The term "the king’s speech" implies perfect pronunciation and exemplary deportment, the hallmarks of a masterful speaker who couldn’t be more comfortable with the intricacies of English. The man at the center of director Tom Hooper’s "The King’s Speech," however, is terrified of the sound of his own voice.

Mattie Ross is looking for a man, preferably a man who can find a man. All of 14 years old ' but with the self-confidence of a seasoned woman of the world ' Mattie has decided to take it upon herself to find and punish the outlaw who murdered her father.

From the moment Nina (Natalie Portman) gets out of bed, she’s reminded of her mission in life. Her toes and feet crackle like splintering ice as she braces herself for another day in the realm of ballet, an environment dominated by myriad mirrors and an insatiable appetite for youthful energy. If you could listen to Nina’s psyche, you might hear the same unnerving sounds the rest of her body makes: Time is running out, opportunities are elusive and, even though Nina still lives with her mom (Barbara Hershey) and sleeps in a cotton-candy-pink bedroom full of stuffed animals and a ballerina music box, she’s not a child anymore.

The title of director David O. Russell’s film is simple enough — “The Fighter” — but which character it refers to is not so clear. It would seem to be Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), the welterweight who’s been battling his way through the fight game in the early 1990s. But it could just as easily be his half-brother, Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale), a former boxer who seemed to be a champion in the making more than a decade earlier, before giving in to drug addiction.

The title of director David O. Russell’s film is simple enough — “The Fighter” — but which character it refers to is not so clear. It would seem to be Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), the welterweight who’s been battling his way through the fight game in the early 1990s. But it could just as easily be his half-brother, Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale), a former boxer who seemed to be a champion in the making more than a decade earlier, before giving in to drug addiction.

In 1982, Pac Man Fever was sweeping the nation. But in the Magic Kingdom, Disney executives were feeling aches and pains of a different sort. The studio's designated summer blockbuster "Tron" (which cost approximately $20 million, an impressive budget for those days) had all but short-circuited at the box office, failing to become the next "Star Wars," much less the "2001: A Space Odyssey" of the Atari generation.

What if someone announced plans to make a sequel to the Wachowski Brothers’ “Speed Racer,” or the infamous Ben Affleck/ Jennifer Lopez vehicle “Gigli”? If you were asked to help bankroll the eagerly awaited follow-up to Bruce Willis’ “Hudson Hawk,” would you reach for your checkbook?.

(Wednesday, Oct. 13) In “Never Let Me Go,” based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s popular novel, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield play young adults facing a gloomy future. That is hardly the case for the two British actors in real life, however. Mulligan won a best actress Oscar nomination last year for “An Education” and she’s been singled out as one of the bright spots in director Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.” Garfield is getting strong notices of his own in “The Social Network,” and he’ll soon be donning the scarlet threads of Spider-Man in Sony Pictures’ reboot of the phenomenally successful series. Mulligan and Garfield sat down for interviews last month at the Toronto International Film Festival.

It’s not particularly shocking to see “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1” and Disney’s “Tangled” slugging it out for the dominant position atop the box office rankings. But what’s in the No.

In “The Tourist,” Angelina Jolie is a woman of many faces — many of them familiar. Sashaying through the streets of Paris in a cream-colored dress and opera gloves, she’s Audrey Hepburn. Navigating the canals of Venice, she turns into Jacqueline Bisset, circa “The Deep.” Gliding through a glittering ballroom, she becomes Sophia Loren. Tough acts to follow, all of them, but Jolie confidently puts across each persona.