First Beam Day - LHC, :-)

Happy Teacher's Day!

14-Feb, lol.. :D

Oscars 2008...........

The New Year has given a new impulse to the race for the top prize in International films. And hot on a huge thumb up from the Actor’s Guild is Sean Penn’s directorial debut, Into The Wild. Based on the true-life adventure of Christopher MaCandless, a graduate from the Emory University, who abandoned his possessions and gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the wilderness. The film was recognized by the Screen Actor’s Guild by nominations in four categories including the lead actor nomination for Emile Hirsch and supporting acting nominations for Hal Holbrook and Catherine Keener. This, plus a nod for the Best Ensemble Cast, makes it a keen contender for the Best Picture nomination, a category which I have already predicted would be a straight fight between the Coen Brothers’ critics’ darling, No Country For Old Men and British Director Joe Wright’s Atonement.

But the Screen Actor Guild’s nominations have given a clear picture on the acting categories. Daniel Day Lewis seems all set for a second Oscar for his act as the greedy and vicious turn-of-the-century Texas prospector in director Paul Thomas Anderson’s grim take on the Upton Sinclair novel Oil, There Will Be Blood. The role has been dubbed, as ‘too-bloody’ by many Oscar watchers and the much deserving Johnny Depp seems a far safer choice. Depp has already earned a lot of critical acclaim for his role as the evil barber in director Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd. The others running for a Best Actor nod, come January, are George Clooney for Michael Clayton and Viggo Mortensen for Eastern Promises. Both are likely to be nominated, but their chances of winning are very slim. Of course, all this excludes another Adrien Brody effect ( anyone remember Adrien Brody’s shocking win over Jack Nicholson in 2002?). The lead actress nominations seem almost fixed with veteran Julie Christie, newcomer Ellen Page and Marion Cotillard. These are the ladies who will apparently fight it out for the top prize. As of now, Angelina Jolie seems a safe bet considering the lack of star power in this category. The last place will be decided between Amy Adams (Enchanted), Laura Linney (The Savages) and Keira Knightly (Atonement). Cate Blanchett, though widely praised for her work in Elizabeth-The Golden Age is more likely to be nominated (and I predict even win) in the Best Supporting Actress category for her brilliant performance in Bob Dylan’s I’m Not There. Her main rivals in this category are Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone) and Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton). Also likely to be nominated in this category include 83-year old Ruby Dee for her performance in Ridley Scott’s American Gangster. But my dark horse for this award is another veteran Marisa Tomei for director Sidney Lumet’s Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead. The directing award seems far easier as the Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan winning most of the pre-Oscar awards. Also Belgian director Julian Schnabel is likely to be nominated for his brilliant film (which sadly is not up for the Best Foreign Language Film) The Diving Bell and The Butterfly. The Academy loves good actors when they do a great job behind the camera as well, and as such Sean Penn is likely to be nominated. Sidney Lumet is the dark horse in this category for his comeback film Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead. But all will be clear when the producers and directors guild finally announce their nominations. The first major award is the Golden Globes, which will be given out on January 15. Till then we cross our fingers.

Review- Taare Zameen Par

After watching the film, the impression that is permanently entrenched in your mind, long after you leave the hall, is that of the child Ishaan Awasthi (probably one of the best performances by a child ever in Indian cinema). The actor Darsheel Safary is brilliant as the eight-year-old dyslexic kid, who just masks his inability to read or write with pretence of disinterest and disrespect. Of course there are times when he does look a bit contrived especially at the first half of the season, but then that would be nitpicking. And this is I believe the most important and popular part of the film. After watching this film I was left thinking that Taare Zameen Par has that one thing that lacked another well-intentioned film, released not so long ago: Khoya Khoya Chand; and that is a good script. Amole Gupte, the writer does a brilliant job in creating flesh and blood characters that are instantly relatable and a strong, crisp screenplay. The film’s main strength lies in this and director Aamir Khan knowing it well does not try to divert too much from the script.

And here is what disappointed me with TZP. Aamir, the director does not seem to have a personal style or approach to filmmaking and at the end the film wouldn’t have been very different if any other director would have directed it. By this I don’t mean fancy cinematography (ala Sanjay Gupta) or imaginative and loud treatment (think Bhansali?). It is that quality that separates a Mrinal Sen from a Shyam Benegal or a Yash Chopra from a Karan Johar, even though they make similar type of films. As a film enthusiast, I personally feel every good director should have a distinct individual style, which separates him/her from the rest. But I was fondly reminded of my father who said when he heard of the theme of TZP, that Aamir was now more of a campaigner. Yes, that is what I would call TZP, a good, well-intentioned film but totally NGO type. Aamir is good as the teacher who first notices signs of dyslexia in the child. He gives an expected restrained performance and does justice to his role. Tisca Chopra as Ishaan’s mother gives a good shot as well. But the supporting performance that really catches your eyes is that of Vipin Sharma as the father who cannot imagine his child’s behavior and characterizes the reactions of parents anywhere. The scene in which Aamir confronts the father with his child’s actual problem, Vipin holds his own space despite the heavier part being given to Aamir. At the end, Taare Zameen Par comes across as a beautiful, emotional and heart-warming film that will certainly appeal to everyone despite its drawbacks. It has the definite ingredients for a good film; a good script backed by good, solid performances. Its definitely one of the best films that have been released in 2007 and I suggest you better go and catch it.

Civil Society's Disgrace

Pictures of an Adivasi woman running naked through a street in Guwahati, while men clicked photos of her from their mobile phones flashed across newspapers and television news channels on Sunday. As the nation watched in horror at the utter barbarism and shamelessness of the act, I was left wondering where does this take us. India, a country riddled with class and caste dogmatism has always shown an affinity towards collective brutality and a painful sadistic pleasure at barbarism. From the killing fields of Gujarat and Nandigram, to the ‘lesser one-off incidents’ happening everyday around the country, the nation seems to almost like this type of reprehensible violence. Pictures signifying such irredeemable shame seem to have multiplied in the last few years signifying a most dangerous trend.

It seems that the men who stood photographing the desperate tribal woman as she raced away down the street had an old wish fulfilled. Humiliating women and their tribes and communities by forcing them to parade naked has long been a favored ‘penalty’ and signature of class domination among village authorities among much of rural India. Perhaps, these men have always wished to be there. To have achieved a similar deed in the middle of a street demonstrates a level of barbarism that is rarely reached even in this country. A city pretends to be, or at least aspires to be, civilized. Such an incident shows just how thin that veneer of civility is. It takes just one excuse of violence to tear off a woman in a contemptuous assertion of power to find expression.

But the point is not just the desire to humiliate. A woman can be beaten into submission, as many husbands, fathers and brothers would be willing to testify. The point is the nakedness: the desire to expose a woman’s body to a world of prurient gazers- and photograph her as she runs away frantically. It is the focus on the body of the woman that says most about the dangerously skewed ideas about sex, violence, domination, purity and ownership that lie at the root of India’s attitude towards gender, sexuality and sexual morals. The net result of all this is the total lack of value attached to a woman’s life, work, beliefs and sense of self. No public gesture can destroy all these together and reduce her to a flesh for one’s enjoyment more than stripping her. It is time that Indians began to think not just about the effects but also about the causes of such hair-trigger explosion of violence. There is little time left before the nation would be forced to acknowledge that it is a country of murderers, rapists and strippers of women

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