The King's Speech

The King's Speech is a fantastic movie, and if you haven't seen it, you should go.  Personally, I love Geoffory Rush and Colin Firth.  I started smiling during Rush's first scene, and I kept that grin on my face almost the whole movie--not that it was always funny, but that I just love watching him act, he's so fantastic.  The rest of the cast was also wonderful, full of all my favorite British actors. 

I thought it was funny that everybody in the movie was typecast.  Colin Firth played the tempermental nobleman, Geoffory Rush played the quirky doctor, Derek Jacobi was a clergyman, Timothy Spall plays a character role: Winston Churchill.

The only one who didn't fit was Helena Bonham Carter, playing the Duchess who becomes Queen Mary.  Carter has played queens before, most recently as the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland and before that as Queen Jane.  But we don't really think of her as queenly.  She is known for her strange performances and even stranger public image.  I think of Fight Club as her defining role.  But I loved seeing her play as sweet character again.  It reminded me more of her role in A Room with a View, one of my favorite movies of all time.  In The King's Speech, she played a devoted wife.  In every scene, she portrayed a women who loved her husband and wanted to help him overcome his challenges.  You could see her eyes filled with love when she watched him struggle with his speach impediment.  You knew that she would do anything for him if she could only help him. 

I watched her and thought, that is the kind of wife I want to be.  Hollywood brainwashing?  Perhaps.  But I don't mind being brainwashed into doing something good and beautiful.  Would you?

A Night Out

Last night I went out to a movie with one of my girlfriends.  We met first at Cafe Latte in St. Paul for a piece of chocolate cake, and then we went to The King's Speech at the Highland Theater.  I don't go out in the evenings very often.  For some reason I am very reluctant to get a babysitter for my kids so that my husband and I can go out, and I feel guilty leaving him alone with the kids so I can go out by myself. 

My friend Claire and I always see eachother with the kids.  We have known eachother since our oldest children were infants, and we've tried to make a regular playdate every month.  This month we had a disasterous trip to the Minnesota Zoo.  We didn't know that it was "French Day" and there were about 1500 teenagers at the zoo.  The paths were totally congested and it was near impossible to get around with the strollers, much less keep track of three toddlers in the crowds.  We finally plopped ourselves down at a table in the cafeteria, looked at eachother and decided it was time for us to meet without the kids.

We had a lovely evening.  We realized that there was so much that we didn't know about eachother because there are so many things that you can't say in front of the kids.  And when they are around they tend to dominate the conversation.  So we had a nice time catching eachother up on the other aspects of our lives, and then we went to the movie.

I'm so glad that I was able to go out.  And the best part is that we get to go back for free because there was a mistake when they changed reels.  We watched commercials for ten minutes in the middle of the film, so we got free passes to visit again.  I wonder what will be playing next month.