The King's Speech

We saw The King's Speech last night. There's been a lot of hype surrounding it, mainly for the Oscars. And while it's probably not the best movie I've ever seen (and not in the usual category of movies I see), it's definitely going into my list of favourite movies where nothing happens (joining Field of Dreams, The Rookie, October Sky, and The World's Fastest Indian).

It opens up at Wimbledon in the mid 30's, where Prince Albert is about to deliver the first radio address of his life. I'm not sure if it's possible to look dignified and terrified at the same time, but Colin Firth (playing Prince Albert) gets the closest. You can see the dread, but it's very subtle. He's in a hallway, being quietly encouraged by his wife (Elizabeth, played by Helena Bonham Carter, whom you may not recognize outside of a movie directed by Tim Burton or starring Johnny Depp). After a few scenes of a radio voice announcing the upcoming speech, Albert walks up some corridors and to the stands, coming to a halt in front of the microphone. The red light blinks three times, then becomes steady, and he's live. Dead air ensues. A few words emerge, a few torn sentences, and it mercifully cuts to a later session of him with a speech therapist. A bad speech therapist, who encourages him to smoke ("to relax the throat") and gets him to put marbles in his mouth to encourage enunciation. It doesn't work, and Albert nearly chokes on the marbles before storming out.

His wife manages to find Lionel Logue, a rather unconventional speech therapist, and wheedles an appointment out of him after telling him he'll be practicing on the Duke of York. Heady stuff.

The first meeting goes awkwardly, as it does in most movies where the protagonists are strangers at the beginning of the movie but best friends at the end. I guess real life is like the movies in some ways, and the story of two people who got along as soon as they met would be rather boring. Still, Albert shows he can speak in the occasional clear sentence if he gets really pissed off. Logue records him reciting Shakespeare while listening to chamber music on headphones, to distract him from the sound of his own voice.

After giving up, he finally listens to the recording, his wife hears it, and it cuts to them back in Logue’s office. A montage ensues, with them working on mechanics, relaxing various body parts, shouting at open windows, and a speech Albert's trying to make at the opening of the manufacturing plant. Despite a few hiccups (not literal ones), it goes decently.

Problems arise when the King passes away, and Albert's brother Edward becomes King. He's a bit of a playboy, and takes up with a married woman ("she put in a petition for divorce"). Because the King is the head of the Church of England, and the head of the church can't marry a divorced woman, Edward eventually abdicates to be with the love of his life. The Monarchy falls to Albert, who takes the name King George VI. He gets Logue's help in more speeches after a bit of a fight.

Unfortunately, Neville Chamberlain announces that Germany has not retreated from Poland, and now a state of war exists between them and Britain. King George must make a speech to the masses to encourage them to fight and uphold the principles of democracy and all that other good stuff, yada, yada yada.

There’s a lot of preparation for the speech (is it the title, after all, unless the title was actually referring to the King’s ability to speak … touché, Movie Title). Most of it is alright, and we watch as Albert uses all the tricks he’s learned to get through it. Bouncing onto P’s (“apeople”), or stringing swear words together to get through pauses (he’s quite the smooth speaker when he curses up a blue streak). Finally the moment arrives, and he walks through many corridors in the palace (wow, it’s like a call-back to the first scene of the film) to the radio room, where everyone exits except for Albert and Logue. Logue tells him to just speak to him, since he’s a friend. The speech has a few pauses, but it adds to the solemnity of it (they’re declaring war, after all), so everything goes well, and then he gets congratulated by everyone, and profusely thanks Logue. And then the credits roll.

There are a lot of good things about this movie. The acting is tremendous, but that’s a given. Colin Firth, Geoffrey Bush, and Helena Bonham Carter are all incredible actors. The thing that caught me off guard was the amount of humour in the movie. At one point, they’re talking about all of Albert’s previous speech therapists. Logue calls them idiots. Albert says “They’ve been knighted.” Logue responds “Well, that just makes it official.” And after the titular speech, Logue merrily whispers “You still stammered on the W’s.” Albert replies “I had to do something so they’d know it was me.”

Another thing that caught my eye was the subtlety. Well, either that or I was reading too much into the movie. For instance, the Logues are listening to Chamberlain declaring war on the radio, and their oldest son rushes into the room. We’re left to question whether he’ll end up fighting (possibly dying) in the upcoming war. Another example would be the stammering itself. In most media, stammering means that the person repeats the sound a few times before getting to the rest of the word “p-p-p-people” whereas here, Albert pauses and struggles to say the word in the first places “ … people.” It makes it more believable since it’s different than what we’re used to. And Firth continues it for the entire movie, shortening the pauses when he’s getting better, and adding more when he’s doing worse. It just looks like his vocal cords have seized up.

The only nit I have to pick is at the very end. After the speech, everyone congratulates him on doing a good job (to be fair, it was a good job). The only problem with this satisfying ending is that it contrasts sharply with the tone of the speech itself. He’s just launched his country into war. The last one claimed nine million lives. I doubt that anyone could have predicted the enormous casualty total of World War II, but even so, one would expect most people to be a little reticent about engaging in another war. It just struck me as jarring, but that’s after the benefit of hindsight.

I’m not sure how to rate this movie. It can easily be seen at home. There are no explosions or gargantuan special effects that need to be properly experienced on the silver screen. No booming sound that needs to properly be heard from speakers big enough to rattle internal organs. Still, purely ratings-wise, it’s a theatre movie for me.

Humour

Humour (or humor, for you people that leave U out of everything) generally comes from the unexpected. We get the setup, which is a general event, and then the punchline, which is contrary to our expectations of what the setup would indicate. So, for instance, you might get the question "How many (blanks) does it take to change a light bulb?" The expected response might be "one" since it usually only takes one person to change a light bulb. Perhaps two, in case the light bulb is high and someone needs to hold a ladder for safety concerns. The punchline is usually "(number) - one to change it and (number minus one) to (act in a stereotypical manner of blanks)." So you get "How many Baptists does it take to change a light bulb?" "Eight. One to change it, but not before seven get together to form a committee for approval." Or "How many trumpet players does it take to change a light bulb?" (For this, you have to know that trumpet players are the most egotistical of all those gifted with music. Even more than drummers) "Four. One to change it and three to say how they would have done it better."

One of the more recent interpretations of this is subversive. For instance, with an obvious setup, most people would expect a joke. So to be unexpected, there is no punchline. "Why did the chicken cross the road?" "To get to the other side." It's unexpected because people are expecting a punchline, and not getting one. For light bulb jokes, this is usually played out by having the answer not be a number. “How many Catholics does it take to change a light bulb?” “Change?”

In all of these, though, missing expectations is not enough. You generally have to be funny, and I can't explain that really well. All I can do is point out examples of different types of humour.

Observation humour is pretty much just contrasting expectations with something funny. "You ever notice how (something you're familiar with) is actually (something funny)?" The expectation is the view of what we have of said object. The humour comes from the new view we gain of said object. Some of it falls flat if the view isn't so different from what we know. "You ever notice how men and women are different? (pause for laughter)" Observation humour is mainly used by standup comics, and the good ones are terrific. The bad ones get another job.

Cringe Comedy (as TVtropes calls it) or awkward humour (as I call it) is mainly based on the difference in expectations of what we're comfortable with in our relationships. Shows like The Office or Parks & Recreation or 30 Rock or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia show what happens when people say things that other people aren't comfortable with. It usually needs a straight man to play against (not that kind of straight ... not that there's anything wrong with that) to show them being uncomfortable. So when Michael Scott or Dwight Schrute go off the deep end and do something that would get them arrested in real life, the camera can focus in on the facial expressions of Jim or Pam and show what we'd be feeling in those situations.

In that vein, but a little moreso is offensive humour. It's like cringe comedy without the straight man, so everyone says or does the uncomfortable things. Most of the time, they have to be so obvious and over-the-top that that's where the humour comes from. Also, on a meta-level, part of the humour comes from watching it and saying to yourself "I can't believe they just said that. I wonder how many people aren't going to get the joke and protest?" Well Family Guy, the PTC (Parents Television Council) did not get the joke and protested. Way to go! Unfortunately, this humour is a very fine line, subject to many different tastes, so some people will enjoy the jokes, some people won't, and some will be offended. Personally, I like Family Guy, I think The Simpsons is a bit too tame, and I'm not a fan of South Park. But that's a matter of taste.

I'm more into the zany, wacky humour partially pioneered by Monty Python. They defy expectations by having anything happen. "How many engineers does it take to screw in a light bulb?" "I don't know, how many?" "Gah! I'm having a heart attack ... while aliens are landing ... and complaining about the food!" It's somewhat head-spinning and doesn't appeal to a whole lot of people. But it did open up a lot of different avenues of comedy and if you ask any modern humourist, most will list Monty Python as an influence. It's this type of humour that made me enjoy Scrubs and Better Off Ted so much. Killing those was "like beating a unicorn to death with a bag of rainbows." - Phil, Better Off Ted.

Spoofs are kind of hit and miss. The expectation is whatever's being spoofed. Airplane was mainly a parody of Airport, so people would expect most of the same events as that movie. Airplane did a good job of being very similar, but changing one or two details to turn the situation on its head. Good parodies will change very little and still be hilarious. Bad parodies won't change anything, and expect the humour to come from the references to the movies they're spoofing *cough* Seltzer-Friedberg *Cough*.

Black comedy is very hard to pull off well, because death isn't very funny. It's not used in movies or TV shows very much. I've heard it's used by people who face death or worse a lot to help them cope. Doctors, policemen ... I imagine funeral directors or embalmers use it a lot.

Blue comedy (sorry, dirty jokes) will get a lot of people riled up. Sex tends to be a private thing, so people will get offended when it's brought up publicly. It can be pulled off quite well, but often times it just tends to be crude. Same thing with toilet humour. The potential is certainly there, but writers either haven't harnessed it right, or their viewers are content to find humour in the gross-out factor. It's not something I like, but if someone pointed out a tasteful bathroom joke, I bet I'd laugh.

One of the main problems with humour in general, though, is the tendency to make fun of someone. Anyone who's the subject of the joke may be offended. Light Bulb jokes make fun of the subjects using stereotypes. Same with Dumb Blonde jokes (never mind that stupidity has never been limited to hair colour ... or any other characteristics, for that matter).

Generally, you can only make jokes at the expense of a people group you belong to. I can make fun of Baptists, or Christians, but not Jews. I can make fun of Canadians, but not the Polish. I can make fun of white people, but no others (there's been enough of that, and worse, over the course of human history). Self-deprecation is the extreme form of this. Since no one is the butt of your joke but yourself, no one can really protest except yourself. Conan O'Brien does this a lot, mixed with zany humour and some offensive humour as well.

Of course, there are some groups of people that can be made fun of by everyone. TVTropes calls them Acceptable Targets. Men and women can be made fun of by either gender, because we pretty much exist in equal amounts. Other acceptable targets are usually majorities. Americans, white males, Christians. Making any of these a target of a joke is generally fine (again, taste is an issue, and anyone can protest if they're not good humoured enough). Making a joke of anyone else is a tricky business, and writers had best be prepared, lest they face the wrath of the PTC. Of whom it takes 476 to screw in a light bulb. One to actually do the work, and 475 to make a special interest group and complain to the government about the effect of dead bulbs on children.

Valentine's Day

This was going to be a column entitled "Pet Peeves: Part II (the return)" because I had left out a few from the original column in October. But then I realized that most of the things I had planned on including involve love and affection, so I thought I'd wait until near Valentines Day, and then post a diatribe against it. Take that, Hallmark! So here's what movies and TV portray incorrectly about love (and yes, I apologize in advance for a lot of TV references here. In case you hadn't noticed by now, I watch a lot of mindless TV as well as a lot of mindless movies. Sorry).

1) The Misunderstanding. It's common in romantic comedies, teen movies – anything where two people are supposed to wind up together. You have a traditional boy-meets-girl, boy-dates-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-wins-girl, happily-ever-after story line. This is about the third one: boy-loses-girl. Often it happens as part of a misunderstanding, but it can also be a part of the boy's past that the girl isn't comfortable with. You can see each of them played out classically in Hitch (misunderstanding) and She's All That (Girl learns something about the boy and they split). I think writers put them in because without it, you’d have pretty much a normal dating to married storyline that exists in real life (and you can’t put that in a movie. It’d be too boring). It makes me think I should have something shady in my past so that when I date a girl, she can learn it and dump me, and then I'll have to prove my love (possibly involving a song-and-dance routine in a public place with many witnesses to the outpouring of emotion) upon which she'll throw herself in my arms and we'll live happily every after. She may need to think about it beforehand though, and I'll have to endure a montage of loneliness before she comes to her senses and marries me. I'll call that plan B. But before that can happen, we'll have ...

2) UST. Also called URST, it stands for Unresolved Sexual Tension (many thanks, TVTropes). It's the "will they or won't they" question that a lot of TV shows use. Movies have about 90 to 120 minutes to resolve any relationship woes, which is why they only have the simple arc described above. TV shows have between 20 and 40 minutes each week, but need to carry it on anywhere from 10 to 26 episodes a year, for as many years as the show lasts. So they have to invent ways to keep characters from getting together, even though most of the audience is pulling for it. Why? Mainly, it's from Moonlighting. Moonlighting was a show in the 80's starring Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis (yes, before Willis was a butt-kicking action star, he was a sleuthing comedy star). For many seasons, the two leads had UST. They finally resolved it for the last season ... and the ratings tanked. Ever since then, writers have been scared that if they pair off their leads happily ever after, their shows will tank and get cancelled. And so they invent increasingly implausible ways of keeping them apart. Friends makes an excellent example, with Ross and Rachel getting together partway through season two, splitting up in season three, and spending the remaining seasons (there were ten in all) going back and forth, back and forth, until the audience felt seasick and wished both would die. Or just the writers. Each season started or ended with the possibility of them getting back together, frustrating viewers but keeping them glued to the screen for those crucial ratings. And yes, they got together in the finale, because that's what finales do.

Some shows handle UST better than others. Scrubs never had JD and Elliot together for more than an episode, even scrapping the UST after season three until the end of season seven, before putting them into a stable relationship in season eight (it was implied they get married afterwards). Chuck had an interesting case in that Chuck and Sarah had to fake a relationship for their spy covers, only Chuck's an amateur and Sarah's smoking hot, so he fell for her. She fell for him (eventually) and they wrung some UST out of a spy-or-relationship question that most of us felt was pretty stupid before they finally got together. Now they argue about small stuff. So there is a danger in resolving UST. Conflict in TV has to come from somewhere, but Chuck's gone about as far as it can go relationship-wise. Castle has the UST by having Castle and Beckett like each other at different times and introducing temporary love interests (like Friends, only Castle does it better), as does Eureka. Apparently, the UST between Booth and Brennan in Bones is epic, but I've never seen they show so I don't know. Better Off Ted didn't have much of it at all, as Ted and Linda were pretty sure about when they could and couldn't have a relationship. Warehouse 13 ignored the whole thing and had the leads treat each other like siblings.

So before I go dating this fictional girl I’ll end up marrying, I'll have to have to go through many of these moments, possibly involving another guy. A handsome guy who turns out to be a jerk. The only problem is ...

3) The other guy isn't a jerk. I have luckily never been involved in a love triangle involving deep-seated jealousies and seething hatred, but a lot of TV characters have. All of the TV shows I mentioned above will bring in someone temporary for one of the main characters to have a short relationship with. Of course, they'll need to end it to wind up with their one true love, and so one of the ways of doing this is to have the temp turn out to be a jerk. See Paolo in Friends. Handsome, foreign, Rachel immediately falls for him, and Ross becomes jealous. A few episodes later, Paolo blatantly hits on Phoebe (because he’s a jerk), and so he and Rachel break up, making Ross happy, and bringing back the UST. Whee.

But in real life, not all the other guys are jerks. They're nice, and while it's easy to envy them, it's hard to hate them, and when they wind up with the girl, nice guys step out of the way and let them have the girl. And they wind up happily ever after. We can only hope they break up because they move out of the country (possibly for a job), or it just doesn't work out. Allowing me to step in and have a relationship. And if things get far enough ...

4) Pregnancy. The chances of getting an STI from unprotected sex are much higher than getting pregnant. And yet, somehow it's only the pregnancy scares that are aired (usually for laughs). I guess a syphilitic main character wouldn't get as much action, and is probably not as sympathetic as network executives would prefer. Plus, a man's fear about fatherhood can be a lot funnier than his fear of Chlamydia.

The other problem I have with pregnancy is the general fear that it's held in. I can get that for the nine months itself - the changes and stresses it puts on a woman’s body are enormous. But children are an incredible gift. Ask any new parents you know. Ask any old parents you know. A tremendous amount of work - but a tremendous amount of joy as well.

So realistically, after unprotected sex, I'd be more likely to get sick than procreate. To be fair, a lot of TV shows imply safe sex, so kudos to them. Now, how do I know that this woman I'm sharing my bed with is my one true love? Because of ...

5) Love at first sight. I'm a little tired of the "I loved you the moment I first met you." It's popped up on a fairly large amount of the television airwaves, and I think it's leading a lot of people astray. I'm sorry to sound like a cynic, but I doubt it exists. Affection at first sight almost certainly does, and lust at first sight most certainly does. But not love. Love takes more work than a few moments of eye contact and a conversation. Otherwise I would have married that cute cash register lady the other day.

The problem with the notion of easy love is it trivializes the amount of work that real relationships take. Certainly there will be some that are easier than others. And there will be relationships where no amount of work will keep you from loving your significant other. But TV shows trick people into thinking what they feel at first is love. And then they get married when they don’t actually love each other, and then it leads to ...

6) Divorce. This one is sort of meta, because it's the societal acceptance of divorce that annoys me the most. Certainly, there are marriages that need to end. The Bible says any marriage betrayed by adultery can end in divorce. I'm pretty sure any marriage involving abuse (physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, mental) should end – quickly. Get out, get out, get out.

But marriages shouldn't end just because two people didn't try. That's easy, lazy thinking. Did you try therapy? Counselling? There's a ton of help for couples who're struggling, and simply giving up shouldn't be the first (and likely, only) thought. But TV shows and movies portray them as acceptable ends of marriage, and the stars live the same lifestyle (quite a contrast to the happily-ever-after we're used to), and so society has deemed them perfectly fine. Love shouldn't be like that.

But of course, I won’t divorce this fictional woman I’ve married, because she’s my one true love. And we’ll live happily ever after … until next season.

The Mechanic

It seems every movie I see lately is called "The (noun)." The Mechanic, The Green Hornet ... Maybe in the future, I'll wind up going all meta and see "The Movie."

Anyway, Evan and I went to see The Mechanic. I have three letters for it, and they are M, E and H, in that specific order. The movie didn't do anything for me, nor was it a complete waste of time.

It started off badly, because we were a bit late. I don't know how many previews we missed, but we walked in on the tail end of Battlefield LA, and saw Drive Angry, The Eagle (there it is again) and another one that I forget, but we both decided would not be on our list. (Turns out it was Limitless, a movie with far too much acting for our taste.)

Then the movie started, and Jason Statham (playing a guy called Arthur) killed a guy by waiting at the bottom of his pool and drowning him. Nifty concept, but not much action. Just some thrashing around by the drowning guy. Then Arthur snuck/walked out while the guards administered CPR. It didn't work. Arthur returned home and put on a classical record, of which we only hear the first minute of. Yes, our hitman ("mechanic") is cultured, because he listens to classical music. Or, one song of it, which gets played a few times. Seriously, don't you have anything else? Some Brahms, Mozart, Beethoven maybe? No, just that one song. Blah. And the rest of the soundtrack was nothing special either. So that was a bit of a disappointment for me.

Anyway, his mentor gets killed, so he takes the mentor's son Steve (played excellently by Ben Foster) under his wing and teaches him how to kill people. Steve learns quickly, and takes to killing. Which is a shame, because I don't think movies and TV shows to a very good job of portraying the psychological burden of having taken a life. Really, only Human Target's touched on it. The hero is an ex-hitman, so he's used to it, but he doesn't want other people to kill. To paraphrase, it's like a line that you can't uncross, and it's a heavy weight to carry for the rest of your life. Every other TV show and movie treats first-time killers like their fine afterwards, and it's business as usual. Yeah, right.

Anyway, Steve disregards Arthur's advice and gets into a brawl with the big gay guy he's supposed to have drugged. It gets uncomfortable and then bloody. Not that I have a problem with that, but I’d rather see stylized violence than a clumsy stabbing match.

Next, they hit a TV preacher who's a stereotypical TV preacher. Love, God, the Spirit's work, and behind the scenes it's drugs and abortions. Whee. I’m surprised they made the girl he hit on 18. I guess having him be a pedophile as well may have been a bit too expected. The hit goes wrong, they kill the preacher, and have a shootout with his escort. Wait, why does the preacher have goons, and why do they have guns? I have no idea, except to provide excitement for the audience. The pair flee by jumping off the roof of a high-rise hotel, something I always approve of.

They split up to take the heat off, and Arthur has a fight with a man who's supposed to be dead. That this guy is alive means that his employer betrayed him. So he kills the man by knocking him out of a bus, where he's promptly smoked by a passing car. Evan winced. I pumped my fist in awesomeness.

Each gets ambushed separately, but that's resolved very quickly. They fake a torture scene (one of these days, I want to see a movie subvert that and actually have the good guys torture someone, instead of faking it. It would make me question whether I wanted the good guy to win. No director has the balls to actually do that, or it may be that the studios keep putting the kibosh on it) and get information about where their employers actually are. And then there’s a very quick climax (insert your own dirty joke here) and a disappointing denouement, despite two exploding vehicles. There's a tremendous amount of preparation that could have been outsmarted by a bullet to the brain, but neither of the main characters thinks of it.

So this movie isn't a great movie. Not even a good one, really. It's okay. There are about four action scenes, only one of which lasts five minutes. Also, they had to have a carjacker in the movie. He's black. He's the only overtly black guy in the movie. Just something to think about, if you've been thinking about racism lately.

It's a low-budget rental. DVD old-release, or whatever. Yes, Ben Foster is good in it. There's some good action, but I've seen most of it before (although I haven't seen anyone stabbed in the cheek with a fire-extinguisher pin before. Usually they're just beaten with the extinguisher itself. Arthur has sense to be unique at times, at least). So don't waste your money until it's really, really cheap.