Ambimama - India

Movies have never fascinated me than books. I have already written here about the books that have fascinated me. But one movie really made me see it again and that was ‘One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest’. The movie had Jack Nicholson and I later came to know it had won many academy awards. Now I see movies on TV only and rarely go to theatres. But for Endhiran I decided to go to a theatre and I saw it with my family. The entire movie is a science fiction and I enjoyed the movie. I am not a Rajini fan but I do realize that his fans have much to rejoice. How can one act like this and deliver dialogues at this age? Sure Rajini does not do this for money alone. He knows better than to entertain his fans and audience and after all this he is unmoved and goes to Himalayas to meditate!

Youngsters have something to be emotional about a film; strangely the title is Yendhiran which means a Robot. Robots are not emotional, but in this film director Shankar has shown an emotional Robot. The film is a super hit and a nice one as the reviews and TV channels across the country say. Also my relatives have seen the movie at 8 a.m. (An odd hour for the movie goers) and say it is a very good movie. I cannot write a review of the movie, but I heard there are thousands of Rajinis in the movie and Shankar has done the movie worth the credit. There will be bookings for me to watch the movie in the theatre, though I do not like to watch the movies in a theatre now-a-days.

Iraq war film has won six awards at Oscar. Still the public is wondering what the film is about. They are busy or still talking about Avatar. But Kathryn Bigelow had done it. She is the first woman ever to win the Oscar for best director. Opening the envelope, Barbra Streisand said: “It’s about time”.

And Bigelow’s triumph didn’t stop there: her $11m film The Hurt Locker went on to win best picture, making a total of six awards on the night, easily beating her ex-husband James Cameron’s $300m blockbuster Avatar, which managed only three technical awards.
“It’s the moment of a lifetime,” said Bigelow, only the fifth woman director to be nominated in the history of the Academy Awards. She praised her fellow nominees “who have inspired me for decades”, and paid tribute to those in the US army serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, where her film about a bomb disposal squad was set.

She and her fellow producers will be hoping their Oscar triumph gives the film a boost at the box office: it has taken only $15m so far, making it the lowest-grossing film ever to win best picture. It became clear early in the evening’s ceremony at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles that this was to be The Hurt Locker’s night when it won best screenplay and best editing. It also became clear that this would be an Oscars ceremony just as memorable for who didn’t win as who did.

Avatar crosses $1 billion: I had read this News on 4th Jan itself on the Net. But it appeared in today’s Times of India. The news appeared in the First Post under the heading “A new era of 3D movies could help reignite the faltering film industry” BY EDWARD HELMORE

Here is the concise News:
James Cameron, the Hollywood movie director, appears to have found his own money machine.
Over the weekend, Cameron’s science-fiction epic Avatar shot past the $1 billion box office marker in worldwide sales, only the fifth movie ever to do so.

Avatar is Cameron’s second film to cross the $1 billion barrier (the first being Titanic which went on to take $1.8 billion) and a major triumph for Rupert Murdoch’s 20th Century Fox, the studio that bankrolled the virtually movie star-less project.

About 75 per cent of the Avatar box office take has come from cinemas showing it in digital 3D presentation - at a premium over traditional 2D showings - and has proved to Hollywood that customers are prepared to pay more for the new technological experience.

Cameron is the only filmmaker to have made two films to cross the billion marker (the three other $1bn breakers are The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and The Dark Knight). If Avatar takes another $140 million - which it almost certainly will - it will surpass Lord of the Rings to become the most successful film of all time.

Cameron took more than 10 years to complete the film. Film critics say Avatar has returned a sense of social experience to film-going.

The great movie makers are rushing to work in the 3D medium, including Steven Spielberg, who is making Tintin, and Tim Burton, who is completing Alice in Wonderland.
More news to come!

This Special contains cast interviews and exclusive footage of the new movie.