I really, really regret missing The King's Speech at the Toronto International Film Festival last week, not just because everyone I know who saw it loved it, but because it's suddenly been slapped with the "Oscar frontrunner!" label among the dozen or so media people who have seen it. If you doubt that can be true, take a look at the film's first trailer, which debuted today at Yahoo!. It won't even take you until the Nazis show up to realize this is one of those movies the Academy is going to go nuts over.

It helps that I hear the movie is actually good, because honestly, this trailer is so polished, sentimental and downright stuffy I'd otherwise be willing to write it off entirely. By all accounts Colin Firth is spectacular as the English King George VI, and Geoffrey Rush is his equal as the Australian speech therapist who helped the royal overcome his stammer. Helena Bonham Carter also shows up as the Queen, and it's at least a relief to see her playing something other than Harry Potter's Bellatrix Lestrange or whatever other monstrosity Tim Burton has cast her as lately.

Anyway, check out the trailer below and keep in mind that critics are loving this thing-- and not just the kind of critics who always love stuffy British period pieces-- before judging it. It won the Audience Award at Toronto, like Slumdog Millionaire before it, and therefore there must be plenty here that we're not quite seeing on the surface.