The best, the worst and the in between - adieu 2010

The year is racing to a finish, and it is time to look back at what went by, or rather whizzed by. I wish I could have read more, seen more films, traveled more places – and eaten less
Films: There were some really good ones and there were some really bad ones, and then there was mostly a lot of stuff in between. After a hiatus from Bollywood I went back to watching a lot of BW films (mostly what released in theaters here), while picking my HW films with care and caution! Here is a HW list:
1. Inception – loved the film, the mind-bender that kept us thinking and discussing for days on end. Leo DiCaprio did not disappoint and Marion Cotillard was luminous.

Does Hollywood treat women with realism?

via Roger Ebert!

How many HW films have you seen that took the test and came out successful?  What about BW?

After blackface, brownface?

Who's the Indian in The Social Network?

“The Social Network” opened last week to rave reviews, Oscar buzz and a big box office. This is the type of movie that actors give their right arms to star in.

Given the movie is at least loosely based on the Facebook story, there is an Indian character that plays an integral role in the narrative: Divya Narendra, a Harvard student who tussled with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg.

An Indian doesn’t play Mr. Narendra in the movie. Instead, he is played by Max Minghella, who has Italian, Scottish and Chinese ancestry, according to his Wikipedia profile posted on http://www.maxminghella.com/

This past summer, “Prince of Persia” and “Airbender,” two big-budget Hollywood movies, caused a stir by casting white actors in the roles of South Asian and Middle Eastern actors. The producers of those movies explained the casting by saying these were movies based on video games and comics where the ethnicity of the characters isn’t known. That explanation was more plausible with Airbender, where no ethnicities are mentioned in the comics, than the descriptively named Prince of Persia.

But The Social Network is a movie based on real people. Mr. Narendra is of Indian descent. In an interview, he said he was “initially surprised to see a white actor play him on screen.”

Anil Kapoor to star in Mission Impossible 4

MUMBAI: More than two decades after he did the disappearing act in Mr India , Anil Kapoor seems to have moved to Hollywood: he will act in the fourth instalment of Mission Impossible, a popular action thriller series of films starring Tom Cruise.

"At this point, I can only say that I have been contacted for Mission Impossible 4 and I have agreed for the role," Mr Kapoor told ET.

He will be starring alongside Tom Cruise, Paula Patton, French actress Lea Seydoux and Ving Rhames among others in the film being produced by Paramount Pictures . Some parts of the action thriller will be shot in Rajasthan starting this month end, said Sarabjit Singh, India head of Paramount Pictures. “Mission Impossible 4 will most likely be the last of the sequels," he said. 

This Year's Oscar bait

Oscar season is about to begin in Hollywood.  With that comes the Oscar bait films ready for release.  Here are some likely contenders and their trailers.  Will keep adding more as they come. Scroll down below for all promos.

As far as Bollywood/India is concerned, they have submitted Peepli Live.  We'll see if it makes it to the nominations.

The Tourist trailer: *ing Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie

Changed promo to the official full version

Hereafter trailer

Directed by Clint Eastwood, starring Matt Damon

Hisss Trailer: Mallika as icchhadhari naagin

Megamind trailer with Brad Pitt & Will Ferrel

Black Swan trailer

Freakonomics Trailer

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Daniel Craig confirmed

Daniel Craig has been confirmed to star in Columbia Pictures' three-picture adaptation of Stieg Larsson's literary blockbuster "The Millennium Trilogy" under the direction of David Fincher.

Rooney Mara is also locked into the lead role of the series which begins with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; the subsequent entries are The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

The screenplay is written by Steve Zaillian and the film is being produced by Scott Rudin, Cean Chaffin, Ole Sondberg and Søren Stærmose. Mikael Wallen and Anni Fernandez are executive producers.

Mara starred in this year's A Nightmare on Elm Street and will be seen in Fincher's upcoming film The Social Network. Below is the official headshot of Rooney issued wit the casting announcement.

SOURCE

Our Town poster

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows trailer

Roger Ebert: Eat pray love

Elizabeth Gilbert's book "Eat, Pray, Love," unread by me, spent 150 weeks on the New York Times best seller list and is by some accounts a good one. It is also movie material, concerning as it does a tall blond (Gilbert) who ditches a failing marriage and a disastrous love affair to spend a year living in Italy, India and Bali seeking to find the balance of body, mind and spirit.

During this journey, great-looking men are platooned at her, and a wise man, who has to be reminded who she is, remembers instantly, although what he remembers is only what she's just told him.

Thor Comic Con Trailer

Dinner for Schmucks review

Dinner for Schmucks (PG-13)

Ebert:

BY ROGER EBERT / July 28, 2010
The truly goofy comes shrouded in innocence. If a man is trying to be goofy, it's just an act that quickly grows old. But if he lacks the slightest notion of his peculiarity, there's the secret. The blissful ignorance of Barry Speck is beyond pitiful and ascends to a kind of nobility. He's one of those who truly doesn't have a clue.

In “Dinner for Schmucks,” a group of arrogant rich men use him as part of an elaborate joke, but the joke is on them. You can't insult a man who is always happy to be just exactly who he is. In the film, the millionaires have a dinner party every year that is a secret joke: Each guest invites another guest who is, whether he realizes it or not, in a contest to determine which guest is the biggest idiot. This is plain cruel.

Lindsay Turns Jail Stint into Cash Cow

Lindsay Lohan may be behind bars, but she is making more money there than she's made in the last year.

The actress managed to finalize TV and news deals the night before she went off to the clink. Sources tell Fox 411 that she locked down all her tell-all interviews already and she will likely be making seven figures when it is all said and done for her story from jail.

Today's 13 Most Irritating Female Celebrities

Once every teenage boy’s greatest fantasy, Britney Spears not only proved herself to be quite a crazy hillbilly, but she also really let herself go. It wasn’t her beautiful singing voice that made her famous, it was the fact that she was super hot, but now she can’t stop shoving Cheetos into her mouth. Normal women don’t have the infinite availability or finances to stay fit with the best in the business, but she can’t be bothered.

This was especially evident when she paraded her bloated belly and cottage cheese butt around the stage while lip-synching in a black bra and panties on the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards. In fact, Britney Spears continues to wear clothing that would have fit her perfect in 1998; unfortunately, it’s 2010 and she is now clearly offending public decency laws in 16 U.S. states.

Kristen Stewart compared getting her photograph taken by the paparazzi to getting raped. Need I say more? This miserable actress scoffs at the millions of Twilight fans and consistently speaks negatively of the Twilight franchise, as she clearly deserves more serious dramatic roles. Yeah, she’s the next Meryl Streep, if Meryl Streep was a homely looking chick who couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. If only the studios would get up the nerve to simply recast her, then the public would never have to set eyes on this ungrateful little ass ever again. And she’s in some serious denial if she thinks anyone would even notice she was missing, not if Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson are still on the screen.

Angelina Jolie's SALT: reviews

Salt ****

BY ROGER EBERT / July 21, 2010

"Salt" is a damn fine thriller. It does all the things I can't stand in bad movies, and does them in a good one. It's like a rebuke to all the lousy action movie directors who've been banging pots and pans together in our skulls. It winds your clock tight and the alarm doesn't go off for 100 minutes.
It's gloriously absurd. This movie has holes in it big enough to drive the whole movie through. The laws of physics seem to be suspended here the same way as in a Road Runner cartoon. Angelina Jolie runs full speed out into thin air and doesn't look down until she's in the helicopter at the end.

Jolie is one fine-looking woman. You don't need me to tell you that. It's why she gets the big bucks. The movies have celebrated her eyes, lips, profile, biceps, boobs, waist, butt, thighs. “Salt" pays tribute to her ankles. Anyone who can jump from the heights she does here, in the way she does it, may die from a lot of causes, but a sprained ankle won't be one of them.