The Hurt Locker for Oscar

I am tipping The Hurt Locker to win the Oscar this year. It bucks the trend of movies which come late in the year winning Oscars. This hasn't been a great year for films and the only real contenders apart from The Hurt Locker are Up In The Air and A Serious Man. Precious has an outside chance but it is just that. It is more likely to win the female category awards than any thing.

The Hurt Locker is a ground breaking piece of cinema which is remarkable in it's presentation. Kathryn Bigelow (it would be fitting and well deserved if she becomes the first woman Director to win award for best Director as well) has served up a masterpiece. The movie's value will  only increase with time, just like say The Lives of Others.

Greatest Indian Films of All Time

I have selected the greatest Indian films based on reputation and awards and now possess all of them on DVD/VCD(Neecha Nagar).

Will watch them in due course. The ones I selected are as follows -

Apu Trilogy
Neecha Nagar
Pyaasa
Mother India
Sholay
Nayakan (the dvd had no subtitles. It took me six hours to burn a new dvd with the subtitles)
Gandhi

My Top 10 Films of 2000s

My top 10 films of the decade in order are as follows (revised) -

Talk To Her
4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
The Lives Of Others
The Hurt Locker
The Fountain
No Country For Old Men
Lakshya
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Munich
Children of Men


Others -

Eastern Promises
Goodnight And Good Luck
The Dark Knight
The Namesake
History of Violence
Control
Ratatouille
The Proposition
Dil Chahta Hai
Mumbai Meri Jaan

15th Kolkata Film Festival Starts

The 15th Kolkata Film Festival started today with the opening film, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. I didn't go to see it as it is available on DVD and easily accessible. It is a part of an interesting series of films though - films by contemporary directors on World War II. All these films are from 2008 and 2009 and promise the 'outside view' on the war.

The film I am looking forward to most in the festival is India's Oscar nominated (for Foreign film category), Harishchandrachi Factory which is on the making of India's first film, Raja Harishchandra by Dadasaheb Phalke.

I plan to see contemporary cinema at the festival, mostly films from the last 3 years which are not available any where on DVD or over the internet. So popular films by director Elia Kazan in the Centenary Tribute section like A Street Car Named Desire won't be seen. So too won't films like Yol from Turkey, which, though it has great reputation going for it, is old and more importantly, easily accessible.

I will also try and watch the Indian Select films, notable among which will be the bengali film selections.

I am targeting viewing 20-35 films over the next 7 days. Much fun beckons. :)

Massive Chokes In Indian Cricket History

Tied test, 1986.

Chetan Sharma last ball six to Miandad at Sharjah

Chennai - Gavaskar game.

Chennai again, v Pakistan ten years later.

Barbados, West Indies Test Series 1997.

Zimbabwe, World Cup 1999

Hyderabad, 2009 v Australia. Tendulkar's shot was silly and the tail choked as well. 19 to win off 17 balls. Massively dire.

Movies I Watched Last Fortnight

Antichrist - This sexually graphic movie from Denmark has received mixed reviews polarizing views. The Danish critics have been mostly very positive while the general world reaction is mixed. The movie is sad, intense and has a few great scenes with brilliant imagery. I loved the way the film portrayed pain. However, mostly, the movie falls short. Fellow blogger Nathaniel Rogers sums it up nicely when he says - in the end this psycho-horror film felt like a 45 minute story that kept repeating itself as the director dragged his actors sadistically through their grotesque marks. The praise for the twin (lead) performances seems excessive. I will give it a 3/10.

Firaaq - Nandita Das' debut venture as a director is brave, stunning and path breaking. Set a month after muslims are killed in the 2002 post Godhra Gujarat violence, the movie spares no punches in showing how muslims were treated in an inhuman manner, the prejudices which people held against them and the climate during these troubled times. This is easily the best movie to come out of India this year among those which I have seen. A solid 9/10.

Zombieland - The opening scene is nice and promises a lot. The movie has it's moments. For instance, the Bill Murray segment was hilarious. However, over all, it is not that funny overall. There is a love angle throw in which distracts from the comic element. More importantly, the movie is more about the main actors in the movie than the encounter between them and the Zombies. We do not see enough Zombie scenes and the jokes fall flat after a while. A disappointing 2.5/10.

Why Indian Teams Have Not Done Well In The Champions League T20

As we move towards the semi final stages of the Champions League T20, we find that there are no Indian teams left. They have been long gone and it comes as a surprise to many as they were packed with four international players while other teams didn't have that privelege.

The main reason for the Indian teams not doing well is that the IPL teams play one month a year together while the teams of the other countries play in their domestic competition day in and day out. You don't form a cohesive unit playing just a month and a half a year.

The team work is lacking. Team work is an often understated asset of cricket. We found that the World XI playing v Australia a few years back performed poorly and the main reason was that they didn't gel as a team.

Packing a team with international stars and thinking they will thus do well just doesn't work. Lalit Modi talks about removing the limit of 4 international players for the Indian teams in the next IPL but the strength of a team like Trinidad and Tobago is not in it's stars - it's in the way it works as a team. This is an important distinction needed to be understood.