Life of Pi (film)
Life of Pi is a 2012 survival drama film based on Yann Martel's 2001 novel of the same name. Directed by Ang Lee, the film's adapted screenplay was written by David Magee, it stars Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Rafe Spall, Tabu Hashmi, Adil Hussain, Gérard Depardieu; the storyline revolves around an Indian man named "Pi" Patel, telling a novelist about his life story, how at 16 he survives a shipwreck and is adrift in the Pacific Ocean on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. The film had its worldwide premiere as the opening film of the 51st New York Film Festival at both the Walter Reade Theater and Alice Tully Hall in New York City on September 28, 2012. Life of Pi emerged as a commercial success, earning over US$609 million worldwide, it was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards which included the Best Picture – Drama and the Best Director and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. At the 85th Academy Awards it had eleven nominations, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, won four including Best Director for Ang Lee.
In Canada, a young writer meets Pi Patel. Pi tells his story to him: Pi's father names him Piscine Molitor Patel after the swimming pool in France. In secondary school in Pondicherry, he adopts the name "Pi" to avoid the sound-alike nickname "Pissing Patel", he is raised in a Hindu family, but at 12 years old, is introduced to Christianity and Islam, decides to follow all three religions as he "just wants to love God". His mother supports his desire to grow. Pi's family owns a zoo, Pi takes interest in the animals a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. After Pi gets dangerously close to Richard Parker, his father forces him to witness the tiger killing a goat; when Pi is 16, his father announces that they must move to Canada, where he intends to settle and sell the animals. The family books passage with the animals on a Japanese freighter. During a storm, the ship founders, he tries to find his family. A freed zebra jumps onto the boat with him; the ship sinks into the Mariana Trench drowning his family.
Pi sees what appears to be a survivor, but it turns out to be Richard Parker. After the storm, Pi awakens in the lifeboat with the zebra, is joined by a resourceful orangutan. A spotted hyena emerges from under a tarpaulin covering half of the lifeboat and snaps at Pi, forcing him to retreat to the end of the boat; the hyena kills the zebra and the orangutan. Richard Parker emerges from under the tarpaulin, killing the hyena before retreating back to cover for several days. Pi fashions a small tethered raft from flotation vests which he retreats to for safety from Richard Parker. Despite his moral code against killing, he begins fishing, enabling him to sustain the tiger as well; when the tiger jumps into the sea to hunt for fish and comes threateningly towards Pi, Pi considers letting him drown, but helps him back into the boat. One night, a humpback whale breaches near the boat, destroying its supplies. Pi trains Richard Parker to accept him in the boat, realizes that caring for the tiger is helping keep himself alive.
Weeks they encounter a floating island of interconnected trees. It is a lush jungle of edible plants, fresh water pools and a large population of meerkats, enabling Pi and Richard Parker to eat and drink and regain strength. At night, the island transforms into a hostile environment. Richard Parker retreats to the lifeboat while the meerkats sleep in the trees. Pi deduces. Pi and Richard Parker leave the island reaching the coast of Mexico. Pi is saddened, he is brought to a hospital. Insurance agents for the Japanese freighter company interview him, but do not believe his story and ask what happened, he tells a different story, in which the animals are replaced by human survivors: his mother for the orangutan, an amiable sailor for the zebra, the ship's brutish cook for the hyena. In this story, the cook feeds on his flesh, he kills Pi's mother after which Pi kills him with a knife and uses his remains as food and fish bait. The insurance agents are dissatisfied with this story, but they leave without questioning Pi further.
The writer recognizes the parallels between the two stories, noting that in the second one, Pi fills the role of the tiger. Pi asks which story the writer prefers, the writer chooses the first, to which Pi replies, "and so it goes with God". Glancing at a copy of the insurance report, the writer sees that the agents chose the first story. Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel Gautam Belur as Pi, age 5 Ayush Tandon as Pi, age 11/12 Suraj Sharma as Pi, age 16/17 Irrfan Khan as Pi, adult Rafe Spall as The Writer Tabu as Gita Patel, Pi's mother Adil Hussain as Santosh Patel, Pi's father Ravi Patel, Pi's older brother: Ayan Khan as Ravi, age 7 Mohamed Abbas Khaleeli as Ravi, age 13/14 Vibish Sivakumar as Ravi, age 18/19 Gérard Depardieu as the Cook Wang Po-chieh as Sailor Jag Huang as Sailor Shravanthi Sainath as Anandi, Pi's teenage girlfriend Andrea Di Stefano as the Priest Elie Alouf as Francis Padmini Priyadarshini as Anandi's dance teacher The project had numerous directors and writers attached, the Los Angeles Times credited Fox 2000 Pictures executive Elizabeth Gabler with keeping the project active.
In February 2003 Gabler acquired the project to adapt L
Mark Duplass
Mark David Duplass is an American film director and producer, musician and author. He was a co-star of the FX television series The League, he is the brother of filmmaker Jay Duplass, together the brothers started the film production company Duplass Brothers Productions, have directed films such as The Puffy Chair, Who Lives at Home, The Do-Deca-Pentathlon. Mark and Jay co-created the HBO television series Togetherness in 2015. Mark co-wrote and starred in the 2014 horror film Creep alongside Patrick Brice. Duplass was born in Louisiana, to Cynthia and Lawrence Duplass, he was raised as a Roman Catholic, attended Jesuit High School, University of Texas at Austin, City University of New York-City College. Duplass is of part Cajun ancestry. Duplass is married to his The Puffy Chair co-star, Katie Aselton, they have two daughters and Molly. He was the lead singer of the rock band Volcano, I'm Still Excited!! Duplass has written and produced several feature films with his brother Jay Duplass. In 2005, he wrote and produced The Puffy Chair with his brother, in addition to portraying one of the main characters.
The two brothers wrote and produced the films Baghead and Cyrus together and have a unique style which consists of a great deal of ad-libbing off of the original script, shooting a number of takes, editing scenes down 15 to 20 times. Their films Jeff, Who Lives at Home and The Do-Deca-Pentathlon were released in 2012. In 2014, Mark co-wrote and starred in the horror film Creep alongside Patrick Brice, Mark played the role of Josef. In May 2016, it was announced. Creep 2 was released in October 2017 which Mark starred in. Mark starred with his wife, Katie Aselton. In 2015, the HBO series Togetherness debuted, created by and stars Duplass; that same year, Duplass co-starred with Evan Peters and Olivia Wilde in David Gelb's thriller film The Lazarus Effect. In 2018, Duplass was in a Wealthsimple commercial, he appeared in Tully and Duck Butter, released his debut book Like Brothers alongside Jay Duplass, he starred as real estate developer Tom Wyatt in Season 2 of the Amazon Video series Goliath. In a 2018 scandal Duplass unwittingly got himself into trouble on twitter.
Tweeting "Fellow Liberals: If you are interested at all in'crossing the aisle' you should consider following @benshapiro. I don't agree with him on much but he's a genuine person who once helped me for no other reason to be nice, he doesn't bend the truth. His intentions are good". Duplass was subsequently criticized by friends and media alike for making the presumption that he allied with Ben Shapiro, he retracted the tweet and followed up with an apology that he in "no way endorses hatred, homophobia, xenophobia or any such for of intolerance." In 2019, Duplass starred in Paddleton. * = Executive Producer** = Co-Producer Like Brothers Best Screenplay for The Puffy Chair at the BendFilm Festival Mark Duplass on IMDb Mark Duplass at Rotten Tomatoes Interview with Jay and Mark Duplass on "Baghead" at IFC.com
Rajkummar Rao
Rajkummar Rao known as Rajkumar Yadav, is an Indian actor. He has established a career in Hindi cinema and is the recipient of several awards, including a National Film Award, three Filmfare Awards, an Asia Pacific Screen Award. Rao graduated from the University of Delhi and went on to study acting at the Film and Television Institute of India and graduated from there in 2008, he moved to Mumbai and made his film debut with the experimental anthology film Love Sex Aur Dhokha. After a few brief roles, he had his breakthrough with the drama film Kai Po Che!. He rose to prominence with his portrayal of Shahid Azmi in the critically acclaimed biographical drama Shahid, for which he was awarded the National Film Award for Best Actor and the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. Rao went on to feature in the successful romantic comedy Queen and starred in the acclaimed dramas CityLights and Trapped; the last of these earned him another Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. Among his 2017 releases, the romantic comedy Bareilly Ki Barfi and the black comedy Newton were both commercial successes and won him several accolades including the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor for the former and the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Actor for the latter.
His highest-grossing release came with the horror comedy Stree. Rajkummar Rao was born as Raj Kumar Yadav in India, he finished his schooling in Gurugram at S. N. Sidheshwar Sr. Sec. School and graduated in Arts from Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College –University of Delhi, he was doing theatre with Kshitij Repertory and Shri Ram Centre in Delhi. In 2008, Rajkummar graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India and shifted to Mumbai for a film career. Rao cites Shah Rukh Khan as his inspiration to act: "f an outsider could make it as big as him maybe there was hope for me." After graduating from FTII, Rao spent the next year visiting studios and meeting casting directors. In 2010, he got his big break when he was cast in Love Sex Aur Dhokha along with actress Nushrat Bharucha, after responding to an ad that mentioned that Dibakar Banerjee was looking for newcomers. Rao next signed Ekta Kapoor's Ragini MMS. Ragini MMS succeeded, his performances in both films were appreciated, he appeared in Bejoy Nambiar's Shaitan.
Raja Sen of Rediff, while criticizing the film, singled out his performance as "reliably terrific". In 2012, Rao performed a series of small, but significant roles in films such as Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 2, Chittagong and Talaash. Anurag Kashyap selected Rao for Gangs Of Wasseypur after watching his performance. For the role of Shamshad Alam, he visited Wasseypur to perfect his accent. However, his character's screen time was reduced in the final script. Rao, eager to work with Anurag Kashyap, went ahead with the movie anyway. In the critically acclaimed Chittagong, he portrayed the role of freedom fighter Lokenath Bal. In Talaash, he played the role of a junior officer to Aamir Khan's character. Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN commented: "...it takes Rajkumar Rao just one scene – in which he's a spectator with a single line of dialogue – to show what a good actor can bring to a small part." In 2013, Rao played the role of Govind in the film Kai Po Che!, Abhishek Kapoor's adaptation of Chetan Bhagat's novel The 3 Mistakes of My Life.
The movie was a commercial and critical success, earned praise for the lead performances. Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV remarked: "No praise would be enough for Raj Kumar Rao. Delivering a measured performance as the self-effacing man lost in'the magic of numbers', he is a consummate scene-stealer." He followed Kai Po Che! with a leading role in the biopic Shahid, based on the life of the slain lawyer and human rights activist Shahid Azmi. It earned praise from the critics with Anupama Chopra writing: "Shahid is Raj Kumar’s triumph, his Shahid has strength, anguish and a controlled anger, but real charm. His smile lights up the frame. See Shahid for him." The role earned him a National Film Award for Best Actor and a Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. Rao starred in the coming-of-age dramedy Queen opposite Kangana Ranaut, he played a man who calls off his wedding with his fiancée. Rao's performance was well received. Has an object of derision stood his ground with as much firm intent as he does." The film was financially successful.
Rao next starred in Hansal Mehta's drama City Lights. In 2015, he appeared alongside Pulkit Samrat in the romantic comedy Dolly Ki Doli. In April 2015, Rao featured with Vidya Balan in Hamari Adhuri Kahani. Both Dolly Ki Doli and Hamari Adhuri Kahani were box office flops. Another critically acclaimed movie, featuring Rao in a supporting role, was released in February 2016 earning him a Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination, he has been honored with life membership of the International Film And Television Club of Asian Academy of Film & Television by Sandeep Marwah. The actor is known for his appearance and dramatic excellence for his characters in various films. For his 2016 film Trapped, Rao lost 7 kg in 22 days by a controlled and planned diet consisting of one carrot and coffee only. For his performance, Rao won his second Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. For the 2017 Ekta Kapoor-Hansal Mehta web series Bose-Dead/Alive, he gained 11 kg for the role of Subhash Chandra Bos
A. R. Rahman
Allahrakka Rahman known professionally as A. R. Rahman, is an Indian music director, musician and music producer. A. R. Rahman's works are noted for integrating Indian classical music with electronic music, world music and traditional orchestral arrangements. Among his awards are six National Film Awards, two Academy Awards, two Grammy Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, fifteen Filmfare Awards and seventeen Filmfare Awards South, he has been awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award, in 2010 by the Government of India. In 2009, Rahman was included on the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people; the UK-based world-music magazine Songlines named him one of "Tomorrow's World Music Icons" in August 2011. He is nicknamed "The Mozart of Madras" and "Isai Puyal" in Tamil. With an in-house studio, Rahman's film-scoring career began during the early 1990s with the Tamil film Roja. Working in India's film industries, international cinema, theatre, Rahman is one of the best-selling recording artists, with an estimated 200 million units sold worldwide.
Rahman has become a notable humanitarian and philanthropist and raising money for a number of causes and charities. In 2017, Rahman made his debut as a writer for the film Le Musk, his fans call themselves'Rahmaniac'. Rahman was born in India, his father, R. K. Shekhar, was a film-score conductor for Tamil and Malayalam films. After his father's death when Rahman was nine years old, the rental of his father's musical equipment provided his family's income. Raised by his mother, Rahman, studying in Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan had to work to support his family. Which led to him to miss classes and fail exams. Therefore, the Principal Mrs YGP summoned Rahman and his mother and told them that Rahman should focus on academics irrespective of family circumstances. Rahman attended another school called MCN for a year, joined Madras Christian College Higher Secondary School, where he was admitted on his music talent and formed a band with his high school classmates. However, after discussing with his mother, he dropped out of school to pursue a career as a full-time musician.
Rahman was a keyboard player and arranger for bands such as Roots and founded the Chennai-based rock group Nemesis Avenue. He mastered the keyboard, synthesizer and guitar, was interested in the synthesizer because it was the "ideal combination of music and technology". Rahman began his early musical training under Master Dhanraj, at age 11 began playing in the orchestra of Malayalam composer M. K. Arjunan, he soon began working with other composers, such as M. S. Viswanathan, Ramesh Naidu and Raj-Koti, accompanied Zakir Hussain, Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan and L. Shankar on world tours and obtained a scholarship from Trinity College London to the Trinity College of Music. Studying in Madras, Rahman graduated with a diploma in Western classical music from the school. Rahman was introduced to Qadiri tariqa when his younger sister was ill in 1984, his mother was a practicing Hindu. At the age of 23, he converted to Islam with other members of his family in 1989, changing his name to Allahrakka Rahman.
Rahman composed scores for documentaries and jingles for advertisements and Indian television channels. In 1987 Rahman still known as Dileep, composed jingles for a line of watches introduced by Allwyn, he arranged the jingles for some advertisements that went on to become popular, including the popular jingle for Titan Watches, in which he used the theme from Mozart's Symphony no.25. In 1992, he was approached by director Mani Ratnam to compose the score and soundtrack for his Tamil film, Roja. Rahman's film career began in 1992 when he started Panchathan Record Inn, a recording and mixing studio in his backyard, it would become the most-advanced recording studio in India, arguably one of Asia's most sophisticated and high-tech studios. Cinematographer Santosh Sivan signed Rahman for his second film Yoddha, a Malayalam film starring Mohanlal and directed by Sivan's brother Sangeeth Sivan that released in September 1992; the following year, Rahman received the Rajat Kamal award for best music director at the National Film Awards for Roja.
The films' score was critically and commercially successful in its original and dubbed versions, led by the innovative theme "Chinna Chinna Aasai". Rahman followed this with successful scores and songs for Tamil–language films for the Chennai film industry, including Ratnam's politically-charged Bombay, the urban Kadhalan, Thiruda Thiruda and S. Shankar's debut film Gentleman. Rahman collaborated with director Bharathiraaja on Kizhakku Cheemayile and Karuththamma, producing successful Tamil rural folk-inspired film songs; the 1995 film Indira and romantic comedies Mr. Romeo and Love Birds drew attention. Rahman attracted a Japanese audience with Muthu's success there, his soundtracks are known in the Tamil Nadu film industry and abroad for his versatility in combining Western classical music and Tamil traditional and folk-music traditions, jazz and rock music. The soundtrack for Bombay sold 15 million copies worldwide, "Bombay Theme" would reappear in his soundtrack for Deepa Mehta's Fire and a number of compilations
The Indian Express
The Indian Express is an English-language Indian daily newspaper. It is published in Mumbai by Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, the group was split between the family members; the southern editions took the name The New Indian Express, while the northern editions, based in Mumbai, retained the original Indian Express name, with "The" prefixed to the title. The Indian Express is published at ten locations—Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Vadodara, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad, Tirupati In 1932, the Indian Express was started by an Ayurvedic doctor, P. Varadarajulu Naidu, at Chennai, being published by his "Tamil Nadu" press. Soon under financial difficulties, he sold the newspaper to Swaminathan Sadanand, the founder of The Free Press Journal, a national news agency. In 1933 The Indian Express opened its second office in Madurai, launching the Tamil edition, Dinamani. Sadanand reduced the price of the newspaper. Faced with financial difficulties, he sold a part of his stake to Ramanath Goenka as convertible debentures.
In 1935, when The Free Press Journal collapsed, after a protracted court battle with Goenka, Sadanand lost ownership of Indian Express. Goenka bought the remaining 26% of the company held by Sadanand; the newspaper came under Goenka's sole control, taking the anti-establishment tone of the paper to greater heights. At that time, it faced stiff competition from the well established The Hindu and the Mail, as well as several other prominent newspapers. In the late 1930s the newspaper's circulation was no more than 2000. In 1939 Goenka bought another prominent Telugu daily newspaper; the name Three Musketeers was used for the three dailies. In 1940 the whole premises was gutted by fire; the Hindu, a rival newspaper, helped in re-launching the paper, by getting it printed temporarily at one of its Swadesimithran's press and offering its vacated premises at 2, Mount Road, which became the landmark Express Estates. This relocation helped the Express obtain better high speed printing machines; some claimed.
In years Goenka started the Mumbai edition with the landmark Express Towers as his office when he bought the Morning Standard in 1944. Two years it became the Mumbai edition of The Indian Express. Editions were started in several cities; the Financial Express was launched in 1961 at Mumbai, Kannada Prabha at Bangalore in 1965 and a Bangalore edition of the Telugu Daily Andhra Prabha, Gujarati dailies Lok Satta and Jansatta, from Ahmedabad and Vadodara in 1952. The Delhi edition started was when the Tej group's Indian News Chronicle was acquired in 1951, which in 1953 became the Delhi edition of Indian Express. In 1990 the group bought the Sterling group of magazines, along with it the Gentleman magazine. After Ramanath Goenka's death in 1991, two of the family members split the group into Indian Express Mumbai with all the North Indian editions, while the Southern editions were grouped as Express Madurai Ltd. with Chennai as headquarters. The Indian Express began publishing daily on the World Wide Web on 8 July 1996.
Five months the website expressindia.com attracted "700,000 hits every day, excepting weekends when it to 60% of its normal levels". The Indian Express Group has a Mumbai-headquartered division, which should not be confused with Express Publications Madurai, which has a South Indian chain of newspapers, including The New Indian Express a separate corporate entity from The Express Group; the Indian Express's main newsroom is in Noida. Mumbai is a bureau. A national desk brings out all editions in Delhi; the management, still sits in Mumbai. The Indian Express website
Mrunal Thakur
Mrunal Thakur is an Indian actress and model who appears in Marathi movies and Indian soap operas. She is known for her role as Bulbul in Kumkum Bhagya, she has played the lead role in Tabrez David Womark's 2018 film Love Sonia. She was born in a Marathi Hindu family, she has an elder sister Lochan and a younger brother. She completed, TYBMM from K. C. College. While attending college she appeared on the Star Plus show Mujhse Kuchh Kehti... Yeh Khamoshiyaan opposite Mohit Sehgal as Gauri Bhosle, she played the role of a journalist on the Star Plus show Har Yug Mein Ayega Ek Arjun. She hosted a Hindi play called Do Fool Chaar Mali along with co-host Barun Sobti, directed by Manoj Verma and Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon? team members. It took place in Dubai on 20 April 2013, she played the lead role in Zee TVs' Kumkum Bhagya, opposite Arjit Taneja. She has tried her hand in Marathi films, she has films like Hello Nandan, Vitti Dandu and Rangkarmi to her credit. Thakur is all set to make her big Bollywood debut with Hrithik Roshan in his upcoming film Super 30.
Super 30 is based on the life of the Patna-based scholar Anand Kumar, who trains 30 deserving, economically-backward students for IIT-JEE entrance exams every year with a commendable success rate Mrunal Thakur made her international debut with an Indo-American film Love Sonia made by Life Of Pi producer David Womark. The actress played the title role in the film that brings to light the issue of global human trafficking, she plays a village girl, trapped in the global sex trade, in the film that stars the likes of Freida Pinto and Demi Moore. The young actress stayed near a brothel in Kolkata to study the body language of the prostitutes for the film. 2013: Thakur featured in a comedy stage play titled Do Fool Chaar Maali in Dubai along with Barun Sobti List of Indian television actresses Mrunal Thakur on IMDb
