Really Clever

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Duck Skewers

Ingredients: 1 lb boneless skinless duck breasts 1/2 lb bacon, 1 large eggplant,  (1lb/500g) 1 red onion, 1 sweet green pepper 2 large tomatoes, 2 tbsp chili sauce, 1 tbsp fresh sage leaves, 3 tbsp olive oil, salt, ground pepper

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Duck a L`Orange

Ingredients: 1 (5 lb) duck, cleaned, with innards, wing tips and excess fat removed, 2 oranges, 1 onion, 2 tbsp tomato puree, 1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley, salt, freshly ground pepper.

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Crispy Duck with Pineapple

Ingredients: 5 lb duck, 1 cup red wine, 1/2 cup pineapple juice, the juice squeezed from an orange, 1 tbsp corn germ oil, 1 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper, juice of a lemon + zest,  salt

Directions: Wash the duck and cut it in 6 pieces. Brush the pieces with oil, put them in a baking dish and cook for half an hour. Mix the pineapple juice, the lemon juice and red wine, stir, add a little pepper, salt and sprinkle over the duck pieces. While roasting, sprinkle the meat pieces several times with the gravy in the dish. Cut the pineapple in four pieces, remove the hard core, then peel. Cut the pulp into slices. When the meat is tender and roasted, put it into a preheated pot and  put a lid on it to keep it warm. Remove the fat from the gravy with a spoon, strain it and mix with the orange juice. Let it boil for a few minutes, then add the orange zest diluted with water. Add pineapple chunks, season with salt and pepper and pour over the pieces of meat.

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Great Bonsai Idea

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News in Shorts Raises Rs 25Cr from Tiger Global's Lee Fixel and Flipkart Founders

Image Source: newsinshorts

Indian mobile app startup, News in Shorts that publishes news stories in 60-word bite-sized portion, has raised Rs 25 crore led by Tiger Global’s Lee Fixel with participation from Flipkart founders i.e. Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal and Japan’s Rebright Partners. As per an ET report, the raised funding will be used to build a larger team, ramp up technology, move into audio and video streaming and add a layer of personalization to company’s content. The company had also secured an undisclosed amount in seed round in 2014.

Founded by Azhar Iqubal, Deepit Purkayastha and Anunay Arunav, News In Shorts app publishes about 60 articles per day and plans to increase that to about 300 in the next three months. Currently, Noida-based company has no plans for monetisation, at least for the next two years. “Later, we want to look at sponsored content and native advertising but currently, focus is to expand reach,” Iqubal said. The firm plans to cross a million downloads by June.

In February this year, India’s homegrown news reader app, NewsHunt had secured Rs 250 crore in series C funding led by New York-based hedge fund Falcon Edge Capital with participation from existing investors Matrix Partners India, Sequoia Capital India and Omidyar Network.

Cloud based Finance Startup CimplyFive Raises Funding from CFOs of Wipro & Infosys

Delhi-Based Incubator ‘Startup Tunnel’ Opens Applications from Startup Founders

Category :  Investments Startups

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Great Jar Bonsai Idea

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Popular Logos Recreated Using Only CSS

A project by Anca and Vlad of ECSSPERT serves as a fascinating proof-of-concept that shows just how powerful CSS can be.

Using just HTML and CSS, the folks at ECSSPERT have managed to recreate the logos of recognizable brands such as Adidas, Twitter, Apple, Nike, and more.

Here’s the markup they used to render McDonald’s iconic arch logo:

<div id="mcdonalds" class="icon"> <div class="left"> <div class="arch1 arch"></div> <div class="arch2 arch"></div> <div class="glow"> <div class="arch1 arch"></div> <div class="arch2 arch"></div> </div> <div class="inner"> <div class="arch1 arch"></div> <div class="arch2 arch"></div> </div> <div class="hole"> <div class="arch1 arch"></div> <div class="arch2 arch"></div> </div> <div class="triangle1 triangle"></div> <div class="triangle2 triangle"></div> </div> <div class="right"> <div class="arch1 arch"></div> <div class="arch2 arch"></div> <div class="glow"> <div class="arch1 arch"></div> <div class="arch2 arch"></div> </div> <div class="inner"> <div class="arch1 arch"></div> <div class="arch2 arch"></div> </div> <div class="triangle1 triangle"></div> <div class="hole"> <div class="arch1 arch"></div> <div class="arch2 arch"></div> </div> </div> <div class="border1"></div> <div class="border2"></div> </div>

Here’s the CSS:

body, #mcdonalds background: #c00; #mcdonalds .left, #mcdonalds .right, #mcdonalds .border1, #mcdonalds .border2 margin-left: -130px; #mcdonalds height: 200px; left: 50%; margin: -100px 0 0 -119px; overflow: hidden; top: 25%; width: 238px; #mcdonalds .arch background: #ffc20f; border-radius: 139px/410px; clip: rect(0 75px 201px 0); height: 410px; position: absolute; transform: skewx(-1deg); width: 139px; #mcdonalds .arch1 left: 130px; #mcdonalds .arch2 left: 135px; transform: skewx(0deg) scalex(-0.9); #mcdonalds .glow clip: rect(0px 267px 189px 130px); left: 29px; position: absolute; top: 16px; transform: scalex(0.83) scaley(0.95); #mcdonalds .glow .arch background-image: linear-gradient(0deg,rgb(247,245,103) 70%,rgb(255,195,15) 100%); #mcdonalds .inner clip: rect(0 280px 222px 130px); left: 61px; position: absolute; top: 23px; transform: scalex(0.66); #mcdonalds .inner .arch2 left: 142px; #mcdonalds .hole clip: rect(0 270px 230px 130px); left: 61px; position: absolute; top: 23px; transform: scalex(0.66); #mcdonalds .hole .arch background: #c00; #mcdonalds .hole .arch1 clip: rect(5px 57px 201px 0); left: 158px; transform: skewx(0deg); #mcdonalds .hole .arch2 clip: rect(0 55px 201px 0); left: 124px; transform: skewx(-2deg) scalex(-0.9); #mcdonalds .triangle border: 14px solid transparent; border-bottom-color: #ffc20f; position: absolute; #mcdonalds .triangle1 left: 135px; top: 168px; #mcdonalds .triangle2 left: 236px; top: 156px; #mcdonalds .right clip: rect(0 249px 250px 0px); left: 498px; position: absolute; transform: scalex(-1); #mcdonalds .right .glow left: 40px; #mcdonalds .right .inner left: 71px; #mcdonalds .right .inner .arch2 left: 141px; transform: skewx(0deg) scalex(-0.9) rotate(1deg); #mcdonalds .border1 background: #ffc20f; height: 15px; left: 230px; position: absolute; top: 180px; width: 38px; #mcdonalds .border2 background: #c00; height: 15px; left: 229px; position: absolute; top: 189px; width: 40px; .icon, .icon * display: block; position: absolute; .icon top: 35% !important;

And after all that, this is what you get:

One thing I’d like to point out is there are better implementation techniques for this sort of thing, such as using <canvas> or <svg> HTML elements. But doing it “the right way” wouldn’t be as fun or as challenging as using CSS properties to shape and style HTML elements.

Logos recreated using pure HTML and CSS3

Read Next

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Alibaba and Tencent Backed Rival Chinese Taxi Hailing Apps Announce a $6B Tie-up

Image Source: TechCrunch

To create one of the world’s largest smartphone-based transport services, Chinese taxi-hailing apps  Kuaidi Dache and Didi Dache have confirmed that they will merge. Financial details were undisclosed but analysts estimate the value of combined entity at around $6 billion. This move is aimed at global expansion.

The firms have not announced a name for the combined entity, would operate independently under separate brands. Both companies will combine resources and talent to build a better platform for the transportation industry. The chief executives of both companies, Chuanwei Lu of Kuaidi and Wei Cheng of Didi, will become co-CEOs of the merged entity.

Kuaidi and Didi, are backed by Chinese internet companies Tencent Holdings Ltd and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd respectively, and both have raised significant amount of capital. Hence these move comes as a surprise since the investors of both the companies are rivaling each other in China.

Didi Dache closed a $700 million funding round from Tencent and Russian private equity fund DST in December 2014, while Kuaidi Dache secured $600 million from backers including Softbank and Tiger Global this January.

The firms are directly competing with global cab aggregator Uber which raised  $1.2 billion series E funding in December 2014 at a $40 billion valuation, and $1.6 billion in convertible debt from Goldman Sachs’ wealth management clients in January this year. Also, in order to boost its market share in India, US-based on-demand car service Uber is looking to acquire a home grown radio taxi service Meru Cabs which is currently valued at around USD $400 million.

Both companies also said that they will reveal more information at a press conference that will be held after the Lunar New Year.

Titan in Talks to Buy 15% Stake in Jewellery Portal CaratLane for $30M

Category :  Business

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31 Things We Learned from Tony Scott's Revenge Commentary

Kevin Costner has a new film opening this week, and I’ve already forgotten about it. That’s probably a bit too harsh as I’ll watch anything starring Costner, and he’s also someone who’s starred in more movies I find it impossible to turn off once started than anyone else — No Way Out, The Untouchables, Tin Cup, Silverado, Field of Dreams, Open Range, The Bodyguard (yeah I said it) — but the man’s made some unfortunate choices in recent years. (Although I will fight you over the underseen The New Daughter and its kick-ass ending.)

Back in 1990, near the height of his career, Costner joined forces with Tony Scott — a director at the equivalent peak of his own career — to deliver a dark thriller about lust and consequences in rural Mexico. Revenge tanked at the box-office, but Costner and Scott quickly got back into Hollywood’s good graces with Dances with Wolves and Days of Thunder, respectively.

Nearly two decades later Scott released his preferred director’s cut to DVD complete with commentary track. He discusses his intention with this new version, why it’s so much shorter than the theatrical cut and shares a strong affection for all things sexy.

Keep reading to see what I heard on the commentary track for Tony Scott’s Revenge.

Revenge (1990)

Commentator: Tony Scott (director)

1. John Huston apparently worked for ten years attempting to bring this adaptation to the screen, and when that was no longer a possibility Scott, who had kept a close eye on the project, came aboard. Huston’s big roadblock was his producer, Ray Stark, who felt squeamish as to the story’s harsher elements. Scott says the theatrical cut of this film is Stark’s while this director’s cut is his preferred version. “He should never have made Revenge,” says Scott, “because it was something that was very contrary to his taste.”

2. Scott’s director’s cut is a rarity in that it actually runs shorter — by thirty minutes — than the studio cut. He says his battle with Stark was always that the producer wanted viewers “to anticipate it, talk about and then see it.” Scott feels that human instinct regarding its tale of love and betrayal is enough to give the film its momentum.

3. He remains a fan of his debut film, The Hunger, but he acknowledges that its “artsy” nature barred him from finding work in Hollywood until Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson decided to take a chance on him three years later with Top Gun.

4. The lead actor was already attached to the project when Scott signed on, and the director was relieved to discover it was Costner as he feels it was “a brilliant piece of casting.”

5. Madeleine Stowe is actually part Castilian which, when combined with her being “beautiful, sexy and everything that I needed” was enough to get her the role. He recalls a casting session with the actress where she wasn’t quite reaching the level of emotion they were after, “and I had to bring on ‘the persuader,’ I had to give her a good slap to find her moment in time in terms of performance.”

6. Anthony Quinn is often perceived as Greek, but he’s actually Mexican. “We managed to pull lots of favors,” says Scott, “and all his friends were Mexican government or Mexican hierarchy or Mexican mafia.”

7. Tibey’s (Quinn) house in the film actually belonged to one of Quinn’s government friends. The town it’s in is called Cuernavaca which has since become a “kidnap capital” in the country.

8. Scott first met the 70+ year old Quinn for lunch at the Bellagio Hotel, and he recalls two young women sitting nearby who by the end of the meeting were sitting at Quinn’s table. “When I left I left him with them.”

9. Scott lives in a house that once belonged to John Barrymore, and Quinn shared stories with him of when he stayed in the home’s guest house and threw massive parties. “He said they’d invite all these Busby Berkeley girls up to swim in the pool, and they’d blindfold the mariachi band and do nasty things to the girls in the pool.”

10. This was Scott’s first time in Mexico, and he fell in love with the country. “We got away from what you normally see in movies shot in Mexico, and we found fresh and different locations and they’re spectacular.”

11. In addition to Stark wanting viewers to “anticipate it, talk about it, analyze it and then let it happen” the studio also insisted Scott “cut down the intensity of the sex scenes, the intensity of the violence, and so in this particular cut you’ll see it’s much sexier, it’s more violent… and that momentum is driven by Kevin and Madeleine’s quest to get it on.”

12. He acknowledges the film might look a little dated due to his taste in a specific atmosphere. “That was one of my trademarks, smoke and a strong light through billowing curtains,” he says. “It became something that both Adrian Lyne and myself sort of honed and perfected, and a lot of people copied us.”

13. The beach scene — that Scott refers to as “the lemon scene” due to Cochran’s (Costner) attempts to make lemonade — was originally shot in Puerta Vallarta, but excess analysis by the studio and producers led to them re-shooting it in Malibu. “It didn’t have that same danger or sexuality or edge to it,” he says. They kept the original footage.

14. “It was the hottest sex scene I’ve ever shot,” he says during Costner and Stowe’s first sex scene, “and it wasn’t gratuitous because it was driven by story.” Apparently Costner watched it a few weeks before this commentary was recorded and told Scott “God, we really got into it didn’t we.”

15. Scott offered Hans Zimmer the composing job on the film, but Stark nixed it based on Zimmer’s lack of experience at the time. The director’s more than happy with Jack Nitzsche’s work although he recalls that the last time he saw the composer it was on an episode of Cops. “I was channel surfing at 3 o’clock in the morning, and I see this guy face down on the hood of a car in cuffs, and he turns to the camera and says ‘Don’t you realize I’m an Academy Award-winning composer?’ It was Jack Nitzsche. But that was Jack, Jack was out there, and he was my hero.” He marvels that Nitzsche actually signed the show’s waiver permitting them to air the footage.

16. Scott’s temp music while awaiting Nitzsche’s tracks was music by Peter Gabriel.

NY Daily News

17. He’s very clear that this is not a love story. “It was a fuck story,” he suggests instead. “It was this unforbidden, sexual desire to have each other.”

18. The jeep scene was filmed with the jeep on a flatbed truck going 50 mph, and he views it as the sexiest scene he’s ever made. “I never got turned on actually doing a sex scene, but I was getting slightly embarrassed. We got 20 guys and 3 cameras, all photographing Kevin and Maddy getting it on.” This was my first watch of the director’s cut in a long time, but Scott’s not wrong. Seriously, have you seen this? So much finger licking!

19. Rocky the dog’s death scene strikes me as something that probably wouldn’t fly these days. They attached “an explosive pack” aka a squib to the dog’s chest and a snatch wire to his back, and when the dog barked Scott instructed the effects guys to trigger the exploding pack and yank the cable so the dog would fly into the wall. Scott tried to get a second take, but Rocky refused to bark again. “But he’s still around, he’s sixteen,” he promises. He also notes that test audiences gave them grief for what they did to the dog without mentioning that Costner gets beat to near death and Stowe has her face slashed in the same scene.

20. The first day of shooting included Cochran’s near-death desert crawl.

21. The whorehouse where Miryea (Stowe) is deposited actually operated as a whorehouse in Durango for over a century.

22. The one-eyed woman who heals Cochran was a local Scott hired there in town, and her scenes were filmed in her own house. Scott wanted her to smoke and had his team concoct a spliff using local tobacco, but after smoking four of them she threw up on Costner’s legs. This memory makes Scott laugh.

23. Scott acknowledges the awkward nature of shooting sex scenes and nudity and recalls his own nervousness on The Hunger while trying to convince Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve to “get it on.” He showed them photographs and clips from other films to help convince them that he wasn’t aiming for anything gratuitous.

24. James Gammon was cast at Costner’s recommendation. “It was almost like a mandate,” says Scott, but he agrees that Gammon very much feels like an authentic cowboy.

25. The singer at the bar where Costner and Gammon play pool and chat attempted suicide later that night. She slashed her wrists but was back to work the following day.

26. The scene where Cochran kills the man in the bar bathroom originally featured far more dialogue between the two, but it’s yet another example of a scene where Scott preferred to eliminate the filler and get right to the intensity with his director’s cut.

27. Quinn told Scott that he needed a specific ten days off during September because a group of his friends were coming in to town. Per Scott, the actor said they were “ten days where we play bridge, eat, get drunk and fuck.” Scott said the entourage never left the hotel, everything was imported in, and “it was some major players within the movie industry which I shall not quote who they were.”

28. Sally Kirkland‘s role almost went to Faye Dunaway, but “there’s some bad blood between Ray Stark and Dunaway.” Scott is a big fan of Kirkland’s breasts.

29. Scott refers to John Leguizamo as “Johnny Legs” which is just one more reminder that he was cooler than we’ll ever be. He says the actor has the same obsession over controlling his onscreen entrance as Mickey Rourke.

30. The final face-off between Cochran and Tibey was shot in Mexico, but Stark and the studio requested Scott shoot additional footage with more dialogue to help explain both men’s motivations. Scott hated it and cut all of the new footage from the film.

31. Stark had promised Scott that he’d be allowed to cut his preferred version of the film after it sank at the box office, but he then reneged on the promise. He died in 2004, and Scott released his director’s cut three year’s later. He hopes we find it as “sexually exciting and dangerous” as he did making it.

Best in Commentary

“It was a project very close to my heart. Actually it was very close to personal life, and I won’t go into more details than that.”

“After The Hunger I couldn’t get arrested.”

“Maddy’s [Stowe] got one of the best bodies in the history of the movie industry.”

“I myself had been in what I call a forbidden love situation so I was working from first-hand experience here.”

“After the lemon scene you knew there was no way the two of them were not going to be able to get it on.”

“God, Madeleine is such a sexy, sexy bitch.”

“It’s a story about this forbidden love and their insatiable desire to fuck each other. That’s what it was all about, that’s the focus, and it’s been a big part of my life so I know what it’s all about. The insatiable desire to fuck, that’s what this movie is about.”

“Miguel [Ferrer] has the best voice in the business.”

“Sally’s tits, god.”

“Dances with Wolves is one of my top ten favorite movies.”

Final Thoughts

Scott is very emphatic about this film’s sexual intensity, and he really wants us to know that Madeleine Stowe is sex incarnate. You’ll think I’m exaggerating, but fully half of his commentary is on the topic of the film’s sexiness, the story’s focus on sex and Stowe’s inherent sex appeal. Okay, fine, maybe I’m slightly exaggerating, but he repeats the idea a lot. It’s an entertaining commentary thanks to his openness and observations, and it makes me miss his cinematic contributions all the more.

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Skullcandy SLYR Gaming Headset, Assassins Creed 4 (SMSLFY-421)

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iLuv IEP386PNK JetTurbo High-Performance Earphones with SpeakEZ Remote for Smartphones, Pink

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Here's a Great New Trailer, Just Cause...

Let’s start off the week with an exciting new trailer for Avalanche Studios’ upcoming open world action-adventure game Just Cause 3 starring the legendary Rico Rodriguez.

If you’ve played the other two Just Cause games then I suspect you know and love Rico, and if not… you’re about to get a small taste of what he’s capable of as he burns the world down in this little cinematic trailer. Sadly there isn’t any in-game footage, but we do have a bunch of new in-game screenshots to hopefully help make up for that.

Though I’ve watched friends play the other two games, I’ve actually never played them myself. They seemed fantastic, and if I’m being completely honest with myself, I really have no excuse not to have played them. They seem like exactly the kind of world I enjoy, and it looks like Just Cause 3 will be no slouch either.

Now, there’s no firm release date for Just Cause 3, but we do know that it should be out sometime this holiday season. Given how many terrible game launches we’ve seen over the last year, I’m in no huge hurry to play this. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited… but I would prefer Avalanche Studios get it right out the gate instead of spending months to patch a broken game.

What do you think? Will Just Cause 3 live up to the hype?

Published on February 16, 2015.

Download your Free copy of Secrets Most Men Will Never Know About Women

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Car Charger - Creative Edge(TM) DualFAV-3.1 Dual USB Car Charger with LED Display - Displays Voltage, Amps and Internal Temperature (Fahrenheit) - Total of 3.1 amps, 10W, Compatible with iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 5s, 5c, 4s, 4, iPods, iPad, Samsung Galaxy Note 2, Note 3, S2 S3, S4, S5, HTC One, LG G3, Most Android/Windows Smart Cell Phones, GPS, Tablets, and Other USB-charged Devices (Black with BLUE LED)

$29.99 The DualFAV-3.1 is a great MULTI-Purpose tool for charging mobile devices!

The LED Display and Dual-port Design are a winning combination!

Features: Charge TWO devices RAPIDLY – Keep your devices charged and ready to go with the DualFAV-3.1. Made with high quality material, the dual-port design is able to efficiently charge two devices at the same time with a total charge capacity of 3.1A.

Charge ANY USB Charged 5V Device - The device allows you to charge most devices that are charged via a USB cable. Apple/Android/ Windows smartphones, tablets, and much more.

Digital LED FAV Display – FAV stands for Fahrenheit, Amperage, and Voltage. The DualFAV-3.1 is the first of its kind with a digital LED display that allows you to be more conscious of your vehicle and devices you’re charging. Every ten seconds, the display switches between voltage, internal temperature, and total amperage of the devices you are charging.

Be in tune with your vehicle – This device is one of the most helpful gadgets you can buy for your car. The voltage indicates the health of your battery and allows you to know when it’s time for a replacement. The temperature helps you to manage the internal temperature of the car. The amperage keeps you informed of the amount of amperage your devices are using. Note: temperature display will inaccurately increase while charging a device. Allow cooldown period after charging.

Overcharge / Overheat Protection - The device auto powers off when input/output is greater than safety current. This ensures that your devices are protected against over-heat, over-current and over-charging. It also ensures that the DualFAV-3.1 will not overheat while charging even while charging two devices.

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27 Incredible Places to Visit on AirBnB Before You Die

These next places are so unique, and so out of this world that you have to make it your mission to visit at least one of these!

I’d stay in any one of these without a doubt! Don’t forget to share:)

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A Cloud Based Order Management for Food and Beverage Industry

Image Source: Done Website

What is Done?

Done  is a Mumbai based startup founded by Himanshu Khona & Vikram Raichura. It is a Cloud Based Order Management, CRM (Customer Relationship management) and Analytics platform for Food and Beverage industry. It caters to chained food service market which includes QSR (Quick Service Restaurants), Frozen dessert (Ice cream & Yogurt), CDR (Casual Dine Restaurants), FDR (Fine Dine Restaurants), Café (including Bakery) & PBCL (Pub, Bar, Club, and Lounge).

Within a year, it has onboarded 20 brands and 150 outlets across 3 cities -Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore. ‘Done’ clientele include Box8, Pizza Corner, Naturals Ice-cream, Baskin Robbins, 6th Street Yogurt, Torrp it up, Eatsome, Khans, Zaffran,Dumadum Biryani, Kaati Zone, Eatlo and many more.

What services does Done offer?

For each brand, Done creates customized mediums for ordering a meal. For online orders,a website and a mobile phone app (Android & iOS) are made. Also, a call center has been set up which takes care of the offline orders, home delivery and takeaway orders. Upon placing the order,  the customer receives an acknowledgement SMS regarding the status of his order at every stage during the  placement  process. This is a standard procedure, regardless of the mode of ordering.

Image Source: Done Website

What problems is it solving?

Done connects all food outlets with their customers via website, mobile app and call. This helps them in managing the orders. The services provided by Done have encouraged  brands to start up with their online order management system,  as it provides these brands with a scalable back end infrastructure.

Done is powered by a cloud telephony platform which delivers every order directly to the outlet. It liberates restaurant’s manpower from registering orders over a phone call, thus promoting a faster turnaround time and improving overall work efficiency.

Delhi-Based Incubator ‘Startup Tunnel’ Opens Applications from Startup Founders

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Helen Mirren returns to New York as queen of the subway

NEW YORK (AP) — Trust Helen Mirren to look regal while surrounded by rats, seat hogs and grime.

The 69-year-old Oscar winner has been spotted riding the city’s squalid subway system and offering a lesson in elegance along the way.

She was photographed during one commute sitting up straight in a fur-trimmed coat and long lavender gloves. A sleek taupe tote sat politely on her lap, not beside her.

Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II in Peter Morgan’s play “The Audience.” (AP Photo/Boneau/Bryan-Brown, Johan Persson, File)

“I would never dream of putting my bag on the seat,” the actress said during a recent interview during rehearsals of her new Broadway play. “You’ve got to leave room for other people.”

Mirren seems a bit bewildered by all the fuss over her underground style, which Buzzfeed declared “the classiest thing to ever happen on the subway” and prompted InStyle to offer a shopping list inspired by her outfit.

She said she adores New York, even in the depths of winter: “I love it. I’ve got nice cozy boots, warm coat and hat and scarf.” And on her decision to brave the city’s public transport system, she didn’t hesitate: “It’s the quickest way to get around.”

Mirren may be queen of the subway these days, but she’s a monarch above ground, too. She’s playing Queen Elizabeth II in the play “The Audience,” which wowed crowds in London in 2013.

Peter Morgan’s play imagines the private weekly meetings between the monarch and Britain’s prime ministers over her six-decade reign, including Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. It begins previews Tuesday at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.

“It’s about the clash of her being, on the one hand, the most visible woman in the world and, on the other hand, the most invisible woman in the world,” said director Stephen Daldry. “Helen is extraordinary.”

Mirren was initially reluctant to join the show since she’d already portrayed Queen Elizabeth II in the movie “The Queen,” another Morgan-written story set after the 1997 death of Princess Diana.

“I didn’t want to go back to her, I must say,” Mirren said. “It felt as though I was going backward. And it’s always a mistake for an actor to get overly identified with any particular character.”

That changed somewhat when she read Morgan’s clever script for “The Audience.” He sent it to her to read, and she sent him a two-word email back: “You bastard.”

Both projects have forced Mirren, who was raised in a “staunchly republican” family, to evolve her view of the monarchy. These days, she’s not exactly a monarchist, but she calls herself a “queenist.”

“I never really thought of the queen. She was just there, like Big Ben. You see it, but you don’t really think about how it works,” she said. “You just sort of see it and like that it’s there.”

Mirren’s respect for the queen has burgeoned. “I just found I liked her more and more,” she said. The actress thinks Elizabeth works hard and likely hates the dull paperwork and meetings associated with being monarch.

“She just wants to be walking across the moors with the dogs. She’d be very happy as a farmer’s wife,” Mirren said. “So that’s her sentence – to be in palaces when actually she just wants to be in a muddy lane in a pair of Wellington boots and dogs running around.”

The Broadway version of the play will have some actors from the West End run, but many will be American, including Judith Ivey as Thatcher and Dylan Baker as John Major. The playwright has changed a few things, including tweaking the David Cameron meeting and adding a whole new Tony Blair chat.

Mirren, who was acclaimed for her starring role in the TV detective series “Prime Suspect,” isn’t certain that her royal portrayal is perfectly accurate but stresses it’s an interpretation.

“This is my portrait. And, in a way, there’s as much of me in it as there is the queen,” she said. “I’m the artist, and it’s reflected obviously through my sensibility.”

So far the queen herself hasn’t said anything. Mirren and the monarch have met several times, and Queen Elizabeth II hasn’t brought up any of her portrayals.

“I have to say, if she had mentioned it, I wouldn’t tell you. But she didn’t mention it, in fact,” Mirren said. “But there is an understanding whenever we see each other.”

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Online: http://www.theaudiencebroadway.com

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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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Why Roger Deakins is Overdue for an Oscar

Warner Bros.

All this week, we’re celebrating the losers — those talented filmmakers whom Oscar has foolishly overlooked. Kyle Turner, Chief Editor of Movie Mezzanine’s Balcony Blog gets us started with a look at the many looks of a great DP.

Roger Deakins has spent most of his illustrious career as the Leonardo DiCaprio of cinematographers; the guy whose work we all love, whose work is acknowledged by the big folks at the Academy Awards, and then promptly brushed off in favor of honoring someone else’s work instead. He’s been nominated for an Academy Award eleven times without a win, making this year’s nomination for Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken his twelfth. Regardless of his lack of Oscar hardware, we’re lucky to have such a master in our midst, a man who can craft some of the most gorgeous screen images of the modern era. Each frame speaks for itself, and none more than in Joel and Ethan Coen’s Fargo and Sam Mendes’ Skyfall.

It’s hard to see where we are, the screen so blisteringly white as it opens up. There are tiny details, but past the text that asserts that the film is based on a true story and that all the names of the people involved have been changed, there’s a vastness about the land which is lonely and, juxtaposed against the dark color of the tundra. The only details present in the frame, a car slowly making its way towards the camera and the telephone poles on either side of the rode, are blackish, diffused and mediated by the harsh whiteness, which is more like a colder blue, indicative of the frigidity of the area and of the characters. We are in Brainerd, Minnesota, looking in on a world we are foreign to.

The folks that populate Joel and Ethan Coen’s Fargo are warm, nice, pleasant; adjectives that are either alienating to characters like Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) or far too familiar as facades to someone like Officer Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand).

Deakins’ cinematography, which was nominated for the Academy Award in 1996, is of two minds: it’s at once hyper familiar with the landscape and people it looks at but also completely alienated. It is, in that way, kind of paradoxical. Perhaps it’s because of this paradox that the Coens are occasionally accused of playing a wrathful, smug God in their films: they’re outside looking in and inside looking out, but without the tenderness. Arguably though, the presence of Gunderson seems to temper whatever cynicism may or may not be present in the film, perhaps unlike a lot of other Coen Brothers films.

Though the Coens are rarely compared to Robert Altman, they all create these panoramas of people, places and things, and while Deakins is more than game in examining the landscape of frigidity in more geographical terms, his camerawork is more interesting when examining the people of that landscape, occasionally inhabiting their headspaces. We see Jerry Lundegaard frantically trying to figure out what to do regarding a large amount of money and the men who have his wife through a pane of glass. We see Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare), one of the crooks, peering into the picaresque home of the Lundegaards, the shot returning to Mrs. Lundegaard turning from her television to the glass patio door looking at someone looking in. We watch as Jerry negotiates with his father-in-law in a family dinner from a few tables away. Though the camera remains stationary much of the time in Fargo, the dynamicisim is in the perspective: as aforementioned, we’re either looking in or looking out; sometimes observing one doing the other.

Columbia Pictures

While neither Deakins nor the Coens necessarily relish the medium close up, it’s used often in juxtaposition of the world they live in; so large and endlessly confusing, infinitely bizarre, and, much to the misunderstanding of Officer Gunderson, painfully impure.

And while sterility was used to an advantage to illustrate austerity, Deakins can use his artfulness to ground a populist character in dramatic and political context. Such is the case with his work for the 23rd James Bond film Skyfall, which takes its pleasures in darkness, lush colors reminiscent of Christopher Doyle’s work on In the Mood for Love, and somewhat Kubrickian symmetry.

It’s hard to overstate how gorgeous Skyfall is, and partially because the concept of a “beautiful” James Bond film is so incredibly foreign to anyone who is even minimally acquainted with the franchise. What do you expect from a Bond film? Action, cars, garden variety misogyny, gadgets, nice locations that are competently shot. But you don’t really expect the images to have a weight to them like they do here; they’re not only beautiful, but they’re also integral to the direction Bond is heading both canonically and dramatically.

The film opens in very shallow focus, shooting down a nondescript hallway, and the only thing clear is the low backlight that illustrates a familiar, albeit blurry, silhouette. The figure makes his way towards the camera, raises his firearm, and looks just past us, his eye line illuminated. Thus, what’s clear is that Bond is ready to get down and dirty, the only one who can see in a world shrouded in darkness.

Shooting a world in darkness seems to be a recurring theme in Deakins’ work, regardless of whether the shots themselves are literally dark: from The Shawshank Redemption to The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, and from Road to Perdition to Prisoners, Deakins might be the exemplary cinematographer for a post-9/11 world drenched in a cynical attitude.

And that’s what Bond’s latest outing is all about, no? It extends the ideas of new world disorder that Martin Campbell’s Casino Royale introduced, ideas full of paranoia and chaos. It’s Deakins’s versatility that comes in handy, then, given his ability to find order in that chaos. Take for instance the chase in the pre-titles sequence: Bond jumps off of a crane into a recently torn open train car with suave casualness, framed perfectly by the remaining border that looks as if it had been gnawed off.

But the ideas of uncertainty in a world where terrorism is no longer limited to the natural world, Deakins’s ability to articulate such anxiety is particularly impressive in one sequence: the Shanghai battle. Undoubtedly the most gorgeous sequence ever featured in a Bond film, 007 attempts to stop a hit man way up high in an immaculate glass building. There’s only the illumination of a bright blue sign to provide any light. Bond slowly makes his way towards the assassin, and, when the latter takes notice, the sequence which started as a high tension stealth operation turns into hand to hand combat. But it doesn’t look like a battle. Silhouetted against the sign, it’s more like a ballet, a deadly game of shadow play that is at once beautiful and fatal. Just like delving into Bond’s psyche, which Mendes attempts to break into. Just like dealing with the real world. Just like coming to terms with the power governments and secret agencies play with. A deadly shadow ballet.

The way Deakins elevated a character who is, in all seriousness, kind of silly is worth its weight in blocky casino plaques. To inhabit two perspectives which are nearly antithetical to one another in the tundra of the Midwest, blending naiveté and cynicism, is also a unique achievement. We could go on and on about Deakins’s filmography, an artist who can achieve what his employers ask of him while never restraining his own voice.