All that glitters and some free gifts

It's been quite a year for A.R.Rahman (and with two weeks to go, there still seems to be more left!). 7 film albums released this year (Jodhaa-Akbar, Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, the already forgotten Ada, Sakarakatti, Yuvvraaj, the much feted Slumdog Millionaire and Ghajini) and now Connections, his latest non-film album.

Not to mention awards: the LA Critics Association chose him for their pick for Best Score (the Slumdog again), and he has just been nominated for his first ever Golden Globe, in the august company of Hans Zimmer, James Howard, Alexandre Desplat, and (surprise!) Clint Eastwood. That's a trivia question prediction (until perhaps the Oscars list :-)). The Oscar march has truly begun.

Back to Connections. Karthik on his Milliblog points out how anyone not buying a Nokia phone with a certain kind of music service will just have to wait a while to hear the songs (in the legal way, at least). For now, you can check out the video for Jiya Se Jiya on Rahman's official site (warning: all flash content).

Which is where our friend Arnold, a.ka. Hugger-the-(not-so)-Horrible, should take note: the song features the concept of "Free Hugs" (read Arnold's first (zeroth?) hand report on the same). I wonder if I actually saw him in the video?

news courtesy the arrahmanfans yahoogroup

The cool of the Coens

The cool of the Coens

To their rich haul of Oscars, I would have liked to add one more to the Coen Brothers' tally: for "Best Insouciance". On each occasion that their names was called up, Joel and Ethan Coen walked up unhurriedly to the stage. Either they were giving a Coen-worthy performance themselves, or it actually didn't matter all that much. A festival bonus, not a career definition. Joel spoke about being grateful that they were allowed to play in the sandbox, while Ethan didn't bother with such verbosity. "Thank you" was followed "I've got nothing more to add to what I said earlier". Where people weep and whoop, the Coens simply won. In contrast, the other Oscar winner in the family, Frances Mcdormand, and other relatives seemed to compensate with their excitedness. Though Ethan in particular seemed to wonder what they were fussing about.

I happened to see "No Country for Old Men" and came away feeling like the glass of water in the anecdote. I wasn't sure if I liked it or whether I hated it. (Saket is much less ambivalent here.) On the plus side, the intensity of certain scenes, the lack of a background score that left each coming moment equipped with the power to suddenly bite, some of the performances (Javier Bardem's sociopathic Chighurh surely gatecrashes - by blowing out the doorknob, no doubt - into cinema's Hall of Infamy), some of the unexpected creative choices (not showing a certain character's end; some of the motel action), to name a few. While on the other hand, some almost incomprehensible Texan accents, the lack of providing character graphs for some of the people, the 'this is great viewing, but what are they trying to say here?' feeling of not knowing where the light switch was.

One could argue that great art demands that the viewer shed his passivity to actively engage her own self in the artistic product. On the other hand, shouldn't great art also be accessible to most? I am not sure. I will say (honestly) that I'm still waiting to figure out, interesting film though it was, exactly why "No Country for Old Men" was the unanimous darling of cineastes this year, and why not some of the other films? What set it apart from the rest?

Oscars nominees 2008

Oscars nominees 2008

The shortlist has been announced. Unlike last year, I have hardly seen any of these films, so have no idea about the favourites. I can only root for sentimental favourites, such as Laura Linney and Cate Blanchett (both regulars at the Oscars, from among this wonderful generation of Hollywood actresses) or the Coens. Perhaps Johnny Depp will be this year's Martin Scorcese.

Hopefully, Hirak or George will have a more detailed post on these nominations.

Their Filmfares

In an astonishingly audacious editorial a couple of days, the Times of India suggested that the Oscars were not democratic enough because "The time-honoured tradition of Oscar nominees and winners being chosen by a closed club of Academy members is feudal...".

This is astonishing merely because as far as I can tell, the Academy Awards never set out to be a popularity contest, but more of a reward of excellence. Whether they get it right or not is a different question. I'm not going to "defend" the Oscars - there are several instances of them not getting things right (which anyway is a subjective call), and like the Nobel Prize for Literature, it is increasingly righting previous wrongs. But if you forget who the Oscar went to, and just look at each year's list of nominees, you will say a majority of them deserved to be there. This is more than what someone can say for entire categories at the Filmfare Awards.

The Filmfare awards want to, and desperately at that, be a popularity award first and not a critics award. Fair enough. But let's drop the hypocrisy of excellence, when all you want to do is engage in a massive backscratching exercise with no credibility - I mean, once you open the voting to the internet and SMS, as TOI so avidly advocates, the scripts take over.

The Filmfare awards have completely alienated a number of movie-goers (are we "significant"? dunno), but thanks to multiplexes, distributors, and technological revolutions, it's possible for us in the long tail to be sated somewhat. The days of giving the Best Film award to the likes of "Rajnigandha" and "Ardh Satya" are long gone. We've learnt to live with times when Kareena Kapoor wins a Critic's Award for "Best Actress" when several worthier actresses abound. But don't rub it in. Audiences have no business voting for technical categories such as Best Editing or Screenplay. Democracy doesn't guarantee excellence or even a sense of participation. We can live with awards given out by a "mai-baap" as long as it doesn't offend our senses.

The Silly Season of Predictions - The 79th Academy Awards

(I cannot think of the Academy Awards without thinking about dear old COEP's Regatta, for the Oscars and the Regatta increment side by side in Feb-March each year. Good luck for the 79th Regatta!)

From the Oscar nominations this year, I look into my crystal Kookaburra and divine:

Performance by an actor in a leading role
The Buzz: Forest Whitaker in "The Last King of Scotland" is apparently a shoo-in.
Sentimentally: Peter O’Toole in "Venus". He's been at the Oscars so many times! Give the man a competitive Oscar :-)
Blind Spot: DiCaprio? Unlikely.

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
The Buzz: An open race. Mark Wahlberg for "The Departed" leads, perhaps?
My Sentimental Fav.: Alan Arkin for "Little Miss Sunshine"
Blind Spot: Surprises likely. IIRC, this is usually the first award to be given out on the night, so we'll know first up.

Performance by an actress in a leading role
The Buzz: Helen Mirren in "The Queen"
My Sentimental Fav.: Mirren again. Terrific actress. Jeff from 'Coupling' would be rooting for her too :-)
Blind Spot: Penélope Cruz in "Volver"

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
The Buzz: Rinko Kikuchi in "Babel"
My Sentimental Fav.: Little miss Abigail Breslin in "Little Miss Sunshine"
Blind Spot: Can't think of an upset here

Achievement in directing
The Buzz: Tight as ever. Perhaps the long awaited Martin Scorsese Oscar, this time for "The Departed", will materialise. But there's grizzly old Clint-y. Never, ever discount him. He's always feeling lucky.
My Sentimental Fav.: Marty for sure.
Blind Spot: Alejandro González Iñárritu. The ensemble-hyperlinked-globalised movie directors are in vogue

Best foreign language film of the year
The Buzz: The absence of "Volver" was apparently a surprise, as was the inclusion of "Water". But seems like "Pan’s Labyrinth" is the front-runner here.
My Sentimental Fav.: I suppose one would have to say "Water", but I didn't quite like it a lot. But still, good luck.
Blind Spot: Have nary a clue

Best motion picture of the year
The Buzz: Ah, the big one. "Babel" or "Letters from Iwo Jima". "The Departed" a close follower. Tough to call. I picked the first two because they have Academy-friendly themes.
My Sentimental Fav.: The unlikely one: "Little Miss Sunshine". More practically, "The Departed".
Blind Spot: "The Queen"? Impossible, mate.

Watch out for Hirak's list of predictions, coming soon.

Little Miss Sunshine

Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris' Little Miss Sunshine is one of the funniest films I've seen (the last being Khosla ka Ghosla). I'm not sure it needs to be analysed beyond that. One can take the gist of the film ("troubled family takes a roadtrip in an increasingly disintegrating vehicle to allow their little girl to have a shot at a beauty pageant for 6 or 7-year olds") and turn it into an allegory about life and hanging-in-there and the possibility of family values in these manic times. Or one could just sit back and be introduced to your laughing guts. Most reviews start with describing the group as a "dysfunctional family" (Dustin Hoffman said the film put the "fun" back into "dysfunctional" :-)), which doesn't surprise me but which I feel overstates things. Each member, except for Olive, has their own share of problems which at an individual level is incredibly painful. But if this is a "dysfunctional family", what, then, is normal?

But there I go analysing again. The movie is a must-watch. It boasts of some great acting with established actors like Greg Kinnear and Alan Arkin, favourites like Toni Collete, and surprises like Steve Carell and Paul Dano (when the latter explodes, man, the relief!). And of course, the wonderful Abigail Breslin as the icecream-fearing Litte Miss Sunshine aspirant picked up an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress (Arkin got a nod in the corresponding Male category). The film is also the indie choice in the Best Film category.

And I challenge you to to keep a straight face during the climax. To give you a sense, my own hysterical laughter would have given the Joker some anxious moments.

Biased for sure

Too many inherent biases within myself prevent me from being nice to certain things. Example of this were views about the latest hit that has swept everyone off their feet - the views have just emerged within myself without conscious effort. I find that Harish says exactly what I had in mind (and both of us haven't seen it). And adds a couple of more interesting anecdotes.

My addition is to wonder if the makers of Omkara are planning an independent entry to the Oscars, given my own list of what the best films (so far! and that too only from mainstream Hindi cinema) this year are. Oh, and perhaps Mr. Afzal of Parliament attack fame could use the current wave as an argument.