Quick Review: The King's Speech

"The King's Speech" stars Michael Sheen as British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has to...wait, what? This is a movie about British royalty and/or politics and it doesn't have Sheen as Blair? Hmmm. Okay, let's start over. "The King's Speech" stars Colin Firth as King George VI, who had to overcome a speech impediment and deliver a radio address to his people after war was declared against Germany in 1939. Of course, the film actually starts well before this, when he's just the plain old Duke of York; after failed attempts to correct his stammer he gives up, until his wife (Helena Bonham Carter) goes behind his back and seeks out Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), whose unconventional methods (such as insisting on calling each other by their first names) infuriate the Duke until he realizes that they seem to work. It probably worked better for me because it's a story I wasn't familiar with, but even so it's sort of predictable. For a drama, though, it's got a surprising amount of humor. It doesn't make my top 10 of 2010, even though it's an Oscar Best Picture nominee, but it's still fine. My grade: B-plus.

Quick Review: Alice in Wonderland

I was disappointed by Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland." I thought it would be a lot more silly and ridiculous. Visually, it mostly lived up to expectations. But the rest failed to excite me much. Here, Alice is 19 and attending a party that takes an unexpected turn -- to Alice, but not to anyone else at the party -- when she receives a marriage proposal. She runs off, falls down a rabbit hole and is back in Wonderland. Except it's called "Underland," and Alice doesn't remember being there before, so when she encounters the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), the Cheshire cat, etc., she is taken aback. It seems that "Underland" is suffering, as the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) has taken control from her sister, the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), and that Alice must help defeat the Red Queen, and...what the hell? It's Alice in Wonderland, with Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, and it's supposed to be crazy and wild -- I repeat -- WILD! Instead, much of the time it's sad, restrained and almost dull. Where's the fun? My grade: B-minus.