Wonder Woman (2017)Directed by Patty Jenkins Count me in as someone who actually liked all the DC Extended Universe movies released so far. I don't remember too much of "Man of Steel", but there was a lot to like about it. Despite the critical backlash towards "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" ("Martha" moment and all), and "Suicide Squad", I really enjoyed both of those movies, and am eagerly awaiting "Justice League". So, I was excited to watch "Wonder Woman", especially more so after the praise the movie was getting. I watched it on Saturday. The movie was an effective origin story, and takes us back to the WW1 time frame. When Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crashes into Themyscira, Diana (Gal Gadot) saves him, and comes to learn of a threat to humanity in the form of weapons experimentation by German General Ludendorff (Danny Huston). She decides to leave Themyscira along with Steve, with the intention of ending the War. I thought the movie did an excellent job of developing the characters and story. The acting, cinematography and music were all good. The action scenes were spectacular as well. Gal Gadot was fantastic in the role and the best thing about the movie. She is beautiful, majestic and a fierce warrior fighting for all that is good, and nothing about the character seemed forced. Chris Pine was terrific too. I'd rate the movie a 9/10. Very entertaining and a must watch, and deserving of the title of "Best DCEU movie till date"! I drew Gal Gadot as Diana from the movie. It was drawn with 2B mechanical pencil and scanned. #263 / 5-Jun-17
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Entry for @instagram's Weekend Hashtag Project, #WHPgetaway. Of course, going outside for travelling or meetups is good (tomorrow, I'm attending the Instameet being organized by @hellohyderabad, check their profile for more information). But once I've done that, there's nothing better than sitting at my table at my laptop, editing photos, or watching movies, or drawing. In the frame – you can see my sketchbook with my latest drawing of @priyankachopra from "Baywatch", which I did for @dailymoviesketch. After editing this photo in Lightroom and VSCO as I'd do usually, I added some Ambience and Tint in Snapseed, after looking at @j.osh's editing process on his IG story. I thought it added an interesting effect to it, so thanks Josh! See @karthikabhiram for another similar photo I shot at the same time but with my 24-105mm lens. #VSCOCam #Canon #5DMarkIII #50mmf14 #Snapseed
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Baywatch (2017)Directed by Seth Gordon Back in the 90s "Baywatch" was hugely popular. I never watched much of the TV show though (my preference was more "The X Files"). When it was announced that a movie version was in the works and that it would be an R-rated comedy, I immediately thought of how they rebooted "21 Jump Street". I loved that movie, so was interested in this one. The trailers however didn't seem that good. Anyway, I watched the movie last night. The plot, about new guy Matt Brody (Zac Efron) joining the Baywatch team led by Mitch Buchanan (Dwayne Johnson), and the team having to take down rich drug dealer Victoria Leeds (Priyanka Chopra) could have been fashioned into a really funny action comedy. Sadly, this isn't it. I thought there was nothing original about this movie that hasn't been done better before. I didn't like the characters and the way the story was developed either (no meat to any of it). I thought that the three main actors, Johnson, Efron and Priyanka Chopra did really well with the material they were given though. The movie is good for a few laughs but it's amusing at best. Our overly sensitive Censor Board also contributed to ruining our enjoyment of the movie, as they've made several cuts to it despite giving it an A rating (I've always maintained this is a stupid thing to do). It's hard to say how much is cut, but a lot of the dirty jokes and dialogues from the trailers weren't in the movie. Reinstating the cut footage might have helped.Overall I'd rate this movie a 6/10. It's a passable watch. I enjoyed Priyanka Chopra's performance as the antagonist ("I'm not a Bond villain… Yet"), and it might have been a really memorable role had the movie been better. So I did a sketch of her. This was drawn with 2B mechanical pencil and colour pencils, and scanned. #262 / 2-Jun-17
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Drive (2011)Directed by Nicolas Winding RefnThis is the first new sketch being posted here after the Art Exhibition last weekend! And it's a sketch based on my favourite Nicolas Refn movie, "Drive" from 2011 (not the 1996 Mark Dacascos action comedy by Steve Wang, though I'm a fan of that movie as well). As some of you may know, I'm part of the Cinephiles Film Club at Hyderabad, and the last two movies screened were Nicolas Winding Refn's debut, "Pusher" and it's sequel, "Pusher II". I like those movies, and I liked the other later movies that the director made. But "Drive" in my opinion is his best work till date. A masterpiece of storytelling using cinematography, direction, music and acting. I remember watching this movie in Prasads Multiplex Screen 5 many years ago, along with @varunabhiram, @kashyapchandra and other friends.For the recent Art Exhibition, I had put together a YouTube playlist of music, in which "Tick of the Clock" by Chromatics and "Nightcall" by Kavinsky were present, from this movie's soundtrack. With these in mind, I rewatched the movie on Netflix, and it's every bit as great as the first time I saw it. I was noting the interesting shot compositions (frames split down the middle). I'd highly recommend it. This sketch is of Carey Mulligan as Irene and Ryan Gosling as The Driver from the movie, from a notable scene in an elevator. It was drawn with 0.5mm 2B mechanical pencil and scanned. #261 / 1-Jun-17
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One of the artworks in The #ArtConf Hyd Exhibition that many people liked, some said it was their favourite one. Even I like this one a lot. This is a sketch of Mackenzie Foy as Murph from "Interstellar" (2014), and is sketch #183 on this page. I'd earlier posted a photo of it. This is a scanned version of the drawing. All the drawings that were in the exhibition had to be removed from their respective sketchbooks to be given for framing. So when I did that, I made high resolution scans of the drawings for which I had only posted photos of, earlier. I'll post the higher quality images of some of them periodically.
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The #ArtConf Hyderabad 2017 came to an end yesterday (28-May-17) night. The two day event was an amazing experience! It was a very hectic two days but everything came together very well. It was great to be part of the event with @pparulverma, our first art exhibition. We had a wonderful response. I guess more than 200 people visited us over the span of the two days. Big thanks to everyone who visited and to those who supported our work though they could not be there in person. I must thank all my followers here and on @karthikabhiram. Parul and I have put together a video showing the entire exhibit, the link to it is in my bio. Of course, thanks to @vineelreddy and the @collabhouse team for the opportunity and the support. I posted a bunch of pictures from the event in a multiple image post on @karthikabhiram, you could have a look at that. For some reason, I'm unable to share a multiple image post to a Facebook page, that's why I shared those photos on my personal account and shared them to my FB time line.
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Day 1 of The #ArtConf Hyderabad 2017 (yesterday – 27 May) was a great experience! It was mine and @pparulverma's first Art Exhibition. Parul had 15 of her watercolour artworks on display. I had exhibited 15 of the sketches I made for my @dailymoviesketch project. In the evening we had a talk by Ms Lakshmi Nambiar of Shrishti Art Gallery and a Bharatnatyam performance by @nehakhaitan14. Thanks to everyone who came by. We were really happy and grateful to see so many people visiting us (I literally didn't have any time to post anything through the day – which I guess is a good problem to have!). We've posted a video tour of the gallery space on YouTube for those who couldn't visit in person (link in bio). Our artworks are on exhibit today (28-May-17) as well, so you could come and visit us anytime between 11 AM to 8 PM. Check out @varunabhiram's photo coverage of the event on Facebook. And as I've said before, we are really thankful to @vineelreddy and @collabhouse team for the opportunity. This photo (reminding one of a certain infamous song – Selfie Maine Leli Aaj) was taken by @vineelreddy yesterday. #Canon #5DMarkIII #VSCOCam
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The 26-May-17 edition of "The Hindu" newspaper featured an article about me, @dailymoviesketch and my art exhibition along with @pparulverma, at The #ArtConf Hyderabad 2017. I wanted to post it yesterday, but I only now got the time to scan the article. I've split it into 3 parts so that it'll be easier to read.Yesterday was Day 1 of the exhibition and it went really well. Artworks are on display today as well. If you are in town, do come and visit at Collab House in Jubilee Hills (you can search for Syndicate Bank Journalist's Colony). For those of you who are not in town, check the YouTube video tour (link in the bio).
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13 Reasons Why (2017)Developed by Brian Yorkey "13 Reasons Why" a.k.a. "Th1rteen R3asons Why" is a Netflix TV show adapted from a book by Jay Asher. High school student Hannah Baker (Katherine Langford) committed suicide two weeks prior – something which leaves her family devastated as there is seemingly no reason why she'd take her own life. While trying to cope with the loss, fellow student Clay Jensen (Dylan Minette) receives a box of audiotapes, recorded by Hannah. There are 13 recordings, each concerning one person / an incident that caused Hannah's suicide. Through the 13 episodes of Season 1 of this show, we get to piece together Hannah's story. The show is well made and received critical acclaim for how it dealt with themes such as suicide, depression and sexual abuse. While at times the show does get quite dark, I felt that some of the things that happen to the character weren't reasons enough to commit suicide (high school kids can be really nasty to others). Maybe that was the point – to tell us that you never know how your actions would affect others. Nevertheless, I thought it was engaging and I watched all the episodes in the span of a few days. The acting was good, and I liked the use of colour tones to differentiate events happening in the present (a cold bluish tint) and those in the past (a warm brown tint, more saturated image). I drew Katherine Langford as Hannah Baker. This was done in pencil (red parts were done in colour pencil) and scanned. #260 / 25-May-17
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Better Call Saul (2015-present) Created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould I finished watching "Breaking Bad" sometime back and absolutely loved the show. It's very deserving of its title as the most critically acclaimed TV show ever. In "Breaking Bad", apart from the main characters, a fan favourite was the lawyer character, Saul Goodman played by Bob Odenkirk. Saul got his own spinoff TV show, called "Better Call Saul". I started watching this show on Netflix recently. I'm currently on Season 1 Episode 8, and I'm enjoying it. It's so good to see Saul and Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) back on screen. I guess Saul Goodman (a play on the words "It's all good, man") will be a name that Odenkirk's character will adopt later on – his real name in this time frame (some 6 years before the events of" Breaking Bad") is James McGill. This drawing was done in 2B pencil on paper and then scanned. The cucumber on his eyes were done with a colour pencil. I did an Instagram live video for this drawing today, showing the drawing process as well as the scanning and editing process. Thanks to those of you who joined in! I did that video from my other account @karthikabhiram, since I have a larger reach there. #259 / 21-May-17
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