Of bollywood movies

I was at this local hotel er... i guess you can call any place that serves decent food a hotel here in Bangalore, and there was this TV there tuned to some hindi channel playing a really dumb movie. Here's how dumb it actually was:

Ok our hero's brother is riddled with 8 or 9 bullets and is bleeding to death. Hero rushes him to the hospital and calls a doctor. The doctor arrives, puts on his stethescope and then declare "Arrey ! Ye tho serious hai !". Gaaaawd I mean the guy has been shot and is bleeding, of course its serious ! but bollywood doctors only find out after hearing the patients heartbeats apparently

Then there is this scene where the hero goes to a chemists shop and then manages to lose the paper on which the list of medicines is written. So he gets all charged up and breaks open the shutter and asks the chemist where he keeps the medicine (what the hell is a person let alone a chemist doing inside a closed shop !). He points to a cupboard at which point the hero simply lifts the ENTIRE cupboard and gets it to the hospital. (Didnt Hanuman do something similar ?! 5/5 for originallity there)

Now thats what i got to watch during the time i ate dinner, i cant imagine what else i would have saw had i stayed on ! Another thing i noticed is that advertisers apparently think that people in labcoats and glasses have the persuasion skills to make you buy this brand of soap, that brand of milk powder and that brand of toothbrush !

update........ sheeesh lame title

Man ! you really have to persevere to keep posting huh ? Blogging regularly aint no walk in the park.... I really admire those people who so diligently keep their facebook/orkut/myspace/hi5 etc accounts in such pristine order. Giving away the tiny gory details of their lives.... I mean where do they find the time to live it if they spend so much time online ?!

I finally got wired last weekend, I am a proud owner of a 256 kbps connection from Airtel, so far so good. Work is going good working away on Narnia and Harry Potter shots. Last weekend I went to the India Coffee house at church street, it was the most delicous cup of coffee that i've drunk in Blore, and it was just 10 bucks. Man those other coffee chains are such rip offs !

Currently reading Harper Lee's classic 'To kill a mocking-bird' and Siddin Vadakuts DORK, i think he's got a great thing going here, his blog www.whatay.com is a hilarious read as well.

.......

A bit of writers block for today.... hey wait I can write about writers block ! Hm.... well for that matter any type of block when trying to do something artistic or academic is really a problem for a lot of people including me. Well i read some time ago about this writer dude (I don't remember who) who used to ask his servant (it was a writer in the 1800s, manservants sheeesh!) to tie him up on his chair during the time that he had set aside purely for his writing. Though it does sound a little appaling I really found this bit of info useful, no I did not ask anyone to tie me but I did go to my workplace and forced myself to start. Its amazing to see how words flow after that initial hick-up !

Ok so i'm on twitter -> http://twitter.com/ardentmusing

I killed time today reading Vikas Swarup's 2nd novel after Slumdog Millionaire called Six Suspects.

It seems to be a great idea for another Danny Boyle movie.

I finally finished reading Shantaram last night, it was quite a treat to read. The 933 page tome was quite daunting at first but Gregory David Roberts (the author) seems to have the stuff to make you glued to the book for hours on end. I should admit one thing though, when i first picked up the book i assumed it was complete fact and that no part of it was fabricated, but a few google searches told me that it was in fact 'a novel describing real life behind a facade of fiction'. There is a term for such a thing i found out - roman a clef.

This did reduce my enthusiasm about reading the book a little but still the story itself was riveting enough for me to finish the damn thing ! Well i guess there is fiction in every fact and fact in every fiction hehe seems like one of those one liners that karla(one of the characters in the book) says. So i guess the process of including some or a lot of fact in a work of fiction does give it a sort of credibility i think. The Da Vinci Code is a prime example of such a work, Dan Brown does that in all of his novels. He sprinkles the text with a lot of details about the place or object that the protagonist is in or is looking at. Actually in a description of the louvre (the art museum in France) he actually describes the place wrong but it still seems credible because of the way he puts it !

Anyways found this really cool place to read about the blood, sweat and tears that are shed during game development http://www.gamespot.com/features/btg/

the ones on the half life games are particularly awesome. You could also read about the demise of ION storm, the makers of Daikatana or the rise of Maxis, creators of such memorable titles as SIMcity. the SIMS, SIMant etc

The 4th wall

Well i would have liked this to be my first blog...... but its not, its about my 3rd or 4th. The problem was that of sustained enthusiasm, i just couldn't sustain my enthusiasm to blog. Anyway i really hope this is it hehe anyway now to the title of my post with which i start my (here we go again !) glorius blog - The 4th wall.. what is it you ask, well I answer :P

The 4th wall as i've understood it and you guys are free to correct me drop a comment is an invisible wall that exists between you the viewer and the work of art that you are viewing. Now for example if you consider this blog a piece of art...ahem.... then if i tell you to press the letter 'J' on your keyboard then there ! I've broken down 'the 4th wall' and have made you do something, the'something' was instigated by the work of art...

So i hope you've got me, now this same concept is very interestingly use in one video game which i currently am liking the more i play it, its called Metal Gear Solid. Ya the first one ported to the pc way back around 98 i think anyway correct me if i am wrong. Here in one of the numerous conversations with the game characters (NPCs for you gamers out there) the guy you are talking to mentions about a radio frequency that is written on the back of the CD case thereby breaking 'the 4th wall' and making you go look for your CD cover and find the mentioned frequency. Now thats a clever way to poke a finger at piracy and have a fun gaming experience at the same time !

Ok so thats about it from me for now. I am quite determined to keep this blog running !

Oh by the way I forgot the introductions ! My name is Joseph Thomas M. The M stands for Mekkattukulam i'm not sure i spelt that right because i've rarely had to write it ! i always shorten it to just 'M.'. Thats the thing with malayalee names LOL. I am currently working as a 'trainee matchmove artist' over at paprikaas/MPC which is a studio at Bangalore. My passions include movies, video games, reading,bicycling.... and a whole lot more. I've reached here after going through Takshaa-Academy For The Artist (an institute i'm indebted to :)), then a 4 month internship at Ittinna Studios where i dabbled at a little bit of hair simulation). And before that i studied at Manipal junior college for my 11th and 12th and finally my schooling was in Little Rock Indian School, Brahmavar with Madhava Krupa School, Manipal as the place i did LKG :)...