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May 27, 2005

Yet again, Tamil on All-‘Time’

[Pic – Rahman Fan Club]

Haven’t this happened to most of us ?. Everytime you listen to tutung…tutung..tutung…tutu tung..tik you feel refreshed. I’ve felt it. For me, it opens up the screens of Abirami theatre where I was transfixed watching the camera panning over a villages of Sundarapandipuram with that tutung tutung pacing behind. For someone who was already in state of sweet shock after the intial scenes of ‘Waasim Khan Kaithu’, that was a pleasant start. By then, I knew why people outside the theatre where raving about the new kid playing some ‘different’ music in the movie Roja.

The kid went on score evergreen hits like Kadhal Rojavey, Kannalanae, Pachai Killigal , Vande Matharam, Tanha Tanha and ofcourse the Zikhr to name a few. The kid flew to say a Hello to Webber and now becoming Ring lord. Not just that but also got his name on the Time magazine’s list of Best Soundtracks of All-time. Though Richard Corliss quotes the songs from Hindi version of Roja, I would prefer to believe thats the version he got to see and hence he does.

To cut the controversies, I have to say Roja is certainly not the best of soundtracks in Tamil. It’s one of the best. It’s as revolutionary as Illayaraja’s Annakilli. Roja gave the world a revelation of sorts. It gave A R Rahman to the filmdom. And it took a Mani Ratnam to find the genius in Rahman. I am profoundly happy for what Rahman and Mani Ratnam have done for tamil movies. The world [which reads Time magazine, ofcourse] would start noticing Tamil movies. Though I believe that this should have happened sometime back with the genius of Illayaraja, its better late than never.

Thanks Prabhu and SriKriz aka Rady for passing on the info real quick.
May 27, 2005

Kojam Overa Theriyala !!

Thats Simbhu and Nayanthaara in Vallavan. Looks like this poster got the film into trouble. As India Glitz reports, Simbhu must enjoying the publicity, the movie is getting even before it’s launch.

I am not certainly not in support of these baloney protests. When songs like Cheena Thaana can get into the living rooms through cable, there are no issues in children looking at Simbu biting the lips on their way to school. It’s a similar controversy that got Shankar’s Boys back to the box. While Boys was a honest try of Shankar, I am not sure of the intentions behind this poster. But such protests have become an everyday affair and there has to someone regulating these protests.

The more interesting information on Vallavan includes three heroines including Nayanthara, Sandhya and the famous Reema Sen. Adding more to the spice, Simbhu directs the movie, himself. No, I didn’t say that the title of this post was relating to this. While Manmadan was a good effort if not a great one, Simbhu should probably be looking a getting a grip on the hero dominated kollywood rather than wearing the director hat. Ramp-up Remo !! Slowdown Simbhu !!
May 25, 2005

The Other Ipod & Zencasting

God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.

That was one of my faves from an entire gamut of such levelheaded quotes as spoken by Tyler Durden aka Brad Pitt in Fight Club. Even after this being playing-in-a-loop at the back of mind I went ahead to buy an IPOD. Not exactly an IPOD. But the other IPOD. God created Apple, ITunes and IPOD for the classy dudes. For the masses he gave Windows, Media Player and Creative Zen. Creative Zen isn’t a poor man’s IPOD but indeed it’s an intelligent man’s IPOD. Yep, I may admire the professional qualities of Steve Jobs. I may re-read The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, I may have booked ICon at the local library even before it is released or I may even aspire to build a small network of Apple Mac Mini at home but I may not buy IPOD.

Why ? I hate to pay Apple 100 bucks every year when my battery dries up. $105 just to open a lid of IPOD and tuck in a mobile phone battery may prove a costly for the masses like me, especially for ones who loves to listen every single genre of songs available. While I love the IPOD wheel and have read enough of gaga over it’s UI, I felt that on the same price with an extra GB of storage, a FM radio and voice recording capabilities(which I am sure I would never use), Creative Zen Micro was a killer buy. A true replacement for those IPOD Minis . It has a battery that can be easily replaced. Infact only after I bought it I saw for myself that the batteries of Zen can be easily misplaced too. Yeah, the back lid is just not tight that even when Unni Krishnan is singing Enakke Enakka!!, in your ears, it might have fallen down on the stairs.

Creative Zen looks cool to me just because I haven’t used any other mp3 player except CD players until now. It is certainly not durable. The casing looks as though it might even break with the first fifteen days that I might return it to Best Buy to take a refund. But the user interface is nice as an IPOD. As anti-hyped, the touchpad isn’t all that bad. I got used to it before I was out of the store counter. Creative Inc known for their computer audio/video accessories have done a great job in designing Zen and it’s generation of MP3 players. It’s been born from the dis-advantages that IPOD currently has and will attract people who don’t want an IPOD. I’m just a little curious about the performance of mini drives, which is used in Zen or IPOD mini. I would feel comfortable with a flash drive because these mini drives poses risk of read/write issues and might soon end up with clusters of bad sectors. The sound is crystal clear but don’t believe if someone says Zen or IPOD only have such clear sounds. MP3 players are digital and will certainly have more or less the same frequency. It’s actually your headset/earbuds that might make the difference.

I’ve been hearing the podcasts for the last few months. So for those who religiously worship Creative’s Zen, let it be re-christened as Zencasting. And the thing about podcasting is that it simply doesn’t impress me much. Podcasts may be a hit but may not take-off as blogs, is my humble belief. This may not be a prophetic statement but may become true as Podcasts are widely understoof. I may also probably change minds once Evhead‘s Odeo is released for public. But for as of now, other than BBC stuff I am still figuring out the good Zen[Pod]casts.

I might stick with this Creative Zen until Steve decides to gift me an IPOD or he releases IPODs with replaceable batteries. This Zen unit is a lucky one. It gets to play some of the best songs ever composed. Be it Illayaraja or Rahman. Currently our Maestroji is singing the cult classic, Adi Vaadi Enn Kappa Kezhangey.

Update 26 May 2004 IST – As an anti-climax, the ZEN which was fully charged this morning, lost all it’s battery charge by evening even though I had only listened to it for two hours. I had switched it off for the rest of the time. Yep, I’m returning it for an IPOD test drive. I might probably settle with those 1GB flash drives with FM and voice recording(as said before, though I wouldn’t be using it). Best Buy, here I come.
May 24, 2005

The PST Paradox

There is some ghost on this blog. This is the nth time unintentionally a Kamal post follows a Rajini one or viceversa. On Saturday, when I was writing the Rajini post I was determined that the next post was not going to be on Kamal. Somehow the Nayakan post one sneaked in. Save the blog from the ghost. Laka Laka Laka.

Living in PST timezone has its own share of dis-advantages. The prime time on cable starts by 5:00 pm EST which is 2 PM here in Seattle. By the time I reach home at 7 pm the New Yorkers are into the second round of sleep. Hence, the cable sucks after 7PM PST. The good thing about it is that you get to see the replay of those afternoon shows. On today’s Oprah replay, Tom Cruise declared his head-over-heels love for Katie in public. It seemed like Dhanush declaring his love to his group of friends. I’ve always admired Tom for his controlled acting but today he was his true self. Un-controlled.

Steven Spielberg who was on a recorded interview to Oprah wished Tom Cruise on his love and spoke his latest flick starring Tom Cruise, War of the Worlds. They also played a lengthy teaser on the movie. Mark your calendars, War of the Worlds opens on June 29.

Sunny Deol’s new movie kicks of a huge controversy. Following the bomb blasts in two theatres of Delhi which were screening the movie, cities all over India stop screening the movie. Chennai joins the list.

The economic transformation of India since liberalisation is real, but it will be a while before the average middle class Indian tosses her Lakmé aside for a Lancome, or trades in her handmade salwar-kameez for a Ralph Lauren pantsuit. After all, why shouldn’t globalisation speak with an Indian accent?. My favorite Shashi Tharoor writing that on his Hindu Column details on Who is this middle class ?

Bhaskar Ghose writes on Poile Sengupta’s latest theatre work, Keats Was A Tuber. At first I didn’t understand the meaning of the play name. But as I read through, I nodded in acceptance. FYI, Poile Sengupta isn’t Bengali. She is from Tamil Nadu and I happy we have yet another brilliant playwright from TN.

[Pic – Dan DeLong for Seattle PI ]

That guy ?. Yeah he is probably the biggest Star Wars fan of all. Jeff Tweiten, incidentally a Blogger too, was waiting outside Seattle’s Cinerama Theatre ever since Jan 15 2005, waiting for Revenge of the Sith to release on May 19th. He was there camping for 139 days. I’ve heard my dad recollect that people were waiting for more than two days for MGR’s Adimai Penn but this one just beats them to death. George Lucas must be happy for this true fan. Thanks to Ram for the info.
May 23, 2005

Nayakan on All-‘Time’ Top 100 Movies

Bollywood is shorthand for Bombay Hollywood, seat of the largest Indian film industry. But it manufactures only about 200 of the thousand or so Indian feature films; a half-dozen regions boast production sites larger than most of the world?s national cinemas. Madras, capital of the Tamil state, is one such place, and its leader – arguably India’s top pop-film auteur – is Mani Ratnam. His movies, often dramatizing social unrest and political terrorism, churn with narrative tension and camera energy that would be the envy of Hollywood directors, if they were ever to see them. Nayakan, an early, defining work in his career, tells the Godfatherish tale of Velu, a boy who embraces a life of crime after his father is killed by the police. Velu (Kamal Hasan) has trouble juggling his family life with his life-and-death mob “family”; Ratnam has no such difficulty blending melodrama and music, violence and comedy, realism and delirium, into a two-and-a-half-hour demonstration that, when a gangster’s miseries are mounting, the most natural solution is to go singin’ in the rain. – Excerpt from Time Magazine.

Again, just like the Oscars for a tamil movie, I don’t think something is achieved when you have a Tamil movie featuring in the list of global all-time favorites. But it’s a feel good factor. One reason why I am personally happy is for Mani Ratnam’s Nayakan[needs subscription] making it to the Time’s Alltime Top 100 movies, is that despite being based on Mario Puzo’s God Father script, Nayakan had its own share of Mani Ratnam’s brilliance at throughout the movie. If you ask me to stick out a single favorite shot from the film, I may be dazzled.

Nayakan had a team that was one of the best during that decade. It had geniuses like Illayaraja, PC Sriram and the Nayakan himself.

I haven’t subscribed to Time and hence couldn’t read the entire article. Thanks Vilvanboy and Srivats for passing on the link, It made my day.