Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

It wasn't until I read an article on it in The New Yorker, that I was even remotely interested in watching John Carter. However the fact that it's directed by the same guy who gave us WALL-E makes me all sorts of excited. Reading about his creative process makes this poster work in all different kinds of ways. He gives us the star, the monsters and tops it all with a beautifully subdued font that somehow doesn't feel completely at home in the strange intergalactic scene. Isn't that what his movie is supposed to be about?

Angelina Jolie has never really been a particularly exciting or versatile actress yet somehow I'm very curious about what she might bring to the table as a director. The fact that this poster doesn't make her name the biggest thing about it makes me think she's trying to show the world she's more than a pair of luscious lips and Mrs. Pitt.

Excited about either of these?

"Veena ka Swayamvar" - season 4 : beautiful photos of Veena Malik in bridal dress

 

After the success of Rakhi Sawant, Rahul Mahajan and Ratan in the Sawayamvar show of Imagine tv, now Veena Malik will be showcased in the upcoming season. The shoot of this very controversial "Swayamvar season 4" i.e. "Veena ka Swayamvar" has already been started. Veena Malik who has previously appeared on Indian television in Bigg Boss will be featured in this show. This new season of the bridal show of Imagine channel was already under controversy due to being focused on the wedding drama of a "Pakistani" actress/model in "India". Drama queen Rakhi Sawant who was the trend & popularity setter of this show show has already opposed the involvement of her in this traditional Indian Wedding realty show. In her familiar verbose and exaggerated tone Rakhi expressed to media that India is not gonna accept Veena Malik as its 'bahu'.

The promos for this show have already been shot and is all ready to once again set new records of TRP stats. Veena Malik was snapped on the shooting sets of NDTV Imagine in her traditional Indian bridal dress embedded with gems and diamonds. She was looking very elegant and gorgeous in this dress. The way she carried her figure and personality in it was worth watching and many experts say that this is the most beautiful look of her till now. Have a look at her photos directly from the sets of Swayamvar season 4.

Short Takes: "50/50" and "Habemus Papam".

Let's get one thing out of the way: disliking a movie where someone has cancer isn't the same as supporting cancer (whatever that would entail...), with that said 50/50 isn't really a great or outstanding movie, what it does - and it does it efficiently- is deliver a story about beating the odds without extreme corniness.

Movies about terminal patients can be done beautifully and with just the right amount of feeling (Terms of Endearment for example, which is even mentioned here) or they can be ludicrous weepfests that aim to move you even if you know the creative team could do better.

50/50, despite being based on real events, feels like another Judd Apatow-lite movie in which men-children grow up because life pretty much forces them to. Here it's Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Kyle (Seth Rogen) whose lives turn upside down when the former is diagnosed with stage three cancer. Even if the sick one should be the most "important" character in the film, most of the attention is divided into how Kyle deals with the disease. He uses it to his advantage and convinces women to have sex with him because he's sad. Perhaps this film would've resulted a bit more interesting if the casting had been more creative. Aren't you sick of Rogen always playing the adorable man-child who learns his lesson in the end? Aren't you tired of Gordon-Levitt always playing the sensitive young man who gets his ass kicked by life? To continue its lazy, stereotypical casting the movie has Bryce Dallas Howard play Adam's bitchy, control freak girlfriend and Anna Kendrick as his cool-but-way-too-eager shrink. The only one who dazzles in the cast is Anjelica Huston who could give Shirley MacLaine a run for her money in the "imposing mamas with sick children" department. She makes all of her scenes thrive with the kind of life nothing else in the movie has. 

All the imagery, rituals and traditions of Catholicism should result fascinating even to non-believers (or people of different faiths) which is why Nanni Moretti's Habemus Papam hooks you from its opening scene. We see a group of cardinals walking towards a room where they will vote for who is to become the next Pope. As the old men in red cassocks go towards their room, reporters shout at them trying to get an interview. This moment, perhaps because of its strange mix of realism and postmodernism, hints at the delicious way in which Fellini dealt with the church. When a Pope is finally elected (after a hilarious scene in which we realize all of them are praying not to be chosen) he has a problem: he doesn't think he's ready to do this job.

Therefore elected Pope, Cardinal Melville (Michel Piccoli) is set to receive help from a psychiatrist (Moretti) until he decides it's better to escape and see what he's missing in the outer world. The movie then becomes a severely existentialist version of Roman Holiday as the old man meets new people, goes to therapy (Margherita Buy plays his chosen shrink) and relives one of his youth dreams improvising Chekhov in a hotel lobby.

Even if the ending feels a bit too facile and Moretti doesn't dig too deep into Melville's motivations or tries to deliver a political or spiritual punch, the film is the perfect mix of clever comedy and melancholic drama, with some scenes that are absolutely haunting (a setpiece accompanied by Mercedes Sosa's "Todo Cambia" results absolutely breathtaking).

Best in show might be Piccoli's performance filled with lovely nuances. His ability to evoke deep nostalgia with nothing but a sigh makes for quite a treat and the way in which he delivers his speeches will break your heart. Moretti might have the last laugh but Piccoli delivers the soul.

Grades: 50/50 **
Habemus Papam ***

Albert Nobbs *½

Director: Rodrigo García

Cast: Glenn Close, Mia Wasikowska, Aaron Johnson

Janet McTeer, Pauline Collins, Brenda Fricker, Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Brendan Gleeson, Maria Doyle Kennedy

Scene after scene, Albert Nobbs plays out like a Masterpiece Theatre production of Mr. Dullfire (in honor of that other, actually quite funny, drag event Mrs. Doubtfire).

It makes perfect sense to bring up Robin Williams' performance in that film, because Glenn Close in drag actually looks like him. In both cases we were fully aware that we were watching major film stars playing cross-dressers, the difference is that absolutely nothing in Albert Nobbs makes us care to see what lies underneath the facade.

Set in 19th century Dublin, the film opens with images of a hotel's staff preparing for work. Like most period films, this one too wants us to understand the time setting and become familiarized with the characters we will meet; therefore we are initially wowed by meticulous production design and the golden cinematography we've come to expect. 

Among these workers we spot butler Albert Nobbs, who puts extra effort into his work and smiles like a satisfied fool while pleasing others around him. We also meet hotel owner Mrs. Baker (Collins), slutty maid Helen (Wasikowska) and the charismatic Dr. Holloran (Gleeson) who is somehow presented to us with a tinge of menace. 

Soon we learn that Albert's quiet demeanor is because he harbors a secret: he is actually a woman and has pretended to be one for three decades in order to have a job. Once this is revealed, the film instantly falls down because neither the screenplay nor the director can make a point of where they want to take it next.

Is the secret the film's biggest twist or are we supposed to care about whether other characters will discover it or not. Considering how the screenplay makes the characters either completely under/over-written, it's a shame that Close tries to invest so much into a character that's merely a hollow vessel for the director, actress and writer to show off.

Where Close tries to infuse him with a private inner life by shutting everyone else out - including the audience - (and perhaps to cover for how badly written Albert is) the director practically ignores him and turns him into a part of the decoration. Instead García focuses his attention on truly preposterous characters and situations, like Helen (who Wasikowska tries and fails to turn into a character Angela Lansbury might've played in the 1940s) and her affair with do-no-gooder Joe (Johnson). 

Time and time again it seems that nobody in the movie wants to deal with Albert...Even the spark in Close's eye when she plays him, seems to be more about the fact that she finally got to play him than about the character itself. This project has been notorious for being Close's pet cause for at least twenty-five years and by finally getting to do it, she might've become too reverential and cautious (Close is listed as a co-writer), completely forgetting to let Albert have a life of his own.

Things in the plot get more complicated with the appearance of Mr. Hubert Page (McTeer) a strange painter who not only discovers Albert's secret but reveals one of his own: he is also a woman!

We never truly understand why the film is about Albert and not about Mr. Page, considering how McTeer plays him as the only believable character in the movie. It doesn't help that it's obvious from the start that he's also a she, it forces one to wonder whether the character would've been more successful if played by an unknown actress or to just be thankful for McTeer's humanistic work.

The worst thing in the film might be how time and time again it misleads us by trying to turn Albert into a mystery based on ludicrous twists and events. For example when Hubert suggests that Albert should open up a shop, Albert imagines himself married to Helen and being a successful businessman.

However at no point are we to understand that Albert is gay and has any sexual desire for Helen, or even that he is so complexly damaged that he has come to believe that he can only attain success as a man. We are teased in a similar way when we see Albert longingly looking at a picture of a young woman. When we discover who she is, we realize that even within its faux-class attire, García is merely using Albert as a morbid circus attraction. The fact that Albert remains in character even when he delivers ridiculous monologues in his room, make it obvious that nobody in the production team had any real conscience of who Albert would be.

By thinking we're often wondering "is he or isn't he", the director loses all purpose and turns the movie into a claustrophobic tabloid-esque story. All of his characters become either too hermetic or too stereotypical for us to take any interest in and he makes no comment whatsoever on either sexual identity, Victorian repression or anything that might've interested an intelligent adult. By the time the film is over (after an overblown, melodramatic succession of events) we realize that Albert might've had a knob but the artistic team behind him lacked the balls.

One Film to Rule Them All.

I have dared to review Citizen Kane...Go read my humble take on it over at PopMatters.

Katrina Kaif 'Chikni Chameli' avatar look revealed - leaked exclusive photo : more gorgeous & curvy then Sheela!

So finally, the most awaited "Chikni Chameli" avatar look of Katrina Kaif in her item number for the upcoming movie 'Agneepath' has been revealed. It is for sure that Katrina is looking so beautiful and curvy in her new avatar that she has overcome the previous standard of 'Sheela' set by her. With this new look she has set new standards of most glamorous look and curvy figure for any item number made ever in Bollywood history. She is all ready to set the screen on fire in her red-brown avatar. She has really worked very hard to get this dream figure for this mind-blowing item song which is ready to set new heights of success with the release of the film Agneepath. Her hard work is directly reflected in her flat and toned belly and curvy waist. The shoot for this item song continued for about 10 long days in the film city in Goregaon and it finished this recent Wednesday, so the song is all ready to create a new sizzling revolution once again associated with none other then Katrina! Have a look at the Chikni Chameli avatar of Katrina.

Girl with Mermaid Syndrome (Sirenomelia) - fused legs tail : the real life "Little Mermaid"

After her surgery

Almost every girl who has listened the stories of the mermaids or have watched the 'little mermaid' tv series dreams about becoming like her. But this thought is good only in imagination, in reality this is known  as a disease known as "Sirenomelia" which is commonly known as the "Mermaid Syndrome". This deformity results in the fusion of the legs to give it a tail like appearance similar to that of a Mermaid. This unique congenital deformity is so rare that it occurs in 1 out of every 1,00,000 babies born, thus it has a very rare probability rate of 0.00001, i.e. same as that of the probability of the birth of two conjoined baby twins. This deformity is not only limited to physical restrictions but it is also very fatal for the life and survival of a baby born with it because it results in abnormality in the development and functioning of the kidneys and urinary bladder. Thus it proves very fatal for the baby within few hours or 1-2 days of his/her birth.
But in the present era, medical science has so much grown and evolved that it has the solution to almost any problem associated with human body. Few time ago, a girl born with the mermaid syndrome was operated successfully to dis-join her fused legs, this resulted as the disband of her tail and now she can live a normal life very happily. The courage of this truly extra ordinary baby girl wonder and medical science resulted in the occurrence of this successful operation. Have a look at the photos of this girl born with this deformity, you will surely get amazed.