From pre-historic times to now, Africa has always remained a mysterious continent. The weather, the regime and the social customs have intrigued generations and helped shape the myriad realities of life in this vast expanse of land; besides crafting stories of survival and fight in the face of oppression and tyranny. Such factual accounts of the African life have been presented marvelously in 3 good movies which I would like to write about today. I prefer to call them my African Movie Trilogy. These movies were abundantly successful in capturing the essence of the African way of life both technically and in story-telling, the strife that plagues the region and the ideology behind the true struggle. The best part is that these movies educate the people in the facts behind the dissent in the corners of the dark continent. These are award winning and critically acclaimed movies which I hope you will see in the future.
Hollywood
Spiderman 3 (2007)
He’s back and in a BIG way. The visual effects are awesome, the story (though melodramatic in parts) is captivating and most importantly, more villains join hands to finish off our friendly neighborhood superhero than before — there’s Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), the New Goblin (James Franco) and Venom (Topher Grace). Additionally there’s also a slimy-sticky-creepy-black-substance that I must name as the most damnable character in the story as well. This is director Sam Raimi’s third Spidey installment and we all must hope to see the fourth one from him soon.
The Namesake (2007)
An incident with Ashoke Ganguli (Irrfan Khan) changes him for good and takes his journey, half-way across the globe and which spans a generation from Kolkata to New York and characterize a cultural drift between the two.
Mira Nair [Salaam Bombay (1988), Monsoon Wedding (2001)] directs The Namesake which is derivation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s book of the same title. It got critical attention then especially since it was coming after Lahiri’s Pulitzer award winning and much acclaimed book The Interpreter of Maladies.
Does India Really Need the Oscars?
We have yet again failed to get a nomination for the OSCARs in the foreign film category. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Rang De Basanti (Paint me Yellow), the new found mantra of the indian nextgen was rejected even before the final roll call. The last time an Indian movie made it to the five was Aamir’s Lagaan in 2001; a riveting account of a small village lad taking the British Raj up in a captivating cricket match. Before that, Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay and Mehboob Khan’s Mother India have graced the coveted final OSCAR nomination list. None of them won the award though. The chinese film Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (CTHD) won 3 OSCARs at the 73rd Annual Academy Awards ceremony, giving the director Ang Lee a godlike status in the Hollywood precincts overnight. CTHD was masterfully made with martial art sequences at its best and a traditional chinese story which is expected from oriental directors. Years later, he made a comeback by winning the OSCARs again for his work in Brokeback Mountain at Hollywood.
Transamerica (2005)
To get me refreshed for the next year, I decided to take a complete break from my mundane lifestyle. It was a going to be a long weekend for me so I decided to pick 7 DVDs from various genres ranging from fantasy to realism to horror. Some of them could hardly make it to my favorites list but this one did. It’s called Transamerica (released in 2005) which was released in 2005 starring Felicity Huffman in the lead role. Before I go any further, I must applaud Felicity’s performance and rate it as one of the best I have seen in American cinema. She deserved something more precious than just an OSCAR for the same.