The Oscars are tonight and it’s time to tell you what I thought of four of the most recent nominated movies I’ve seen:
The Kings Speech
The quintessentially British Colin Firth portrayed HRH King George VI in Tom Hooper's adaptation of the true story of an incredible issue which the king suffered from; that of speaking. Hooper explored the lengths at which Queen Elizabeth [Helena Bonham Carter] went to go correct “Bertie”’s affliction until finally discovering one Lionel Logue [Geoffrey Rush] who aided the king in overcoming his condition well enough to address the entire nation in it’s time of need.

Oscars should be dispensed here to both Bonham Carter and especially Firth who possess a remarkable ability to adopt the persona of their characters, icons of British history.
Colonel Creedon Rating: ***
Black Swan
Darren Aronofsky is a “weird” director who makes “weird” movies. If you’ve seen Requiem For A Dream for example and either understood or worse – enjoyed it; then not only are you weird too, you’re also a little creepy to me now as well. I don’t think I knew who he was back when I first spoke on 2IGTV about his RoboCop reboot, but when I discovered how weird he was and that he had his sights on RoboCop; I prayed the project would fail. My prayers were answered with the economic collapse of MGM which sadly took Bond and Hobbits with it until recently but if I had the time to live over I’d gladly delay both Bond and The Hobbit until now just so Aronofsky couldn’t make RoboCop.

Now while I’m sure that Ms. Portman’s performance was simply wonderful, I was so distracted by the disturbing and bizarre nature of the subject matter and possibly the stupidity and predictability of where the plot was going, that her work was sadly lost on me. One single grace here was an interesting performance from Winona Ryder as the former prima ballerina now past her prime which seems to echo Ryder's own career with delicious irony.
Oscar may go to Portman for her hard work but it would be a shame to bestow such a talented actress with an honour for this blight on celluloid.
Colonel Creedon Rating: *
The Fighter
The only other movie I know David O' Russell made was 3 Kings which despite its Gulf War setting, failed to meet the mark in my book. So naturally I was apprehensive about seeing The Fighter, basically a biographical sports movie about a boxer I never heard of. The cast intrigued me however, Mark Wahlberg, who rarely fails to impress, Christian Bale, one of the finest actors of his generation and Amy Adams, a nice bit of redhead totty.

With performances like these, the actual movie could've bee complete crap and no one would have noticed. It wasn't however, it's a classic underdog story of two men who took the reigns of their own destiny and accomplished something against the odds.
If the Oscar doesn't go to Bale for Supporting Actor, I'll shoot someone.
Colonel CreedonRating: ****
True Grit
I've not seen a Western since 3:10 To Yuma in '07 when Russel Crowe and Ben Foster put in a good turn in a remake of the 1957 original. True Grit pretty much follows the same line, a stellar cast to update and make a superior movie to the original. The Coen Brothers are usually a bit too off-the-wall for my tastes but I had heard that their eccentricity was very toned down for this in comparison to previous efforts which intrigued me.

The movie contains much of the humour you'd find with the Coen Brothers but fused with a raw brutal violence which I'll admit can catch you off guard even when you think you may suspect what's going to happen. The movie is mainly through the eyes of it's heroine but is far from innocent in presentation. It's exceptionally well written and the character dialogue is perhaps a bit more realistic for it's setting, which serves to draw you in more then one normally would be with a Western.
I've not seen the John Wayne original but from all accounts, it wasn't a great movie. It's widely known Wayne won the Oscar as a "career" award rather than for his performance in True Grit. Sadly due to continued Oscar snobbery, the new True Grit won't get any significant Oscars as it's a remake and deemed "unworthy".
Colonel Creedon Rating: ****1/2
I saw Toy Story 3 and Inception last year as well. Toy Story will get an award. Inception deserves an award it can't get because Chris Nolan doesn't play the Oscar committee's game. But hopefully it will pick up a technical one for visual effects or something or perhaps Hans Zimmer will pick up one for the score.