SAG nominations announced

The race for next year's awards season kicked off yesterday, when the announcement of the SAG (Screen Actor's Guild) Awards nominations.

Actor Sean Penn's directorial venture, Into the Wild, seems to be a front runner with a total of four nominations.

Penn's movie has also been nominated in the best performance by an overall cast category, and if he bags that award come Jan 27, he may just be on his way to receiving a golden statue at the Oscars.

It's said that the SAG awards are a pretty good indicators of what to expect at the Oscars.

And the nominees are

Cate Blanchett, Julie Christie, Marion Cotillard, Angelina Jolie and Ellen Page have been nominated in the best actress category.

Meanwhile, Into the WIld's hero Emile Hirsch is in the running for best actor. He'll be competing with George Clooney, Danial Day-Lewis, Viggo Mortensen and Ryan Gosling for the honour.

Winehouse's woes

It hasn't been an easy few weeks for Amy Winehouse.

The troubled singer, who's biggest hit ironically is "Rehab" has been plagued by drug-related problems - according to the Guardian she's spent a couple of night in the cells in Norway, has had the police search her place for illegal substances - and to top it off, her husband, Blake Fileder-Civil has been carted of to jail in an obstruction of justice case.

And this last incident has maybe been the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. WInehose has cancelled her latest tour across the Britain and Ireland.

The Guardian quoted her as saying: I can't give it my all on stage without my Blake. I'm so sorry but I don't want to do the shows half-heartedly; I love singing. My husband is everything to me and without him it's just not the same."

National Theatre's War Horse is a marvelous spectacle

Last week, I went to see the National Theatre's production of War Horse , which has been adapted from a children's book.

Why the writers/directors thought a book written for nine-year-olds is a big question, but the play is a visual extravaganza.

Here's my review:

Joey, the chestnut-coloured star of the show, easily stole hearts as he galloped through scene after scene of the National Theatre’s production of War Horse. And it probably had a lot to do with the fact that he’s made out of bamboo and cloth.

So, it seems the risk the production team at the National Theatre took to use puppets in the stage adaptation of War Horse, originally written by Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo, definitely paid off. It’s not easy to produce a play whose lead character a horse, but playwright Nick Stafford witty script and the Handspring Puppet Company’s life-size creatures – the animals and even some of the people are puppets – have been combined to tell the story of a boy’s love for his horse.

The story so far

In Stafford’s version, the story is told through people, where Joey comes alive as the obsession of his teenaged master Albert Narracott. Bought to work as a farm horse, Joey is sold by Albert’s father to the British Army for the princely sum of £100 at the beginning of the First World War.

What follows is 16-year-old Albert’s enlistment in the army, and frantic search for Joey through the battlegrounds of France. Horse and master are reunited after many fantastically choreographed battles, when a wounded Joey is rescued from no man’s land.

The love of a boy for his horse and the drama and tragedy of war are beautifully staged with the help of a great music score by Adrian Sutton, dramatic lighting by Paule Constables, and the clever use of live vocals penned by John Tams. The story also relies on some innovative multimedia produced by video designers Leo Warner and Mark Grimmer to deliver a powerhouse of a production.

But the stars of the show are the puppets. Watching their fluid, graceful, almost life-like movements is fascinating. In fact, at times it’s almost impossible to separate puppet from puppeteer.

Performance-wise

Credit must be given to director of motion Tony Sedgwick, who got his puppets to dance and leap in some of the most breath-taking battle scenes choreographed on stage. The sight of officers charging, with swords raised, while sitting astride galloping horses (fortunately, the slo-mo effect worked for this scene) was a jaw-dropping sequence.

Disappointingly, and considering the epic proportions of the productions, the actors’ performance failed to really sparkle.

But in the case of the War Horse, the sum of all parts really did pull together to make a show. It’s highly entertaining and definitely worth the ticket price, even if it’s 45 quid.

Image courtesy:sxc.hu

Beer sales slipping

Here’s an interesting bit of news. It seems beer sales have been slipping over the last few years – there’s been a 22 per cent drop since 1979.
And funnily enough, this comes at a time when supermarkets like Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda have been selling cans of larger for as little as 22p, according to a report in the Daily Mail .
While you might scratch your head and wondering how beer sales are slumping especially given reports about girls’ “laddette behaviour” and the rise of binge drinking among teens, studies ( as reported by the BBC’s magazine ) have found that people are shunning the pint because its... urm... fattening!
This is of course a myth, because beer is made of much healthier stuff. A look at the alcohol, carb and calorie content chart just proves it!
So, go on, pick up that pint, you’re not likely to get a beer-belly (well not a very big one anyways...as long as you exercise!).

Image courtesy:FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Grant bid's Liz goodbye

Hugh Grant has parted with yet another Liz - this time it's Andy Warhol's protrait of the screen legend Liz Taylor.

Though Grant's reps and even Christie's spokesperson refuse to comment on whether the the portrait really did belong to the Micky Blue Eyes star (one wonders why), the auction house did confirm that the painting sold for $23 million. It is suprisingly much lower than the pre-sales estimate of $25 million dollars.

But Grant, if he did indeed sell the painting (he bought it for £2 million), had no worries about making a profit, because, accodring to Hello magazine, Christie's had assured him £10 million even if bidding wasn't as fierce.

Whatever the case, Grant defiantely has made a profit.

What next Mr Musharraf?

Pakistan's president General Pervez Musharraf is committed to fighting terrorism, he's also committed to ensuring that the country has 'free and fair elections' . So, that's why he's declared an Emergency, scrapped the constitution, dismissed the supreme court and arrested over 2000 lawyers and activists. Yep, that's his way of combating terrorism. And of course the emergency has nothing to do with the fact that the Supreme Court was going to declare him ineligible to run for president.
An interesting article in the New York Times serves to illustrate how much desperately the General is trying to stay in power.
In fact, the situation is playing out much like it did for the Musharraf's predecessors. Like General Ayub Khan and General Zia ul Haq, he too is fighting to stay in power and in uniform, and like with the former two generals, the his relationship with the United States is beginning to cool.
Till now, the general has managed to pull himself out of several damaging political scandals, but it will be be interesting to see how he manages to stay in power now. Especially since former Pak PM Benazir Bhutto has begun asking for his resignation .