Tarsem Singh is best known for his directorial debut The Cell starring Jennifer Lopez. Though the movie was at its core, a suspense thriller, it was remembered for its twisted visuals which represented the mind of a serial killer. I was intrigued to hear that Tarsem’s next film The Fall would be released in 2008.

It seemed that nobody knew about this movie and it was incredibly difficult to find, but I knew I had to see it after reading Roger Ebert’s review where he stated:

“Tarsem’s The Fall is a mad folly, an extravagant visual orgy, a free-fall from reality into uncharted realms. Surely it is one of the wildest indulgences a director has ever granted himself.”

and called it:

“…a movie that you might want to see for no other reason than because it exists. There will never be another like it.”

Strictly speaking, there is a plot but its purpose is to facilitate magnificent visuals. The movie opens with a a movie stuntman named Roy who wishes to kill himself and who enlists a young girl named Alexandria to help him do the job. He slowly gains her trust by telling her a story involving fantastical characters and exotic locations.

Now when I heard that no CG effects were used in the film, I was stunned. There is a scene where birds fly out of a man’s mouth as he is killed, and another where a man is shot with hundreds of arrows and dies lying atop them. In yet another, masked warriors swarm across a dizzying and complex stair structure.

If you’re an arthound like me, you’ll want to see this movie simply for this visual feast.

Tarsem’s personal story is also very interesting. He first came to LA to study film making against his father’s wishes and eventually became a top commercial and music video director. However, he had always wanted to create a visually impressive film and so he began working on what would eventually become The Fall. 28 countries and four years later, his work was finished, debuting in 2006 at the Toronto International Film Festival.

It takes a lot of guts to self-finance such an offbeat fantasy movie. Thank God there are visionary directors like Tarsem who’ll take some potent shrooms, give two middle fingers to the man and follow their own artistic vision…

(images: the fall official site)

Today Google’s homepage sported a different look, a combination of the familiar Google logo and two paintings by Surrealist painter René Magritte.

The paintings, Golconda and The Son of Man are simple yet thought provoking and were there to celebrate the Belgian master’s birthday.

It’s cool to know that there will be a short term spike in interest in Magritte because of the homepage’s graphic, which is essentially the world’s most valuable advertising space. Could it be there are art lovers among the geeks at the ‘plex?!

Here are a few more of Magritte’s creepy/cool paintings:

(more…)

I am addicted to ted.com, a site which has to be one of the most valuable on the Internet. The Technology Entertainment and Design (TED) Conferences gather together the brightest and most fascinating minds in one place, resulting in an outpouring of thought provoking lectures.

Jonathan Harris, a luminary in his field, delivers one such talk and speaks on how he combines art and computer science to understand the human story.

His first creation entitled We Feel Fine, is a program which scans blogposts for the phrases “I am feeling” or “I feel” and then takes these sentences, and assigns them a color based on the phrase’s emotion. This creates a larger snapshot of the internet’s mood which can be explored in greater detail. (more…)

I love that old saying: “always remember you are unique, just like everyone else.”

There are 6 billion+ people on the planet and we’d like to tell ourselves that in an ocean of humanity we each have individual styles, tastes and personalities.

Nope.

Psychologists have identified broad personality types that almost everyone fits into. Novelists and mythologists recognize archetypes that are common to almost all cultures. Fashion, political leanings, and countless other facets of life can be reduced in part to a herd instinct that makes you gravitate toward or repel away from what you think you are –which for most humans is determined by by genetics and other people’s thoughts. (more…)

Artist: Rishloo
Song: Freaks and Animals
Album: Eidolon

Ever since A Perfect Circle broke up, I’ve been on the lookout for a band that that combined elements of hard rock and progressive rock with heavy effects and melody. Tool, while very different from APC, ventures into artistic realms largely unexplored by mainstream hard rock, and it was a major plus that the two bands shared a vocalist, but it still wasn’t enough….

Lightweights such as 10 Years and Evans Blue emerged, but it wasn’t until I stumbled upon the Seattle based Rishloo, that I felt I had found something closer to the mark.

Rishloo has a great amalgamation of styles and techniques: tempo changes, vamping, and subtle atmospherics which all set the ‘artsy’ tone. In fact, the criticism most often leveled at the the band is their similarity in sound to Tool and APC. (more…)