"Sure, The King’s Speech is good, but it’s the art cinema equivalent of a hamburger. It pushes zero boundaries, and doesn’t really demand much of its audience. It’s got no deeper insights. A year from now, it’ll be 'Oh, yeah, that movie. It was good. I liked it.' It’s just another period piece aimed squarely at your mom, the very definition of Oscar bait... It’s kind of offensive that a movie like The King’s Speech won in a year that saw movies like Black Swan and True Grit not only come out, but thrive, and have no chance of winning because Harvey Weinstein is a master of gaming the Oscar system."
-- From an article currently posted at Screencrave called "Why The King's Speech Proves the Oscars are Irrelevant"
I don't agree entirely with this guy's assessment, but I concur with -- as Charlie Sheen might say -- "violent passion" that The King's Speech is an almost self-parodically average film that in no way deserved to take home an Oscar for Best Picture, and abso-freaking-lutely shouldn't have seen Tom Hooper winning Best Director. But it's the kind of movie Harvey Weinstein cranks out in a factory somewhere by the truckload then consistently and almost magically spins into Oscar gold just because he can.
By beating films like The Social Network, Black Swan, True Grit and Inception, Harvey's latest milquetoast period piece became this year's Shakespeare in Love. Anybody still overpowered by the effect that movie had on them? I didn't think so. Now, anybody remember Saving Private Ryan -- the film Shakespeare beat for Best Picture in 1998? Yeah, That says it all.
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