The King's Speech - Royal Stammering and Colin Firth

I am familiar with Prince Charles and Lady Di, their sons William and Harry, hunky Prince Andrew and the spritely Duchess Fergie of York. I am also familiar with Queen Elizabeth II, Charles' mother, and her sister Princess Margaret. But who is King George VI?

King George was a historically significant royalty. He was the King of United Kingdom for 16 years. He was also India's last emperor, and the last king of Scotland. He was George V's 2nd son. For most of his young life, he moved under the shadows of his older brother Edward who was the rightful heir to their father's (King George V) throne. Edward was charismatic, but flighty, and eventually abdicated his throne when being king wouldn't allow him to marry an American divorcee.

As a child, King George was described as "easily frightened and somewhat prone to tears". As a young adult, he was constantly embarrassed by his stammering which turned out to be his biggest hurdle in his ascendancy to the throne.

Tom Hooper's "The King's Speech" is King George VI's inspiring journey to finding his public voice at a time when his people faced several tribulations (the British empire's war with Hitler's Germany). This he did under the tutelage of an unorthodox speech therapist, an Australian immigrant named Lionel Logue (marvelously played by Geoffrey Rush).

Colin Firth plays George VI while Helena Bonham-Carter his Queen. And I cannot begin to emphasize the staggering performance of these two actors! Firth just might run away with the Oscar Best Actor plum, an award that he deserved last year with "A Single Man". He already won a Golden Globe for the same role. Bonham-Carter and Rush deserve a nomination as well, and Firth's scenes with Rush simmer and spark! Guy Pearce was almost perfect as the roguish Prince Edward (though a bit iffy with his accent).

Afraid of the microphone.

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth I (Firth and Carter)

Geoffrey Rush as Lionel Logue, an unorthodox speech defect therapist.

Survival and Morality Intertwine in The Road

Seldom do I get to watch movies that leave me speechless after watching them. John Hillcoat's "The Road" is one of the very rare films that does that.

The film is set in the not too distant future when, one day, all the world's clocks stopped at 1:17 AM. The world as we know it has come to an end. The earth is riddled by frequent tremors and has turned into a wasteland that can hardly support plants or animals; where days are grayer than the previous ones. Man has turned cannibals, hunting weaker people for food. In the center of this post-apocalyptic wasteland is an un-named man (Viggo Mortensen) and his child (Kodi Smit-McPhee) who are trying to be the "good guys" despite constant threats to their survival. In less than 70 minutes, we are treated to a spine tingling morality adventure tale that will leave you reeling with introspection.

Mortensen and Smit-McPhee deliver indelible performances that I shall not forget in a long time. In powerful cameos are Charlize Theron who's overcome with post-partum depression, Guy Pearce as another wandering father, and Robert Duvall as the old man. I have loved author Cormac McCarthy for his novel "All The Pretty Horses" which I have read 3 times. His "No Country For Old Men" was turned into an Oscar-winning Best Picture (2007) and "The Road" won the Pulitzer for fiction. It's about time I should read another Cormac McCarthy!

Or maybe New Voice Company can stage Cormac McCarthy's spare-staged "The Sunset Limited" which is really up their alley - 2 characters named "Black" (the ex-convict-cum-Christian evangelist) and "White" (the atheist professor) - on a spare apartment in New York - debating on human suffering, the propriety of suicide and the existence of God.

The world has turned into a desolate place where people hunt people for food, plants and animals cannot grow, and earthquakes jolt the earth like clockwork.

Unforgettable turns.