Movie – Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Slumdog Millionaire is an absolutely terrific film that swept through the Oscars in 2009.  It won 8 of the 10 awards it was nominated for, including Best Picture.  And one of the awards it didn’t win – Best Song – it lost to itself when the other song from the film, “Jai Ho”, took home the Oscar.  It wasn’t just the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who loved it.  It is only the second film in history to sweep the Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay awards at the Golden Globes (Hollywood Foreign Press), BAFTAs (the “British Oscars”), and Academy Awards.  The other film to do it?  Schindler’s List.

A Taste of India

“God I love the sweet taste of India/ Lingers on the tip of my tongue/ Gotta love the sweet taste of India/ Blame it on the beat of the drum.” – Aerosmith, Taste of India

Quick – what country’s film industry produces more movies in a year than any other?  Nope, it’s not America’s, despite the number of new movies that come out every week.  It’s India’s.

You may have heard of “Bollywood”.  Technically, it refers to the film production from the country’s largest city (Mumbai), but it has come to generally be used when referring to all Indian cinema.  (Just as “Hollywood” is used for any American film.)  The word comes from Bombay (the previous name for Mumbai) Hollywood.

Unfortunately, it is sometimes used in a derogatory manner, meaning quick and cheap productions that only have singing and dancing in them.  That’s no more fair than saying that all Hollywood movies are quick and cheap horror/action/romcoms.

There is a wide diversity of movies made in India.  I have seen too many that I would recommend to list them all here.  Instead I will try to give you just a taste of what is available from Indian cinema.  Note:  I will not be covering classic Indian films here (i.e. Pather Panchali); that is deserving of a separate category someday.

I have tried to pick representative movies from different genres.  I was lucky in that I worked with contractors from India for many years and I got to discuss films with some of them.  One of my recommendations, Black (2005), is a movie I probably would never have even heard of, let alone seen, if it had not been recommended to me by them.

Some of the movies I will be writing about are actually from non-Indian production companies, but all are shot in India and feature mostly Indian casts and crews.

As I post the reviews I will come back and post the links to them here:

Slumdog Millionaire
Monsoon Wedding
Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India
Black (2005)
Outsourced
Chak De! India

On to the reviews…

2012 Oscar Winners – Results and Comments

It's 12:45 AM and the 2012 Academy Awards ceremony ended about an hour ago.  The Artist won Best Picture.  No one movie emerged as the big winner.  The Artist and Hugo shared the honors with five wins apiece.  The only other film to receive more than one Oscar was The Iron Lady with two.  Hugo’s wins were all in the technical categories, while The Artist won three of the five major Oscars (Picture, Director, and Actor). 

The show moved along very well.  It went three hours and 15 minutes, which is just a few minutes longer than last year.  For an Oscars telecast that is blazing speed.  Four hours used to be more common.  Last year was the first time they eliminated some of the time-consuming bits and had several presenters do two, or even three, awards while they were on stage.  These changes have cut the time down quite a bit.  Things still bogged down with the final three awards (Actor, Actress, and Picture.)  It took them 45 minutes to hand them out when it had taken them two and a half hours to hand out the prior 21 awards.  I actually thought they were going to finish in less than three hours, but they still kept the tributes to each of the five nominees in the Best Actor and Actress categories and those took up several minutes apiece.

My 2012 Oscar Predictions

The Academy Awards ceremony is this Sunday, February 26^th at 8:30 PM EST.  It is on ABC.  Check your local listings. 

I’m posting this list so you can either be amazed at my overall movie knowledge, or so that you can ridicule me for being wrong.  Hopefully it’s more the former than the latter.  My goal is more than 50% correct, with a hope of 75% (18 of 24 categories), although that may not be realistic.  I got 16 out of 24 (67%) last year.  Good or bad I will do a follow-up post on how I did.

Here is the complete list of nominations in all twenty-four categories.  What I would pick is highlighted in yellow.  No highlight means I have not seen any of the choices.  What I think will win is in bold.  I will also say if I think my choice is a lock, likely, educated guess, or wild-ass guess.

25,000 Views

This blog just passed 25,000 views.  Sure, that’s not a very big number compared to sites that have boobs or cute cats (or both) on them, but it’s pretty good considering that I don’t do any promotion via social media.  (No Twitter.  No podcasts.  I’m not even on Facebook.  Yes, I’m a caveman.  Other than having to shave four times a day, it’s not a bad life.) 

25,000 is also not a bad number considering I was at only 10,000 views just over three months ago, and 2,500 views just over eight months ago.  With this in mind, I’d like to thank everyone who takes the time to visit, to comment, and especially those who share a post they like with their friends.

Those of you with six figure, or even seven figure, numbers of visitors to your movie blogs – here’s an exchange from the 2011 film Friends With Benefits that puts things into perspective for all of us.

(A woman is trying to convince a man to take a job she has lined up for him):

Jamie Rellis – “This is a huge opportunity Dylan - Art Director of GQ magazine.  This is the big leagues.  I mean, no offense to your little blog on the internet.”

Dylan Harper – “Which got six million hits last month.”

Jamie Rellis – “I could put up a video of me mixing cake batter with my boobs and it will get eight million hits.”

Such is life in the blogosphere…..

By the way, on the subject of sites with boobs or cats or both on them, here’s a blatant attempt to increase traffic.

Humor – Fake Oscar Campaign Posters

I ran across some fake posters for Oscar contending films.  They sarcastically change the titles and taglines to be more “truthful” about the movie.  Here are my two favorites:

You can see the rest here.

Movie – Anonymous (2011)

Ah, the benefits of low expectations.  I went into this film not looking for much, perhaps even cringing a little at the thought of Roland Emmerich directing a movie about Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I.  Emmerich, known for making a series of big budget disaster flicks (Independence Day, Godzilla 98, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012), would not be someone I would pick to do a costume drama.  And you know what?  I ended up feeling that this movie is a reasonably entertaining political thriller.  Emmerich financed the entire thing himself, so this was obviously something he had wanted to do for some time and his earnings from his prior work had finally allowed him to do it.

Movie – The Muppets (2011)

I’m old enough to have watched the original Muppet Show when it was on TV in the late 70s.  It was a lot of fun, but all good things must end and it eventually went off the air.  I saw a couple of the early Muppet movies, but none of the more recent ones.  It had probably been more than 25 years since I had really seen the characters, other than the Bohemian Rhapsody video that was released a couple of years ago.  As I sat and watched this Muppets movie it brought back all the great times watching the show.  I had a smile on my face almost the entire time I was watching the film.

Movie – Rio (2011)

The movie Rio is an animated film that received an Oscar nomination, but it was not for Best Animated Feature film.  It was for Best Original Song.  That song, Real in Rio, is played at the opening and closing of the film.  You can find the video for that song here (embedding for it has been shut off so I can't include it with this post).  Its only competition is from The Muppets’ song Man or Muppet, so it has a 50/50 chance of winning the Oscar.  It is definitely the catchier of the two songs, but The Muppets have a lot of nostalgia working for them.  As for Rio, the movie is decently entertaining, with some laughs here and there, but it is aimed more at kids than adults.

Movie – Beginners (2011)

The film Beginners received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting actor for Christopher Plummer’s performance.  He plays a man who has come out as gay very late in life.  He is also a man who is dying.  In addition, Plummer falls into the “has done good work for decades and has never won an Oscar” camp.  This is an Oscar triple-whammy and so understandably he is considered the frontrunner to win the award.  While Plummer did a very good job in Beginners, I feel that Ewan McGregor should have received a lot more notice himself for his performance as this man’s son.

Movie – A Better Life (2011)

When the Oscar nominations for Best Actor were announced, Demian Bichir’s name was among them.  The largest initial reaction to this was “Who?”  Up until then, he was probably best known in America for a recurring role on the TV show Weeds.  The Academy nominated him for his work in the film A Better Life.  It’s the story of a father and son living a tough life in the Los Angeles area.  Bichir does give a fine performance; a quiet, dignified one, in fact.  I’m a little surprised he got nominated because it is usually the flashier roles that get the attention of Oscar voters.  This is a decent film, although it may anger some people.  I will explain.

Movie – Albert Nobbs (2011)

The film Albert Nobbs was nominated for three Oscars (Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Makeup), and it has a number of familiar faces in supporting roles, but it really is Glenn Close’s movie from top to bottom.  In addition to starring as the title character, she also produced, co-wrote the screenplay, recruited a number of people for roles, and even wrote the lyrics to the song that is performed over the closing credits.  It’s obvious that this was an important story to her.  The fact that she persevered almost 30 years in getting it made also speaks volumes to her commitment to it.  The result is an interesting character study set against the backdrop of a high class hotel in late 1800s Dublin, Ireland. 

Movie – Jane Eyre (2011)

According to IMDB this is the 20^th version of Jane Eyre that has been filmed.  Surprisingly, this is the first one I have ever seen.  I have not read the book it is based on, either, so I went into this almost blind.  Unfortunately, I did know what the big reveal was going to be because about 15 years ago I had seen the film Wide Sargasso Sea (1993).  It was a prequel to the Jane Eyre story and it showed Rochester and some other characters in Bermuda.  Because I knew the reveal, this did probably lessen the impact of the movie on me.  Nevertheless, it is still a well-crafted film that is worth seeing.

Movie – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

As supporters of director David Fincher quite correctly point out, this film is not a remake of the original 2009 Swedish version.  It is an English language adaptation of the original book.  Those supporters sometimes go on to say that this means the Swedish film is not relevant when reviewing Fincher’s version.  I’m afraid I don’t agree there.  It was impossible for me to see this film and not compare it to the original.  This review will include some of those comparisons.  By the way, if you want to read my review of the book and the original film, you can find those here.

Movie – Warrior (2011)

I’ve seen Warrior called a modern day Rocky.  While I think that’s not completely accurate, I can certainly see why people would compare the two.  Rocky focuses on an underdog in boxing, while Warrior focuses on a couple of underdogs in the world of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighting.  Even though the film does not have any real big surprises in it, it still is very entertaining.  I have never watched an MMA bout in my life, but I found myself still drawn into the lives of these two men because of their backstories.  This is what raises this film above a generic B-movie about fighting.

Movie – Margin Call (2011)

It has often been said that an Oscar nomination can have a huge impact on a film, especially if it did not get much notice beforehand.  Margin Call was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for J.C. Chandor’s writing.  While this is hardly a low budget, independent film, it did kind of fly under the radar.  I doubt I would have ever seen it, had it not received the nomination.  Great writing is probably more important to me than any other single aspect of a movie, so even though the plot of Margin Call didn’t sound that exciting, I gave it a try.  I am very glad I did.  I ended up enjoying it quite a bit and it may even make my list of the top 10 films of 2011.

Movie – Puss in Boots (2011)

Puss in Boots is nominated for the Best Animated Feature Film Oscar, although it is unlikely to win.  This movie spins off the Puss character from the last three Shrek movies.  He is once again voiced by Antonio Banderas in a take off of his Zorro character.  The film is directed by Chris Miller, who also did the third Shrek film.  Don’t expect any of the other characters from Shrek to make an appearance, though.  Puss goes solo on this one.  I would place this movie about on par with the last couple of Shrek films – it’s got some laughs and it will entertain, but it’s not breaking any new ground.

Movie – Rango (2011)

Rango is nominated for the Best Animated Feature Film Oscar and it is considered the frontrunner.  It is directed by Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) and features the voice of Johnny Depp as the title character.  It is both a parody of, and a love letter to, the classic western.  It manages to combine just about every feature of a standard western plot, but does it with animated creatures of all sorts.  The result is an interesting mix of new and old.

Movie – The Ides of March (2011)

The Ides of March is a film co-adapted (with Grant Heslov) and directed by George Clooney.  They received an Oscar nomination for their screenplay.  It is based on an off-Broadway play titled Farragut North.  Clooney fought the studio, who wanted to use the name of the play for the film, too.  Thankfully, Clooney prevailed.  The title that was used is a great reference to Julius Caeser and is very fitting for the (metaphorical) backstabbing in this movie.  The Ides of March is one of my top 10 films of 2011. 

Movie – Drive (2011)

The film Drive is one that is liked by quite a few people, so they were disappointed when it received only one Oscar nomination and that it was only for Sound Editing.  The film has hit a nerve with quite a few people and that is for a good reason.  Despite the fact that it is based on James Sallis’ book of the same name, the film is actually a modern day remake of the very popular classic western Shane (1953).