just 2 years late…. 
Category Archives: General
Rishi B&W & Color
50mm 1/50 ISO 2500 -2EV
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nWeM
Nikon D90!!
Worlds First DSLR with 720p 24fps video!!
I just pre-ordered it from Amazon – the specs just look too juicy… its gonna be the hottest camera this holiday season.. so call ur camera shop and get on the preorder list…!
Sample Video
• File format AVI (Motion-JPEG)
• Image size (pixels) 1280 x 720; 24 fps
• Compression: Motion-JPEG Audio Mono
Picky eater from R on Vimeo.
Nikon D700!
Update [1 July 08]: As predicted everywhere Nikon did announce the D700.
DP Review has the full details and hands on preview here.
Highlights:
- Full Frame Sensor (FX)
- Uses same chip used in Nikon’s flagship model Nikon D3 ($5,000)!
- 5fps speed with 52 point AF Sensor.
- MSRP $2,999 (I suspect $2,799 streetprice) (D300 is $1699) [Adorama taking preorders already!]
- Available this month
And in typical Nikon fashion (the reason Nikon Rocks!) – it released firmware to update older D300 to include some of D700s new features! Which company does that? Not Apple, Not Canon – infact they delibrately LOCK features to protect their productline (Microsoft surpisingly released firmware to update Zune1 to some features of Zune2).
Now that I know what Nikon has up its FX sleeve, I am gonna update my trust old Nikon D70 at last. It has given me 4 good years, and served really well. I am moving not to D700, but to D300 – at $1600ish its a bargain. I can put the $1000 saved into some good wideangle glass.
June 18: After many many busted rumors of D90, D10… this one seems legit. Leaked pictures from a print factory was out in the wild today – Nikon forums are buzzing with anticipation.
Whats not to like? A dream combo – D300 internals in a full frame (FX) format…. I have one hand in my wallet already – this is what we have been waiting for! Please be under $2k!! 2k 2k 2k! (chinese websites have it pegged at $2995, ken rockwell has it at $3299)
R-I-P Sydney Pollack
Actor/Director Sydney Pollack dies of cancer at 73. He is one of the rare director-slash-actor who excelled in both fields. ‘Micheal Clayton’ & ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ shows his acting skills, while ‘Tootsie’ (1982) and ‘They Shoot Horses, don’t they’ (1969) shows his finesse behind the camera.
Apple is full of Air
A counter mockumercial.
The Half Life of Timofey Berezin
A fantastic film from a first time director Scott Burns (who wrote the screenplay for Bourne Ultimatum). Its a taut thriller peppered with funny poignant moments and some great acting / great writing – a winning combination.
Film starts with an accident at a stealth nuclear plant in USSR. It starts very slow as we don’t know what to expect or where it goes. So first 25mins is meandering. Instead of dealing with the widespread calamity (think Chernobyl) of the nuclear plan situation, it deals with one man’s problems with it (Similar to M.Night’s Signs - where a worldwide alien infestation becomes one single person’s problem). His journey takes him to Moscow where he mets a street-smart crook, who has a similar Damocles sword hanging over his head. This is where the movie picks pace, as they both try to figure out a mutually beneficial outcome.
All principle characters are deep and well itched out – no cardboard characters here. Even tho it was a low budget film, it was gorgeously shot in East Europe with very authentic production design. The film crew passed themselves off as BBC TV crew to gain access to sensitive nuclear facilities in Russia! – I hope it doesn’t give similar ideas to Al Jazeera TV crew
Unfortunately, the movie did have a very short shelf life – it never made it to US theaters (no major stars) but it did debut in HBO as "PU-239".
4/5
Rest in Peace – Writer Sujatha
Time Stops at NY GrandCentral
’24′ in ’94
Oh the irony…
overskyped
eBay forgets its own auction fundamentals and gets burnt. Seller agrees eBay overpaid…. a LOTT!
I wonder if they used their own "Buyer Protection Plan" for $9.99 ..hmmm. Maybe they can file a complain using these steps.
Movie Script Search
Ever wanted to read the actual scripts of your fav movies?
Option1: You can buy actual bound scripts from eBay ($15)
Option2: Buy shooting script books (Little Miss Sunshine: Shooting Script)
Option3: Wander around the net looking for those scripts.
I usually use, option 3 (except for little gems like ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ – which bought the script book). There are some great sites which give them away free. But most of the times you need to check all of them to find the one you want.
Enter Google Custom Search. So I made a Google Co-op custom search and fed around 50+ script websites into it. Now it does all the leg work for me. Presenting…
Movie Script Search (http://www.snipurl.com/scriptsearch)
Sample Search: Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind
Hope its useful to someone… let me know if I missed any sites.
Full Length Movie in YouTube
The first feature-length film has debuted on YouTube, watch the cult fav indie movie Four Eyed Monster (2005) right inside the browser:
Here is an interesting interview with the makers of this movie.
Google 411s
I’ve been using FREE-411 for the directory listing services, it seems Google has jumped into the Free Directory listing service (1-800-GOOG-411).
Google 411: 1-800-466-4411 (1800 GOOG 411) – free connect, no ads
Tellme 411: 1-800-555-8355 (1800 555 TELL) – ads
Free 411 : 1-800-373-3411 (1800 FREE 411) – no free connect, 10 sec ads
Check my old post for other phone based Free (useful) Services
Tintin coming to Silver Screen
And none other than Steven Spielberg is bringing Tintin to life!
We donno if its an animated film or live action or a mix of both, but after decades of delays it finally got greenlit at Dreamworks. Having grown up on these comics, I have read and re-read all Tintin comics multiple times, and still laugh at the crude, but spot on, French Translations.
Custom WorldCup Calendar
After searching a while for timezone specific Calendars for the upcoming WorldCup 2007, I found many shared calendars, but none for my specific timezone (Pacific Standard Time). So I edited an existing calendar to various timezones, and shared it here. Thanks to ‘rajeshblue’ for the original calendar.
Link to Willow TV’s schedule – it automatically detects your timezone to show the list.
Click only your timezone button -
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YouBooks
Following Amazon Look Inside and Google Books, 2 of the biggest book publishers HarperCollins and RandomHouse, who uptil now resist this idea, are putting up their books online – free…
HarperCollins: ‘Browse Inside’ is the digital experience of flipping through the pages of a book to get a sense of it. Ultimately, each book in the HarperCollins catalog will have the Browse Inside link. Until then, this page will present noteworthy books as they become available with Browse Inside digital pages for you.
Random House: The ability to search and read actual pages from all of these books is just a click away. Have a favorite book? Then search for your favorite character, sample some pages, buy it, or add it to your own web site!
As more and more of their target audience are favoring online videos, social networks and videogames – publishers are scrambling to catch their eyeballs, even if it means giving away the book for free..!
Update: Just for kicks I searched Google Books for my name… and got a hit! – for an old book for which I was a consulting editor…
(Boo)scars
Some observations of yesterday’s Oscar Nite. It was more or less predictable this time.
Travesty:
- The Departed* leads the list with 3 tragedies, ‘Best Picture’?! Absolute shame* , what? for a gangster B Flick? Whats wrong with ultapowerful ‘Babel’?! – even more revolting is ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’, that was unforgivable. Martin Scorsese should get an Oscar – but not for this movie! Its just a consolation prize after all. He didn’t get the Best Director nod for mindblowing ‘Taxi Driver’ or ‘The Goodfellas’.. or even the pathbreaking ‘Mean Streets’, and he got Best Director for a remake?! What does this say to his older herculean efforts – “What you made before was crap, but now you made a remake – here is an Oscar?!” – Very encouraging indeed. I would not be surprised if they come shopping around Kollywood for inspiration for next years Oscar.
* Why do I feel so strong against ‘The Departed’- while you love it so much (many of friends loved it) – coz I’ve seen the raw original ‘Infernal Affairs’ on which it was based on – and everyone who saw IA first – hated The Departed.
Minor Tragedies:
- I wished Half Nelson guy won the best Actor award – recent trend in Best Actor categories seem to go for people ‘imitating’ a real person (Jamie Foxx got for playing Ray Charles (2005), Philip Seymour Hoffman got Oscar for playing Trueman Capote (2006)) So this time Whittaker got for imitating Idi Amin. But Oscar should go to actors creating characters, like Denzel Washington for ‘Training Day’, not for someone talking and walking like a live person. But still, Whittaker is a great actor – so he has earned it.
- So much of Jack Nicholson and so little of Ellen Degeneres. I wonder why the camera was so focused on Jack Nicholson? Ellen Degeneres was invisible – tho I love her wit, they should have got Jon Stewart again.
Happy Endings:
- ‘Life of Others’ the touching German film got the ultimate award – wooho! Luckily super boring ‘Water lost!
- Micheal Ardnt got the Oscar he deserved for the witty and original comedy ‘Little Miss Sunshine’
- Absolutely fantastic Shadow Play recreating ‘Happy Feet, ‘Little Miss Sunshine’, ‘The Departed’ and even ‘Snakes on the Plane’ – great effort.
- Al Go Go Gore!