Now, Wake Up Sid and me have had a complicated relationship so far. Even though I did not like it at my first viewing, this movie has kinda grown on me, just because it sets out to achieve what it is – a non-preachy, no-story, lukewarm eye-pleaser. Lemme tell you why on the first viewing it did not appeal to me at all – because of its unreal depiction of a single unemployed lady suddenly living in a ‘lavish’ [ by Mumbai standards ] apartment and doing all sorta renovation work on it even before she has to see her first paycheck. And then it all goes gaga about Sid waking up – but what was he waking up to? Becoming more responsible and waking up to Duniyadari? Seriously? That is shown by a montage of Sid organising Aisha’s room, and then going for an intern photographer job for a Mumbai magazine – which would pay how much – 15k at best? We are talking about the son of a CEO of Flower Shower – a company which supplies showers and bathroom fittings to Birla as well as a Bhajiya-wala. Anywho!!! enough of complaining.

On my recent holiday trip home, I caught up on Wake Up Sid for the second time [ courtesy Air India's in-flight entertainment ] and I couldn’t stop noticing the huge range of awesome tee-s that Sid [ Ranbir Kapoor ] flaunts throughout the length of the movie. Now, I am no fashion guru like some of you awesome people are. But I can definitely point out what’s cool and what’s not. And Sid’s range of T-Shirts are definitely on the cool list. Here’s one for instance.

Flashin' Sid

Costume Designers Manish Malhotra and Priyanjali Lahiri have certainly struck the right cord.
Check the whole bunch after the jump. And yeah, look at what the designers decide Ranbir to wear when he “WAKES UP”. Beware: LOTSA Screenshots in this post.

Spongebob Duvet

Mickey Moused!

Yeah! The Joker

Cool..Cool!! Beavis and Butthead

Star Wars..woohoo

Atom Ant

Robin

Enterprise

Superman

Being the Hulk

Snoopy

Batman

Ghostbuster..hang on...Sid, where are your eyes mate?

Tom and Jerry

Here’s the best one.The best T-Shirt ever..behold people…

Trekki Trekker...whatever!!

In the words of the great Freddie Mercury, I want it all. Now have a look at what they did to him to show what happens to Sid’s fashion sense when he “wakes” up.
Sid decides to wear a shirt now…

Shhhhh..hirt

And even wear a ladies kurti…

Okay, enough of fashion talk. Lemme just conclude with a few more screenshots capturing the moments that I really liked in this movie.

Justice on my PC..how cool is that!

Best mates.. a laugh about a break up

The wet climax..not because it was romantic..coz Mumbai loves a good shower

Awww...young Supriya jee...

And last of all….

Mamma and Beta... how cute together

Phew! That took me watching the DVD three times to get my desired screenshots. I wish I showed this much dedication in everything else. . Now go on, jump to the comments.

Now this is a first. The power of social networking and the Web 2.0 is taking Bollywood by storm- with celebrities tweeting and movie publicities and marketing campaigns running through Facebook pages. But the new Studio 18 movie – Striker takes it to a whole another level.

The movie premieres on Feb 5th in India in theatres. But, the worldwide release will be on YouTube. As far as my knowledge goes, this is a first for a major Bollywood production, and apart from Sundance indies, we haven’t seen anything like this before even from Hollywood. Except for the US [where viewing the movie will cost 5$], viewing this movie on YouTube will be free [MUFT MUFT MUFT]

The movie will be screened here [ Studio 18's YouTube channel ]. There is a lot more on the channel – from exclusive footage of making of the movie, to Siddharth – the lead actor giving us reasons to watch the movie. There’s more to it – they have an iPhone app – a Striker version of the carrom game Now that’s another first.

So, what’s this #strikerwatchalong?

All across the world, awesome Bolly lovahs are coming together to watch this movie simultaneously, on Feb 7th, 6pm GMT and will also be group-chatting about the same on Google wave. Exciting stuff indeed.

The idea of the group chat wave for #StrikerWatchAlong was initiated by Beth and thanks to her, there are already 24 people who have joined the Wave, and still counting. It’s so awesome to see people from Abhu Dhabi to Australia to Dubai to London to Chicago to Germany.. you get it.

And if you feel like joining, just add your Google wave ID in the comments section below.

See you on the 7th awesome peeps.

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Some stuff about #StrikerWatchAlong on Beth’s blog.

Striker watchalong.

Update on Striker watchalong

I have been enjoying these flurry of Storm Troopers Memes that I get in my inbox – thanks to my awesome Geek mates. And before I get on with my Back 2 Back routine of watching all the six Star Wars movies today, I thought I’ll have a go of creating my own Star Wars Storm Troopers Meme.

Of course the way to start this is with our house favorite: Kuch Kuch Hota Hai… or should we say?

Or????… ‘Inspired’ by Family Guy’s “Something Something Something Dark Side”…

And for the Meme that you’ve been waiting for, here it is:

Hindi Gyaan: Kuch Kuch Hota Hai in Hindi means – Something Something is Happening [ a metaphor for Love]

Looks quite simplistic.Just the eyes and the lips on a white background. But IMHO, it captures the essence of the Joker. I love the menace in his eyes, and the mean smile on his lips. Somehow the dripping effect on his make-up makes it all the more evil. Hope you guys like it.

UPDATE: I know the date on the sketch is wrong. And I can edit, but frankly, I just ain’t bothered

If you are curious about which software I used, FYI, I used GIMP 2.4.5 which perfectly syncs with my Trust TB-7300 Widescreen Tablet. So what do you think about the sketch? Shout out your comments below.

All of the estimated $ 300 million spent, all the hype and publicity and the anticipation -It all boils down to the 2hours 40 minutes spent in the dark IMAX auditorium with my 3D spectacles on. And James Cameron shows why (as he quite rightly shouted out loud in his Oscar winning speech) he is indeed the King of the World. I cannot think of any other movie which created so much buzz and excitement around it. And does it live up to all of it. It so well does. Avatar is a revolutionary piece of cinema. But apart from the technological breakthrough in its imagery, the story telling by Master Cameron and its smart comparison with contemporary geo-political situations is what makes Avatar one of the best Blockbusting, Mind-Blowing, Heart-Wrenching and Eye-Popping spectaculars.

I watched Avatar on Saturday morning with a packed audience in BFI IMAX in true 3D glory. And it was exactly how the filmmaker intended it to be savoured as. And as Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) narrates his story, we get sucked in by the heights and depths of Pandora. The space-floating scene is exceptionally well shot, and it made me feel weightless. Now I can talk and keep on talking about how awesome this movie was. But to begin with, let me tell you that there are some bloody cynical and miserable people in this world, who were wowed by the visuals of the movie [I am talking about that reviewer Larushka Ivan-Zandeh in Friday's Metro paper: ]. But the story failed to impress her and she simply sums it to be an age-old “Save The Rainforest” tale. So to reply to her, Larushka darling, it might be age-old tale for you, but there is no bigger contemporary problem facing we the citizens of earth than the global condition. Just look around and see how the global leaders at Copenhagen have finally reached at a “conclusion” by merely postponing events for next year. Avatar beautifully depicts the relation between the natural life cycle and how its disruption could be fatal for the entire population. And when you say that it is a “Save A Rainforest” tale, you actually make yourself sound like the corporate asshole Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) who thinks it is just a mere tree out of the 12th power of 10 species in Pandora. Of course, everyone is entitled to his/her opinion. But yours, just plain sucks.

Moving on, I must say that Mr JC has indeed done the best job by waiting for the technology to catch up to suit his vision.The wait has been worth it, and the flora and fauna surrounding Pandora; each leaf of a new species and each growl of a new creature is awe-inspring. We travel across Pandora with the same fascination in our eyes as Jake Sully’s and Neytiri’s command and strong character makes us forget the fact that it is all motion-capture. And if the Na’vi do not fail to impress us, the humans are not far behind. Sigourney Weaver as Dr.Grace is spot on, and as mentioned previously, Parker Selfridge exudes corporate hunger for profit. As for heavily scarred Colonel Miles( Stephen Lang), he is a caricature model built around GW Bush (IMO) who believes in “dealing terror with terror”. To envelope all of this awesomeness in one big awesome package and deal with the geo-political issues in a sci-fi drama with a cinematic vision never seen before deserves everything -ABSO-EFFIN-LUTELY EVERYTHING.All the Oscars, the Golden Globes and even the Filmfare

James Horner’s score for the movie was spell binding and it captures the ambience, the beauty and also the dangerous wild side of Pandora. As for Maestro James Cameron, the man’s still got it. The action sequence is a complete How-To document on shooting a huge-ass action choreography, on celluloid. The man shows off his experience and why he remains not only the master of Action – True Lies, Aliens and Terminator, but also the Master in the art of story telling. *Bows to JC*

And yes, unlike some people who believe it is not a classic, I definitely believe otherwise. It is a game changer. Just like the first time we saw the T-Rex on the big screen, or Darth Vader use the Force, or Gimli and Legolas fight Orks, Avatar will be counted as one of the most revolutionary movies of our times. Few years on from now, we’ll remember Christmas 2009 to be the time when Avatar changed the face of cinema.
If you haven’t seen it yet, go and watch it, and make sure you watch it in 3D. You can thank me later.And now I can proudly declare myself as the member of the Avatar Fan Clan. I’ll leave you with some Bloody Awesome image captures from the Trailer. Hail Avatar! Hail Cameron!!

**SCREENSHOTS -VISUAL Nom Noms**

Big Ass War Machine

Na'vi Rebellion

Marines in Pandora

Na'vi Strikes

Corporate Dumbos

Neytiri Shoots

Marines assemble

Glowing Love in Pandora

Neytiri

Na'vi Rise

Jake Sully becomes the Avatar

Me at BFI Imax

This is basically a mashup of the two styles that Graphic Artist and Legend – Frank Miller is known for. I have taken the Sin City Element and fused it into 300′s King Leonidas. Hope you guys like it.

For the Full Resolution, click on the picture.

Shout it out in the comments what you thought about it. CHEERS!

So, I went to Bluewater on Saturday. I have been there just once before, and the first time was more of a brief visit than anything else. Personally, I don’t like long whole day shopping sessions. I just get tired easily. But I had no idea of what awesomeness was in store for me. I have been writing way too much in my previous posts. So, this one is going to be just about pictures, pictures and more pictures [ accompanied by tiny, little comments]. The pictures have been taken by my very humble Samsung J200′s 1.3 MP camera. So don’t expect much of a quality. But to have captured all the goodness just made my day.

Here’s batch 1: WH Smith’s book collection of Biographies.

Look Ma! Ant n Dec have got a Book now. And there’s Peter Kay..Yayy!! And Jeremy Clarkson.

After the Jump:- Lotsa Lego!!! Lotsa Star Wars and Doctor Who awesomeness!!!

Lots more biographies. Captain Jack – John Barrowman, Jack Dee, Loose Women, and even Stavros Flatley. Why does Britain love reading so many biographies? Or is it just me standing in the biography section?

And then, there’s the Guy – Mr Harry Hill

And of course, the legendary cook – Late Keith Floyd. And next to him, the guy who always loses in QI. And seriously, there’s already a book on Robert Pattinson.

Okay, enough of books. Let’s go to – Lego!! Batch 2: Lego Shop.

Welcome to Lego!!

Still in awe!!!

Embracing the awesomeness. George Lucas is fraking God! That’s a bloody Death Star.

Shhhhhh!!!!! That’s an anniversary edition. Okay, enough of packets..time for some real ones.

Star Wars awesomeness overdose!!!

And yet some more!!

Lotsa Lego!!!

Lego Chess!!

Lego-Trons and Lego-Bug.

Phew. Next..!! Showcase Cinemas showing a Saw marathon. Seriously?

NEXT!!!!

A store called MenKind. It was very cool. Have a look at the action figures.

Alien, Predator and I think the Alien from Species. Or is it masked and unmasked versions?
And then, snazzy bike and a fighter jet.

Regan on her infamous bed, and Bruce Wayne in his famous vigilante avatar – ya know Batman.

Now that’s a hard one to bring together. The Joker, Eddy from Iron Maiden and the Governor of California.

Terminator vs. Tony Montana.

This one will be actually lovely to see on the screen. Shaun vs. Chucky & Saw

Finally – A collection of awesome miniature models of….

So that’s :
1st row: Del Boy from Only Fools and Horses, Rocky Balboa and Mr.T

2nd row: Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley

3rd Row: Che Guevara, Vincent & Jules from Pulp Fiction.

That’s extremely cute and definitely a collectable. But at 80 quid, that’s repulsively expensive.

Ok, people!!! We close down today’s show with some Doctor Who awesomeness.

No.1: The Official Anual 2010

No.2: The Official Model: With Companion and Tardis

And finally, a Chilli Sauce called Pain 100%. ROFL

Thanks for joining me in this ride of geekiness. Hope you liked it. Throw away some graceful comments below. Cheerio!!

Just another one of my sketches that I did today on my tablet. I started sketching it in white on black background, and then I realised, why not paint it red. The sketch has some final touches needed to be done before it can be called complete, but I just got bored of it. But hey, this is my first attempt at colouring. Can’t say if you’ll see more colours in the future. Here’s the pic anyway.

Click on the picture for the High Quality version.

After the break, the version before I painted it red.

Do let me know in the comments if you liked it or not, or whatever you felt about it was good, bad or missing.

Cheerio, and keep your suggestions coming for my next sketch.

For all my sketches please visit here: Link for all Sketches