show me progress: March 2010

Its not too late to save Sandra-James marriage

Forget the tattooed home wrecker, the headlines and the heartbreak: It's not too late for Oscar-winner Sandra Bullock to save her five-year marriage, experts say.

The ugly public revelations that husband Jesse James cheated on Bullock are painful but not fatal for the couple's reeling relationship.

"Sandra would have to get to a place where she could give her husband the gift of trust," said Dr. Flo Rosoff, a marriage counselor.

"That can only happen if she is based in a relationship where they have a high regard for each other as people, not as simply an attractive man and attractive woman."

Rosoff is a contributor to Ladies Home Journal's "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" column, as is fellow Long Island counselor Dr. Robin Newman.

Newman echoes her colleague's prognosis that the celebrity couple can salvage their relationship, despite James' reported affair with ink-stained wench Michelle (Bombshell) McGee.

"Fight for your marriage, fight for it," Newman advised. "And look at what your part in it was. I'm not saying Sandra was all at fault, but there's something going on there that she needs to address herself."

The Oscar-winning star of "The Blind Side" remained out of the public eye Friday, offering no response to her husband's apology after garish tattoo model McGee claimed the two had an affair.

Bullock has canceled an appearance at the London premiere of her hit film and reportedly moved out of the couple's Southern California home.

Beleaguered husband James surfaced to walk his kids to school Friday morning, his wedding ring still visible on his left hand.

His inked-up inamorata surfaced, too, in a far-less flattering series of Nazi-themed photos.

The raven-haired McGee sported a black officer's cap, bra, panties and a Nazi armband in the shots unearthed by TMZ.com.

In one picture, McGee suggestively licks the tip of a knife.

McGee was also denounced by her ex-husband, who hopes to regain custody of their 5-year-old son.

Ronald Modica charged in court papers that McGee was an unfit mom who exposed little Avery to X-rated antics, Us Magazine reported.

"I need protection for my son," Modica said. "I will not continue to expose him to the kind of life Michelle desires and seeks: full on, pornographic, party all the time."

According to McGee, the affair started while Bullock was filming her Academy Award-winning role in "The Blind Side."

James had been married twice, including a two-year union with porn star Janine Lindemulder, before landing America's sweetheart in 2005.

"The Bounty Hunter"- Dont Waste your money!!!

Upcoming Movie: Green Zone

Release date(s):March 12, 2010 (2010-03-12)Directed by:Paul GreengrassProduced by:Tim Bevan Eric Fellner Lloyd Levin Paul GreengrassWritten by: Brian Helgeland Rajiv Chandrasekaran (Book)Starring:Matt Damon Greg Kinnear Brendan Gleeson Amy Ryan Khalid Abdalla Jason IsaacsCinematography:Barry AckroydEditing by:Christopher RouseStudio :StudioCanal Relativity Media Working Title FilmsDistributed by:Universal StudiosCountry:United StatesLanguage:EnglishBudget:$100 millionStory:Green Zone is an action thriller war film written by Brian Helgeland and directed by Paul Greengrass. The film is "credited as having been 'inspired' by"[1] the non-fiction 2006 book Imperial Life in the Emerald City by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran, which documented life in the Green Zone, Baghdad. The film stars Matt Damon, Amy Ryan, Greg Kinnear, and Brendan Gleeson. Production began in January 2008 in Spain and moved on to Morocco. The film was globally released on March 12, 2010 with releases available from March 10 in some countries. Released in Australia on 11 March 2010.All the war-zone authenticity in the Arab world cannot salvage the silly Hollywood plot at the heart of "Green Zone," Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass' first collaboration outside the Jason Bourne realm.

Their thriller about the futile search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is a visual and visceral knockout that's utterly deflated by a story as common, coarse and unappetizing as Army field rations.

The movie pales further by arriving in theaters just days after the Academy Awards triumph of the vastly superior Iraq war story "The Hurt Locker," a film many people have yet to see. For the price of a couple of tickets to "Green Zone," you can own the DVD of a truly great war film in "The Hurt Locker." "Green Zone" emulates the let's-build-a-democracy-just-like-ours intent of the U.S. occupation of Iraq in 2003, as chronicled in Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran's "Imperial Life in the Emerald City," a book cited in the credits as the inspiration for the movie.

Greengrass and screenwriter Brian Helgeland have taken a setting rich with novel dramatic possibilities and made up a fictional action tale just like any other, with the same lame plot contrivances and the same stiff, artificial characters.

You've got the incorruptible working-class patriot in Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Damon), who leads a WMD team frustrated that detailed intelligence reports continually fail to turn up any traces of Saddam Hussein's supposed arsenals.

You've got the sniveling, scheming bureaucrat in Pentagon intelligence man Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear) and an internecine clash with his honorable nemesis in CIA man Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson). OK, so the CIA good guy thing is kind of new. You've got the cliched journalist in Wall Street Journal reporter Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan), who seems incapable of piecing together a story unless it's handed to her in a neat folder marked "top secret."

And you've got the Special Forces thug in Lt. Col. Briggs (Jason Isaacs).

We all know now the weapons that prompted the invasion of Iraq did not exist. The filmmakers concoct a simple-minded WMD conspiracy to explain the bad intelligence reports, then lob Miller into the middle of it.

Miller's encounter with well-meaning Iraqi "Freddy" (Khalid Abdalla, who played one of the Sept. 11 hijackers in Greengrass' "United 93") leads him to one of Saddam's top aides, who holds the key to exposing the conspiracy.

Other than Abdalla, who captures a sense of Iraqis' conflicted emotions over Saddam's overthrow and the U.S. occupation, Damon and his co-stars deliver nothing more than serviceable performances. The roles do not call for much more, Ryan in particular stuck trying to make her few shallow lines sound meaningful. The WMD debacle was a colossal intelligence failure that Greengrass and company dilute to a base Hollywood plot device so they can turn the boys loose in Baghdad with all the firepower a big studio budget can muster.

There's barely a story to hold "Green Zone" together, the movie just hurtling through firefights and chases, pausing for breath with the occasional revelation to prod Miller on in his quest.

For pure ambiance, "Green Zone" is a marvel. Though shot in Morocco, Spain and England, the action feels as though it takes place in the heart of Baghdad.

Greengrass, who directed Damon in "The Bourne Ultimatum" and "The Bourne Supremacy," applies similar techniques — darting camera work, quick cutting, haphazard framing — to create the same sense of documentary immediacy in "Green Zone."

How did Hurt Locker beat Avatar at Oscars?

For Hollywood pundits, industry folk and Oscar fans still paying attention on Monday, a major question remained: How did Hurt Locker beat Avatar?

For as much as "The Hurt Locker" was the critics' darling, it had three major strikes against it in its battle against the mighty James Cameron's "Avatar."

First, the box office was paltry — it's taken in just $14.7 million domestically, compared to an amazing $720.6 million for "Avatar." That makes "The Hurt Locker" the lowest-grossing best picture winner since accurate records have been kept.

Second, it had no big acting names, usually an important factor in Oscar victory.

And third, it was about the Iraq war, a subject moviegoers traditionally just don't want to deal with. "Iraq is usually the kiss of death at the Oscars," says Tom O'Neil, blogger for the Los Angeles Times' Envelope, an awards site.

But even with 10 nominees in the running for this year's best picture Oscar, the two films — whose directors were once married — were quickly pitted against each other in the race for Hollywood's highest honor.

How did "The Hurt Locker" win out? Theories abound:

Finally a non-political film about IraqMany films about the Iraq war have fallen into a trap of appearing preachy or at least having a strong point of view. Viewers may or may not agree with that view — that still doesn't mean they want to get it at the movies.

But "The Hurt Locker," a story of three technicians on a bomb-defusing team in Baghdad, is at heart an action movie — a documentary-style close-up of the men, their relationships, their missteps and the almost unbearable tension inherent in their exhausting, terrifying, tedious work.

"This isn't that kind of muckraking film aiming to show torture or violation of rules of war," says Robert Sklar, film professor at New York University. "This is a film about men trying to save lives rather than take them. It's also a buddy story. It has classic war-movie themes."

Oscar likes films with an important messageOften the Academy honors big, sweeping films, which "The Hurt Locker" is certainly not. But it also looks for films with a substantial message. "Oscar likes films of importance, with a capital I," says film historian Leonard Maltin. "Often they're big films, but this is a small film that dealt with a really important subject."

Oscar voters don't care about box officeWho says Oscar cares about box office? "The Oscars don't pay attention to that at all, and nor should they," Maltin says. In fact, he adds, they've often been accused of being too elitist, favoring independent movies over big films favored by the broader public.

Yes, they do!Nonsense, says O'Neil, of The Envelope: "The Academy wants their movies to do well. Then they anoint them." Even last year's "Slumdog Millionaire," which originally almost went straight to DVD, had made $40 million before the nominations, then rode to $70 million by the time of the awards, he says.

It's about the campaigningAll of "Hurt Locker's" technical merit aside, "it would be naive to think Oscar campaigning had nothing to do with it," says O'Neil. He credits Cynthia Swartz, whose public relations firm was given the Oscar campaigning job by Summit, the film's distributor, which was looking for industry respect and had plenty of money to fund the campaign, having already cashed in with the "Twilight" vampire movies.

"It was a very savvy campaign," says O'Neil. "Full force, and highly aggressive."

The woman factorAs compelling as her movie was, director Kathryn Bigelow had a compelling story of her own. This director who specializes not in female-oriented films but in big action thrillers had a real shot at becoming the first woman in Oscar history to win the best director prize, with her film winning best picture, too.

Yet Bigelow tried to downplay that element of her story, saying in interviews that she just wanted to be seen as a filmmaker, not a female one.

"Bigelow refused to capitalize on the woman factor, and to her credit," says Maltin. Everyone else wanted to make it a story but her. Still, you can't deny it had some impact."

The ex factorNor did Bigelow have any desire to capitalize on the "Ex Factor" — in case you're way behind on your Oscar gossip, she was married to Cameron from 1989-91. Were there some voters who were secretly rooting for her to leave him in the dust? No way of knowing, and the two seemed amicable through the awards season, with him standing and cheering as she won her Oscar. Still, there's no doubt that the "battle of the exes" (ok, we're done with the puns) added to the hype.

82 Academy Awrds- Hurt locker takes it all

82nd Annual Academy Awards – Predictions

Avatar: 'Avatar' leads Oscar discussions online

New Trailer: My Name is Khan

New Trailer: Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge?

Shah Rukh Khan:"My Name is Khan is a flawless work" - Subhash K Jha

Mumbai-He repairs almost anything, including irreparably damaged relationships. But this film about damaged lives needs no repairing. My Name Is Khan is a flawless work, as perfect in content, tone and treatment as any film can get. The ‘message’ of humanism doesn’t comes across in long pedantic speeches. The film’s longest monologue has our damaged but exceptionally coherent hero Rizwan telling a congregation of Black American church-goers about his dead son.And if that moment moves us to tears it’s because the emotions are neither manipulative nor flamboyant. It isn’t because Rizwan’s son Sameer perished in a racial attack. It isn’t even because Shah Rukh Khan delivers his life’s best performance in that moment of reckoning. Rizwan’s heartfelt rhetorics are not about changing the world with words. Born with a physical disability this is a man on the move. And boy, does he move!In what is possibly the most touching testament on film to the spirit of world peace and humanism (lofty ideals to achieve in the massy-masala format but see how pitch-perfect Johar gets it), Rizwan takes off on a picaresque journey to meet the US President with a message that initially strikes us as being too naïve for reiteration.But look closer. Some of life’s basic values have been lost in recent times. Writer Shibani Bathija’s seamless screenplay, arguably the best piece of writing since Rakeysh Mehra’s Rang De Basanti, recovers that long-lost message of loving your fellow human being unconditionally without getting trite around the edges.Sex and politics have nothing to do with it. It’s okay to hug your neighbour.First and foremost, My Name Is Khan is a wonderful story told with a flair and flourish that leave a lingering impact on the viewer. Almost every frame is composed with a mix of mind and heart creating an irresistible progression of moments so tender and forcible we’re simply swept away in the tides of the tale about a very special man who undertakes a very special journey.My Name Is Khan opens with Rizwan boarding an American flight being frisked after a suspicious co-passenger hears him chanting religious passages. Before we begin to suspect this to be one more film on the persecution of the innocent Muslim, Karan Johar, doing a smart and slick spin away from his trademark content and style, takes his hero on a journey that crosses several emotional, political and geographical borders before stopping with breathless integrity to say, life doesn’t go on…it changes colours and textures with the moral values that the individual chooses to confer on the life given to him.Superbly scripted by Bathija with pithy outstanding dialogues by Niranjan Iyenger, the film is edited by Deepa Bhatia with just that much amount of time allotted to the character’s and their thought processes to make them appear warm humane and tangible without over-punctuating their presence.To take one example, when Rizwan's brother (Jimmy Shergil, making the best of his brief but comprehensive role) quietly tells his lovely wife (Sonia Jehan) to not wear her veil to work in the US because God would understand, the scene with beautiful economy conveys the couple’s mutual empathy and determination to override the hatred outside their home. Karan Johar, always a master of overstatement, for once holds back. The silences in My Name Is Khan often speak far more eloquently than the spoken words. The relationships that the inarticulate Rizwan forms during the course of his life from child to husband to father to a political individual are contoured with a luminous lack of laboriousness. Whether it’s young Rizwan (played sensitively by Tanay Cheda) and his mother (Zarina Wahab, memorable in her brief appearance) or much later, Rizwan and his step-son (brilliant young discovery Yuvaan Makar), the traditional relationships are done-up in striking but subtle shades. We look at every moment in the film (even the clumsily-done flood sequences) as special because they are part of vision that goes far beyond the real of hop-in-hop-out entertainment.The director swerves out of his comfort zone without the sound of screechy wheels. Karan Johar’s unconventional take on modern marital mores in Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna faltered due to over-statement. In Khan, he doesn’t try hard. The characters and their predicament, as America gets increasingly suspicious and hostile about the Muslim presence, are portrayed with a lightness of touch that lights up almost every sequence.Then there is Kajol to provide the kind of natural light to every frame that no amount of artificial light can supplement. As Rizwan’s Hindu wife Mandira, with a smart intelligent son, she has a distinctly secondary role to Shah Rukh Khan. She leaves a lasting impact as a divorcee and later an angry wife and grieving mother, as only Kajol can.The scenes of courtship between Mandira and Rizwan work so beautifully because of the exceptional chemistry between the two actors. More than a strong political statement and moving message of peace My Name Is A Khan is a love story of a man who can’t express his love through words, only deeds. This is a film that Frank Capra would’ve made if he had lived long enough to see 9/11 happen.The narration is carpeted with virtues, both invisible and visible. Ravi K Chandran’s cinematography captures the incandescent soul of the pure-hearted protagonist as effectively as the stubbornly unbroken spirit of unknown passersby on the streets of America. Rizwan, we are told, is petrified of the yellow colour. The offending colour recurs with just a hint of insistence. Rizwan wears shocking pink because he hears Mandira’s buddy (Navneet Nishan) say it suits her. He proposes marriage and sex (in that order) at the most inopportune moments. He suggests Mandira have her dinner when she’s traumatized by grief. He wears his dead son’s shoes as he takes off to meet the President. Rizwan moves by his clock. But his tale is timeless.Shah Rukh Khan doesn’t PLAY Rizwan. He becomes one with the character’s subconscious, portraying the man and his spirit with strokes of an invisible paintbrush until what we see is what we cannot forget. Undoubtedly this is Shah Rukh’s best performance ever.This is no ordinary hero. And My Name Is Khan is no ordinary film. Long after the wary-of-physical-touch, Rizwan has finally shaken hands with President Obama, long after the heat and dust of racial and communal hatred has settled down the core of humanism that the film secretes stays with you.Yes, we finally know what they mean by a feelgood film.

‘M.N.I.K.’ premieres in Abu Dhabi

Mumbai-The 1,000-odd people crammed into the foyer of the Emirates Palace auditorium greeted the star cast of “My Name Is Khan” with screams and claps, as the movie had its world premiere in Abu Dhabi last night (Feb 10).

Walking the narrow strip of the red carpet first were sponsors, studio bosses and the crew. The crowd grew restless, chanting ‘Shah Rukh, Shah Rukh’, as the wait lengthened. The chants subsided only when Karan Johar and Kajol walked in.“We’re thrilled to be here, to be showing our movie in Abu Dhabi for the first time. Hope you like it as much as we enjoyed making it,” Karan Johar told the media lining the rope.K-Jo was wearing his own collection, while Kajol glowed in a red and black Manish Malhotra sari. “Thank you so much for having us here,” she said, again and again.The director and the heroine of “My Name Is Khan” shook hands and signed autographs with their fans, before moving into the auditorium.A few minutes of silence and then a roar from the crowd. We knew Shah Rukh was on the red carpet. Very smart in a Karan Johar creation, he stopped at every media cluster to talk and shake hands. “I feel sorry that my movie may not get the opening it deserves in my own city. But I hope and pray it all works out,” he said.Shah Rukh bent down to hug a little girl right in front of me and then the frenzy began. The fans flooded into the area reserved for the media and begged him for autographs and pictures. He obliged, for as long as he could, before he was ushered into the imposing auditorium.Inside the theatreOnce inside, the same fans greeted K-Jo, SRK and Kajol with roars of approval as they went up on stage to say a few words ahead of the screening of “My Name Is Khan”.“I may sound shaky and scattered because I am really nervous. This is the first official screening of my film,” Karan Johar said. “It is a part of my heart. A part of the heart of every team member… I’m proud to have the film flagged off in Abu Dhabi.”“This is the finest piece of role, character, that anyone has written for us,” said Shah Rukh Khan, thanking K-Jo for letting him and Kajol be a part of “My Name Is Khan”.“I hope you like the film. And even if you don’t we’re not returning the money,” he said, triggering laughter and claps among his fans.The movieAs the reviews have said repeatedly, “My Name Is Khan” is a deeply moving and powerful film. Director Karan Johar has gone on record to say he has stepped out of his comfort zone in this movie. And that is evident.There are no songs and dances; there is no colour-co-ordinated world and there are no overly-emotive scenes. A taut story of alienation, isolation, deep grief and ultimate triumph, “My Name Is Khan” uses the background of 9/11 brilliantly to tell the very personal story of Rizwan Khan, a Muslim man with autism in America.SRK, as expected, is brilliant, under emoting instead of over emoting, as he usually does. Kajol actually outshines him in certain scenes. The support cast, particularly Zarina Wahab and Pravin Dabbas, were excellent as well. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s music, subtly used, helped convey emotions the way words couldn’t have.The movie could have been half an hour shorter though, and it is definitely not a watch for children.

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Its not too late to save Sandra-James marriage

"The Bounty Hunter"- Dont Waste your money!!!

Upcoming Movie: Green Zone

How did Hurt Locker beat Avatar at Oscars?

82 Academy Awrds- Hurt locker takes it all

82nd Annual Academy Awards – Predictions

Avatar: 'Avatar' leads Oscar discussions online

New Trailer: My Name is Khan

New Trailer: Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge?

Shah Rukh Khan:"My Name is Khan is a flawless work" - Subhash K Jha

‘M.N.I.K.’ premieres in Abu Dhabi

Super star Shah Rukh Khan copied Salman Khan!

Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra visits Twitter headquarters

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