trek, I'm looking at you here.

Now after Christmas I was browsing through an online sale and picked up First Class and watched it this evening and I got to say:

So I'm an idiot. What are you perfect?

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aka Daye watches movies everyone else saw ages ago. Next I'll watch Sixth Sense, no-one tells me how it ends! :-P

Right King's Speech, what can I say that hasn't been said? Colin Firth, Helena Bonham-Carter, Rush terrific performances all. I'm a bit of a sap really but the scene where Firth's becoming King and is absolutely distraught about it really tugged at my heart strings. Coming as it did so soon after the scene where is older brother absolutely crushes him, taking the piss out of his stutter and accusing him of taking elocution lessons so he can steal the throne.

There's a disadvantage in talking with y'all about Fil Harry Potter so much. It never escapes you, I spent all of George V's scenes thinking, 'that's Dumbledore right?' Even more disconcerting is the idea of Churchil, generally considered a great man and a power prescience being played by Timothy Spahl, aka Wormtail. And when he's not being Wormtail, he's that maintenance man on the VR game in the Red Dwarf episode 'Back To Reality'

Back the film, at the risk of being pretentious, I think one of the strengths of the movie is its ability to switch seamlessly between tones. From Humour to angst and drama and even with in those tones, with the source of humour ranging from the silly antics of Logue's therapy, the Mrs Logue's sudden discomfort at being among royalty. And even within a single scene, there is humour derived from the shock value of Colin Firth just cursing and cursing immediately followed by the quick shot of Logue's kids being the next room listening to it.

Finally, I'll just say intentionally or not, this is a damn good propaganda piece for the royal family. I've been told that it apparently glosses over the royal's support of Nazi appeasement and Churchil is shown as a stronger supporter of George V than he was but still its crowning triumph is that at times I caught myself feel sorry for Bertie and even David/Edward VI (when he wasn't being a total prat) and thinking 'Darn, tis tough being a royal'