FameTip #16 : The King's Unnecessary Stammer

I wish we lived in the golden years of cinema, back when the Oscars were still a delicate bulb waiting to break free from it's earthen cocoon into the bright world above. Back when the Best Actress award was based off of who had the softest lighting and the most unscrupulous pseudo-British/American accent (why don't they just speak like us?). Back when the Best Actor Award was given out to the tallest, handsomest, in-the-closet actor that always knew how to kiss a woman in the most incredibly awkward and pursed manner (Rock Hudson anyone?). Now that I think about it, I don't think the requirements for Best Actor have changed... But that is neither here nor there.

These days, apparently one has to have something called "talent". No longer is it simply the charming leading man who wins, but it's the Country singer, the African dictator, the Gay Political Activist, The Holocaust victim, or whomever the scary character was the Denzel Washington played in Training day... Apparently, they've got to have substance.


Cue the Stammerer turned King.

I recently watched The King's Speech, starring Colin Firth, and while I wasn't expecting to be engrossed in an exciting thrill ride (let us remember, this entire movie is about a speech...), I was absolutely shocked at how little of anything occurred. First of all, I'd just like to point out that if Colin Firth didn't stammer so much throughout this bloody movie, it wouldn't have felt like I was watching a documentary on speech pathology for an entire day straight. I'm sure without all the pauses he takes attempting to spit something out, the movie could have been condensed into an hour PBS special.

Second of all, maybe it's just me, but I had no idea who I was watching (that's your fault, Canadian schooling system!). First theres an old King George, and Colin Firth is his son named Prince Albert, but his daughter is Elizabeth, whom I had always imagined being King George's daughter, but when King George dies, Prince David becomes king, but he's suddenly King Edward now, because apparently David is a silly name, but he wants to marry Ms. Wallace Simpson of Baltimore (what mother in her right mind names her daughter Wallace?), so he has to abdicate, so now it looks like Prince Albert is going to be King (imagine being the namesake of a genital piercing), but then he's suddenly King George, because apparently he doesn't want to be named after a penis ring...

And then I pass out from exhaustion trying to even understand who anyone is in this movie.


This is only further confused by the fact that there are WAY too many people from Harry potter in this movie. Last time I checked, Dumbledore, Peter Pettigrew, and Bellatrix Lestrange are not members of the Royal Family and/or governing officials. They are mystical, wand wielding, witches and wizards who I'm sure could have just cast a spell and stopped Colin Firth from stammering, saving us from having to watch this movie. Plus, there was something incredibly disconcerting seeing Wormtail as Winston Churchill.

At the very least, I was glad to see Geoffrey Rush in it. Pretty much everything he did made me laugh throughout, mostly because I simply imagined Captain Barbosa doing his side job of speech pathology.

So, it looks like all I have to do to be famous is develop a speech impediment, and/or star in a movie made about it.

Just wait. I bet next year's Best Actor will be Tom Hanks, starring in Robert Rocky, the story of the African-American gay country singer who finds himself in a concentration camp in the 1940s, and has a debilitating addiction to chewing his nails.