Word: royale
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...that during the ceremony at London's Royal Opera House, Slumdog Millionaire picked up seven awards, including Best Film and Best Director for Danny Boyle, Winslet won the Leading Actress award for her role in The Reader, and the Original Screenplay prize went to the Irish hitman comedy In Bruges. Echoing the sentiments of their American brethren, the British Academy voters also gave Leading Actor kudos to comeback king Mickey Rourke for his role in The Wrestler (his expletive-sprinkled acceptance speech getting some of the night's biggest laughs), honored the late Heath Ledger's turn as The Joker...
Through personal swipes and broad generalities, Royal paints a picture of a dysfunctional and self-defeating Socialist Party constantly torn apart by individual ambition. But critics say Royal is part and parcel of the very thing she criticizes. Moreover, in blaming fellow Socialists, the media and Sarkozy's allies for conspiring to deny her, Royal frequently comes off sounding alternately self-aggrandizing and paranoid. "This book is bizarre, because it shows Royal shedding the profile and language of traditional politicians without her assuming any other persona beyond someone demanding attention from the public and media," says Dominique Reynié, director...
Piqued by criticism that her career is more hype than substance, Royal says her detractors "are all contemptuous of me" before boasting "I'm so far ahead of them all." And responding to derision that her infamous September 2008 rally was a mix of infomercial, stand-up comedy and political televangelism, Royal upped the ante. "You have to be a moron to scream about sacrilege, about cultish [behavior] when everyone is in ecstasy over [Barack] Obama's campaign," she says in the book, echoing her contention when Obama was sworn in last month that the new U.S. President had "copied...
Shrill? Maybe - though it's nothing compared to the lashing Royal gives Sarkozy, whom she variously describes as vulgar, avaricious and (gasp) boringly predictable. "His energy is impressive, but he really is a show-off," Royal says, claiming Sarkozy's quest for money and power leaves him looking ridiculous once he's attained it. "With his little sheriff's star and his plastic gun, his cowboy outfit, it's as if he had climbed up on the biggest horse in the merry-go-round and plucked down the prize...
Maybe, but unlike Royal, Sarkozy (and copycat Obama) won their presidential bids and don't spend their time plotting revenge. "The real problem with this book is, it will horrify Sarkozy backers, thrill her own - and lead most in the middle asking what Royal could have been thinking when she wrote it," Reynié says. "If further dividing the left and uniting the right around Sarkozy is Royal's strategy for beating him, it certainly is unconventional...