So where are the basic elements (trailer, one-sheet, website) for Tom Hooper‘s The King’s Speech (Weinstein Co., 11.24)? The Weinstein Co. has a locked-down Best Picture nomination plus a guaranteed Best Actor nomination for Colin Firth (for his performance as Albert, Duke of York, who later ascended as King George VI) plus a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Geoffrey Rush (as Lionel Logue, “Bertie”‘s unconventonal speech therapist) so where’s the razmatazz? The film opens in six weeks, guys. Hubba-hubba.

“This is a very well made, nicely timed and measured Masterpiece Theatre-type film,” I wrote a colleague early this morning. “It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but it handles itself very, very well within this appropriately protocol-minded proscenium-arch type realm. Especially considering that the somewhat mannered and old-fashioned quality, familiar to fans of Stephen Frears‘ The Queen, is an appropriate application given the late 1930s British period and Buckingham Palace atmosphere.

“You could theorize that The King’s Speech will connect especially well with the over-50 crowd, but it has, I feel, a carefully burnished quality that should/would work for any age group. It’s affectingly performed, very nicely written by David Seidler, and is generally sturdy and classy and satisfying.”

And that’s about all I have to say at the moment. I could expand a touch but there isn’t much time before I have to scoot down to the Scotiabank plex for back-to-back Affleck brother screenings — Ben Affleck‘s The Town at 12 noon (my first press screening) followed by Casey Affleck‘s I’m Still Here at 2:45 pm.

I agree with much of Kirk Honeycutt‘s Hollywood Reporter review; ditto Peter Debruge‘s review for Variety. If I find the time to add further thoughts I will, but once this festival begins ten-or-twelve-paragraph reviews are harder to come by. Strictly fly-by-night and catch-as-catch-can.