Slums Ka Saya : Aaskars Mein ‘Jai Ho’

(This post was written yesterday (22nd Jan) evening, just before I left to see Slumdog Millionaire.)Oscar Nominations are out

And by now it's an old news that Rahman has got three nominations for Slumdog Millionaire
(Hans Zimmer has no nomination for TDK and is out of competition).

Rahman's Nominations-

One nomination for Best Music (Score) for which he is competing with - The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, Defiance, Milk (haven't heard scores of any of these films so can't comment) & Wall - E. I feel he is going to face a tough competition in eight times Oscar Nominee Thomas Newman (Shawshank Redemption, Little Woman, American Beauty, Road To Perdition, Finding Nemo, Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events & Good German).

Two Nominations for - Best Music (Song) - 'Jai Ho' & 'O Saya' here he is competing with Peter Gabriel (& Thomas Newman's) song Down To Earth (for which Peter has already won World Soundtrack Award for Best Original Song Written Directly for Film).
IMHO looking at all the probabilities Rahman's songs have a much-much stronger chance to win in this category.
(The only thing that can work against Rahman is the lyrics of the SM songs. Gulzar's lyrics are too poetic and can't be translated/dubbed on the other hand Peter's Lyrics which are in english will be easy for the Jury to understand).

Let's hope Rahman brings back the first Individual Oscar to India.

I saw Slumdog Millionaire and strongly felt - the film is over hyped. I feel its an okay okay film, with brilliant cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle (who was the DOP for wonderfully shot - The Last King Of Scottland as well), great performances by the slum kids and brilliant soundtrack by Rahman.

In many ways the film reminded me of Bombay Talkie (1970).

Wanna write more about SM but there will be lots of spoilers, I think I should wait atleast for a week before I post my SM Review here.

Oscar Se Aaskar Tak

India is celebrating on Rahman getting 3 Oscar Nominations, forgetting the great sacrifices made by Mr.Oscar(pronounced Aaskar) Ravichandran, who recieved a legal notice from Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the spring of 2008 to change his company's name from Oscar Films to something else. The creative genius came up with a new name- "Aaskar Films Private Ltd" and also replaced the logo he had been using (which was similar...identical to the one used for the Academy Awards)

So much for Oscars Aaskars!

PS. Do read this hilarious post on AaskarAwards on Son of Bosey.

Finall - E

Finally they released Wall-E in India. The film has become a classic within a week after its release (ranked # 29 in IMDB's Top 250 List). No point talking about the story or the animation bit of it, we all know Gods at Pixar are The Master Of The (Animation) Universe. Its of no use to talk about the movie either, as anybody can Google 'Wall-E' and find more than 53,000,000 entries (in 0.2 seconds) going gaga over Andrew Stanton’s masterpiece. As far as Pixar guys are concerned, one can’t say ‘They’ve done it again’ simply because Wall-E is so astonishing that they’ve never ever even come closer to create something as astounding as Wall-E..forget ‘doing it again’ !!

Story :Wall-E (which stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth Class), is a cute benevolent bot (one shouldn't call him a robot) and ….. Phew....Sorry I am in such awe of the film that I won’t be able to talk about the story. Just go and watch it guys..JUST WATCH IT!!!

Characters: Wall-E has a bunch of delightful characters who will sweep you off your feet with their mannerisms. Hal (Wall-E’s roach pal, the name I guess is a tribute to vintage comedy producer Hal Roach) is so adorable that girls are going to fall in love with cockroaches and then there is a fauj of cute-bots (I personally find cleanliness freak M-O (microbe obliterator) the cutest of the lot)

Wall-E & M-O

Wow Factor: Everything esp. voices conveniently replaced by sound effects.Wall-E’s voice is created by legendary sound designer Ben Burtt. (Burtt is the man behind celebrated voice of R2D2, Darth Vader’s heavy breathing and Lightsaber sound effects in Star Wars. He also provided the sound effects for Indiana Jone’s swooshing whip and more recently the twittering sound of crystal skull in the latest installment of Indy adventures.)

Dos & Don'ts

Dos: Join the fun filled roller coaster ride with Wall-E and before you realize you will be rooting for him & his gang.

Don'ts: Please don't watch it in Gold Adlabs,Kalyani Nagar (Pune) or any theater/multiplex which is not showing Pixar Short 'PRESTO' with Wall-E. And before you book the tickets please check if the theater has that outdated sound system like Gold Adlabs (because they aren't worthy enough to play Wall-E's musical sound effects).

Presto (unauthorized youtube video)