Saturday, January 31, 2009

It's been a really good month when it comes to the movies that I have watched...considering the fact that sometimes we wait so badly for a good movie, it makes me very happy that we have so many movies, all good ones!

Let me go in the reverse order because the latest movie compelled me to think of all the movies I watched :)


Luck by chance! -Such a well made movie... I walked out of the theater feeling so nice about the movie, it's makers, myself and life :) Thanks to Vinay, he wanted to watch it the moment he saw that it was released.
I had heard Zoya Akthar say in an interview that in the 90s all the Hindi movies made were awful and she couldn't relate to any of them. I thought I completely understood her feeling when I watched the interview but after I watched Luck by chance I think I understood her better! I could relate to the movie and connect to the characters in it to a very great extent.
The story of Luck by chance was just so complete, from covering the perspectives so well to getting the message across to the viewers so easily.
How I would like to see it is -Life is probably a very simple movie, you can either play Farhan Akthar or play Konkana Sen and in both the cases you are a winner! :)
Farhan plays an ambitious, confident, selfish (almost an opportunist) guy, actor by profession. And Konkana plays an ambitious, bold, independent, supporting and a sincere girl, actor by profession. Things fall in place for Farhan from the others perspective (from his perspective, he succeeded because of his belief in himself and the aspiration to go as far as it takes ) and he becomes a super star. Konkana is the kind of a person who trusts everyone until the trust is broken and she will have to face the consequences more than once in her life. Nevertheless she gets the point and goes on to do what she likes to do without giving a damn to success or failure.
It was a very nice movie and I loved everything about it, the satirical depiction of Hindi film industry, the emotions experienced by the characters, Farhan not being too much of a hero, Konkana Sen playing the lead role, and Shahrukh Khan's name being the last name to be shown on the "special thanks to" list :)


Defiance -I liked the movie very much. It may not be the first movie on the war between Germans and Jews but it surely is a movie that I am glad I watched. It makes us understand how better off we are when compared to people during those times. Sure we have our problems and they had theirs but I still think we wouldn't have survived those wars like they did. Great performances by the actors.


Revolutionary Road -Thanks to me, I was hell bent upon watching this movie the moment I heard about it. Awesome movie, awesome performances, extremely inspiring!
Again it is something that we all can relate to, very well. I really wish that everyone who watches it get the decisions of their lives right, that is they decide to move to Paris if they were April and Frank :)


Benjamin Button -It is a cretaive one for sure but I thought it got a bit boring after we got the idea because of the length. In any case that movie also had good performances and sincere, earnest moments that I enjoyed.


Slumdog Millionaire -I would say that it was a well made movie but honestly I didn't think it was a great movie. I think I have a problem with the storyline itself, I was just not comfortable buying the fact that Jamal won because it was written. I didn't think someone like Jamal would know the answers to just those questions that were asked (and not even to questions simpler than those) but rather to a lot more questions.
And another disturbing thing about the movie was the way Anil kapoor kept speaking to Jamal during the show. It was unbelievable that he spoke to Jamal so condescendingly! I am not sure if Vikas Swarup's original work also portrays Anil's character that way or if it is just the movie... but that was a total put off. Though I haven't seen much of "Kaun Banega Karorpati" shows, I distinctly remember from the ones I watched that Amitab Bacchan spoke to the contestants with so much respect. I know it is a small part of the movie itself but I must say it disturbed me quite a bit (I mean, we shouldn't be conveying wrong things to the worldwide audience about what happens in a particular Indian show).


Okay! that was a long post but I had to say that I loved the movie Luck by chance :)
To be watched list still has two more movies pending -Doubt, The reader.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

It is 2009. As I welcome the new year I also recollect memories of the year gone by. I think it's something that everyone does but I must say that I do it more religiously after one of my friend Rashmi Kamath wrote a really amazing mail to the group recollecting all the events that had happened in the past year :)

Of the many things, I just thought of checking on my paintings (or art works as I would like to put) and then I thought I should post them here. Though I wanted to make this post, I must say that I was inspired by Dhimant and his work Neumonia and Other Sketch Stories to finally compile and post it!

I made this for one of my friends from office, Bhaktha, in February. He had this so called sun-swallowing picture taken on one of his trips and somehow I wanted to paint it the moment I saw it. I enjoyed working on the sunset part of it (I usually do because I love the sunset colours) and also enjoyed working on his hair as it required very thin strokes.














This was a part (my part) of the mural painting we did at office in August. Though there was no room for creativity or even the choice of colours, I enjoyed doing this on a canvas :) It is the tail of a colourful parrot that was in one of the eight parts of the mural.






















This is a sketch of one of my colleagues watching a presentation slide during an all hands meeting at work. It was in September. The meeting was in a hotel and it was really boring, they had given us water cans as gift which came in a cardboard box. This colleague of mine was watching a presentation slide and I noticed that he was watching it very curiously, didn't appear like he would change his posture. So just made his sketch quickly on the cardboard box I had.



















I started working on it on the 15th of August, had taken the day off. The theme was independence/freedom. I wanted to use only 3 three colours, the Indian national flag tri-colours and just keep drawing free strokes (of course with a pattern/style in mind) on the paper but no restriction on how it should look or how it shouldn't look. This is what it ended up as :) I finished it in early Dec though I started it on the Independence day!













When I visited EA office (Vinay's), I was totally impressed with the art aspect of it. Every single thing was arranged, designed very creatively. Be it the art on the walls or the theme of their gym everything was creative and artistic. I promised Vinay that I would make something very different for his desk too. I wanted to paint on a rock! I got one too, from a beach we went to. But never made anything on it. Finally I made up my mind and did this in December, it was Vinay's idea that I make maple leaves on it.












Thank you and hope to do more in 2009!