Do you have many unanswered, soul-searching life questions? A question about what socks to wear with your Sunday suit? At times like these, we must ask ourselves: What Would Don Draper Do (WWDDD)?  Hint: The answer involves drinking an Old-Fashioned, yelling at Peggy Olsen and being impossibly cool:  http://whatwoulddondraperdo.tumblr.com/

What happens when two extras from the Mahabharata end up in modern day New Jersey? Discussions on the spiritual significance of Jay-Z’s lyrics, obviously:  http://ackcomic.com/

If people honestly want to see better movies churned out of Bollywood, this is the sort of treatment it needs.  Not somebody effusively praising a half-hearted attempt at being halfway decent. The bonus is a hilarious comic which rips the movie ‘Rockstar’ a new one:  http://www.thevigilidiot.com/2011/11/14/rockstar/

Ah yes, it’s that time of the year when all the big studios are revving up their Oscar engines. It is also the time of the year when quirky, brave and awesome little movies hope to get picked up by Fox Searchlight. Check this year’s superb Sundance line-up:  http://www.avclub.com/articles/sundance-2012-competition-lineup-sex-alison-brie-a,65884/

I’m going to risk sacrilege here.

Pixar is not, as many say, the new “golden age” of Disney.

Pixar is much, much more.

Sure, Disney’s tales were nice enough: the “Little Mermaid”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “Aladdin” – healthy doses of escapism with pat moral truths, often leaning on the Brothers Grimm catalog and twisting those stories into more palatable entertainment fodder for the masses. This, they did well – but that’s about it. They gave us nice, feel good fun. When I think back through a haze of nostalgia to my childhood days of revelling in the splendour of Disney, I find its often just that – nostalgia.

And Pixar? Pixar movies are often, simply put, casually transcendent. Its about time we stopped comparing cheerful fluff that other animation studios churn out with any given Pixar outing; its simply unfair to the others. At any rate, let’s see where this particular offering stands.

“Toy Story 3” does not, at first glance, have a lot going for it. The fact that it’s a sequel is crippling enough, but that it’s the third part of a trilogy puts in the potential company of, oh, “The Godfather – III“; “Spiderman 3“; or “X-Men:The Last Stand“. Notice the pattern? All third instalments of once great franchises that were astonishingly underwhelming – and that’s being kind. The plot itself, when I saw the first trailer, threatened to be a rehash of “Toy Story 2″, so really, TS3 has no right to work, let alone scale the stellar heights we now take for granted from this studio.

But folks – this is Pixar. And so, against all odds, the wizards of animation have fashioned the strongest instalment in the Toy Story franchise, and arguably one of the better films in a very impressive oeuvre.

Our plastic heroes remain timeless – unfortunately, their owner Andy is growing up and now gets ready to head down to college. Fun and games come to a stop as the toys wonder about their fate: Woody is picked by Andy to accompany him to college, the rest land up at a day care centre. All seems well … a little too well actually. Before the toys know it, they’ve entered a darkly dystopian existence, and must get away before, well, their parts fall off or something.

Out of this barebones premise is fashioned a movie that is frequently hilarious and inventive: the great escape scene is one of the most inventive of its ilk that you will encounter in cinema, and Buzz-the-toy-astrounaut-spouting-flirtatious-Spanish is simply inspired. But what makes the movie truly wonderful are the moments when it reaches for the gut. Two incredible scenes towards the end form this movie’s one-two punch, as the characters are confronted with mortality and adulthood. In a moment that serves as a re-introduction as well as a fond farewell, Andy tenderly bequeaths his prized possessions to a little kid. I can give no greater praise for this movie, or for the universality of Pixar’s magic, than point out that both my 11 year old sister and I had strongly emotional reactions based on completely different reasons at the conclusion of the film. She sat in rapture at the little kid getting a new treasure trove of toys – and I reacted to Andy’s final goodbye to his childhood, and to the toys themselves resigning to the idea of mortality with barely controlled tears.

So what’ll happen Oscar night? “Toy Story 3″ will definitely lose out on the best picture award: not because it isn’t on the same level of craft as, say, a “Black Swan” or a “King’s Speech“, but because this is the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences that we’re talking about, with its usual abject refusal to look too much beyond well manufactured high pedigree drama. As far as they’re concerned, this nomination is enough of an award for the animated film. Similar, I think, will be its fate in the adapted screenplay category. That leaves us with the perplexing category of best animated film. I’m glad it exists simply because I think this reliably entertaining medium (not genre) of film deserves that kind of recognition. But how is it in any way a race this year, when, like last year’s “Up“, a best picture nominee, finds itself in competition with an obviously lesser lot ?

Oh well, good for you Pixar, anyway.

There was a point last year when I wrote about the issue of “Queer cinema” continuing to be a genre per se. It was, I felt, about time that Hollywood moved onto stories where the alternate sexuality of the characters was merely incidental to the narrative. Instead, the prime mainstream examples that leapt out – “Brokeback Mountain” and “Milk” – featured the idea of the sexuality of the characters at the fulcrum of the narrative; sexuality-as-the-issue so to speak, either personal as in Brokeback, or political as in “Milk”.

And then along came “I Love You Philip Morris“; a romantic comedy with 2 male A-listers in the lead, a movie that was blissfully unaware about the fact that it was a TRAILBLAZING GAY MOVIE. Nope, here we had the queerness of the characters as an established non-issue from the onset, after which the only concern of the movie was to spin a rollicking good yarn, give us a story for the ages – gay or straight.

If Philip Morris demolished notions of what a queer movie could – and should – be, “The Kids are All Right” cheerfully steamrolls over the debris, giving us a neat little family dramedy that refuses to call too much attention to the casually revolutionary nature of its sexual politics.

Nicole (Annette Bening, who deserves her Best Acress nomination) and Jules (Julianne Moore bloody well deserved a nomination herself) are your everyday married lesbian couple with 2 kids from the same anonymous sperm donor. As they near adulthood, the kids want to know more about their dad, and manage to investigate their way to the charming, laidback Paul (Mark Ruffalo has the most unshowy role of the lot, but does it well enough to merit his supporting actor nod). Paul has no family of his own, and his foray into the life of the settled foursome leads to surprising consequences for everyone involved.

Other than a refreshingly unconventional premise at its core, Kids makes a lot of interesting decisions with its turns of narrative. Some are satisfying; Mark Ruffalo and Julianne Moore play off against each other remarkably well, and its great watching Ruffalo’s character realizing his long-buried need for family. Others, like the closing scenes, don’t ring completely true – there’s a strangely rushed feel, and a lack of deserved closure for one of the characters.

Bening and Moore’s equation is really at the core of the movie, and the two make for a great screen couple. Bening’s the hard-to-like control freak who has moments of fragility; hers is a wonderfully written character, layered with sarcasm and empathy, and the actress masterfully navigates us through these different facets. Moore complements her with an almost balm-like laid back vibe that begins to ignite with the presence of this new person in their lives. “Marriage is hard” she says, in one tearful scene, and we nod in agreement with her, simultaneously rooting for this one to work. As for the kids, they’re, well, pretty all right.

Come Oscar night, and I think this nicely made, well acted, and well written film will probably walk away without any awards. Its probably the weakest in the movie category, as are Mark Ruffalo’s chances for supporting actor. The screenplay nomination contends with the dizzyingly intricate “Inception”, and the sweeping-but-comic “King’s Speech”, both of which I think will leave it trailing. Finally, there’s Annette Bening’s best actress nomination. This right here is possibly the closest the movie could come to snatching Oscar victory, but there’s a raging insane ballerina fighting tooth-and-nail for this one, and the way things look right now, it’s probably Natalie Portman for the gold.

Slow motion punch to face and shimmering, flying drops of sweat/blood/saliva? Check.

Protagonist severely losing, till his trainer murmurs something inspirational about love /friendship/family/America in his ear and immediately turns the match around? Check.

At least one or two training montages set to a rousing tune? Check.

Ding-ding-ding, you made Boxer Movie Bingo!

That’s the trouble with making a movie about boxing. It is simply impossible to avoid the tropes. And then, everybody will do you the enormous disservice of comparing your movie to “Raging Bull” — you just can’t come out looking good from a comparison with Robert De Niro’s brand of crazy. However, if you can ignore the superficial clichés and the de rigueur “underdog wins against all odds” plot, “The Fighter” makes for a very good watch.

This is the story of the welterweight professional boxer, “Irish” Micky Ward (played by Mark Wahlberg) and how he overcame enormous difficulties before he finally took the WBU Light Welterweight title. Unlike other fighters, Micky’s problems did not include the mob or poverty or race or a barely controlled temper; his problem was his family. His large, overwhelming, smothering-in-love family, who make his decisions for him, apparently for his own good.

And then, there is his half-brother Dicky Eklund (Christan Bale), whom Micky and the entire family idolize and worship like a hero. Dicky could have been numbered among the greatest boxers, if it weren’t for his debilitating crack cocaine addiction. But all of them turn a blind eye to his drug problem, because Dicky once fought and knocked out Sugar Ray Leonard. They still live in that moment, despite that fact that it happened years ago and Dicky does not even have a semblance of a boxing career any more. He could make a come back any old time, they figured, and in the meanwhile, he would help his little brother Micky make a name for himself. So sure were they of Dicky’s prowess that none of them thought Micky had a chance in hell without Dicky’s expertise. Sadly, even Micky ended up believing in that. Dicky may be high all the time, but his word was gold. Admiration can be a funny thing like that.

Micky’s problem is clear, almost 5 minutes into the movie. He just doesn’t want to take responsibility for himself—be it his failures or his successes. He’d much rather place the weight of the decision-making on his megalomaniac mother or his unreliable drug addict brother. This way, if nothing works out, he can shrug his shoulders and say he tried. When the clear error of trusting his mother and brother is made obvious to him, he shifts the burden on his girlfriend and father, who are more than happy to get a piece of the Micky Ward pie. In these moments, you really want to shake him and say, “Be more in control of your life, goddammit!” That is why his real victory doesn’t come within the boxing ring, but when he finally takes the reins for his life.

Oddly enough, the most defining scenes from this movie were not of the boxing matches or even of the lead actor, Mark Wahlberg, but were those of his large family of sisters and father and other relatives, all presided by the matriarch, Alice (Melissa Leo). There is one scene when he is with his girlfriend (Amy Adams), and he is arguing with his mother, and his group of sycophantic chorus of sisters take their cues from his mother to disagree with him in unison. They are like a laughter track from a sitcom or a flock of squawking birds animated by Pixar, and brilliantly effective in conveying the sort of bull-headed mentality of popular opinion one must sometimes put up with. Sure they seem caricature-like, but that is precisely what the director intended. And Melissa Leo is superb, as Alice, sitting in the centre of her web, manipulating and controlling, knowing exactly how to guilt-trip her sons. Many are anticipating her to take the Best Supporting Actress Oscar later this month, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she did.

Mark Wahlberg’s self-effacing performances have finally found a place, it seems. In “The Departed”, he was almost invisible behind all the Hollywood heavyweights, and in “The Lovely Bones”, Stanley Tucci stole the show. But in this movie, he is the yin to Christian Bale’s yang. Christian Bale’s wired performance as Dicky Eklund and his manic energy was one of the real standouts of this movie, and completely deserving of the Oscar he will probably receive. But even Bale’s addict personality would have seemed out of place and discordant, if it were not for the strong, steady reliability that Wahlberg radiates through the movie; and Wahlberg’s character would have been anchorless were it not for Bale’s animal magnetism. They really do complete each other.

Ultimately, despite having a superb supporting cast and a lead actor who did not try to dominate the film, “The Fighter” is simply not one for the ages. The lead up to the climax lacked tension, because, as far as the audience were concerned, Micky had already had his victory where it mattered—at home. So the outcome of the climax boxing match was fairly obvious. In fact, if you read the real Micky Ward’s biography, you’ll find that he fought exactly like every single movie boxer in a climactic scene– he’d taken a severe beating for several rounds and then land that one punch that turns the tables. That was his signature move. So you cant really blame the movie makers for the rather predictable finish. Besides, Micky Ward seems like such an overall nice guy, you really are happy for him and his successes. In any case, ‘suspenseful, shocking climax’ was really not what the director was going for, but it would have been nice if he’d aimed for ‘thunderous ending’ or something to that effect.

There were plenty of great moments of cinema too– Dicky’s slow realization of what his life had become in reality is a stunning piece of drama. The way the boxing matches were shot: from the perspective of the spectators, so the noise of the crowd is loud and overwhelming, puts the movie-watcher right there in a ringside seat. This one won’t be winning any Best Picture awards but I’d recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone looking for an excellent movie to watch on a Friday night, which is really all that is going to matter three days after the Oscar mania has died down.

Normally I would have said “no”, and in some cases, the “original” and the re-make merit no comparison at all because of vast differences in quality or storyline or both. In this case though, the 1969 version is useful to appreciate the merits of the Coen Brothers’ version (and also understand where it falls short). Make no mistake, I think both are very, very good films and feature some fantastic work but when we’re essentially in Oscar-comparison mode, one has to pick winners and losers.

Strictly speaking, the Coen Brothers’ “True Grit” is not a re-make as it is sometimes made out to be. It is, like its 1969 predecessor starring John Wayne, based on the eponymous Charles Portis’ novel. The story largely follows the novel in both cases, though the Coen Brothers’ version is considered to be truer to the novel’s plotline. Broadly, the movies and book tell the story of 14 year old Hattie Ross, whose father has been murdered in cold blood by outlaw, Tom Chaney and her efforts to bring her father’s killer to justice by hiring US Marshall, Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn to go into the Indian Territories and bring him to justice. Along the way, they are also joined by LaBoeuf (who calls himself “LaBeef”) a Texas Ranger also on the hunt for Tom Chaney. Apart from some deviations in the plot, both movies stick to this broad outline, though in tone and tenor, though, the two movies are quite different different.

Whereas the 1969 version focuses more on Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn, the Coen Brothers’ focus theirs on the girl, Hattie Ross (played brilliantly by Hailee Steinfeld). Whereas the 1969 version has the feel of an adventure story with thrills, spills, danger and good old fashioned frontier-humour, the Coen Brothers bring their very Coen Brothers touch to the movie. It is much darker, the setting grimmer and one involuntarily feels the cold landscape in watching the movie. Whereas all the action in the 1969 version seems to take place in autumn daylight, much of the action in the later version takes place in the cold and grim winter. Not that one is necessarily preferable to the other, but it is an interesting example of how in the hands of an expert storyteller, the mood and the feel of a story can change quite dramatically without any adverse impact on the storytelling itself.

The Coen brothers did the right thing, I think, by bringing Hattie Ross back to the centre of the story. Instead of becoming just another Western with cowboys and Indians (the less-pc kind), it becomes a story about about justice on the wild frontiers of a country still trying to become a nation.In Hattie Ross’ constant evocation of the law justifying her actions (and her ultimate weapon of last resort, famed lawyer J Noble Dagett!) we get a sense of a new order (literally and figuratively) emerging on the “wild and savage” frontier. Also this has allowed them to unearth a stunning talent in Hailee Steinfeld, of whom enough praises cannot be sung. Just go watch it for her pitch-perfect performance.

The Coen brothers’ biggest drawback, unfortunately, is the gross miscasting of Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn, the one-eyed, frontiersman/US Marshall/”encounter specialist” (as we say in these parts). Admittedly the 1969 version focuses more on Cogburn than the Coen brothers’ version but John Wayne brings so much more to the character than Jeff Bridges even comes close to suggesting. John Wayne’s Rooster Cogburn is equal parts pathetic, tough, foolhardy, drunk, indisputably brave and canny. When someone calls him “old and fat”, one look at him and you know they mean it. It did help that John Wayne was indeed 61 and quite fat when they shot the film but then you realize that’s just part of the impression that Cogburn wants others to believe; to hide an essentially tough and uncompromising character. His relationship with someone who seems his diametric opposite in every possible way (but just as tough and uncompromising) is the emotional core of this film. John Wayne won the Best Actor Oscar for this role, (deservedly so) and anyone who would reprise Rooster Cogburn had fairly big boots to fill.

Jeff Bridges comes off as a lucky drunk.

It probably doesn’t help that the last time Jeff Bridges worked with the Coen brothers, it was for the cult hit, “The Big Lebowski“. For those of us who loved and adored the movie and its slacker hero, its a bit hard to swallow “the Dude” swagger and stagger around pretending to be an over-the-hill frontiersman. It doesn’t help that Jeff Bridges looks exactly the same in almost all his movies. One almost expects him to take a gulp of a White Russian and blather on about his slacker philosophy. It is the cinematic equivalent of having Ellen Page of “Juno” fame play a sassy, mouthy, cringe inducing Hollywood’s-idea-of-a-teenager, Hattie Ross.

Fortunately, we get the infinitely more bearable (and talented) Hailee Steinfeld, who was all of thirteen when this movie was made and will probably go on to be one of the youngest Oscar winners come February 27th.

Matt Damon is of course a vast improvement as the blustering and bombastic LaBouef from the fairly wooden Glen Campbell in the same role. Long time fans of the Coen brothers will also be thrilled with the smaller roles that seem to add nothing to the story itself but somehow create an atmosphere that, in retrospect, seems impossible without them. Those who’ve seen “No Country for Old Men” and “A Serious Man” will know exactly what I am talking about. The landscape, in Coen brothers’ movies, whether it is the arid, red Southwest or the cold, freezing wilderness, always has this feeling of menace and discomfort that few other film makers capture so well. It is no different in “True Grit”.

Much as I liked “True Grit” (despite its one major flaw) with eight nominations, I think “True Grit” has overperformed in the nominations front. At best, it looks as though Hailee Steinfeld will win the Best Actress in a Supporting Role (a curious nomination since I think, she was pretty much the female lead of this film). If she does, it will be nothing less than entirely deserved making her the second youngest winner of the Award.

The Coen brothers are unlikely to win Best Director (they’ve already given it to them for a better film) or Best Picture (odds on favourite being that-facebook-movie). Jeff Bridges also just won Best Actor, and I don’t see the Academy giving him one more so quickly (Also, I don’t think the members of the AMPAS would want to give John Wayne another reason to rise from his grave and scalp them all). Ignoring the technical awards (they are only there to make the numbers anyway), I think True Grit’s next best shot at an Oscar is the Best Adapted Screenplay award; and it will be in a close contest with “The Social Network”.

But, forget the Oscars. (2008 is the date historians in the future will reckon as the beginning of the end as “Wall-E” and “The Dark Knight” weren’t even nominated and, ugh, “Slumdog Millionaire” won. When our children ask us why they no longer have the Oscar awards, be sure to tell them that about the time when two all time classics lost to a movie starring Anil Kapoor.)

Just go watch this movie.

It comes as no big surprise then that “The King’s Speech”, a handsomely mounted period piece about yet another British monarch, starts the Oscar race as the frontrunner, with 12 nominations, ranging from the obscure technical categories (someone explain how sound mixing is judged, please?) round to the grandslam of movie-directing-acting honours. It has won a fair few awards in the pre-Oscar race too, and from what I figure, the best picture win is coming down to a photo finish between this and that-facebook-movie-we’re-tired-of-praising.

Point being, I went into this one with hugely heightened expectations. I really wanted to like this movie – and I did. Just, well, not as much as I wanted to. See, I wanted to come out of the experience gushing about it, with that transient state of headiness that undergo emerging from a defining movie experience. Instead, I came out simply, well, pleased. Content, even – which, mind you, would make most movies a towering achievement, but, well, that’s great expectations for you.

So here we have Colin Firth (absolutely, and expectedly, astonishing) playing the-then Duke of York, who in the opening sequence in 1925 sets out to address a crowd at Wembley. A tap of the microphone, a sharp intake of breath, he mutters the first few words, and then … nothing. His mouth seizes up, the words are lost somewhere in his throat. The crowd looks on derisively, almost piteously, as the son of the king is unable to even make a salutary speech in public.

The Duke has by his side a wonderfully supportive wife – Helena Bonham Carter in a remarkably uncharacteristic role plays the eventual Queen Mother – who leads him to a succession of speech therapists, all of whom are unable to help.

And then the couple comes across Lionel Logue. As essayed by Geoffrey Rush, and impressively rounding out a great trio of central performances, Logue is brash, unconventional, and quite possibly the Duke’s only hope. The stakes are raised when it looks like the Duke might just become the next King of England, and in the process be required to make some particularly impassioned speeches, even while down south in Germany, a short man with a toothbrush mustache is giving some very powerful speeches indeed. And so the stage is set for an inspirational, typically rousing, period drama,

Which honestly, is the only issue “The King’s Speech” has – that it’s predictable, that there’s a paint-by-numbers feel threatening to come out of the woodwork, that it’s got all the expected elements so firmly in place. It’s that unquantifiable difference between achieving cinematic greatness on the one hand, as opposed to manufacturing it. If this sounds like nitpicking, well, I suppose it very much is – and yet I have to point this out to you to explain why I fell short of unabashedly loving this seemingly perfect piece of film-making.

Because, yes, its almost, just about perfect otherwise. The cinematography is casually stunning – 1930′s London plays hide-and-seek with the mist, while long tracking shots waltz with, and around, the King. The climactic walk down the corridors of the BBC is a particularly masterful bit of filmmaking; Roger Ebert interestingly observes that the long tracking shots might be evoking the king’s constricted vocal passages as he tries to get his words out. The screenplay is often hilarious and alternately touching; the performances I will say nothing more about, but that those 3 Academy Award acting nominations are absolutely well deserved.

In the end, then, the speech that King George VI delivered was one of guiding the country, the empire, towards hope in the darkest of times. That it is as much about his own personal triumph in being able to make that speech at all is the real power of the story.

Come Oscar night – I will be cheering this one on for the Acting nominations. Firth and Rush are almost certain to win their categories; Bonham-Carter a little less so, but that’s primarily because of a little girl in “True Grit” who steals the show from under Matt Damon and Jeff Bridges collective noses. As for the big two? Nyet, and nope. The other directors on the list pretty much all leave a greater stamp into their work, and as for best movie – well. “True Grit” is more satisfying, “Black Swan” more intense, “Inception” more challenging, and that-facebook-movie-that-we’re-tired-of-praising was pretty darn great too.

Many years ago, I read a biography of the prima ballerina, Anna Pavlova and I was enchanted. I decided that my life’s ambition was to become a danseuse and I surreptitiously practiced (what I assumed were) plies and demi-plies using my bed’s headboard as a bar in the hope that I would soon be invited to train at the Juilliard School. I remember this because no book or movie since has made me yearn to learn an art as much, till Black Swan. Ever since I watched this movie, I have been playing Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake on repeat and doing the “ballet” (if you ask me about this, I will stoutly deny it).

Like a ballet production, this movie has poise, drama, style, emotion and a thundering climax. It has been described as a psychological thriller, but it is so much more. Do you remember the final scene in Billy Elliot? Billy Elliot has grown up and is about to make his entrance as the lead in a ballet. We know he’s talented, but what will he be like as a mature dancer? The moment of suspense is almost unbearable, the crescendo is rising, and then, he soars and he is glorious. That scene still makes my heart stop every single time I watch it. Now, stretch that one scene into 108 breathtaking minutes, and you have Black Swan.

In Black Swan, Nina Sayers is a quiet, timid, young ballet soloist who lives with her overbearing mother, practices every day and does what she’s told. The director of the ballet announces that the coveted role of the Swan Queen in the famous ballet, “Swan Lake” is up for grabs. But the dancer who claims this role must not only be able to play the role of the beautiful, chaste, and frail ‘White Swan’, but must also be able to play the role of the darker, seductive and sexual ‘Black Swan’. Nina gets the role, but everybody knows that while she’s a perfect White Swan, she’s just too virginal to play the Black Swan. And thus, Nina descends into the darkness of her own psyche, to find the Black Swan in her.

Perfection of technique in an art can only take you so far. Take a look at this video (it is less than 2 minutes long). It is of Anna Pavlova performing her masterpiece: The Dying Swan. Then take a quick look at some of the other artists performing the same role. Don’t they seem practiced and self-conscious? With Pavlova on the other hand, I feel the dying throes of the swan. Death has never been more heart-rending and at the same time, beautiful. They say that she was never very good at the ‘gymnastics’ bit of ballet, and yet she remains the most famous ballerinas of all time because of her power to emote. I confidently comment on her performance, despite being barely able to spell ‘ballet’ let alone claim awareness of its intricacies, because Pavlova felt that her art was not to be restricted to the lorgnette/monocle crowd, but must transcend education, class, nationality and language. She enthralled audiences from the hallowed halls of the Mariinsky Theatre to little towns in South America. Art must communicate and not be mired down by rules, she believed. And like Pavlova, Nina too struggles to throw off the shackles of training and morality, and find the essence of the Swan Queen in her.

Many have compared this movie to Rosemary’s Baby. It’s a fair comparison (and a compliment) because one slowly loses one’s sanity as the film unravels. But in Rosemary’s Baby, we are a part of Mia Farrow’s madness and despair, because we don’t quite know what to believe either (till the makers copped out in the end and smashed subtlety with a sledgehammer). In Black Swan, though, we are kept at arm’s length; front row spectators to her existential crisis. It is kind of fitting in a movie about a performance art, and certainly not unintentional.

Edgar Degas famously said, “Art is a vice. One does not take it in lawful wedlock, one rapes it.”
I have always wondered what it must be like, to have such an all-consuming passion for an art, that one needs no other sustenance; to burn from within. How wonderful it must be to love something so deeply, that everything in life, including death, must seem trivial. That’s what being the Swan Queen meant for Nina. The same burning passion we saw in Billy Elliot, in Edith Piaf (La Vie en Rose), Van Gogh (Lust for Life) and so many others. I now understand the meaning of the agony and the ecstasy, and I envy them for it.

(The closest thing I have to a passion is StumbleUpon, and I am pretty sure I wouldn’t want to die while Stumbling. It would be so horrendously embarrassing to be found dead with a LOLCat on your computer screen).

That Natalie Portman is going to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress is a given. The question is, will she win? Her serious competition for this year (barring any obvious Oscar fodder that releases this month) will probably be from Annette Bening and Julianne Moore in The Kids Are All Right, Nicole Kidman for Rabbit Hole and Hilary Swank in Conviction. Hilary’s got two and Nicole’s got one already, so they won’t be winning in a year when two actors are due overlong for an Oscar. Julianne Moore has been passed up four times, and Annette Bening thrice. Add to that the fact that being gay in a movie is the fastest route to a tearful, “spontaneous” speech at the Kodak Theatre. Which is why this is almost certainly Annette or Julianne’s year. I’d go with Annette because her character was way more compelling.

So what are Natalie’s chances? The Academy does go nuts over pretty movies about elegant things (like the ballet), so that’s in her favour. And the one thing that the Academy loves almost as much as a gay character is a crazy/having-psychiatric-disorders character. And Natalie’s so pretty and put in so much effort. But she’s young, so they’ll probably hand her a Golden Globe for her troubles, a pat on the back and give the Oscar to Annette. Which is an awful pity, because, if these things were objective, Natalie would win this hands down.

Go on, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, prove me wrong.