Mar 1, 2011

and the gold statue goes to....

and so the wait is over.. the results are out .. aaaaannnnd it's as predictable as i thot it would be... no surprises.... Hathaway n Franco did an ok job as young excited hists, but seems a lot of the media didn't like em... too bad...so below is the full list of winners from ComingSoon.net (in case u missed it.... miraculously)



The Complete List of Oscar Winners!

Source: ComingSoon.net
February 27, 2011


The 83rd Academy Awards were presented Sunday night at the Kodak Theatre and we will be posting the winners as they are announced! The show was hosted by James Franco and Anne Hathaway. Let us know what you thought of the show and the winners by using the comments below!


BEST PICTURE:
**Winner** The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company), Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, Producers
Black Swan (Fox Searchlight Pictures), Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver and Scott Franklin, Producers
The Fighter (Paramount Pictures), David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Mark Wahlberg, Producers
Inception (Warner Bros. Pictures), Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Producers
The Kids Are All Right (Focus Features), Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte and Celine Rattray, Producers
127 Hours (Fox Searchlight Pictures), Christian Colson, Danny Boyle and John Smithson, Producers
The Social Network (Columbia Pictures), Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
Toy Story 3 (Disney•Pixar), Darla K. Anderson, Producer
True Grit (Paramount Pictures), Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
Winter's Bone (Roadside Attractions), Anne Rosellini and Alix Madigan-Yorkin, Producers

DIRECTING:
**Winner** Tom Hooper - The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company)
Darren Aronofsky - Black Swan (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
David O. Russell - The Fighter (Paramount Pictures)
David Fincher - The Social Network (Columbia Pictures)
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen - True Grit (Paramount Pictures)

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE:
**Winner** Colin Firth - The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company)
Javier Bardem - Biutiful (Roadside Attractions)
Jeff Bridges - True Grit (Paramount Pictures)
Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network (Columbia Pictures)
James Franco - 127 Hours (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE:
**Winner** Natalie Portman - Black Swan (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Annette Bening - The Kids Are All Right (Focus Features)
Nicole Kidman - Rabbit Hole (Lionsgate)
Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone (Roadside Attractions)
Michelle Williams - Blue Valentine (The Weinstein Company)

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE:
**Winner** Christian Bale - The Fighter (Paramount Pictures)
John Hawkes - Winter's Bone (Roadside Attractions)
Jeremy Renner - The Town (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Mark Ruffalo - The Kids Are All Right (Focus Features)
Geoffrey Rush - The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company)

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE:
**Winner** Melissa Leo - The Fighter (Paramount Pictures)
Amy Adams - The Fighter (Paramount Pictures)
Helena Bonham Carter - The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company)
Hailee Steinfeld - True Grit (Paramount Pictures)
Jacki Weaver - Animal Kingdom (Sony Pictures Classics)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
**Winner** The Social Network (Columbia Pictures), Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
127 Hours (Fox Searchlight Pictures), Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
Toy Story 3 (Disney•Pixar), Screenplay by Michael Arndt; Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
True Grit (Paramount Pictures), Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Winter's Bone (Roadside Attractions), Adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:
**Winner** The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company), Screenplay by David Seidler
Another Year (Sony Pictures Classics), Written by Mike Leigh
The Fighter (Paramount Pictures), Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson; Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
Inception (Warner Bros. Pictures), Written by Christopher Nolan
The Kids Are All Right (Focus Features), Written by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:
**Winner** In a Better World (Sony Pictures Classics), Denmark
Biutiful (Roadside Attractions), Mexico
Dogtooth (Kino International), Greece
Incendies (Sony Pictures Classics), Canada
Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi) (Cohen Media Group), Algeria

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM:
**Winner** Toy Story 3 (Disney•Pixar), Lee Unkrich
How to Train Your Dragon (DreamWorks Animation), Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois
The Illusionist (Sony Pictures Classics), Sylvain Chomet

ART DIRECTION:
**Winner** Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney Pictures), Production Design: Robert Stromberg; Set Decoration: Karen O'Hara
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 (Warner Bros. Pictures), Production Design: Stuart Craig; Set Decoration: Stephenie McMillan
Inception (Warner Bros. Pictures), Production Design: Guy Hendrix Dyas; Set Decoration: Larry Dias and Doug Mowat
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company), Production Design: Eve Stewart; Set Decoration: Judy Farr
True Grit (Paramount Pictures), Production Design: Jess Gonchor; Set Decoration: Nancy Haigh

CINEMATOGRAPHY:
**Winner** Inception (Warner Bros. Pictures), Wally Pfister
Black Swan (Fox Searchlight Pictures), Matthew Libatique
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company), Danny Cohen
The Social Network (Columbia Pictures), Jeff Cronenweth
True Grit (Paramount Pictures), Roger Deakins

COSTUME DESIGN:
**Winner** Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney Pictures), Colleen Atwood
I Am Love (Magnolia Pictures), Antonella Cannarozzi
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company), Jenny Beavan
The Tempest (Touchstone Pictures), Sandy Powell
True Grit (Paramount Pictures), Mary Zophres

FILM EDITING:
**Winner** The Social Network (Columbia Pictures), Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter
Black Swan (Fox Searchlight Pictures), Andrew Weisblum
The Fighter (Paramount Pictures), Pamela Martin
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company), Tariq Anwar
127 Hours (Fox Searchlight Pictures), Jon Harris

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE:
**Winner** Inside Job (Sony Pictures Classics), Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
Exit Through the Gift Shop (Producers Distribution Agency, Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz
Gasland (Rooftop Films), Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic
Restrepo (National Geographic Entertainment), Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger
Waste Land (Arthouse Films), Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley

MAKEUP:
**Winner** The Wolfman (Universal Pictures), Rick Baker and Dave Elsey
Barney's Version (Sony Pictures Classics), Adrien Morot
The Way Back (Newmarket Films), Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng

ORIGINAL SCORE:
**Winner** The Social Network (Columbia Pictures), Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
How to Train Your Dragon (DreamWorks Animation), John Powell
Inception (Warner Bros. Pictures), Hans Zimmer
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company), Alexandre Desplat
127 Hours (Fox Searchlight Pictures), A.R. Rahman

ORIGINAL SONG:
**Winner** "We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3 (Disney•Pixar), Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
"Coming Home" from Country Strong (Screen Gems), Music and Lyric by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey
"I See the Light" from Tangled (Walt Disney Pictures), Music by Alan Menken Lyric by Glenn Slater
"If I Rise" from 127 Hours (Fox Searchlight Pictures), Music by A.R. Rahman Lyric by Dido and Rollo Armstrong

SOUND MIXING:
**Winner** Inception (Warner Bros. Pictures), Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company), Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley
Salt (Columbia Pictures), Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan and William Sarokin
The Social Network (Columbia Pictures), Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten
True Grit (Paramount Pictures), Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland

SOUND EDITING:
**Winner** Inception (Warner Bros. Pictures), Richard King
Toy Story 3 (Disney•Pixar), Tom Myers and Michael Silvers
TRON: Legacy (Walt Disney Pictures), Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague
True Grit (Paramount Pictures), Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey
Unstoppable (20th Century Fox), Mark P. Stoeckinger

VISUAL EFFECTS:
**Winner** Inception (Warner Bros. Pictures), Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb
Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney Pictures), Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 (Warner Bros. Pictures), Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi
Hereafter (Warner Bros. Pictures), Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell
Iron Man 2 (Paramount Pictures, Marvel Studios), Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick

DOCUMENTARY SHORT:
**Winner** Strangers No More, Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon
Killing in the Name, Jed Rothstein
Poster Girl, Sara Nesson and Mitchell W. Block
Sun Come Up, Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger
The Warriors of Qiugang, Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon

ANIMATED SHORT FILM:
**Winner** The Lost Thing, Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann
Day & Night, Teddy Newton
The Gruffalo, Jakob Schuh and Max Lang
Let's Pollute, Geefwee Boedoe
Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary), Bastien Dubois

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM:
**Winner** God of Love, Luke Matheny
The Confession, Tanel Toom
The Crush, Michael Creagh
Na Wewe, Ivan Goldschmidt
Wish 143, Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite


Read more: The Complete List of Oscar Winners! - ComingSoon.net

Feb 25, 2011

New Series!


right.. so since i'm here today haha... here's an overview of the new shows i'm currently busy watching!

highly recommended cos it's so damn good are Blue Bloods and The Chicago Code... both are cop dramas.. first one being about a family of cops starring Donnie Wahlberg, Tom Selleck, Bridget Moynahan, n Jennifer Esposito amongst it leads while the second one is set in Chicago with Jennifer Beals, Jason Clark and Delroy Lindo, where the new superintendent is fighting corruption on all ends while trying to clean up the streets.
awesome stories, great styles, superb performances are enough to get me high on a weekly basis.






















another one is the re-boot of Hawaii Five-O... now this was was launched with some skeptism as certain famous reboots didn't fare too well (Knight Rider anyone?) but has come out with some excellent ratings and with it's reputation intact. with Alex O'Loughlin, Scott Caan, Daniel Dae Kim(yes he of Lost fame) and Grace Park as the team.

critical acclaim follows The Walking Dead... who gave zombie genre lovers it's first tv series... finally a good show about zombies. and it's apparently gonna get better as the story continues. nice!

a couple more dramas are making the rounds this 2011, like new med-drama from creators of Grey's Anatomy, but this time set in the jungle of some south american outback...looks alright for now... but the ratings don't look good...same goes for Sarah Shahi starer Fairly Legal.

comedies on the other hand have some new stars in the house!
call-center comedy Outsourced is crazy funny, same as Shit my Dad Says.. with William Shatner spewing cynical wisdom. guaranteed funny.



there are two ex-friends stars facing off over the ratings.. with Matt LeBlanc's Episodes seem to be doing better then Matthew Perry's Mr Sunshine...time will tell if both survive to a 2nd season.




another one that's just 2 episodes old is Mad Love with Jason Biggs (american pie), Taylor Labine (Reaper), Judy Greer(arrested development etc) and Sarah Chalke(scrubs) in a hilarious outing as a pair of dating couples.... although orthodox as they are.

HOLY COW

yeah that's all i can say...
after all the months of being primarily lazy while totally using my physical state of cross geographic change in address as an excuse ..... i have been slacking from here tooo long.
it's not to say that i've been totally away from watching movies... now THAT would have been sinfull. So here i am... back!!

what better time then the oscars eh? haha.. since i got here, i managed to catch a few hindi movies cos there's a new one here every week! but als caught the much awaited Harry Potter 7 Pt 1! bouyah! on IMAX!! yeahaa! so worth it....

for the rest i watched .. ahem.... either online or downloaded....here's the list i can remember over these past months (categorised as usual)

A for awesome!
Machete
Despicable Me
Megamind
Predators
Rajneeti
Rakhta Charitra 1
Scott Pilgrim vs the World
Toy Story 3


Bad for boleh la..!!
Jonah Hex
Faster
Grownups
The Joneses
The Kids Are All Right
The Messenger
The Other Guys
Salt
The Twilight Saga Eclipse
Unstoppable
Unthinkable
Valentines Day
Wall Street 2 Money Never Sleeps


C for can i have that time of my life back please!!
Hot Tub Time Machine
I Spit On Your Grave
Killers
Resident Evil - Afterlife
Skyline
The Last Airbender
The Switch

phew....
prob forgot a few here n there.... oh well.... here's to hoping a reboot of this blog is a foot!

May 29, 2010

Prince of Persia

Director Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Donnie Brasco, HarryPotter 4 n Pushing Tin to name a few) sets out to bring us a new video-game-to-screen attempt. With previous efforts (not Mike's) like Doom, Street Fighter, Mario Bros n Mortal Kombat failing to even reach the shadow of their original games' glory, i was apprehensive about catching his flick.

I mean in defense of the genre, a lot of stories in video games are absurd, with weird and crazy characters and moves, action and mind-blowing graphics almost impossible to match. But where there have been some respectable attempts (see Lara Croft, Final Fantasy*, Resident Evil (1st one only) and Max Payne (well i liked it!) I was still cautious about expecting much about it.

Surprisingly, well pleasantly though, i truly enjoyed this movie. Jake Gyllenhall managed to pull of the role of Prince Dastan who gets entangled in a time-skipping adventure with new 'it' gal Gemma Arterton, along with Sir Ben Kingsley and the awesome screen presence of Alfred Molina. Action packed, with some very cool CGI, good one liners and slick swordplay (well it's set in a loong time ago, no guns!) makes for a truly entertaining fare just short of 2 hours.

Story goes a little like this: an orphan is adopted into the royal family, but grows up to be the roguish hero of lot, and is always eager to please his brothers. As part of a campaign for their father the King, the princes lay siege to a holy city (after some dubious reasoning by their uncle {sidenote: very Mahabarata-ish this part}). This sets off a chain of events that leads thru an ostrich race, some Hassansins, sandstorms, snakes, and swords! Loads of swords!

* it was animated, but was damn realistic CG that one

verdict : nice one!

May 22, 2010

Series Finale(s)

This weekend marks the closing of the past 6 years journeys of two of my favourite TV shows. From the concepts, writing, acting performances, strength in story telling (no matter how absurd they seemed), thrills, action and downright woah-shocker-twist-dang it-wtf-b!@tch!! moments over the past 6 and 8 seasons respectively, Lost and 24 will both face their final curtain call this Sun and Mon.

How will it turn out for the remaining survivors of the ill fated Oceanic flight 815? And how will it end for the downward spiral Jack Bauer finds himself trapped in now? How??

All answers will be revealed. And since it's not live here in Bolehland, you'll be sure that i'll be downloading em to watch, while staying clear away from the blogs, reviews, yahoo etc. Nooo spoilers for me.

Housefull

it's been awhile since my last hindi flick outing, and i guess 3 Idiots had satisfied that thirst enoug. But now, with an interesting trailer, and an attractive (both in performances and being visually appealing) cast with much to promise peaked my curiosity enough to make a trip down to the neighborhood cinema to catch this one. Why not right...

OOh wrong. First half hour had me cringing at the bad acting, lame script, very rehearsed slapstick, and even poorer comedic timing. I thought i had duped myself into believing that it couldn't have been that bad. But it was. Bad. Very bad. first 30 minutes.

But then it took a small twist in the plot, and additional characters were introduced, mainly Boman Irani (yeay!). A couple of entertaining (read lyrically funny) songs, some great one liners and we were off. Some measure of relief. Maybe.

So all in all Akshay Kumar pulled off his role well, aptly supported by current hit gal Deepika Padukone, Ritesh Deshmukh(he had the best lines in the movie), Lara Dutta (after Blue, you'd thought she'd bounce back, but hasn't gotten the right roles yet), Jiah Khan, and a bunch of cameos.

simple story, some foot tapping songs, but great one-liners, and some hilarious situations all in all barely saves the flick.

verdict: um... watch it if u have a free night, but leave ur brain in the car for this one

May 20, 2010

Robin Hood

Ridley Scott teams up again with his Gladiator star Russell Crowe to bring to us an awesome retelling of the famous folk lore of Robin Hood. This realistic and almost historically accurate depiction enables us to enjoy the tale from a totally different aspect.

We join Robin as an archer in King Richard's in the Crusades, who makes his way back to England with a few fellow deserters at the end of the war. Bent on completing a task, he heads to Nottingham where he meets Marion (Cate Blanchett) and seems to find his place back in civilization, until Sir Godfrey(Mark Strong)'s forces (he's working with the French) start to create havoc in the north and eventually happen upon Robin n his pals.

From there on it gets all action with the lords joining forces to drive out Sir Godfrey and the French, ally with a King they despise and then drive off the marauding forces of King Phillip on the shores of England, in front of the picturesque Seven Sisters.

However, the King then goes against his word, and outlaws Robin Hood and his men, who then seek refuge in Sherwood Forest... and hence begins the tale.

While there were a lot of mixed criticism from many quarters, i enjoyed the storytelling in this form. It seemed more real (Costner's version was always very romanticised), and more believable. Crowe is spectacular as usual, and while not as good as Gladiator, he does a great job wielding the longbow. Cate Blanchett's portrayal of Marion is nothing like the damsel in distress in earlier versions. She's equally apt with sword n bow, and while the chemistry is not entirely convincing, she was superb in her role.

Mark Strong is coming up with better performances with each movie he is cast in, but he may want to start looking for other roles other then the typecast baddie. as in Kick-Ass, Strong is utterly good playing bad!

The soundtrack i felt was a little let down, maybe this could have been what let the overall experience fall a little short.

verdict : Value for money, but could be much more