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Showing posts from November, 2013

What people in India wanted 50 years ago

This beautiful documentary made in 1967 by the Films Division of India and directed by Mr. S.N.S. Shastry, is a beautiful reflection of the mentality of people of various genders and societies, 20 years after the independence of our country, India. People talk about their expectations and ambitions, and about their miseries and opinions about the country. Most of the interviewees are born on the day we got independence, 15th August 1947, and are 20 years old at the time of making this video. The interviewees have various opinions about the administration and the development of the country at that time. There are those who are joyful about the freedom they have in pursuing education and aiming for a good career, while some pester about the improvements that has to come about. Their dreams, hopes, frustrations and confusions surface in the documentary. One guy, who is my favourite, wants to travel, make money and produce a film based on him. This wonderful documentary is a must watc

'Aningaaq' fails to enter best live-shorts shortlist at Oscars; 'Kush' by Indian director Shubhashish for consideration

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Just two days back, internet opened to a viral viewership to the amazing short 'Aningaaq', made as a spin off of one of  the year's most admired movie 'Gravity', and the rumours of it getting considered by the Academy for best live-short film this year at the Oscars were flying around at large. But let's say the axe fell too quick on the expectations, as the Academy released its 10 shortlisted live-shorts that would fight for the nominations by January next year. Well, 'Aningaaq' is sadly absent in the list. The movies in consideration are as follows: “Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn’t Me),” Esteban Crespo, director (Producciones Africanauan) “Avant Que De Tout Perdre (Just before Losing Everything),” Xavier Legrand, director, and Alexandre Gavras, producer (KG Productions) “Dva (Two),” Mickey Nedimovic, director, and Henner Besuch, director of photography (Filoufilm Dani Barsch) “Helium,” Anders Walter, director, and Kim Magnusson, producer (M

Aningaaq : Jonas Cuaron's 'Gravity' spin off explores the other side to Bullock's distress call

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Remember this scene from 'Gravity' where Sandra Bullock's character Ryan Stone, loses all hope of surviving and shuts down her drone. Just before that she finds peace in her conversation through her transmitter with a guy called Aningaaq. You hear his voice, and his speech, a dogs bark and a crying child. Have you wondered who they were? Well, you don't have to any more. Jonas Cuaron, son of the director Alfonso Cuaron himself, who co-wrote 'gravity' alongside his father, wrote a shortie based on this conversation. Financed by Warner Videos, who wanted the short to come out with their Blu-ray editions, found the short's potential to be much more than they intended. Now doing rounds in various festivals for short films, they might be just in luck if they could get a nomination for their short film 'Aningaaq' at the prestigious Oscars this year, in the live action short film category. If so, it could be very much possible that Warner's could b

Bollywood's 100-cr obsession

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Yet another movie has successfully crossed the 200-crore line at the Indian box office for Bollywood movie a couple of days back - 'Krrish 3'. With releases in more theatres at the same time, and increased number of prints, producers want to reap the maximum in the least amount of time before the next hyped movie takes over. Let me start with the first one in this club- '3 Idiots'. It was the first movie to cross 200-crores. Let me point out that there are people who consider even this movie to be dumb, but i do differ. Well, for one it was hilarious. It was after so long that a truly funny Hindi movie had come out. People also had other inclinations while going on for this movie. Viewers of Aamir would consider the movie in the 'out-of-the-box', effort and quality driven category, whereas fans of Raju Hirani's previous work 'Munnabhai', knows the amount and class of the comedy they were invited to. Both didn't disappoint you. So, when I