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This entry was posted on February 24, 2013 at 8:00 PM and is filed under the bad. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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SATYAMSHOT
January 10, 2013 at 10:05 AM
my only Disappointment is No Ben Affleck for best Director Category …..
haven’t seen Silver Linings Playbook but is Bradley Cooper so good in movie to get a Oscar Nomination ??
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January 10, 2013 at 10:50 AM
I do not think that the nomination for Cooper is deserved at all. JEnnifer Lawrence deserves her nomination for sure, and the Best Picture nomination is also not unwarranted. But the Best DIrector and Best Actor nominations are a joke IMO. I’ve not seen Django or Zero Dark Thirty yet, but I have a hard time believing that the Silver Linings director did a better job than Tarantino and Bigelow.
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January 10, 2013 at 11:37 AM
I was also thinking on the same line..
Bradley cooper and Best Actor..!!
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January 10, 2013 at 10:05 AM
Really disappointed that Leo did not get nominated for Django, He got robbed of his oscar once for his Blood Diamond outing, though I am happy that Christoph waltz is nominated.
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January 10, 2013 at 10:19 AM
man…the oscars really hate DiCaprio. Every freakin person associated with Titanic got a nomination except Leo. got snubbed for J.Edgar last year. and now django. and it’s almost criminal not to nominate Affleck for Argo.
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January 10, 2013 at 10:38 AM
He also wasn’t nominated for Revolutionary Road.
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January 10, 2013 at 11:43 AM
yup…..another very fine performance.
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January 10, 2013 at 3:17 PM
Totally agree…It also deserved a nomination for best film.
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January 10, 2013 at 10:34 AM
“But the morning’s real surprise was a triple snub in the best director category: Neither Kathryn Bigelow, who directed “Zero Dark Thirty,” nor Ben Affleck, who directed “Argo,” nor Quentin Tarantino, who directed “Django Unchained,” were included among the five directing nominees.”
http://carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/oscar-2013-nominations/?&ref=hp_photos
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January 10, 2013 at 10:45 AM
they went with the usual ‘sweetness and sunshine’ choices. silver linings playbook? really? haven’t seen the film but every year they latch on to a small ‘quirky’ safe film and this seems one of those (though it’s good i am sure, but really?)
ah, the academy! fu***ng it up for 85 years.
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January 10, 2013 at 10:52 AM
Agree, I enjoyed Silver Linings very much, but no way does it merit this many major nominations. It was a lovely little film but it is no way a particularly brilliant or important one.
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January 10, 2013 at 10:54 AM
they don’t care about important films, just about being politically correct. ugh!
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January 10, 2013 at 10:53 AM
^hahaha Anya –what a cute gravatar …is that your doggie
sho shweeet….
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January 10, 2013 at 10:41 AM
Sad to see Affleck and QT not being nominated. But feel even more sad not to see Looper and The Grey in the list
So Spielberg, Lincoln and DDL should win the major awards. And I am rooting for Wreck-It Ralph
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January 10, 2013 at 10:52 AM
the academy awards should just be renamed spielberg awards at this point.
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January 10, 2013 at 3:21 PM
I dont think Looper deserved any nomination. It was an entertaining film but nothing award worthy.
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January 10, 2013 at 10:44 AM
Pleased to see Amour and Haneke nominated as thoroughly as it has been…
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January 10, 2013 at 12:30 PM
Was really privileged and happy to have seen Amour at Chennai Intl film fest this December. A friend watched it at Bangalore fest, a week later. I’m guessing we’ll soon be getting at least some of these nominated films in Indian theatres soon.
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January 10, 2013 at 10:58 AM
Text of DDLs letter to Spielberg to REJECT lincoln
Initially before being persuaded to do it…
““Dear Steven,
“It was a real pleasure just to sit and talk with you. I listened very carefully to what you had to say about this compelling history, and I’ve since read the script and found it in all the detail in which it describes these monumental events and in the compassionate portraits of all the principal characters, both powerful and moving.
“I can’t account for how at any given moment I feel the need to explore life as opposed to another, but I do know that I can only do this work if I feel almost as if there is no choice; that a subject coincides inexplicably with a very personal need and a very specific moment in time.
“In this case, as fascinated as I was by Abe, it was the fascination of a grateful spectator who longed to see a story told, rather than that of a participant.
“That’s how I feel now in spite of myself, and though I can’t be sure that this won’t change, I couldn’t dream of encouraging you to keep it open on a mere possibility.
“I do hope this makes sense Steven, I’m glad you’re making the film, I wish you the strength for it, and I send both my very best wishes and my sincere gratitude to you for having considered me.”
pS–
Love the conscientious DDL–one can sense the passion and depth of this method actor–must say that the promos etc of lincoln have been somewhat underwhelming—cant pinpoint what–also dont like lincolns ‘voice’ here though many will give reasons 2 justify it…
btw lincoln n django –will manage to catch atleast one soon—seems it will be the latter!
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January 10, 2013 at 10:59 AM
I am elated to see David O Russell and Bradley Cooper getting nominated though I have not seen the film. And would love to see Spielberg win it for the third time- he is all my time favourite director
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January 10, 2013 at 11:03 AM
yeah, i am sure you’d also like to see dutt being nominated, doesn’t mean he should be. bradley cooper nomination is more laughable than last year’s rooney mara nomination over tilda swinton.
oscars suck!
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January 10, 2013 at 11:11 AM
agree actually
lol @ bradley cooper nomination
does the jury consist of giggling glas/females
btw heard he was good in SLP apparently–enuf to becum the pinup for some gals…
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January 10, 2013 at 11:14 AM
i don’t get the whole pinup thing actually, he is ok looking, not particularly attractive in any way. and i don’t think he is really getting mobbed by females everywhere, it’s more of a media created thing. i’ll take gosling over him any day, so will any other female with eyes.
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January 10, 2013 at 11:20 AM
^ hmm –so uve got a gosling pinup currently, anya ? hmm
😉
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January 10, 2013 at 11:34 AM
apparently, saurabh has a thing for gosling too. don’t blame him 🙂
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January 10, 2013 at 11:38 AM
“apparently, saurabh has a thing for gosling too.”
haha ROFL–gosling seems to be a metrosexual/ flexi-sex icon
ps–somehow i dont like gosling beyond a point ..thankfully
so im normal ? 🙂
ps2–tried notebook yesterday–found rachel mcadams ok–dozed off after 20 min….
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January 10, 2013 at 11:42 AM
anyone who watches the notebook shouldn’t brag about being a safe ‘manly man’. and don’t give me that ‘i fell asleep’ bs. you cried, didn’t you?
and hey, i have had heterosexual married male friends tell me they’ll let one hot male celebrity or the other do naughty things to them at least once just for the heck of it (beckham seems a popular choice, he is ‘pretty’ enough)
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January 10, 2013 at 11:50 AM
hahaha anya–whatta comment… 🙂
“male friends tell me they’ll let one hot male celebrity or the other do naughty things to them at least once just for the heck of it ”
i have NO such confusions..
celebrity or ‘hot’ or whateva–if a ‘hot’ male tries it with me–he will be ‘punished’ badly –he will be bludgeoned!!
ps-“beckham seems a popular choice, he is ‘pretty’ enough”–psst anya–whats your choice for this ‘doing naughty things’–cmon wont tell any1…share your inner fantasies with me 😉
ps–“you cried, didn’t you?”–hmm it seems u cried while watching it–admit it..
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January 10, 2013 at 11:55 AM
as if i’ll ever watch the notebook, gosling or not. from his very early work, i prefer him in murder by numbers where he plays a sociopath
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January 10, 2013 at 12:01 PM
u didnt answer the ‘celebrity to do naughty things’ bit anya
ok, will keep it a ‘secret’ …
ps-have a copy of ‘stay’ popped out of nowhere in my stuff –worth it?
like mcgregor and the whole psychiatrist thing…
btw i love being a psychiatric patient (but am v selective bout my shrinks though)…
ps2–homework 4 u–try notebook 4 a change–tell me if u cried or not..
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January 10, 2013 at 12:27 PM
btw anya–as for ‘celebrity to do naughty things’ for u –if no celebrity available—
will a ‘non-celebrity’ do 4 u (for the time being)… 🙂
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January 10, 2013 at 11:18 AM
I will not merit your Dutt comment with a response (sad to see ‘u’ adopt that tone)
On Cooper, he recently won the Best Actor at National Board Of Review Awards as well as The Satellite Awards (I am not sure abt the latter).
And just like on Cage and Damon, almost every critic seems to agree with me on Spielberg. Blame them if they do not even consider a certain ‘beefcake plumber’
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January 10, 2013 at 11:22 AM
I too will take both Gosling over him in every way but the guy is a looker. He was voted by the People magazine for its widely famous Sexiest Man award last yr
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January 10, 2013 at 11:29 AM
i only made the dutt comment to highlight the ridiculousness of that nomination, not to attack you. and robert pattinson has also won people’s choice award for breakthrough male performance for twilight. not comparing those actors with him, just saying.
and i am not saying speilberg is not an iconic director. but the academy that took so long to give scorsese anything (whom i personally admire much more than speilberg) is always prostrating at his feet, which i find very old-boy-clubby. anyways, they are out of touch with reality and hate any challenges to their political agenda and dislike too much innovation. i fricking just hate the oscars. same bullshit every year. rant over.
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January 10, 2013 at 11:02 AM
IMO Spielberg is Mr Cinema !!!!–period…
If he makes a movie with DDL in the lead & on lincoln–the jury isnt qualified enuf not to ‘award’ them!!
ps–in india–i consider Kamalahassan indias mr cinema…
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January 12, 2013 at 1:21 PM
“i consider Kamalahassan indias mr cinema”
that is an insult to Indian cinema. Kamal is fooling around with himself since many years now and with this DTH fiasco – he has messed up with a major chunk of his loyal audience.
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January 10, 2013 at 1:55 PM
a lot of movies to catch up on! starting from this weekend..
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January 10, 2013 at 2:00 PM
marion cotillard deserved at least a nomination for her brilliant performance in “rust and bone”. stunned ben affleck got jipped. no best director nom for “argo”? really?
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January 10, 2013 at 5:48 PM
Film actor and director Ben Affleck was recognized today for his work as an outstanding bud with a nomination for Best Friend of Matt Damon. “I am deeply honored to be nominated for this prestigious award, as I have worked hard to hone my craft as Matt Damon’s friend for over 32 years,” said the 40-year-old Argo star of the nomination, after expressing gratitude that his spouse, actress Jennifer Garner, will be the recipient of this year’s Lifetime Wife of Ben Affleck Award. “I think a win has to be considered something of a long shot, but I already won this award back in ’97, so it’s really just nice to be recognized this time out.”
http://www.theonion.com/articles/ben-affleck-nominated-for-best-friend-of-matt-damo,30855/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=standard-post:headline:hashtag
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January 11, 2013 at 2:53 AM
Great news! Bombay Jayashree nominated for Best Original SOng for her ‘lullaby’ in Life Of Pi (Mychael Danna is the composer who along with Rahman composed for Water and Monsoon Wedding)-
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January 11, 2013 at 3:06 AM
For my money…Its DeNiro…the five yr old girl..(beasts of the southern wild) who will rock the boat of Pi. There are as many politics in movies as there are anywhere else and ppl have strong feelings about who & what,,too bad we are not privy to it..
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January 11, 2013 at 3:19 AM
She was good in the movie but I can not say the same about the movie(ambivalent).
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January 11, 2013 at 3:22 AM
Sir, Bombay Jayashree’s nomination deserves a separate thread IMO
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January 11, 2013 at 10:42 AM
The Oscar Nominations
Posted by Richard Brody
The exemplary fact of this year’s Oscar nominations is the acknowledgment of “Beasts of the Southern Wild” in four major categories (Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay). The independently-produced film is Benh Zeitlin’s first feature; he was under thirty when he made it, on a budget estimated at $1.8 million, and it made its première last January at Sundance. The very fact that the Academy is aware of its existence, let alone considers it for its highest honors, is a sign of an industry that is more fluid than ever—and of a time when the studios often function as distributors and the field of production is wide open to grassroots newcomers. But the movie itself is this year’s “The Help,” a romanticized and mythologized vision of poor Southern blacks (in this case, a father and daughter in a Louisiana bayou community called the Bathtub) that also sentimentalizes the very notion of self-help (“The Self-Help”) in a story that spotlights a tough, poetic, independent-spirited child facing dangers in aquatic adventures (well, “Life of Pi” also fared well in the nominations).
Hollywood—I suppose, in the image of the country at large—acknowledges the primacy of matters of race (a batch of nominations for “Django Unchained” as well, plus, of course, “Lincoln”) but not too closely: Quentin Tarantino and Steven Spielberg look at the country’s original sin (or one of the original sins) from a historical distance, and Zeitlin, for all the sincere, warm-hearted, poetic (though rather self-consciously poetic) energy with which he invests the film, conjures a neo-primitive world apart that reeks of an (utterly unintentional) condescension. The movie offers not just an apolitical but an anti-political, by-the-bootstraps view of essentially political matters that—centered as the story is on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina—is the basis of the sentimental consensus that won it an audience and a batch of nominations. I’ll revisit it soon, though, and follow up here.
The most pleasant surprise, for me, was the nomination of the three principals of Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master”—Joaquin Phoenix for Best Actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman for Best Supporting Actor, and Amy Adams for Best Supporting Actress. It’s inconceivable that the movie wasn’t nominated for Best Picture and that Anderson wasn’t on the Best Director list—three such performances don’t just materialize from the ether. It’s pleasant to note that “Moonrise Kingdom” received one (though, sadly, only one) nomination (Best Original Screenplay), though there was no reason to expect that it would do better. Not all of the films that the Academy honors have been big commercial successes (and they never have been—the victory of “Crash,” in 2005, still makes the industry cringe) but they tend to substitute emotional expression for emotion itself (“Silver Linings Playbook” grabs the audience by the lapels and shrieks, “Feel! Feel!” as Robert De Niro looms in the background growling, “Or else…”), or a proud display of seriousness and importance for audacious approaches to actual substance. It was ever so. Hollywood (and, indeed, its New York studio predecessors) has made great movies from the very start; they’re not necessarily the ones that make the most money, or the ones that the industry itself is most proud of.
The contradictions are built into the very nature of the cinema, which isn’t just an art form and, of course, a business (as publishing, the art world, the theatre, music are, too)—but (as André Malraux famously noted) also an industry. It’s highly technical and capital-intensive; it depends heavily on scientific innovations; and, most of all, its inherent documentary power—the sense that even its fictions are crucial realities—make it automatically political. The controversies over “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Django Unchained,” the debate over possible connections between actual violence and movie violence, make the Oscars, more than ever, feel like reruns of Presidential campaigns, with leading candidates and favorite sons (and daughters) and dark horses. It isn’t the image or self-image of the industry that seems to be in play, but that of the country.
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January 12, 2013 at 12:51 PM
Watched 0 DARK THIRTY last night..it is more incisive than THE HURT LOCKER..THE HURT LOCKER looks like a masala film when compared to 0 dark thirty..If I am on beer, might catch up on writing something longish…
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January 13, 2013 at 11:30 PM
Golden Globe winners-
Argo, Affleck, DDL, Chastain, Les Miserables, Jackman, Lawrence win top honours. But Brave winning over Wreck-It Ralph. WTF
Best Motion Picture – Drama: “Argo”
Best Actress – Drama: Jessica Chastain, “Zero Dark Thirty”
Best Actor – Drama: Daniel Day-Lewis, “Lincoln”
Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical: Les Miserables
Best Actress – Comedy or Musical: Jennifer Lawrence, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Best Actor – Comedy or Musical: Hugh Jackman, “Les Miserables”
Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway, “Les Miserables”
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, “Django Unchained”
Best Director: Ben Affleck, “Argo”
Best Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, “Django Unchained”
Best Animated Feature Film: “Brave”
Best Foreign Language Film: “Amour”
Best Original Score: Mychael Danna, “Life Of Pi”
Best Original Song: “Skyfall,” Adele from “Skyfall”
Best TV Series – Drama: “Homeland”
Best Actress TV Series – Drama: Claire Danes, “Homeland”
Best Actor TV Series – Drama: Damien Lewis, “Homeland”
Best TV Series – Comedy or Musical: “Girls”
Best Actress TV Series – Comedy or Musical: Lena Dunham, “Girls”
Best Actor TV Series – Comedy or Musical: Don Cheadle, “House of Lies”
Best TV Miniseries or Movie: “Game Change”
Best Actress – TV Miniseries or Movie: Julianne Moore, “Game Change”
Best Actor – TV Miniseries or Movie: Kevin Costner, “Hatfields & McCoys”
Best Supporting Actress – TV Series, Miniseries, Movie: Maggie Smith, “Downton Abbey”
Cecil B. Demille Award: Jodie Foster
http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/2013-golden-globes/2013-golden-globe-awards-winners-announced-010025427.html
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January 14, 2013 at 12:07 AM
Watched the entire proceedings..Foster was magnificent in her speech..
Tina Fey and Amy were meh…not biting enough..
What is this obsession with Les Miserables? It’s a pretty ordinary musical with average performances from Jackman and Crowe. Infact, Crowe crowing about is as enchanting as yogurt-rice from last week..
Sad that Phoenix lost out..It is his misfortune that he has to face Day-Lewis in a year that has seen an outstandingly enervating performance from him in THE MASTER..
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January 14, 2013 at 2:21 AM
yup. they are always better at this than oscars but les miserables, brave and i think girls were some of the weird ‘wins’.
foster’s speech was just about the loveliest thing i have heard at one of these events. i wasn’t surprised so many women in the audience started crying, i got sniffly too. she is one of the coolest women in hw and was fantastic tonight. sitting through the meh proceedings was worth it just for those few minutes.
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January 14, 2013 at 2:25 AM
I am happy for Brave.
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January 14, 2013 at 2:29 AM
My daughter loves Merida.
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January 14, 2013 at 11:25 PM
waltz is on conan right now!
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January 15, 2013 at 8:38 AM
I think Brave was Pixar’s first officially bad movie.
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January 14, 2013 at 6:36 PM
Indian awards need some soul-searching: this coming from none other than KJo whose bff SRK took (rigged?) away the award for DDLJ beating the outstanding turn of Aamir as Munna in RANGEELA.. Go figure…ulta chor kotwaal ko daante??
There are many other transgressions..BEST ACTOR for DILDO PAGAL HAIN???
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Entertainment/Bollywood/Should-Bollywood-learn-from-the-Golden-Globes/Article1-989605.aspx
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January 14, 2013 at 9:52 PM
Just like bollywood, we can have boscar wards for bw movies.
We can have permanent awards for certain stars for popular and critcs awards and also lifetime achievement awards.
For popular awards, we can have SRK, Salman, Ranbir for every year.
For critical awards we can have Vidya, Tabu, Irrfan and the usual suspects every year.
For lifetime achievement awards we can have have Bachchan, Shatrughan Sinha?, Vinod Khanna, Rishi Kapoor, Waheeda Rehman, Hema Malini, Sridevi.
For Rekha a very special award. For looking the same, for wearing the same and for being the same. The Sameness achievement award.
And there can be Mr.India award for who else? Aamir Khan, the invisible at awards functions.
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January 28, 2013 at 1:55 AM
SCREEN ACTOR GUILD AWARDS:
Best Ensemble Cast, Motion Picture: Argo
Best Actor, Film: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Best Actress, Film: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Supporting Actor, Film: Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Supporting Actress, Film: Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble, Film: Skyfall
Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble, Television Series: Game of Thrones
Lifetime Achievement: Dick Van Dyke
Actor, Television Series, Comedy: Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Actress, Television Series, Comedy: Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Ensemble Cast, Comedy, Television Series: Modern Family
Actress, TV Movie or Miniseries: Julianne Moore, Game Change
Actor, TV Movie or Miniseries: Kevin Costner, Hatfields & McCoys
Actor, Television Series, Drama: Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad
Actress, Television Series, Drama: Claire Danes, Homeland
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February 6, 2013 at 6:10 PM
Torture, Compromise, Revenge
Oscars for the Obama age: Me, I’d vote Django
Not long after President Obama delivers his State of the Union address this month, Hollywood will offer its own annual summation of the national Zeitgeist, the Oscars. They’ve lately been an irrelevancy: Best Pictures like The King’s Speech and The Artist have been footnotes, nostalgic European footnotes at that, to America’s kinetic pop culture in the day of Homeland. Not this year. Whatever the explanation—and little in show business happens by design—the movie industry has reconnected with the country. It has produced no fewer than four movies that have provoked animated, often rancorous public debate: Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, Lincoln, and Django Unchained, a film that pushes so many hot buttons you can’t quite believe it was made. All are nominated for Best Picture. All toy with American history. Though none can muster the commercial might of superhero franchises like The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises, all are box-office as well as critical hits. And all are worth seeing, whatever their failings.
http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/django-unchained-oscar-race-2013-2/
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February 6, 2013 at 6:13 PM
LOL!!-
Conservatives have praised the film for the same reasons liberals attack it, though what liberals (myself among them) consider torture they categorize as effective and legal intelligence-gathering. Some on the right have also rallied around Argo, a slick, apolitical thriller set amid the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979–81. With Benghazi boiling last fall, the National Review argued that Argo was an “October surprise” poised to hurt Obama’s reelection chances by reminding voters of a previous Democratic president (Jimmy Carter) flummoxed by terrorism. When Academy voters denied Best Director nominations to Kathryn Bigelow and Ben Affleck, the directors of Zero Dark Thirty and Argo, the right saw a Swift Boating. “Make a movie in which Americans act heroically against Islamic enemies of the United States, and you lose” was how John Podhoretz summed up the directors’ plight in the New York Post.
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February 22, 2013 at 9:07 AM
IdEA:
MS has won the highest no. of OSCAR than any other living or dead actor/actresses – she is a super-powerhouse performer: even in this 2.33 min speech – she delivers a knockout perf.
“”God has only been thanked in 3 speeches, as opposed to Meryl Streep who has been thanked 4 times. ”
In other words, Meryl has been thanked 7 times.”
this comment from a user made my day 🙂
the article is: http://jezebel.com/5985613/oscar-winners-thank-meryl-streep-more-than-they-thank-god
i think it is the highest nos. of nominations (18 nom. and 3 win)
here is the list of 17 nom. and 2 win (the last nom and win was in 2012 for TIL)
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February 22, 2013 at 10:55 AM
thnx satyam
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February 25, 2013 at 7:07 PM
While Meryl Streep has more Oscar nominations that any other actor or actress. Meryl has only won 3 Oscars for acting so far in her illustrious career. Katherine Hepburn is the only actor or actress who has won 4 Oscars for acting during their career. Hepburn has the most Oscar wins so far for any actor or actress.
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February 22, 2013 at 11:03 AM
According to Baja Sen..the Oscars’ criminalities…
http://www.rediff.com/movies/slide-show/slide-show-1-ten-great-performances-overlooked-by-oscars/20130222.htm
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February 23, 2013 at 5:55 PM
Saw “End of watch” – Good , dark, cop drama.
Lawless – Uneven but enjoyed.
Dangerous Liaisons (Chinese) – Well acted. The main lead mannerisms was very similar to SRK and thought he would be well suited if there is a remake in Hindi.
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February 23, 2013 at 6:39 PM
yeah I’ve heard good things about End of watch. Have to check this out.
You’re quite right on the other point! Found the film poor otherwise. A much better also recent version of the same is the Korean Untold Scandal. Might still be available on streaming.
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February 24, 2013 at 10:01 PM
i didn’t care much for untold scandal, though the actors were good.
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February 25, 2013 at 2:16 AM
The version of D. Liasions I have enjoyed is Cruel Intentions. Cheesy but good fun
End Of Watch is a superb film and of last year’s best. I found this even better than Training Day and Harsh Times (2 other films written by Ayer)
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February 25, 2013 at 7:48 PM
i suppose cruel intentions is one of those ‘so bad it’s good’ films 🙂
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February 24, 2013 at 7:57 PM
For those who are living without a TV in this age and day — like me — you can watch the oscars live here..
http://www.livestream.com/theoscars
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February 24, 2013 at 9:22 PM
All Oscar related comments should be left in this thread.
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February 24, 2013 at 10:11 PM
http://articles.marketwatch.com/2013-02-22/finance/37236822_1_movie-tickets-movie-theaters-discounts
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February 24, 2013 at 10:27 PM
Austrian actor Christoph Waltz and animated movie “Brave” took home early Oscars on Sunday as Seth MacFarlane mocked both himself and Hollywood’s A-listers in his debut as host of the movie industry’s biggest night.
In one of the closest contests going into the ceremony, the Best Supporting Actor went to Waltz for his turn as an eccentric dentist-turned-bounty-hunter in Quentin Tarantino’s slavery revenge fantasy “Django Unchained.”
“We participated in a hero’s journey, the hero here being Quentin. You scaled the mountain because you’re not afraid of it,” said Waltz, who has now won two Oscars for roles in Tarantino films.
Waltz beat veterans Robert De Niro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alan Arkin and Tommy Lee Jones.
” Brave,” the Pixar movie about a feisty Scottish princess, took home the golden statuette for Best Animated Feature.
MacFarlane opened the show with three song and dance numbers, barbed quips about some of Hollywood’s biggest stars and running jokes about his own suitability to host the Academy Awards.
“I honestly cannot believe I am here. It’s an honor that everyone else said ‘no’,” said the creator of edgy animated TV series “Family Guy”.
But his biggest laugh came in a reference to director Ben Affleck’s snub in the directing race for his Iran hostage thriller “Argo.”
“The story was so top secret that the film’s director was unknown to the Academy!” MacFarlane quipped.
Presidential drama “Lincoln” went into Sunday’s three-hour plus ceremony with a leading 12 nominations, including a directing nod for double Oscar winner Steven Spielberg.
But its front-runner Best Picture status has been dented by the six-week victory streak enjoyed at other Hollywood awards by “Argo.”
The thriller, once considered an underdog when Affleck was overlooked in the Oscar directing category, is now thought to have the edge.
Best Picture, the top prize, will be announced at the end of the roughly three-hour live ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
If “Argo” does prevail, it will be the first movie to win Best Picture without its director even getting a nomination since “Driving Miss Daisy” in 1990.
Musical “Les Miserables,” comedy “Silver Linings Playbook,” shipwreck tale “Life of Pi,” Osama bin laden thriller “Zero Dark Thirty,” slavery Western “Django Unchained,” indie film “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” and “Amour” round out the contenders for the best film of 2012.
Daniel Day-Lewis, Anne Hathaway wait
After several years of nominating little-seen movies, this year’s nine Best Picture contenders have pulled in more than $2 billion in tickets worldwide.
Oscar producers hope the popularity of the leading movies, together with a show packed with musical numbers and a James Bond movie tribute, will make for a big TV audience for broadcaster ABC
Upsets could be in store later on Sunday by France’s Emmanuelle Riva, 86, in the Best Actress contest.
Riva, star of the harrowing Austrian entry “Amour,” emerged as a dark horse in the past few days in a race that had been seen as a battle between “Zero Dark Thirty” actress Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence of “Silver Linings Playbook.”
A win by Riva would make her the oldest person ever to win an acting Oscar.
“Amour,” the story of how an elderly couple cope with the effects of the wife’s debilitating strokes, is considered the overwhelming favorite for Best Foreign Language film.
Few surprises are expected in the Best Actor race and Best Supporting actress categories.
Daniel Day-Lewis as U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is considered an unstoppable force to become the first man to win three Best Actor Oscars.
Anne Hathaway, who starved herself and chopped off her long brown locks to play tragic heroine Fantine in “Les Miserables,” is considered the overwhelming favorite to win her first Oscar for her supporting role in the screen version of the popular stage musical.
The Oscar winners were chosen in secret ballots by some 5,800 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-interviews/Christoph-Waltz-Brave-win-early-Oscars/articleshow/18669028.cms
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February 24, 2013 at 10:32 PM
Oh gawd! Brave winning over Wreck-it Ralph. These guys have gone nuts. And Looper has not even got a single nomination
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February 24, 2013 at 10:40 PM
something like looper will never get a nomination because the average age of an oscar voter is 66 (see post above).
the brave win was stupid. so was waltz over hoffman.
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February 24, 2013 at 10:39 PM
Less than five minutes into Seth MacFarlane’s opening monologue Sunday evening, the raunch humor-prone “Family Guy” creator dropped the kind of transgressive comedy cluster bomb many pop watchers had been anticipating.
Describing Quentin Tarantino’s slave revenge epic “Django Unchained,” MacFarlane called it “the story of a man fighting to get back his woman, who’s been subjected to unspeakable violence — or as Chris Brown and Rihanna call it, a date movie.”
As if on cue, the audience inside the Dolby Theatre groaned in mock horror. “That’s what we were afraid he would do,” MacFarlane joked.
Oscars 2013: Nominee list | Red carpet
“That’s as bad as it gets, if it makes you feel any better,” he said, before adding quickly: “It’s really not as bad as it gets.”
Before an estimated audience of a billion people, MacFarlane alternated between making hamburgers out of Hollywood’s sacred cows and showing fealty to good old-fashioned showbiz spectacle with elaborate song and dance numbers that made fun of precisely no one.
Referencing Judd Apatow’s comedy of Gen-X manners “This Is 40,” MacFarlane joked that an alternate title for the senior citizen mortality drama “Amour” could be “This Is 90.” He appeared in a film clip dressed in Flying Nun garb to make out with supporting actress nominee Sally Field and pondered Daniel Day-Lewis’ ability to stay in character during principle photography on “Lincoln”: “If you bumped into Don Cheadle on the studio lot, did you try and free him?” MacFarlane asked.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-oscars-2013-macfarlane-opens-the-show-both-crude-and-polished-20130224,0,3633511.story
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February 24, 2013 at 10:42 PM
the best one-liner so far was him making fun of academy for not nominating affleck.
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February 24, 2013 at 10:52 PM
I loved the Chris Brown – Rihanna one..and his quip about the trash-family of Kardashians..
Ted was hilarious in taking a jibe at ‘Jew’ism of Hollywood..
==Boy Wizard (Radcliffe) and vampire (Kristen Stewart)..pretty much everything that is wrong with Hollywood as per the Christian Right!! == superb!
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February 24, 2013 at 11:06 PM
acknowledging rumors about his own sexuality and making fun of it. win!
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February 24, 2013 at 10:48 PM
There is a TIE for the Oscar for Best Sound Editing.The Oscar for Best Sound Editing goes to Zero Dark Thrity and Skyfall | Best Actress in a Supporting Role goes to Anne Hathaway for Les Miserables
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February 24, 2013 at 10:57 PM
I wish for more ties.
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February 24, 2013 at 10:50 PM
in other news, kristen stewart rolled out of bed and put on an expensive sparkly dress. then she snorted some coke and headed to the oscars. ah, hollywood glamour!
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February 24, 2013 at 10:57 PM
She definitely was in a haze!! But do find her hot and eminently beddable..
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February 24, 2013 at 10:58 PM
eeewwwwww……….
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February 24, 2013 at 11:09 PM
Well, one man’s meat is NOT another man/woman’s meat then!!
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February 24, 2013 at 11:12 PM
not if the meat looks like coke-addled-trash-with-dead-eyes warmed over
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February 25, 2013 at 1:55 AM
Thanx for these live reactions folks …
Just catching up
“not if the meat looks like coke-addled-trash-with-dead-eyes warmed over”
Hahaha 🙂
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February 25, 2013 at 2:29 AM
“She definitely was in a haze!! But do find her hot and eminently beddable.”
Have to agree with Ann Jo there hehe
Ps:
Someone mentioned theron here–aah –she’s a distinct category –hawt!
Btw south african whites who mumble in afrikaans accent –well..
There’s something seething lol
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February 24, 2013 at 11:02 PM
all the singing. i feel like i am at a garba night.
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February 24, 2013 at 11:17 PM
woo hoo! skyfall for best song
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February 25, 2013 at 12:03 AM
the song didn’t need an oscar. Oscars have done themselves a favor by awarding this one.
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February 24, 2013 at 11:27 PM
original screenplay to django! at least it got one!
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February 24, 2013 at 11:34 PM
of course he was snubbed out of the best director..so he has been patted on the back with the screenplay award..
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February 24, 2013 at 11:37 PM
i am surprised they gave him anything! and ang lee’s win was a surprise too.
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February 24, 2013 at 11:37 PM
Jesus what an upset!!!! Ang Lee for best director!!!!!!!!!!!
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February 24, 2013 at 11:44 PM
lawrence over chastain! now waiting for the ridiculous academy to award cooper so they can have 2 young sexy stars on magazine covers. oscars are the new apsara awards!
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February 24, 2013 at 11:49 PM
yes it is getting absurder by the hour…if cooper wins it, it will be the last straw…and then DAVID RUSSELL…I am wandering off to Himalayas then…
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February 25, 2013 at 2:06 AM
Hahaha “so they can have 2 young sexy stars on magazine covers. oscars are the new apsara awards!”
Actually I don’t mind k-stew …
There’s something ‘passively and inanely attractive’ there
As for Jen Lawrence –think some girls find her ‘attractive’–I somehow don’t–won’t mind her in a ‘sisterly’ role lol
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February 24, 2013 at 11:52 PM
ah, you don’t have to go to the himalayas at least! but the next 6 ridiculous hunger games movies can be marketed as ‘starring oscar winner jennifer lawrence’. which is all we want.
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February 25, 2013 at 12:50 AM
I really like Lawrence, she is ‘cute’ in a sisterly sort of way. Thought her performance in Winter Bone was amazing. Have not seen SLP though.
Agreed with you on Stewart- a female friend of mine had pulled me along for one of the Twilight films and I have not forgiven her since. But she is much more tolerable compared to Mr. Pattinson and Mr. Lautne
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February 25, 2013 at 1:04 AM
you find lawrence ‘sisterly’ and alia bhatt ‘hot’? you are one weird dude!
but the whole thing is stupid. also, lawrence needs to be careful. being hyped, celebrated and awarded so early in the career can spell short-circuiting of the career.
as for stewart, twilight is all she can do. the cokehead look works there. unfortunately, she is always rocking that look.
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February 25, 2013 at 1:13 AM
Haha! Alia is a star in the making.
And on Lawrence your comment is on the money. Liked Hunger Games as well even though in general I have little love for actioners with females in the lead (Ami btw is a big fan of the film as well as Lawrence)
Among the hollywood actresses the ones i find hot are Keira Knightley, Rachel Weisz and Charlize Theron
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February 25, 2013 at 1:18 AM
i like lawrence too, since winter’s bone. but the hype might do her in. i didn’t think much of hunger games, though she was competent.
rachel and charlize, yes. both beautiful and talented. can’t stand keira, another actress whose career was short-circuited by hype and undeserved accolades.
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February 25, 2013 at 12:07 AM
When they announced the best actor nominees, I could see Phoenix just shaking his head..utterly uninterested..I guess he knew that it was all pre-decided..but it was just his misfortune that his movie came out the same year as Day-Lewis’s..otherwise it is a scorching performance by Phoenix in The Master..
Day-Lewis was very good in his speech by the way…him being considered for Margaret Thatcher was a hoot..
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February 25, 2013 at 12:46 AM
so was him suggesting streep playing lincoln. suck on that lawrence!
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February 25, 2013 at 1:05 AM
people like phoenix know how ridiculous this whole thing is. i have enjoyed his playing an year long practical joke on hollywood more than anything in recent times.
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February 25, 2013 at 12:24 AM
The fun is over.
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February 25, 2013 at 12:44 AM
The most hilarious tweet-
“If Feroze Khan had directed ‘Life of Pi’, he’d have come with an actual Tiger on stage to accept the award.”
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February 25, 2013 at 12:46 AM
And Sajid Khan with a monkey, python and a tiger in tow.
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February 25, 2013 at 1:54 AM
pretty sad of me to sit through this loooong broadcast till late. then, i realized michelle obama had to dress up and be made up to announce this crap at midnight. that’s a rough gig.
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February 25, 2013 at 2:02 AM
Ha it HAD to be DDL-there was NO doubt in my mind …wonder what the percent votes were! Think he may have got more than all others combined!
“lawrence over chastain”–now thats obscene and as someone pointed out -a marketing gimmick for the sequels
“all the singing. i feel like i am at a garba night.”—haha rofl
Anyas in top form
So any notable fashion faux pa’s
Ps: nice to see ang lee gettig it–loved his film
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February 25, 2013 at 3:18 AM
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50141669n
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February 25, 2013 at 5:28 AM
“Zero Dark Thirty,” about the decade-long U.S. hunt for Osama bin Laden, has received more attention in the U.S. Congress than it did at the Oscars on Sunday, amid political fallout over its depiction of torture and alleged intelligence leaks to the movie’s makers.
The film, which has sparked outrage among both Democrats and Republicans in Washington over its depiction of torture, and allegations that the Obama administration leaked classified intelligence to help the making of the film, won no major Oscars on Sunday and only one award overall.
Just three months ago, the thriller, which culminates in Osama bin Laden’s killing by U.S. Navy Seals, was a strong contender to pick up the biggest prize of Best Picture, as well as the Best Actress and Original Screenplay awards.
By the end of Sunday night, however, it had picked up just one award – a shared Oscar for Sound Editing, which was a tie.
In recent weeks, the movie has seen a fierce backlash over its implied message that torture helped crack the bin Laden case.
Early signs of trouble came in mid-December when leading U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Carl Levin, both Democrats, and John McCain, the Republicans’ 2008 presidential candidate, sent a letter to movie studio Sony Pictures, castigating the film.
They called the film “grossly inaccurate and misleading” for suggesting torture helped the U.S. track the al Qaeda leader to a Pakistani compound, where he was killed in 2011.
Three weeks later, the film’s director, Kathryn Bigelow, was omitted from the Oscar’s Best Director shortlist, chosen by about 5,800 movie industry professionals who make up the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Bigelow was one of only four big directors to be snubbed while the film did receive five Oscar nominations.
In January, Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan pointed the finger at Washington, writing: “Chalk up this year’s nominations as a victory for the bullying power of the United States Senate and an undeserved loss for Kathryn Bigelow.”
Even on Oscar morning, the film woke to unwelcome headlines. The relatives of a flight attendant who died in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks criticized the film for using a recording of her last call before her American Airlines plane struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
Harry Ong, the brother of the flight attendant, Betty Ann Ong, called the film “just outrageous.”
Republicans in Washington have been particularly critical of the film, alleging that it was used to help the re-election prospects of U.S. President Barack Obama, and that it revealed national security secrets.
Other victims of the Sept. 11 attacks have voiced support for the film as did departing U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
Before Sunday’s Oscars, Rotten Tomatoes editor-in-chief Matt Atchity said: “Controversial movies suffer with Academy voters. I think ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ will have a tough time winning Best Picture because I think the Academy is going to go with less controversial choices.”
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-interviews/Zero-Dark-Thirty-fails-at-Oscars-amid-political-fallout/articleshow/18671981.cms
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February 25, 2013 at 6:30 AM
Number crunchers such as Nate Silver can bring their analytical skills to the Oscars, but statistics go only so far. “Lincoln” led the field with 12 nominations. However, unlike most nomination leaders, it couldn’t seal the deal and win best picture or director because, for whatever reason, it didn’t win voters’ hearts. Too many motion picture academy members carped to us that watching it felt like “homework” or a “duty.”
FULL COVERAGE: Oscars 2013 | Winners
“Argo,” on the other hand, with its triumphant rescue story of American hostages, left voters feeling good, particularly because the film’s liberation scheme wouldn’t have worked without the involvement of … wait for it … Hollywood. Hooray, indeed! And that standing ovation for “Life of Pi” director Ang Lee told you all you needed to know about the depth of the academy’s feelings toward the filmmaker and his creation.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/moviesnow/la-et-0225-oscars-analysis-20130225,0,5480586.story
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February 25, 2013 at 6:49 AM
The dullest Oscars in a long time. And I’m not a big fan of these events anyway! Surprised that Lincoln didn’t win anything besides the best actor. Haven’t seen Silver Linings yet but the best actress seemed like a joke given the competition. Even Ang Lee was Pi was a bit too much. Didn’t mind the Argo win. Perhaps more for Affleck and Clooney.
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February 25, 2013 at 7:03 AM
Oscars have become a ritual not to be missed atleast for those fashion statements and the suspense. And now they also have controversies as to who has to win. The clarity is welcome than the confusion of so many award functions that are hosted day after day and week after week in India.
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February 25, 2013 at 7:41 AM
I’d thought of posting this article here on Saturday, when it first appeared, but didn’t bother. Now, in light of your comment, you may find it of interest. 🙂
http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/22/opinion/obeidallah-oscars-no-big-deal/
This excerpt speaks to your comment above:
“Why? There’s almost no surprise left. Viewers have a fairly good idea of who will win every big award after the parade of award shows that queue up in the weeks before the Oscars. There are so many! The Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, Director’s Guild, Producers Guild, the guys who run the deli by my apartment award show, etc. Oscar night feels more like a coronation than an actual awards show.”
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February 25, 2013 at 8:31 AM
But we dont have that coronation equivalent.
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February 25, 2013 at 7:44 AM
I haven’t been watching the Academy Awards for some years now. I thought I’d watch this year, but wasn’t motivated enough drop everything by their start time. So I started watching about an hour into the show. I lasted about an hour before their terminal boredom claimed me and I had to turn the TV off. (OK, I also had a bad headache for which the show was doing no good. 🙂 )
They haven’t been interesting since they decided to focus on the glitz and glamor and relegate most technical awards to a separate awards ceremony which is shown only in bits and pieces (if at all) on the main show. The final straw was them caving in to the barbarians at the gate and changing the name of the show to “The Oscars.” Have some standards already!
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February 25, 2013 at 8:54 AM
next we will hear that The Oscars have invited items nos. from BW for the award night and we will see jen. lawrence trying to do Vicks veporub baam no. and someone else will be trying julia badnaam hui……;-)
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February 25, 2013 at 10:18 AM
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/oscars/9892785/Oscars-2013-the-Academy-shunned-worthiness-for-crowd-pleasing.html
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February 25, 2013 at 11:13 AM
“ennifer Lawrence’s best actress award for her role in Silver Linings Playbook – not, in my view, remotely an Oscar-contender movie – will surely be the first of many. She’s a gem – almost always the best thing about any film in which she appears. Lawrence is a credit to an industry that clearly adores her. She’s starting young, and at this rate she’ll be attending as many Oscar ceremonies as Meryl Streep. ”
vow! that is some praise.. i am just gonna watch SLP from here:
http://www.sockshare.ws/file/7LMZ57Wd4OINhKCO#
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February 25, 2013 at 11:09 AM
btw – here is jen. law. after oscar awards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQNj-gF9bfE&feature=player_embedded
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February 25, 2013 at 11:19 AM
enjoyed these 3 min of Q&A – blast…….JL is too good…
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February 25, 2013 at 9:08 AM
“Haven’t seen Silver Linings yet but the best actress seemed like a joke given the competition. ”
Yeah I’ll second that big time. Overrated movie and performance.
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February 25, 2013 at 6:28 PM
The academy might want McFarlane back..per the numbers..
http://www.eonline.com/news/391690/2013-oscars-ratings-seth-macfarlane-bumps-up-numbers-from-2012-mdash-how-does-he-rank-against-previous-hosts?utm_source=eonline&utm_medium=rssfeeds&utm_campaign=imdb_topstories
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February 25, 2013 at 7:38 PM
The day (nite) of shame -Jen Lawrence
Well, can’t believe they actually gave it to Jen law! I was quiet about the nomination -heck even THAT was a big deal though.
But to actually give her the biggest award!
No wonder she ‘slipped’ during oscars and her dress fell apart in another function!! Saw it and thought that also was an ‘act’ (enacted badly)
Don’t get me wrong folks –I don’t hate her
Perhaps her ‘sex addiction rehab’ role has something to do with this role being lapped Ho by te oldies at oscars 🙂
Time for all Jen law fans to raise their hands up –not to clap but for a signature campaign to urge her to relinquish the award lol
Ps: btw even afflecks Jen garner still looked more interesting …
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February 25, 2013 at 7:44 PM
garner is very pretty, statuesque with great bone structure. decent actress too, though she couldn’t make it big in films. always well-dressed, she looked great yesterday. and unlike affleck’s ex of the same name, she actually seems to love him. affleck’s life and career took off once he got rid of that dumbo with the big butt and bigger ego.
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February 25, 2013 at 7:51 PM
Haha anya
So true –actually I like affleck
He has made a life, a career out of the girls in his life.
The Jens- Lopez, garner and I’m forgetting another one maybe lol
Ive always liked garner –she’s provided a ‘stabilising’ effect it seems on affleck —
Those romcom days are behind now ..
When I saw his ‘speech’ now it was crap but towards the v end u could see that he has really worked hard -his voice ‘trembled’
Suddenly Argo is being dished out as the DVD release and lay channel deal
I’m finally and reluctantly happy for Ben affleck (& Jen garner)– for a change a good couple
Ps: but Lopez had her ‘roles’ ha
Ps2: I like the Ben affleck idea of continuous education thru xx chromosome :-£
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February 25, 2013 at 7:59 PM
Have only seen some highlights only-but Jen laws ‘speech’ was perhaps the shadiest dodgiest one -what ‘pretence’ at being called out for the award –I mean is she an Alice in wonderland??
Why do such girls do this act —
Ps: actually contrary to my initial thoughts, therons new hair do is not that bad -even she wasn’t carrying her white constricting strangulating costume well -but theron is theron..
DDL looked good, elegant, dignified and good looking
And a Brit !!
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February 25, 2013 at 9:19 PM
“once he got rid of that dumbo with the big butt and bigger ego.”-
A woman being so harsh on another. That’s a rarity 🙂
Do agree with you on JLo. Can’t stand her. Don’t even have much patience for Garner but found her a hotbod in Elektra.
On Affleck his career only took off when he started to direct. Otherwise he never worked for me either as a star or as an actor (the only 2 exceptions being Argo and the unfairly mauled Daredevil). Waiting for him to direct Damon now
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February 25, 2013 at 11:07 PM
yes, that was a mean girl smackdown. but i can’t stand her either. also, i prefer women’s outright viciousness to men’s hypocritical hemming and hawing.
agree on affleck, he has no star charisma to speak of but seems to be following clooney’s path (who has charisma in spades even though he is not an actor either). good to see him do well.
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February 26, 2013 at 4:38 AM
The tiger in Life of Pi missed the Oscar and Lee did not thank him. I expected Lee to call on Suraj Sharma on the stage.
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February 26, 2013 at 4:43 AM
http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/15/3758926/life-of-pi-editor-tim-squyres-challenge-shooting-3d-cg-tigers
For those who did not watch this film. Some interesting inputs.
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February 26, 2013 at 5:11 AM
Hello people. How are you guys doing?
Enjoyed watching the oscars. Didnt expect lee to bag the best director award but you cant complain when he’s such a humble, likeable human being. Happy for DDL too – that was a given. There are still a few movies to catch up on.. but thankfully the oscars didn’t celebrate any agenda films.. the oscars this time were equally distributed and fair.. n yes, hail waltz and tarantino..!
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February 26, 2013 at 5:15 AM
Even I felt so. The worst Oscar year was when SDM won for other reasons than pure merit.
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February 26, 2013 at 6:15 AM
hey great to see you here after a while..!
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February 26, 2013 at 10:02 AM
yeah the SDM wins were incomprehensible. I dont think the film was as special as what the western media made us believe so. I was most happy for Rahman than Danny Boyle for obvious reasons.
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February 26, 2013 at 10:02 AM
yes; have been lying low for some time. Hope to be more regular.
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February 26, 2013 at 7:43 PM
Hiya tony
Thought your ‘hands had got yellow’ !!
Anyhow–
Moral of the Jen garner story
Sometimes aunties are better than pyts
Also Microminis better than long skirts/froks for ‘health n safety’
Enjoy your minis folks…
Ciao
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February 26, 2013 at 2:03 PM
sdm was incomprehensible because it was not even true to book and was heavily distorted and see now how much shelf life the so called great film has ….practically its a non entity now
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February 26, 2013 at 2:00 PM
zero dark thirty for many is an agenda film certainly in u.s
indian connection certainly stand out…anil ambani is producer of lincoln and life of pi has pretty much indian connection which is pretty difficult to ignore thanks to ever expanding market
ya indeed hail walz and tarrantino and only tarrantino can do it by not going by reputation ….a waltz who got a nasty and mean character in inglorious bastards get the lovable and entirely different character getting more footage than samuel jackson and leonardo a case pretty much like travolta in pulp fiction
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February 26, 2013 at 10:16 AM
Anupam Kher at the pre-Oscar bash wtih the ‘A’ list of Hollywood..
http://www.rediff.com/movies/slide-show/slide-show-1–anupam-kher-parties-with-hollywood-stars/20130226.htm
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February 26, 2013 at 2:47 PM
Angie Jolie and Coen brothers together finally..on a biopic of the olympian Lou Zamperini
http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/02/25/angelina-jolie-teams-up-with-the-coen-brothers/
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February 26, 2013 at 6:26 PM
whasssup with all this tripping over floor length frocks…
thats why minis are convenient & ‘safe’
btw jen garner–even my tired sleepy eyes woke up.. i dont know y!
im liking her.
bl..dy affleck!!!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2284306/Jennifer-Garner-trips-long-gown-Vanity-Fair-post-Oscars-party–Lawrence-fell-steps.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
hav seen bits of her ‘valentine day’ in an ensemble cast–may have to revisit her
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February 26, 2013 at 7:22 PM
Reminds me–a nice south African /Dutch girl today told me how popular the poverty / slum tourism is becoming! (v soon i saw her two kids-anyhow!!!!)
Ps: There IS an expanding market for those -Germans are into this stuff more.
The slumdong millionaire success story is partly related to these pl tendencies
Ps–when one starts finding Anne Hathaway and k-stew desirable, time to wait n ponder
🙂
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February 28, 2013 at 6:15 AM
‘poverty tours’ in s Africa…
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/study-abroad/100911/south-africa-poverty-tours-tourism-townships
Ps: no wonder slumdong did well 4 sum…
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March 1, 2013 at 10:37 AM
Tarantino answers a real dumb question of a reporter from Hindustan Times …hilarious !!
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March 1, 2013 at 11:04 AM
Hysterical. He might as well have asked him a question in Hindi.
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March 1, 2013 at 11:31 AM
LOL!!!
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March 2, 2013 at 6:53 AM
Let me go ahead and recommend a Slasher 🙂 The cabin in the woods..Wickedly funny…
ps – There is a lot of blood and gore..but you won’t feel squeamish after sometime,..
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March 4, 2013 at 9:38 PM
Cabin In The Woods is an meta-horror film though a slightly underwhelming horror film (it could have been spookier). I saw this one in the theatre- love the design of those scary machinations. One of favourite films from last year
Among the horror films confined to cabins, Eli Roth’s debut feature Cabin Fever is a very engrossing watch which also plays with genre conventions and also delivers good old cheap thrills. Much better than his Hostel series
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March 7, 2013 at 7:20 PM
It is not spookier because it was designed that way. It is deconstruction of horror genre.
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March 4, 2013 at 10:42 AM
Waiting with bated breath for this:
http://variety.com/2013/film/news/paramount-to-release-wolf-nov-15-1200001471/
Paramount will release Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” on Nov. 15 — a date that already has four other wide release movies.
“Wolf” will face competition from Warner Bros. boxing comedy “Grudge Match,” Universal’s comedy-drama “The Best Man Holiday,” Disney’s drama “The Fifth Estate” and Fox’s thriller “The Counselor.”
Red Granite Pictures is producing “Wolf.” Producers are Riza Aziz, Joey McFarland, Leonardo DiCaprio and Scorsese.
DiCaprio stars along with Jonah Hill, Jean Dujardin, Rob Reiner, Matthew McConaughey, Kyle Chandler, Jon Favreau, Margot Robbie, Jon Bernthal, Cristin Milioti, P.J. Byrne and Ethan Suplee. Terence Winter adapted the screenplay, which chronicles Jordan Belfort’s dramatic rise and fall on Wall Street including drug and alcohol addiction.
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March 4, 2013 at 8:42 PM
can’t wait!
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March 6, 2013 at 4:57 PM
was forced to watch SLP this week and though the film is quite flawed, it does raise some thoughts–posting em here—
Silver Linings Playbook: Shared neurosis, ‘triggers’ & Ballroom Dancing
David O’Russel
Genre: Comedy/Drama Rom-com meets family drama!
If there was a recent film for psychiatrists and their ‘clients’, this is one of them. Cooper plays a bipolar who returns to his parents and tries to win back his estranged wife. And to help him, he takes the help of (listen to this!) a recently widowed sexual addiction patient Jen Lawrence. To mix it up (and keep the target audience happy, Jen Law agrees to help him in return of a favour –hold on, not what you think—but to partner her in a dancing competition. Now doesn’t this ‘twist’ remind one of the convenient Bollywood screenplays. But hey, the Oscars seem to have found the same thing inventive and ‘original’. Cooper and Jen share their neuroses and that helps them ‘cope’ with it better. No, it doesn’t end there. His dad De Niro aint ‘normal’ either. He has OCD and has gambling/ superstition addictive tendencies. Dig deeper and remember reading somewhere that even the director has a history of psychos in his family. And apparently this is based on a novel and the writer was himself an ex-depressed !
Acting
Jen Law can act but she didn’t deserve the award. My views are unchanged. Theres something about the role and her ‘character’ (or the lack of it) that won the Oscar oldies over, it seems. Also theres something about these explosive screeching acts that people find impressive. A parallel closer Bollywood is something like karisma and even Kajol have been indulging in and getting away with awards sometimes. Also to add, Jen Law seems fine but I do not find her attractive from any angle, dunno why. Brad Cooper is better than his usual self and conveys some vulnerability and intensity. But it’s a bit like Saif-no matter how many langda tyagis he does, I will love him more in his trademark urbane salaam namastes, Love aaj kals and Cocktails. Just like cooper was ace in Hangover and the Wedding crasher (and should stay in that world!!). Robert De Niro brings back some ‘dignity’ and ’class’ to this setup inspite of having a smallish role. Anupam Kher does well, I think, as the indian psychiatrist.
Content
Triggers–That was an interesting concept and seemingly well depicted especially the relation to music. The depiction of bipolars, OCDs seemed reasonable though would need a psychiatrists opinion. Also the way all this ‘serious stuff’ is intermingled into this romance and ballroom dancing is creditable for Hollywood (though would have been an easy task for the likes of kjo, Aditya). Spoilers ( don’t matter though)—All this business of ‘good luck charms’ and ‘reading the sings’ reminded me of DTPH!!
Issues I have
‘Love heals all’-well, it is a good thing in principle. But does it mean or intend to show all the psychos around to stop taking their pills and fall into love. That would be a dangerous proposition, isn’t it? Having said that, there is perhaps an un/intended ‘hook’ there. Perhaps I wasn’t paying enough attention but Cooper stopped taking his meds in between. (but beyond a point, one stops caring)
Using bipolars as a plot device does seem somewhat unethical. But its not new and it appears that Oscars have a weakness for anything portraying deranged minds and disability. Also there may be a ‘genetic’ link to the mental problems shared around here that the film may have delved further into.
The ‘Shame’ Connection
I don’t think this has been mentioned before but did strike me while viewing it. I am also unsure whether this ‘sex addiction’ condition is being over represented by Hollywood recently for its own fetishistic ends. Note the association with McQueens Shame wherein Fassbenders sex addiction takes ‘centrestage’. The issue with Fassbender was his problems with ‘intimacy’ where he suddenly stopped ‘functioning’. While ‘Shame’ is a complex slightly dark analysis of addiction and mental issues, SLP intends to take a similar theme(s) and makes it more ‘playful’ and ‘audience friendly’ by adding in ballroom dancing and the romance angle. Though the lead cast act through their skins (relatively speaking) and deliver ‘their’ best performance to date, perhaps the lack of genuine acting skills and sheer charisma showed through (to me!)
xxxx aa
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March 7, 2013 at 5:47 PM
On SLP– in continuation to my rant above –will like to add–de Niro was v good
Some behind the scenes
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/gallery/silver-linings-playbook-bradley-cooper-398528#1
Ps: if there’s a spoof on this one–
Satyam will clinch de niros role
And Jen laws role by her fan Amy 🙂
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March 7, 2013 at 6:36 PM
Satyam–would also like your thoughts on SLP–if u haven’t seen it–do check it–it’s more than just a rom-com (though not much more than that!)
As an Oscar winner it’s your duty to opine on it lol
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March 7, 2013 at 8:24 PM
what’s ‘SLP’?
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March 7, 2013 at 8:44 PM
Silver linings Playbook.
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March 7, 2013 at 8:21 PM
I feel merit has won over hype in some categories.
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March 9, 2013 at 9:04 AM
ok, so continuing from my random thoughts on SLP above—did mention a mini-spoof here
as already mentioned —
i take satyam as robert de niro here–he has the reqd ‘maturity’ and ‘stature’ on this blog
remember i have to choose from those who venture here and assess from their online ‘behaviour’ (& rapport with me)
Jen Laws part goes to amy (who continues to ‘serve’ in my H)
and so this is only a virtual mini sppif (not an actual one)
Note i did not take brad coopers part here (which is a departure for me)–for the first time, i will give chance to ‘new talents’
cant see an apt choice yet but
I feel Ann Jo may well be tweaked a bit and may just make it
but will watch and assess 🙂
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March 9, 2013 at 9:12 AM
theres an ‘age gap’ as well and ann jo has shown bipolar tendencies somewhat…
obviously i can play this (bipolar) role in my sleep but im somehow not enthused by this whole project and not ‘convinced’—plus i can only do as many projects as actor
so will make the offer to ann jo…
and lets watch the space hehe
ps–remember ann jo—i told u that i will give a u a better role (after ann jo kapoor in race 2)
the dialogue in wanted
once i make a committment …..i dont listen to myself 🙂
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March 9, 2013 at 5:07 PM
Saw “The Intouchables” – A heartwarming story..some dry but on the face humor.
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March 9, 2013 at 9:10 PM
yup munna–had seen bits of intouchables earlier–saw the full bits this week myself.
Refreshingly light buddy film–doesnt get caught up with too much sentimentality though there was temptation galore for it!
Both omar sy & cluzet did well. Infact I think Sy may get into the new x-men…may jot down something on this film later
ps–may check out the new ‘anna karenina’ now…
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March 10, 2013 at 2:45 PM
a little late in the day but the backlash from mcfarlane’s ‘we saw your boobs’ has inspired hilarious parodies like this:
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March 10, 2013 at 2:50 PM
🙂 thanx – that was hilarious & ‘gals’ (if any here) must be finding this even more fun…
Ps: talking of macfarlane– may see ted in a week or so–should be fun innit.. Anyone seen it here…
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March 10, 2013 at 3:18 PM
yeah this kind of stuff satisfies many a female ego.
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March 10, 2013 at 3:35 PM
what does that have to do with female ego? the criticism was that macfarlane (whom i really like) chose to talk about the leading women using nudity to garner the ‘serious’ image, while ignoring that men in hw have done that too. and i think he did it in a way that parodied that ongoing criticism anyway, so i personally didn’t find it offensive as a female, but it could have just as easily included the leading men too. that’s what the parodies are about. and i think it’s funny.
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March 10, 2013 at 3:38 PM
“that’s what the parodies are about. and i think it’s funny.”
a good comment there & i agree..
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March 30, 2013 at 10:39 AM
Descendants: the pussillanimity & recession of manhood-
Aka man-cession!!
in continuation to these views–
these maybe viewed somewhat as MCP-ish views but actually just indicate the perceptioins from an unbiased analytical persepective.
must add–hawaaii was captured in a realisitic humane manner (not the kjo style) with a good roundup of the hawaaiian music style.
Also Clooneys was a controlled calibrated performance amongst his best (probably his best)
if u have seen the film, would be useful to get the views of satyam, and others like annjo and utkal uncle….
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April 5, 2013 at 7:38 PM
killing them softly – Ambivalent..Well made but seen movies like this before.
forgiveness of blood – Liked it. It was interesting to see an amalgam of modernity (cell phone, Jeans, bikes) and old culture.
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June 1, 2013 at 3:06 PM
Hyde park on hudson – Was apprehensive before watching it. It is slow but the characters are real. If you are married, you might appreciate some of the humor more.
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June 10, 2013 at 6:57 PM
After earth-some random thoughts–contd
My sympathis and the commiserations to the Jaden Smiths and abhishrek Bachchans –u arent bad but then….
may be forced to watch ‘like crazy’ 2nite–lets see….
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June 13, 2013 at 1:12 AM
http://www.fastcocreate.com/1683197/the-new-abnormal-in-movies-why-charm-is-dead-sequels-reboots-and-marketing-moguls-rule-and-t
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July 1, 2013 at 4:03 PM
BEFORE MIDNIGHT-contd from my comment
In an era where the likes of Daniel Craig and (hold on your breath!) Imran khan are worshipped, in an era where the likes of Nolans TDKR is the ‘gold standard’ of cutting edge cinema, in an era where deepikas red bikini is the only topic of discussion in an otherwise brilliant cocktail, in an era where watching and visibly celebrating Tarantinos ‘masturbatory violent porn’ is considered hep–
Who will watch or eve notice this small release…
That’s nothin less than a modern day classic.
Hats off linklater, Ethan Hawke, Julie delpy…
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July 24, 2013 at 5:12 PM
A LATE QUARTET
Continued from these thoughts —
Some acting moments I remember –
Walken– the slightest quiver of Walken’s hands as he lays eyes on his cello — once an object he knew so intimately, it has cruelly turned into a constant reminder of inadequacy.
Seymour Hoffman–gettin rid of his beard just before the crucial concert–was like having a life rethought …
Mark Ivanir-a guy immersed in achieving perfection
Catherine Keener and Imogen Potts both had their moments..
Perhaps the moment was where Walken finally publically accepts his decline and disability and declares mid-performance that this will be his last performance ever….
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July 25, 2013 at 2:58 PM
After going gaga over ‘a late quartet’, must admit i didn’t find m/any here or elsewhere seeing or even bothering about it!!
Then it sets u thinking –am I the only one who liked this film (other than the director !!!?)
Well, checked roger everts review and he gives it a thumbs up!
Sme relief to be in good company 🙂
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-late-quartet-2012
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July 25, 2013 at 3:08 PM
My own liking for ‘ a late quartet’ made me question my own tastes! Nobody I know (including a musician friend) liked it or had even seen it. U then look for the minority who are with u-(on the net)–like this one….
“Our instruments must, in time, go out of tune, each in its own and quite different way.”
A Late Quartet is a dramatization of the intertwining problems of the members of a string quartet: a film that ironically also is the main topic of the movie, a meticulously composed musical piece.
This wonderful albeit slow composition stroke just the right chords for me. When it comes to my personal musical taste, I am a bit indifferent with the classical genre: in certain moods, I can enjoy it, but I don’t consider myself a lover or fan of the music. However, after seeing A Late Quartet at the PAC Film Festival, my appreciation of violin grew at least a little bit, especially because I could see what it was trying to do for the movie. As I mentioned, the film metaphorically resembles the main element of the story: it is a violin quartet. Frequently, it falls out of its regular pace, but returns from this with power every single time. This is what I found to be the main achievement of A Late Quartet. It effectively made the music a metaphor for the story.
If it wasn’t for this stylistic addition to the story, the plot outline would have never been as smart as it was right now. Without this backbone, it would have been a relatively empty drama about an unrealistic turn of events. However, because of this classy take on what happens to the characters in the film, it feels much like a Victorian age drama – which still is quite disturbing at heart. A Late Quartet does not include love triangles, it features love quartets or even freaking pentagrams. Much of the film reminded me of Roman Polanski’s Carnage with its witty dialogue and amazing acting. This film officially confirms it for me: Philip Seymour Hoffman is one of my favorite actors. For me, he convincingly stole the show in A Late Quartet, which is incredible, keeping in mind that he is in the same cast as Christopher Walken. I would never speak bad of Walken either though, he was almost just as stellar as Hoffman. Come to think of it, the cast was solid all round, making this depressing story not nearly as blue as it could have been. Again here, I am thankful for the metaphorical meaning of the quartet. The ups and downs that only the tones of a string instrument can transform into music might bring the movie’s tone out of balance sometimes, but one way or another, it still felt very much as a whole.
In contrast to the rest of the film, I have a difficult time with bring the camerawork to words. It is undoubtedly beautiful, but I did have my problems with the pacing of the film. Although it worked for the concept of the movie, in the eye of arthouse, A Late Quartet is still quite slow – and that says something. Oddly enough, the classical score amplifies this. Don’t get me wrong, the score was very well-done, but I think it is just me considering classical music too slow (I don’t want to call it boring) that slowed the film down even more for me. I can imagine that this is different for others who are able to appreciate this genre of music more, so I highly recommend this film for anyone who considers him or herself to be a part of this group.
In sum, A Late Quartet is exactly like the classical piece that it discusses most: Beethoven’s Opus 131. It is slow at times, played with quick passion sometimes (or attaque in pretentious terms) and all the more beautiful for a certain set of people. Even if you do not belong to this category, there is no denying that the screenplay is powerful. The audience distinction only brings this movie from a “good” to a “great” rating.
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July 27, 2013 at 3:35 PM
A Late Quartet -contd from my rant above…
Have never been a fan of Christopher Walken! But this film showed how actors can turn a new leaf (for you) even so late in their careers (as Walken). His predicament and dilemma here seems even more disturbing because hes done demonic, monster-ish characters.Read this somewhere and fitted with my own views
It’s unnerving to see Walken confront his own mortality.
Yet his character in A Late Quartet shares similarities with his villains; Walken specialises in creating a sense of deep-rooted psychological damage, such that even when he has a blank expression on his face, there is something in his empty eyes that is like volcanic molten rock.
But as i always say—
Even pure madness deserves a ‘method’!! 🙂
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September 29, 2013 at 7:30 AM
The guilt trip-
Commentary-contd from my comments here
Just skimmed thru some uncharitable comments. I mean, what the heck were these critics expecting—this is a mom-son relationship dynamics /bonding comedic road flick !!!
Critics /reviewers who lose ‘context’ unknowingly or knowingly (to come across as someone they are not!!) really aren’t worth the while..
The other problem here was that it was projected as a hilarious lol comedy further compounded by Seth rogens presence (with his brand of humour!). But the film is more of a sensitive easy, mom-sn relationship study captured in an uncomplicated way.
Both Streisand and Seth DO come up with a layered intuitive perfomance
…a good one-time watch..
Ps: c’mon folks -one doesn’t have to watch sex and nudity all the time.. Go for clean motherly/family stuff as well lol
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September 29, 2013 at 7:34 AM
I’m a big surprised to say this but some of the mom-son lovey dovey stuff was quite cute …
And for a change, the actors covered up for any misgivings in the plot & direction…
Sample a dialogue …
Joyce Brewster: If all the kids in the world were lined up and I was to pick one kid for myself Andy, it will always be you.
Andy Brewster: I wouldn’t let you pick anyone else mom.
🙂
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October 14, 2013 at 6:56 PM
RUSH
continued from my comments from they fjkm here
This exploration of the alpha & omega of manhood was enjoyable. Howard gives the blokes what they want & creditably doesn’t let them feel ‘manipulated’ by the comment
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October 14, 2013 at 7:11 PM
& b4 I dig into ‘gravity’ & capt Philips soon, one last dip into ‘rush’.
One can’t imagine from the slickly cut trailers and ‘production values’ that the budgeting is actually quite ‘indie’ here..
U just need your right foot to accelerate 🙂
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October 21, 2013 at 1:44 PM
Captain Phillips
Inspite of liking & enjoying the movie per se, feel there was something missing for me. Normally, I can’t praise Tom Hanks enough but here wasn’t too impressed–infact I enjoyed ‘Rush’ more.
Even I don’t know myself how I will react—
Am just making my own little secret cache of reviews here –may revisit years later–will be interesting to read my thoughts then 🙂
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October 28, 2013 at 6:55 PM
An Education — the soundtrack
Hav only watched a few scenes of this film and if I ever complete it, may jot more. But on checking bits today-my initial impressions were good.
Peter Staarsgard seems to be a doing a difficult thankless role well.
But what stuck me were two British girls here —
Carey Mulligan –I always find her unattractive and even irritating. And always wonder what she is doing in showbiz!!
But today must confess that the few scenes of the film I did catch–answered to me why! She can act and in an instinctive way and her face is brilliantly expressive …
And as for the welsh singer Amy Duffy–looked no further!
Don’t care to check out ratings/reviews
What a rendition here by Duffy….
In my ratings– retro smoky & truly brilliant …
I rate Duffy here more/ no less than any of the overcelebrated Adele’s perfomances
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November 25, 2013 at 6:07 PM
Blue is the warmest color / La Vie d’Adèle
I could see why this film floored even Steven Spielberg of all people, to go against the brief and shower the film, it’s director and the two actresses with all accolades. I can say about Nabokovs Lolita also that’s “it’s not about sex, but about love..”.
So yeah, it’s all about the perspective and the paradigm one is employing, baby!
The French film Blue won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Unsurprisingly, this has become one of most highly praised—and most controversial films of the year. Blue centers on the sexual awakening of Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos), a high school student, and her love affair with Emma (Lea Seydoux), an older, self-assured art student. The writer/director Abdellatif Kechiche shoots it in a naturalistic, though obtrusive (at times) style, that takes its time to build up and reach a ‘release’ multiple times (taking three-hours). It traces and chronicles the women’s relationship over a decade, their coming-of-age, and captures the myriad of emotions during the loss of first love after their break-up.
Excessive media space has been devoted to a graphic and explicit, ten-minute scene in which the two young actresses engage in simulated, unchoreographed sex. Some critics (think it was Manohla Dagris) have gone on record calling it ‘indisciplined’ and more illustrative of the directors own haywire fantasies than lesbianism. To add more fuel to the fire, ‘rumours’ that the two actresses wore prosthetic vaginas over their real vaginas have set tongues wagging (pun not intended).
Actresses Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux give two of the finest performances you’ll see on screen this year, while my personal favourite has been Adele. The performances are riveting, moving and encapsulate the devouring feeling of first love in an impactful and empathetic way. The film takes it’s time to take us through the everyday mundane routine of the two actresses esp Adele, lingers on facial (& other) close ups and let’s it all build up! Even subtleties like ‘class differences’ and ego -issues between Adele and Emma get a due place in the narrative. Besides, the interface of Adele with unsuspecting ‘straight’ characters (who keep crossing their way), was well handled.
Expectedly, there have been controversies galore and while intelligentsia and cinephiles have lauded the film, there have been voices of discontent from both the female leads of feeling exploited and made to work in extremely demanding situations, even alleging ‘moral harrassment’. Some critics and lesbian lobbies have made it clear that it doesn’t represent female/lesbian politics correctly.
The ultimate difficulty in depiction of ‘Queerness’ has always been there. This is because queerness here is portrayed by straight actresses, as visualised by straight cameramen/technicians and directed by a male straight person. This subject is Oscar bait though with a catch and disclaimer. The problem is that for most straight viewers (Including the writer of this piece) one will never know how much of the ‘queer ness’ at display here was genuine and realistic.
Undoubtedly I did sense the ‘straight male gaze’ of the director interfering with the queer subject and at times trivialising the intended ‘depth’ in performances. Infact he does seem to have a massive (pun intended also) on (both) female asses and this ‘rears’ it’s (not) ugly head repeatedly. There’s not only an element of voyeurism at work here but also a constant undercutting of the protagonists’ motivations by the directors tendencies (both interms of male gaze and camera gymnastics!)
The star of the show, in my opinion, is Adele Exarchopoulos. It’s certainly one of the best female performances of the year, maybe of recent years. Finally, coming to why I prefer European films to Hollywood in this genre. It’s a no-brainer really. Amidst other multiple reasons, just think about this. What’s the Hollywood counterpart, one can get for Adele -I can think of the ‘Oscar winner’ Jennifer Lawrence!!! The former is not only more elusively vibrant, freer of baggage and immensely ‘giving’ than Lawrence but is able to transcribe all her emotions on her face instantly, in the bolder shades yet maintaining all the nuanced subtlety. One can see though her body and emotions, right through to her ‘soul’. Not to forget her big expressive eyes and frequently running nose captured in extreme close up –and not to miss, the slightest strand of hair resting on her forehead and between her lips.
The mist of lesbianism and ‘explicit’ scenes is enough to distract most viewers. But there were other worthy interesting subtexts like the ‘social divide’.
The first time (or the second time!) Adèle sees Emma in the bar the latter is physically higher than her, signifying ‘high culture’ and ‘taste’. In the same scene, Emma descends from her throne to educate Adèle who ironically becomes the cultural reject (& not the painter Emma). Emma loves art, oysters and is self-assured about her sexuality whilst Adèle eats spaghetti while watching telly.
The families’ dinner further emphasises this class divide. Adèle’s working-class father encourages Emma to find “a real job” instead of painting. Meanwhile, Emma’s family is equally puzzled by Adèle’s aspirations to be a simple teacher. Just as she initiates Adèle into the art of lesbian sex, so too does Emma attempt to pull her young lover into the world of high art by encouraging her to write. When Adele can’t follow suit, Emma announces to her cultured friends that Adele is her muse, elevating her to a subject of an artistic painting if not the painter.
Emma introduces Adèle to Sartre’s “Existentialism Is Humanism” ie we can choose our lives without a higher principle. But this philosophy of life appears to only apply to Emma. Adèle’s higher principal is Emma herself. All Adele ends up doing at Emma’s arty parties is serving up spaghetti and finding brief solace in other ‘cultural’ outsider, an Arab. In a way that Arab guy signifies the director Ketische himself.
To escape all this complexity, Adele can worm into Emma’s bedroom wherein she is a ‘democratic equal’. Towards the end, in a somewhat poignant moment, Adele has to resort to “I can pay you in flesh and blood,” But Emma knows inside that the cultural gap will never go away, and being the ‘superior’ one, turns her down. Perhaps it’s a gap even the Tunisian born French Ketische tried to close in during the film, but (inspite of being the director) couldn’t…Perhaps there are certain gaps even something as primal and feral like sex can’t bridge…
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November 28, 2013 at 11:18 AM
Blue.. My random thoughts contd form above here
Didnt wish to get stuck on this one but some films come with some uneasy questions..like the ambiguous ending here.
Spoilers—
And also comes to the common scenario of the ‘male(s) in waiting’ who make the move(s) when the poor girl is most ‘vulnerable’…
The director left it open but one can guess what that guy would have tried to do with the ‘spurned’/broken Adele.
Spoiler ends–
Btw there are some questions I have about Adele’s ‘actual’ (confused) sexuality( shudder!!)..Lemme leave it @ that that here–will only come back to this if this curiosity doesn’t leave me lol
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December 8, 2013 at 9:03 AM
JEUNE ET JOLIE
Jus tucking in my random thoughts here..(b4 I lose the link)
And my original combo of this French flick with some ‘shaayari’–
Dil mein talab hai, lab pe taraana
Kisi ki talash mein yeh guzare zamaana
Kal hai kahan do pal ka bahaana
Nahin tha yakeen hum huye to rawaana……
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January 1, 2014 at 10:39 AM
The secret life of Walter Mitty
My thoughts
A cute little unassuming subtle film with Ben Stillers best effort till date aided by two actors I like a lot in cameos –Kirsten wigg & Sean Penn. The picturesque Iceland , Greenland terrains add to the charm. The standout scenes ironically go to Penn–imo when he refuses to take the photo of the elusive snow limo and doesn’t disclose the content of the missing negative,,,
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March 1, 2014 at 10:04 AM
The Counselor
I’m tucking in my random thoughts here
To add a few thoughts–
This is an uneven film that can exasperate and well as fascinate to an equal measure. There is poetic language, beautiful little touches which have a lyrical quality that add appendices as several tropes in what might more appropriately be seen as a character study than as any easily pigeonholed genre film.
The star power is utilised well and the styling is spot on for the genre
Think it’s out on DVD/blu ray–worth a check for people who don’t find the oscars’ ole boys club choices as the final word on quality & entertainment
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October 15, 2014 at 6:43 PM
The Counselor–the Extended Cut
This was a film with full-on star power supposed to own the box office. But this film with big names neither made big bucks nor bothered the oscars’ oldies.
It is a moody, melancholy tale prone to metaphorical and philosophical side-alleys. Ridley Scott with a certain resignation called it simply err an “art film”.
Fortunately the film found its ultimate admirer (in me)–one of the rare films i checked out –the extended cut…
for e.g. In a typical scene (for this flick), THE brad pitt is casually decapitated and left bleeding to die on the road.
The protagonist Michael Fassbender has committed a sin-but the film never bothers to tell us exactly what. He doesnt do a thing during the entire flick –only reacts passively.
Infact even his name is never made known–
he is simply called by one random name through out-
the “counsellor “….
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March 1, 2014 at 10:08 AM
From Gatsby to Draper & Grey
My random commentary on gatsby to mad men & FSoG …
A piece I like myself a lot..
Which is a prelude of sorts to my further viewings —may check out ‘wolf’ or ‘her’ today–which one do u suggest Satyam…
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March 1, 2014 at 10:12 AM
I enjoyed Wolf a lot. Check it out.
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March 28, 2014 at 2:49 PM
Thanks Satyam–did check wolf out…
The Wolf of Wall Street
My thoughts
In addition-
Not only has this increased the applicants for stockbroker job applicants, it sort of ‘liberated’ both Scorcese & Dicaprio from the burden of ‘heavy’ cinematic responsibility. The former drops his guard, takes cinematic liberties, enjoys showmanship while the latter just takes in the coke & sex. The fact that this is not the best film of either doesn’t matter.
Jonah hill takes things in his hands (literally) in a party while Macconnaughy as the older broker -guru is sublime with his tips (no, prescriptions!)
The best thing is- it’s not a ‘deep or thoughtful or meaningful or ‘innovative’ film–coming from a 70+ scorcese, who unwinds like an uncorked champagne, it’s probably his most enjoyable & ‘free’ movie -(if not the ‘greatest’!)–a delirious mix of controlled substances, adrenaline and tesotosterone.
What scorcese has learnt now (at this late stage) –it’s not difficult to envisage that many others (much younger) don’t get a clue of-(am not supporting debaucheries)-it’s just that they remain too ‘committed’ to ‘intelligence’…(& that’s why they suffer…). Perhaps this film is scorcese small menopausal ‘Ferrari’!
“Drugs & hookers keep u sharp between the ears!” And yeah–Two bodyguards (both of them named ‘rocco’) with a ‘wife’ who resembles a lingerie model …
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April 11, 2014 at 8:27 PM
Under the skin
My commentary —
This Scarlett Johansson should serve as a ‘companion piece’ to spike jonzes’ ‘her’ (hopefully)…
Btw Saw bits of soderberg’s Haywire– Tatum, Michael Douglas, banderas, Fassbender
And perhaps one of the best action female stars ever,,,
One needs to check out the scene where she annihilates Fassbender…
Gina Carrano
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May 25, 2014 at 7:46 AM
PACIFIC RIM
Guillermo Del Toro
To Fight Monsters, We Created Monsters Of Our Own
Continued from my thoughts here
My common qualm nowadays about flicks of this genre is the VFX FATIGUE that kicks in after a few minutes. No matter, how ‘grand’ the goings on unfolding in front of us are, it’s difficult to take it seriously beyond a point. Unsure how the other fanboys tackle this but the sheer facade & fakery stares you in the face.
But when I am able to finish a film inspite of this problem, it deserves credit.
Somehow del toros child-like earnestness, innovation and UNCAPPED IMAGINATION draws you in and keeps the viewer involved
The soundtrack is uniformly grand and has an ‘epic feel’ –I’ve also put that up in the link above
The end title credit music is equally impactful
when u hear an ost like that & something like this in the end credits …
Do check this piece of sound out guyz. Though the result could’ve been better–but u can’t complain bcos
U can feel del toro injecting his mind n soul into the film.
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June 14, 2014 at 11:17 AM
SPRINGBREAKERS
My random commentary–
To continue from this link above…
Due to some ‘obscure’ reasons, this finds more viewership amongst males. But I’ve come across females who have overtly dissed it badly but have been found discretely checking out on Netflix/DVD..
After a while, I got a bit of ‘boob-overload’ but perhaps like all things about this film, “hey that’s what the intended reactions was..!”
The soundtrack & camerawork was awsum ( as I mentioned in the link above, both Harmony Korine and Franco had a good time….)
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July 9, 2014 at 7:20 PM
EDGE OF TOMORROW
My random thoughts
Cruises films box office discussions need to account for his age and the non-USA collections as well. Also he’s returned to the same genre as oblivion rather than going for easy pickings with franchise sequels (eg iron man 21!). The action is slightly different & somewhat ‘real’ (though futuristic) & more than just CGI overkill & sonic overload.
“All the options”–old habits die hard….
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July 30, 2014 at 3:14 PM
FADING GIGOLO
My commentary —
To add- –Amongst the actors, I found Sophia Vergara quite irritant (& grotesque) but Vanessa Paradis made up for that.
though the title and concept is apparently modern & ‘progressive’, the camera captures New York with a certain ‘old world gaze’.
Theres something alchemical about the masters. This was something Woody Allen himself discovered when he tried to ape Bergman and has admitted to have not really got the same effect. Here perhaps to do an Allen, Turturo casts him as an actor and my impression is that he gives him a free hand (!) to improvise and ‘contribute’ his oeuvre. But again, theres a difference from the real thing. On a related note, luckily theres more “sax” (saxophone) than “sex” in this one and the “jazz” stayed with me a bit longer…
But even in the music department, Allen does it just a wee bit better, like is MIP
Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.
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August 12, 2014 at 6:20 PM
PARIS
Taking over from Woody Allen, I partly revisited this Cedric Klalpische ensemble dramedy that takes inspiration from Woodys Manhattan just like Turturro did in Fading gigolo above (Woody himself being an Ingmar Bergman fanboy!). I believe there’s nothing truly ‘original’ and inspiration is inevitable ..
The cast is topline and boasts of Melanie Laurent (one of my faves)& Juliette Binoche. Romain Duris plays a terminally ill who watches people from afar from his apartment with a resigned detachment. He can’t resist Melanie Laurent, who has also caught the eye of her professor Fabrice Lucchini. Francois Cluzet (of ‘intouchables’ fame) plays Lucchinis younger bro. Then there are some life-like subcharacters drawn from Paris’ everyday routine. Including some random ones who indicate the ‘opinionistic’ nature of Parisians that many consider ‘racist’ (rightly or wrongly). Those who have interacted with the French closely will know what I mean. For eg North African immigration is hinted at and there’s a brief detour to Cameron as well to outline this point . These intersecting characters from different starta delineate what gives Paris this healthy organic feel as a city (& why I personally like it a lot as a city). The film steers clear of any strong statements on the social fabric. Similarly Cedric Lapische lacks the yearning for an auteuristic stamp inhabiting the comfortable chiasm between art and light entertainment.
The background OST is admirably interwoven to the narrative just like the many subplots. Melanie Laurent is luminous as always. Romain Duris is quite an under rated actor, infact he’s not even an ‘actor’ but he knows his limitations. There’s a certain ‘humility’ & earnestness in his work though.
Looking forward to watching his latest…”Mood Indigo”…
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August 26, 2014 at 4:18 PM
AMER
This work is apparently a tribute to great Italian directors like Giallo. “Childhood trauma trope” if one may call it is employed here tracing the three takes in Ana’s (a name that refuses to leave me as well!) life played by Maria Bos to enigmatic perfection. Calling this “horror erotica” is totally wrong and infact shameful.
The use of visual and aural imagery and the compulsive detail created in each scene is admirable.
Starts of as a scary fairytale with her creepy grandmother who is apparently into witchcraft. The tension is palpable through out and as Ana grows into a woman these become increasingly sexually driven.
Thankfully there’s no distracting gross nudity here.
there’s no consistent narrative, story, explanations. Time seems warped and distorted.
Basically the film challenges conventional film making norms. It draws parallel to my recent viewing of Jonathan glazers ‘under the skin’ with scarlette johansson.
There’s something primal to proceedings and even the most innocuous mundane event is captured /magnified for maximum sensory impact to the viewer.
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September 2, 2014 at 5:09 PM
THE PLANET OF APES – “Rise” & “Dawn”
My random commentary on this 2 part deal.
The second (recent) installment “Dawn” starts with a grown-up and wiser Caesar as the leader (now with a wife and a child!) and his fellow apes having settled in the forest. Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke and Keri Russell are part of a remnant surviving human race plagued by simian flu. The need to reactivate a dormant hydroelectric plant in the forest to restore power sets up an ape vs human conflict.
There’s possibly an interesting allegoric comparison with the Israel-Palestinean conflict, and it can also be stretched to European and Native American settlers. This is a topic in itself and one that raises more questions so that’s for another day…maybe
The movie belongs to Andy Serkis’ Caesar who is more ‘human friendly’ since he hasn’t forgotten the kindness of the humans who brought him up apart from the benefits like modern medicine (read antibiotics). A ‘hard line’ versus ‘flexible’ (accommodating) approach is the centre-point of this enterprise and this is brought about by ‘mirror image’ characters. The latter approach brought about by Caesar and his family and a sort of human neo-family consisting of Jason Clarke, Keri Russell and a kid. Gary Oldman is the human counterpoint for the bitter Koba (Toby Kebbell). Koba has been tortured in experimental labs and gives a tough fight to Caesar as the scarred survivor ape. Koba was once loyal to Caesar but feels he was too human friendly and was going soft and indecisive.
Coming back to “Rise” which portrayed Caesar as a victim turned rebel, a simple man (ape here!) energised with extraordinary intelligence by a wonder drug. The film opens at a drug company wherein James Franco is a scientist who has developed a postulated possible treatment for Alzheimer’s. The drug unexpectedly surges up the IQ chart besides producing other “side effects”.There were political elements in the script, primarily to do with the ethics of animal testing.
In the aftermath of certain drug related ‘adverse events’, Franco is touched by the plight of a helpless baby chimp and takes him home. The chimp ‘s interaction with Franco and his grand dad who is suffering from Alzheimers was the best part of this franchise for me. Caesar exhibits incredible intelligence and milestones. Franco grows close with a primatologist played by Freida Pinto, who effectively becomes Caesar’s surrogate mother (Pinto looks better than she usually does but doesn’t have much to do really).
Andy Serkis (rather his ‘processed’ version), his movements and expressions are digitally captured so well that it’s difficult to delineate where the human ends and the CGI starts. Inspite of that, Caesers eyes and body language convey the turbulence & dilemma, seemingly through sheer force of will. Serkis’ personal charisma and craft shines through beyond the CGI layers and the digital facade as the towering Caesar. One can see him through the ‘motion capture technology’ mask grappling with the irritations and agonies of leadership in ‘Rise’.
Which brings me to the point as to which of these two versions is better?
I remember someone praising ‘Dawn’ to the skies here (I think it was Satyam) and claiming it is a ‘blockbuster’. While the latter is indeed true, and there’s no doubt that ‘Dawn’ will make a killing at the box office (no pun intended), but to me, ‘Dawn’ is a somewhat pale shadow of ‘Rise’ (though good on its own if not compared).
Ps:
Matt Reeves takes over in ‘Rise’ as the director from Rupert Wyatt. Though Reeves is competent and is balanced towards all points of view and infact gives proceedings an enhanced ‘blockbuster’ scale but he misses out some key points that made this premise work in the first place. And there’s no surprise that Satyam (or whoever mentioned this earlier) missed these as well, it seems…
James Franco had an underdeveloped role in ‘Rise’ but somehow I felt he invested it with exquisite empathy and feel. In contrast in ‘Dawn’, Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke and the ilk display a certain ‘cliched limpness’. So whilst on paper it’s the same apes, same conflict, better CGI, bigger canvus, but the ‘soul’ diminished.
Just the one scene when Franco the apparent ‘father’ of the chimp (kid Caesar) effectively abandons him into a (cruel) primate facilty was more ‘resonatingly alive’ than the entire sequel…
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September 15, 2014 at 3:50 PM
Addendum
Most people write for others to impress /educate/inform others. These notes are not really for others rather a conversation with onself (albeit with an exhibitionist tinge). People are fine to ‘eavesdrop’ or ‘lurk’ but I’m not really looking for feedback or advice or comments…
Kudos to Satyam for letting me ‘park’ or ‘deposit’ my thoughts here. This also comes handy for future reference and above all serves as my ‘mind map’ at a point of time …
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September 15, 2014 at 4:00 PM
Ps : contd from my note on Amer -a film that stayed with me longer (than I wanted)
Amer means ‘bitter’ in French
Ps2: I mentioned earlier that Springbreakers was the second best role of John Franco imo. I hadn’t said which was the one I liked the most?
Well somehow I really liked him in ‘rise’–nothing extraordinary one would say innit?
but somehow I really liked the honesty and earnestness he brought to the young scientist guy (who brings up Caesar) ….
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November 8, 2014 at 1:49 PM
In the city of Sylvia
An expanded comment In continuation to my earlier post that appeared here
This French/ Spanish mood-piece with quiet naturalism and minimal dialogue made me ‘pick up the pen’. At the outset this is not for those who go to the cinema to “watch a story unfold” (sic!) [for them comics or fictional novels should suffice]. I’m fed up of the use of “voyeurism” or “people watchers” to describe this power of cinema to capture the nascent & evanescent.
The director Guerin (like me) seems fascinated by the interplay of destiny vs chance on one hand and controlled scripted settings versus coincidence on celluloid (& in life). And one of my favorite The “accident vs metaphor” tropes.
This follows the (real time) pursuit quest of an unnamed guy (HE) played by Xavier Lafitte through the picturesque streets of Strasbourgh, following Pilar López (SHE) who HE thinks (or hopes) is his long-lost “Sylvia” whom he had met a few years ago in a bar. What he does initially borders on appearing ‘stalkerish’ and maybe a pointer to the “male gaze” arguments but there’s none of the accompanying creepiness or perverse intention.
The timeless medieval European feel of Strasbourgh and the directors dreamy camera movement & leisurely pace adds to the mood piece. Traditional narratives are sacrificed and with an overlay of everyday sounds and sights. The use of documentary filming technniques and reality comes through different languages,graffiti,people passing,trams, bicycles, pigeons, and so on.
The real beauty is that theres no game plan to be dramatic or weighty, or self-effacing grandeur or portentous. In this ‘modesty’ lies the greatness of these works. Cinema is the apt medium for this since there’s not much fiction or plot for a novel, hyper-reality or ordinariness for a theatrical piece. A montage of movements, glances, gazes that the viewer has to learn to patiently sit through and get immersed.
The best things in life are usually free and the simplest. There is no dialogue, no sociological or psychological or political statements and no morality play. Some story-telling tricks have been resisted for eg from the perspective of the pursuer and the pursued, melodrama, suspense, harrassment angles etc have been avoided.
There are influences of Hitchcocks ‘Vertigo’ amongst others (but I didn’t care about all that). In one exquisite sequence wind passes through the train and connects onto the next shot blowing away, the guys sketchpad’s pages are turned, caressed by the wind and they fly by like pages from his memory. One doesn’t necessarily ‘feel’ for the protagonist but is assured and confident that he is neither a stalker nor means anything perverse or dangerous. Infact seeing his perspective (however random) for so long, one feels the same emotion albeit briefly.
A ‘technique’ that this work masters in my opinion, is to give something vague and seemingly complicated, in a simplified unobtrusive manner, a unique emotion even if evanescent and transient. At a certain stage, one doesn’t need to find ‘meaning’ & ‘depth’ in everything, leave alone in cinema.
The memory of the distant, unreachable & unattainable woman has haunted many artists and musicians (& film reviewers). But is Sylvia a memory, a ghost or a delusion? She is both “everywhere and nowhere” — or perhaps doesn’t exist…
Fresh, a bit like morning dew…
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November 19, 2014 at 4:51 PM
Interstellar
My thoughts here
In continuation to the link above
Nolans non-linear film making style uses mise-en-abyme frequently in a sense that Ije is standing infront of a mirror with multiple reflections (or interpretations). The metafictive nature of his work is hard to miss. Here he subconsciously pays homage to Kubrick & Mallick whilst making a film that Spielberg was to direct. So it’s hard to fault the boy from UCL London from putting his best foot (& more) forward. One can’t criticise him too much for trying too hard.
Ultimately inspite of my criticism in the above link, a creditable outing both from Nolan and also from Mcconaughey (who devoured all the other actors here).
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January 18, 2015 at 8:29 AM
BOYHOOD (& mother/sister/fatherhood!)
39 days spread over 12 years is the timespan of this extended real-life chronological continuum.
“Any dipshit can take pictures, It takes a real genius to make art.” Is what the protagonists photography teacher sermonises to him. And I totally agree with him.
While everyday, we see around us those adept at making the simple appear complex (& we know who all I mean by that!), Linklater reminds that true brilliance lies in unpretentious simplicity. Here he tackles complex issues of boyhood & mother/sister/fatherhood without all the unnecessary (pseudo)intellectual baggage!
The first few reels take time to grip just like the process of ‘maturity’ it wishes to depict. This is an unprecedented effort (barring possibly ‘Up’) & brings together one of the best collaborations of modern cinema –Richard linklater and Ethan Hawke. Hawke is not the central character but nonetheless towers over the proceedings and for me, there remained an Ethan hangover beyond his limited screen time.
This does not match exactly the ‘before trilogy’ in terms of consistency and screenplay, but there’s enough ambition, vision and brilliance in it to justify long overdue accolades for this film maker.
The inherent ‘gimmick’ of the structure used here never affects the directors grip and vision. Although there are no telltale ‘flags’ or ‘bookmarks’, there are unmistakeable chapters in the life and times of Mason (played by Ellar Coltrane with effortless ease and maturity sometimes bordering on careless nonchalance) who gives a worthy exhibition of effective understated underacting. The changing timelines and timespans are subtly illustrated by game consoles, flip phones and so on but all this never gets too loud and though ‘dated’ technology has been planted deliberately it elicited no irritation in the writer of this piece! Colltranes performance arc suitably follows that of this character and he does more than hold his own amongst hardcore performers like Hawke and Patricia Arquette. The latter comes into her own during the closing reels wherein after pushing Mason towards independence all his life, she struggles to actually let him go!
Masons flowing experiences and the evolution of his psyche and intellect is tracked faithfully though there are brilliantly interesting side-characters throughout.
The scenes between Mason & Mason Sr formed the highlight. The latter always have pearls of wisdom (including on politics et al) to impart and the former does develop some skepticism towards those towards the latter reels inspite of the good comaraderie. But the ‘honesty’ in the parts and the actors is a pleasure to watch.
I talked about the alternately sweet and melancholic trajectory trope earlier. Linklater does brilliantly here though again I wanted some further tweaks at places. But I always ask for too much, you know.
The movie does not fall prey to some irresistible temptations. For eg there’s no essential scene of Mason Jr “losing his virginity” and there are no ‘flashback’ and interludes of nonlinear film making with evocative soundtrack –must admit I would have fallen for the latter option playing around the closing titles with one of my favorite soundtracks overseeing the transitory phases of the ‘maturation’ process. I don’t care about the oscars at all (being an old mans club that finds Jen law & brad cooper worthy of serial nominations)!
The greatness of this film lies in its ‘smallness’ and ‘ordinariness’
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March 2, 2015 at 5:03 PM
‘SPY GAME’ -links to ‘counsellor’ & ‘all is lost’
Skimmed thru a tony scott film that sort of served as a ‘tony/ridley scott’ ORIGINS. Now the film isn’t anything special but it provides a ‘snapshot’ into the future
The filmography of tony scott and of ridley scott (tonys bro who had to halt his ‘counsellor’ to mourn his bros untimely demise)
Theres an unmistakable similarity in the cutting of scenes and the restless camera movements et al
Theres Brad Pitt in his ‘formative’ years ‘learning the ropes” from redford
U2s “please”–
Pitt is in a chinese prison, for helping Catherine McCormack escape! Redfords the one who “opens his eyes” to her reality.
As time passes, Brad pitt ‘takes over’ and becomes the superstar till he is decaptitated in the fassbender starrer “counsellor”–read notes above
Ridley Scott mourns the death of his bro tony scott and there are effects seen in the later reels of counsellor
Redford ages into ‘all is lost’ –read above
the sense of dread and mortality one gets is a bit off set to see Robert Redford taking a charismatic turn to create something out of his nothing role
towards the end, we know nothing about Robert Redords character
the only thing this viewing reminded me is the STARDOM (that was lost in the rightly titled “all is lost”)
in a way this ‘continuum’ is a ‘handover’ from tony to ridley scott and Robert Redford to Brad Pitt (veiwed thru MY RETROSPECTOSCOPE!)
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March 4, 2015 at 7:14 PM
The Grand Budapest hotel
Watched portions –Inventive art direction, cinematography, it’s a piece of art imo..
An Austrian author is apparently the inspiration here –Zweig.
On whom is modelled the ‘author’ played by Tom Wilkinson & his fictionalised version played by Jude Law. Infact the role played so empathetically by Ralph Fiennes is also quite similar, I think.
Theres a story within a story within a story ..
Wes Andersons most ambitious movie –yet again does what the likes of Freud do so well–twinning comedy with tragedy
Deep down its a movie about ‘loss’. The crevices that viewers miss form the crux…
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April 6, 2015 at 8:48 AM
THE DARJEELING LIMITED
Going back from the grand Budapest hotel above, it’s evident that Wes Anderson made this film as a homage to trains, trains on film, india & above all Satyajiy Ray!
Three brothers on a train traversing through india! One of the brothers, Owen Wilson had planned this in advance supposedly to culminate in a reunion with their mother but he tells his brothers that this journey is for ‘spiritual self-discovery’.
Those aware of Bollywood, may find influences from this in zindagi nahin milegi dobara (amongst other influences other than being ‘bollywoodised’)
As usual, it’s a comedy drama but mixes other elements like despair, abandonment.
Part of his emphasis on miniaturism. May have something to do youth his Scandinavian ancestry though this is just conjectural.
He’s influenced by ray and louise malles documentaries about india. Ray’s portrait is featured towards the end of the film. The music is integral and Rays musical pieces find place in the soundtrack eg charus theme
There’s an interesting prologue in the beginning featuring Natalie Portman.
Most of Andersons characters are ‘control freaks’ or atleast try to be. Multiple contexts run simulataneously. It’s not a perfect film by any means, but in his filmography, this acts as a sort of ‘rejuvenatory’ role for Anderson wherein he visited india, paid his tribute to ray but somehow he doesn’t seem to get out of his mindset and themes as in the limited space of the train compartment. Later on he breaks free from this to make the ‘Grand Budapest hotel’ but certain tendencies linger…
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April 17, 2015 at 5:07 PM
Brickleberry—-vs Family Guy, South Park
Don’t get me worong–i enjoy and love family guy and south park! but feel that brickleberry has been unfairly maligned
its just that its in a different space
well, this can be described as the R-rated version of Family Guy. There can be the criticism that its trying hard to be offensive and crass,
but somehow i enjoy it whenever i get a chance to catch it. South Park is in a similar space but somehow I enjoyed Brickleberry more.
there are stereotypes galore e.g. the black guy Denzel, the fat lesbian and so on.
Daniel Tosh lends his voice to the Malloy bear who is hilarious.
A monstrous lesbian with a camel toe,
nonchalant casual rape, cartoon violence
the rape of political correctness
The editing, drawing, animation, recording, scripting is lazy and have an amateurish but ‘what the fcuk’ feel to it–
but who cares
it shows the middle finger to political correctness–
its racist, sexist, fetishist & …ist
needless to say–i love it…..
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April 19, 2015 at 7:35 PM
Force Majeure
Masculinitys been under siege & as I’ve said before that a certain ‘pussification’ is underway. Gender roles and expectations seemingly undergo ‘modernisation’ but deep down a certain primal urge and expectation still lurks.
A family of four on a ski holiday encounters a ‘controlled avalanche’. This opens up a can of worms, after the ‘big moment’. Then there’s a ‘sounding board couple’ who color this with their own baggage with the guy bringing his own sense of ‘traditionalism’ to his twenty odd partner Fanni.
The iPhone played a major ‘role’ here and infact works as a plot device in more ways than one. The perceptive narrative splits the audience through the middle just like the protagonist who is forced to reveal his ‘cowardice’ first by ‘running away’ and then refusing to acknowledge it. Kongsli & Kuhnke are upto the task and so is the rest of the starcast including the kids,
These bylanes led me back to two films that I may revisit soon—& then I sensed that– hang on…
surely Ostlund has also drawn inspiration from the same material —
David Finchers ‘Gone Girl’ & Stanley Kubricks ‘Eyes wide shut’…
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April 19, 2015 at 10:02 PM
Force Majeure was a fine film. I’ve been recommending it to a lot of people.
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May 2, 2015 at 1:33 PM
There’s a period in every performers career when he /she is in the ZONE. My commentaries celebrate such moments
They are not indepth encyclopaedic sanctuaries of info but succinct nuggets of my brain maps relevant to that film or piece of work
And it doesn’t have to be a so-called conventionally recommended or ‘great’ film
As an example one can see a relatively lesser known Paloma Faith dish out one of the best vocal (oral) performances of the year
Where she literally PLAYS with the various notes & scales
(just like me scaling these various genres and styles lol)
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June 22, 2015 at 6:50 PM
Why Was my note on ted blocked and why these double standards inspite of me censoring stuff?
Why this ‘insecurity’ ?
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June 22, 2015 at 7:13 PM
it’s obscene stuff.. I have to apply some standards..!
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June 23, 2015 at 6:07 PM
Twelve O’Clock High
This is a vintage flick (to be precise made way back in 1949), this is a textbook treatise on the realistic effects of war on the armed forces, shedding light on leadership styles and is very much relevant to corporate circles today.
film about the United States Army crews who flew daylight bombing missions against Germany during World War II. It was (adapted &) directed by King. This starred Gregory Peck as Brig Gen Frank Savage, Gary Merrill as Col Keith Davenport and subtly compared the leadership behaviours of the two.
American attorney Stovall (Dean Jagger who won an Oscar for this! ) encounters an old Toby beer jug that reminds him of his days in World War II, he visits the abandoned airfield where seven years earlier he had served with the U.S. 8th Army Air Force, the film then shifts to 1942, proceeding in flashback.
Savage was put in charge of his “unlucky” and undisciplined bombing squadron, made up of exhausted and emotionally spent men. He felt (& I agree that) the previous commander had grown too close to his men, and the new tough policies that Savage institutes alienate the airmen until they see that his policies are the ones that will keep them alive. Savage knows of the impending causalities and this weighs so heavily on his conscience that he himself has a breakdown eventually.
The scene depiciting the ‘navigational mistake’ was brilliant -Pritchard pressures Davenport to relieve Zimmerman, Davenport refuses citing many ‘human’ factors including zimmermanns German genealogy. Pritchard sacks Davenport, ultimately replacing him with Savage. Within hours, Zimmerman, commits suicide.
This timeless piece still is fresh in its clarity and moral dilemmas. This might as well be used for military classes for those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And this has nothing to do with genre and everything to do with quality.
Note the comment above on another wonderful piece of work called ‘ted’…
But even if one takes into account this genre advantage (that fools most naives), this is a brilliant timeless piece of work
And the performance by Gregory Peck is one for the ages (literally) -there’s been this criticism about his ‘immobile expressionless face’. But who can teach these ‘critics’ –ignorance after all isn’t a sin.
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June 25, 2015 at 4:57 PM
12 o’clock high-
contd from above
Is perhaps one of the oldest films I’ve ever seen. The fact that I could watch it, is in itself a testament to its calibre lol. This is why, more than 65 years after its 1949 premiere it seems so relevant, so topical, so ‘fresh’, err ‘fresh’ is not the word you’ll use in this context,eh…
In the post cold war world, I will dish this film out to freshers jumping into Iraq,Afghanistan, Palestine and Kashmir. So vivid is the ethical reasoning & the filmed as so ‘authentic’ that it fully informs real life officership.
This is also about certain ‘reasonings’
Aretaic reasoning is effectively the selfless logic of leading by example.
In the Deontologic world, certain actions are absolutely impermissible for eg Keith shielded Zimmerman ( but couldn’t stop him for committing suicide!)
And then there’s the Consequentialist reasoning wherein
the ends justify the means
Recommend http://www.amazon.com/Twelve-OClock-High-Blu-ray/dp/B004RE29RC?SubscriptionId=AKIAIY4YSQJMFDJATNBA&tag=bluray-001-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B004RE29RC&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER
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July 30, 2015 at 4:52 PM
Secretary
It’s damn tough to convincingly walk the thin line between being exploitative and prudish whilst still maintaining a sense of humour that too dark.
Have learnt a new word: ‘SHIDDAT’ a hindi/Urdu word for those who don’t know the language — loosely stands for conscientious dedication laced with dignity (I think)
James Spader is v good but it’s Maggie Gyllenhal who produces one such performance here wherein she totally submits herself to a role wherein her biggest doubts, conflicts and contradiction don’t distract her from her job. And she LIVES the role.
Such a ‘pure’ performance needs a standing ovation and having partly revisited the film recently the sheer brilliance of this performance humbled me…
Tbc
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August 24, 2015 at 6:59 PM
The Impossible
Some landmark decisions are ironically made in a spoilt second. When hit by the tsunami, (it’s described not as a wave but a wall!) Naomi Watts clings on to a tree. She senses that her family is dead and her reaction is to ‘join’ them. But seeing her son passing by so fast in the water current, she has to make a decision. Hang on to her own dear life or let go, follow the wave. She chose her sons survival letting go of the tree!
Every year we see oscar-bait material being overcelebrated. For all it’s faults, this emotional saga overcomes the criticisms about being melodramatic or being schmaltzy manipulative. Ewan McGregor gives some good scenes but it’s Tom Holland who excels as the kid who’s forced to transform into adult.
Naomi Watts gives her career best performance here…
This pushes one to a debate as to whether enacting /depiciting these disasters helps the victims in ‘sharing’ (& diluting) the trauma or does it not ‘re-traumatise’ them..? The directors intention seems novel…
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September 25, 2015 at 4:10 PM
The American
An American in Abruzzo Italy with ambiguous antecedents lies low as a nature photographer (but has a dark past). Violante Placido plays a prostitute who stops charging him (though I wondered what was she doing in that obscure village!).Irina Bjorklund & Thekla Reuten complement the European scenery ranging from ‘virgin’ locations in Sweden to Italy filmed unobtrusively.
It’s dreary and bleak but the restrained atmospherics grow on u. Though just like the lead hero, the narrative wants you to get interested but not too involved.
The Dutch Corbijn directs this in true-blue European style & lends it a certain gravitas & mood lacking in Hollywood. Lots of things are left unanswered. There’s an element of torment and conflict behind this quiet exterior. While some overgrown kids are busy with the bourne identities and the bonds, the element of placidity and maturity here were novel. In this lean and bare performance, is the Clooney, I liked most (after Descendants). He’s trying to stay away from trouble –
-What can possibly be his fatal mistake-
But love…
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October 10, 2015 at 5:31 PM
The MARTIAN 3D
My views
Contd from the above link..
To turn this around, Damon may well be the ALIEN in Mars. These Alien sojourns are usually not for any basic need or for survival but these exploratory missions (either ways) are generated a BASIC URGE
that everyone is born with ..
To know where one originated from?
Who’s the creator ?
And my gut feeling is that these OUTWARDLY journeys are indeed significant and eminently important, man will find the answer to the above EXISTENTIAL questions
Not by going outwary, even millions of light years out
But rather by travelling INWARDS
& Opening up another possibility
Another dimension, dealing with the soul &
And an enhanced awareness of ones SOUL & spirit
being SPIRITUAL…
(apex)
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October 11, 2015 at 1:52 PM
The Martian 3D- contd
Contd from my comments above–
if one distils and scratches film like gravity, beneath all the vfx and gloss, one is left with a rather empty film
In a related note, I ventured into Rangans blog to see what he has said about the Martian
All one sees is Rangan making fun of the Singh is Blings and dissecting the deeper meanings of bajrangi bhaijaan etc
Not to far away, one sees the likes of ‘sat yam’ taking big things but look at what he decides to watch —
Iron man, captain America, Jurassic park sequels
This SHOWS a certain inferential fakery…a vacuum
Now coming back to the PRIMAL QUESTIONS—
Basically lots of space exploration is an extension of the PRIMAL questions–
Who created me
How did this universe come into being
And in other words
who am I?
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November 6, 2015 at 3:27 PM
Gravity/interstellar/Martian–contd
I’ve been thinking about the limits of conventional science. Generations of scientists have been groomed on logic and reasoning, but increasingly science is facing bang-on the limits of conventional science. But the admission of this limitation is difficult to elicit due to an inherent rigidity. Ironically it’s the same rigidity that forced oriole not to question the ‘fact’ that earth was round.
Besides there are countless conflicts of interest based on the premise that science should have logic, because it will lead to a watershed moment in history if this admission comes through. So what do we get instead of this admission?
QUANTUM physics, FUDGE theories and QUASI/FAUX science
During lab experiments, a human can be made to feel or ‘perceive’ almost anything (obviously not real!). So there’s definitely no surety that even the ‘universe’ as what one knows about is ‘real’ or just a perception in neurons or as I will say –THE DANCE OF NEUROTRANSMITTERS!
Just when Man tries to conquer ‘space’ and matter, there’s increasing evidence that even MATTER is nothing but ENERGY or rather SOUND energy flowing through as a lump of ‘mass’
The final frontier man has to conquer & therin lies the key to ‘science’ and ‘limits of science’–
Is the Mind &
What we call as the ‘SOUL’…
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November 18, 2015 at 6:53 PM
Birdman
Innaritu assembles a high Calibre cast and catalyses a deadly concoction. Found it much better than I expected..
Michael Keaton and Ed Norton give their career best acts and are ably supported by Emma Stone & Naomi Watts. Even Zach Galifanis pitches in a very un-hangover type perfomance all rounding off a superb film.
There are many highlights, one of which being how Keatons ‘inner voice’ mocks the current superhero genre being milked by the production houses and being lapped up by the ‘Satyams’. In another key scene wherein a Ranganesque reviewer who threatens to kill the play by her first day review, was ripped apart by Keaton in an implosive evocative and kinetic act…
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November 26, 2015 at 4:58 PM
Birdman contd
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December 18, 2015 at 3:26 PM
The Rewrite
Contd from the link above…
In this unremarkable (& obscure) film, real-life footage of Hugh Grant winning the Golden Globe (won ages ago for “4 weddings & a funeral”!). There’s a somewhat washed up, cynical quality Hugh shares with Michael Keaton in Birdman although the tone & genre is totally different. He has never been a big star and never considered a great actor. But for this sort of a film he’s quite effective. Ironically it’s his unshowy, dry, self deprecating manner here is notable & works esp in the scene he “holds back” with his nerdy screenplay student and past the skilful final scene. As the credits rolled, I did realise that the career of Hugh Grant was sort of coming to an end …
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March 19, 2016 at 6:25 PM
Contd from my comments above–
Once in a while, It’s interesting to watch a movie with a select few who are “jotting down notes”, in pin-drop silence (instead of munching popcorn & nachos, sending discrete texts or checking emails etc or…). It’s the time to act and dress eccentrically and pull off a “up n coming indie filmmaker” routine.
In a world increasingly dominated by PSEUDO AUTHORITATIVE observations, mixed with INNOVATIVE WORDPLAY and JARGON that seek to downplay and mask the underlying INTELLECTUAL LETHARGY AND BANKRUPTCY of the thought process,
the Hungarian Tarrs black and white masterpiece is very different and underlines his ability to create RESTRICTIVE, IMMERSIVE AND TOTAL ENVIRONMENTS.
This begins with a colossal windstorm and a horses refusal to eat or drink in the masterful opening scenes. As the story goes, Friedrich NIETZSCHE apparently witnessed the merciless cruel beating of a horse, empathised & lost consciousness, had a mental breakdown from which he never recovered, and never wrote again. This is used as a plot device from the start and is projected onto the horse’s emotions.
The background score is treated like more than a full fledged character and in more than the usual sense of this term. The film moving in a linear fashion and the volume of the music is designed such that the height of the so called “rectangles”, similar to “soundwaves” were contextualised in the directors (& hopefully the viewers “mental map”).
The sound design picks up every tiny nuance or hint (mostly natural sounds), the proceedings stripped off all plot, drama.The camera is obsessive, and the pace uncompromising, relentless and the lingering pathos, despair and resignation reflects in the entire exercise. Let’s say it’s a depressing at first glance but there’s some method to even this madness.
The plot is non existent, and perhaps needs an imaginative mind (willing) to go beyond the surface to fathom the hidden complexities. And in a way caters to an idea of “minimal existence”.
Most of the film follows a man and his daughter in an isolated rural setting wherein the BANAL DRUDGERY is captured and put on the forefront such that even daily existential efforts seem to deserve credit and adulation. There’s something that’s INESCAPABLE, a FACT–death or the end
There’s a six day structure of the film (marked as “day one”, “day two” and so on!) They gradually lose almost everything in six days: their horse dies after refusing to eat or move for days, the well runs out of water, and even the light of day is eventually taken over by constant darkness.
This is supposed to be Bella Tarrs FINAL film since he feels he has “nothing more left to say.”
Culminating In the impactful final moments of the film…ending in total darkness, has shown the lantern repeatedly burning out while it’s still full of fuel. So “What is this darkness, Papa?” is a question that goes unanswered…
This is NOT for everyone (that’s also an overstatement really). I can’t seem to decide if I “liked” it or not but now wonder if everything down to ones “liking” only?
This is one of those TRAILERS difficult to complete & one of the most difficult films to watch. But just like the saying
If one tries hard or gets the ‘technique’ or method right
-One can extract some sort of ‘joy’ even out of the most boring and banal ?
Pleasure out of pain?
Hopefully one also can see God In ANY of HIS creations? Perhaps …
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March 22, 2016 at 3:39 PM
Addendum
These are neither the best films out there nor the ones I loved the most. Somehow they prompted me to write something
Some experiences like “the Turin horse” are intimate, & difficult even gruelling leaving u “drained” and spent
It TAKES AWAY a part of you !
Didn’t want to write about stuff like the Turin horse ever and
Don’t think anybody will bother or get what I’m saying here (not even “satyam”!)
but in a way I feel I don’t know of other space(s) that can COPE with this sort of stuff let’s say “variety” -ok lemme call it “different”
by posting it here
It’s a sort of my “tribute” to this space ..
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April 3, 2016 at 3:08 PM
DEATHS DARK ABYSS/ badlapur
Contd from my related note here
MASSIMO CARLOTO basically spent a lot of time in jail & wrote material influenced by stories he heard in jail that he claims were all authentic even backed by biopsy & autopsy confirmation.Carlotto, spent years running from Italian police being a left winger. He was framed wrongly and jailed for five years before receiving a pardon.
In Berlusconis Italy apparently there’s no need for FICTION since most of the “stories” written are slices of REAL life creating a subgenre called
MEDITERRANEAN NOIR
Raffaello murders a young woman and her child both in cold blood after a failed robbery, Raffaelo is arrested, tried, and sentenced to life. Silvano, the husband /dad plunges into an ever-deepening nadir until the day, fifteen years later, when the murderer seeks his pardon. The wounded Silvano turns predator as he ruthlessly plots his revenge.
Just like characters who live in the SHADOWS of society, Sriram Raghavan is a film maker forever on the FRINGES, one who is more OBSCURE than he should given the quality of his works Ek Hasina Thi, Johny Gaddar and Agent Vinod-crime being a common running theme. Liked AVs soundtrack esp
Here, the lines of a HERO & an ANTIHERO are blurred & towards the end, their roles are seemingly reversed. Raghu (Varun Dhawn) is engulfed by an all-encompassing anger that is given its power by its RIGHTEOUSNESS such that his expansile revenge cycle entraps more and more “innocents” all along. Laik who is the only one who knows the murderer (apart from the viewer) till late into the film is played delectably and somewhat enjoyably by Nawaz in his third best performance till date –after Gangs of Wasseypur 2 & the mountain man.
Laik is a smalltime thug who basically hits the panic button (trigger) during a heist & then shows survival insitinct, guile to try and escape the consequences.
All the female characters are interesting and nicely nuanced be it –
Yami Gautam (as the wife)
Huma Qureishi ( as the prostitute)
Divya Dutta as a “human rights activist”- who has an ‘encounter’ with raghu.
Radhika Apte as an empathetic wife of a partner in crime(spoiler.. Let’s leave it here)
Ashwini who is a private detective who cleans her house with a broom for yoga.
(Interestingly Raghus attitude towards women slowly shows disregard and becomes disrespectful, unlike Laiks towards his prostitute girlfriend!)
The cinematography and music amplify the over riding sense of despair. There are only three song tracks all used effectively
In a TIME JUMP, both raghu and Nawaz are shown after 15 years having aged and what follows is a study of the PSYCHOLOGY OF GRIEF
There’s a scene wherein raghu eats the surplus food his wife had cooked for him (after her demise remniscing her!), A blockbuster soundtrack.
It’s Varun dhawan who gets to play a role that’s capable of launching CAREERS! He gives his all and assimilates into Raghu and gives his carrer best. Though knowing me, even that wasn’t enough of a performance in this sort role!
DEATHS DARK ABYSS is not really good vs evil but bad versus worse wherein revenge is sometimes worse than the “original” crime.
The SINGULAR act of crime irreversibly binds both men for life.
The loves and lives of both men shout out the IRREVERSIBILITY of crime and it’s consequences and the FAILURE of the hapless legal system to either PARDON or COMPENSATE or REHABILITATE victims and perpetrators.
In the film version of a Deaths Dark abyss.
Raffaello tells Silvano he has lost his mind and should see a doctor
Silvano, unable to overcome his grief, had resigned to a quiet life making keys after giving up his high flying life. It’s only when he was requested clemency that his urge for revenge gets ignited.
Both men and UNITED by a single act of crime & undergo change during the time graph. Silvano being the “man whose wife and kid were killed” uses this both as the reason and the defense for his cruel actions. Carlotto subtly points out-they are neither…
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April 27, 2016 at 4:24 PM
Nymphomaniac vol 1-the directors cut
Don’t get fooled by the title or the tricky context. And I’m acutely aware of the images this title conjures in most. Well, this is much more than that.
Lars Von triers saga is not about sex inspite of being sexually explicit!
An academician Skarsgård finds a woman bruised, bloodied, and unconscious in the street. He takes her home and then Jo (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg as an adult, and Stacy Martin as a teenager) recounts her life story to him in CHAPTERS, whilst the latter interprets it in his own way with his interpretation of art, music and philosophy.The movie is a collection of images that stay with you and not for the expected reasons.
Chapter 1-“the compleat angler”
Fibronacci sequence is what comes to Skarsgards mind when he hears about the number of times Jo was penetrated by Jerome (Shia Lebouf in his best performance that I’ve seen). Christian Slater is Joes father who introduces her to the joys of trees and natural beauty. This chapter starts randomly inspired by a fishing hook on one of the walls that leads Joe to reveal her Odysseys.
Chapter 2- Jerome
Incidentally Jerome keeps appearing on her life and gives her a job. She tries to avoid him (though sleeps with others) she can’t stop herself from developing feelings for him of actual love which she describes as ‘lust with jealousy’…
meanwhile there’s a train contest with her friends of who will have sex with the max number of men (& so on)..
Chapter 3– Mrs H
Uma thurman in full form ..a class act!
Chapter 4- Delirium (tremens)
Jo sees his father (Christian Slater) dying alone. Reminds me of the interesting casting of Shia (transformers) Lebouf & Slater.
Chapter 5- the little organ piece
Bachs organ symphony is broken into three pieces, each of which reminds Joe of a different lover and sexual experience.
Her CYNICISM TOWARDS LOVE blended into the other theme
LONELINESS AS THE CONSTANT COMPANION..
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May 2, 2016 at 8:17 AM
Contd from above-
This tale of moral uncertainty isn’t about titillation but about exploration. Non judgmental & devoid of prurience.
The first part ends with the anti heroine losing all sexual desire but visuals of the part 2 run along with the end credits.. Tbc
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May 8, 2016 at 9:48 AM
Addendum
Afterthoughts: contd to my notes above
Turin Horse: there’s a deliberate confinement of proceedings to a minimalistic setting, small space, minimal lighting (somewhat like “stage”) but the language and film device used appears to expand the possibilities it’s addressing. Almost a descendant of the “silent film” era but interestingly one is more aware of the camera (& it’s movements) than ever before. Bella Tarrs return to the roots, his last film (or will it be his last? Let’s see..)
Deaths Dark Abyss: med-noir like this has origins from Italian mafia but moreso from an era of “repression” wherein “(quasi)fictional” release is perhaps the only legal means of dissipation
Nymphomaniac vol1 : lots of things here happen “randomly” seemingly by chance. Objects in the room lead to the start of conversations. But it’s not actually so random. Each individual is not actually a real person but representing a “concept”. Von Triers best work or will it be the part 2.. Tbc
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May 22, 2016 at 7:55 AM
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February 28, 2016 at 9:29 PM
This is a good sign as well as not a good sign – MAD MAX gobbling up almost all technical awards; which strongly indicates that the Academy doesn’t consider MAD MAX as a movie deserving BEST PICTURE or CHARLIZE THERON for Best Actress..
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February 28, 2016 at 11:11 PM
The thing about Priyanka Chopra is — as I think it was Shalini who pointed this out — she surely comes across as a poseur: And she is — outside of the films she stars in. She is such a classic example of a cultural appropriator that one is stunned there still are ‘youth’ who are willing to give her a tiara for having ‘crossed’ over!
She is a fine actress and there is no doubt about that. She is marvellous in films when she sheds her irritating instinct to ‘belong’ to the crowd.
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February 28, 2016 at 11:16 PM
And as I say this, I am shocked to see idiocy-personified Joe Biden at the Oscars!! And everyone giving him a standing ovation is such a classic symptom of Hollywood — a coagulation of arse-licking ‘liberals.’ Remember, this is the same fellow that famously graduated all Indians to 7-11s!!
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February 28, 2016 at 11:27 PM
While I terribly respect Ennio, it is painful to see that Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto have not even been nominated for soundtrack for THE REVENANT!! If there’s any department that deserves the Oscar, it is this one!! What are they smoking!! THE REVENANT is one of the most haunting, soul-stirring soundtracks one has heard after a long, long, time..
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February 28, 2016 at 11:41 PM
Glad for Innaritu; but as usual, the OSCARS betray any element of surprise or evolving intelligence — MAD MAX is NOT, hence, deserving of best directing OSCAR since it belongs to ‘genre’..
We are left with BEST ACTRESS, BEST MOVIE, and BEST ACTOR. I hope in at least one of the first 2 categories, MAD MAX wins..but going by the predictability, it hardly appears so…
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February 29, 2016 at 12:03 AM
And the best picture for SPOTLIGHT just goes on to prove how political the Oscars are. Awards have been given for ‘THEMATIC’ rather than ‘CINEMATIC’ achievements. SPOTLIGHT!!?? [Just as the Best foreign film selected NO MAN’S LAND ‘topicality’ over Gowarikar’s superb cinematic and block-buster vision in LAGAAN].
It is painful to see MADMAX being only honored for technicality and NONE for the heart in the art..
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February 29, 2016 at 1:42 AM
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-et-mn-oscars-2016-nominations-winners-list-story.html
Atlast he got his Oscar!
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February 29, 2016 at 1:51 AM
Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar! Leo is the Roger Federer of Hollywood. One got many and now downhill and the other got his first grandslam if it can be called so. Both have diehard fans running into billions.
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March 2, 2016 at 10:39 AM
So this year, once again, the Indian entry for the Oscar didn’t quite make it. The closest we ever got was when Lagaan, Salaam Bombay and Mother India made it to the final five, in their respective years. But of the three, the narrowest, most heartbreaking miss was that of Mother India. Mother India, the magnum opus of producer-director Mehboob Khan, was the three-hour saga of Radha, an archetypal Indian widow, and her struggles and sacrifices in life, culminating in her killing her own son, who had grown up to be a dacoit. The making of the film was an epic drama by itself, with its many troubles and triumphs. Its enormous scale led, for example, to correspondingly large cost over-runs — it cost Rs 40 lakh — which almost bankrupted even a producer of Mehboob Khan’s financial clout. Legend has it that at one point, when production had come to a halt because he had run out of funds, the situation was saved by one of his proteges, the actress Nimmi, who went to his office, took a fat wad of notes from the pallu of her sari and handed it to his manager, saying, “This is to help complete the film. But please don’t tell Mehboob Sahib.” The film was finally released in 1957 and became, as expected, a huge blockbuster, which ran non-stop for over a year. As it happens, just the year before the Academy Awards had introduced a new category for the Best Foreign Language Film — and, naturally, a man of Mehboob Khan’s ambition coveted this new Oscar for his own magnum opus. Thus, Mother India was entered for the upcoming awards (diplomatically taking the precaution of removing Mehboob Khan’s Communist-inspired hammer-and-sickle logo from the film print, to avoid offending the political sensitivities of the Academy’s voters).
Sure enough, Mother India was short-listed as one of the five nominees for the Best Foreign Film. In fact, according to reports trickling back from Hollywood, it was tipped to win the Oscar. These reports became increasingly more confident, so Mehboob Khan decided, at the last minute, to fly to Los Angeles (not an easy thing to do in those far-off days) to collect his Oscar in person — and, obviously, to network with the power-elite of Hollywood for subsequent deal-making opportunities. Mother India had not only impressed the Academy’s voters with its story, film craft and acting, but — very important in the Best Foreign Language Film category — it presented an image of India that resonated with the voters’ own image of the country. However, while Mother India might have been the big favourite, the competition in the category that year was particularly formidable — including The Devil Came at Night, a stylish film noir thriller by German-American director Robert Siodmak, The Gates of Paris by veteran French director Rene Clair and, most notably, Nights of Cabiria by the great Italian director Federico Fellini (who happened to have also won the previous year’s Best Foreign Film Oscar for his classic, La Strada). The competition was nail-biting, and Mother India, initially in the lead, eventually lost out to Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria — by just a single vote. And to add to the drama, Mehboob Khan, shocked by his unexpected loss, had a heart attack and had to be rushed to hospital. When the news came back to India, there was public disappointment that bordered on national grief, and various theories started making the rounds about why the film had lost out. One cynical theory, for example, claimed that the immoral Americans just couldn’t understand why Radha, the heroine, hadn’t given in to the money-lender’s sexual advances, which would have saved her from a lifetime of struggle and suffering. Mehboob Khan’s own analysis, however, was more acute: he confided to his associates that he hadn’t realized the kind of skillful publicity that was needed to support an Oscar contender… and that if only he had known earlier, he’d have played the game differently. That need for effective marketing still remains a key factor in winning an Oscar today. Which is one reason why we haven’t seen more Indian success stories. Indian films simply cannot afford to run such a campaign (one exception, perhaps, being Lagaan, which reportedly spent $2 million on a marketing campaign that helped the film succeed, but only up to a point).
Mehboob Khan meanwhile vowed, back in 1958, that he would make a sequel to Mother India, and go back to reclaim his lost Oscar. And, four years later, he did indeed make Son of India. But by that time, his star had faded and the film, unfortunately, flopped without a trace. He never made another film again.
By ANVAR ALI KHAN
TIMES OF INDIA
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