See the Moon!

I'm a Sam Rockwell fan. I think he's a terrific actor, and he's always been entertaining in the scant few films I've seen him in. So I'm always happy to hear about any new projects he's involved in.

Like, Moon. It's a story of a man who's been on the moon for three years, mining Helium-3 - a rare gas which is the solution to Earth's energy crisis. He's got two weeks left before he gets back to Earth, when things happen that shouldn't. Sounds interesting enough, but the reason I'm salivating like a mad dog, is because of the kickass poster design for the film. It's the most brilliant design I've seen in a very long time:



Click on it to see a bigger, better version.

Art Online

The final edits have been made to the Cariya Breemen website, and it is now fully functional, with no more "coming-soon" sections. The site is her online portfolio, and it showcases her art under three main sections:

1) Visual Art - Her paintings, mixed-media work, and art installations.

2) Couture Art - One-of-a-kind designer clothes, often a direct translation of her paintings, a sort of "wearable art", if you must.

3) Culinary Art - Her newest endeavour, exotic food items prepared for special occasions and events

Major edits on the site are:
- New write-ups for all sections
- Images added to the the "Couture Art" sub-sections
- New "Culinary Art" page added, with text and pictures

Bane is a Metallica fan!

Yes, that's right, he digs Metallica!



That's right, he's singing Enter Sandman!

Or not?

Either way, you should take out a moment and head towards original post.

Gigs this month

The gig scene has been pretty decent the last few days, including one virtual experience.

Them Clones were playing at Hard Rock Cafe last week, with Shaair+Func as the opening act. Bad idea! Shaair+Func were brilliant! Their music was a lot different than what I was expecting really. For one, I didn't expect them to have a backing band. I don't know why, but I always assumed that it would be just the two of them on stage. Anyway, Randolph was pretty good with his guitar, and his funky eyewear was absolute high-fashion! Monica Dogra was hot! She had a great stage presence, sang the pants off everyone, and did I say she was smokin' hot?

So this was why it was an absolute bad idea for Them Clones to play after them. They seemed like some kids at a local gig. No stage presence to speak of, and apart from their single "My Life", the other songs were kinda lacklustre. Lets hope the songs sound better on their album, the corny sounding "Love, Hate, Heroes". Check out the song and video online.

This was followed up a few days later with Iron Maiden's Flight 666! Whatta kickass experience! It was great, revisiting the bombay concert, and watching the global hysteria and the mad chaos at all the venues the band visited. Man, Latin and South America is crazy! People camping out for days on end, guys quitting their jobs to watch the band, and people coming in from neighbouring countries, even! Brilliant! The documentary itself wasn't so hot. I would have enjoyed some more behind-the-scene revelations and snippets, and less concert footage. But what-the-hey, it's a great adrenaline rush watching it anyway!

And lastly, the Channel [V] and BigAdda Concert For Change. This was mixed bag, if anything. With a line-up that included the Launchpad finalists (Cassini's Division, Faridkot and Reverse Polarity), The Raghu Dixit Project, Anoushka M, Bappi "You are my Chicken Curry" Lahiri, and Kailash Kher, I was absolutely not sure just who their target audience for the gig was.

Anyway, it got off to a bad start with me missing The Raghu Dixit Project and Cassini's Division, sob sob. I believe I was, at that time, having a bloody cold coffee at a local restaurant. What can I say, I suck. I walked in just as Reverse Polarity was finishing their gig. Probably a good thing, as I was not a fan of their music. They are a very tight band, and if they stick together for a few more years, are sure to do bloody well.

Next up, Anoushka M. Blah, boring. A very bad billing. Faridkot came on next. They were pretty decent. A very Jal/Atif Aslam kinda sound, they were probably the band that would have had the best pan-India appeal. Kinda monotonous after a while though. That monotony was broken by the fabulous sounds of Bappi Lahiri! I still have a hard time deciding if people actually liked his music for what it was, or just as a novely act. Either way, the crowd went ape-shit insane. Probably the most successful act of the night. Even Kailash Kher, who came on next, couldn't really get the crowd going as much. Infact, he even sounded a bit less energetic than usual.

Sometime before or after the final act, Reverse Polarity were declared Launchpad winners. I was personally hoping for Cassini's to get it. Anyway, for a gig titled "Concert for Change", I dont know know if anyone got any message out of the show or not. I didn't, really. There were some cool Channel V promos on all the time, with Santa and Banta and stuff, plus some occasional messages being show, that I couldn't decide were being serious or spoofs. It was, anyway, a free gig, so that was good.

The Fire Still Burns...

I recently met a bunch of guys, who, like most of the people in the city, seemed more or less disillusioned with the whole Political Circus that keeps playing out all around, perhaps most easily accessible on your local "news" channel. They've decided to step up and try and make a change in the attitude of people. While this whole excercise was initially geared towards getting people to vote, that space was already cluttered. So they're kinda hoping to just make people more aware of their civic right, and become less apathetic.

As a first step, they've recorded a song and uploaded it on their website, that went live a few days back.

I'm, as of right now, working with them on deigns. Phase one includes a logo design, and a basic, functional website, primary for hosting the song, and getting people to sign-up for their cause. Check it out.

Movies this month

A quick assessment of some notable movies I saw this month:

The Hunt for Red October: I hadn't seen any Jack Ryan movies before this, and I thought he was more of a hands-on field agent. It was interesting to learn that he was actually a research analyst. The movie had a fairly interesting storyline, but it seemed to drag at places. There wasn't much happening visually on screen really. I'm thinking the book will be a lot more interesting too read. Sean Connery does a pretty good job, but Alec Baldwin is relegated to almost a guest appearance status. Anyway, I'm intrigued enough to someday watch the other Jack Ryan movies.

Being John Malkovich: What a nutter of a movie! Absolutely insane! I must have jumped up astonished and dazed and shouted out HOLY FUCK atleast half a dozen times during this movie! It was fabulous, a real treat to watch. The story: John Cusack is a failed puppeteer, a loser basically (and he plays the role real good) who takes up a job to sustain himself. The job is on the 7 1/2 floor of a building, one of the many bizzare quirks in the movie. He discovers a portal there, behind a filing cabinet, that leads into the mind of the actor John Malkovich. Hah! And they then start seeing everything through the eyes of JM. Bizzare! There's a lotta existential thoughts in there, like what would happen if a man enters a portal that leads into his own mind, and are we all puppets and blah blah, which can safely be ignored if you want to just take this movie for what it presents at face value! This is simply an absolutely trippy movie, with fabulous performances by everyone involved!

Sleepy Hollow: When the movie had just released, I didn't expect the headless horseman to be an actual ghoul. I don't think that's how it is in the original story, but I could be wrong (I haven't read the book, I've just seen the cartoon on tv a looooong time back). I always though the story was more of a character study of Ichabod Crane (kickass name). Tim Burton directs it as a creepy detective movie of sorts, and it's fun. Johnny Depp is once more at home playing yet another quirky charcter - a police constable who's trying to get the police at large to adopt scientific methods to apprehend criminals and solve crimes (he also keeps having wierd dream interludes that I thought added nothing of substance to the narrative and killed the pace of the story really). The ghoul is question, the headless horseman, played delightfully by Christopher Walken, is a real bad-ass. He should get a spin-off of his own, that movie would be a rip-roaring gory fun-filled ride. It would be a great horror-comedy really. Anyway, this was a great movie with trademark Burton visuals and colors. And i really like it.

Dog Soldiers: Rather thrilling, and high on action. It's not really horror, inspite of having werewolves, but it gives you a rush nevertheless. Oh, and it's very visceral, gory. The setting's pretty good. A bunch of Irish (or Brit) soldiers are in Scotland, on what they believe to be a training mission. Turns out they're , up by the Special Forces squad to be bait for werewolves. Whoohoo, let the massacre begin! The characters are all great (i loved hearing them talk), and the creature effects were very realistic. As real as a werewolf can be, anyway. A very engrossing creature feature.

Bubba Ho-Tep: There's a great behind this movie. The Elvis that died was actually an Elvin-impersonator, with whom the real Elvis had swapped placed. The real deal Elvis is now old and wasting away in a retirement community. Among his companions are a guy who believes he's The Lone Ranger and a black dude who believes he's JFK (he's black because the CIA dyed him that color - the greatest cover-up in the world). These whacky bits are fabulous, and good 'ol Bruce Campbell make a fantastic Elvis. The "creature" part of this creature-feature is largely disappointing. It's an egyptiAn soul-sucker, a mummy, who's killing the oldies one by one. It's upto Elvis n JFK to stop him. I suspect the low-budget killed most of the thrills that could have been there. I suspect the original story, by Joe R. Lansdale, will be a helluva lot more chilling (he's a pretty good horror writer, has done some amazing comics for Avatar Press - check out the By Bizarre Hands series, if you're interested).

Starship Troopers - I finally saw the entire movie from start to end. A whole lotta fun. The bugs attacking in humongous numbers as simply insane! On a side note, since the human goal was eradication of the bug world, and not colonisation, I didn't understand why they didn't simply nuke the planet from orbit, or use planet-busters of some sort (I'm sure that if they've advanced enough to develop warp travel and interstellar starships, the weapons development would have kept pace. I doubt bullets will still be used in the far future. After all, the first application of most new tech is in the military).

Coffee on the Net

The new, redesigned Paddy's Coffee website went live some time back. I'd been working on this for quite some time, though most of if was spent of communicating changes and making edits. It's done now, and a very good coffee shop finally has (what i hope will be perceived as) a pretty neat, matching website.

Check it out - http://www.paddyscoffee.com

SulaFest 2009 - Minus the "fest"

I went to Nashik's Sula Wineyards on saturday, for the SulaFest 2009. A bunch of bands were supposed to play, and the place was to have been choc-a-bloc with activities, but I was there mostly to experience the wineyard and watch Jalebee Cartel perform live. I got to do both, and I enjoyed myself, but the "Sulafest" itself seemed to be missing.

This is what the press release promised:

...a day-long concert at the beautiful open-air, Greek-style amphitheater, set in the middle of Sulas own estate vineyards"

...a unique opportunity to not only taste wines but also participate in several allied fun activities, attend various artist shows and enjoy gourmet food, and enjoying shopping. The event will also include wine tasting sessions, Live 'Cook in Wine' sessions by renowned Chefs. Wine Accessories and Glassware sale, Wine Games and prizes. as well as the sale of various type of gourmet cheese and olive oil.

Sulafest will be offering some fabulous food offerings such as kebabs, sushi, falafel, pita bread, barbecue items and pizzas from our very own vineyard restaurant Little Italy at Sula.

As if that isn't enough of gasro-heaven, SULAFEST will be hosting the Best Vineyard Shopping Bazaar experience. The festival will see Art and craft stalls, Chocolate Cheese and Cakes Lounges, Spa Therapist, Tarot Card Readers, Relaxing foot masseurs, Jewellery stalls, Tattoo Artist, Nail Artists, Caricature Artist, Hair Braiders, Face Painters and much more.

The event will not be complete without the totally unavoidable chocolate,cake,pastry and cheese lounge at the event.

This was mostly a bunch of croc. Tthere were no activity stalls of any kind, apart from a tarot reader. Some stalls were selling what looked like designer clothes and accessories. I don't even think they made any sales, because within about an hour of the crowd turning up, the rain came pouring down, and they all had to fold up. Even the food was extremely limited in variety, - some kababs, pasta and pizzas. Nothing else.

I think from next year they should just call it the SulaConcert or something.

Anyway, if that seemed waaay too negative, it's not so, because I had a good time. It was a very relaxing trip, and the bands we heard were pretty good.

Sula had a winery-tour+wine-tasting for 150 bucks. I didn't much attention during the tour really. The wine-tasting was fun though. We tasted 6 different types of wine. Two white, one rose, two red, and one new desert wine. The last one was the only one I liked, all the others were crap. Nothing against Sula, I'm just not a wine drinker, 14% alcohol content suxx., heh.

The concert itself was to have happened at a beautiful open-air amphitheatre. The line up included-
Sridhar & Thayil
Shaair and Func
Agnee
Jalebee Cartel
Salsa dancers, YMCA act & Fire Spinners

Shridhar & Thayil were from New York / New Orleans. They did some old school blues, I think, with a lot of spoken-word interludes. Not sure what, but they were fun. Unfortunately, they over-stayed their welcome, and the rain-gods decided to intervene. The raindrops were bloody massive, and the rain started rather abruptly. So we all ran for shelter.

Some of my friends wanted to leave asap, but it's a good thing we didn't. Jalabee Cartel started playing at around 8, inside the Little Italy restaurant. This was the first time I was seeing them, and they were fabulous! Incredible really! It wasn't the complete band, just two of them, so I'm waiting to see how the band as a whole sounds. The vocalist from Agni was jamming with them for a while, doing some wierd sanskrit stuff on the mic. It was horrible, and they quickly yanked the mic away from him, heh.

Anyway, we left the venue shortly before 10, just before JC were wrapping up. We saw some pandus at the venue, and I hope they didn't create any ruckus.

Click here for pics.

Buttons vs Chocolates

I've read in a lot of places, articles/message boards, that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was actually made 5 years ago, under a different title - Forrest Gump. Now, I admit I didn't really see any hard and fast resemblance, but we could actually very broadly take the plots of both the movie to be biographical tales about two people who overcome terrible adversities to finally find their lot in life. On that basis, how do the two moves compare?

For one, they both travel a lot. Gump seems to have the more interesting life though. Button is implied to have been to a lot of places, but we only see postcards. Maybe he had a postal scam on. Gump on the other hand, had a lot more visibly interesting life. He was in the war, he was a sailor (ok, Button was both at once, he was a sailor in a war. He was also born when one ended, so maybe he was, well, born for it), and he was, most importantly, the original Smiley Face.

Love interest, hmm, hmm. Tilda Swildon first, for Button. I wouldn't like to do the freaky with the angel that sold out to the devil (or some such. A Constantine-the-movie reference.) Gump didn't fare too well with his girl, she got AIDS, and then she died. Button's second, (or really the first, if you believe in, what did she call it, "Kizzmet") Cate Blanchett didn't die, she just broke her leg, and her dreams got crushed. She also alternatingly looks like a ravishing beauty and a CGI blow-up doll in this movie. This is depressing. Let's move on.

Let's see, some similar supporting characters. Forrest Gump had Gary Sinese, one fine actor, he, playing a boat-hand at one point, and Benjamin Button had Captain Mike Lock, probably not so good an actor himself, but a heckuva lot more interesting character. And, well, I don't really care much about either movies to actually do a more detailed comparison, but some years down the line, I suppose I would choose Gump over Button, if they were playing simultaneously.

Also, a box of chocolates is more interesting than a box of buttons.

What I did indeed like about Benjamin Button:

The Cinematography. Beautiful, beautiful colors. Especially when they were at sea.

The Daisy Co-incident Incident. What a fantastic little sequence. Absolutely mesmerising and more interesting than the 75 minutes before and after, either way.

The Guy Who Got Struck By Lightning Seven Times. This says is all.

Brad Pitt On His Bike. He is a God.

And finally, The Blind Clockmaker's Tale. Frankly, David Fincher should have scrapped the rest of the film after this segment. He couldn't top it.

The bigger the badasses, the harder the boot up your @$$

After a lot of research and bloody back-breaking hard work, MTV finally unvieled their list or the top 10 movie badasses of all time. A list that I followed closely as they teased us with one name after another.

Here's the list:
1. Dirty Harry
2. Ellen Ripley
3. John McClane
4. Mad Max
5. Walker (Lee Marvin from Point Blank, not the Texas Ranger)
6. Sarah Connor
7. Pike Bishop
8. Khan
9. Boba Fett
10. John J. Rambo

Were it up to me, I'd have added Leon the Professional, and Mr. Smith (Not "Mrrrr Aaaaannnddndddeerrrsssoooon", but the Shoot 'Em Up guy) in there someplace and taken out Mad Max perhaps. I must confess, with some shame, that I haven't yet seen the movies with Dirty Harry, Walker, Pike Bishop, Khan, and Boba Fett, so I can't really comment on them.

Coming to the point, while that list isn't too bad, not everyone was happy with it. Here's someone I firmly believe should have topped the list:



...except for one slight technicality - he wasn't in a movie.

Red - Proudly shoving a boot up your dumbass.

The Sad State of Bollywood

Part I

I just got home from the theater, where I had gone with mom to see Fashion. With this, I'm pretty sure India has just gotten its first so-called "respectable"/"serious"/"reality" mainstream exploitation director: Madhur Bhandarkar. The man is great at PR, tom-tomming his so-called "research" at every street corner and in every gossip rag. Because a great film-maker, he is not. Madhur Bhandarkar's "research" is just ripping off the headlines. He stole the Carol Gracias wardrobe malfunction, the Geetanjali Nagpal episode, and a bunch of other snippets, and just makes it all so very crass on screen. This is a shoddy, very superficial movie, and the fashion designers and photographers who made cameos in here should be embarrassed to be a part of it.

The movie is ridiculously long and self-indulgent, with no though given to pacing or script. No effort is made to really show a model's struggle. Every designer is gay and speaks with a weird accent that in some cases (Harsh Chhaya) borders on serious speech impediment. Kangana Ranaut is just horrible. This is the first movie I'm seeing her in, and i'm shocked she's getting any movies at all. Her "model-walk" and facial expressions are downright ugly in comparison to the actual models walking around her. Half the time she's doing coke in a dazed fit, and the other half she's using her laughable child-like voice to scream and screech "YOU BUS-TURD" at her abusive lover. Not only is the movie full of stereotypes and cliches, it's rather illogical at times too, with gaffes likes the show-stopper outfit being shown at the very beginning of a show.

Priyanka Chopra looks good, but her character finds success waaay to fast and easily, and then turns super-bitch in a flash. After the numerous fuck-ups she commits both before and after her fall from grace, I'm not sure anyone in the audience would really have felt any pity for her. I must say Mugdha Godse was the best eye-candy on screen. She was hot, and did a pretty good job at her role as well.

All in all: long, boring, superficial, and very, very self-indulgent. This is an outsider looking in, and it shows.

Part II

Of course, this is a fairly common sight in Bollywood, with directors talking bollocks off-screen and screwing up royally on it. Take Goldie Behl and his so-called movie, Drona. What an embarrassment for him, and everyone associated with it.

I was out with some friends last month, watching a play at Prithvi, called Chaos Theory. It's an amazing play, very well written with some fabulous one-lines, hilarious scenes, and some real touching moments. It was a powerhouse of performances by Zafar Karachiwala and Anahita Uberoi, aptly supported by Sohrab Ardeshir and Shaana Levy. The story follows the lives of Zafar n Anahita from their college days at Stephens, Delhi, to teaching jobs at Harvard, right up to their retirement. It's quite obvious they're in love with each other, but never speak out or really act on it. It's a funny play with a lot of quirks, and never slackens in pace, running at and hour twenty-five minutes.

Then after meeting some more friends, we went out on a lark to see Drona. Boy, that was one of the worst decisions in the history of bad decisions. Drona is the polar opposite of Chaos Theory. Such a horrendous, horrible, atrocious, mind-bogglingly bad boring movie. Aaaaack. Abhishek looks a slacker, drunk and puffy with a scowl throughout the movie. Priyanka Chopra is wasted in some atrocious lines and worse costumes. Jaya Bachchan would make a great witch for Hansel and Gretel, and Kay Kay Menon was surely pumped up on the most narcotic cocktail of drugs ever known to man. What a disaster of a movie. Stealing bits n parts from Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, King Arthur's Legend of Excalibur, and a whole lot others that I can't recollect now, the movie really had no coherent script or sense to whatever is happening on screen. Most of the dialogues were obtuse to the point of being incoherent babble. Ridiculous, unimaginative set designs only served to make the whole thing look like some kind of joke. Frankly, if that hack Goldie Behl had actually played the whole thing as some kind of parody, his absolute lack of directorial skills wouldn't have been so blatantly obvious.

My hearts weeps thinking of the colossal amount of money spent and wasted on this. Also, how can I get in on it?

Towards a great comic collection...

Comic fans will ove this. The Comics Reporter recently published a fantastic article - The 50 Things That Every Comics Collection Truly Needs


From the list, what I already have:

8. A Little Stack of Archie Comics (I have 3 actually, so that is as little as possible)
10. Several Tintin Albums (A buncha single albums, and some of those 3-in-ones)
15. At Least One Comic Book From When You First Started Reading Comic Books (I would say i seriously started reading and collecting comics when I got a set of 30 South African editions of Batman n Supes, and First Publishing's TMNT 4-isse GNs. Still have them.)
17. Some Osamu Tezuka (This is a cheat, I got a friend's copy of Buddha vol 1)
21. One Run of A Comic Strip That You Yourself Have Clipped (When i was a kid, i used to clip and collect Phantom n Mandrake newspaper strips. I dunno if i still got them.)
22. A Selection of Comics That Interest You That You Can't Explain To Anyone Else (Wierd category, everyone can lay claim to this)
24. As Much Peanuts As You Can Stand (A whole lotta digests, and the first two of Fantagraphics's The Complete Peanuts series)
29. Several copies of MAD (Tons of digests and lotta them Indian editions)
30. A stack of Jack Kirby 1970s Comic Books (I have a Jack Kirby's New Gods trade)
31. More than a few Stan Lee/Jack Kirby 1960s Marvel Comic Books (Two Essential Spiderman trades)
33. Some Calvin and Hobbes (I have pretty much most of the strips, in about 8 books)
38. A Stack of Comics You Can Hand To Anybody's Kid (Would no. 8 fall into this?)
39. At Least A Few Alan Moore Comics (League of Extra-Ordinary Gentlemen, Top Ten)
41. A Few Comics About Comics (I have the third Animal Man trade)
43. Some Frank Miller Comics (DKR, DK2, Year One)
44. Several Lee/Ditko/Romita Amazing Spider-Man Comic Books (Two trades of Essential Spiderman)
48. An Array Of Comics In Various Non-Superhero Genres (My Faith In Frankie, Sandman, Fables, Bone, a trade each of Aliens and Predator etc)

Speaking of epic...

The mantra for the new era: "Comparing movies to LOTR is out of style. Now everything is the next Dark Knight."

Yes, CinemaBlend.com EiC Josh Tyler hits it right on the head.

Monstorous trees, anyone?

While talking about Blizzard's Diablo III, Lead Designer Jay Wilson made this really interesting comment on the state of designers in games:

I don't know anybody who isn't trying to hire background people. Part of it is that there's so much background to create, and part of it is that most people would rather create a big, giant monster than a tree. But boy, what we wouldn't give for some good tree creators! People who love to create trees are worth their weight in gold!

A very intersting observation, and quite true too. Heck, who'd pass up the opportunity to create a race of six-legged blue-skinned aliens or six-headed fire-breathing demons in favour or a deciduous forest or a flower shrubbery? I know I wouldn't...