Kings and Things

I never really understood the fascination with Elvis. Having not grown up when he was a big deal, I think it's hard to understand the icon status he had. Not really too sure who he would compare to in today's world. I'm sure there's someone...just not sure who. Actually, giving it some thought, there is one person in the music industry I might compare him to. Call me crazy...but possibly Eminem? Both hugely popular, very polarizing, extremely successful, kind of a little insane?
Probably one of the best ways to know when someone has reached 'icon status' is when they're promoted to having one name. Elvis. Bono. Madonna. Even modern musicians - Beyonce. Usher. Beiber? Superstars having one name are not uncommon in sports, too. Obviously, international soccer is big into it...Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Kaka, Pele. Other than that, the NBA is probably the next league where you can identify players by their first names - Kobe, LeBron, Carmelo. Baseball never really picked up the one name thing, but they're all about nicknames and there are some great ones. Hammerin' Hank, Mr. Cub, Lefty, The Kid, The Chairman of the Board, The Babe, The Mick, The Iron Horse, The Say Hey Kid, The Wizard of Oz, Pudge. Where did these come from?! Kind of makes me curious what the nicknames of the future will be.


Getting back on track a little bit, I originally got on the topic of Elvis thinking about his nickname - The King (Elvis has the one name icon status AND a definable nickname? Now THAT is big time). Why did I think about The King? Because I watched The King's Speech tonight...obviously. I'll start off by saying, after seeing this film it absolutely deserved to win the Oscar for Best Picture and Colin Firth no doubt deserved Best Actor. When I wrote about Black Swan, I mentioned how the directing stood out to me. Watching The King's Speech, the part that stands out to me is the script and blocking of the story itself. Fittingly enough, it won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. In a story about words and the problems that can come when one delivers those words, it's fitting that the words themselves (or in this case sometimes the fragments of words, or the pauses between words, or hesitation between syllables) are the part that stand out to me. Of course, a lot of this has to do with Firth, as well. Imagining that every stutter was written into the script is ridiculous. It was really the ability of Firth to become his character that made his disjointed lexicon flow so freely. Definitely a performance worthy of Best Actor. I'm giving The King's Speech 5 stars out of 5. 


Photo: Elvis Presley doing his thing Credit: Google images; The King's Speech Movie Poster Credit: The Weinstein Company