Hollywood racism in Lion King

Let me just get this out of the way: I am not going to be talking about the alleged "stereotyping" in the casting of hyena characters' voice actors. I think it is fair that there were also two protagonist characters Mufasa and Rafiqi voiced by African Americans.

While in Orlando this last weekend, I happened to see a little bit of The Lion King in the bus that transported us back from Universal resort to the hotel. And I started to think back to this discovery channel show about lions. The scientists were trying to figure out what kind of physical traits attract a female lion to a male lion. They made two stuffed life size lion dolls, one with dark black mane and the other with brown-blonde hair. Then they observed the lionesses from a distance. The lionesses just could not get enough of the dark haired lion dummy. Even lingering around and biting the dummy long after they had realized that he is not real as he wasn't reacting to them or even moving a muscle.

My point being, in the wild, dark haired lion is more desirable. However, the makers of Lion King, going with American conventions, had to make the protagonist light haired or 'caucasian' and the antagonist, dark haired—pretty much everything outside America to the south or east… or south east of Greece. Arabs, Indians, Koreans, pick whatever you want. I was also surprised that I couldn't find another blog post talking about this. So chime in on what you feel.

Monsters vs Aliens

Yesterday, I finally told Doni I didn't make it into animation. Probably the last person to find out. This morning, he made a comment, "so, yesterday must have been a really bad day, huh? You finding out you didn't get in!"
I reply, "No, because I found out on Thursday."
He goes, "You didn't know on thursday that you didn't get in!"

That's because of the conversation we had in the cafeteria that afternoon. I explained to him how I didn't make it into Sheridan college animation program twice before. And he was yanking my chain saying, "Dude, you didn't get accepted into Sheridan!" as if it was such a puny thing. Anyways, he was disappointed he won't be able to rent a apartment in Toronto with me for the year if I didn't get in. He'd have to figure out something else to house himself after the residence kicks him out in april.

"Yes, I did, after you were done teasing me about not getting accepted into sheridan, I went to the International center and got my score sheet."
"...now you make me feel bad."

I'm sure you'll get over it; I thought to myself.

I didn't know what Doni had planned to do in Toronto today, I thought he still wanted to go check out apartments. But at Union station, we talked about it and decided, we'd go get lunch, then check out where his job interview is, and then go see 'Monsters vs Aliens'

I had never been to Hooters before. Afternoon wasn't the best time to go there, the place looked quite dead when we were there. Most other people(men) were 40+. I just had a plate of chicken wings and we talked about random things. I didn't want to waste time going to exhibition where Doni's job interview was. So I proposed he go by himself, pick up his friend Dodi, and meet me at Chapters, then we could go to Scotiabank theater.

It had been a long time since I went to a bookstore like Chapters too. I knew I could easily loose myself in books and spend the time it will take Doni to get to Exhibition and come back. Right in the front, they had a display of all the watchmen related books. I have absolutely loved the Watchmen series since I first read it back in pune, this summer. And there are atleast 4 books related to 'Watchmen' Franchise out in the market today. I wanted to browse through them all before deciding which was the one I would want to buy. One was art of the film, one was a 'companion of the film' which explained the backstory of all the characters we see in the film. Anyone who's read the graphic novel would already know all that so I didn't find it very appealing. One was a gorgeous book of just black and white portraits of the characters of the film. Beautiful photography, but not for me. 'Watching the Watchmen' was the book I would go for!

Next, I went to the magazine rack and picked up MacLife and MAD. Finished flipping through those and went upstairs. They have really expanded their ART section. I picked up a book about drawing facial expressions for comic artists to browse through, and went over to the film department. Picked up the only copy of 'Art of Monsters vs Aliens', and sat down next to the large window to read through them. Called up Arpan to ask what he was upto and if he could make it for the movie. Lost in my world of the art of Monsters vs Aliens I didn't even realize how time flew by. Doni called me saying he was on his way back to downtown toronto with Dodi. We decided to meet up at eaton center since he wanted to buy some 'clothes' for his Interview.

He knew exactly where to find me at the huge mall - The Apple store. I was checking out Anti-Glare/matte screen covers/protectors for my ipod touch. I remember Natansh talking about it and I was really tempted, but I decided to 'save some money'. LOL. Also, Bose noise cancelling headphones were awesome! Active noise cancelling works much better than passive noise cancellation. Just that they didn't have a mic and play/pause/next/previous/volume controls like my $89 apple in-ear headphones do.

Fast forwarding through next couple of things, Doni bought himself a Jacket, we walked back to the theater, queued up to get into the IMAX hall, and enjoyed the movie with large coke and Nachos Grande.

Got to say, this was the most amazing movie-going experience I've had in a long time! Full animated feature in Imax 3D! Never seen animated characters in such detail, on such  huge screen! Movie was really fun too. I can't deny that the 3D experience added another layer of fun to it. Your milage may vary! Reese Whitherspoon portrays Susan very well. I really felt connected to the characters. Seth Rogen's B.O.B. was my favourite character! (Didn't you already guess that?) And the action really had me at the edge of my seat. I was sweating by the end. Climax was full of very unexpected moves, twists, etc. I can't wait for an awesome part two of this movie! I can definitely see these characters and their antics over and over again!

Ethical issues behind casting kids from the slum

A hollywood movie gaining widespread acclaim world over, has two kids in the (sort of) lead role who are from below poverty line background. The child actor Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail who plays smallest Salim in the movie Slumdog Millionaire and the girl Rabina (or Rubiana Ali) who plays youngest Latika are from the slums of Mumbai.

In an interview on BBC, Danny Boyle was asked the question that I had on my mind when I first heard about the kids. "Were there ethical issues with casting kids from such poor background and putting them in a hollywood movie and earning so much money at such a young age?"

Well, Danny Boyle (or someone else on their team) figured out a very unique and good way to help guide these kid's life on he right track. They've put the kids into a school and there's a trust fund set up that will activate when they finish their high school at age 16. I sure hope they stay in there and get the education and the money they deserve.

Go read this article and tell me it doesn't bring tears to your eyes.

Anoher weekend post

Just one blog post ago, I had blogged about my weekend. And its already time for my second weekend post. Just goes to remind me how infrequently I blog these days. But with the addition of a new follower, Archana, I hope I get more motivation to blog regularly.

Well, this weekend, I planned to go watch the movie, Bolt. It stars John Travolta, Mylie Cyrus, Susie Esman and Mark Walton. If you haven't already seen the trailer, (Like certain friends from India who haven't even heard about the movie before..) go check them out. My favorite characters from the movie, are Bolt, (obviously) and Rhino. The part where Bolt is a little pup is one of my favorite parts of the movie.

But wait, I think we're getting ahead of ourselves. How I actually got around to watch the movie is also a story in itself. Donnie and I had talked about the idea of going to watch the movie on Saturday. But when I called him up on Saturday, by the time we made up our mind and the plan was laid out, it was already too late. you see, we also wanted to have sushi but if we had food first, then movie, we'd not get a bus back. Okaville Transit stops running early on the weekends. So we decided to do it sunday afternoon.

I was feeling pretty tired that day, so I fell asleep after talking to Donnie. I woke up at about 11 pm. I sent a text message to Natansh telling him that we're going to go watch the movie. He said he'll come. I spent next few hours tidying things around the house, killing time with my ipod touch. And at 2:30 am, went back to bed. Sunday, I woke up early enough. Internet was still not working. So I decided to shower, and make myself something to eat. Nicole's mom was in the house, cleaning up the kitchen. I kept my cutting an apple act as mess-less as I could. Even then, the bitch had to come yell at me 'clean up your apple after you're done, yash' And as usual, I just ignored her. I say all these things about her, but its actually kinda nice having her as a roommate for certain reasons.

I called up Sumit and then sujata as I was having my banana, apple in strawberry yoghurt. Good thing I had something to eat at home because we ended up missing our bus and had to wait for nother hour for the next bus. And I would have gotten really hungry by the time we got to the sushi restaurant. Sushi was delicious as always. We got to try out some new dishes. Like Salmon rose. It looked so beautiful. Orange salmon wrapped around the filling in the shape of a rose bud. I wish I could have snapped a picture. And this time, I made sure we tipped so that they don't spit in our food the next time we go.

We got to the theater just in time to comfortably buy our theater-snacks and find ourselves good seats. While the theater showed promos of movies I'd already seen trailers for on the apple.com/trailers site, I played with my ipod touch. There's this really cool game called tangram pro which involves placing/arranging triangular shapes to form a particular pattern shown on your screen. I'm sure you've played that kind of puzzles when you were little. Indeed I put it away as soon as the movie started. Just like a good citizen must. :P

After the movie, we walked back to the bus stop, in freezing rain. We could hear little ice droplets hitting the ground, the cars in the parking lot, etc. and making a really unusual and loud noise. It felt like -9 outside and to make matters worse, I wasn't wearing my gloves. And since we had gotten wet, the Strong wind made it much, much worse. Waiting for the bus was an ordeal in itself. But I was super glad to be back home again!

Just heard an awesome song.

I have been reading the graphic novel 'Watchmen' for the last few days. And since then, a lot of things happening around me, seem to sound just like the narrative in the comic oops, graphic novel. I find myself relating to certain characters, and I feel greatly influenced by some. And the song that they used in the trailer of the Watchmen movie, by smashing pumpkins is in my head all the time. Its called 'the beginning is the end is the beginning' weird name I thought.



I used to think the lyrics went 'Sing a happy tune..' Also, the trailer doesn't have the complete song. Only parts of it..

But I looked up lyrics sites and I found out the full lyrics are actually

Send a heartbeat to
The void that cries through you
Relive the pictures that have come to pass
For now we stand alone
The world is lost and blown
And we are flesh and blood disintegrate
With no more to hate

Is it bright where you are
Have the people changed
Does it make you happy you're so strange
And in your darkest hour
I hold secrets flame
We can watch the world devoured in its pain

Delivered from the blast
The last of a line of lasts
The pale princess of a palace cracked
And now the kingdom comes
Crashing down undone
And I am a master of a nothing place
Of recoil and grace

Is it bright where you are
Have the people changed
Does it make you happy you're so strange
And in your darkest hour
I hold secrets flame
We can watch the world devoured in its pain

Time has stopped before us
The sky cannot ignore us
No one can separate us
For we are all that is left
The echo bounces off me
The shadow lost beside me
There's no more need to pretend
Cause now I can begin again

Is it bright where you are
Have the people changed
Does it make you happy you're so strange
And in your darkest hour
I hold secrets flame
We can watch the world devoured in its pain
Strange
Strange
Strange

Can you relate to the lyrics?

Taare zameen par at the worshop

Mom called me on skype again today. I told her about robbery at pranav's place. And she heard from divya that my artwork was good so she wanted to see my deviantart gallery too. It took a hell lot of time to just explain her to open firefox and type yashrg.deviantart.com in the address bar. I was SO FRUSTRATED! Then looking through my gallery, she saw the caricature of sagar, and started talking about taare zameen par.

She was talking about how the kid in the movie reminded her of sagar. Darsheel looks pretty much like sagar and just like Yuhan in the movie, Sagar has an older brother-Suraj who is much better at studies and better behaved. We had a video of sagar in the bathroom. Dancing and jumping around doing crazy things... Like Ishaan does about two times in the movie. All that being said and done, I still felt sad that mom didn't see how much I was like that. I would be dreaming away all the time, I'd do paintings of sea-creatures and underwater world. In school, I'd be looking out the window most of the time... Well, I guess she couldn't possibly know what was going on in the school with me. Plus, I didn't leave the bathroom door open when I was having a bath for people to come in and look. LOL.

I had taken my laptop to the workshop yesterday, mainly to show to vince the picture of my kitchen. I'm glad I did that, because then he got an idea of what my kitchen is like, and could better instruct me on what to do with my drawings. The other plus side was that I had the dvd of taare zameen par in the drive. So during the break, I was showing parts of the movie to others. It was good. I didn't recieve any negative reactions. I showed them the part during jame raho when he is dreaming on the breakfast table, I played the part of his math test, and also the song 'bheja kum' where all the letters come alive as little spiders and one crawls up on his neck, he smashes one on his table... They were really monumental scenes even if noone spoke hindi.

The noise level there was pretty high, and I couldn't turn up the volume of the songs high enough for the people to listen to it properly. But I think they would have liked to see the song 'mera jahan' because its all shot on the streets of mumbai. I personally liked it a lot because it reminded me of my school days. All the hawkers and vendors outside the school, where we'd spend anywhere from 50 paise to 2 rupees for a little something.... be it barf ka gola or bhel. The documentary footage that's played in the end when taare zameen par is playing was also a really really emotional part. And I think anyone who sees it will be mesmerized by the kids.

And did I mention the number of times I've seen the movie went up to 4? And it will definitely keep on increasing. for sure!

Very un-typical day

Okay, stupid corel painter X. Damn thing won't work on my OS X 10.4! I practically wasted the whole day yesterday trying to get it to work. I have even lost count of how many times I've uninstalled and reinstalled it. I only wanted to do some painting for my assignment. Yeah, painting on the computer is supposed to be less messy and fun, plus a lot faster, easier, simpler...But it wasn't fast or easy or simple, because damn software refuses to work! Hate it!

Atleast my illustrator is working fine. Computers have a tendency to just drop dead the minute you need 'em the most. But this is a mac, and I consider myself lucky. In class, I worked on both my 2d design assignments, but didn't end up finishing either. In painting, something seemed to click, and again, this week, I think this one's my best painting so far. I hope the pattern continues the next three weeks. I am actually starting to like it, and I think I will take painting next sem, even if I'm not 'REQUIRED' to.

Watched 'Are we there yet' and 'Norbit' both half decent movies. Killed some time. Oh..I don't even want to talk about the barbecue disaster today! But I still ended up having myself a decent meal. Vironica brought a whole bunch of mint. I am definitely gonna make some chutney tomorrow! Can't wait!

Why don't we pee the same color liquid we drink?

I was just really eager to write this post so I don't give a damn that my previous post is only half done and that I have so many things to fill in on since 29th march. Yesterday was another really nice experience with Katie laura and Jake. I met them at tim hortons in college and we took the 24 from the college to 'Missisauga' I believe and we walked to loomis. It was the biggest art store I have ever seen! Even bigger than the currys at Dundas in Toronto. And venus traders in pune was a 'complete stationery store' so that F.C. road store doesn't count. I did see that the canvases there were obviously cheaper than in the college bookstore. I also noticed Jake had a membership card of the store so he'd get credits every time he shopped there. Pretty cool. We then walked to 'Famous Players' the multiplex where we were gonna watch 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'. There were self service ticket vending booths here too! Select the movie, then the show, it also gave option of snacks, (and I got the nachos and coke combo) then just swipe your credit card to make the payment! Cool huh?

Today I wasn't even thinking one bit about how much I was spending. I just went with the flow. I picked up my nachos with salsa(pranav you remember nachos don't ya?) and cheese. And I was totally stumped when I saw the size of the coke glass! Damn I didn't think large would actually be 'THAT' large! Well, nothing to do about it now, we can obviously finish it if we all pitch in. hehe. And there was still a lot of time to go for our movie to start, (did I forget to mention we thought the show was gonna start at 6 but it was actually at 6:50??) so we went into another screen where 'Premonition' was playing. We were there having nachos, tolerating that piece of crap jut for the sake of it. I could even write a review about that movie right now.. but never mind. We decided to sneak out of that screen in two groups and go to the restroom, come out and then casualy walk back into the theater where TMNT was supposed to play.

The plan worked flawlessly, and we were back together without any hiccups. I was kind of scared because I thought one of the cleaners saw me going into and coming out of the restroom. But even if he did, he didn't figure it out, or he just decided to ignore it. Thank god! The movie didn't start for quite some time, there were lots of previews which made me go watch more movies! I really want to go watch meet the robinsons in stereoscopic 3D AND shrek 3. (I had to mention stereoscopic 3D merely because of a dumb discussion with mickey this afternoon in class, where he thought that when I was saying 3d for Meet the Robinsons, I meant 3D animation as in classical/flash 2D vs 3D computer animation.) So I hope ya'll learnt a new word today - stereoscopy. So when the movie did start after all those adverts, I was a little distracted or just not in the zone to grasp all the information because most of the explanation of the portal and the brothers turning into stone and him becoming immortal flew over my head.

Well, I did manage to finish the drink by the end of the movie, after all, I am the king of coke! I can just keep guzzling down coke all day! But I did have to run to the loo then and that was just where I was thinking where did all the black color go? why isn't the urine the color of the liquids we drink? Well, there you go. that's my stupid thing of the day. Now lets move on, to chapters. We were gonna walk all the way to the japanese restraunt, but since it was raining, we decided to spend some time in the bookstore. It was totally amazing! Even better than crossword in Pune! And, it had loads of animation related books and at a cheaper price than that animation roadshow thing. Man, I feel so stupid! Well, what's done is done, but from now on, I'll be coming here for buying books! Not purchasing anything today because its raining! damn the wretched weather! Its gonna go as low as -9 again later this week!