Below is a mixture of reviews edited by me along with my thoughts on the film “Blood Diamond” because I couldn’t have phrased things any better than what these reviewers already did.

I never thought I’d ever like a movie with DiCaprio in it. Not until I watched this movie and seen his brilliant performance in it. I liked Blood Diamond so much I watched on DVD 3 times in row!!! When I first heard of this film I was expecting your standard innocent Westerners trapped in war torn Africa but the movie was much more than that and much better than that too. It’s easily one of the best movies I’ve ever seen in my life and I’m not exaggerating.

Don’t be fooled by the official trailer up there. Only crappy movies get good trailers, you know.
To sum it up, Blood Diamond is a combination of an action flick, a rescue mission and political issues all woven together to make a truly captivating and heart wrenching story. Leonardo DiCaprio gives a great performance *deserving his Oscar nomation for it* as Danny Archer, a diamond smuggler who, due to certain circumstances, forcibly teams up with the villager Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) in a harsh quest to recover a rare large pink diamond buried by Vandy behind rebel lines. Both men seek the diamond for different reasons but are forced to work together.
Jennifer Connelly was also pretty great in this movie as reporter Maddy Bowen trying to uncover proof of the connection between the atrocities of conflict diamonds in war-torn Africa and the mainstream diamond industry outside of the continent.

What made this movie so moving to me is knowing that this isn’t an entirely fictional story. It’s based on the real horrors of the Sierra Leone conflict and it is also a reminder of the current conflict in those regions. The events surrounding Vandy and his family especially his son were very heart wrenching; even more to know that such events are still taking place on a daily basis in certain parts of the world. Not that we ever hear about such events on the news. Connelly had a pretty striking line when they arrived at the refugee camp: “This is what a million people looks like, although you won’t see it on CNN.”

In addition to being a great action/adventure/character flick, this movie had an important message to tell about conflict diamonds. I was glad that the movie didn’t beat us over the head with that message; but on the other hand, I feel like maybe it should have. What is it going to take for society to finally get the message and take a firm stand against such atrocities? My heart sank a little in my chest when Vandy asked Bowen “after you write about us, your country will come to help us, right?” I knew the answer before Bowen even spoke it: “probably not.”

Yes, this film has a reasonably happy ending and some resolution for all concerned. What it does not have is any fear of covering it’s subject matter. Blood Diamond is brutally honest in it’s coverage of the troubles in Africa and the Western consumer’s role in them.

The atrocities on display in this film, while only moderately graphic, are utterly harrowing. To see groups of children mutilated, families slaughtered and the remaining youngsters hered away and brainwashed into cold blooded rebel killing machines, is at the very least heartbreaking. At worst it makes you ashamed and angry of the lifestyle we all lead.

In one significant scene the film takes great pains to remind us that the word infantry literally means child soldier, and as a young boy coldly shoots the faith-filled social worker who tells us this, we are told that there is no place for hope and idealism here. This is Africa.

Blood Diamond is a movie with a message, and a conscience. It is made to tell us that bad things are happening, and not only do we largely ignore these bad things, but indirectly we contribute to them.
It concludes with hope, but then again, as I said, it’s a movie. In reality the troubles do not end when the credits role, and it makes sure we know it. It does not preach. It is not trying to necessarily make us feel guilty but director Edward Zwick wants us to feel something.

As a movie carrying the heavy weight of a dark and important subject matter on it’s shoulders Blood Diamond is a huge success.
As a story and a film set against this terrible backdrop Blood Diamond is even more of a triumph; fascinating, emotional, exciting, beautiful and communicated perfectly by it’s two outstanding male leads.

Everyone should see this film so make sure you watch it too if you haven’t yet.

p.s.:
Make sure you get it’s soundtrack by James Newton Howard. It has some amazing tracks that’ll always remind you of your favorite moments of this film.

And on an unrelated note, here is a small art update for today.

So yesterday, I was checking my blog stats and noticed that half of the visitors that are dropping by here through search engines are looking for “Paint Tool SAI”. I’ve used this awesome piece of software for about six months now so I think it’d be nice if I shared my thoughts about it for any potential future users. I’m not good with words but I hope this’ll be useful.

Paint Tool SAI is a very simple, small (6.17MB! That’s even smaller than openCANVAS!) and yet extremely effective Japanese painting software with enough customizable tools to make digital doodling and painting a fun experience. Strangely enough, it doesn’t seem to have gained as much popularity as it should have. The software is very lightweight, takes only few seconds to launch which is amazing and is extremely system friendly. I noticed that even when I’m working on A4 sized files, it never lags my computer and my brush strokes are always very consistent even with a file this huge. Before using SAI, painting in A4 size was impossible for me regardless of what software I use but now, I can do it without having to worry about my computer slowing down. Amazing, no ?

The user interface in SAI is very stylish, simple, spacious and neatly organized. All your favorite tools are within reach without facing gazillion choices of brushes under Menu>submenu option>sub option and all that hassle. When opening multiple files, every one of them is easily accessed unlike every other painting software I’ve used.

Layers in SAI don’t have that many types but when using this software, I doubt you’ll need more than your basic layer types i.e. the normal and multiply modes. What I love the most about Layer options in SAI is the ability to apply layer textures or layer fringe allowing you to add a more traditional like feel to your works. What’s even cooler is that you can create your own layer textures! Doing so requires a little understanding of the software files but once you do, it’s an easy task.

Coming to the most special part about SAI, THE BRUSHES! I’m sure no matter how much I write I won’t be doing any justice in my description of how awesome the brushes are. The brushes have a very VERY high response to pen pressure. My tablet, a Wacom Graphire4, has 512 levels of pen pressure and yet I can see a very huge response. Now imagine the kind of lines you’d get if your tablet had a higher pen pressure level, say 1024, THIS is something you really don’t want to miss. Excellent stuff. There is also the ability to add texture to your brush stroke *__* openCANVAS has this feature but It wasn’t all the impressive to me but in SAI, those textures can actually simulate the feel of real traditional brushes. Of course, you’ll have to get used to them, figure out the settings which are pretty easy to understand and know how to customize your brush tips to create the perfect strokes for your own style of drawing.

The official SAI has been released in Feb. 2008 and just recently, Systemax have launched an English version of their site so if you are interested, make sure you drop by there and visit the English SAI community to check out their translation. I’m using the unofficial translation because I find it better than the official one. And before you ask, NO!. There is no crack or serial key for this software (at least none that I know of) so don’t bother to ask me about it but feel free to google it. It was possible to reset the trial date with the beta versions but now that the official version has been released, resetting the trial is no longer possible. The only other option you have is trying the trial version and then purchase a license if you liked it. SAI is amazingly cheap compared to it’s numerous outstanding features so if you decide to buy it, trust me, it’s going to be money well spent.

SAI Related Links
» Paint Tool SAI Official Homepage - English side.
» Paint Tool SAI English community and Unofficial translation.
» Download 31 days trial version.
» Lisence purchase page.
» SAI tutorial and application guide.
» Paint Tool SAI video tutorial - Part 1 by Gimei @ deviantART.
» Paint Tool SAI video tutorial - Part 2 by Gimei @ deviantART.

You can get a cracked version from here thanks to anonymous san who kindly uploaded this for those who don’t want to support Systemax for their great efforts in making such an extraordinary painting tool.
If you download the above cracked version, I hoe you consider purchasing a license if you truly enjoyed SAI and loved it the way I do. Being poor is not an excuse since I’m one. Start saving for it and trust me you won’t regret the money spent. Where on earth do you get such an awesome painting tool for only 54 USD and with 30 new licenses per month ?

I really adore SAI and ever since discovering it, I’ve sort of abandoned every other painting software I used to paint with. SAI is my ultimate digital painting software of choice. If my time allowed, I’ll try to write some tips or mini tutorials for it sometime soon. Until then, I hope someone out there is convinced to start using this program 8D

Edit 19-08-2008:
Just so you know, because many people have been leaving me\e-mailing me tips on how to reset the trial, thank you for the tips but I won’t be needing it. I bought SAI almost 5 months ago so I’ve got no troubles with it 8D