Kris Gethin,bodybuilding.com chief editor and expert trainer who's been flown in from Boise,Idaho to help Hrithik get back in shape for " Krrish 3" has being paid a whopping `20 lakh a month to help Hrithik with his fitness, and flies everywhere with the actor at the moment. A friend of the actor also told us that Hrithik is so focussed on his fitness right now that whatever time he gets post his work commitments, whether it's early morning or late night, he spends it with Kris working out.
The nominees who are the front-runners and can possible steel the award for 2012 are.
Best Picture
"The Artist" Thomas Langmann, Producer
"The Descendants" Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Producers
"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" Scott Rudin, Producer
"The Help" Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan, Producers
"Hugo" Graham King and Martin Scorsese, Producers
"Midnight in Paris" Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, Producers
"Moneyball" Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz and Brad Pitt, Producers
"The Tree of Life" Nominees to be determined
"War Horse" Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers
Actor
Demián Bichir, A Better Life;
George Clooney, The Descendants;
Jean Dujardin, The Artist;
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy;
Brad Pitt, Moneyball
Actress
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs;
Viola Davis, The Help;
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady;
Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo;
Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn
Directors
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris;
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist;
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life;
Alexander Payne, The Descendants;
Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Supporting actor
Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn;
Jonah Hill, Moneyball;
Nick Nolte, Warrior;
Christopher Plummer, Beginners;
Max von Sydow, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Supporting actress
Bérénice Bejo, The Artist;
Jessica Chastain, The Help;
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids;
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs;
Octavia Spencer, The Help
Animated Feature Film
"A Cat in Paris" Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli
"Chico & Rita" Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal
"Kung Fu Panda 2" Jennifer Yuh Nelson
"Puss in Boots" Chris Miller
"Rango" Gore Verbinski
Best Picture
"The Artist" Thomas Langmann, Producer
"The Descendants" Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Producers
"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" Scott Rudin, Producer
"The Help" Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan, Producers
"Hugo" Graham King and Martin Scorsese, Producers
"Midnight in Paris" Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, Producers
"Moneyball" Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz and Brad Pitt, Producers
"The Tree of Life" Nominees to be determined
"War Horse" Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers
Actor
Demián Bichir, A Better Life;
George Clooney, The Descendants;
Jean Dujardin, The Artist;
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy;
Brad Pitt, Moneyball
Actress
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs;
Viola Davis, The Help;
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady;
Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo;
Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn
Directors
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris;
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist;
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life;
Alexander Payne, The Descendants;
Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Supporting actor
Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn;
Jonah Hill, Moneyball;
Nick Nolte, Warrior;
Christopher Plummer, Beginners;
Max von Sydow, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Supporting actress
Bérénice Bejo, The Artist;
Jessica Chastain, The Help;
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids;
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs;
Octavia Spencer, The Help
Animated Feature Film
"A Cat in Paris" Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli
"Chico & Rita" Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal
"Kung Fu Panda 2" Jennifer Yuh Nelson
"Puss in Boots" Chris Miller
"Rango" Gore Verbinski
Sandy Powell costume designer got her 10th Oscar nomination last night for Hugo. She has won the costume design award three times, including for Scorsese’s Howard Hughes biopic,“The Aviator.” The opportunity to work again with the director, a frequent collaborator, was a major motivation for her to sign on to the lavish 3-D family movie, but so was its source material, the illustrated children’s novel “The Invention of Hugo Cabret.”
“Hugo” has earned 11 nominations, more than that of any other film for the year
Speaking from a London store she said “I was in a car being driven by a friend in a traffic jam on a rainy London afternoon,” Powell said. “David [Davenport], my [costume] supervisor, sent me a message saying, ‘You better start looking for a dress!’”
“I’m only disappointed that it didn’t get a makeup nomination. That would have been nice. Costumes and makeup -– it’s all part of the same thing,” Powell said.
A fire broke out at the set of Aamir Khan Productions upcoming TV show situated at Malad on Monday night.
Dinesh Chaturvedi, general secretary of Federation of Western India Cine Employees who visited the set said, "about four fire engineers have been pressed into action. The set is still under construction and luckily workers were not present."
He added, "the bylanes in that area are very narrow and this made it difficult for the fire engines to reach the set."
Actor Aamir Khan is likely to visit the set of his TV show after the fire is doused off.
The show is being produced by and is expected to go on air in early 2012.
Dinesh Chaturvedi, general secretary of Federation of Western India Cine Employees who visited the set said, "about four fire engineers have been pressed into action. The set is still under construction and luckily workers were not present."
He added, "the bylanes in that area are very narrow and this made it difficult for the fire engines to reach the set."
Actor Aamir Khan is likely to visit the set of his TV show after the fire is doused off.
The show is being produced by and is expected to go on air in early 2012.
Hollywood power couple Seal and Heidi Klum are ending their marriage.
Klum might file for divorce as early as next week at the L.A. County Superior Court , citing "irreconcilable differences" as the reason for the split.
The couple married on May 10, 2005 have 3 biological kids. Seal adopted Heidi's eldest girl from a prior relationship.
Klum and Seal famously renewed their wedding vows every year in a lavish ceremony. That ceremony, reportedly, will not take place this year
Klum might file for divorce as early as next week at the L.A. County Superior Court , citing "irreconcilable differences" as the reason for the split.
The couple married on May 10, 2005 have 3 biological kids. Seal adopted Heidi's eldest girl from a prior relationship.
Klum and Seal famously renewed their wedding vows every year in a lavish ceremony. That ceremony, reportedly, will not take place this year
To pare the number of entries, feature-length documentaries will have to be reviewed by the L.A. Times and N.Y. Times in order to be eligible for an Academy Award.
A new requirement that documentary films must be reviewed by the Los Angeles Times or New York Times in order to be eligible for Oscar consideration is being touted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a way to pare down a recent glut in the number of feature films submitted — including many that air on television but may only play in one theater for one week.
But the change, which would come into effect for the 2013 Oscars, is raising concerns among some filmmakers, including members of the academy's own documentary branch, that the new rule will favor wealthier documentary makers who have professional publicists over the vast majority of colleagues who typically struggle to finance their films, let alone publicize them.
"A N.Y. Times or L.A. Times review does not make a lot of sense to me, because the academy already requires a one-week run" in a theater, said veteran documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger, whose most recent film, "Paradise Lost 3," has made this year's shortlist for best feature documentary. "Now in addition to running ads we have to hire publicists and get guaranteed a review."
The L.A. Times already reviews nearly every film released on a commercial screen for a week in Los Angeles. The New York Times' policy is to review every film released on a commercial screen for a week in New York or Los Angeles; it also reviews some new releases screened by nonprofit groups like museums.
Other documentary makers suggested that the new requirement ignores the reality of the varied ways in which high-quality documentaries are being exhibited today, whether in movie theaters or on television.
"The changes do not address the key problem, which is 99% of the documentaries being made are not released in theaters. So tightening up the rules for theatrical release just highlights the issue all the more," Lawrence Hott, a two-time Oscar nominee, said in an email. "I would prefer to see the academy figure out a way to get rid of the theatrical requirement and recognize that the distinction between theatrical and non-theatrical for documentaries is a phony one and makes no sense in the modern world of documentary production."
The new requirement is part of a package of Oscar rule changes affecting documentaries. In addition to the review requirement, all 157 members of the documentary branch of the academy will now vote to select the nominees for best documentary and the winner will be determined by the academy's entire voting membership of 5,783. Previously, only those academy members who had viewed all the nominated documentaries in a theatrical setting were allowed to vote for the winner.
"The mission of the academy is to honor motion pictures intended for theaters," Rob Epstein, chair of the academy's documentary branch executive committee, said in an email. "Over the past two years, the documentary branch has experienced a vast increase in the number of non-theatrical documentaries, specifically, films that will not have real theatrical distribution but are merely running in a theater for one week in order to qualify for academy consideration."
A new requirement that documentary films must be reviewed by the Los Angeles Times or New York Times in order to be eligible for Oscar consideration is being touted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a way to pare down a recent glut in the number of feature films submitted — including many that air on television but may only play in one theater for one week.
But the change, which would come into effect for the 2013 Oscars, is raising concerns among some filmmakers, including members of the academy's own documentary branch, that the new rule will favor wealthier documentary makers who have professional publicists over the vast majority of colleagues who typically struggle to finance their films, let alone publicize them.
"A N.Y. Times or L.A. Times review does not make a lot of sense to me, because the academy already requires a one-week run" in a theater, said veteran documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger, whose most recent film, "Paradise Lost 3," has made this year's shortlist for best feature documentary. "Now in addition to running ads we have to hire publicists and get guaranteed a review."
The L.A. Times already reviews nearly every film released on a commercial screen for a week in Los Angeles. The New York Times' policy is to review every film released on a commercial screen for a week in New York or Los Angeles; it also reviews some new releases screened by nonprofit groups like museums.
Other documentary makers suggested that the new requirement ignores the reality of the varied ways in which high-quality documentaries are being exhibited today, whether in movie theaters or on television.
"The changes do not address the key problem, which is 99% of the documentaries being made are not released in theaters. So tightening up the rules for theatrical release just highlights the issue all the more," Lawrence Hott, a two-time Oscar nominee, said in an email. "I would prefer to see the academy figure out a way to get rid of the theatrical requirement and recognize that the distinction between theatrical and non-theatrical for documentaries is a phony one and makes no sense in the modern world of documentary production."
The new requirement is part of a package of Oscar rule changes affecting documentaries. In addition to the review requirement, all 157 members of the documentary branch of the academy will now vote to select the nominees for best documentary and the winner will be determined by the academy's entire voting membership of 5,783. Previously, only those academy members who had viewed all the nominated documentaries in a theatrical setting were allowed to vote for the winner.
"The mission of the academy is to honor motion pictures intended for theaters," Rob Epstein, chair of the academy's documentary branch executive committee, said in an email. "Over the past two years, the documentary branch has experienced a vast increase in the number of non-theatrical documentaries, specifically, films that will not have real theatrical distribution but are merely running in a theater for one week in order to qualify for academy consideration."
Singer Adele's album "21" returned to the number one spot in the British charts, becoming the longest chart-topping album release in nearly 42 years, the Official Charts Company said on Sunday.
The album has been number one, on and off, for 19 weeks since its release in January 2011.
It is also the biggest selling album in the 21st century having sold more than 3.8 million copies.
In the singles chart, U.S. rapper Flo Rida climbed two places to number one with "Good Feeling".
Making way was Coldplay's "Paradise" which slipped to number two.
New entrant "Troublemaker" by Taio Cruz went straight to number three.
The album has been number one, on and off, for 19 weeks since its release in January 2011.
It is also the biggest selling album in the 21st century having sold more than 3.8 million copies.
In the singles chart, U.S. rapper Flo Rida climbed two places to number one with "Good Feeling".
Making way was Coldplay's "Paradise" which slipped to number two.
New entrant "Troublemaker" by Taio Cruz went straight to number three.
Russell Brand has revealed that he struggles not to "cherish and crave" the nights in which he used to bed four or five women during wild orgies.
In an interview, which was recorded before the couple jetted to opposite sides of the world for Christmas but only aired in a podcast on Thursday, the 36-year-old comedian has described the promiscuous period of his life as "blissful".
"I'd do a gig and four or five women would come back," the Mirror quoted him as saying.
"There were times when it wasn't all desperate and ugly. There were times when I was this representation of pure libertarianism and sexuality. It's so hard not to cherish them and crave them.
"I know where they ended up. I know where they went, but I became this thing. Women meeting across me. One would leave, another would come. There'd be crossovers. And they had no problem with each other. And it was blissful," he added.
In an interview, which was recorded before the couple jetted to opposite sides of the world for Christmas but only aired in a podcast on Thursday, the 36-year-old comedian has described the promiscuous period of his life as "blissful".
"I'd do a gig and four or five women would come back," the Mirror quoted him as saying.
"There were times when it wasn't all desperate and ugly. There were times when I was this representation of pure libertarianism and sexuality. It's so hard not to cherish them and crave them.
"I know where they ended up. I know where they went, but I became this thing. Women meeting across me. One would leave, another would come. There'd be crossovers. And they had no problem with each other. And it was blissful," he added.
Unlike his contemporaries Imran Khan doesn't have the image of a skirt-chaser. But of course, even he has some well-guarded secrets of his `boyhood' days.
This young actor, who has been very successful in the rom-com space with I Hate Luv Storys (2010) and Mere Brother ki Dulhan (2011) hitting the bulls eye at the box office, is getting ready for yet another rom-com co-produced by Dharma Production and UTV Motion Pictures.
Ek Main aur Ekk Tu, which is prescribed as the perfect date film, has Imran romancing Kareena Kapoor for the first time. It has been directed by debutant Shakun Batra, who is very close to Imran and who actually indulged him by casting him opposite the girl of his dreams.
Imran, who turns a shade of red even when you mention Kareena casually, says, "Kareena is perhaps the most beautiful actress that I have worked with. And I've worked with some real beauties.''
Long before he even dreamt of being an actor, Imran had a huge crush on Bebo. Says he, "I found her beautiful right from her first film Refugee. I couldn't articulate my feelings then, but perhaps I nursed a silent crush. When we started working together, we got along really well. We had a rollicking time shooting for EMAET. I observed her closely while we were working and even took her pictures without her knowledge. She sometimes looked so beautiful and ethereal that clicking her was a natural response."
The EMAET promos have created a buzz amongst youngsters and the trade. Two of the songs - the title track and Aunty ji are also potential chart busters. As Imran says, "With Bebo by my side, everything is working out just fine.'' Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu releases on February 10, 2012
This young actor, who has been very successful in the rom-com space with I Hate Luv Storys (2010) and Mere Brother ki Dulhan (2011) hitting the bulls eye at the box office, is getting ready for yet another rom-com co-produced by Dharma Production and UTV Motion Pictures.
Ek Main aur Ekk Tu, which is prescribed as the perfect date film, has Imran romancing Kareena Kapoor for the first time. It has been directed by debutant Shakun Batra, who is very close to Imran and who actually indulged him by casting him opposite the girl of his dreams.
Imran, who turns a shade of red even when you mention Kareena casually, says, "Kareena is perhaps the most beautiful actress that I have worked with. And I've worked with some real beauties.''
Long before he even dreamt of being an actor, Imran had a huge crush on Bebo. Says he, "I found her beautiful right from her first film Refugee. I couldn't articulate my feelings then, but perhaps I nursed a silent crush. When we started working together, we got along really well. We had a rollicking time shooting for EMAET. I observed her closely while we were working and even took her pictures without her knowledge. She sometimes looked so beautiful and ethereal that clicking her was a natural response."
The EMAET promos have created a buzz amongst youngsters and the trade. Two of the songs - the title track and Aunty ji are also potential chart busters. As Imran says, "With Bebo by my side, everything is working out just fine.'' Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu releases on February 10, 2012
British Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday criticised the making of a film showing his predecessor Margaret Thatcher as a vulnerable elderly woman.
"The Iron Lady", featuring American Meryl Streep in the main Thatcher role, opens in British cinemas on Friday. Cameron praised Streep but suggested the film should not have been made while Thatcher was still alive and suffering from dementia.
"It's a fantastic piece of acting by Meryl Streep. You can't help wondering, why do we have to have this film right now. It is a film much more about ageing and elements of dementia rather about than an amazing prime minister," he told BBC Radio 4.
"My sort of sense was a great piece of acting, a really staggering piece of acting, but a film I wish they could have made another day," he added.
The film shows Thatcher, now 86, as a confused and lonely old woman looking back on moments from her momentous but highly divisive political career.
Thatcher, Britain's first woman prime minister, ruled from 1979-1990, leading Britain into war with Argentina over the Falkand Islands and taming powerful trade unions at home.
Cameron's reservations are shared by other members of his Conservative Party, which Thatcher once led and which currently heads Britain's coalition government.
"Meryl Streep should probably get an Oscar for an amazing portrayal (but) there was too much of a concentration on Lady Thatcher's dementia and not enough on her life story, her achievements," Conservative lawmaker Louise Mensch told Reuters.
Former Conservative politician Michael Portillo told the BBC he "felt uncomfortable" about scenes highlighting her illness.
One-time Thatcher rival Michael Heseltine, who once challenged her for the Conservative leadership, took a similar view.
"I think Mrs Thatcher was a formidable prime minister and to produce a film in her later stages of life depicting the problems of advanced old age, I find extremely distasteful," he told Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper.
(Reuters) - No one inflames British passions quite like Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister whose biopic "The Iron Lady" has rekindled debate on her legacy ahead of the film's release on Friday.
Legions of admirers cast her as a pioneering politician whose bold policies rescued Britain from economic collapse, but equally numerous detractors see her as a heartless champion of free market orthodoxy at the expense of the poor.
Memories of her 1979-1990 rule have come into sharper focus for many Britons because the country is again grappling with high unemployment, spending cuts, tensions with Europe, union discontent and riots -- all features of the Thatcher years.
"Her legacy is enormous," said Conservative lawmaker John Whittingdale, who was once Thatcher's political secretary.
"She carried through policies that transformed Britain and indeed Britain's relationship with the world, which will never be reversed and nor would anyone contemplate reversing them."
He cited Thatcher's role in ending the Cold War through her alliance with then U.S. President Ronald Reagan, which along with her successful prosecution of the 1982 Falklands war with Argentina, bolstered British authority on the world stage.
Thatcher's admirers also credit her with turning around, through privatisations and deregulation, what they saw as a quasi-socialist British economy in steep decline and at the mercy of powerful unions when she first took office.
Her detractors point to the bitter and violent strikes when she took on the coalminers' union in 1984, riots in 1990 over her wildly unpopular Poll Tax, and swathes of industrial Britain abandoned to long-term unemployment and decline.
Her tenure became synonymous with the rise of the "yuppie" and a greedy, individualistic capitalist culture that many blame today for Britain's economic woes and lack of social cohesion.
"The legacy of Margaret Thatcher was one of division and conflict and the political encouragement of the 'greed is good' culture at the root of the banking crisis we are all paying a heavy price for today," said Bob Crow of the RMT rail union.
In a sign of her continuing ability to stoke controversy, more than 24,000 people have signed a tongue-in-cheek petition pushing for any state funeral for Thatcher to be privatised.
"This unique opportunity is an ideal way to cut government expense and further prove the merits of liberalised economics Baroness Thatcher spearheaded," the petition reads.
Thatcher is now 86, frail and suffering from dementia.
"FEMINISM IS POISON"
Thatcher's power to polarise makes it difficult for those trying to give a balanced account of her time in office.
"The thing that I noticed when I was making the film, is how fiery hot on both sides the feelings were. People wanted to hold her as this indelible icon or they wanted to regard her as a monster," Meryl Streep, who plays Thatcher in The Iron Lady, told Reuters.
Streep said she did not agree with many of Thatcher's policies but admired many of her personal qualities, a stance shared by many British people.
Thatcher broke entrenched gender and class barriers in her rise from humble beginnings as a grocer's daughter to leader of the centre-right Conservative Party and then prime minister.
"Big personalities will always make their mark," Conservative lawmaker Louise Mensch told Reuters.
"Thatcher was a woman succeeding in a man's world when it was unbelievably unusual ... Whoever the first woman president of the United States is, she will have a great debt to Margaret Thatcher," she added, speaking after seeing The Iron Lady in New York.
A bronze statue of Thatcher, pointing emphatically in her trademark power suit and power-set hairdo, is conspicuous among the otherwise exclusively male statues of former prime ministers in the ornate lobby adjoining parliament's debating chamber.
However, even Thatcher's potential as a role model for ambitious women is disputed, given that she surrounded herself with men throughout her career and did little to help any other woman break the glass ceiling.
"The feminists hate me, don't they? And I don't blame them. For I hate feminism. It is poison," Thatcher said, according to Paul Johnson, one her closest advisers, writing in Britain's centre-right Spectator magazine last year.
"WE REVERE HER"
Part of Thatcher's continuing ability to stoke passions is the enduring influence of her ideology on Conservative politicians and voters today, even among those too young to remember living under her rule.
The Conservatives are in power now, although Prime Minister David Cameron has been careful to differentiate himself from Thatcher with his "Big Society" mantra, which encourages grassroots community action as opposed to state intervention.
The slogan stands in sharp contrast to Thatcher's famous statement that "there is no such thing as society" -- although ironically, that quote was part of an interview in which she too was encouraging individuals not to rely too much on the state.
In a poll of Conservative Party members by the conservativehome website late last month, respondents put Thatcher at the top of a list of politicians that most closely represented their views, seven places ahead of Cameron.
In a wider survey in November, a YouGov/Sunday Times poll of 1,700 adults found Thatcher to be the greatest British leader since 1945, ahead even of wartime leader Winston Churchill.
Her ideology permeates current Conservative thinking, even among the younger members of parliament first elected in 2010, many of whom were children when she was in power.
"I certainly know that all my younger generation of colleagues ... believe she is one of the greatest political figures of the modern age and we revere her," Mensch said.
Like Thatcher taking harsh measures to rescue a faltering economy, Cameron's coalition government has made the deepest public spending cuts in a generation to tackle a big budget deficit, laying off thousands of public sector workers.
Also like Thatcher, Cameron has taken on the unions over pension reform and adopted a tough stance on Europe, garnering praise from his party's powerful Thatcherite wing by vetoing an EU treaty to rescue the euro.
Thatcher once said the currency was "bound to fail, economically, politically and indeed socially".
The debate over Thatcher's legacy is likely to rumble on among Britain's next generation of politicians, who like their predecessors, appear to either love or loathe the former leader.
"(She is) one of the most significant politicians of the 20th Century, an inspiration to my political belief in giving people aspirations and helping them to achieve them," Ben Howlett, who heads the Conservatives' youth wing, told Reuters.
Predictably, the head of Labour Students, the opposition Labour party's student body, takes a different view.
"There are alarming parallels between what Cameron is doing today and what Thatcher did in the 80s," said Olivia Bailey.
"Thatcher to me serves as both a warning and a motivation. A warning of the damage that can be done by Conservative ideology and a motivation to fight for the values held by the Labour Party - to fight to unite our society, not divide it."
Legions of admirers cast her as a pioneering politician whose bold policies rescued Britain from economic collapse, but equally numerous detractors see her as a heartless champion of free market orthodoxy at the expense of the poor.
Memories of her 1979-1990 rule have come into sharper focus for many Britons because the country is again grappling with high unemployment, spending cuts, tensions with Europe, union discontent and riots -- all features of the Thatcher years.
"Her legacy is enormous," said Conservative lawmaker John Whittingdale, who was once Thatcher's political secretary.
"She carried through policies that transformed Britain and indeed Britain's relationship with the world, which will never be reversed and nor would anyone contemplate reversing them."
He cited Thatcher's role in ending the Cold War through her alliance with then U.S. President Ronald Reagan, which along with her successful prosecution of the 1982 Falklands war with Argentina, bolstered British authority on the world stage.
Thatcher's admirers also credit her with turning around, through privatisations and deregulation, what they saw as a quasi-socialist British economy in steep decline and at the mercy of powerful unions when she first took office.
Her detractors point to the bitter and violent strikes when she took on the coalminers' union in 1984, riots in 1990 over her wildly unpopular Poll Tax, and swathes of industrial Britain abandoned to long-term unemployment and decline.
Her tenure became synonymous with the rise of the "yuppie" and a greedy, individualistic capitalist culture that many blame today for Britain's economic woes and lack of social cohesion.
"The legacy of Margaret Thatcher was one of division and conflict and the political encouragement of the 'greed is good' culture at the root of the banking crisis we are all paying a heavy price for today," said Bob Crow of the RMT rail union.
In a sign of her continuing ability to stoke controversy, more than 24,000 people have signed a tongue-in-cheek petition pushing for any state funeral for Thatcher to be privatised.
"This unique opportunity is an ideal way to cut government expense and further prove the merits of liberalised economics Baroness Thatcher spearheaded," the petition reads.
Thatcher is now 86, frail and suffering from dementia.
"FEMINISM IS POISON"
Thatcher's power to polarise makes it difficult for those trying to give a balanced account of her time in office.
"The thing that I noticed when I was making the film, is how fiery hot on both sides the feelings were. People wanted to hold her as this indelible icon or they wanted to regard her as a monster," Meryl Streep, who plays Thatcher in The Iron Lady, told Reuters.
Streep said she did not agree with many of Thatcher's policies but admired many of her personal qualities, a stance shared by many British people.
Thatcher broke entrenched gender and class barriers in her rise from humble beginnings as a grocer's daughter to leader of the centre-right Conservative Party and then prime minister.
"Big personalities will always make their mark," Conservative lawmaker Louise Mensch told Reuters.
"Thatcher was a woman succeeding in a man's world when it was unbelievably unusual ... Whoever the first woman president of the United States is, she will have a great debt to Margaret Thatcher," she added, speaking after seeing The Iron Lady in New York.
A bronze statue of Thatcher, pointing emphatically in her trademark power suit and power-set hairdo, is conspicuous among the otherwise exclusively male statues of former prime ministers in the ornate lobby adjoining parliament's debating chamber.
However, even Thatcher's potential as a role model for ambitious women is disputed, given that she surrounded herself with men throughout her career and did little to help any other woman break the glass ceiling.
"The feminists hate me, don't they? And I don't blame them. For I hate feminism. It is poison," Thatcher said, according to Paul Johnson, one her closest advisers, writing in Britain's centre-right Spectator magazine last year.
"WE REVERE HER"
Part of Thatcher's continuing ability to stoke passions is the enduring influence of her ideology on Conservative politicians and voters today, even among those too young to remember living under her rule.
The Conservatives are in power now, although Prime Minister David Cameron has been careful to differentiate himself from Thatcher with his "Big Society" mantra, which encourages grassroots community action as opposed to state intervention.
The slogan stands in sharp contrast to Thatcher's famous statement that "there is no such thing as society" -- although ironically, that quote was part of an interview in which she too was encouraging individuals not to rely too much on the state.
In a poll of Conservative Party members by the conservativehome website late last month, respondents put Thatcher at the top of a list of politicians that most closely represented their views, seven places ahead of Cameron.
In a wider survey in November, a YouGov/Sunday Times poll of 1,700 adults found Thatcher to be the greatest British leader since 1945, ahead even of wartime leader Winston Churchill.
Her ideology permeates current Conservative thinking, even among the younger members of parliament first elected in 2010, many of whom were children when she was in power.
"I certainly know that all my younger generation of colleagues ... believe she is one of the greatest political figures of the modern age and we revere her," Mensch said.
Like Thatcher taking harsh measures to rescue a faltering economy, Cameron's coalition government has made the deepest public spending cuts in a generation to tackle a big budget deficit, laying off thousands of public sector workers.
Also like Thatcher, Cameron has taken on the unions over pension reform and adopted a tough stance on Europe, garnering praise from his party's powerful Thatcherite wing by vetoing an EU treaty to rescue the euro.
Thatcher once said the currency was "bound to fail, economically, politically and indeed socially".
The debate over Thatcher's legacy is likely to rumble on among Britain's next generation of politicians, who like their predecessors, appear to either love or loathe the former leader.
"(She is) one of the most significant politicians of the 20th Century, an inspiration to my political belief in giving people aspirations and helping them to achieve them," Ben Howlett, who heads the Conservatives' youth wing, told Reuters.
Predictably, the head of Labour Students, the opposition Labour party's student body, takes a different view.
"There are alarming parallels between what Cameron is doing today and what Thatcher did in the 80s," said Olivia Bailey.
"Thatcher to me serves as both a warning and a motivation. A warning of the damage that can be done by Conservative ideology and a motivation to fight for the values held by the Labour Party - to fight to unite our society, not divide it."