Listen to the King's real speech, and learn how to win an Oscar playing a stripper … but don't call "True Grit" a Western.
If you liked "The King's Speech," you might want to hear the King's speech. The actual speech delivered by King George VI on the eve of World War II, which makes up the climax of Tom Hooper's film, has now been uploaded by the BBC. The original recording is distinguished by the pauses George VI uses to fight his stammer; you can tell he's struggling with it, but he still comes across as pretty regal, even without Beethoven's Seventh Symphony underscoring his words the way it does in the film. And while Colin Firth – who had access to the recording when he was preparing for the film – isn't a dead ringer vocally, he certainly does capture the flavor of the real thing. (BBC News)
Noreen Malone's headline calls playing a stripper, prostitute or "loose woman" "the easiest path to an Academy Award," and she provides a handy chart to illustrate just how to accomplish that. But the various paths laid out in her chart lead to 16 actresses who didn't get the Oscar, and just seven who did – which means that maybe it's not all that easy after all. So will Halle "Frankie & Alice" Berry go the way of Elizabeth Taylor (Oscar winner for "Butterfield 8"), or Elizabeth Berkeley (not an Oscar winner for "Showgirls")? (Slate)
When Sasha Stone headlines a piece "State of the Race," that usually means it's once again time for her to explain that "The Social Network" is going to win Best Picture because it’s the year's best picture. This time she gets there by way of a look at the changing attitude of the Academy, which she said began after "Crash" beat "Brokeback Mountain" in 2006. I am getting very, very close to buying her argument. (Awards Daily)
It's not a Western – it’s a "young adult adventure story." That's what Joel and Ethan Coen tell Kris Tapley about "True Grit," along with stories about casting then-13-year-old Hailee Steinfeld ("it did occur to us many, many times that what we were looking for might just not be out there") and working with the other actors: Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon are easygoing, but Josh Brolin's "a pain in the ass," says Joel with a laugh. (In Contention)
As the New York Times' original Carpetbagger, David Carr was a distinctive voice on the awards beat until he moved on to media matters. But he glances back in the director of Oscar for a column on a few new movies, including the documentary he says is the consensus pick for "the year's must-see film" within the business community: Davis Guggenheim's education documentary "Waiting for 'Superman.'" But he suggests that the captains of industry might be better off looking at John Wells' "The Company Men," the upcoming Weinstein Company drama about the human side of corporate downsizing. "The movie resonates in the current moment," Carr says, "because each day it becomes more clear that the guy at the bar who mutters into his whisky glass about the game being rigged is probably right."(New York Times)
