Nasty Little Thing Productions

Karthik82.com Reloaded

2007-02-23T23:08:00.000-08:00

Since August 2006, I have been making all my blog posts on my own website, Karthik82.com, so please go there for the blog, my artwork, movie reviews, Doom content, and lots more!

Shifted to WordPress

2006-04-19T21:29:00.000-07:00

Been having trouble publishing to my blog recently... so I've created an account at WordPress.com.

The new blog is at http://karthik82.wordpress.com.

V for Vendetta: Buying the book

2006-04-08T03:26:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't seen the movie yet, this post is about the book V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, which I finished reading today.

I wanted to read the book before seeing the movie, so last Wednesday, I went to Landmark at Spencer's Plaza with the intention of buying it (I had seen copies there a couple of months back). However, on that day, all copies of the book they had had been sold out, so they said they would get a copy for me in a few days' time. I told them that it was a bit difficult for me to come to Landmark as I live far away — so they offered to deliver the book home! I got my copy this morning, at around 8:30 AM. Must say it was really nice of them to deliver the book home!

The book is pretty expensive here — it costs Rs. 845 (one more in my collection of expensive comics — after Watchmen, Crisis on Infinite Earths and The Art of Hellboy). I finished reading the book in the morning, and it was a wonderful piece of work! I will write another post on this, but anyway, I know that re-reading the book will definitely be even more rewarding.

Needless to say, I'm very happy to have got the book! Looking forward to watching the movie now (I hear it's very good, though some articles say that the anarchist themes in the book have been diluted/simplified/misrepresented in the movie).

DOOM³

2006-04-04T08:02:00.000-07:00

I've been playing Doom³ recently. It is an awesome game. Of course, the older games still appeal to me more as they run better on my computer, and they present an altogether different experience to the player.

Anyway, Doom³ is far more horror-oriented than action — the cinematic quality of the graphics and the superb sound effects all combine to produce an unforgettable experience. Simply put, it's like being immersed in a horror movie, and the game has made me jump in fright on several occasions.

I'm reminded of what Trent Reznor said on the Doom III: The Legacy video a few years back — the game focuses on getting into your head and making it a scary place to be.

I'm still at an early stage in the game, so I don't know how things will be as it progresses. Hopefully the "monster suddenly appearing out of the dark"-type jump scares won't get too repetitive!

I also love the theme music for the game, by Tweaker.

SIDE NOTE: Speaking of Tweaker and Trent Reznor, over the last few months I've become quite a fan of Nine Inch Nails. Favourite songs: "Closer", "The Hand that Feeds", "Heresy", "Only", "Head Like a Hole".

Command Control Picture

2006-03-29T20:26:00.000-08:00

I had trouble publishing to the blog in the past few days, so I couldn't post this photo. The problem seems to be fixed now, so here is the pic (click for a larger image):

EDIT (8:50 PM): Perhaps a bit of explanation of the items in the picture will be good —
The various items shown in the picture (yes, including the table itself) have been purchased over the last 6 months or so.
The picture was taken with Sandip's camera.
Command Control is the name of Episode 1, Level 4 of Doom.
The two laminated photos are by my brother Varun. I actually bought them from him — that's how much I liked the pieces!
The RIPPLES award was for painting.
An earlier photo actually showed the table with a full mug of tea, but unfortunately the picture was not good (besides, I forgot to keep the USB drive there).
The Batman toy I bought, the Pokemon toy came free with a "Kiddy Meal" at Marrybrown Restaurant.
The desktop wallpaper on the computer today is not the Doom one — it is now a scene from a Hellblazer comic (issue #27 if I remember right — the story is "Hold Me" written by Neil Gaiman and drawn by Dave McKean).

John Constantine: Hellblazer

2006-03-17T19:33:00.000-08:00

Started reading John Constantine: HELLBLAZER. Read three issues so far, they were good. I like the atmosphere in the books and the dark humour.

I especially like the stylish writing by Jamie Delano.

Also read Warren Ellis's Orbiter. Good book.

Command Control

2006-03-17T19:29:00.000-08:00

I had taken a photo of my table at home with all the electronic equipment set up. This is called "E1M4: Command Control". Wanted to post it earlier, but there was some problem publishing to the blog so this didn't happen.

Will put it up next chance I get.

Watched Varun's latest video, Drive recently. Nice stuff!

I will be going to Hyderabad again on 23rd (the flight is at 5:45 AM!). Will be back in Chennai on 26th night.

SPACE The Final Frontier

2006-03-13T06:45:00.000-08:00

The "space" in the headline refers to computer-related storage space, which I managed to accumulate more of, over this weekend.

On Saturday, I went to Supreme Computers and bought the following items:

40 GB hard disk, with a case that allows me to connect it to my computer through a USB port.
128 MB USB drive for smaller transfers of data.

This is pretty cool stuff, and I've given Doom-inspired names to the hard disks (the one on my laptop is called Phobos Anomaly and the external one is Deimos Anomaly. The folder on Deimos Anomaly which I use for temporary stuff is called Containment Area.

Yesterday, Sandip and myself went around Ambattur OT and took several photos of the area on his digital camera. Also took a photo of my table with all the electronic equipment (I call this Command Control). I will post this next chance I get.

As for movies, I watched James (pretty good) and House of the Dead (OK) recently.

Looking forward to watching Varun's latest video. Planning to download it at the browsing centre tonight on my USB drive and watch it at home.

Empty Spencer's

2006-03-07T20:43:00.000-08:00

Kamal is in Chennai on official work for a few days, so on Sunday, he, Rama and myself met in Spencer's Plaza. We had dinner at The Noodle House there.

A couple of things distinguished this meeting from an ordinary one. First, there was the presence of a lot of electronic equipment — I brought along my laptop to show them Varun's Dark Machine video, and Rama brought along his digital camera.

It was around 10 PM by the time we finished dinner, so at that time Spencer's Plaza was practically deserted. So we took photos of ourselves in front of closed shops, in empty corridors, etc. Then transferred the photos to my computer before going back home.

First Post of 2006

2006-02-25T01:41:00.000-08:00

Well, am I still allowed to post in here?

I feel bad that I've left this blog neglected for such a long time. As I've mentioned before, as I don't have an internet connection at home, I'm not able to post regularly. "Then why don't you do it from office", you might ask. Somehow, it seems that when I enter office (at around 9:30 AM) I am entering into a different world, and my "real" and "normal" self only kicks in after leaving (around 8:30 PM). Also, things are mostly quite hectic so there is not much time for thinking and writing.

But that is probably a mental block, so maybe I should throw these thoughts out and just keep posting anyway. Here is a first step in that direction!

So what has been happening in the past few months (has it been that long already)?

iCALMS Training in Hyderabad: From Jan 23 to Feb 3, I got the chance to be at home, in Hyderabad. There is a new competency and learning management system called iCALMS that is being rolled out in TCS (it will be operational organisation-wide by March), and when it was rolled out in Chennai I was pretty interested in conducting training sessions on usage of this system. Therefore I was nominated to go to Hyderabad and assist in the rollout there. Besides the fact that I got to spend a lot of time at home, I really enjoyed conducting iCALMS sessions there.
Movies: Additions to my Movie collection have been numerous (various formats — VCD, DVD, etc.), and I got to see a lot of really good movies. One real standout movie out of the lot is Donnie Darko — I've watched the Theatrical as well as the Director's Cut, and read a couple of analyses of the movie, and it's a very fascinating film. Will write a review for it later. Other good movies watched recently include Mystic River (fantastic!!), Zinda (pretty good remake of Oldboy), Waking Life (interesting, philosophical movie), Office Space (good comedy), Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor) (stylish, exciting, and fun Russian horror/fantasy/science fiction movie), Bubba Ho-Tep (great fun).
Doom-related: Not much happening on this front, though I enjoyed AgentSpork's Simplicity (played all maps on Skill 1, though I cheated with the boss maps) and Jan Van Der Veken's Classic Episode 2: The Singularity Complex and Congestion1024 (wiki). Editing-wise, I have been doing some random mapping, but nothing completed so far.
Drawing: Did a few drawings in notebook, etc. Maybe I will put these up sometime.
Comics: A few months ago I read the entire Preacher series by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon. Awesome. Also a fan of Mike Mignola's Hellboy now, and I recently bought The Art of Hellboy for Rs. 1295.

That's all until the next update...

Holiday Greetings!

2005-12-26T02:00:00.000-08:00

Another trip to Hyderabad... I left Chennai on Friday morning and reached home that afternoon. After two days at home I am again heading back to Chennai.

My flight (Go Air) is delayed by 15 minutes, so I am here now in Hyderabad Airport, typing this. Also downloading updates for Norton Internet Security.

I got to see a few movies over the past few days: Dawn of the Dead (Unrated Director's Cut (very good), Linkin Park: Live in Texas (super), Cellular (also good) and Dus (average).

Planning to watch Requiem for a Dream and Land of the Dead soon.

Oh, and here's wishing everyone a very Happy Holiday Season.

Intermittence

2005-11-20T01:55:00.000-08:00

Thought I should post this to let people know that I am, in fact, alive.

I had a terrific 6 days in Hyderabad. The fact that it was Diwali on November 1 was incidental. What mattered was I got to spend time with my family, watch some movies (including the fantastic Saw II), play Doom and Quake 3 over a bluetooth network with Varun and in general, relax. Varun and myself deathmatched on his own creation, Short 'n Quick 2.

My laptop has 30 GB more data on it now!

The past few days have been more of the usual, punctuated by the fact that I won the first prize in a Painting Competition, organised as part of TCS' Ripples 2005. The prize was a Rs. 251 gift voucher at Odyssey, and these are the items I ended up buying:

Many Gotham Comics! So glad to see the newer batch of them after a very long time. The DC titles have the company's new logo on them too! Disappointed though that the latest Planetary issue isn't out yet.
Fanboy by Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragones (and a host of other comic book artists). This TPB collects issues 1-6 of the series. I read #1 and #2 last night, it's very good.
VCDs of The Last Boy Scout and Natural Born Killers.
A Justice League Unlimited action figure. I got the Batman one.

Movies watched recently (in no particular order):

Saw II (Fantastic! Better than the original!)
Equilibrium (very good)
Red Eye (exciting thriller)
Ghajini (expected a Memento ripoff but it wasn't, and I liked it)
Submerged (starring Steven Seagal, low-budget action directed by Anthony Hickox. It wasn't good)
Akira (superb SF anime)
Hellraiser: Hellworld (OK movie, part 7, Hellraiser: Deader was better)

I read Thomas Harris's Red Dragon also recently. It's a great book.

I've also been working on some Doom levels (small ones). Actually, if I put together the scraps of unfinished levels I have, I should be able to get a small 3-map or so episode done! When I went to Hyderabad this time I copied the levels of The Ninth Gate, including E4M8, which is the only map left to be done, and I plan to work on it in my free time.

I have bought lots of DVDs in the last couple of months. These are the ones which have sometimes 3, 4, or 5 movies on them. One of my favourite DVDs is the one with all four Alien movies on it!

I do realise this is a somewhat incoherent post. It'll have to do, as I'm sitting in a browsing centre. I wanted to get the MicroDVD player so that I can watch an AVI of Casshern with subtitles!

More later.

Posting from Chennai Airport

2005-10-31T15:34:00.000-08:00

OK, so it is now 5:05 AM and I am at Chennai airport. I left from Ambattur with Rajith at 3:30 AM. Rajith has boarded his flight to Mumbai.

My flight to Hyderabad only leaves at 6:50 AM, which means I have a good 45 minutes left before checking in. I expected that there would be internet access here, and it turns out I'm right. Downloaded Varun's "Blur" wallpaper, and reading The Arrow's review for Saw II.

I will be in Hyderabad for about a week. Returning to Chennai on 6th evening.

My new Compaq Presario

2005-09-21T07:08:00.000-07:00

I've just bought a HP Compaq Presario V2317AP notebook computer.

The shop here has a wireless Internet Connection set-up so this post is being made from my computer!!

More news later...

EDIT (23 Sep 2005 3:25 PM): This is what the machine looks like... it's very cute!

It's an awesome computer — 1.8 GHz, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard disk, with a DVD Writer. I love the widescreen display it has! Was playing Doom and Quake 3 last night on it with earphones. It's a great experience! I'm also going to get a scanner and plan to get an Internet connection soon.

The Universe will Never be the Same!

2005-08-28T07:31:00.000-07:00

Worlds will Live. Worlds Will Die. And the Universe will Never be the Same Again...

I bought a copy of the DC Comics collected edition of Crisis on Infinite Earths yesterday at Landmark, Spencer's Plaza. At a cost of Rs. 1078.50, it's a very expensive book, but worth the buy. It's written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by George Pérez, with a fantastic cover by Alex Ross. I've read the first chapter so far, and it seems like an awesome book.

I also got myself a lot of other comics, including the Gotham Comics Super Special of JLA, featuring the story JLA: A League of One, luxuriously painted by Christopher Moeller. In all, I spent about Rs. 1400 on comics yesterday.

Also watched Madagascar and Stealth yesterday at Sathyam Cinemas. On 25th, I got to see 12 Angry Men in a PROPEL session at TCS SNR.

Disappeared off the Face of the Earth?

2005-08-24T00:36:00.000-07:00

A lot of people must be thinking that I've disappeared off the face of the earth, since I've not updated my blog in such a long time. Will try to update more often from now on (hopefully).

There's a lot of stuff that has happened in the past two months... a short summary follows:

I am working at the TCS Insurance Solutions Centre at Vadapalani, Chennai, and am in Deployment HR. My role is Associate Engagement.
My address in Chennai is F1, Asha Vignesh Apartments, New No. 415, MTH Road, Near Ambattur O.T., Ambattur, Chennai - 53.
My cell number is +91 98418 75682.
My first purchase with my first salary was a copy of Watchmen, and the second was a Batman Begins toy. These were bought from Landmark in Spencer's Plaza, Chennai.
Landmark has a big collection of imported comics, and though they're very expensive (Watchmen was Rs. 738.75), I'm planning to buy some from time to time. Next on the list is Crisis on Infinite Earths.
A couple of weeks after being posted in Chennai, Varun and my parents visited me here. After that, I got to go home twice — one during a recruitment drive, and the second on the extended weekend recently (August 15).
Movies watched recently (not many) include: Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Anniyan, Cybertracker 2, Batman Begins and The Devil's Rejects.

Today is the TCS ISC Town Hall (a big event for our centre, which we've been working on for quite some time now. Been staying back late in the office for the past few days. Hopefully I will get a bit more free time after this.

Since I don't have access to personal mails in the office, I have been very irregular in checking my Gmail account. I'm planning to get a laptop with Internet connection soon, which should simplify things.

More stuff later...

Posted at, and Posting From Chennai!

2005-06-11T21:32:00.000-07:00

After a fantastic experience at Pitstop (the Induction programme for the 92 people who have joined the HR/OD Group at TCS), I have been posted in Chennai. Myself and three others arrived in Chennai at around 11:30 PM on the 10th, and thanks to Paramesh we were able to reach our temporary accomodation arranged by TCS (in Sastri Nagar, Adyar).

We have to report to the TCS office in Jawaharlal Nehru Road on 13th morning. We will get to know the exact branch where we will be working from then, and we can look for a place to stay.

I am posting this from a browsing centre here... will write in detail later when I get settled down in Chennai.

P.S.: I had no Internet access when I was in Mumbai, so could not update or send emails.

Update the blog, I must

2005-05-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

I didn't post in the last few days as I was occupied with watching movies, or with the assignment given by TCS, or with meetings with friends. Anyway I thought I should post this because I am leaving to Mumbai on the 26th.

I will be in Mumbai for 17 days, attending the initial Induction programme of TCS, after which I will be informed about my final posting. I am not sure what internet facilities that will be available during those 17 days, so I may not be able to update regularly during that time.

Anyway, on to the movies I watched recently:

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (20 May): I got to see this in the theatre on the day it was released here (night show). While I love the classic Star Wars films (Episodes IV, V, VI), I thought the new prequels weren't as good. I particularly did not care for the economics/political background in Episodes I and II, and though they both had some great action and adventure scenes, they weren't as much fun for some reason. Not so in Sith. Obviously, this was the most important film in the prequel trilogy, and there was no doubt as to what would happen at the end, but it was a great experience to see how they tied up the story and linked the two trilogies together. The movie shows us how Chancellor Palpatine poisons Anakin Skywalker's mind, causing his transformation into Darth Vader. We also see how the evil Galactic Empire is born out of the old Republic. The movie is dramatic and action-packed, and is certainly the best of the prequel trilogy in my opinion. I must also make special mention of John Williams's superb music score for the movie, which seemed to really enhance certain scenes in terms of dramatic intensity. Apart from the expected references to the classic trilogy, I was overjoyed to see musical references to the other films in the series here as well (for example, "Duel of the Fates" referenced in a battle between Yoda and Darth Sidious, "Leia's Theme" playing as we see the infant Leia)! Bottom line, I loved the movie.
Naina (22 May): Watched this in Prasad's Multiplex (along with Rupak, Arun Gopal, Ramakrishna and Gaurav Sukhija — the historic meeting in Hyderabad that Rupak and me had planned finally came to pass!). I think this is the first time Bollywood is beating Hollywood to a remake of an Asian horror movie (this one is adapted from the Pang Brothers' The Eye, which I have not seen)! It is the story of a 20-something old woman, Naina (Urmila Matondkar) who was blinded as a child. She now undergoes a corneal transplant, after which her sight is gradually restored — the scary part is that she also starts seeing spirits, and has visions of people dying! A doctor, Sameer (Anuj Sawhney) helps her investigate. Technically, it's a very well made film — the "look" and the visual effects are on par with a Hollywood production. There's also one very well handled explosion scene. Still, I wouldn't call the movie a great one, though it was quite good! The movie did have a couple of gory parts, and some good scares. I don't know how much of the movie was lifted from The Eye. This is director Shripal Morakhia's first feature.
Night of the Living Dead (22 May): George A. Romero's 1968 horror classic has a group of people barricaded inside a house, while flesh-hungry zombies try to get in. While I didn't feel it was very scary, it was certainly very creepy and tense. The low-budget black and white look added to the atmosphere. I downloaded this from the Internet Archive (apparently, the movie passed into the public domain because of no notice of copyright on it!), I got the file that's about 600 MB in size.
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) (19 May): John Carpenter's original thriller about a street gang attacking a closed-down police precinct. I loved Carpenter's music score for it, and I liked the movie.
Eraserhead (18 May): I don't know whether this was a good or a bad movie. It's an unclassifiable movie about Henry (Jack Nance) who is informed that his girlfriend is pregnant. The child is born and turns out to be hideously mutated. Jack tries to care for it though. The movie contains bizarre imagery (which, with the combination of the sound and music used in the movie can make the viewer feel uneasy) and it's certainly the weirdest movie I've ever seen. The film itself is totally open to interpretation, as director David Lynch himself has left it up to the viewer to make sense of it.
The Machinist (17 May): A brilliant thriller from writer Scott Kosar and director Brad Anderson. Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale) works in an industrial plant. He hasn't slept in over a year, due to which he is frighteningly thin and pale, and gradually seems to be losing his mind. After an accident at the workplace, he thinks there is a conspiracy against him, which may or may not be true. Amazing, atmospheric movie, with an outstanding performance by Bale (who lost about a third of his body weight for this film!).

The first ten shorts in the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series also, recently I watched. Very good, they were.

Heh... Yoda's odd sentence construction reaches its peak in Revenge of the Sith, with his line "Not, if anything to say about it, I have!"

Came across this interesting article on Hungarian Notation yesterday. And this article, which was linked from Wikipedia, is one of the most hilarious things I've ever read! Both of those articles might not make sense to you if you are not into programming though.

Happy Birthday to Me (May 15)

2005-05-16T02:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (May 15) was my 23rd Birthday... thanks everyone who sent me mails, called up or posted scrapbook entries on orkut! I also noticed that the counter on my site's main page crossed 50,000 yesterday. Now that's only an indicative number (the counter would be incremented anytime the page is accessed, even by a search engine) but it feels good all the same. Thanks to everyone who visits the site!

In the evening yesterday, we (myself and family) went to see Indian Idol stars Rahul Vaidya and Prajakta Shukre perform live. The show was organised by Jain Social Group. It was a great show overall. We returned at around midnight, and after that I watched Blackadder: Back and Forth and later, True Romance for a second time.

Movies I've seen recently

2001: A Space Odyssey (10 May): Ever since Ganeshan gave me the book to read some years ago I've been wanting to see this. A mysterious object (similar to one that arrived on earth thousands of years ago at the dawn of man) is discovered on the moon, sending signals to somewhere beyond Jupiter. The crew of the ship Discovery undertake a voyage to investigate. Fantastic photography and visual effects. This is the second Stanley Kubrick movie I'm seeing (after The Shining some months ago), the next will be A Clockwork Orange, soon.
Cube Zero (11 May): Unlike Cube and Cube² which were entirely set inside a cube, this movie is set both inside and outside the structure. Once again, a group of people are trapped in a cube, but now we get to see a couple of employees of the creators of the cube, one of whom wants to rescue a woman who has been trapped in it. We find out a lot more about the cube, how it works, etc. but cleverly, not everything is answered. Very good movie.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (13 May): Yet another movie I've been waiting to see for a long time. Thoroughly enjoyed it. The opening, which has dolphins performing acrobatics with the song "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" was awesome. The basic story from the book — Earthman Arthur Dent and his friend Ford Prefect hitch a ride on a Vogon spaceship just as the Earth is destroyed, and then go on to have an adventure in our very large and interesting galaxy — has been retained, as are a lot of the good parts from the book, though there have been many changes made to make the story work better as a movie. The movie is very fast paced and has very good effects.

I also watched Armageddon on TV on 13th. This is the second time I'm seeing this movie. I am well aware of the fact that there are people who hate this movie (and all Michael Bay movies in general), but I'm not one of them. I loved this movie.

Comics: Spider-Man India #1 and others

2005-05-12T13:48:00.000-07:00

There was a small problem with our computer so I couldn't update for the last couple of days. Anyway it's fixed now and things are back to normal.

Went to TCS Hyderabad today to collect a form regarding my medical check-up. It has been about a year since I was there last (I did my TAPMI summer project there).

On the way back, I bought another set of comics. These included Planetary #3 (story was OK, I didn't think it had the intrigue that the previous two issues had, but the art was very nice as usual), Tomb of Dracula #3, an issue of Spectacular and Ultimate Spider-Man, and a Superman issue with the concluding part of the "Birthright" storyline by Leinil Francis Yu (art) and Mark Waid (writer).

And I also got Spider-Man India #1.

The book is finally on the stands in India, and it's about time! I've been waiting for this book for many months, and I was puzzled that they'd release it in the US first (where it's already completed four issues, don't know how well it sold though) and not in India. Anyway, Issue #1 is on sale at Rs. 25 (hmmm... other titles of this size, like Spectacular Spider-Man for example, are Rs. 15... exploiting "just noticeable difference", eh?), and it includes a pull-out poster. I haven't pulled out the poster, and don't plan to — I am going to preserve my copy as it is!

Spider-Man India is illustrated by Jeevan J. Kang and Gotham Studios Asia, and written by Kang and Gotham Comics founders Sharad Devarajan and Suresh Seetharaman. They call this story a "transcreation" of the character to an Indian setting — therefore the character names have been Indianised, and other story changes have been made. I'd already seen a preview from The Economic Times of the story and it seemed really good. After reading #1 I can only say that it exceeded expectations.

Pavitr Prabhakar is a village boy who goes to the Heritage International School in Mumbai. His Uncle Bhim and Aunt Maya have realised that Pavitr deserves the best education, so they somehow try to give him that. Pavitr, though, hates the school because the other students (save Meera Jain) constantly ridicule his village-background. One day though, he is "visited" by a mystical sage in a dark alley, and given powers to fight evil. A parallel plot has the industrialist Nalin Oberoi obtaining a magical amulet, which transforms him into a Goblin-type demon.

The artwork in the book is terrific, on par with the other international Spider-Man titles. Artist Jeevan Kang has done a great job in rendering the action scenes and some of the more "mystical" scenes. I loved his use of tilted camera angles too. The writing in the issue is also good — I had my doubts on how the Indianisations would work, but they pulled it off very nicely. If this issue is anything to go by, further issues can only be great, and I'll definitely buy them.

Sadly though, I think only four issues have been created so far. And obviously, this is an origin story, with inspirations from several elements in the movies and other origin storylines (like in Brian Michael Bendis's Ultimate Spider-Man). I don't know whether we will get to see original stories and new villains/characters specific to this series. I certainly hope so (though that depends on how successful the book is), and I think the creators are definitely capable. Personally I'm getting somewhat tired of seeing the "With great power comes great responsibility" refrain!

Movies: Cube²: Hypercube

2005-05-08T10:32:00.000-07:00

I watched the original Cube on CD in December last year. Yesterday evening, STAR Movies showed Cube²: Hypercube, which I watched later in the night after videotaping.

The first film, which was a low-budget science-fiction effort from director Vincenzo Natali, had a group of six people finding themselves in a cubical-shaped room of 14x14x14ft. in size, with no idea of how or why they got there. Each room had six doors (one on each wall) that led to another similar cubical room. Some rooms contained traps that meant gruesome death for anyone who entered them, others were safe. Like rats in a maze, the people had to find the way out (if there was one) while avoiding the booby-trapped rooms. The movie had some very intriguing ideas and was very well-made, due to which it was well-appreciated. In addition to the basic idea of the cube, the movie also succeeded as it explored the characters well.

The sequel takes the whole idea further, in fact, one dimension further. In this movie, a group of people (more characters than in the first film) find themselves in a cubical-shaped room, but later on realise that they are actually inside a tesseract (or hypercube), a four-dimensional construct. They discover, to their horror, rooms with gravity working differently from adjacent rooms, rooms where time runs differently, even rooms where alternate realities exist. In fact, in the tesseract, rooms can "fold in" on others, and the whole structure seems to be somehow unstable. At least a few of the characters turn out to be associated with a weapons manufacturer called Izon (anagram of Zion, I don't know why they called it that), which might have actually built this hypercube.

The characters in this movie are again taken from the archetypes established in the first Cube — there's Simon Grady (Geraint Wyn Davies), the person who "loses it"; psychotherapist Kate (Kari Matchett); game designer Max (Matthew Ferguson); the blind Sasha (Grace Kung); the senile Mrs. Paley (Barbara Gordon); Jerry (Neil Crone), a more positive-minded person; and others. Once again, the paranoia escalates as the group tries to find a way out, and perhaps an answer to why they're in the structure.

Unfortunately, I didn't think the ending did the film justice. In the first film, there was the element of the characters gradually figuring out the way to exit the cube, whereas in Cube², since the structure is far more complex, that element wasn't there. So essentially the characters are just traversing the rooms randomly, hoping to find a way out. Some explanations are offered at the end, but I didn't find them entirely satisfactory.

Still, I appreciate the filmmakers because they tried to do something new with the concept instead of just extending the concept of the first movie. I don't know whether it was due to the acting or the writing, but I think I liked the characters in this movie better than those in the first one.

Cube² is directed by Andrzej Sekula, who previously photographed Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. He makes the whole film look like a big-budget production, giving the whole thing lots of style. I thought the film was visually brilliant, with some good digital effects. Unlike the first film, where the cube's rooms were lit in different colours, here all the rooms have bright white lighting. Gave a different atmosphere to the movie. The opening credits sequence was also very nice, and the movie kept me interested through its running time thanks to its interesting ideas. I also loved the music score by Norman Orenstein, it suited the science-fiction feel of the movie very well. The movie has a screenplay by Sean Hood (also story), Ernie Barbarash and Lauren McLaughlin. There was a third Cube film made in 2004, which was directed by Barbarash. It's called Cube Zero and I hope to see that sometime as well.

Movies: Jason X

2005-05-08T06:51:00.000-07:00

Last night on HBO at 9 PM, they showed Jason X, the tenth movie in the Friday the 13th series.

I'd read the script a few years ago, and got to watch the movie last night. It was an entertaining movie, though nothing special. The movie is an interesting attempt though, at making a Friday film in space.

The movie starts off in the future (I think 2008 or something) where after several attempts at executing the captured killer Jason Voorhees, it is finally decided to keep him in cryogenic suspension. The Project Head of this is Rowan (Lexa Doig), who is not too happy when some authorities show up to take away Jason's body, so that they can study him and discover the secret of his regenerative capability (or in other words, how he returns in each sequel despite being killed off in the previous movie). Jason, of course, manages to get loose, but Rowan draws him into the cryo-chamber and activates it — but not before he stabs her and releases the freeze gas all over. As a result, Rowan and Jason are frozen.

About 450 or so years later, a few people show up on the surface of Earth (which has become an uninhabitable wasteland) to salvage stuff, and they discover the two frozen bodies. They take them aboard their ship and reanimate Rowan, and keep Jason under observation. It's not too soon before he thaws and starts walking around the ship, killing anyone in his way.

I actually found this movie quite entertaining. It's apparent that the filmmakers aren't expecting the audience to take any of it seriously, and just have a good time with it. The action starts very quickly, and there are some creative kill scenes (best had to be the frozen-head thing). Some of the effects were good, others didn't look so good. A number of in-jokes are also to be found here. Overall a fun movie, though there were no scares at all.

Written by Todd Farmer, directed by James Isaac. Jason X was followed by Freddy vs. Jason, which I thought was better than this movie.

Movies: Oldboy

2005-05-08T05:59:00.000-07:00

I've been waiting to see the Korean movie Oldboy for a very long time and I finally got to do so. I must say, it's a very impressive movie and certainly not at all conventional.

The movie is about a man called Oh Daesu (Choi Min Sik) who is suddenly abducted without explanation, and imprisoned in a hotel room for fifteen years. Each day, his room is cleaned, he is given food, and each night, Valium gas is used to make him sleep. By the first year, he finds out that his wife has been murdered, and that he is the prime suspect. He has no idea what happened to his daughter. One day he finds out that the plate of food that comes into his room has three chopsticks instead of two — and he uses this extra chopstick to carve a hole in the wall.

One day, he is let loose by his mysterious abductor, and supplied with clothes, money, and a cellphone. Oh Daesu meets a woman named Mido (Kang Hye-Jeong) in a restaurant, and with the help of an old friend, he tries to find his abductor. Soon, it is revealed that Oh Daesu has only five days to find his abductor, and that all the torture he endured for fifteen years is only the beginning of what is planned for him. At any rate, Oh Daesu intends to exact revenge upon his abductor — to paraphrase what he says in the movie, he intends to kill the person responsible, but no one will ever be able to find the body because he is going to chew it all down.

The movie is certainly very different — I expected it to be a sort of mystery-driven revenge story, but it's more a drama than anything else. All characters in the movie are very well developed and the film contains some amazing acting. The last third of the movie (where the story is resolved) is quite tragic.

It should also be mentioned that the movie contains some violent scenes that could be considered disturbing, and some mature themes. I also loved the music score in the movie, it suited it very well. The movie is directed by Chanwook Park (who, according to what I read, is the director of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, another revenge-drama), and adapted from a Japanese manga.

More Tribbles!

2005-05-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

I got to watch the episode "More Tribbles, More Troubles" of the 1970s Star Trek Animated Series (produced by Filmation, who made the He-Man cartoons) today. Though the animation quality was not very good, the writing was fantastic, which made for a brilliant half hour's worth of entertainment.

It's actually a sequel to "The Trouble with Tribbles" (1967), an episode of the original Star Trek series (one of the funniest Trek episodes ever!), in which we are introduced to the tribbles, which are small furry little creatures. They're really cute, and some of them end up on the Enterprise after being bought from a trader. The problem is that they multiply rapidly, and soon the whole ship is overrun with the creatures.

In the animated episode, the Enterprise is transporting two ships containing a supply of foodgrain to Sherman's planet, when they come across a Klingon ship. The Klingons are firing on a small Federation shuttle, and Capt. Kirk tries to stop them. The Klingons, however, possess a weapon that can disable the critical defense systems of a starship, which they use on the Enterprise. But with a bit of quick maneuvering, Kirk manages to rescue the pilot of the shuttle from the Klingons (the weapon they use drains a lot of power, so they retreat in order to recharge it).

The pilot turns out to be Cyrano Jones, the trader that sold tribbles to the Enterprise crewmembers. And he's got more of them with him, only these he claims are safe, because they are genetically altered so as not to multiply fast. With the tribbles and the Klingons, Kirk seems to have his hands full, leading to several very funny scenes in the episode.

The story is wonderfully developed too, and it has some terrific dialogue. Consider this piece —

CAPT. KIRK (to Cyrano): You know the law about transporting animals proven harmful!
CYRANO: Captain! These are safe tribbles!
DR. MCCOY: There's no such thing as a safe tribble!
SPOCK: A "safe tribble" would be a contradiction of terms. Tribbles are well known for their proclivities in multiplication.
CYRANO: And they breed fast, too.

The episode is written by David Gerrold, who also wrote the original series episode. Wikipedia has articles on tribbles and on the original episode.

Movies: True Romance

2005-05-05T05:06:00.000-07:00

I watched True Romance last night. This 1993 movie has an amazing cast — Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, James Gandolfini, Val Kilmer, Christopher Walken, Tom Sizemore, Chris Penn, Brad Pitt, Bronson Pinchot, Gary Oldman, Samuel L. Jackson, and others! It is written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott.

The story goes like this — Clarence Worley (Slater) meets a girl called Alabama (Arquette) at a movie theatre during a Sonny Chiba triple feature, and finds out they have lots of common interests — kung fu movies, Elvis, comic books... They fall in love but then Alabama confesses that she's a callgirl (actually she's been that for only four days), but that she truly loves Clarence. The two get married, but Clarence decides that he has got to kill Alabama's pimp Drexl (Oldman). He does so, and leaves the place with a suitcase that he assumes is full of Alabama's stuff. As it turns out, it is actually full of cocaine, and pretty soon the couple are on the run from the mob and the cops, while attempting to sell off the drugs.

This is a romantic movie done Tarantino-style — it is absolutely crazy and has the expected strong violence and incessant profanity (IMDb trivia page says that there are 225 occurrences of the word f*ck and derivatives), but the characterisation is superb and I thought the romance between the two leads was very well developed. Ultimately, it's a very sweet movie, and has some outstanding performances. And since this is a Tarantino script, there are a huge number of memorable scenes and dialogues — "it's better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it", the cocaine-in-the-face scene (one of the funniest bits I've ever seen!), the opening "I'd f*ck Elvis" speech, and several others. At the end of it all I had a huge smile on my face, having thoroughly enjoyed the past two hours.

It's difficult to go wrong with a movie where one of the main characters works in a comic book store, and where characters are shown watching movies like A Better Tomorrow II! Even the not-so-popular action movie Freejack and the soap Santa Barbara make their appearances on TV screens within this movie.

As far as Tarantino films go, I still think that Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill are superior, though this movie is almost as good. Apparently it was director Tony Scott who decided to film the movie linearly, the script by Tarantino was not in chronological order.