Hey Muscular Hey Popular (2)

Apparently Aamir worked for 13 months in getting this look together... and he also has brought out a video + a guide on how he did it and how, people like me can try and emulate him!

New Year Resolution??

Hey Muscular Hey Popular

Just wondering how the likes of Aamir and Shahrukh are able to produce such bodies in such short periods... Of course we never see the hard work that they inevitably have to put in. Maybe they hold it back to inspire oohs and aahs in us when they unveil it... and maybe the hard work they put in is just not what we want to see.

What I am wondering is this: If I worked really hard for 6 months, can I have a body like that of Aamir? I mean naturally, without steroids or other stuff which would strictly be not-recommended by doctors.

Google is not everything!

Common sense counts for a lot more, even while looking for something on the internet!

And of course, nothing to beat good old word of mouth.

Re 1

A little girl, maybe 10 or 12 years old, on my bus in Delhi was playing music by hammering two flat stones against each other in her right hand using the index finger as a pivot. It was skillful. She was also singing some song in praise of the "mata". More than anything, I was impressed with her use of stones to produce sharp rhythmic beats. As she approached passengers with her left hand out-stretched, I handed her a rupee. There was another voice which accompanied her song. The voice belonged to a much younger girl, maybe around 5 or 6 years old. I had not been able to see the little one in the slightly crowded bus...

Normally, I refuse to pay beggars. I indicate my non-willingness to part with my dear money by a brusque shake of the head. Today, I wondered that I would have liked to record that talent if I had a video camera, and my thoughts moved on to how I should have payed her if I had indeed recorded the performance.

And so I decided to give her a coin from the pocket of my coat. It turned out to be a rupee. A penny for my thoughts...

Richard Linklater impresses like few others

Extremely interesting stuff about Richard Linklater's thought processes,and even more so, his practical approach. If there had to be one guy to model myself on as a filmamker, Rick is the guy.

Ebert

This guy is seriously good.

Sample this:
Motion pictures are an illusion. They aren't really made of moving images at all, just a series of stills projected at 24 frames per second. The motion is a trick created with the help of shutters, lenses, a little sprocket device known as the Maltese cross -- and the human brain, through a phenomenon known as persistence of vision.

Jean-Luc Godard famously claimed that cinema is the truth 24 times per second; Brian De Palma countered that it's really 24 lies per second; and Pablo Picasso offered the cosmic perspective that art is a lie that tells the truth. All of these things -- tricks of the eye, mechanical illusions, artistic skills, suspension of disbelief, philosophical principles, metaphysical questions -- are at the mysterious, romantic heart of "The Illusionist," written and directed by Neil Burger, and based on the story "Eisenheim the Illusionist" by Steven Millhauser.

Like "F for Fake," the delightful meditation on art and deception by Orson Welles, "The Illusionist" places the very film you're watching at the center of the illusion. There's an irony inherent in making a movie about magic, since the photographic medium is discontinuous and subject to post-production manipulations beyond those that can be created before a live audience. But it also focuses your attention elsewhere, on the illusory properties of movies and storytelling, and how much we love to be dazzled by illusions in art, politics, religion, and other realms.

Mumbai? It's so far away...

Early morning call from my (current host in another metropolis - I am away from my metropolis) friend's mother brought me news about the Mumbai drama. My reaction was, "What's new?"

I honestly think that as long as I am not directly affected by it, terror attacks will not cause me any greater emotion, than perhaps a hollow attempt to feel for those who lost their lives and loved ones.

It is being touted as the biggest attack on India yet. I am not shaken by it.

Terror attacks have become everyday news. They've lost all their shock value on me.

I was interested to know if any news channel was covering the hostage crisis. I was hoping that Reality TV had something interesting to throw up... but no, disappointed.

My brother lives in Mumbai. Some of my best friends live there. They were 200 m away from action. But they are safe. And that's all that matters to me.

You know why I am not more disturbed? Because nothing will come out of it. I wish I could do something, but I know there's not.

Lives are cheap in India. Wherever I go, my network may or may not follow me. But there are tens and hundreds and thousands of people. I don't care about them if I can't do anything for them, and they for me. I want to change this. I want to do something for them.

The problem is too big. Until it's tackled honestly.

Terror - We read the news, watch the entertainment and express our concern and dismay with distorted faces.

Terrorists - we hate them because they hate us.
Because we hate them.

We have failed to prevent terror attacks, because we have failed to understand terrorists. All we have learnt is to hate their guts and to kill some of them, if we can(!).

But as I said, we have too many people in India. Lives are cheap. Terrorists come cheap. But they go expensive.

We need change. All you would be terrorist guys out there - Rehman, Mustaq, Mahmood, Mohammed - whatever your names may be. I love you. I wish I could do more that this, but words are all I have for now.

Something I want to get my hands on

Up Series
Of course, Boyhood will be the better, I suspect, when it eventually comes out.