#25: See all of the films that, since I was born, have won the Academy Award for Best Picture (The King's Speech)

I feel like I should change the title of my blog to "erica's 101 in 1001 plus all my adventures with my best friend."  This week I am so grateful to have been invited to vacation to the Outer Banks with my best friend, Brett, and his parents, sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew.  His family has truly become MY family over the years and I'm excited to spend the entire week with them.

Since they are too cute not to feature, here are some pictures Brett took with his new camera of his absolutely precious niece, Claire, and nephew, Ian.

Now onto my 101 in 1001.  Brett's sister Erin got "The King's Speech" on Netflix, which was the most recent winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture and brought it for us to watch on vacation.  Last night seemed as good a night as any for the viewing.  This film stars Colin Firth (who won me over with his broken Portuguese wedding proposal in the film "Love Actually") and apparently half of the cast of the Harry Potter films.  No, seriously though.  We saw appearances from...

Albus Dumbledore

 Peter "Wormtail" Pettigrew

Bellatrix Lestrange

Bellatrix Lestrange, aka Helena Bonham Carter, plays King George VI's (Colin Firth's character and the protagonist of the film) wife Queen Elizabeth.  I think she did a fine job in "The King's Speech", but there were honestly a few occasions in which I found myself wanting to scream "No, King George!  Don't listen to your wife!  She's a death eater!  She tortured Neville Longbottom's parents!"  I think Helena Bonham Carter is doomed to be associated with Bellatrix Lestrange for me, in the same way that Dave Coulier will be always be Joey Gladstone.  

I thought the film was great and I can definitely see why it won the award - especially in terms of the performance by Colin Firth.  I thought he was absolutely phenomenal.  There was a bit of a conversation afterwards about this film compared to one of the other Oscar nominees, "The Black Swan."  I have not seen it yet, but everyone else seemed to think it was a better overall film than "The King's Speech." 

I guess this just means I have another film to watch... :)