Royal drama The King’s Speech was crowned the big winner Sunday at Britain’s top film awards — a sign that it may reign again at Hollywood’s Academy Awards in two weeks’ time.
The made-in-England story of King George VI and his struggle to overcome a stutter won seven prizes, including best picture and acting trophies for Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush.
It had to share the crown jewels with Facebook-founding drama The Social Network, which took three prizes including best director for David Fincher. Mind-bending saga Inception won three trophies.
Photo: REUTERS
The King’s Speech went into the awards as heavy favorite with 14 nominations — an unexpected British triumph that cost a reported US$24 million to make and has taken many times that at the global box office.
It beat The Social Network, Black Swan, Inception and True Grit to the best picture prize.
Perfectly timed in a year that sees the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, the movie tells the true story of George VI, thrust unexpectedly onto the throne by his elder brother’s abdication, and his battle to overcome a stammer with the help of an unconventional speech therapist.
Screenwriter David Seidler said he was astonished that this small film about “two men in a room” had been so popular around the world.
“I don’t think it’s the fascination with royalty,” Seidler said. “I don’t think it’s the ostrich plumes and the gold braid. I think it’s the fact that it’s a story about changing your destiny.”
The British-American writer, who overcame a childhood stammer and has worked on the screenplay for 30 years, said that “for a stutterer ... to be heard is a wonderful thing.”
As expected, Firth won best actor for his portrayal of the reluctant monarch. He has already won a best actor trophy at the Golden Globes and is a favorite for an Oscar.
“I like coming here,’’ said Firth, who won the same prize last year for A Single Man.
The King’s Speech also took awards for best British film, original screenplay, original music, supporting actor for Rush’s turn as speech therapist Lionel Logue and supporting actress, for Bonham Carter’s performance as the late Queen Mother Elizabeth.
“I think I should thank the royal family, frankly, because they’ve done wonders for my career,” Bonham Carter said.
Bonham Carter, who also recently played the giant-craniumed Red Queen in husband Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, joked that “I seem to be playing queens with ever-decreasing head sizes.”
Natalie Portman won the best actress prize for psychosexual dance thriller Black Swan, its only win from 12 nominations.
The Social Network took directing and editing prizes, as well as an award for Aaron Sorkin’s adapted screenplay. Inception won prizes for sound, production design and visual effects.
Writer-director Chris Morris took the prize for best British debut for Four Lions, his comedy about a group of bumbling would-be suicide bombers.
Swedish thriller The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was named best foreign language film. Producer Soeren Staermose joked that its no-holds-barred heroine, Lisbeth Salander, was “the scariest thing to come out of Sweden since ABBA.”
Most of the winners are selected by the votes of 6,000 academy members.
Actor Tom Hardy won the Rising Star Award, decided by public vote.
The awards, known as BAFTAs, are considered a strong indicator of possible Oscars glory.
Christopher Lee, the aristocratic
88-year-old actor who chilled generations as Count Dracula in a series of Hammer Studios horror classics, received a lifetime achievement award.
On the Net: www.bafta.org
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would