Oscar Nominations 2011

The nominations were announced about half an hour ago, so here is the obligatory 'reaction post' (even though the equally obligatory 'my wishlist post' never made it beyond my facebook status message).


Delighted:

- for A R Rahman, of course. Twin nominations, once again! And this time it feels even better than 2009 because that year those nominations were almost inevitable, unlike this year. 127 Hours lost a lot of steam because a lot of people just weren't interested in watching it (the theme/story doesn't really make it an audience magnet). Also, right at the fag end of the year True Grit released and sort of pushed around some of the not-so-sure nominees out. I was afraid that 127 Hours might've missed the bus. But it didn't!!! :) Now I'm getting greedy. I actually am hopeful that he'll WIN one of these. Perhaps not for original score, but If I Rise must stand a very good chance!

- for Pixar, as usual. Best picture and Best animated feature were a given but I didn't think the screenplay would get the recognition. Moreover, I had completely forgotten about Day&Night being in the run for the best animated short.. so that was a pleasant news!

- for Jackie Weaver. Animal Kingdom was a movie well worth watching, and Jackie Weaver's performance essentially carries the movie through the extremely engaging last hour or so of the movie. Ben Mendelsohn was actually really good too, but one can't have everything!

- for Winter's Bone. 4 of the biggest nomination categories!! Picture, actress, supporting actor and screenplay! It was a pleasant surprise to see that people remembered this small movie even though it was released way back in the summer. (unlike The Ghost Writer, which released pretty early in the year and was completely forgotten)

- for The Kids Are All Right. see 'Winter's Bone'. except that this actually did release closer to the oscar season, and hence wasn't really a surprise.

- for Javier Bardem. Haven't seen the movie yet, but I'm always delighted whenever a performance in a foreign language movie gets such attention. He missed out on a nomination for Mar Adentro, but perhaps this will be his year again (after Anton Chigurh got him a well deserved oscar). Then again, Colin Firth (or James Franco) might have something to say about that..

- for all the obvious nominations of The Social Network and Inception. There's no way they were going to miss out on the obvious ones like best picture, screenplay, music etc... Then again.....


Sad/Dejected/Disappointed


- for Nolan. now THIS I didn't see coming. He has never been nominated for direction before (actually, before today he had only 1 nomination.. for Memento's screenplay), but this should really have been his. The guy has had an astounding decade. I think they will soon give him a lifetime achievement award (at age 45!) to atone for all these sins.

- for Inception editing! If anything could be even more disappointing and puzzling than the Nolan snub, it had to this! Inception, NOT nominated for editing! I have no idea what to think. I REALLY need to see those other movies. 

Trailer Park 3

Let's start with Frieda Pinto... Julian Schnabel... and Bombay Theme!



One for fun....



And the rest.... interesting for one reason or another...

Raavan Day 1 - disappointing

Ok, let me be clear. Disappointing only because this is Mani/Rahman/Gulzar. Disappointing in the same sense as Guru's music was a disappointment. After all, a Mani/Rahman album has no business having "Ek lo ek muft" and "Baazi laga" in it. Then again, every other song except those two were thoroughly deserving of being there. It is somewhat similar with Raavan too. I must say, though, that this is just the first day impressions. Chances are that a week from now I'll be posting "what was I thinking? Raavan! disappointing?"

Anyway, here is a mini-review.. just some thoughts on the songs...

1) Beera Beera : Fabulous song! The shortest song in the album, but carries the maximum punch. They thought of putting an "african" song for a maoist's introduction! well, maybe the "jungle" connection is there. The reason I call it "african" is because if I filter the lyrics and pretend that I am not listening to something in Hindi I can clearly hear something from one of the south african countries. :) The vocals by Mustafa Kutoane add so much to the song. Can't wait to hear this in ARR's voice in Tamil.

9.5/10

2) Behne De : Starts with a background of music that feels just heavenly. And then Karthik starts singing. wow! pretty good soft, slowish romantic song. The only drawback, if you can call it  that, is that it seems to follow pretty much standard ARR soft song script. Makes me think of Bhoola Tujhe .But then that's not a bad thing. Also, I have absolutely no doubt that when I listen to it with more attention, I'll find little instrumental/melodic gems throughout that will be completely uniquely of this song. This IS the sort of song that ARR seems to "polish" a lot to satiate his thirst for innovation.

9.2/10

3) Thok De Killi : This is the "Ek lo ek muft" of this album. perhaps better than that, but still doesn't work for me at all. At least not till now. I noticed some instrumental turns etc that were engaging but overall this is what the cliche "situational song, will work in the movie" is used for. The song talks about this group (maoists) talking about "Dilli" thinking them as "pichhda huaa" etc. I don't see how something like this will work in the form of a song. Then again, perhaps a better song would've made it work. After all, "Chale Chalo" is such an anachronism for the time in which it is set in, yet it works beautifully because it is such a great song. This is just disappointing. I don't see it improving even in Tamil, but I hope it surprises me.

5.5/10

4) Ranjha Ranjha : Do I like this so much because it comes right after Thok De Killi? :) I don't know why, but I find it really seductive. Not that it is terribly original, just like Behne De. Reminds me of Taal's songs. Something in between "Ramta jogi" and "Kahin aag lage". And from recent songs, very reminiscent of Blue's "Yaar mila tha". It has something to do with the structure (female and male voices alternating... conversing in the song), but it's not just. There is something to do with the way rhythm seems just that bit off-expected lines and the way words seem to seem to follow the contours of the rhythm. Needless to say, Rekha Bhardwaj gives the song her own unique flavor. And it is always a pleasure to hear Javed Ali's silk-smooth vocals. As for my 'not terribly original' comment, that doesn't apply to the instrumentals going on here. ARR seems to be having a lot of fun playing around with things in this song. Then again, even THAT isn't unexpected. He can't help it. :D Good for us, I say! :)

8.8/10

5) Khili Re : Remember what ARR did to Ghazals in Tehzeeb? The singer is singing a perfectly "Ghazalish" Ghazal and ARR just adds modern instruments in the background that seemed so awkward in the first hearing.  It definitely grew on me later and I actually liked what he had tried to do there. I think this is exactly the case here. Try to filter the instruments, and this seems another of his devotional melodious numbers that I have a weakness for. "Man mohana" didn't engage a lot of people but I thought it was really amazing. I could never resist its charm even though it is really such a simple bhajan. That is also true for "O paalanhaare". Trouble is, the instruments are doing something completely different here. This is ARR's Tehzeeb moment in this album, though much more subtle than that album. What  that does is it makes the song seem ok, but there seems something awkward about it, something amiss. That's why what I think as of now is that it is 'sweet, but  not nice enough'. However, I think there is a very good chance that this one is going to grow on me later. As of right now, the rating is..

7.9/10

6) Kata Kata : The start is absolutely wow! It is almost as catchy as Beera Beera! I have caught myself singing the first line of this song almost as much as Beera Beera since I heard the samples for the first time 3-4 days ago. But then, it sort of derails. And I suspect it has a lot to do with the lyrics here. Not the meaning of the words, per se, but the flow. Something tells me that this one was composed with Tamil lyrics first and they just couldn't do a good enough job of writing lyrics in Hindi that'd have gelled well with the flow of the song. If that's the case, this will gain a lot from a hearing in Tamil. in any case, i have noticed that I don't particularly care for hindi songs with "aunty ji chorus" :D Basically all the wedding type songs where some women are teasing the bride/groom. There is something about it that I don't like. But this only happens in hindi. I can think of a lot of tamil songs that haven't been dubbed in hindi which have similar chorus but I don't mind that at all. I am really hopeful that this song will gain a lot in its Tamil version. Like I said, overall, the rhythm is really, really good/catchy. It might catch on with junta. then again, it seems that this will be picturized like Ek lo ek muft, with the whole village dancing around (Mani seems to like this a lot). I don't see that being particularly junta-entrancing. Hopefully I'm wrong.

7.7/10

So, that's the first-day impressions. The reason i said it is disappointing is because one of the songs is just a complete let-down and two others are, as of now, not Mani/Rahman level. While the other three are really good, I think the sum of Barso re megha, Tere Bina, Ae Hairate, Jaage Hain and Mayya Mayya has to be higher than these. AND Guru wasn't even close to being one of ARR/Mani's best albums. So....

Tamil ARR songs for a non-Tamil.

A friend of GG asked her to get me to send her some Tamil songs that she might like. She hasn't heard many Tamil songs before and GG tells me that she tends to like Slow/Soothing/melodious kind of songs in general (not that she doesn't like any fast paced ones.. just  that if I have to make a small list, I'd do well to choose slowish songs).

So, I spent half an hour browsing through my ARR tamil albums and making a list of about 25 songs. That sounded too many, specially for someone who might not have heard many songs in a language she doesn't understand. So, Pesc suggested pruning it down to about 10, and sending the list in a mail with some comments about them. I had to take some gems out because of various reasons. I didn't wish to include any song that has already been dubbed in Hindi as there'd be a high chance she'd already have heard them. (Still, one of them is in the list... ). Also, there are some songs that I find it difficult to decide whether the movie/picturization etc add a lot to my love for them. If I suspected that, I struck them out too.

So, here are the 10.... well, 11 actually, since I added one right at the end probably because my media player decided to play that one right when i was about to send the mail and I just could not get myself to ignore it!! :) The resulting mail follows..

Nice... Soft.. Soothing... Melodious...  

well.. almost all.. some of these are fast/non-soothing. But ab list mein daal diya to daal diya.. :P

So, here is the list, roughly in the decreasing order of priority.. i.e. listen to the top one first.

1) Vellai Pookal from Kannathil Mutthamittal: very soothing. Awesome song from a great movie. one of the best songs sung by ARR himself, and that's saying a LOT. 

2) New York from Jillonu Oru Kaadhal: very melodious. "All time favorite Rahman song" of my roommate. Again, ARR keeps an awesome song with his own voice. :)

3) Elay from Sakkarakatti: not slow/soft/soothing. reasonably fast, but great fun.

4) Ithuthan Kadhal Inbada (female) from Pudhiya Mugham: you might have heard this already in hindi. But even if you have, well worth a revisit in its original form. A beeyouuuutiful song.

5) Ennuyir Thozhiye from Kangalal Kaithu Sei: absolutely heavenly piano in the interludes. That part itself makes this a great song.

6) Sonnalum from Kaadhal Virus: I think I especially like songs with slight Carnatic classical touch. and ARR obliges with a lot of melodious songs that have just that tiny classical touch to them yet seem so far away from classical finally. And the chorus here is to die for.

7) Enna Solla Pogirai from Kandukondain Kandukondain: Not slow/soothing but one of the most popular songs from one of his greatest albums. Shankar Mahadevan got a national award for singing this song. I could've blindly chosen almost any song from this album actually. went for the most catchy/popular.

8) Udhaya Udhaya from Udhaya: In many aspects it is like Sonnalum. a soft soothing duet.

9) En Veetu Thotatil from Gentleman: They lifted 3 songs from Gentleman without crediting Rahman, and left this gem. Perhaps because they thought it has too much of a "southie touch". They didn't know, of course, that soon that "southie touch" will take the nation by storm in Bombay/Hum Se Hai Muqabla etc... :)

10) Evano Oruvan from Alaipayuthey: Alaipayuthey was remade into Saathiya and they kept all the songs except two. One of them is this. I was aghast when I heard that they have composed a new song for this situation because, again, this is too "southie". Didn't mind in the end, because that new song was "Mera Yaar Mila De... Banjar hai sab banjar hai... ". Doesn't hurt to get another good new song, does it? :) But this one is definitely as good, if not slightly better. the female voice just melts me.. and the flute!! wow!!

11) Theekuruvil from Kangalal Kaithu Sei: Bonus song. not slow. not soothing at all. very fast actually. and perhaps a little difficult to like initially. But just keep an ear for the female singer's vocal acrobatics. What singing!!! very fun song, but really, it's the singer that makes this a must-listen. 

I can see that I have written more about the songs that are actually lower in the list. :) Doesn't mean that the top ones weren't worth talking about. Just that I got into the flow of discussing in depth later in the list. :) sorry.

By the way, standard conditions apply. You are not allowed to hear any of these songs unless you are able (i.e. have the time) and willing (i.e. have the enthu) to give it 3 hearings. continuously. i.e. hear 1, then again hear 1, then AGAIN hear 1, before moving on to 2. Take as much time as you need before this condition can be met, but don't break it. Please. 

And, no laptop speakers, of course. not even external speakers. good earphones/headphones are a must. :D

The youtube links are posted below, if anyone is interested but too lazy to find them him/herself. :)
















Close your eyes for this next one. that is probably a good idea for all of these if you just want to enjoy the song without being distracted (positively, or negatively) by the video, but this one is actually not even the real video of the song. Someone took a song video of Anniyan and added the ARR song with it!

Raavan Tracklist is here... Yay!!!!

Yay!!!! :) Though I wish this is incomplete. I want more songs!!!! :( Though, perhaps it is expected, I think most recent Mani movies have only 5-6 tracks, except Alaipayuthey/Saathiya. Still, hoping for some more tracks, if only instrumental themes.

Here is the list as given on bollywoodhungama.com

Behene De - Karthik
Beera Beera - Vijay Prakash
Kata Kata - Ila Arun, Sapna Awasthi & Kunal Ganjawala
Khilli Re - Reena Bhardwaj
Ranjha Ranjha - Rekha Bhardwaj & Javed Ali
Thok De Killi - Sukhwinder Singh

Hmmm... Reena AND Rekha Bhardwaj. Rekha is Palash and Vasudha's "Rekha bhabhi" of course (they consider Vishal Bhardwaj their spiritual brother). Reena must be the "Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlaata Hai" (Meenaxi) and "Main Vaari Vaari" (1857 - The Rising) woman. 

Sapna "Chhaiyya Chhaiyya" Awasthi AND Ila Arun together!! Has THAT ever happened before? :D

Can never hurt to have Javed Ali sing one. And solos for Karthik and Sukhwinder sound promising too. 

So, people, ARR season is here again. Yay!!!!

PS: just to be clear, the list is out, not the music!! Patience junta, patience!