Vassup! I'm Sacha Baron Cohen.

Sacha Baron Cohen is one person whose company, I suspect, most people wont enjoy much; especially when he is masquerading as Borat, an uncouth Kazakh or Bruno, an aggressive Austrian gay fashion designer. He manages to insult every group he could: gay and straight, black and white, Kazakhs and Americans, Jews and Christian evangelists, New-yorkers and Southerns, celebrities and middle America, stage parents and terrorists. But even after he insults us so much, I still believe we really need him. Not just because he is supremely talented- perhaps the best comedian of our times- but more because we do need somebody really courageous who pushes all limits and holds a mirror for us to see our not so beautiful face.

The New Sardars of Bollywood

Since early days, Bollywood or Hindi film industry has been dominated by Punjabis. Many producers, directors, writers and especially heroes of the past were Punjabis. Quite a few among those Punjabis were either Sikhs or came from mixed Hindu-Sikh Punjabi families. But still the Sikh characters in Hindi films during those days were mostly reduced to stereotypes. Either they were there to provide a comic angle or to play an over the top super nice/super brave character. I guess the reason that in spite of the presence of many Punjabis at the helm of affairs during those days, we still didnt ever see a full Sardar as a hero was that both producers and the directors thought that a turbaned Sikh with a beard wont find much takers among the masses. Also, remember that those were the times when even some Muslim actors and actresses changed their names to more North Indian sounding Hindu names. I guess most people wanted to play safe in the still nascent Bombay film industry of the 50′s and the 60′s.

My Predictions for the Oscars tommorow

Best Motion Picture of the Year

Nominees:
	Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The  Frost/Nixon  (Havent seen) Milk  Reader, The ( Slumdog Millionaire

My personal favorite: The Curious case of Benjamin Button

Most likely winner: Slumdog Millionaire

Dark Horse : Milk

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

Nominees:
	Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The (2008) – Brad Pitt Frost/Nixon (2008) – Frank Langella Milk (2008/I) – Sean Penn (I) Visitor, The (2007/I) – Richard Jenkins (I) Wrestler, The (2008) – Mickey Rourke

My personal favorite: Sean Penn for Milk

Most likely winner: Mickey Rourke for Wrestler

Dark Horse : Sean Penn for Milk

The politics of Slumdog Millionaire and Shekhar Kapur

Slumdog Millionaire is essentially about protagonist Jamaal Malik’s triumph in achieving love of his life, Latika, against all odds. There are two antagonists in the story, one in the present (Anil Kapoor as a game show host) and another in past flashbacks (Jamaal’s older brother), and both create hurdles in Jamaal’s physical and mental worlds before he triumphs over them, both literally and symbolically. He triumphs not necessarily because of sheer hard work or any inborn skill but rather because ”it was written”. And, through his journey, we meet many characters, mostly evil, and witness various horrors of the society he lives in. The drama in the story is intense and most people will enjoy the film. Performances are well extracted and big credit for that goes to flawless casting. Technically too, the film triumphs; editing is crisp & effective and cinematography is dazzling.

I saw the film almost three weeks back and have been talking about it with various people. Although I found the film bit over the top and over dramatic at few points to suit the story, overall I did like the film as evident from my short review above. But, it was not the film’s merit which I was discussing with people, rather this time I was more talking about the political questions which crossed my mind after watching the film.