PAGE 26
PEOPLES DAILY WEEKEND SATURDAY 6— SUNDAY 7, OCTOBER, 2012
Hollywood/Bollywood 2013 Oscars: How Things Stack Up So Far
E
v e r y o n e wants to prognosticate the Oscars. They are months away. We still have not seen several movies, and some we won't see for a while. Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" and Tom Hooper's "Les Miserables" are big, big question marks. No one knows what will come with Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained." But based on what we've seen, and what's being shown this week at the New York Film Festival, here's how things stack up. To be continued, with many twists and turns to come‌ BEST PICTURE: Argo, The Master, Silver Linings Playbook, Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Life of Pi, The Paperboy, and Cloud Atlas are all in the mix to different degrees. Lincoln, Les Miserables, and Django Unchained are out there, somewhere. Zero Dark Thirty and The Promised Land also have promise. Flight, and two movies with similar titlesQuartet, and A Late Quartet, have possibilities. Hitchcock, with Anthony Hopkins, remains a mystery still. BEST ACTOR: Ben Affleck (Argo), Joaquin Phoenix (The Master), Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings), Tom Hanks (Cloud Atlas), Tommy Lee Jones (Hope Springs), Richard Gere (Arbitrage), Omar Sy (The Intouchables), Bill Murray (Hyde Park on Hudson), John Hawkes (The Sessions), Brad Pitt (Killing Them Softly) are all strong as is Jean-Louis
Jennifer Lawrence
Ben Affleck
Trintignant, a long shot from Amour. Daniel Day Lewis, Denzel Washington, Hugh Jackman, and Russell Crowe are wild cards. BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robert DeNiro, Roberto Benigni (outstanding in Woody Allen's To Rome with Love), Scoot McNairy (Killing Them Softlywatch him), Alan Arkin, Jim Broadbent (brilliant in Cloud Atlas), Matthew McConnaughey (The Paperboy), Jeremy Irvine, lead the list. A lot depends on who does what in Django. BEST ACTRESS: Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings), Halle Berry (Cloud Atlas), Kiera Knightley (Anna Karenina), Meryl Streep (Hope Springs), Viola Davis (Won't Back Down), Marion Cotillard (Rust and Bone), Greta Gerwig
(Frances Ha), Emmanelle Riva from Amour are names to be considered. I loved Jane Fonda in Peace, Love and Understandingshe'll get a comedy nomination from the Golden Globes, certainly. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Nicole Kidman, Amy Adams, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Anne Hathaway (Dark Knight Rises? Les Miz?), Jackie Weaver, Susan Sarandon, Mickey Sumner (Frances Ha), Laura Linney (The Details), Winona Ryder (The Iceman). Unknown: Sally Field is a strong possibility from Lincoln, Kerry Washington from Django. BEST DIRECTOR: Ben Affleck, David O. Russell, Paul Thomas Anderson, and then-who knows? Steven Spielberg, Tom Hooper, Kathryn Bigelow? The Wachowskis? Woody Allen? (Come on, the singing in the shower stuff was hilarious).
Veteran Sridevi, returns in English Vinglish
S
h e may have been out of the spotlight for 15 years, but Bollywood superstar Sridevi, still knows how to work her camera angles. Dressed in a canary yellow jacket, cream blouse and skinny jeans, augmenting her five-footsix frame with shiny beige heels, she cut a striking figure as she strode into a room full of reporters. When told she was up for a TV interview, she yelled for her makeup artist and proceeded to vigorously blot the shine off her face, looking into a handheld mirror. "She looks exactly the same," murmured those familiar with her film career, which started with Tamil films in the 1970s before dominating Bollywood in the 1980s and '90s with films such as Nagina and Chandni. Sridevi was in town last month to promote the gala presentation of English Vinglish, her comeback film in which she plays the lead role, at the Toronto International Film Festival. It opens in GTA theatres on Friday. It's the story, narrated to her by director Gauri Shinde, that drew her to the project, she said. "I just fell in love with the script," said Sridevi, 49, speaking so softly that you had to strain your ears to hear her. "And Gauri also. We instantly clicked." In the movie, Sridevi plays a middle-aged Indian housewife Shashi, an expert at making ladoos (an Indian sweet), but whose lack of fluency in English makes her the butt of family jokes. Frustrated, she enrolls in an English tuition class when she
Sridevi travels to New York to attend her niece's wedding. Encouraged by her classmates, including a Mexican nanny, an Asian hairstylist, a Pakistani cabbie and a South Indian IT guy, she comes into her own. Some romantic tension is added by Shashi's French chef classmate Laurent (Mehdi Nebbou). English Vinglish was inspired by her mother's struggles, said debutante director Shinde. "My mom faced similar problems of English language," she said. "English is all pervasive, most dominant language, especially in India. People make fun of you if you can't pronounce correctly or [speak] confidently . . . It's true for my mom, and so true for so many people. That's where I thought everyone could connect to it." With her saris all pleated and pinned to perfection, Sridevi doesn't exactly look like a harried housewife in the movie. Nevertheless, Shashi is a far cry from the glamorous
roles she used to play, when she was one of two Bollywood actresses who could be truly called a superstar in an industry dominated by men. (The other one was her competitor Madhuri Dixit.) In Nagina, she played a shape-shifting snake, who could take on human form, bent on avenging her husband's death. In Mr. India, directed by Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth), she played a journalist who happens to be the tenant of a man with the power to become invisible. English Vinglish's simple story allows for Sridevi to subtly showcase her many talents - her ability for drama and her brilliant knack for comic timing. The only thing missing is the big Bollywood dance spectacle she was famous for. It's the sign of a new era of female-centric Bollywood films. "It's really good to see the heroine not just doing some few scenes and running around the trees," said Sridevi. "I hope and pray it continues."
Bollywood producers drawn to Dubai's new Indian-themed project
W
Django Unchained
h i l e Dubai's n e w l y announced Taj M a h a l - t h e m e d development won't be completed until the end of 2014, it has already attracted interest from Bollywood producers eager to use the venue as a movie backdrop; it was announced at Cityscape Global on Tuesday. Falconcity of Wonders (FCW), a Dubai-based project which will include global iconic architecture
from around the world, such as The Pyramids of Egypt, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Eiffel Tower, The Great Wall of China, and The Leaning Tower of Pisa, on Tuesday announced the latest addition will come from the Indian subcontinent. The new project will be named the "Land of India and the Taj Arabia" and will include a replica of the iconic Agra tourist attraction. Set to be themed as the "New City of Love" and due to be
completed by end of 2014, the developers behind Falconcity said it has already attracted interest from Bollywood. "Some of Bollywood producers are also interested in shooting movies in "Land of India and the Taj Arabia" due to the fact that the surroundings of Taj Arabia are what a producer is looking for in making a movie," they said in a statement issued at Cityscape Global.