OSCAR 2012 – Predictions

Its Oscar time again. Tomorrow morning (early on 27^th Feb in India) the biggest Hollywood event will unveil last years’ stalwarts in various aspects of movie making. The Oscars, despite all its detractors, still remain the most famed certification for movies.

And it so happens each year that the Oscar fever rises only after the nominations is announced. Movies, unheard of until then are downloaded and viewed. Whether Oscars make a movie famous or a famous movie makes it to Oscar are two sides of the same coin.

Nine movies have been nominated for Best Movie. They are: The Artist, The Descendants, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Help, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, The Tree of Life and War Horse. 

I have on the penultimate of the Oscars completed viewing all the movies. A few of them I had watched a few months earlier.

They are as disparate and diverse as it can get. A silent and black and white movie (The Artist), a contemporary family drama (The Descendants), a 9/11 story (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close), a movie on the colored nannies (The Help). Then there is one on grit of a young boy (Hugo) by Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen’s take on a dreamy yesteryear take (Midnight in Paris), a movie on baseball’s tryst with money (MoneyBall), Terence Malick’s tangential abstract (The Tree of Life) and Spielberg’s war movie centered around a horse (War Horse).

The individual movies in a nutshell:

The Artist: Jean Dujardin plays a silent movie artist who is unable to deal and cope with the advent of change in movie. With no dialogues and being a black and white movie, it stands apart. The actor is a serious contender for the Best Actor category.

The Descendants: George Clooney plays the father role perfectly with the highlight of the movie being the father-daughter relationship. The transition in the emotions of the family over the death of Clooney’s wife has been portrayed beautifully in a contemporary set up.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close: One of the two Oscar nominations which has a child artist as a protagonist. Though it is to be noted that The Descendants, The Tree of Life, and The Descendants do have important child actor roles. How a child copes up with the loss of his father on 9/11, his relation with his mother and how they come to peace with it is portrayed in the movie.

The Help: A movie on the colored nannies which formed an important part of an American home has strong character sketches in the movie. Violet Davies role has been critically acclaimed.

Hugo: Martin Scorsese has given us a movie with a child protagonist and has used special effects to perfection in a grand portray of clock and early movie making. It is a movie which deals with travails of an orphan and his grit in finding answers which helps an early movie maker find his lost answers.

Midnight in Paris: Woody Allen is back with what he does best, portraying characters strongly and he does that this time in a medieval set up. With his characteristic background scores, Midnight in Paris is an interesting watch, though a little prior knowledge on Hemmingway could help.

Moneyball: A movie on baseball and the money involved in it is shown in the movie, especially how calculations and mathematics has taken over instincts and traditional knowledge in selection of players. Brad Pitt’s angry manager role is portrayed beautifully.

The Tree of Life: It could not get more abstract than this. With camera work and cinematography reaching great heights, it is a movie on Life in a bigger scheme, shown in a family’s handling a death in the family. It is more an arty a movie and palatable for serious movie watchers. 

War Horse: Steven Spielberg’s war movie, which revolves around a horse and shows the World War on both sides. Many sub plots of the movie disparate in their own means works perfectly in the end for the movie.

For a successfully movie, there has to be many ‘moments’ in the movie which uplift it. There are plenty of them in the above mentioned movies.

The climax scene of The Artist where Dujarin wants to kill himself, German and American soldiers helping the horse to get out in War Horse, the love portrayed in Midnight in Paris, Brad Pitt’s dinner table scenes in Tree of Life, the father-daughter interactions in The Descendants, the outburst in The Help, and the list is a long one.

We come to the pivotal question. Which movie will be crowned the Best Movie in less than 24 hours?

Every movie could be a winner. They have the potential. The factors which could work for them are: the ‘different’ movies like The Artist and The Tree of Life, one silent, black and white and the other abstract. Contemporary family drama in The Descendants. America’s turnaround moment 9/11 in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and its past, not so glorious, in The Help. Grit and reforming ending in Hugo. Dreamy movie making in Midnight in Paris. Another obsession of US, baseball, in Moneyball. Movie making reaching nadir in The Tree of Life and a trusted Oscar formula, world war, in War Horse.

If I am to put my money on a movie, with a lot of apprehension, I would go with – Hugo !

Best Director: The Artist, The Descendants, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, The Tree of Life. My Guess: Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris

Best Actor: Demián Bichir, George Clooney, Jean Dujardin, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt. My guess: Jean Dujardin for The Artist.

The i-BOMB

The day after the world celebrated the ‘love day’ draped in red, television screens in the evening showcased the antonym of love. As Iran (for your geographical knowledge, a country to India’s west sharing Pakistan’s western border) ventured into the territory of the N word, the world watched. What was described as ‘open defiance’ rattled the nerves of many a nations. As Tel Aviv grew cautious, the US moved warships closer to Iran. Media in countries like India fed people with details of the reactors, with a section not being able to decide whether to ridicule it and the other getting paranoid about it. Was the event seen as heralding of the ‘Islamic bomb’? Was it President Ahmadinejad’s challenge to the western world, presented in a pompous way, with the man himself lowering the uranium rods into the reactor, as the world watched? Or in simple words was it Iran’s shouting out to the world that their time has arrived on the world stage with their entrance into the special N-club?

It could be a yes to all the questions above even though the emphasis of the yes could vary. Islamic bomb has been a mainstay worry of the west. With the control of oil resting with the Islamic countries of the Middle East and West Asian countries, the catapulting of any one of the nation to the nuclear club could see a shift in balance of its might. The western powers calling shots in such a situation will be firmly dealt with. The Bush administration could not find the WMD’s in Iraq, but the US sure sees the Iranian President as the MMD (Man of Mass Destruction). It has been some time now that the US has sent both covert and overt signals to Iran to backtrack from its nuclear program. So much so that sanctions have already been placed on the country.

The manner and the timing of yesterdays show of nuclear reactors could well be Ahmedinejad’s, who has a penchant for being taken seriously by the world, way of display of power. But his speech which was translated as he spoke talked about the peaceful use of nuclear power. Its usage for clean fuel, its usage in medical science among many others. Should the world believe the man for once? Or should there be distrust in his words right from the word go? Israel being paranoid about its Islamic neighborhood has tried to thwart any moves by Iran to go nuclear. The spate of assassinations of nuclear scientists has been attributed to Mossad and was a staple of News broadcast yesterday, with the Tbilisi, Delhi and Bangkok bombings. It would do more harm than good to impose more sanctions and side lining Iran at this stage.

Regarding the exclusive nuclear club, is it the fiefdom of US or the UK , or for that matter of India or of Pakistan? When these countries decided to go nuclear, there was debate in the world regarding their safety, their usage, and most importantly their intentions. But these along with China, Israel, France, Korea, did go nuclear. After all Iran doesn’t not yet have nuclear warheads, which are aplenty in the western and eastern world now. What rights do any other nation, unless rest assured about its rogue use, have to deny another nation the rightful use of nuclear power? For a developing nation, Islamic or non-Islamic, there could be plenty of usage of the technology.

Obsession with Iran could cause an imbalance in the world order. The immediate imbalance was seen when reports of Iran stopping oil supplies to six European nation emerged. It is important to engage the country, to strengthen bodies like the nuclear watchdog IAEA, create a healthy market policy among countries for fissile goods trade. Too much should not be read into yesterdays development spreading paranoia and needless scare, rather caution should be exercised.

Posted originally at manipalblog.com

'Barsaati Mendhak' – Frog of the Monsoon

Dynastic politics in India began more than a hundred and fifty years ago with Motilal Nehru and continues till today. It is increasingly becoming a cornerstone in political establishment with more dynasties entering the fray. However the one clan that has been at the centre stage and hogged all the limelight, for good reasons and bad, has been the Nehru-Gandhi family.

In the light of such a fact, the continued obsession with the clan has been extended to Priyanka Gandhi, or more correctly Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. The recent appearance of Priyanka Gandhi on campaign trails in Uttar Pradesh, in support of her brother Rahul Gandhi, has set off a series of debate and speculation about her political career, her political impact and her political clout or the lack of it all.

The opposition has termed her as ‘barsaati mendhak’ or the frog of the monsoon, referring to her campaigning in Amethi and Rae Bareily only during elections and her lack of appearance in the political circuit at other times. Whether the term is part of a rebuke, a discrediting manoeuvre, a response to perceived threat, a mockery, disenchantment with dynasty, is anyone’s guess.

In a county where politicians strive for that one thing which makes them leaders, Priyanka Gandhi has that naturally – charisma. Would that charisma be immaterial without the Gandhi tag? Possibly so. But given the fact that she is a Gandhi, and has the charisma of a mass leader, parallel of which has been drawn to her uncanny resemblance to her grandmother, she is a force to reckon with, or at least that is what the grand old party hopes for.

Priyanka Gandhi is a crowd puller, and so is her brother. But Rahul Gandhi has not shown conversion of those numbers in rally to votes in the ballot. Does Priyanka have the ability to cause that conversion? The answer to this question can only be given if her effect is tested in constituencies other than the home turf of the Gandhi family – Amethi and Rae Bareily.

Priyanka Gandhi comes with the ‘Vadra’ tag attached. Her husband, the businessman who flourished quietly after getting married into the most important political family of India, recently expressed his desire to join active politics. Whether it is what the family approves of or he went solo on that is to be seen. Priyanka’s own plans to enter active politics will probably be determined by the success or the lack of it of her brother.

The opposition however is unruffled at the spate of events. They feel that a charismatic Gandhi, nicknamed ‘bhaiyaji’ by her SPG, with deep dimples and a remarkable screen presence, pulling it all together for the party is a theory of bygone era. The voter is smarter today and will not succumb to lure to instate someone Gandhi at the helm of affairs of the country. The regional parties, their politics, their vote base, their local issues have indeed made it difficult, for any one national party with however charismatic a leader in their kitty, to call for shots with comfort.

The other contributors to make the Priyanka effect look larger than life primarily are sycophancy of congress leaders and the English media. That congressmen exhibit heightened sycophancy regarding the first family in not unknown. Dibyakant Barooah’s ‘Indira is India and India is Indira’ is the example that will be cited for a long time. As time flows by with Rahul Gandhi not achieving the desired result for the party, increasingly a section of the party is looking forward to what is considered as plan B, the catapulting of Priyanka Gandhi to centre stage.

Also the English media has given footage on unparalleled time and importance to Priyanka Gandhi. It has equally covered Rahuls Gandhi’s every single move and every single statement. It assumes significance given the fact that Congress is not a force to reckon with in UP elections, with a resurgent Samajwadi Party and weakening yet formidable Bahujan Samaj Party. What is the obsession all about then? It could just be the simple logic - anything about the Gandhi’s sell.

India has not had an iconic political leader post Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was a leader of the masses. There is an increased demand for another one especially in the wake of a descending phase in the country. Priyanka’s grandmother Indira Gandhi, who was termed ‘goongi gudiya’(dumb doll) by her detractors, for all her follies of emergency and other corrupt ways was one of the tallest leaders the country had seen. The similar expectations from this ‘barsaati mendhak’, fortified by her charisma, her reaching out to people, the long since will-she-wont-she question, and most importantly her surname Gandhi, makes what can be called as the curious case of Priyanka Gandhi.