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The Oscar nominee that says a lot just with its title

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The Oscar nominee that says a lot just with its title

Long before a bemused Riz Ahmed read its name on Oscar nominations morning, the title of Pamela Ribon’s short film has tended to have an effect on those who hear it. Like when Ribon went to pick up her festival credential at SXSW in Austin, Texas, shortly before premiering her movie there.

Guy at the desk: “What’s it called?”

Ribon: “My Year of Dicks.”

Guy at the desk, not missing a beat: “Hard same.”

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There is, to be sure, no Oscar nominee this year quite like “My Year of Dicks” — and not just because of a title that, as Ribon notes, “is tough on a spam filter.”

The film, written and created by Ribon and directed by Sara Gunnarsdóttir, is one of the more hysterical, painful and sweet portraits of adolescence in all its awkwardness. It’s nominated for best animated short film at next month’s Academy Awards. Phil Lord (“Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse,” “The Lego Movie”) has called the 26-minute movie “one of the best films of the year of any length.”

It’s based on Ribon’s 2014 memoir, “Notes to Boys (and Other Things I Shouldn’t Share in Public)” — particularly a chapter that documents 15-year-old Ribon’s resolution to lose her virginity in 1991 while growing up on the outskirts of Houston. It proceeds as five cringe-inducing chapters of intimate encounters with not-so-great guys, though — as damning as that title is — “My Year of Dicks” is less about judgment for Ribon’s far-from-ideal romantic partners than it is about recounting, and illuminating, the bumbling first steps of sex.

“It’s cheeky but it isn’t mean,” Ribon said in a recent interview by Zoom from her home in Los Angeles. “It really was an inclusive feeling of: ‘We all got through that somehow, didn’t we?’”

When they were starting out, Gunnarsdóttir, an Icelandic animator who crafted the vivid animations of “Diary of a Teenage Girl, ” wondered if “Notes to Boys” would be a better, less troublesome title. But Ribon sensed something relatable — nay, something universal — about “My Year of Dicks.”

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“Not everybody has sent a note to a boy but everybody’s had a year of dicks — academically or in business or dating. It has a lot of layers,” Ribon says. “So it has been a way to bring everyone in, unfortunately. Everyone’s like ‘Hard same.’”

“My Year of Dicks,” which is streaming on Vimeo, has emerged, against the odds, as one of the most talked-about films at this year’s Oscars. Not only will much be riding on whether Ribon and Gunnarsdóttir can win on March 12, but perhaps even more eagerly awaited will be seeing which presenter, at the most dignified of awards shows, gets to utter the film’s name for an audience of millions, on live television.

“Do you think they’ll bleep it?” anxiously wonders Ribon.

For Ribon, 47, “My Year of Dicks” is an oddly appropriate culmination. Though her best known credits as a screenwriter are for more kid-friendly cartoons (“Moana,” “Ralph Breaks the Internet”), Ribon has, as an essayist, blogger and podcaster, long been an uncommonly open book. Her 2012 essay, “How I Might Have Just Become the Newest Urban Legend,” described a less than, um, sanitary trip to the masseuse parlor while she was many months pregnant.

“People were like: ‘It just would never occur to me to share that story with people,’” Ribon says. “And I was like, ‘What would you do?’ They were like, ‘Never tell anyone ever for the rest of life my life what just happened to me.’ I was like, ‘Oh!’”

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“I do sometimes feel like a walking cautionary tale,” says Ribon.

Even as a teen, Ribon was deeply aware of the tragicomedy of her coming of age. She didn’t keep a diary but she prodigiously wrote, either by typewriter or by hand, about her life. Holding up a thick green notebook, Ribon flips through the short stories, notes to boys and ticket stubs she accrued through those years.

“I liked to have an audience from the beginning when I was processing my thoughts,” says Ribon. “I’m still that way. I much prefer writing an email about my day than keeping it to myself. It feels weird to talk to me.”

“My Year of Dicks” began as a television project for FX Networks, but the filmmakers ultimately decided to try their luck on the festival circuit. Since the Walt Disney Co. owns FX, “My Year of Dicks” technically counts, ironically enough, as one of Disney’s Oscar nods, alongside the likes of “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Turning Red.”

As time went on, “My Year of Dicks” began to appear different, and more distant to Ribon. The overturning of Roe v. Wade made such sexual exploration far more perilous for young women. Texas law bans abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy and makes no exceptions for rape or incest. Ribon’s film, increasingly, looked like a time capsule of a bygone era.

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“In modern day Texas, this is the most dangerous thing a girl can do with her future. These people should not be responsible for lifelong decisions because of a party,” says Ribon. “At least I felt free to find out. Now, I would have been too scared to learn about myself. I’m grateful for the mistakes I was able to make. I didn’t have sex in any of those situations but it could have happened. And it could have happened with just one person being more a dick than here. It’s so much scarier to think about.”

But Ribon believes animation offers “a tool to talk to someone’s unfiltered heart” — that even in an a very adult animated film, it’s possible to connect back to, as she says, “that part where we set out with the best intentions for ourselves.”

“We’re thrown back into Saturday morning cartoon feelings,” she says.

So, yes, “My Year of Dicks” might be the most giggle-inducing Oscar nominee this year. But it also may be the most nakedly heartfelt.

“Maybe that’s my job in life, to help people know that you’re not alone and it could be worse. There is something very satisfying about knowing I officially have the worst sex talk of all time. It’s not just something that I say,” Ribon says, pausing to smile. “The academy has spoken.”

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Noorul Hassan joins star cast of Selahaddin Eyyubi

Noorul Hassan joins star cast of Selahaddin Eyyubi

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Noorul Hassan joins star cast of Selahaddin Eyyubi

Noorul Hassan, a popular TV show host and a veteran TV actor known for his versatile roles in several drama serials over the last two decades, has joined the star cast of the Turkish drama serial Selahaddin Eyyubi, which is a combination of action, historical drama and adventure.

A private TV channel will soon telecast Selahaddin Eyyubi in the Urdu language. 

Previously, this drama serial is being telecast by a Turkish TV channel at 9pm every Monday.

This drama serial is based on the life of the inspiring Muslim ruler and military commander Sultan Selahaddin Eyyubi.

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Turkish actor Ugur Gunes is playing the role of Sultan Selahaddin Eyyubi in the drama serial also featuring Pakistani actors Adnan Siddiqui, Humayun Saeed, Kashif Ansari, Junaid Ali Shah and others.

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Aamir Khan to appear on ‘Kapil Sharma Show’ for 1st time

Aamir Khan to appear on ‘Kapil Sharma Show’ for 1st time

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Aamir Khan to appear on 'Kapil Sharma Show' for 1st time

Bollywood icon Aamir Khan will make his debut appearance in an interview with comedian Kapil Sharma.

He recently filmed an episode for Netflix’s upcoming series, “The Great Indian Kapil Show,” as teased in a newly released promo.

Despite having shared public interactions previously, this marks the first time the two stars have collaborated professionally.

According to NDTV’s report last year, during the trailer launch event of “Carry on Jatta 3,” Aamir Khan questioned why he hadn’t been invited to Kapil’s show yet.

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In response, Kapil innocently stated, “I’ve always approached him amidst crowds and requested him to join our show. However, he often mentioned being occupied with other engagements.”

Aamir, the lead actor of “Ghajini,” then assured, “I’ll definitely make it, but please avoid calling me around my movie releases. I prefer not to promote them and would rather entertain.”

Nearly a year later, he has fulfilled his promise.

This is a significant gesture from Aamir, who typically refrains from interview appearances unless it’s for promotional purposes.

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US artist Richard Serra, known for enormous steel sculptures, dead at 85

US artist Richard Serra, known for enormous steel sculptures, dead at 85

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US artist Richard Serra, known for enormous steel sculptures, dead at 85

American artist Richard Serra, whose enormous steel sculptures coated with a fine patina of rust decorated landscapes and dominated oversized galleries in the world’s finest museums, died on Tuesday, the New York Times reported. He was 85.

The artist died at his home on New York’s Long Island of pneumonia, the Times reported, citing his lawyer, John Silberman.

Born in San Francisco in 1938 to a Spanish father and Russian mother, Serra grew up visiting marine shipyards where his father worked and also labored in steel mills to support himself in his youth, according to his San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Guggenheim Museum biographies.

Despite the large scale of his works, artistically he was considered a minimalist, letting the dimensions of his art relative to the viewer, rather than elaborate imagery, make its point.

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After studying at the University of California, Berkeley, and Yale University, he moved to New York in 1966 where he began making art from industrial materials such as metal, fiberglass and rubber.

Though he would later become quite popular, one of his 1981 works was so poorly received that it was removed from public view in Lower Manhattan, ARTnews said.

“Tilted Arc,” a 120-foot (36-meter) bar of steel, is today “remembered as one of the most reviled works of public art in the city’s history. It was ultimately taken away because people hated it so much,” ARTnews said.

He made a breakthrough in 1969 when he was included in “Nine Young Artists: Theodoron Awards” at New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

After traveling to Spain to study Mozarabic architecture in the early 1980s, his work gained renowned in Europe and with solo exhibitions at major museums in Germany and France.

Serra’s work was especially appreciated in his father’s native Spain, where the Reina Sofia museum offered a 1992 retrospective of his work and he had an exhibit dedicated exclusively to his work at the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim museum in Bilbao.

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A 2002 New Yorker magazine profile entitled “Man of Steel” described him as a “stocky, powerful-looking man with a large head, a fringe of close-cropped gray hair, and black eyes whose intense stare reminds you of Picasso’s.”

That same piece told of Serra’s self-realisation that he was not a painter, after seeing Diego Velazquez’s 1656 work “Las Meninas” in the Prado museum in Madrid.

“It pretty much stopped me,” Serra said. “Cezanne hadn’t stopped me, de Kooning and Pollack hadn’t stopped me, but Velazquez seemed like a bigger thing to deal with. That sort of nailed the coffin on painting for me.”

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