Award Nominations: SAG and Goldden Globes

It has been a week of Nominations. 2 important awards announced their nominations - Screen Actor's Guild and Golden Globes. Here is what I think about them.

Best Picture

Golden Globes - Drama                                                            Golden Globes - Musical Or Comedy 

The Descendants                                                                                50/50  

The Help                                                                                           The Artist

Hugo                                                                                                Bridesmaids 

The Ides of March                                                                              Midnight in Paris 

Moneyball                                                                                         My Week with Marilyn

War Horse

                                                         SAG

The Artist                                     

                                                         Bridesmaids

                                                        The Descendant

                                                        The Help

                                                        Midnight in Paris

SAG Basically has a Best Cast Ensemble award. So I was expecting Ides of March to be there, which does have a pretty strong cast. As for the globes, I will not comment on whether any particular film is musical or comedy or drama but other than that since they have more options, they are doing alright. Though, I might be missing something but Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was getting a lot of attention. Whatever happened to that? And if you ask me to predict anything from this, I shall say come Oscars, I will expect The Artist, The Descendent and The Help to get nominated. 

Best Actor: Male 

Golden Globes - Drama                                                              Golden Globes - Musical Or Comedy 

George Clooney – The Descendants                                                   Jean Dujardin – The Artist

Leonardo DiCaprio – J. Edgar                                                            Brendan Gleeson – The Guard

Brad Pitt - Moneyball                                                                      Joseph Gordon-Levitt – 50/50

Michael Fassbender – Shame                                                           Ryan Gosling – Crazy, Stupid, Love

Ryan Gosling – Drive                                                                      Owen Wilson – Midnight in Paris

                                                                 SAG

                                                     Demián Bichir – A Better Life

                                                     George Clooney – The Descendants

                                                     Leonardo DiCaprio – J. Edgar

                                                     Jean Dujardin – The Artist

                                                     Brad Pitt – Moneyball

SAG again is pretty surprising. No Michael Fessbender(Shame), No Michael Shannon(Take Shelter) or Ryan Gosling. I don't know much about A Better life, but anyone of above three would have easily replaced DiCaprio. Globes missed Shannon as well. Gary Oldman(Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) was generating a lot of buzz but looks like he is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close here. And again, from this I think Come Oscars, Clooney, Dujadin and Pitt should almost certainly get nominated. I would love to see Fessbender and Gosling with them.

Best Actor: Female 

Golden Globes - Drama                                                              Golden Globes - Musical Or Comedy 

Glenn Close - Albert Nobbs                                                               Kate Winslet - Carnage

Viola Davis - The Help                                                                     Kristen Wiig - Bridesmaids

Meryl Streep - The Iron Lady                                                           Michelle Williams - My Week with Marilyn

Rooney Mara - The Girl with Dragon Tattoo                                        Jodie Foster – Carnage

Tilda Swinton - We Need to Talk About Kevin                                      Charlize Theron – Young Adult

                                                                         SAG

                                                          Glenn Close – Albert Nobbs

                                                          Viola Davis – The Help

                                                          Meryl Streep – The Iron Lady

                                                          Tilda Swinton – We Need To Talk About Kevin

                                                          Michelle Williams – My Week with Marilyn

 

SAG again missed Charlize Theron and Rooney Mara. I am happy with Michelle Williams' inclusion and Davis, Streep and Swinton are everywhere. So that leaves Close to make way for either of them and I am not much interested in Albert Nobbs as well. So, I will be happy with that. I am also not commenting on Globes - Musical and Comedy. They just need 5 nominees - that is only explanation and their Drama is probably the most satisfying group here. I liked Elizabeth Olsen(Martha Marcy May Merlene) and Kirsten Dunst(Melancholia) too. But, even I am finding hard to get rid of anyone else. Oscarwise, I think Davis, Streep and Swinton should be certain. I would love Williams and Theron to join them.

Best Supporting Actor: Male
 

Golden Globes                                                                                   SAG

Kenneth Branagh - My Week with Marilyn                                Kenneth Branagh - My Week with Marilyn

Christopher Plummer - Beginners                                           Christopher Plummer - Beginners

Albert Brooks - Drive                                                           Arnie Hammer - J. Edgar

Viggo Mortensen - A Dangerous Method                                  Nick Nolte – Warrior

Jonah Hill - Moneyball                                                          Jonah Hill - Moneyball

                                                                         

This is like they are afraid of making all the right decisions. Globes got Brooks in but missed Nolte and SAG did vice versa and they both have Jonah Hill. Seriously? Do you know someone Called Ben Kingsley(Hugo) or at least John Hawkes(Martha Marcy May Merlene)? And Arnie Hammer ? I will reserve my judgement of Mortensen though because I have mixed reviews. For Oscars, Branagh and Plummer should enjoy the company of ideally Brooks, Nolte and Kingsley but I will be content with Hawkes and maybe even Mortensen.

Best Supporting Actor: Female

Golden Globes                                                                                         SAG 

Bérénice Bejo – The Artist                                                            Bérénice Bejo – The Artist 
Jessica Chastain - The Help                                                          Jessica Chastain - The Help 

Octavia Spencer - The Help                                                          Octavia Spencer - The Help 

Janet McTeer - Albert Nobbs                                                        Janet McTeer - Albert Nobbs 

Shailene Woodley – The Descendants                                             Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids

WHERE IS CARRY MULLIGAN ? How can you forget HER ? SAG is even worse. No disrespect to Melissa McCarthy - she was nice in Bridesmaids but definitely not enough to keep Woodley out. I have heard good things about McTeer but still I want Carry Mulligan(Shame) in the mix here. BTW, I am extremely happy for Jessica Chastain. I do not care which role she gets nominated for as long as she does.

Best Director 

Golden Globes                                                                                                        

Woody Allen – Midnight in Paris

George Clooney – The Ides of March

Michel Hazanavicius – The Artist

Alexander Payne – The Descendants

Martin Scorsese – Hugo

Nice to see Clooney here. He was good but at least I wasn't expecting him to get nominated. Payne, Scorsese and Hazanavicius are almost certain to get in. Spielberg(War Horse) is one more veteran that might make it. How many times do you have a chance of seeing Spielberg, Scorsese and Allen fighting with virtually unknown guy, Hazanavicius. And the best part is he actually has a realistic chance of winning.

So, all in all though Globes improved over SAG, there is still lot of hope for Improvement. Come On Academy !!

Awards Season is Coming up

2011 is almost gone. Just 1 more month to go and then award frenzy will start to heat up. Not that it hasn't already started. But it will reach high pitch by then. With Oscar nominations to be announced on 24th of January, predictions, anticipations and expectations will run high. Though I intend to take a piece of that as well, it is still early for me to do it now, since I still have to get around to see a lot of movies which are being tagged as Oscar-worthy (Moneyball(2011), Shame(2011) and The Descendents(2011)) and we are still waiting for release of the likes of The Girl with Dragon Tattoo(2011) and The Artist(2011). Maybe, I can catch up on few of them in near future and then I will jump in as well.

I have a kind of Love-Hate relationship with Oscars. (Well, who doesn't really?) I do not necessarily agree with many of the decisions. In some cases, their decisions are downright shameful - Slumdog Millionaire(2008) winning 8 Oscars?? No  Nomination for Christopher Nolan for Inception(2010)?? and these are just recent examples. Even though you attribute the vastness of the whole process and everything, and take into account that some mistakes are bound to happen, Academy has never made it easy to like them. With the kind of Prestige associated with the Oscars, only focus of it should be to celebrate the best of Cinema. Period. No Prejudices, No favoritism. Sadly, we do not live in the perfect world. How else can you explain the likes of Hitchcock, Sidney Lumet and Stanley Kubrick never winning anything ? I would expect Hitchcock to win for Vertigo(1958) or Notorious(1946) - two movies he wasn't even nominated for. But again, we do not live in the perfect world.

If you asked me few years ago. Oscars used to be my single point of reference. This movie was not nominated for Oscar, maybe it is not that good. That movie had so many nominations, it must be good. And another one won so many Oscars, it has to be the Best Movie Made Ever. Over the years, I have learned to judge Better. More movies I see, more exposure I have to the cinematic world, I can see the folly of my assumptions. Not that Oscar winners are all bad, I just have learned that there is a lot to it beyond them. They are just another awards like many others and they are to be taken as seriously an any other. And there are so many of them. We have Golden Globes, We have BAFTA Awards and then we have Actors, Directors, Writers, Producers Guild, so on and so forth. There are enough to keep us busy for first few months of 2012.

However, even then no one can deny the aura around Oscars. Even if I have grown out of using them as reference, I still am fascinated by them. Especially with all the stars attached to it, the Red Carpet, actual ceremony and all the anticipation behind it, even often only to bitch about it afterwards, never fells to allure me into that world. You can say that the Selection process is seriously flawed or Academy voters have no taste at all and many more things, but still it definitely is one thing almost everyone is looking forward to. And in that case, I am no different from everyone. If not anything else, at least I get to see what everyone else is thinking about my favorite movies of the Year. So, I will play along as well. Let's get it started !!

Hunger

23rd March 1931. The Day every Indian remembers as 'Shaheed Diwas' i.e 'Martyr's Day' because on that day 3 of the Indian revolutionaries, Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev, were hanged at the tender age of 24. Along with around 25 other revolutionaries, they were being tried for the case that is known as 'Lahore Conspiracy Case'. While the case was being tried in court, Bhagat Singh and his fellow revolutionaries went on Hunger strike. Their demand was to be treated like 'Political Prisoners', on equal terms as other European prisoners. By Law, they were needed to be treated equal. So, Indian revolutionaries were asking for Clean clothes, Separate cells, Books and Newspapers just like any other political prisoners. This hunger strike went on for 116 days before the British Government, then ruling India, relented and agreed to give them what they were asking for and claimed life of 1, Jatindra Nath Das on his 63rd Day of Fast. Legend has it, he died saying 'Not a Single Drop, Bhagat' as he died of a beating he took while Police were force-feeding them to break their fast. And when I watched Hunger(2008) today, I could not help but draw some parallels here.

Hunger(2008) here, is about the strikingly similar event that happened against the same government, some 50 years after in Ireland. It focuses on Second Hunger Strikes in 1981 by Bobby Sands and other IRA members. 9 of them died before Margaret Thatcher relented. Bobby Sands himsel died after 66 days of Strike. It opens up with prison guard Raymond Lohan leaving for work, making sure that he is not getting killed by IRA(which he eventually does, in a horrible fashion). He checks the road is empty before leaving, bends down to see if someone has planted a bomb in his car, and still hesitates before turning the ignition On, all the time with his wife watching him from the window, as if praying to keep him alive. Tension is palpable here. In Prison, IRA members are on Blanket Protests which are escalated into Dirty Protests against the cancellation of  'Special Category Status'. Story moves forward with concentrating on two prisoners, Davey Gillen and Gerry Campbell, who are in a cell together with just a blanket on them. Part of Blanket Protests and Dirty Protests is told as their story. We see the brutalities they suffer at the hands of Guards as they refuse to leave their cells and themselves to be cleaned up. And we also get introduced to Bobby Sands, who is also part of these protests. Third part of the story concentrates on Bobby Sands and his Hunger Strike and is by far most disturbing segment I have seen.

What this movie is best known for is 16 and half minute conversation between Bobby Sands and his Priest. Though whole film is about the political intentions and rights, this scene is the only occasion where they actually discuss about it aloud. The reason why this scene is so special is not only because it was shot in one single long take(and I thought Inglourious Basterds(2009) had longest single take scene. Looks like Michael Fassbender has some fascination for them), but also because you will hardly find anything so explosive with the dialogues like 'Jesus Christ had a backbone but them disciples, every disciple since... you’re just jumping in and out of the rhetoric and dead-end semantics.' and he is talking to a priest who makes his leaving giving sermons to everyone. Conversation that takes place between them here is extremely well constructed. Initially they take friendly digs at each other, eventually it turns to more serious matters at hand when Sands mentions about the Hunger strikes.  Our Priest is troubled by the fact that previous Hunger strikes have failed to achieve anything out of it. He questions his integrity, his motives, his commitment(According to Wikipedia, Liam Cunningham, who plays Priest moved in with Fassbender and they use to rehearse this scene almost 12 times everyday. How is that for a commitment?). However, Sands is not going back - 'I will ACT. I will not stand by and do nothing'.

Main reason why I wanted to watch this movie was because of all the buzz around director Steve McQueen with the release of Shame(2011) - THE Movie I am looking forward to. This is his debut movie. And what a debut it is !! Even though I was very much interested in all the politics in the background, it is evident that he had a different direction in mind and he takes it forward in that direction like a master controller. He is not interested in making it a political propaganda taking either of the sides. He very casually skips by everything that is happening outside, even a fact that Sands gets elected to the House of Commons is only mentioned in the ending slides. He has named his movie Hunger for a reason and he focuses on that. In many ways, it is a debut movie for Michael Fassbender and he is equally devastating as well. He embodies Bobby Sands - his resolve, his determination to perfection. He works wonders in the 16 and half minute scene with his dialogue delivery but he is equally effective even when he is not even talking e.g a look on his face when UDA orderly who refuses to help him or him pushing his protruding ribs in a desperate attempt to stand up. And it is your worst nightmare to see him die slowly and slowly. Fassbender does all this with such a finesse that makes you wonder where was he all these years? I knew about Christian Bell loosing 28 Kg for The Machinist(2004). But, I did not have the faintest idea of Michael Fassbender undergoing similar regime.

Hunger can make you feel nauseated, it can very easily kill your appetite. It makes you uncomfortable almost the whole time. But even then you know that you are watching something great, something you never have and probably will not experience again. With the kind of buzz around Shame(2011), we can only expect more greatness is to follow. While in College, I always wanted to know more about 3 things - IRA, Stalin and Napolean. Not a start I imagined !

Rating(out of 5):

Double Review: The Help, Book and Movie

A Week ago, while working at my job at my university library, I saw someone return Katheryn Stockett’s ‘The Help’. I was intrigued by it since the release of movie earlier this year. But I had no idea that it was available in my library. So, I took this opportunity with both hands. And in last week I read the book and immediately followed it by the movie to pitch them against each other. In general, most of the movies adapted from the books, I usually end up loving the book and hating the movie – Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Godfather(1972) and To Kill a Mockingbird(1962) being the only exceptions so far. So usually I would not have done it. But since movie was praised by many people, I decided to take this chance. Since there have been plethora of reviews out there already and most of them do a wonderful job of it, I will not tell you much about it. I will rather concentrate my energy on comparing the two versions.

I am sure that by now everyone knows that The Help(2011) is about a young, 20 something white woman from Jackson, Mississippi in 1960 who writes a book with help of few black maids about how it is to be working for white woman.  Now, first of all, let me say that this movie adaptation of book stays almost true to the book, which is nice to see. There are parts which have been changed in the movie. However, in most cases, they do not affect the final outcome too much. And film still floats. However, still, book remains the better version of the two. And again the reason behind it is the deviations from the original script. Film is written and co-directed by Tate Taylor, childhood Friend of author Katheryn Stockett. Both of them being the product of the very system, it shows that they know what they are talking about. In the end of the book, author says that 'In The Help(2011) there is one line that I truly prize: Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realise, We are just two people. Not much that separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought'. And they both emphasize it quite clearly.

Book works much more on personal level. It introduces all those characters to us, takes us into their lives. We live with them through their good days and bad. Making all these characters Gray, rather than plain Black and White, it almost makes us believe that they as human as you and me. In movie, we love and hate them as well. But you do not love AND hate anyone in movie. After book, I did love and Hate Celia Foote and even Hilly. There are few things explained in the book (e,g Hilly - even though she is a devil of a woman, she does stand behind skeeter, fixing her with Stuart and incident with Celia protecting Minny from an attacker) that even though do not affect the overall flow of the story, give the concerned characters much more depth helping humanize them.

One more thing that movie does is it changes the chronology of some of the events. But, to be honest, I did not have a problem with it. I rather liked the idea of starting with Aibileen dictating to Skeeter. It also gets rid of some parts. Skeeter's story with Stuart has lot of twists and turns in book. But again, even though it does give a much more emotional depth to the skeeter's character, I was OK with ditching the whole thing. However, the problem is with the parts which are included in the movie but they are changed e.g Constantine's story or rather Rachel's (Lulabelle in the book) story is much more convincing, dramatic even. Also, Skeeter finds out really late that her mother has Cancer in the book. Part where she figures that out, patches up with Stuart and breaks up again and finds out the truth about Constantine is really heart-breaking. Also, skeeter's mother never figures out that Anonymous is her daughter. Also, all the other maids do not know about Minny's involvement in the project until Yule May episode, which gives her the credit to bring others in.

Now, for the movie. Even though it does change a little here and there, overall it stays true to the emotion till the end. This and plethora of wonderful performances in the movie make it worth watching. Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer as Aibileen and Minny respectively are wonderful. I surely can understand the Oscar Buzz around Viola Davis and hope she does get it. Emma Stone is also wonderful though I would have loved to see her character develop a little more. However, for me Jessica Chastain and Bryce Dallas Howard take the cake. Hilly is mean, despicable, controlling and embodied to the perfection by Bryce Dallas Howard. Jessica Chastain, Star of the Year, is revelation as frivolous housewife, excluded by all the 'Society Ladies' because she is White Trash. I wouldn't be surprised if either of them lands with the nomination as well. And the ending is little idealistic where in book, it keeps it much more realistic. My only problem with the book remains to be that it looks like scraps of the top of everything. Like Book does, it does not reach to the heart of the situation, and that is what keeps it from being Great.

Rating(out of 5):

           The Help(Book)                                                                                                   The Help(Movie)