I can't believe I am in such agreement with you Billy, I thought Black Swan was so taken with itself I wanted to walk out and let it get on with it..however I'll always have a copy of Leon in my collection just for the over the top work of ALL the cast. Miss Portman was splendid in her role as far as I could see and it took little effort on her part to convince me of her genuine talent. Which I consider now being wasted time and film after time.

Australia, Canada, it;s all much of a muchness, just another dominion where they speak funny,

I just learned something very interesting on the radio this morning about The King's Speech. Listening to the CBC this morning on my computer they mentioned a fib in the film. George VI first speech after his speech impediment was dealt with was not made in England, but get this, in Winnipeg. Many thousands watched his speech and about 15,000 Americans came up to the city to see it. They played the recordings they had from the radio broadcasts and it was impressive but they didn't have the recording of the speech. This took place in the spring of 1939. The King's speech was a great success and apparently he didn't have a stutter.

Here is a short piece on the event:

http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/01/26/the-kings-winnipeg-speech/

... It could be said that at times this bordered on caricature, but I’m sure nobody ever told Dickens to tone it down to make his characters more believable.

As a former fan of the Odd Couple, it's sad that I only just now got the "Blanche" joke there.

My thoughts on New Grit are several pages back, and there they shall stay, unless I decide to link 'em. Will just say it didn't exactly move me, but it isn't an unworthy fillum.

At Friday's work assignment, was seated next to an LADCC colleague of advanced years who is (a) married to an Aclademite (former nominated screenwriter), and (b) a naturalized citizen of British descent. All I had to say was "I presume you've seen The King's Speech," and she went off in raptures, noting that when she was a little girl in London in the 30s, she and her coevals were very much aware of the Duke of York-turned-King's affliction, she still remembers The Speech and what it meant at the time for the country, and she was thrilled at how skillfully the film dramatized the situation. She and husband have now seen their screener 4 times (a lot for someone who gets everything every year because he's voting). Apart from the personal input, her ecstatics largely mirrored the reaction I've gotten consistently from AMPAS members, Industry workers, fellow criticalities and public-sector friends here in Highlyweird since December (barring my former Circle veep, the Talking Broadway criic, a stickler of discerning hardline ilk, who found it lovely to look upon, beautifully acted, and ultimately predictable). The Variety associate at the Next to Normal opening last November who asserted its eventual supremacy after the first press screening increasingly appears to have been prescient.

That's an excellent point to be made, generally, when characters are amped up a bit for purposes of drama. Caricature isn't always a bad thing, and the Coens aren't exactly practitioners of cinema verite.

Hi, Shane.

who found it lovely to look upon, beautifully acted, and ultimately predictable

Australia? Who said anything about Australia?

The broadcast of the speech in Winnipeg was broadcast around the British Empire with an audience of 100's of millions. The BBC carried it of course.

The King wasn't the King in those early speeches. It was 1937 when he became King, wasn't it?