Oscars 2013 - My predictions

Here is a look at my predictions for some of the main categories at the Academy Awards this year.
I have not watched all the films in contention. So, the predictions will be more of 'What will win' rather than 'What should win'.

Best Motion Picture of the Year

Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

My pick: Argo - It has always been a front runner ever since the movie's release. Later it became a 3 way race with Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty being the other two. But seeing how Ben Affleck won the Directors Guild Award and Argo winning both Producers Guild Award and the Golden Globes, I wonder if there is anything at all that stands between Argo and the coveted prize.

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Bradley Cooper for Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln
Hugh Jackman for Les Misérables
Joaquin Phoenix for The Master
Denzel Washington for Flight

My pick: Daniel Day-Lewis. He has had rave reviews all over for his performance as the 16th President of the United States. He has also already won the Screen Actors Guild Award and the Globes

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Jessica Chastain for Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva for Amour
Quvenzhané Wallis for Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts for The Impossible



My pick: It's a two way race between Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain both having won fair share of awards leading to the Oscars. But the former might have a slight edge having won both SAG and Globes.

Best Achievement in Directing

Michael Haneke for Amour
Ang Lee for Life of Pi 
David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook
Steven Spielberg for Lincoln
Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild

My pick: It was really crazy on the part of the Academy that they had not nominated Ben Affleck or Kathryn Bigelow or Quentin Tarantino! I have no clue who would win. It could either be Michael Haneke or Steven Spielberg.

Best Animated Film of the Year

Brave
Frankenweenie 
ParaNorman
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
Wreck-It Ralph

My pick: My favorite part! The only category where I've watched all the films and my favorite was Wreck-It Ralph. Such a cute little movie which was colorful and lovely. I want it to win. Tim Burton's Frankenweenie has an outside chance. Being a big Pixar fan boy, I found the magic missing in Brave. But having already won the Globes and BAFTA, it could very well have the last laugh.

Few other categories which I feel some of the contenders have a very strong case of winning:
Cinematography, Visual Effects, Production Design - Life of Pi
Original Screenplay - Django Unchained
Costume Design - Anna Karenina
Foreign Language Film - Amour
Makeup & Hairstyling - Les Misérables
Original Score - Skyfall

I haven't discussed the Supporting actors category but am pretty sure Anne Hathaway will be winning in the Actress category for her terrific performance in the musical Les Misérables. You will also be convinced after watching her 'For your consideration' video:

What do you think of the nominees and the probable winners? Pls mention in the comments below.

Indie Game: The Movie

I ain't much of a gamer. The most I play are some light-weight PC games when am bored. I stumbled upon this movie only when I saw it being rated as the best movie of 2012 by Mihir Fadnavis. Initially I was put off that it was a documentary and that it could be boring. But later decided to check out anyway. The movie talks about independent game developers, the struggles they face during the process of developing a game and then releasing it.

The film caught my attention in the initial few minutes when Tommy Refenes says this in the movie "I'm not going to go work at 'EA' or 'Epic'. That sounds horrible. That sounds like Hell to me. So, if it (the game) comes out and people hate it, it doesn't make a difference because even though it's a game that people are supposed to buy it's not a game that I made 'for people'.... I made it for myself"
Wow! The passion, the one thing that was common to every Indie developer in this movie. How they wanted to express themselves through the games and not just make some well-polished and marketed 'crap' (Tommy also goes on to say that 'Modern Warfare' or 'Halo Reach' are sh*t and that he hates them).

The movie revolves around interviews of developers of 3 of the most popular Indie games. Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes who developed Super Meat Boy, Phil Fish of Fez and Jonathan Blow who created Braid. It talks about their early struggles without any big corporate backing, tight deadlines, public pressure (Fez was in the making for almost 5 years after it was announced in 2007). Also the games they conceptualized and developed were something personal and might not appeal to the masses. So there is always the risk of investing a lot of time and money on something but then it could become a total failure. But all of them have successfully managed to break those barriers and released their games on various platforms and earned critical success. Most people know about the game factories like EA, EPIC etc but these people are rarely in the limelight. So, I liked the way this movie talked about these master minds who work single-handed (or in pairs) and make such beautiful creations!

P.S. There were some nice recommendations of indie games when they discussed a few in the back drop. Thought of making a list so as to check out later:
Super Meat Boy, Fez,  Braid, World of Goo, Castle crashers, Osmos, Limbo, Journey, Minecraft, Sword and Sorcerer, Overgrowth.

Movies 2012 - Good, Bad and Ugly

Here's the collection of 100 movies I watched in 2012.

Classics: Watched a few classics like some of Scorsese's - Casino, Raging Bull, Goodfellas (at Roof Top Film Festival), Alien & Aliens (leading up to Prometheus), Batman Begins & The Dark Knight (leading up to TDKR), Shaun of the Dead, Mystic River and Total Recall (1990). There is no meaning in classifying them into the categories below. So they are excluded.

Excellent:

Real Steel | Avengers | The Dark Knight Rises | Intouchables | Looper | Pizza

Very Good:

Midnight in Paris | Megamind | Puss in boots | Spirited Away | Kari-gurashi no Arietti | Sherlock Holmes: A game of shadows | Man on a ledge | Prometheus | Le diner de cons | Amazing Spider-Man | Naan E | The Cabin in the woods | Naan | Serbuan maut (The Raid: Redemption) | Men in Black 3 | We bought a zoo | Safety not guaranteed | Skyfall | Life of Pi | The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey | Frankenweenie | Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kanom | Kumki | Thuppakki

Good:

Friends with Benefits | The Hunger Games | Carnage | Nanban | Vazhakku en: 18/9 | Kalakalappu | Seeking Justice | Event Horizon | Limitless | Madagascar 3 | Dawn of the Dead | Billa 2 | Arthur Christmas | Wrath of the Titans |The Lorax | 21 Jump Street | Battleship | The Bourne Legacy | Supermen of Malegaon | The Pirates!Band of Misfits | The Grey | Band Baaja Baaraat | Infernal Affairs 3 | The Proposal | The Best Exotic Marigold hotel | 10 things I hate about you | Exam | Abraham Lincoln: The Vampire Hunter | Brave | Paranorman | Moonrise Kingdom | Liberal Arts | Beasts of the Southern Wild | Taken 2 | Untraceable | Premium Rush | Mounaguru | ZNMD | Kadhalil Sothapuvadhu Yeppadi

Average:

Beginners | The Immortals | Journey 2 - The Mysterious Island | In Time | Tower Heist | Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader | Johnny English Reborn | Paranormal Activity 3 | Ice Age 4: Continental Drift | American Reunion | Thaandavam | Sundarapandian | Maattrraan

Bad:

Vampires Suck | Aliens in the attic | OKOK | John Carter | Charulatha | Neethane En Ponvasantham | Resident Evil - Retribution | Piranha 3DD

World Cinema:

Cantonese - Infernal Affairs 3 (The Cantonese trilogy original from which The Departed was inspired. 1st part was the best!)
French - Le diner de cons (The Dinner Game) | Intouchables
Indonesian - Serbuan maut (The Raid: Redemption)
Japanese - Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (Spirited Away) | Kari-gurashi no Arietti (The Secret World of Arrietty)

These are some of the movies from 2012 am yet to watch!

Argo | Zero Dark Thirty | Lincoln | Silver Linings Playbook | Cloud Atlas | Flight | Les Misérables | Amour | Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Also planning to watch more Hindi movies in 2013. Realised that I watched none of the mainstream Bollywood releases from 2012. Only one I watched was an Indie film 'Supermen of Malegaon'.

Now Playing

I travel a lot, at least 3-4 hours everyday (to and from work). I have lot of time to kill and hence listen to lot of music. But I have never tried reviewing songs or music albums because I don't think am much of a music expert. Just a music aficionado. Recently I added 3 new music albums to my playlist and thought I shall write about them. More because the blog has been idle for quite sometime.

Thuppakki (Harris):
The most hyped about album among the 3. It's a Vijay film so it comes with lot of talk as he is known for his dance numbers. The music is by Harris Jeyaraj, one of the leading composers in Kollywood. Though he seems to be losing his touch a bit of late (Maattrraan was just ok, except for 'Kaal mulaitha poove'). Coming back to Thuppakki, "Google google" was easily the pick of the lot. Had a nice peppy feel, good singing by Andrea and some decent singing by Vijay. None of the other tracks impressed me. They were ok-ok. They seemed to be good dance numbers, may be tailor made for Vijay and might work well with his dance moves. We need to wait and watch.

Aadhi Bhagavan (Yuvan):
The Sound track of this movie took me by surprise. I like Yuvan's compositions. There will be atleast a couple of good songs in his every album. I liked this album, more because it was different than being great. "The Bhagavan Rap" by The Prophecy and Sathyan (anyone heard of that singer/band before?). Later found that he is a Canadian singer Rajeev (known as ThaProphecy).  This has become one of my most favorite songs in recent time. Has been in infinite loops. Also is this the 1st time there is a full length English rap in a Tamil movie? I know other raps  from Yogi B etc., but they were Tamil raps or had English-Tamil mix. This one except the 'Bhagavan chant' was totally in English and absolutely rocked. Couldn't believe it was a Rap song composition by Yuvan!
Another track which was different was "Agadam Bagadam". Again was this the 1st time there is a full length hindi track in a Tamil film? Mohit Chauhan's voice was good to listen to and a good tune by Yuvan. 

There was one more song with Arabic flavor "Eisalaamey Eisalaam" and the rest had nothing great to write about. But kudos to Yuvan for trying something different this time. Hoping that the BGM and re-recording will also be great in the 'Mafioso Action' movie, as they are calling it.

Podaa Podi (Dharan):
I reserved my favorite for the last :) This was one entertaining album! I loved almost every track and Dharan Kumar has done a great job. All the songs are peppy and neat. They are refreshing and makes you want to listen again and again. I wasn't a big fan of the teaser of the movie released with "Love panlama venama" intro. But once I heard the whole song, I knew it was going to be addictive. It's also my favorite track from the album. I also liked "I am a kuthu dancer", had a nice beat it with the power house voice of Shankar Mahadevan. The idea behind "Appan Mavanae Vaada", a dad singing to his son, was nice. Hare Rama Hare Krishna" was refreshing. Knowing Simbhu's moves, am confident he would do great justice to all the songs and it's going to be fun! 

Overall, add these to your playlist now!
The Bhagavan rap | Love panlama venama | Google google

Rise of the Dark Knight

A terrific cinematic experience. A great end to the Dark Knight trilogy inspite of small inconsistencies and logical loopholes. As always Zimmer's music lends soul to the narration. Bale-Hathaway chemistry was good to watch and their face-offs were interesting. It's a known fact that even Nolan himself might find it hard to better the 'Joker legend', so the comparisons to Bane are not necessary. Bane does his part of terrorizing the Gotham population. As a Nolan-Batman fan, I sincerely hope that Chris Nolan reconsiders his decision and makes the franchise bigger than just a trilogy. Hope he atleast makes a Batman-Robin feature with Bale & Levitt just to erase the memories of Joel Schumacher's disaster