Now I’m no #twitcher but when there are reports of a #Hoopoe just down the road I’ve got to try my luck.
What a bird..! 😲😎👍✅
These guys usually hang out in southern #Europe and occasionally appear in the south of #England causing a good deal of excitement.
But this one is in #Combee, #CountyDown, #NorthernIreland 😳

#nature #NaturePhotography #wildlife #bird #birdphotography #birds #rare #rarity #lifer #twitching #birding #exotic

#AmazingWorld
#ArtOfEasterEggs

Hennig Brand, who discovered phosphorus in 1669, found it while boiling down gallons of urine to try and make gold.

When movies get really stupid …

I’m watching this Tamil movie at the moment where this guy moves into a new house, doesn’t lock his room, has his housemate enter his room in the middle of the night, take car keys from his bedside to go to another house which has all its doors open in the middle of the night, enters the house and kills a woman and so on …

Do people really exist who have no suspicions at all of strangers and will leave their room door open if they share a house with somebody and they’ve just met the guy? I find it really hard to believe …

The movie goes on to have even more unbelievable stuff happen in quick succession and I’ll probably just watch it anyway to see where all the insanity leads but I find this one really hard to believe already 😛

#Movies #Plot #SuspensionOfDisbelief

I am James Davis Nicoll, reviewer, essayist, and part time cautionary tale. In addition to my own site and tor dot com, my work has appeared at Publishers Weekly, Romantic Times, and Interzone. Between 2001 and 2014, I was a first reader for the Science Fiction Book Club.

Links and more details in comments. This sort of issue is why my blog is called More Words, Deeper Hole.

#introduction #sciencefiction #reviews #bookstodon

@Rycaut Enjoy! When you watch them, would be interested to hear what you think 🙂

Some of them will require a lot of suspension of belief and I’m not sure that anybody has that much of patience — I just end up yelling at the TV but I still watch them 😛

@Rycaut I think you’re hitting the Achilles heel of Indian movies with those genres 😛 There are a few heist movies I can think of, but all of them fall short on plot because at some point or other you have to suspend belief if you want to keep on watching … Or, they are a copy/re-imagining of a Hollywood movie — sometimes I watch those just to compare/contrast. The “Dhoom” series is probably one of the best examples here for all of the above in one way or another …

Not quite a heist movie, but “Thaanaa Serndha Koottam” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6237966/) is a good one in the con-man genre that you might like.

But if you want a brilliantly crafted crime/cat-and-mouse kind of story, then you can’t go wrong with “Drishyam” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3417422) and the sequel. I linked to the original Malayalam version, but it’s so good that it’s been re-made in Tamil, Hindi, and Telugu and I’ve watched all of those versions 🙂

There have been a few good time travel movies but the rest of the SF genre is generally not very well represented on the Indian side. The most famous SF movie that I can think of (off the top of my head) is “Koi… Mil Gaya” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0254481) but if I recall correctly, it was a mishmash copy of “ET” with the standard dose of romance thrown in and the characters being adults, or something like that …

You can argue that most Indian cinema is fantasy in some way, but they do do brilliant historical/fantasy movies. For example, if you haven’t watched “Bahubali” you might want to …

I have “RRR” in my to-watch pile but I keep putting it off for fear that all the expectations will be for nothing. Great cast though. So I guess I should watch it at some point, but I keep adding to my to-watch Indian pile and at like 2.5 hours generally, it does take longer to get through all of them 😛

@Rycaut I think some people just want to forget and move on … but if we don’t remember, will we learn anything from it? 🙂

Plus, I wouldn’t be surprised if at least some of the actors are against any sort of masking (on screen) since they might think that they won’t be noticed. But this is just speculation and not backed by any facts …

For some of the Indian movies, they do show photos during the filming process at the end and I see that at least some of the people are masked, (or chin-masked 😛) but since I haven’t seen much similar photos on the Hollywood side, not sure how that went …

Incidentally, I’m not Indian but I do love Indian movies since there is so much to choose from — each region has their own feel/flavour and it adds a ton of variety (and different viewpoints). If you are looking for anything particular, let me know. I love talking movies all day, everyday 😛

@Rycaut I did see that and had forgotten about it — thanks for the reminder 🙂

The only quibble I have is that that episode was about the pandemic but the rest of the show had nothing about it. Whereas “All Rise” had a similar Zoom-based episode (if I recall correctly) but they also incorporated masking and ongoing pandemic related stuff into the rest of the season …

But it’s been a few years and so my memory is hazy on the details now about both shows 🙂

My wife pointed out something a couple of days ago that I hadn’t actually noticed myself — that we’ve seen a number of Indian movies and TV shows that dealt with the pandemic, but that there were hardly any shows from the west that incorporated the pandemic into their story.

It’s almost as if the pandemic does not exist in the fictional worlds of western movies/TV 😛

In fact, the only show I can think of where I remember the pandemic being dealt with extensively was “All Rise” … and there was a movie called “7 Days” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14494586) but it had an Indian director and Indian cast (but the movie was in English) and so I think it only counts as half a point 🙂

And that was since the pandemic began!

Compared to that, just in the last week I’ve seen at least 2 - 3 Indian movies which centered around the pandemic and wasn’t just referring to it as a passing thing.

I just find the contrast interesting …

#Pandemic #Movies #Reflections

My first attempt at #Mosstodon

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#Photography
#ThickTrunkTuesday

This rainy night scene was based on a 1937 photograph of New York City.

See it here: https://mark-tisdale.pixels.com/featured/empire-state-building-1937-mark-tisdale.html?product=art-print

#DigitalArt #Painting #MastoArt #NYC #NewYork #Manhattan #ArtMatters #Rain #Night #MarkOnArt

#ThickTrunkTuesday
#Trees
#Photography
This tree is known as "Árvore grande", or Big Tree. Was planted in 1856 by the Viscount of Alijó.
#Portugal
Species is Platanus hybrida (planetree)

Ogopogo

2023 03 29-30 day 279-280 of doing art every day for a year (mostly – I took sick days off).  

I followed a Tatyworks tutorial, but went a wee bit rogue.

For more info, including seeing the time lapse, follow this link: https://lmashton.com/ogopogo/

#ArtMatters #AYearForArt #Procreate #DigitalArt #WomensArt #ArtistsOnMastodon
A very crooked and bent tree wi…

Moons and Meteors

2023 03 28 day 278 of doing art every day for a year (mostly – I took sick days off).  

This is loosely based on a Joel Create tutorial, but in my head, the dinosaurs were having a bad day, back when Earth had a few other much, much, much closer planets hanging around. Or maybe this is a planet in the Alpha Centauri system. Either way, I’ve got it covered.

For more info, including seeing the time lapse, follow this link: https://lmashton.com/moons-and-meteors/

#ArtMatters #AYearForArt #Procreate #DigitalArt #WomensArt #ArtistsOnMastodon
Earth-like terrain in the foreg…

Red Field

2023 03 22, 26-27 day 272, 276-277 of doing art every day for a year (mostly – I took sick days off).  

No tutorials. Just me and Procreate and my trusty Apple Pencil.

For more info, including seeing the time lapse, follow this link: https://lmashton.com/red-field/

#ArtMatters #AYearForArt #Procreate #DigitalArt #WomensArt #ArtistsOnMastodon
A digital painting. A field fil…

Stylized Owl

2023 03 24-25 day 274-275 of doing art every day for a year (mostly – I took sick days off).  

I followed a Tatyworks tutorial, but went rogue. Of course. I’m not entirely happy with it, but whatever. It’s done.

For more info, including seeing the time lapse, follow this link: https://lmashton.com/stylized-owl/

#ArtMatters #AYearForArt #Procreate #DigitalArt #WomensArt #ArtistsOnMastodon
An owl in greens and blues with…

Iridescence

2023 03 23 day 273 of doing art every day for a year (mostly – I took sick days off).  

Today, it’s a Joel Create tutorial. It was fun! A bit tedious in some respects since there’s a fair bit of repetition in the steps, but it was all necessary to get this effect.

For more info, including seeing the time lapse, follow this link: https://lmashton.com/iridescence/

#ArtMatters #AYearForArt #Procreate #DigitalArt #WomensArt #ArtistsOnMastodon
A fish, black everywhere except…