Adobe Illustrator No.2 – Mr Chaathan

This is my second drawing on Adobe Illusrator. As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been teaching myself to use the software. I’ve been reading tutorials from www.vectortuts.com and I’ve also been reading the Computer Arts Magazine.

Adobe Illustrator Drawing No.1 – Yakuza

I recently began teaching myself to use adobe illustrator. This is the first drawing that I made. The subject is a Yakuza member after finishing a contract.

L.S.D

Professor Shankar walked into the Chemistry lab, just to be greeted by a floor covered with broken glass. there was a thinck layer of a fuming transparent substance all over it, which had begun eating away at the tables and chairs. Bits of plastic had begun to melt. An ant was caught in the midst of it all. Half of it had begun to disintegrate. Lab assistant Shivaraj stood in the corner,holding a beaker over his head. It had ‘HNO3’ neatly written across it. He smashed it on the ground and waited, an expression of dismay plastered across his face.  He saw the professor, staring at him in bewilderment, “It’s all lies sir! lies I tell! I’ve been dropping acid all day and I don’t even have a buzz!”

Turkey

Some of the pictures from my Turkey trip are here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=91266&id=550351567&l=f048b128da

Hello Songwriting, My Old Friend

Yes, well I got back to my acoustic project after a really long time. I’ve decided not to go around posting demos and half verses anymore. I’ve also decided to go completely acousitic and I’m considering putting in some tabalas as well. But that all depends on my recording situation. Right now, I’ve got a half decent recording of a new song. It’s called ‘Vortex Of Destruction’ I’d love some feedback – that’s on the song and also on any recording suggestions and things like that. Don’t say ‘The recording’s not all that good’ – cause ‘a half decent recording’ already establishes that, yeah? The song is on www.myspace.com/bharatmirle

You’ll Regret Being Curious

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is the story of a man who’s born old and wrinkled and physically ages in reverse. He is born an old man and grows up to be an infant. The film is directed by David Fincher and is based on the 1922 short story by F.Scott Fitzgerald. On paper it sounds very fancy. With a director like David Fincher attached to it, the film really has you curious. That is, of course, until you actually watch the film.
Yes, well, this is what cinema has become. People are astounded by a man aging backwards – in a film! Ok, let’s start off by examining the idea of a man aging backwards. By itself, it isn’t a particularly first-rate idea – people generally grow old – it doesn’t take too much to say, “Well, what if a man grew young instead!”
So, since the idea by itself is not first rate, it’s left to the story to make the film interesting. This just doesn’t happen in David Fincher’s film. The idea is the film itself — David Fincher’s film offers you a two and a half hour journey of a man aging backwards! That’s all! Even for someone who’s highly amused by the idea, two and a half hours of a man, and it must be noted that he’s not a particularly interesting man; aging backwards is bound to be very taxing! Half an hour into the film, you find yourself asking, “Ok, now what?” There is nothing extraordinary about the film, other than the reverse-aging bit of course. The film is a regular love-story about two people and the ups and downs of their relationship – only one of them is aging backwards!
Benjamin Button travels all over the world and meets different people – a journey similar to the one taken by Forrest Gump in Robert Zemeckis’ film. If you actually met Benjamin Button, you’d probably have quite the conversation with him, but as far as the film goes, you can’t really care any less. And Brad Pitt doesn’t help the character in anyway. In fact, one of the key elements in the film would be the character of Benjamin Button – something that is completely neglected in the film. Pitt is wooden, stiff from all that makeup that’s aging him in reverse. I don’t know why a man aging in reverse has to be so mundanely mentally challenged. Button speaks when he is spoken to, walks around and that’s all.
The film however, tries to me more than what it is. It is constructed on a grand scale, like an epic, like it’s the greatest story ever told. With camerawork begging to be called spectacular, the film tries to give you the impression of being something really great – something that it is not.
Of course, the make-up work is incredible. There are scenes in the film where Pitt actually looks 18 years old. However, on the whole, the film is not an easy watch. The only thing I learnt was, a Brad Pitt aging in reverse, just makes me want to push down on Fast-forward.

Washed up, broken, battered and bloody…But good!

When I first heard about this film, my immediate reaction was to slap my forehead and go, “aiiii! Not another Darren Aronofsky film!” And as usual, it was being praised left, right and centre. Requiem for a Dream had left me furious and I still have seizures from watching ‘The Fountain’ so skepticism was all I had for this film. But everyone was calling the film ‘brilliant’. In fact, they even called Mickey Rourke’s performance ‘brilliant’! MICKEY ROURKE?! “Oh come on!” I actually thought the guy was dead. Yes, I’ve watched Sin City (well, half of it, before I threw the DVD out the window). But I thought they’d recreated him digitally or something as a tribute to the…err… deformed actor.

After I read the New Yorker’s review of the film (part of it) I decided to watch it. I finally got my hands on the film and watched it – expecting weird camera angles, split screens and ghastly visual effects, but none of that was there! And twenty minutes into the film, I found myself thinking, “Hey, this isn’t bad at all!” twenty minutes later I was thinking, “Hey, this is pretty good!”

 

Review

Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler finds the director shedding his pointlessly fancy camerawork and garish special effects to focus on something far more basic and essential – storytelling.

The Wrestler opens up with a montage of images about this really great fighter called ‘Randy The Ram Robinson (played by Mickey Rourke).’ It shows off all his achievements, proving to the audience that ‘The Ram’ was THE wrestler of his time. However, the story takes place twenty years later, long after his peak. It opens up with a broken, battered fighter, trying to pull his way through life. He still wrestles, but the wrestling scene is no longer what it was and though the fans still cheer him on, there aren’t nearly as many as there were in the past. His life is merely a smudge of what it was, twenty years earlier.

A number of people write the film off as ‘unoriginal’. I can understand how the film would appear to be just another sob story. Elements like Randy’s relationship with his estranged daughter (Evan Rachiel Wood) and how the only place he finds love and solace is in the arms of a stripper (Marissa Tomeii) could be seen as clichéd. However, I must say, that though the elements aren’t original, they have been used adequately. If you look at films like Black and Taare Zameen Par (I’m talking about unoriginal elements). They get so damn soppy, that by the end of the film, your television short circuits from water damage! In this film however, the elements are far more subtle. Rourke perfectly portrays the dim-witted, struggling, broken, disfigured wrestler. After a while, you genuinely start to feel sorry for him. And not in the way the buck-toothed dyslexic boy in Taare Zameen Par arm twists you into crying for him. You actually start to feel for The Ram. And you feel this without his character being shown as a perpetual victim.

But what is most striking about the film, is the depiction of the wrestler. You have a fighter, who works his body to the fullest, pumping it with steroids, beefing himself up, trying the utmost he can to achieve that bulk. For a while it works out fine. He’s a god when he’s in the ring. The fans cheer him on and the feeling is incredible. They’ve come to watch him doing what he does best. But the tragedy is that his skill is confined to putting his body through a routine of pain. That’s ALL he knows. Once he passes his peak, he’s nothing more than a bulky individual who’s really not good for anything. He lives alone in a trailer, with hardly enough money to keep him on his feet. The only job he can get is with a supermarket, lifting boxes or washing dishes. But simultaneously, making his life pathetic live evident to him, are video games based on him and action figures with his name attached to them being sold in toy stores. In the film, the collective repercussions of his age and all the tampering he has done with his body, catches up with him. After he has a cardiac arrest, he’s told that he cannot wrestle anymore. Hence, he is forced to leave the minuscule fragment of his remembered glory in the ring and get an ordinary job. Once he does, he becomes a regular guy – only less qualified.  Even the semblance of respect he once had is left behind in the ring.  Now his life can be simplified into an equation:

Wrestling + x = The Ram’s Life (where x is an incredibly tiny fraction – and where wrestling itself is nothing but putting your body through a painful routine, for the pleasure of the audience.)

To worsen things for him, everyday occurrences begin to remind The Ram of his past. For instance, one of the best sequences in the film is when the Ram is walking to his work-spot in the supermarket. The corridors are structured very much like a backstage area, and as he gets closer and closer to his destination, he mentally goes down memory lane, where he can hear the fans chanting his name. The chanting gets louder and louder, until it finally erupts into silence when he goes through the door and all that greets him is a sink full of dirty dishes.

So now, with the wrestling removed from his life, all he has left is the tiny fraction. But he still manages to make some sense out of his miserable existence by trying to patch up things with his estranged daughter and by trying to start a new life with a stripper named Cassidy. But when all that falls through, he realizes the futility of his life. And it dawns on him that he has absolutely no option but to go back to the ring. Heart condition or not, the only context in which his life makes sense, is in the ring. And so he returns for one final fight. The end of film is seemingly open ended, but there is an indication made that The Ram has jumped off the top rope for the last time.

The film also bears some similarity with Ethan and Joel Coen’s, No Country for Old Men.   In the sense, even this film, on a minor level, deals with how the world is only suited for its young blood. In the case of Cassidy the stripper and The Ram, it’s laid on pretty thick. The idea is also reflected in one of the film’s sequences where The Ram attends a wrestler’s convention where he sits at a table and promotes merchandise that based on him. The event is full of The Wrestling Greats – a group of tattered old men that can barely even move. They resemble a set of action figures that were once popular – arms and legs missing, covered in scars. Most of them can barely see anymore.

Of course, one of the less important features of the film, a much lighter, but highly interesting feature, is the depiction of wrestling. People who’ve followed the sport at some point in their lives, people who’ve debated if it’s real or not, arguments like- “The blood IS real!” should all go watch this film. They’ll find it a lot easier to relate to. On the whole, this is by far, one of the best films of the year. 

 

 

 

 

The Shepherd’s Dog

I was really disappointed when Sam Beam came out with this album. But it was only recently that I saw the album cover, which I love!

One Sunny Day

Once upon a trip to that little house in the forest which is so loosely called ‘The Farm’

Where hangovers were scarce (for most) and the air was rather warm.

Yes, it was a slow beginning, but off we finally started…

And Oh my! Doesn’t she look retarded?!

The Korcha

This is an excerpt from my short story, ‘The Story of The Korcha – A Chinese Legend’ (Illustration also by me)

The Korcha

Part 2

The Korcha

The Korcha is a small, fleshy creature. Its looks are
vaguely reptilian, like a large frog. It is approximately two and a half feet
tall. When it stands still, its thick, leathery skin sags over its frame, like
a rug casually thrown over a stool. When it moves, its muscles quickly expand,
giving it more shape. Its skin is smooth and glistens in the sun. What makes the
Korcha so extraordinary is that it doesn’t seem to age except in one way. As it
grows older, the only physical change visible is a circular pattern of wrinkles
that appears around its navel. This gradually spreads and covers the entire
body.

The Korcha is a mute.
Since it does not eat, the only use for its mouth is to house two exceptionally
strong teeth that can cut through anything. In God’s residence it was
frequently used as a can opener. There have also been times when a Korcha has
served as God’s personal barber, nibbling away at his head and at his beard.

The Korcha does not think, or at least, it does not act on
its own accord. It does what it is told to do and it does this well, making it
the ideal worker. Its sharp claws and flexible limbs make it an excellent
climber.

The Korcha can go years without sleeping. It is largely wide
awake and hence, has thick bags under its eyes. The skin that these bags are
made of is strong and possesses a strangely elastic quality. Because of this,
the bags under the Korcha’s eyes can be stretched to hold large objects. It is even
said that, as a child, God himself could climb under a Korcha’s eye. What is however
certain is that God used to hide some of His prized possessions in the bags
under the eyes, whether stationery or books, or merely scraps of paper that might
be misplaced.

The Korcha’s head is covered with fine hair that glows
brightly when set ablaze, turning the top of the Korcha’s head into something
like a candle that doesn’t burn out quickly. It could take months, even years
for that to happen. Also, the hair regenerates rapidly, making the Korcha’s head
an unending source of light. A Korcha with a flaming head was a very common
sight in Heaven.