hollywood boulevard & kodak theatre - old photos dug from my archives !

i have been thinking often about how there are so many photos i've taken, that remain sadly neglected in storage. there are ones from many previous years stored in a hard disk and a laptop, and there are so many from 2015 still stuck in the phone as well as camera, which i have not even bothered to transfer.

i should be giving them more attention, organising and posting the good ones and clearing out those that havent turned out good. 

the fact that today is the 88th academy award ceremony reminded me of the pics from a visit to hollywood/LA, six years ago. we were living a few hours away at that time, and it was a short weekend day trip. i dont have a lot of photos from the trip, but i picked a few from the ones i had and touched them up a bit, so that i could post them here today.

these are from an afternoon walk around the hollywood boulevard, seeing the 'walk of fame' and the academy awards venue - the 'kodak theatre', as it was called back then, and dolby theatre as it is known now.

this is the home of the academy awards - where the oscars have been given each year, from 2002. (there have been many different venues earlier.) kodak sponsored the auditorium, paying a hefty sum for the naming rights, until it went bankrupt and could no longer afford it. it is now called 'dolby theatre', after dolby acquired the naming rights, and upgraded the sound systems.

the hollywood 'walk of fame' is a long of stretch of sidewalk (footpath) on both sides of the road called hollywood boulevard. the path has stars outlined in brass with the names of those who have made a lasting contribution to the entertainment industry. the stars are installed based on nominations. there are now more than 2500.

here are a few among the favourites that i spotted -

this is the star of the amazing director steven spielberg - he deserves every superlative adjective you can think of -  and whose movie 'bridge of spies' is nominated this year ! (and yeah thats my foot making an appearance.)

the star of actor ben kingsley, who always remains a household name in india for his award winning role of "Gandhi"

and one of my favourites, sandra bullock - who won an academy award for her epic performance in the movie 'blindside'.

there are also stars for many popular fictional characters, like these ones for bugs bunny and snow white.

and finally -

this is the famous hollywood sign, seen here from the hollywood & highland center, which is the complex where the dolby theatre and so many other shops & restaurants are located.

i hate to say i told you so...

... but i did, didnt i ?

as i had hoped, and said so in this post, Meryl Streep takes this year's oscar for best actress, for her performance in the Iron Lady...

looooove you  Meryl.... i sat through till the end just for you, and i knew you wouldnt let me down !

right now i am so wanting to spend a whole week watching  her movies !

steeped in streep...

sitting on my nightstand right now is a copy of 'Julie & Julia', only a few days old... when i saw it while grocery shopping some days back, i really couldnt resist the urge to buy it as it was on sale, priced at only 3 bucks or something... i had seen the movie in the fall of 2009, but hadn't read the book till now... 

it was one of those movies on my to-see list that kept getting postponed, and when i saw it listed on a flight i was taking, i simply couldn't pass up the opportunity - even if it meant giving up some badly needed shut-eye. ( i was on a flight relocating from coast to coast, after some crazy days of cleaning, packing, shipping and internet apartment hunting, all just within the 10 days or so which had elapsed between the decision to relocate and the actual relocation.) when i think about it now, it feels ironic how julie practically begins her project and her blog around the time of her moving too.

sleep is one thing that i dont give up easily - if i did, despite being on a six hour flight weary, hungry and overwhelmed by a hasty move, it was because of my craziness for Meryl Streep. i love her to bits. i adore her movies, and think she's one of the most versatile and talented artists around... 

i loved the dancing queen dance and jive on the mediterranean coast... i fell in love with francesca romancing kincaid in the rustic beauty of madison county... i sighed in relief that i wasnt working for the devil that wore prada ... 

and now, as 2012 begins, i look forward to the iron lady... already having got rave reviews from critics, i hope it will bring streep a well deserved oscar... ( when i saw the blindside, however, i had no regrets about streep losing to sandra bullock that year - sandra bullock deserved it 200% for her brilliant performance as the no-nonsense southern mom)

getting back to the book itself, it is unpretentious and has an easy flow... easy to relate to, and not one of those literary tomes that has the potential to scare away not very serious readers...  

another one of my irrationalities is that even though i cook and eat pretty much unimaginative stuff most of the time, and rarely indulge in culinary adventures,  i like cookery shows and cookbooks for some reason... (and oh, not to mention pretty much anything french !)  - so all the more reason why i liked the book within reading the first few lines... 

maybe the day when streep wins her oscar, i'll make 'potage parmentier' to celebrate ;) (just saying - knowing me, in reality i'll probably grab the nearest box of ice cream to celebrate !)

Resul, Rahman and Gulzar - congrats ! Rest of India - why the hoopla ?

I am not by any means a movie buff – I watch movies only occasionally and invariably, only when the trailers impress me enough to take the effort needed to go and sit through a movie in a theatre…
And for someone like me who doesn’t care or know much about movies, a movie awards night is not likely to be cause for much excitement….
Last sunday, however, it was slightly different… expectation, and a slight excitement made me sit through and watch the Academy awards, and I was almost squealing myself hoarse when first Resul pookutty, and later A R Rahman walked onto to the stage to receive their Oscars – a proud moment, definitely, for both of them personally and the whole country as well.

Resul was overcome with emotion, and was almost gasping, and could barely utter his acceptance speech – only understandably so. It definitely must have been a great moment for the physics graduate who decided to get into sound effects in cinema – more so because one cannot deny the fact that in the Indian film industry, the technical aspects and the technicians are not given the importance or recognition they deserve.
Well, one has to thank god that Resul didn’t decide to make a profession out of the law degree he started to do… instead of sitting at home and boycotting courts, his decision has now taken him to great heights and put an Oscar in his hands – way to go Resul, we are proud :)

Rahman – the man who has his fans raving and a whole country swaying to his music, is not new to awards – he has been picking them up right from his first film, and has won so many by now that he doesn’t really need an award anymore to prove his worth – but this one of course, must have been very special – one of the most famous awards of the movie industry, bestowed not just once but twice on the same day.
I was quite excited seeing him win the award twice, and his acceptance speech, with the simplicity known to be characteristic of him, was graceful and crisp.
To the man whose music has been working its magic on his fans long before it reached the ears of the Oscar committee – Congrats - Great job, just as always !

Gulzar – My understanding, and hence, appreciation, of Hindi is limited, but I do know that he is a veteran who has worked with the greatest music directors in the Indian film industry, from the Burmans(both SD & RD !) to Rahman and that awards are nothing new to him – from the Sahitya Akademi to various film awards, he has seen them all. Congrats to him for adding this latest feather to his cap, and of course, its quite unfortunate that he couldn’t make it to LA to receive his award in person.

Rest of India - Why is it that since Sunday, the media has been making much ado over slumdog millionaire ?
Why don’t we bear in mind that it is just an English film, which had a storyline set in an Indian city and that the cast and some of the crew were Indian. It is by no means an ‘Indian’ movie, and I think we can restrict ourselves to being proud about Resul, Rehman and Gulzar, and offering our congratulations to the film makers.