குசேலன் - பசுபதி, மீனா, நயன்தாரா மற்றும் பலர் நடித்துல்ல ரஜினியின் புதியப் படம். கடந்த 14ம் தேதி அபிராமி அரங்கில் பார்த்தேன் - ஏன் போனேன் என்றாகிவிட்டது. பி.வாசு போன்றோரு சிறந்த இயக்குனர் இப்படி ஒரு சுமாரான படத்தை அதுவும் மலையாலத்தில் வந்த ”கதபறயும் போல்” என்ற நல்ல கதையை இப்படி எடுத்துள்ளார் என்பது மிகுந்த ஏமாற்றம்.

படம் ஏமாற்றம் என்பதை காட்டும் விதமாக அபிராமியில் கீழ்த்தளத்தில் ஒருவர் கூடயில்லை. வெளிவந்த சில நாட்களேயான  ரஜினியின் புதிய படம் என்பதை நம்பவே முடியவேயில்லை.

• படத்தில் ஒருவர்க்கூடக் தங்களின் கதாபத்திரங்களோடு ஒட்டவேயில்லை
• பசுபதி படம் முழுவதும் எதையோ யோசனைச் செய்துக்கொண்டேயிருக்கிறார், அவர் பேசும் காட்சியில்கூட அப்படித்தான். ஏன் இதில் நடிக்க சம்மதிதோம் என்றோ?
• இசை பிரகாஷ் - ஒரு பாடல்கூட நினைவிலில்லை. பேரின்ப பேச்சுக்காரன் பாடல்கூட வெயில் படத்தின்வாடை தான் அடிக்கிறது
• ரஜினி நடித்திருக்கும் அசோக் குமார் கதாபத்திரத்திற்குக் கடைசி காட்சி தவிர வேறு ஒரு காட்சிகூடயில்லை. பாடல் காட்சிகள்கூட முந்தியப் படங்களின் தழுவல் -  புதியதாக எதுயும் யோசிக்க முடியவில்லை என்பது வேட்கம்.
• முழுப் படமும் ரஜினியின் சுய விளம்பரம். இதைப் பார்க்க ஒரு தொலைக்காட்சியில் ரஜினியின் முழுநீள பேட்டியே போதும்.

நானும் என் சிறு வயதில் ரஜினியின் ரசிகன்தான். ஆனால், குசேலன் திகட்டுகிறது. 

படம் இப்படி என்றால் அபிராமி அரங்கம் இதைவிட மோசம். வெளியில் நன்றாகயிருந்தாலும் உள்ளே சென்றவுடன் ஒரு பத்து வருடத்திற்கு முன்பிருந்த  திரையரங்குகளை சந்தேகமில்லாமல் நினைவுபடுத்துகிறது - அவ்வளவு பழசு.

While returning from the USA in my flight I saw this movie "The Bank Job". The Bank Job is supposed to be a true life story of a bank robbery that took place in London in 1971. The robbery was allegedly plotted by UK's secret police to cover up a prominent member of British Royal Family. It involved thieves digging a tunnel below a shop into a near-by bank, get into its vault and rob it. After finding millions of pounds in the vault they also discover lot of dirty secrets - and realize why the secret police plotted them into this. They use the mud uncovered to negotiate for getting their safe passage. In the true life it is claimed none of the robbers were arrested due to their safe passage given by the government.

A good movie that is enjoyable and also well taken. A must see if you like this "Genre" of movies.

After spending few hours in San Jose Tech Museum I took the local VTA bus 180 to travel to the Great way mall. I was not sure on the direction of the bus to take, their call centre was unhelpful answering my query, then I asked one of the bus driver who guided me to take the bus going in the"Fremont BART" direction. After Seattle Bay Area seems to have a decent public transport system, which made me like this US city a bit. There is nothing exceptional about the mall other than it is big and you get all designer stuffs here.

To kill time I went to Century Cinemas there to watch "Hellboy II" - why Hellboy, because there was no other movie I would have liked. The movie's story is completely fictitious and unbelievable, but the graphics and effects are superb.

I was in San Jose area and had the whole day to spend before my return flight (Jet Airways from SFO to BOM) in the evening. So I started the day with my friend dropping me in San Jose Tech Museum.

First I went to see the IMAX movie "The Alps" which had breath taking views and an emotional story - an expert climber had been wanting to climb the "Eiger" mountain in the Alps which had killed his father 40 years back.

Then I went to see the exhibits, which included a Silicon IC (Chip) manufacturing, Gene therapy, inventions, solar energy and many more. It is a must see museum for today's students.

I wish we had something like this in India - may be in Bangalore Indian IT giants can take a clue from their Silicon Valley counterparts to fund one. What impressed me was the web page creation kit they have - in every exhibit you can insert your bar coded ticket to get a photograph of yourself and at the end you can post all of them into your own custom web page, cool!

I was in our US office today and at the end of the day I had few hours to kill and a few Mbps of Internet pipe. So I made the best use - watch some videos in Hulu.com. For those of you who are outside USA, Hulu is promoted by NBC and News Corp media houses, that has only legal videos and tons of it - including popular TV shows like "The Simpsons" & "The Office". These are supported by naturally advertisements.

While browsing I came across this movie "Casino Royale (1967)" which was said to be a spoof on the original James Bond movie. I didn't know this was a real movie, I assumed it to be a short fun clip but it turned out to be a 2 hour full movie. This is an all-star 1967 spoof of Ian Fleming's 007. David Niven comes as the aging Sir James Bond, called out of retirement to take on the organized threat of SMERSH. After watching the movie which was fun I learned about its creation - which involved 5 Directors,  6 James Bonds and one of the James Bonds' Peter Sellers leaving in between.

Note: Hulu I guess is accessible only in North America due to geographical limits of its copyright reach.

The next movie I watched on flight was Vikram's Bheema. This movie got delayed for over 3 years & in the period Vikram didn't act in any other movie. The story was usual and very ordinary. It is about a gangster and gang wars - we have seen enough of this in Tamil movies. The only difference is that everyone gets killed in the climax - Hero, Heroine, both the Gang Leaders (Prakash Raj, Raghuvaran) and Thailavasal Vijay. If you can please skip watching this movie, a low-point in Vikram and Director N. Linguswamy's careers.

On my Jet Airways flight from Mumbai to SFO I saw this movie 10,000 BC. It is a fictitious story of how a Hero from a small tribe fights against a large civilization (resembling Egypt Pyramid days). After a sustained chase he wins over them, get his people and his love released.

The settings, costume, fighting's have been taken well. At times in the movie you feel a little bored and the story is overall unbelievable.

Though I purchased this DVD a year ago (at a steep price @ Rs.499)  I didn't get the time to watch it till now. Today being a Sunday and free from any work luckily I had the time to watch the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" made by Former Vice President Al Gore. I didn't know Al Gore was such a powerful speaker, he was amazing on stage - I have noted down few presentation tips from his speech. He seems to have come out as a more powerful person after his dramatic hair-splitting loss of the US Presidency to George W Bush in 2000.

The movie is brief and runs only for about 90 minutes and it is completely on a presentation given by Al Gore with clippings in between. Since enough has been said about this movie and global warming, all I will say - this is a very compelling movie for the cause of reducing our effects on environment. I pledge to start doing my small baby steps on this from today.

The hugely anticipated release of Kamal Hasan's mega budget movie - Dasavathaaram got released yesterday after many delays. Apart from the inherent delays due to the complexity of producing the movie, there were many court cases against the movie and the producer V.Ravichandran had to even change his film production company's name from OSCAR to AASCAR due to a legal notice from Hollywood (Economic Times news yesterday) in the last few days.

Kamal stars in 10 roles in the movie. The movie (details here) is released in almost all theatres in the city (and in the state) and in all the shows. Adding to this Government has also allowed few extra shows at 9AM, etc. , even then when I checked with few theatres I was told the movie is full for next 15 days. Luckily my wife got two tickets for today (second day of the movie) 11:25AM show at INOX City Centre. Show started 10-15 late as the earlier show got delayed, the movie is a long one nearly 3 hours with a brief 5 minute intermission. There was a huge queue to even get into the theatre

The story line of the movie is very simple and nothing exceptional - just a routine action chase film. The first half of the movie was boring and very long, the intermission came only after 2 hours. Kamal has done the story, screenplay and dialogue, so in his signature style there are few atheist touches - the  13th Century "Nambi" story possibly hurting a bit of religious sentiments. The second half was more interesting, especially where all the characters converge into the single climax moment. Lot of hard work seems to have gone into making of the movie - in the direction, acting, makeup, stunts, planning, etc. which has to appreciated greatly. Tamil movie industry has been elevated several steps with this movie - no doubts on that. The story and music could have been better. Movie is all about Kamal, with only two other characters having some role - Asin and M S Baskar. Kamal has roped in Jayaprada for a role in a Tamil Movie that too a song after a long time. Mallika Sherawat doing a song sequence and few fight scenes.

The ten roles Kamal dons are:

1. Rangaraja Nambi - 13th Century Vaishnavaite
2. Govind Ramasamy -the "Hero", a scientist
3. Christian Fletcher - Villain (Ex-CIA Agent)
4. Balaram Naidu - The funny CBI officer with nice Telugu Accent
5. George Bush - American President (surprising why Kamal wanted to do this role, compared to other roles not very impressive)
6. Avtar Singh - A Punjabi singer
7. Shinghen Narahasi - Japan Marshal arts master (Impressive fighting scenes)
8. Krishnaveni - Iyengar Great grandmother (Excellent in the makeup)
9. Vincent Poovaraagan - Social Activist (nice black skin makeup)
10. Kalifullah Khan - The 7 Feet Tall Role (An antitode to the Aboorva Sagatharagal shorter Kamal)

Will I recommend the movie, "Yes" to watch a brilliant cinema and appreciate the hard work. Do you need to rush to see the movie - No Need!.

Yesterday I took my son and his cousins to this movie - "Ghatothkach". As Sathyam Cinemas website was down I used their door delivery facility for getting the tickets which was very convenient and you had to pay only Rs.75 extra for the service.

In Mahabharat epic Ghatothkach is the son of Bheema (Pandavas). Ghatothkach inherits immense strength from his father and wonderful magic powers which he uses for good. With this one line story from the epic and inspired by the 1957 live action film Mayabazar, Ghatothkach movie gives a clean entertainment for kids. The movie is directed by legendary director Mr.Singeetam Srinivasa Rao.

My kid loved the scenes where Ghatothkach and his pet elephant utters the magic words "Ambilica Bambulica".  Having seen the Tamil Mayabaazar movie and the song "Kalyana Samayel Saatham" (Same video clip in Telugu here) I expected the scene in the movie to be more grand and entertaining, but it was very brief here. The movie ends kind of suddenly before you expect the end. There is nothing for grown-ups in the movie other than the superb animation and music. My wife slept through the 90 minutes film. Good time pass for kids in the summer.

I had a good laugh now by watching this video clip of a recent CSI episode that carried a dialog "create a GUI Interface in Visual Basic to track the IP address". I love "Visual Basic" and it was good to hear it getting prime time media attention!

நேற்று விடுமுறை, எங்கே போவது என்று யோசனை செய்ததில்  சுட்டெரிகக்கும் கோடை வெயில் பயமுறுத்தியது. குளிர்ந்த திரையரங்கம் தான் சரி என்று முடிவு செய்து, இணையத்தில் தேடியதில் ”சத்தியம்” திரையரங்கத்தில் ”சந்தோஷ் சுப்ரமண்யம்” படத்திருக்கு  சிட்டு கிடைத்தது. எவ்வளவு தேடியும் “அறை எண் 305” மற்றும் “யாரடி நீ மோகினி”க்கு இடம் கிடைக்கவில்லை. இது ஒரு வகையில் சந்தோஷமாக இருந்தது, ஒரு சில வருடங்கள் முன்பு வரை தியேட்டர் தொழிலே அழிந்துவிடும் என்ற நிலையிலிருந்து இது ஒரு நல்ல வளாச்சி. எதனால் என்று எனக்கு சரியாக சொல்ல தெரியவில்லை - அரசாங்க வரி சலுகையாகயிருக்காலம், திருட்டு விசிடிக்கு எதிரான போலிஸ் வேட்டையாகயிருக்காலம். எனக்கு தோன்றுவது என்னவோ மக்களிடம் இப்பொழுதிருக்கும் பணப்புழக்கம் (Disposable income) மற்றும் ஒரே இடத்திலுள்ள பல சிறு திரையரங்குகள் (Multiplexes) வளர்ச்சி தான் முக்கிய காரணங்களாக.

எது எப்படியோ ஜெயம் ரவியின்  ”சந்தோஷ் சுப்ரமண்யம்” படத்திற்கு  வருவோம். படத்தைப் பற்றி எதுவுமே தொரியாமல், எந்த எதிர்ப்பார்பும் இல்லாமல்  போனதால் ஏமாற்றமில்லை. அடிதடியில்லை, அசிங்கமான மொழிகள் இல்லை, ஆபாசம் இல்லை அதனால் குடும்பத்தொடு செல்லலாம். பாடல்கள் மோசமில்லை ஆனால் சுமார், தனியாக நகைச்சுவையென்று எதுவுமில்லை. அப்பா மகன் இடையே நடக்கும் நல்ல உணர்ச்சிவசமான கதை என்றாலும் அதிகப்படியான சினிமாதனமில்லாமல் எடுத்திருக்கிறார் இயக்குனர், வசனங்களும் குறைவான எதார்தமானவையாக இருந்தது.  குறிப்பாக ரவி-பிரகாஷ்ராஜ் பேசும் கடைசிக்காட்சி அழகு.

இந்திய கிரிக்கேட் விரர் ”சடகோபன் ரமேஷ்” இதில் ரவிக்கு அண்ணவாக வருகிறார் - அவரின் முதல் படவாய்ப்பு என்று நினைக்கிறேன்.

படம் பார்த்துவிட்டு இணையத்தில் தேடியதில் தெரிய வந்தது; 

• ஆந்திராவில் சக்கைப் போடு போட்ட தெலுங்குப் படம் பொம்மரிலு. சித்தார்த், ஜெனிலியா, பிரகாஷ்ராஜ் தெலுங்கில் நடித்திருக்கிறார்கள். அந்தப் படத்தின் தமிழ்  ரீமேக் தான் சந்தோஷ் சுப்ரமணியம் என்று. தெலுங்கில் சித்தார்த் நடித்த இடத்தில் ஜெயம்ரவி என்பது மட்டுமே மாற்றம்.
• படத்தின் இயக்குனர் ராஜா மற்றும் நடித்துல்ல ஜெயம் ரவி இருவரும் தமிழில் பிரபலமான எடிட்டர் மோகன் அவர்களின் மகன்கள்

On my way back from USA, I saw this movie "Juno". I suppose this to be a hit movie b'cos in every store I went to in last 1 week in Seattle, I kept seeing tons of DVDs of this movie. It is starred by Ellen Page as a 16 year old Teen, who gets pregnant and gives away the baby for adoption. The story is about what happens during her pregnancy - how supportive her parents were on this and how the couple who are adopting the baby gets divorced before the baby's arrival. I will not rate it as a great/must see types, but certainly worth to see if someone lends you the DVD. 

I saw this documentary (Original German dubbed to English) on my Lufthansa flight (Frankfurt to Seattle) last week - imagine they having only this worthwhile to watch. Overall Lufthansa hardly had a dozen movie and absolutely no comedy TV Shows in their in-flight entertainment - it is one of the things I don't like in Lufthansa. And they don't offer a hygiene kit (toothpaste, socks, perfume) either individually (or) even have it in the rest rooms. Lufthansa, please charge one or two dollars more and offer a decent hygiene kit - with airport security and restrictions on carrying liquids and paste it is difficult for us to bring it ourselves.

OK, enough of my airline ranting, coming back to the documentary. It is a retro comedy that talks about gender differences - a mixer of biology lessons and a love story line of two couples. Acted by Benno Furmann and Jessica Schwarz. Fun to watch especially how couples fall in love, fall out and then fall back in love. Nice to watch on an airplanes while killing the time.

Footnote: Native speakers of Non-English languages, pardon my ignorance and dumb description here. When I had to type Furmann's name with the non-English U character with a dash on top, I went to Windows Character Map application to copy it. That's when I saw there are 6 different variations of U, 5 of them having a symbol on top (Tilde, Dash, Half Moon, Circle, Double quotes) and sixth one having a hook on bottom. Interesting, isn't it.

I just now saw this movie on a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Seattle - where I am going for MVP/RD Summit. The movie is about August Rush (played by Freddie Highmore) an orphan who loves Music more than food and runs out in search of his parents. His parents (played by Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys) are a sheltered cellist and a charismatic guitarist who get separated by accident after a single night of love and living in search of each other for 11 years. The mother herself never knew she had a boy born alive. The story is about how this boy becomes a child music prodigy performing his own composition in New York Central Park music festival and gets united with his parents at the end. The movie has some Bollywood/Kollywood like elements like the boy running into bad guys (played by Robin Williams) and always falling back into good guys. A nice to see Movie with fine background music.  

On my flight from India to US two weeks back, I watched Chak De! in Jet Airways In-Flight Entertainment. Irony is that I have the DVD of the movie purchased and lying idle in my house for months now.

The movie is a great attempt and a much-needed one to highlight the neglect of all other sports in India other than Cricket that too on Women Hockey. Other than track games and recently tennis, women sports have been for long least appreciated in the country. This movie where SRK acts in the role of a wrongly corruption tainted coach who desperately fights in getting the girls ready and there by clean his records. Very well done movie, must see.

In the USA, RV means Recreational Vehicle which basically is a motor home where you live for brief periods during vacation.

I saw the movie "RV" with my wife about a month or two back, in TV. This movie acted by Robin Williams (Bob Munro) is about Bob hiring a RV to take the family on vacation and he is not familiar with using RV and gets into lot of funny situations. Not a great movie, but certainly a clean fun movie that can be watched with family & kids.

Yesterday I saw "The Brave One". The story is simple - A Radioshow artist Erica Bain (played by Jodie Foster) and her boyfriend are attacked by mobs in New York Central Park with the boyfriend getting killed. Erica recovers and tries to get her life back, feel unsecure and gets a gun illegally for self-protection. She then goes on to doing few killings of bad guys and finally takes revenge on the killers of her boyfriend. The story line reminded me two Tamil Movies  (Superstart Rajnikanth in Naan Maahan Illai & Naan Sigappu Manithan) released around 1984/1985. In "The Brave One"  Terrence Howard plays a role of Police Detective Mercer which reminds the same role played by Director K.Bhagyaraj. 

Y.Gee.Mahendra's UAA has released a new tamil play (drama) called "சுதேசி ஐயர்" (Sudeshi Iyer). The first show happened yesterday in Bharat Kalachar and today there was shows in Rani Seethai Hall. Seeing the banner near Duraiswamy subway yesterday, I went for the third show of the play today with my family. It was advertised as "சிரிப்போ சிரிப்பு, புதுமையோ புதுமை”, but my expectation was limited due to previous experiences with plays.

Fortunately, it turned out to be true, the play was certainly hilarious and enjoyable. Worth seeing. The story was not much, a 70 year old Swadeshi type Father wants to teach his family the illness of deteriorating value system in the materialistic world now. He takes them in a time machine to 1945 and the family gets to experience the world and value system in 1945, gets to see Mahatma Gandhi and they realize their mistakes. All this is told in a very hilarious and filled with jokes. My 4-1/2 year old son and my 75 year dad both enjoyed the play, that I guess speaks for wide audience satisfied by the play.

இரண்டு வாரங்களுக்கு முன் பொங்கல் விடுமுறையில் இந்தப் படத்தைப் சத்யம் திரையரங்கத்தில் பார்த்தேன். இந்தப் படத்தைப் பற்றி ஒரே வரியில் சொல்வதானால் இப்படி சொல்லலாம்:

“அதிக பொருட்செலவில் அழகான ஒளிபதிவில் முழுவதும் மலேசியா நாட்டில் எடுக்கப்பட்டுள்ள மிகச் சுமாரானப் படம்”. 

ரஜினி நடித்த பழையப் பில்லா படத்தை நீங்கள் ஏற்கனவே பார்த்திருந்தால் தயவு செய்து இந்தப் படத்தைப் பார்க்காமல் இருந்து உங்கள் பணத்தை மிட்சம் செய்யலாம். இயக்குனர் விஷ்ணுவரதன் ஒன்றைக்கூட மாற்றவில்லை - சுத்த ஈ அடிச்சான் காப்பி.

நான் கொடுத்தக் காசுக்கு ஒரே ஆறுதல் - கறுப்பு உடையில் நயன்தாரா அழகாக வந்து போகிறார், சண்டை காட்சிகளில் வேகமாக செய்து அசத்துகிறார்.  எவ்வளவு யோசித்தாலும் இதைத் தவிர வேறு ஒன்றும்  ஞாபகம் வரவில்லை.

Having bought the DVD several months back, I managed to watch the movie "Guru" staring Abhishek Bachchan yesterday. The story was widely rumoured to be based on Reliance Dhirubhai Ambani's life. Abhishek definitely has done a superb performance in the movie coming as the ambitious businessman. Though Aishwarya Rai comes throughout the movie, she has very little role and leaves no impact.

The first half of the movie, where Gurukant Desai raises to fame fast was well taken, but the second half resembles more a routine Hindi Movie with a fight (not physical) and the Hero winning at the end. Overall, if you remove the Reliance Ambani connection from your mind, this is a very ordinary movie - Director Mani Rathnam could have done better.

நேற்று பக்ரித் - அலுவலகம் விடுமுறை.  இரண்டு நாட்களுக்கு முன்பே இணையத்தில் பார்த்ததில் பிர்லா மற்றும் அழகிய தமிழ்மகன் போன்ற ஏந்த படத்திற்கும்  இடம் கிடைக்காதால்,  "கண்ணாமூச்சி ஏனடா" படத்திற்கு முன்பதிவு செய்து நேற்று போனோம்.

படத்தில் கதை என்று எதுவும் இல்லை. அடிதடி, கொலை, கவர்ச்சி என்று எல்லா மசாலா சமாசாரங்களைத் தவிர்த்து குடும்பத்தோடு பார்க்க கூடிய ஓரு  முழுநீள நகைச்சுவை படத்தை கொடுத்துள்ளார் இயக்குனர் பிரியா.  படத்தில் பெரியாதாக பேசும்படி எதுவும் இல்லையென்றாலும் படத்தைப் பார்க்காலம்.        

I have watched few Hindi movies, main reason being I understand little of the language. Though I can read and write Hindi (since I was in a CBSE school where it was compulsory till 8th standard), strangely I cannot understand the language much.

Last week in NDTV, I saw the coverage of a new movie produced by Sanjay Dutt - "Dus Kahaniyaan". Somehow the idea of 10 different short stories made into one single movie interested me, especially the part "Shabana Azmi" playing a south indian grandmother. So today we went to the movie in Sathyam Cinemas "Season" theatre. Before I say about the movie I liked Satyam's online booking which includes facility to order snacks and softdrinks as well (these are delivered to your seat during interval).

The movie was certainly a different experience, with each director doing their best to set the character, highlight the background and tell the story all in 15 minutes. If you a regular movie goer, don't miss this movie. I saw a good review from Times of India about the movie, which reflects pretty much what I had to say and has said it better.

BTW, at few instances I did ask my wife to help me in understanding of the dialogues