'The King's Speech' leads in Oscar race

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Queen Elizabeth II's dad, Albert -- the gentle, stammering Duke of York -- never was meant to be king. And from Hollywood's early honors this season, a drama based on his life never seemed destined as heir-apparent at the Academy Awards.

Yet "The King's Speech" took a step closer to the best-picture crown Tuesday, leading the Oscars with 12 nominations and gaining momentum against the online chronicle "The Social Network," which had previously ruled the awards season.

Hollywood's top prize on Feb. 27 now seems like a two-picture duel between stories about a monarch who lives in terror of a 1930s tool of mass communication -- the radio microphone -- and a college student who helped define the Internet era by inventing Facebook.

Also nominated for best picture are the Western "True Grit" -- second with 10 total nominations, the psychosexual thriller "Black Swan," the boxing drama "The Fighter," the sci-fi blockbuster "Inception," the lesbian-family tale "The Kids Are All Right," the survival story "127 Hours," the animated smash "Toy Story 3," and the Ozarks crime thriller "Winter's Bone."

"The King's Speech" is a pageant in the truest Oscar sense, with pomp, ceremony and history like past best-picture winners "The Last Emperor," "Lawrence of Arabia," "A Man for All Seasons" and "Shakespeare in Love."

It's also an intimate, personal tale of love and kinship as royal Albert (best-actor front-runner Colin Firth) is buoyed by the devotion of his wife (supporting-actress nominee Helena Bonham Carter) and makes an unlikely friend out of a commoner, his wily speech therapist (supporting-actor contender Geoffrey Rush).

Meantime, "The Social Network" seems like a film completely in the here and now as Harvard computer genius Mark Zuckerberg (best actor nominee Jesse Eisenberg) reinvents the art of keeping in touch with the viral growth of Facebook, whose half a billion users stay connected with friends online.

But the motivations at the core of the film are ancient as Zuckerberg battles old friends and associates over the website's riches.

Along with Firth, other acting favorites claimed Oscar slots, including Christian Bale in the best supporting actor category. Bale plays a former boxer whose career unravels amid drugs and crime in "The Fighter."

The best-actress field shapes up as a two-woman race between Natalie Portman as a ballerina losing her grip on reality in "Black Swan" and Annette Bening as a lesbian mom in "The Kids Are All Right."

Firth, Bale, Portman and Bening all won Golden Globes for their performances.

The best-picture field is a mix of solid commercial successes such as "The King's Speech," "The Social Network" and "Black Swan," huge blockbusters such as "Toy Story 3" and "Inception," and modest earners such as "127 Hours" and "Winter's Bone."

The box-office results range from $400 million domestically for "Toy Story 3," which also is the favorite to win the animated-feature award, to just $6 million for "Winter's Bone," a tiny-budgeted film that won the top prize at last year's Sundance Film Festival and now has earned four Oscar nominations, including acting honors for Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes.

"This feels crazy. I don't mean to sound like disavowing the film in any way, but it's like, are they sure?" said "Winter's Bone" director and cowriter Debra Granik, who earned an adapted-screenplay nomination. "There are still statistically very rare instances of a very small film being able to have a life that could be communal, that could be part of a national discussion."

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Online:

http://www.oscars.org