Oscar Nominations 2010

LOS ANGELES : James Cameron can deliver an audience, whether at movie theaters or at the Academy Awards, whether in the frosty North Atlantic or on a lush world light-years away.

Cameron’s science-fiction sensation ‘Avatar’ is among a strong crop of popular films in the running for Oscar nominations Tuesday, the sort of hits organizers hope can elevate the modest TV ratings the ceremony has drawn in recent years.

Along with “Avatar,” prospects in the Oscar’s newly expanded best-picture race of 10 films include two other sci-fi smashes, “Star Trek” and “District 9,” the World War II hit “Inglourious Basterds” and the animated blockbuster “Up.”

Also contending are such critical darlings as the recession tale “Up in the Air,” the war-on-terror thriller “The Hurt Locker,” the Nelson Mandela story “Invictus” and the teen dramas “An Education” and “Precious: Based on the Novel `Push’ By Sapphire.”

Among acting favourites are lead players Sandra Bullock for the football drama “The Blind Side” and Jeff Bridges for the country-music tale “Crazy Heart,” and supporting performers Mo’Nique for “Precious” and Christoph Waltz for “Inglourious Basterds.” All four won Golden Globes for the roles.

Current Affairs Questions 2009

latest news about, Current Affairs Questions 2009: current affairs questions, current affairs, make your, general knowledge 2009, fudbalski rezultati uzivo CURRENT AFFAIRS JANUARY 2009

1. The new federal agency approved by the Indian Government to combat terror in India which will be empowered to deal with terror related crimes across states without special permission from the state ?

National Investigation Agency.

2. Who is appointed as Director General of the newly established National Investigation Agency (NIA).?

Radha Vinod Raju, Special Director General of Police in Jammu and Kashmir

3. “Man of the series” of recently held One Day series between Australia & South Africa?

Albie Morkel

4. Who became the country’s youngest international referee, after passing the world body FIBA’s exam ?

Zanim Mohammed Hashim from Thalassery, Kerala

5. The first Indian to win the prestigious Golden Globe Award for Best Original Music Score ?

A.R.Rahman for Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire.
Rahman’s song ‘Jai Ho,’ penned by lyricist Gulzar, was nominated for Best Original Music Score.

6. Which Malayalam Writer won the “Odakkuzhal Award ” ?

K.G.Sankara Pillai

7. Who became the fastest bowler to take 50 wickets in one-day internationals ?

Ajantha Mendis , completed his 50-wicket haul in his 19th one-day international. He surpassed the record of India’s Ajit Agarkar who took 23 matches to reach the milestone.

8. Who has been appointed as the General Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Management and Budget in the upcoming administration of U.S.President Barack Obama?

Preeta Bansal, Leading Indian-American lawyer

9. Name the Indo-Russian supersonic cruise missile with speeds of Mach 2.5 to 2.8, which is world’s fastest cruise missile and is about three and a half times faster than the U.S.A’s subsonic Harpoon cruise missile?

Brahmos, The acronym ‘BrahMos’ is perceived as the confluence of the two nations represented by two great rivers, the Brahmaputra of India and the Moskva of Russia.

10. Who is the Man of the Series in the recently held Zimbabwe –Bangladesh One Day Series held in Bangladesh?

Shakib Al Hasan

11. The first Bangladesh player to top one of the International Cricket Council’s player rankings?

Shakib Al Hasan He tops the ICC ODI Rankings for all-rounders

12. Jharkhand Chief Minister who resigned from his post following his defeat in the Tamar assembly by-poll?

Shibu Soren

13. Music Sensation A.R.Rahman won how many Oscar nominations for the film “Slumdog Millionaire” ?

Three nominations (Music, Songs (Jai Ho, O Saya))

14. Indian sound engineer from Mumbai, born in Kerala, nominated for the Oscars for Best sound mixing in ‘Slumdog Millionaire’?
Source: questionforall.blogspot.com

Hudson to Play Nelson Mandela’s Ex-Wife

LOS ANGELES: Oscar-winning actress and singer Jennifer Hudson is to play the role of Winnie Mandela, the controversy-plagued ex-wife of South Africa’s first black president Nelson Mandela in a new movie called Winnie, Variety reported on Wednesday.

The film is based on the Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob biography, Winnie Mandela: A Life, according to Variety.

Production is scheduled to begin May 30 in the South African locations of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Transkei and Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela served 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment.

The movie is the second about the Mandelas this year, with Morgan Freeman set to star as the iconic president in the Clint Eastwood film Invictus, which is due in cinemas in December.

Hudson, who is expected to sing the film’s theme song, won the Oscar for her screen debut in Dreamgirls and followed with The Secret Life of Bees and Sex in the City.

“I was compelled and moved when I read the script,” Hudson said. “Winnie Mandela is a complex and extraordinary woman and I’m honoured to be the actress asked to portray her. This is a powerful part of history that should be told.”

Winnie Mandela was a fierce opponent to apartheid alongside her husband before the end of the racist regime. But she was tarnished by an association with a bodyguard who murdered a 14-year-old alleged informer in 1989. The Mandelas divorced in 1996 and she was convicted of fraud in 2003 for stealing from a funeral fund.

Winnie will be directed by Darrell J. Roodt, the veteran South African filmmaker whose 2006 film Yesterday was Africa’s Best Foreign Film nominee, and who also directed Cry, The Beloved Country and Sarafina!

Penelope Cruz Has A Dream Year in Film

LOS ANGELES: Penelope Cruz feels uncomfortable talking about nude scenes and says she has “an allergy to labels,” but she becomes effusive when discussing her “dream year” with two special films about to hit theaters.

The first is Spanish director Pedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces,” her fourth collaboration with the filmmaker who helped make her a star, and the second is musical “Nine” from director Rob Marshall, which challenged her voice and her previously little-known dancing skills.

Both films hope to win over Oscar voters during Hollywood’s awards season, and after her own Academy Award-winning turn in Woody Allen comedy “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” last year, Cruz is again earning some early Oscar buzz — doubled.

“I feel like I have learned a lot. The movies could not be more different,” the Spanish beauty told reporters recently.

“To be able to sing for the first time professionally and dance (in ‘Nine’), it was a scary experience. ‘Broken Embraces’ is like three women in one. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.”

“Broken Embraces” opens on Friday after turns at the Cannes and Toronto film festivals where it earned good marks from critics. Review website rottentomatoes.com gives it an 82 percent positive rating.

Cruz calls both movies homages to cinema — “Nine” to the work of the Italian director Federico Fellini, and “Broken Embraces” to the tradition of film noir.

After playing a prostitute, a nun who falls in love with a transvestite, and a woman whose husband is buried in the fridge in previous Almodovar movies, Cruz tackles the part of a poor assistant to a powerful tycoon in “Broken Embraces.”

But as lowly as her character starts out, she goes on to become the rich man’s partner and then plays a figure counter to herself in a movie within the movie. While it sounds somewhat complicated, it is vintage Almodovar.

“Every time Pedro has given me a script, I have really been blown away. The characters (I have played) couldn’t be more different from each other, and from who I am,” she said.

In “Nine,” from Oscar-winning “Chicago” director Marshall, Cruz shows audiences another new facet of her many talents.

The Fellini-inspired movie, in which she teams with Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Daniel Day Lewis, Sophia Loren and Marion Cotillard, does not open in the United States until Dec. 25, but already a brief clip of Cruz in a bustier performing a sultry song and dance is making waves among movie fans.

Cruz, 35, had early ambitions to be a dancer, taking ballet classes in her native Madrid from 5 to 15-years-old, but dramatic acting took its course and stardom ensued.

So, she went back to training five hours-a-day for her role as the mistress of a middle-aged moviemaker in “Nine,” after being shown the routine she would be asked to perform.

“I almost fainted. I thought this is impossible…But there was no way to fake anything,” she said.

While she is happy to talk freely about career, her personal life remains very private, and questions were banned about her two-year romance with Spanish actor Javier Bardem .

Although she may seem at ease with nude scenes in “Broken Embraces,” she won’t talk about them, saying it is too “uncomfortable” to do so.

And she sees herself as neither a role model, nor feminist in a male-dominated movie world.

“I just try not to label myself in any way. I have an allergy to labels in general,” she said, then smiled.

Diamond Engagement Rings

latest news about, Diamond engagement rings, you can always count on the stars of the sport is a serious ice as their wedding approaches. If you are in the midst of planning your wedding, check out the wedding rings of stars to make major purchases.
Reports-style wedding on her wedding day, singer Katharine McPhee on American Idol had a 3-carat brilliant cut diamond jewelry by Cindy Boudov. Rings platinum bands also bragged.

How McPhee in a wedding dress to solve some of its beautiful rings? The attitude of the big star or you could go home!

“The wedding is the moment of his life that really should be a great use of poofy dress,” he told CNN. “Unless you get an Oscar, you really do not like those opportunities have not, so it could take advantage of it.”

If you can not find the wedding ring of your dreams, a vintage shop or consider their own.

When Backstreet Boy Howie Dorough married Leigh Boniello, the bride wore a three-stone diamond ring designed especially for the couple, according to a new source.

Jessica Tandy

Jessica Tandy: A beloved, sparkling blue eyes, doyenne of stage and screen career of actress Jessica Tandy spanned nearly six decades and a half. In that time frame which enjoyed a remarkable revival film at the age of 80, something unheard of in a town that worships youth and beauty of consent. Jessie Alice Tandy was born in London in 1909, the daughter of Harry Tandy, a traveling salesman, and Jessie Helen Horspool.
His parents enrolled as a teenager in the Ben Greet Academy Of where she showed immediate promise. She was 16 when she made her professional bow as Sarah Manderson in the play “The Manderson Girls” and later was invited to participate in the Birmingham Repertory Theater. Within a couple of years, Jessica was making a series of premieres of others as well. His first West End play is “The Rumor” at the Court Theater in 1929, its Gotham bow was in “The Matriarch” at the Longacre Theater in 1930, and its role in initial film was as a maid in the indiscretions Eva (1932).

Jessica is married to British actor Jack Hawkins in 1932 after the couple met at the completion of the work “Autumn Crocus” last year. They had a daughter, Susan, before parting ways after eight years of marriage. An unconventional beauty with a little severe, sharp-eyed, hard-line features, was passed over for leadership roles in the movies lady, focusing heavily on transatlantic race across the stage 1930 and 1940. She grew in stature, while the promulgation of a succession of ladies premiere of Shakespeare (Titania, Viola, Ophelia, Cordelia). While enjoying personal success in other parts of works such as “French Without Tears,” “Honor your father,” “Jupiter Laughs,” “Anne of England” and “Portrait of a Madonna.” And then she gave birth to Blanche DuBois.

When the work of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire “opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, Jessica’s name became forever associated with this character fascinating southern belle. One of the most complex, beautifully drawn, and still coveted femme parties of all time, went on to win the coveted Tony Award. Apart from the introduction of Marlon Brando for the general audience, “Streetcar” hit the marquee value of Jessica to a thousand times. But not in the movies.

While his colleagues estimated stars Brando, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden had the luxury of recreating his role in Elia Kazan Stark black and white film adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Jessica was devastating overlooked. Vivien Leigh, who played on stage in London and had already immortalized another timid, manipulative Southern Belle on celluloid (Scarlett O’Hara), was a celebrity more commercial film at the time and signed on to play the delusional Blanche. To be fair, Leigh was nothing less than astonishing in the role and went on to deserved to win the Academy Award (along with Malden and Hunter). Jessica require his revenge in Hollywood in subsequent years.

In 1942 he entered a second marriage to actor / producer / director Hume Cronyn, 52-year union produced two sons, Christopher and Tandy, the latter an actor in its own right. The couple not only enjoyed great solo success, they enjoyed the show in each other’s company. Some of his resounding victories included the drama “The Fourposter” (1951), “Triple Play” (1959), “Big Fish, Little Fish (1962),” Hamlet “(played Polonius, played Gertrude) (1963),” The Three Sisters (1963) and “A Delicate Balance.” Also supported together in films, his first, (1944 The Seventh Cross). In the movie “The Green Years (1946), Jessica, who was two years older than Cronyn, actually played his daughter! Throughout the 1950s he built a solid reputation as” America first couple of Theater ” .

In 1963, Jessica made an isolated appearance in the classic Alfred Hitchcock film, The Birds (1963). Under the hierarchy of the time (pun), Jessica Hitchcock gave a notable supporting role and Jessica did most of his scenes very fragile nervous, overbearing mother of Rod Taylor, that witnesses of terror along the California coast. It was not until the 1980s that Jessica (and Hume, to a lesser extent) experienced a mammoth back in Hollywood.

Along with Hume is delighted movie audiences in the tariff nice as Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), The World According to Garp (1982), Cocoon (1985) * batteries not included (1987). In 1989, however, Jessica was handed octogenarian the role of elderly lifelong South as thorny Jewish widow who gradually form a bond of trust with their elegant black chauffeur in Driving Miss Daisy Theater (1989 ). Jessica was presented with the Oscar, Golden Globe and British Film Awards, among others, for his outstanding work in the film that also won the “Best Film”. Consider now Hollywood royalty, she was given the cream of the crop in some parts of the old film and earned another Oscar nomination for Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) a few years later.

Jessica also enjoyed some of his biggest hits from stage ( “tram” notwithstanding) during his sunset years, winning two Tony Awards for their outstanding work in “The Game Gin” (1977) and “Foxfire” (1982). Both co-starred her husband Hume and both were transferred by the beautiful girl on television. Diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1990, Jessica bravely continued to work with the Emmy-winning distinction in television. She died of the disease on 11 September 1994. His last two films, Nobody’s Fool (1994) and Camilla (1994), were released after his death.
IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

Spouse
Hume Cronyn (September 27mo, 1942 to September 11, 1994) (his death) 2 children
Jack Hawkins (October 22do, 1932-enero 2, 1940) (divorced) 1 child

Trivia

Mother of Susan Hawkins Jack Hawkins and Christopher Cronyn and Tandy Cronyn, with Hume Cronyn.

1990: Chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful in the world.

1990: diagnosed with cancer.

She won a Tony Award in 1978 for “The Game Gin.

She won a Tony Award in 1948 for “A Sreet Car Named Desire.”

Favorites (with husband Hume Cronyn) and Liz Marriott on NBC Radio “The Marriage” (1953-1954).

1989: He became the performer 12 to win the Triple Crown of acting. Oscar: Best Actress, Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Tonys: Best Actress-Play, “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1948) and Best Actress-Play, “The Game Gin” (1978) and Best Actress-Play “” Foxfire “(1983); Emmy: Best Actress-Miniseries/Special, Blaze (1987) (TV).

He has won four Tony Awards: in 1948 as Best Actress (Drama) in “A Streetcar Named Desire”, an award he shares with Judith Anderson in “Medea” and Katharine Cornell for Antony and Cleopatra, “” as Best Actress (Play) in 1978 for “The Game Gin” and in 1983 for “Glow” and in 1994 a special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement shared with her husband, Hume Cronyn. He also received Tony Award nominations in 1971, Best Actress (Featured Role – Play) for “Rose”, and in 1986 as Best Actress (Play) for “the request”.

Broadway producer Lee Shubert convinced her to change her name to Jessica Jessie during his years in the initial phase.

1974: He earned a law degree.

1990: She and her husband, Hume Cronyn couple received the American National Medal of Arts by the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington. DC.

At the age of 81, which is the oldest winner of an Oscar for Best Actress for her role as Daisy Werth in Driving Miss Daisy (1989).

1993 won a Tony Award Special (New York) Lifetime Achievement Award.
Source: bollywod91.com

Google Big Bird

Google Big Bird: When you open my browser Chrome today a pleasant smile wrapped around my face as I was instantly reminded of several of my childhood friends who not only kept me entertained from my years as a child in my years of garden infants, but also helped me to read, tell, explore art and other cultures.
This month, Sesame Street, a public television project brought to us by the Children’s Television Workshop, is 40 years. And Google of all places, by people our age who grew Street withSesame also commemorated the event with a memorable logo Big Bird, which instantly brings back memories of the crew, including Oscar, Cookie Monster, Bob, Mary Grover and two-headed monster that would put words together.

Google Sesame Street Logo

I find it interesting that Google is celebrating the Children’s Television Workshop in a time when the search company (well, Google is still a search company) is becoming more involved in video, television, advertising on television and could someday lead subscription addressed to PBS and other publicly funded projects. Is there a vision or policy statement somewhere? Could be. But for now I just do not worry about it, see someSesame street, reflecting on the relationship between Bert and Ernie, and be a kid again for a couple of minutes.
BTW, here is the memory of Sesame Street (it looks a bit different now)

Slumdog Millionaire child stars risk losing trust fund

Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle has warned child stars Azharuddin Ismail and Rubina Ali that their trust fund would be axed if they don’t attend school regularly. The Oscar winning director had to fly down to India to warn the children’s parents to stop demanding flash homes and cars.

‘Slumdog’ kids losing funds?

The kids who starred in the Oscar-winning film are skipping too much school.

Go here to read the rest:
‘Slumdog’ kids losing funds?

National Grouch Day 2009

Stay home and be miserable. This is the day not to celebrate. Draw your curtains and stay inside. It’s National Grouch Day. On at least one day of the year you deserve to have the freedom to be yourself. Of course
this is all said very tongue-in-cheek nobody expects you to really be grumpy on National Grouch Day but if you are, it’s ok.

When we think of grouches we often think of the famous character from Sesame Street. Oscar the Grouch lived in his metal trashcan. It was his job to make everyone as miserable as he was (or to try to anyway). Millions of us fell in love with Oscar as kids.

For this day there has been no presidential proclamation (that I can find anyway). It’s just a day that’s set aside to be fun. According to at least one source Sesame Street is the origin of National Grouch Day. It’s the day to have fun with the famous grumpy Grouch that we all know and love.

How will you spend your time on National Grouch Day? This is a day where you don’t celebrate as much as participate. After all, celebration implies fun. Grouches can’t have fun. It’s against their nature!

If you are looking for suggestions you are in the right place. The list below will give you plenty of ideas.

National Grouch Day Grumpy Idea #1
Don’t celebrate it. Don’t go anywhere. Stay home and be your grumpy self. Keep the curtains drawn. If someone comes to your door tell them to go away because you’ve decided to participate in National Grouch Day. Better yet, put a note on your door. That way, they won’t even have to ring your bell for you to be annoying to them.

National Grouch Day Grumpy Idea #2
Send a grouch an e-card (just don’t expect a thank you note in return). Some great e-card sites with cards for National Grouch Day are Blue Mountain Arts, 1001 Postcards.Org.

National Grouch Day Grumpy Idea #3
Watch movies with famous grouches. With one trip to the video store you can come back with your arms loaded. From Sesame Street to Grumpy in Snow White to Medea in Tyler Perry movies the DVD world is filled with grouches.
Source: associatedcontent.com

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