The King's Speech (Sam)

SAM'S RANKING: 10 out of 10

In the opening scenes of "The King's Speech," Prince Albert, Duke of York (Colin Firth), is scheduled to conclude the Empire Exhibition's radio broadcast from London. He approaches the microphone, but at his cue, he stands there silently for at least fifteen seconds. When he finally begins to deliver his speech, he delivers it in stammers, with the microphone only making things worse.

Albert's wife, Elizabeth, Duchess of York (Helen Bonham Carter), goes to see Lionel Logue (Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush), a speech therapist who uses a different strategy than other speech therapists. He does his job his own way, requiring Albert to come to his rundown office. Albert is initially cynical toward Logue, but eventually agrees to do therapy sessions to overcome his speech impediment.

However, as the therapy sessions pass, Albert faces a challenge when his father, King George V (Michael Gambon), dies and his brother Edward (Guy Pearce) inherits the throne. Edward may face abdication due to his decision to marry Wallis Simpson (Eve Best), a twice-divorced American socialite, putting tongue-tied Albert in an uncompromising position.

"The King's Speech" features a lot of attention to detail; there are several long, slow-moving scenes, and a detailed, Oscar-worthy set decoration. Logue's office is the epitome of this, with beautifully painted walls and shabby wooden doors that look like they are a hundred years old (but probably aren't). The dialogue is filled with a surprising amount of humor, something that is becoming curiously common in movies.

But the relationship between Albert and Lionel becomes more than just doctor-patient. Lionel's strategy involves talking about personal matters, which Albert initially rebuffs but finds helpful. In one of the movie's better scenes, Albert reveals painful childhood memories, all of which are often associated with speech impediment.

The performances are brilliant, with Firth believably portraying Albert's frustration over his stutter, and Rush equally good as the imaginative Lionel. Carter also turns in a good performance as Albert's sympathetic wife.

The biggest strength of "The King's Speech" is realism; it never glosses over the challenges of the characters, and even though it's obviously exaggerated at times, it doesn't feel that way.

Tangled (Sam)

SAM'S RANKING: 9 out of 10

When viewing the film trailer for "Tangled," one would judge the book by its cover and consider the film one of those computer-animated spoof filled with mindless humor, which are abundant these days but are typically not that good. But when viewing the actual film, it becomes clear that it's no spoof.

The story is narrated by Flynn Rider (Zachary Levi), the most wanted thief in the village ("They just can't get my nose right!"). Bumbling, wisecracking, and self-deprecating, he narrates with lightning-fast wit that fits the "spoof" label.

But the story quickly shifts from Flynn Rider to Rapunzel (Mandy Moore), the newborn princess who is born sickly. The king and queen find a magical flower with the ability to heal the sick and hurt, and use it to successfully cure Rapunzel. However, a greedy witch named Gothel (Donna Murphy), who had previously used the flower to prevent herself from aging, discovers that Rapunzel's hair contains the flower's magic.

Gothel kidnaps Rapunzel and raises her as her daughter. Her hair grows astoundingly long as it will lose its magic if it is cut. She keeps Rapunzel cooped up in a tall tower and forbids her from venturing outside. As her eighteenth birthday approaches, she longs to leave the tower, but is denied her request every time she asks.

Then, one day, Flynn is on the run and stumbles upon the tall tower in which Rapunzel lives. Out of sheer curiosity, he climbs the tower, but is knocked out by Rapunzel and awakens to find himself tied up in her hair. Seeing this as her chance to break free, Rapunzel makes a deal with Flynn: she will let him go if he takes her to see the floating lanterns, which (unbeknownst to her) are released by her parents every year on her birthday, in hopes of finding her.

It is during the first scenes with Rapunzel that the film quickly evolves from spoof to Disney-style fairy tale, complete with musical numbers ("When Will My Life Begin," "Mother Knows Best," "I've Got a Dream," "I See the Light"). But this particular film tops other Disney fairy tales such as "Beauty & the Beast," "The Little Mermaid," and "Aladdin."

The reason why this stands out among other Disney fairy tales is that it not only becomes one, but starts leading the viewer in surprising directions. First of all, Flynn starts to soften as he bonds with Rapunzel. It's not that he isn't loveable in the beginning; most viewers wouldn't change him a bit. But as he grows closer to Rapunzel, he becomes more serious, and starts to care for Rapunzel to surprising heights.

Another surprising element is that Gothel doesn't fit the typical Disney villain. She is clearly the "bad guy" of the film, but at first appears to be merely selfish and greedy. When she finds Rapunzel has disobeyed her, she doesn't drag her back to the tower and punish her, but allows her to keep going with Flynn and hatches a plan to glorify herself to make Rapunzel come back to her. It's when Rapunzel defies Gothel that her evil kicks up a notch, but it still doesn't reach the heights one would expect it to, which is a compliment.

Probably the best scene in the whole movie shows Flynn and Rapunzel in a canoe at night, singing a duet of the film's best song, "I See the Light." The animation is at its best here as floating lanterns hover around Flynn and Rapunzel. For these reasons, it is difficult not to get "Tangled" into seeing this movie.