Filipino maids in Hong Kong

From the Associated Press:

HK star Lau channels China earnings to local films -

"While mainland China is now enjoying the fruits of rapid economic growth after years of political upheaval and central economic planning, Hong Kong has long enjoyed a high standard of living thanks to its bustling port economy. Filipino maids and domestic helpers from other Southeast Asian countries are common among middle-class Hong Kong families, let alone the super wealthy."

Oscars 2011

The King's Speech led the winners of the 83rd Academy Awards with four statuettes for best picture, best director (Tom Hooper), best actor (Colin Firth) and best original screenplay (David Seidler).

Another big winner was Inception, which won four of its eight nominations: best cinematography, visual effects, sound mixing and sound editing.

On the other hand, The Social Network copped three prizes: best adapted screenplay (Aaron Sorkin), best original score (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) and best editing (Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter).

Christian Bale and Melissa Leo received the Oscars for acting in a supporting role, for their turn in The Fighter.

Toy Story 3 earned statuettes for best animated feature film and best original song (for "We Belong Together" by Randy Newman).

Alice in Wonderland was a surprise winner of two Oscars (out of three nominations): best art direction and costume design.

Other winners were:

Natalie Portman (in Black Swan) - best actress

The Wolfman - best makeup

In a Better World (Denmark) - best foreign language film

Inside Job - best documentary feature

Strangers No More - best short-subject documentary

God of Love - best live action short film

The Lost Thing - best animated short film

Razzies 2011

The Last Airbender led the winners of the Golden Raspberry Awards, receiving prizes for worst picture, worst director, worst screenplay, and worst eye-gouging misuse of 3-D. Jackson Rathbone was chosen worst supporting actor for turns in The Last Airbender and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.

M. Night Shyamalan was tapped worst director and worst supporting actor in 2006 for Lady in the Water.

Sex and the City 2, on the other hand, took the awards for worst actress; worst screen couple or ensemble; and, worst prequel, remake, rip-off or sequel.

Ashton Kutcher was worst actor (for "Killers" and "Valentine's Day), and Jessica Alba was worst supporting actress (for "The Killer Inside Me," "Little Fockers," "Machete" and "Valentine's Day).

Independent Spirit Awards 2011

Black Swan led the winners of the the Independent Spirit Awards copping the prizes for best picture, best director (Darren Aronofsky), best cinematography (for Matthew Libatique) and best actress (Natalie Portman).

Winter's Bone received the awards for best supporting actor and actress (John Hawkes and Dale Dickey).

Other winners were:

Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg (for The Kids are All Right) - best screenplay

James Franco (for 127 Hours) - best actor

Get Low (Aaron Schneider, director) - best first film

Lena Dunham (for Tiny Furniture) - best first screenplay

The King's Speech (United Kingdom) - best foreign film

Exit Through the Gift Shop - best documentary

Daddy longlegs - John Cassavetes Award for best film made for under $500,000

Please Give - Robert Altman Award for Director, Casting Director and Ensemble Cast

Forecast for the 2011 Academy Awards

Here is how I think the nominees will fare in Monday's Oscars, based on the order in which they could possibly win.


best picture-

The King's Speech
The Social Network
True Grit
The Fighter
Inception


best director-

David Fincher for The Social Network
Tom Hooper for The King's Speech
David O. Russell for The Fighter
Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for True Grit


best original screenplay-

The King's Speech
Inception
The Fighter
The Kids are All Right
Another Year


best adapted screenplay-

The Social Network
Winter's Bone
Toy Story 3
True Grit
127 Hours


best actor-

Colin Firth in The King's Speech
Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network
James Franco in 127 Hours
Jeff Bridges in True Grit
Javier Bardem in Biutiful


best actress-

Natalie Portman in Black Swan
Annette Bening in The Kids are All Right
Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone
Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole
Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine


best supporting actor-

Christian Bale in The Fighter
Geoffrey Rush in The King's Speech
Mark Ruffalo in The Kids are All Right
Jeremy Renner in The Town
John Hawkes in Winter's Bone


best supporting actress-

Melissa Leo in The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit
Amy Adams in The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter in The King's Speech
Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom


best cinematography-

True Grit
Black Swan


best editing-

The Social Network
The King's Speech
The Fighter
Black Swan
127 Hours


best costume design-

The King's Speech
True Grit
Alice in Wonderland


best makeup:

The Wolfman
The Way Back
Barney's Version


best visual effects-

Inception
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Alice in Wonderland


best original score-

The King's Speech
The Social Network
Inception
How to Train Your Dragon
127 Hours


best original song-

If I Rise from 127 Hours
W Belong Together from Toy Story 3
I See the Light (Tangled)
Coming Home (Country Strong)

best sound mixing-

Inception
True Grit
Toy Story 3


best sound editing:

Inception
True Grit
The King's Speech
The Social Network
Salt


best art direction-

The King's Speech
True Grit
Inception


best animated feature film- Toy Story 3


best foreign-language film -

Incendies
Biutiful
In a Better World
Outside the Law
Dogtooth

The Splintered Soul in "Black Swan"

Black Swan is an intensely delirious movie that charts a girl’s descent into dark territory.

A ballet company in New York is staging Swan Lake, and its director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) elects to replace Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) with Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) as the Swan Queen.

Leroy has doubts. He thinks Nina has the perfect technique to be the White Swan, but she is stiff and cold- sexless to be the Black Swan. What follows is Nina’s struggle to be perfect as well for the Black Swan role.

Black Swan’s director Darren Aronofsky and writers Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz and John McLaughlin expertly draw from literary and cinematic traditions to skillfully depict Nina’s unraveling.

Nina’s interior life resembles Rapunzel’s: She is locked up in the tower by an overbearing Mother Gothel (Barbara Hershey as Erica). They live together, and clearly, Erica supports Nina’s ambitions and dotes on her. But maybe too much: Erica wakes her, feeds her, undresses and dresses her, even taking Nina’s earrings out herself.

Consider an early scene in which Nina talks about having a dream. At first, we assume that she is talking to her mother. Much later, we realize she may have been talking to herself. This is what she does when she is by her lonesome. In the hallways of the theater, she is all by herself many times, even as girls her age talk and laugh among themselves.

In another early scene, mother and daughter regard a fruit. “How pretty,” they say; talking like children. Nina’s bedroom is full of stuffed toys- designed like a child’s room.

Hershey convincingly plays a mother who is by turns sweet and suffocating, jealous and protective. Erica used to be a ballerina herself and while she wants her daughter to realize her dreams, she admits at one point that she thought her daughter cannot handle the pressure. She is also aware that her daughter is unstable, so she wishes Nina would stop harming herself. A nail-clipping scene that will dare you to look away would show how shockingly involved Erica is, and how layered this involvement is. In another scene, Erica urges Nina to have a little cake after Nina cops the plum role. Subsequently, Erica demonstrates how forceful she is whether she wields a knife or a nail clipper.

In this particular shot, the camera is tilted to convey the uneasiness in their relationship. We observe that Erica is lit partially, and we know that she is not all cheer. “Sweet child,” she coos, and we know these words are veiled. While Nina lies on the bed, her mother towers over her, and while the hand touches Nina’s head tenderly, it could very well be pushing the head down. Nina is severely restricted, by herself and her mother, and she has to acknowledge this.

Black Swan’s first crucial plot point is a trade common in fairy tales: a bargain that will cost you. Nina will get to play the Swan Queen if she can show Leroy how to play the Black Swan.

True to the Swan Lake story, Nina (the princess) finds herself tapped by the artistic director (the prince), thereby getting the happiness she seeks. However, she finds the Black Swan role a burden (the curse) because she does not know how to seduce the audience. Her mother (the sorceress) has cloistered her, and therefore crippled her. Lily, another member of the troupe (another swan, Odile from the source) who exudes the wildness and the passion required, threatens to ensnare the director and usurp the Swan Queen role.

Is Lily out to get her? Black Swan toys with us by blurring the lines between the real and the fantastic. It plays in line with the traditions of psychological horror fiction (The Turn of the Screw, The Innocents, The Others), in which the ghost may or may not be imagined, and the virginal heroine is repressed and possibly unhinged.

How much of it is delusion? How much is real and how much is imagined? In the scene in which she pleasures herself, she is startled to find her mother sleeping nearby. Is her mother truly in her bedroom, or did Nina conjure her image to repress her erotic feelings? Either way, it adds to the development of the themes of the movie.

Aronofsky also achieves his effects through various strategies. He uses mirrors and hallways and doubles to suggest an identity crisis, the anxiety it brings and a need to deal with it. These characterize free choice and an opportunity to learn and grow. In many scenes, mirrors force Nina to look at who she really is. Hallways represent a period of transition, a journey into the unknown. Additionally, the camera constantly moves and swirls, to indicate that Nina's personality is in flux.

Plus Nina has doubles in her mother, Beth and Lily.

The casting of Ryder, Portman and Kunis is inspired: Ryder as the aging star forced to retire, Portman as the star of the moment and Kunis as the ascendant star. Just like her character, Portman reaches for greatness, and achieves it.

Early in the movie, Leroy recounts the story: A sweet girl finds herself cursed to be a swan, and only true love can set her free. Before a prince can declare his love, the black swan tricks him and seduces him. The white swan kills herself and finds freedom in death.

In the middle of the movie, Nina meets her self- her alter ego, the shadow- in an alley. We know from literary history that meeting your doppelganger is a sure omen of death. Does she die in the end? We cannot say conclusively, but she definitely dies a glorious, symbolic death. She has to accept her shadow- to be uninhibited, to wake up to her flaws, to become a woman.

Black Swan succeeds in exploring parts of Nina’s personality that have been suppressed, and her disintegration after attempting to embody both swans.

Photo from http://columbus.metromix.com/movies/photogallery/black-swan-photos/2179365/photo/2325807

2011 Academy Award nominations

The nominees for the 83rd Academy Award have been announced.


best picture-

Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids are All Right
The King's Speech

127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone


best director-

Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan
David O. Russell for The Fighter
Tom Hooper for The King's Speech
David Fincher for The Social Network
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for True Grit


best original screenplay

Mike Leigh for Another Year
Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson and Keith Dorrington for The Fighter
Christopher Nolan for Inception
Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg for The Kids are All Right
David Seidler for The King's Speech


best adapted screenplay-

Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy for 127 Hours
Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network
Michael Arndt, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich for Toy Story 3
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for True Grit
Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini for Winter's Bone


best actor-

Javier Bardem in Biutiful
Jeff Bridges in True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network
Colin Firth in The King's Speech
James Franco in 127 Hours


best actress-

Annette Bening in The Kids are All Right
Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone
Natalie Portman in Black Swan
Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine


best supporting actor-

Christian Bale in The Fighter
John Hawkes in Winter's Bone
Jeremy Renner in The Town
Mark Ruffalo in The Kids are All Right
Geoffrey Rush in The King's Speech


best supporting actress-

Amy Adams in The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter in The King's Speech
Melissa Leo in The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit
Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom


best cinematography-

Black Swan
Inception
The King's Speech
The Social Network
True Grit


best film editing-

Black Swan
The Fighter
The King's Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network


best original score-

How to Train Your Dragon
Inception
The King's Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network


best original song-

Coming Home from Country Strong
I See the Light from Tangled
If I Rise from 127 Hours
We Belong Together from Toy Story 3


best art direction-

Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Inception
The King's Speech
True Grit


best costume-

Alice in Wonderland
I Am Love
The King's Speech
The Tempest
True Grit




best sound mixing-

Inception
The King's Speech
Salt
The Social Network
True Grit


best sound editing-

Inception
Toy Story 3
Tron: Legacy
True Grit
Unstoppable


best makeup-

Barney's Version
The Way Back
The Wolfman


best visual effects-

Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Hereafter
Inception
Iron Man 2


best animated feature film-

How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3


best foreign-language film

Biutiful (Mexico)
Dogtooth (Greece)
In a Better World (Denmark)
Incendies (Canada)
Outside the Law [Hors-la-loi] (Algeria)


best documentary feature-

Exit Through the Gift Shop
Gasland
Inside Job
Restrepo
Waste Land


best short-subject documentary -

Killing in the Name
Poster Girl
Strangers No More
Sun Come Up
The Warriors of Qiugang


best live action short film-

The Confession
The Crush
God of Love
Na Wewe
Wish 143


best animated short film-

Day and Night
The Gruffalo
Let's Pollute
The Lost Thing
Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary)

Forecast for tonight's announcement of Oscar nominees

Here are my predictions on who will most likely be nominated for an Academy Award this year:


best picture:

Black Swan
Inception
The Fighter
The Kids are All Right
The King's Speech

The Social Network
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone


If anyone is going to drop off the list, it would be The Town, to be replaced by 127 Hours. Which is an unlikely scenario.


best director:

Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan
David Fincher for The Social Network
Tom Hooper for The King's Speech
Christopher Nolan for Inception
David O. Russell for The Fighter


If anybody is to fall off the list, it would be Darren Aronofsky. Think of Moulin Rouge- another divisive movie. Which would allow Joel and Ethan Coen to be nominated for True Grit.


best original screenplay:

Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids are All Right
The King's Speech


I can see Inception missing out, with the slot going to Another Year.


best adapted screenplay:

127 Hours
Rabbit Hole
The Social Network
True Grit
Winter's Bone


127 Hours might be passed over for Toy Story 3.


Other possibilities in the screenplay categories are Biutiful, Blue Valentine, Get Low, The Ghost Writer, Made in Dagenham and Never Let Me Go.


best actor:

Jeff Bridges in True Grit
Robert Duvall in Get Low
Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network
Colin Firth in The King's Speech
James Franco in 127 Hours


This category looks tight, but Eisenberg or Franco might have to give way to a spoiler, such as Javier Bardem (Biutiful), Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine) or Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter).


best actress:
Annette Bening in The Kids are All Right
Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone
Natalie Portman in Black Swan
Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit


The first four look like locks, although I fear Kidman will be passed over. In any case, the fifth nod might go to Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine) or Halle Berry (Frankie & Alice).

Williams has better chances at being nominated than her co-star Gosling.


best supporting actor:

Christian Bale in The Fighter
Andrew Garfield in The Social Network
Jeremy Renner in The Town
Mark Ruffalo in The Kids are All Right
Geoffrey Rush in The King's Speech


Garfield might find himself upset by John Hawkes (Winter's Bone), or Renner might be replaced by co-star Pete Postlethwaite, who died earlier this month. Don't count Michael Douglas (Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps) yet.


best supporting actress:

Amy Adams in The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter in The King's Speech
Mila Kunis in Black Swan
Melissa Leo in The Fighter
Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom


Kunis might find herself pushed out by co-star Barbara Hershey, or Dianne Wiest (Rabbit Hole) or Sissy Spacek (Get Low) might sneak in.

Look for Steinfeld in the supporting actress category, and Lesley Manville (Another Year) in either the lead or supporting actress category.

Plus Julianne Moore (The Kids are All Right) might pull off a surprise and show up in the fifth slot for lead actress, although it is more likely that she will land in the supporting field.

2011 Golden Raspberry Award nominees

The nominees for this year's Razzies have been announced. The Last Airbender and Twilight Saga: Eclipse lead the field with nine nominations apiece. They are followed by Sex and the City 2 with seven; The Bounty Hunter, Vampires Suck and Valentine's Day, four each; Little Fockers, three; and, Clash of the Titans, Jonah Hex and The Spy Next Door, two each.

worst picture:

The Bounty Hunter
The Last Airbender
Sex and the City 2
Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Vampires Suck


worst director:

Sylvester Stallone for The Expendables
M. Night Shyamalan for The Last Airbender
Michael Patrick King for Sex and the City 2
David Slade for Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer for Vampires Suck


worst screenplay:

M. Night Shyamalan for The Last Airbender
Michael Hamburg & Larry Stuckey for Little Fockers
Michael Patrick King for Sex and the City 2
Melissa Rosenberg for Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer for Vampires Suck


worst actor:

Jack Black in Gulliver's Travels
Gerard Butler in The Bounty Hunter
Ashton Kutcher in Killers and Valentine's Day
Taylor Lautner in Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Valentine's Day
Robert Pattinson in Remember Me and Twilight Saga: Eclipse


worst actress:

Jennifer Aniston in The Bounty Hunter and The Switch
Miley Cyrus in The Last Song
Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis in Sex and the City 2
Megan Fox in Jonah Hex
Kristen Stewart in Twilight Saga: Eclipse


worst supporting actor:

Billy Ray Cyrus in The Last Song
George Lopez in Marmaduke, The Spy Next Door and Valentine's Day
Dev Patel in The Last Airbender
Jackson Rathbone in The Last Airbender and Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Rob Schneider in Grown Ups


worst supporting actress:

Jessica Alba in The Killer Inside Me, Little Fockers, Machete and Valentine's Day
Cher in Burlesque
Liza Minnelli in Sex and the City 2
Nicola Peltz in The Last Airbender
Barbra Streisand in Little Fockers


worst prequel, remake, rip-off or sequel:

Clash of the Titans
The Last Airbender
Sex and the City 2
Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Vampires Suck


worst screen couple/ensemble:

Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler in The Bounty Hunter
Josh Brolin's face and Megan Fox's accent in Jonah Hex
the entire cast of The Last Airbender
the entire cast of Sex and the City 2
the entire cast of Twilight Saga: Eclipse


worst eye-gouging misuse of 3-D:

Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore
Clash of the Titans
The Last Airbender
Nutcracker 3-D
Saw 3-D


The ceremony will be held on February 26.