Death of Superman
I really wished that Superman hadn't returned. I have just got back from the screening of the movie and it was really average with no real sense of story structure. It was a frustrating experience for sure. And the new 3-D technology - it was awesome but only in the parts that Superman wasn't there, as soon as Superman appeared it broke the illusion. The acting or the technology weren't the problem at all - it was the story alone, with too many loopholes, which took the whole movie down. The thing which was more exciting than the movie was the drive into town, with Benji at the wheel - let me say that for a good five minutes I truly believed that we were in America. Thankfully nothing happened.
The other bad movie I saw recently was 'The Producers' - which was as boring as it could get. It probably had a few funny moments where I genuinely laughed out loud but otherwise totally avoidable. I did watch a good movie - 'American History X', so that kind of equates it out. There is loads of stuff happening over the weekend, so will try and write a longer update at that point.
Off to bed for now.
Amit
Labels: Movies, Random
Casting
Found 'Susan' & 'Trent' for Nowhere
And found 'Belinda' & 'Andrew' for FIVE
Cheers,
Amit
Labels: Five, Nowhere to Love
Beautiful weekend
It has shaped up to be a beautiful weekend with no rain whatsoever on these 2 days and some really lovely sun. I haven't gone indoor rock climbing as one needs a climbing partner and at this point I don't have anyone. I put the idea forward to Benji and both of us have agreed that maybe it is not such a good idea to try that together, considering the weight difference between the two of us, so I will wait for a climbing partner and then give it a go.
The Auckland International Film Festival is just around the corner and in the past 3 years I have never been to see anything at the festival because I never found a movie that I wanted to desperately watch. But this time around there are a fair few movies which interest me, so went over and bought tickets to a couple of them - 'Tristam Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story' and 'Road to Guatanamo' - interestingly both movies by Michael Winterbottom. Not related to the film festival - 'Superman Returns' is being released this Thursday and they are
re-launching the IMAX 3D screen again at Village Cinemas on Queen Street, so will be watching the movie there.
Watched a couple of movies over the weekend - '
Thumbsucker' and '
Wolf Creek'. Thumbsucker was a coming-of-age comedy and it wasn't too funny. It has a lot of missed moments and the editing rhythm is off synch with the performances, which were pretty solid (even from the teenagers). It downplays the humor so much that it almost kills the movie. And because the editing is out of synch, the movie just felt way too long even though it was normal movie length ( I came close to dozing off around the 50 minute mark).
Wolf Creek on the other hand was a much better movie than I expected - it takes a long time for the movie to start off. It has a 45 minute setup time and then all hell break's loose. There is no suspense to really speak of but it is brutal and unrelenting in nervous tension when it gets going. In a way the direct comparision would be to 'Hostel' which kind of follows the same story telling pattern with huge build up time before breaking into brutality from which the horror comes from. It almost feels like the storytelling technique in horror is going through a change. Hopefully someone finds a balance between traditional horror and new age horror.
I cooked something new today and learnt an extremely valuable lesson - a meal has to be balanced out between dry items and wet items otherwise it is hard to enjoy the meal to the full extent. I cooked some chicken skewers marinated in indian spices and curds (unsweetened yoghurt) and served them on rice along with chargrilled red peppers, sliced olives and peppered omlette. I undercooked the rice a bit and then did not prepare any wet dishes, so it was a tough lunch to have even though it tasted good. So a lesson learnt for the future.
Chicken Skewers with chargrilled red peppers and Peppered OmletteThere is a third movie project which is now under development and it is as exciting as 'Nowhere'. At this point all I can say is the movie is tentatively titled 'FIVE' and the reason I am excited is that I would like to make this as a 'zero-budget' movie with the focus on telling a good story within huge resource constraints. David M. is writing the story and it is going to be a great collaborative effort. The plan is to shoot the movie in Feb'2007 with the aim for sharing it with everyone by July'2007. More details will follow soon...all in the due course of time.
I think I will go offline for now. Might watch another movie or so.
Till later,
Amit
Labels: Five, Food, Movies, Nowhere to Love
Baddy
Today was the last day of term-2 at school - another term flies away and it is going to be a really busy break with 3 short courses to run: one in each week and there is heaps more stuff happening in post production department. So no downtime between the terms really.
'
Chasing Amy' is a magnificient little movie - not because it has any fancy camera moves or flashy editing but because it tells an unusual story in a sensitive and tender way. Kevin Smith's dialogue is as funny as usual but it moves the story forward. It is shot as simple as possible with the camera staying on the characters to follow their emotional journey instead of trying to do anything flashy. The editing is totally invisible and does not feel the need to cut to a scene up into a zillion little places just because it is the convention - it rather stays on and let's things play out so the characters become the main focus of attention. The movie is eloquent.
I just got back from playing a couple of hours of badminton and it feels great. I might try and do some indoor rock climbing tomorrow as I am tempted to try something new. I am signing off for now - leaving you with a couple of pics from the game today.
Craig and Marrisa v/s Dean and Becks (far side)
Becks in action
Till later,
Amit
Labels: Badminton, Movies
Giant!!!
It is one of those days!!! I feel like screaming at the top of my voice but I don't think it would help my cause. The US sales agent who was thinking of investing US$ 20K into the movie inexplicably did a U-turn and doesn't want the movie anymore. So now back to Square-2 with the movie. I spent the better part of yesterday removing the typos and making some small tweaks to the script. The only thought at this point is to keep focussed on what we can do within our resources instead of diverting the energy to bemoaning the hardships of trying to make an independent film.
'
The Iron Giant' is a fantastic animation film from Brad Bird - the director of 'The Incredibles'. I discovered a copy of it at the video store and promptly rented it out as I did have massive amounts of fun watching 'The Incredibles'. And I must say that I wasn't disappointed at all - the movie has the 'X' factor which endears itself to the audience. The other DVD I watched recently was Ricky Gervais's Animals - it was funny for most of the part and definitely different from his David Brent persona. The introduction to the show is hilarious and is definitely a high point of the show. Don't watch it if you get offended by animal jokes and God jokes.
The tempratures have come up a bit, so it is not as freezing as it was when a cold wave was sweeping over the north island. There were a couple of days when even the gas heater wasn't that effective. The south island on the other hand is going through major winter woes, especially with some parts of the country having no electricity for almost 11 days now, after snow storms.
I think that will be the update from me for now.
Till later,
Amit
Labels: Movies, Nowhere to Love
French Toast
'French Toast' has been the magic word for the past 2 days now. I haven't had french toast for 3 and half years now - mainly because I have been lazy at breakfasts; never found clean dishes when i felt like having breakfast and I never feel like staying at home for long in the morning - so I ended up skipping breakfast for the past 3 years. My breakfast has been a glass of choclate milk - yes I do start off my day with choclate. So to my surprise i found some clean dishes and cooked some toast and omlette on sunday - and I was thrilled with that, so decided to go one step further and decided to cook myself some french toast - which is one of my favorite breakfast dishes after 'alloo ka parantha' {which i had for a good part of my life}. The outcome - yummmmmm.......having french toast in the morning has been simply fantastic and I am a happy-chappy.
Sunday has been relatively relaxed with me doing cooking and later on in the evening having a game of badminton with Dean, Becks, Craig and Marrisa. It was great. It always feels good working up a sweat. Monday had a major meeting with regards to the movie and it shaped up to be really productive. Now I am just trying to workout when I can start doing the acting workshops from - definitely excited about that. I think I am close to finalizing another couple of smaller parts for the movie, which should give us a well rounded cast.
My laptop has now got a new motherboard. Some bits and bobs had stopped functioning properly and since my laptop is still under warranty Dell guys came across and fixed it by replacing the motherboard.
So yeah that is the update from my side...
Till later,
Amit
Labels: Badminton, Computers, Food
Saturday again!!!
Finally - a relaxing day (in a manner of speaking) after a hectic last week. Thursday/Friday were super-hectic at school, so today was definitely a welcome change. Benji and me had a house warming party yesterday night and it was a good get together - international students from this year popped in and a few people from our 2003 batch came in to warm the house up. It was good fun.
Today, I went out to do some more location reccees along with Benji and Richard but couldn't find anything good.
Me filling up the car at the petrol stationWe went through Pokeno, Tuakau, Pukekohe and then couldn't think of any other places to go to after that. None of the places had the charm of Coromandel or even came close, so the thought is to stick to Coromandel.
Benji {click me for a larger image}
Richard
Walking through Tuakau shopping centreThe fifth draft for 'Nowhere' came through and it is definitely the strongest the story has ever been till now and it is exciting to see the story develop nicely. Now have to step up the pace on other departments, especially acting. There have also been some more exciting developments with regards to financing and hopefully the deal comes through.
The whirlwind of life's paradoxes are adding more riddles. Only the warmth of the gas heater in the lounge seems to be real at the moment.
Till later,
Amit
Labels: Nowhere to Love, Party, Pre-production
Fool's Paradise
Tired is the best way to describe how I am feeling right now. School is draining me out at the moment. On the other hand - I have watched heaps of movies over the last few days: Osama; Harvey Krumpet (short film); Small Time Crooks; Hitch ; Clone Wars Vol 1. & 2.
Had a really productive meeting in regards to 'Nowhere' and now just holding breath for the fifth draft to come through. I am fairly surprised that we are at the fifth draft of the script because nothing has changed much with the story but a lot has changed within the story. It is proving to be a really great learning curve.
I am now onto the last volume of '
Preacher' - so yeah I have been doing some solid reading on that and I would say that it is a great graphic novel. I can't stop saying it because I don't know how many people have even heard about it but it is a MUST read.
The more I think about - the more my concept of right, wrong and areas in between are shifting, changing and morphing.
Amit
Labels: Graphic Novels, Nowhere to Love, TV Series
Vengeance
It has been ages since I have updated and time has flown so quick that I did find myself surprised that it took a good 4 days before I got the opportunity to update the blog. Because of the short week - the school has been really hectic and the next week is going to be a long one. The past couple of days have gone into socializing - the most socialization I have done in a long time {in such a small span of time}. Friday afternoon had a couple of drinks and played pool with students, friday evening was staff party and the whole of today was gone in a fundraising gym event {had a half an hour spin class which was fun} and a BBQ at Allie's place later on.
I went and saw '
The Omen' remake alongwith Benji {who is now my new flatmate} and it was bad - it was well made and stuff {for US$ 60 million} but the pacing of the story was off, the build-up and payoff was missing and the casting of Damien, Robert Thorne was simply wrong. What was right was the casting of Mia Farrow as Mrs. Baylock and that is about the only good thing I can think. I much prefer the book which was a real page turner.
David M. lent me his series of 'The Preacher' and it is an engrossing read combined with stunning art work. It again deals with religion and spirituality but not in a way you would expect. Bizarre, unexpected and daring are the ways to describe it - and that is after reading just the first volume of the 9 volume collection.
Managed to watch '
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance' on DVD and it was good - the visuals are stunning and the story builds up nicely towards the end. I must say the beginning of the movie is confusing with story jumps into past,present, future, fantasy and reality one after the other but once the story settles down it shapes up to be a powerfully violent movie revolving around communal revenge and personal vendetta. The ending was kind of overdrawn and gets back into the confusion which reigns at the start of the movie. But still a worthy follow up to 'Old Boy'.
It is kind of a weird way to sum up 4 days but I think I will leave it at this. I will possibly upload selected photographs from the last studio shows and parties over the next day or so.
Till later,
Amit
Labels: Graphic Novels, Movies, Party
Freezing
I did end up watching 'The Omen Legacy' for about an hour before switching it off because it was more of a refresher course on the original 'Omen' movies and it wasn't really interesting at all since I have read all the four books which are far more interesting in the moving image. Today the remake of 'The Omen' has been released and I haven't seen it yet but will go and watch it sometime this weekend to see if it was worth the time and money for a remake. The movie which I did enjoy heaps was '
Seducing Dr. Lewis' - a canadian movie made in french. It was refreshing and heaps of fun. It is a story well-told and has a pleasent charm to it.
Finally shifted my rooms - it is still a bit untidy and chaotic but that should be another day's work. Benji will be coming back to New Zealand tomorrow - so will be going to pick him up early tomorrow morning. I had an email in my inbox which I had to share with everyone because it is so true. On that note - I will sign off.
FACING YOUR ENEMIES WITHIN
We are not born with courage, but neither are we born with fear. Maybe some of our fears are brought on by your own experiences, by what someone has told you, by what you've read in the papers.
Some fears are valid, like walking alone in a bad part of town at two o'clock in the morning. But once you learn to avoid that situation, you won't need to live in fear of it.
Fears, even the most basic ones, can totally destroy our ambitions. Fear can destroy fortunes. Fear can destroy relationships. Fear, if left unchecked, can destroy our lives. Fear is one of the many enemies lurking inside us.
Let me tell you about five of the other enemies we face from within. The first enemy that you've got to destroy before it destroys you is indifference. What a tragic disease this is. "Ho-hum, let it slide. I'll just drift along." Here's one problem with drifting: you can't drift your way to the top of the mountain.
The second enemy we face is indecision. Indecision is the thief of opportunity and enterprise. It will steal your chances for a better future. Take a sword to this enemy.
The third enemy inside is doubt. Sure, there's room for healthy scepticism. You can't believe everything. But you also can't let doubt take over.
Many people doubt the past, doubt the future, doubt each other, doubt the government, doubt the possibilities and doubt the opportunities. Worse of all, they doubt themselves. I'm telling you, doubt will destroy your life and your chances of success. It will empty both your bank account and your heart. Doubt is an enemy. Go after it. Get rid of it.
The fourth enemy within is worry. We've all got to worry some. Just don't let it conquer you. Instead, let it alarm you. Worry can be useful. If you step off the curb in New York City and a taxi is coming, you've got to worry. But you can't let worry loose like a mad dog that drives you into a
small corner.
Here's what you've got to do with your worries: drive them into a small corner. Whatever is out to get you, you've got to get it. Whatever is pushing on you, you've got to push back.
The fifth interior enemy is over-caution. It is the timid approach to life. Timidity is not a virtue (unlike humility - they are different); in fact, it can be an illness. If you let it go, it'll conquer you. Timid people don't get promoted. They don't advance and grow and become powerful in the marketplace. You've got to avoid over-caution.
Do battle with the enemy. Do battle with your fears. Build your courage to fight what's holding you back, what's keeping you from your goals and dreams. Be courageous in your life and in your pursuit of the things you want and the person you want to become.
To Your Success,
Goodnight,
Amit
Labels: Introspection, Movies
Behind
I am feeling a lot better today - not sneezing as much. Most of the day has been spent in housekeeping again - vaccuming, cleaning dishes, washing. I also did some cooking - well, not really cooking since it was more of a semi-prepared meal. The thing with cooking Indian dishes is that it takes a lot of time to cook the base paste which will ultimately provide the taste for the dish and the problem I have with packaged readymade bases is that they all taste the same. Yesterday I found a new brand - "
Parampara" at the local indian store and decided that I would give it a go. Hmmm...i cooked 2 seperate dishes: Chicken Hyderabadi and Nawabi Chicken and both of them taste different and both of them taste really yummy. I would highly recommend that you give it a go if you can get it in a shop near you.
I have also been shifting rooms, since I have decided to pay a little bit more and take up the bigger room which Greg used to stay in and the progress on that has been extremely slow as I keep running into pieces of past which I had forgotten that I still had and end up spending time going through them. Pieces I discarded - notes from my student year at South Seas; script development of 'Memories'; first draft of 'Memories' to name a few. Talking of 'Memories' - I found out today morning that it will be getting a DVD release in Australia on July 10th,2006 - it is currently listed at
EzyDVD . So I was talking about shifting rooms - I also found my personal diaries which I had kept when I was studying at South Seas in 2003 and it was a really interesting read. It just made me realize that I have come a long way since my student years and it is always a learning curve with each passing day and each project. Anyway - I have moved half my stuff to the other room now need to move the rest of it and I will leave that for tomorrow.
I also watched a couple of movies - '
Ruby & Quentin' and '
My Architect'. 'Ruby and Quentin' is a french movie and was a good laugh and full credit to Gerard Depardieo - who pulls off the bumbling/clueless crook so well. The movie was fast paced and nutty and has some really good laughs. 'My Architect' on the other hand is a doco which is profound, sentimental, brutal, beautiful - all in one go. It is a son's search for knowing who his father was - it so happens that the son is an illegimate child and the father is renowned architect Louis Kahn. The documentary is a must watch as layers after layers are peeled away.
There is another documentary that I have booked for later tonight - titled 'The Omen Legacy'. It should be an interesting watch as it deals with religion, christ and anti-christ. I will leave religion and 'The Omen' till the next post.
I will leave you with a couple of pics from school on Friday when the students were installing the set for 'Honeymoon Suite' - a single camera studio production.
Me, Meg, Joe, Jahnea, Scott and Nick standing outside the studio
Students installing the setGoodnight,
Amit
Labels: Memories of Tomorrow, Movies
Saturday
It is a long weekend on account of the 'Queen's Birthday' on monday - a welcome change after a couple of hectic weeks at work. Yesterday evening - played badminton with Becks, Dean and Mark after a long time. The game was easy on account of Mark, as he was just learning, so haven't had any body aches and stuff.
A major part of today has been spent cleaning up bits and pieces in the house, so it becomes more functional again. 3 guys living under the same roof always means that at any given point the house would never be completely clean. Now with Greg having moved out - I thought it would be a great idea to clean the house up, so that was today.
The other main change that has happened since Greg left is that we have had our Sky TV subscription downsized since neither Tim or me watch that much TV - so no more Sky Movies and Sky Sports. It now seems that we play a lot more National Geographic channel as it has a fair bit of interesting stuff showing. The docos made treat you like an idiot most of the times but it is still interesting stuff nonetheless.
Anyway don't feel like writing much because of my flu. I am sneezing thousand miles an hour, so I better get back into the warmth of the bed.
Till later,
Amit
Labels: Badminton
A moment
There are moments when time comes to a stand still. You go through the different spans of space and time in your head; visualize the alternate realities, you are insulated in your mind and suddenly snap - you are jolted back!!! You wake up and only a minute has passed since you made your choice of another reality to realize, even though it feels like an eternity has passed. All the sounds and smells and the consciousness subsided by the overpowering visions of the alternate realities. You know, deep in your heart, that those are the moments when you can make a choice to decide what you want your future to be. But what if you let one of those moments go? What if you realize that it is better to shed an unspoken tear for the moment past? Randomness is a great way to break the pre-destined isn't it?
It sounds philosophical and stuff but it really isn't - it is exactly what I felt like before deciding to write the experience down here. What you make of all this - I will leave that to you.
Amit
Labels: Introspection
