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February 3, 2005

What’s up filmdom ?

Dreams became a nightmare. Devadhaiyai Kanden might just make it to the 50 day mark. Dhanush still has a fall back mechanism. As Selvaraghavan – Dhanush – Sonia – Yuvan – Arvind Krishna join hands(again !) for Pudhupet [not Oru Naal Oru Kanavu], this could probably be Dhanush’s ladyluck for 2005. All the best mappilla.

Cheran would probably change back his new flicks’ name from Thavamai Thavam Irundhu back to Touring Talkies. Or he may not but gets the movie rolling at Kaaraikudi.

Don’t tell me Karan Johar is directing, again. Believe me he is. I thought he might just stop with his Star World show, Koffee with Karan, where he interviews all his friends and make a lumpsum out of it. And predictably, there is Shahrukh Khan with whom Karan has a blanket call sheet. Call Shahrukh anyday for Karan Johar’s movie, Shahrukh might just come down. The news is Abishek Bachchan is also roped for the new unnamed venture. Here too, there will be a typical maa(not jaya bachchan this time too!) who will stand in a corner for a mushy mushy song with the tears just waiting to roll of from her eyes. Wow !!

Not always I love the way Sanjay Leela Bhansali yaps about his movie. Except for some sensational sequences of Devdas, I am not a big fan of Bhansali. Probably his love for music is what I expect from every filmmaker. But something tells me, Black could be Bhansali’s best, till date. I would have opted for someone except the Big B on the lead role, however. Let’s see.
February 2, 2005

A Mani Ratnam scoop or a spoof

[Click the image for a bigger version]

A friend of mine, Karthi, did forward the above pic with a subject – Mani Ratnam’s New Film, Aalayam.

I probably wanted to verify the source and then post this. Am not posting this to make a scoop out of it or to bring in a speculation. Infact, going by previous instances this isn’t the way Mani Ratnam unleashes his new movie. Because I believe the movie shooting hasn’t started yet and many a time such teaser posters get released only when post-production works are in progress.

This could be true on one reason. K Sera Sera production house’s name is there on the list. Maybe K Sera Sera is co-producing the film alongwith Madras Talkies. But be it a spoof or a scoop, am posting it just because I am happy for the way the poster is designed. He/She must have been a Mani Ratnam fan. The font and the collage of pics at the background just makes it for a Mani Ratnam flick. Just couple of small mistakes, Mani Ratnam usually makes sure that he has the crew names written in tamil when its a poster for tamil movie. Also silly statements like With an International Cast never happen on a Mani Ratnam flick banners. I am sure.

Anyone with the details on the source of this so-called-Mani-Ratnam-poster gets a warm applause in the next post.

Update 1 – Koushik, got inspired by this poster above, created one more using the same poster. Check it out here.
February 2, 2005

MSN has a new look,

MSN has a new look, from yesterday. Just incase you haven’t had a look at them. But here’s the interesting news, Gates personally clicked open the upgraded version of MSN Search. Gates also writes a letter to the msn surfers about the re-designed msn site and msn search. The re-designed msn is powered with msn news, msn desktop search and ofcourse the normal search.

MSN has also planned a heavy showdown of Ads to promote the new MSN Search. There might be an MSN Ad on the Superbowl broadcast this sunday. Interestingly, all this and more on a day when Google posted it’s sevenfold increased fourth quarter results. Looks like search arena is becoming a tougher sport.
February 1, 2005

Evam’s Barefoot in the Park

[Pic: johnnymercer.com]

Prasanna, my friend, who directed the short film Ini Bhayam Illai(which was reviewed here before), has now joined the Evam theatre group and had invited us for a special screening of the film Barefoot in the Park. The film was originally a Broadway play by Neil Simon. Evam, who have stormed into the theatre scene for a year or so in Chennai, are staging this same play in February. As a curtain raiser and a marketing move, we bloggers including Kiruba, Chandrachoodan, Chenthil and Narsi were invited for the screening of the flick Barefoot in the Park, in The Park Hotel.

Keeping other details to the fag end, here is all about what the play/movie about. Neil Simon, known for his sensibly humorous plays, scripts Barefoot in the park as a gag that happens in a small brownstone apartment of New York. What starts with the romantic musings of a newly wed couple runs into hilarious family affair and ends up barefoot in the park. This Broadway play was adapted as a movie with the same name in 1967. Robert Redford, who played the role of Mr.Paul Bratter in the movie, also starred for the same role in the play.

Jane Fonda as Mrs.Corie Bratter simply rocks. And it’s on her the movie rests upon. It is her innocence and her free spirited character that gets their family life in ruins. Those tight French kisses and romantic intonations would have made her a demi-goddess back in 1967. So romantic and hilarious when she says, “For a lawyer you are some good kisser”. Similarly, in the beginning, after five continuous days in the honeymoon suite of a hotel, the newly wed husband starts to his work. Wife Corie, walks with just a slick small shirt to the elevator where her husband boards the crowded elevator, says “Thank you, Mr. Dooley. Next time you’re in New York, just call me up”. That clueless expression on Robert Redford’s face was amazing. Yo!! We just burst out with laughter and from then on the same tempo gets maintained till the end.

As the couple’s apartment is situated on the fifth floor of an elevator less apartment, the gag is about the people coming up with lack of breath to the couple’s apartment. The telephone guy who comes up to the newly rented house, gets frustrated by the walking up five floors and says, “My name’s Harry Pepper if you ever have any trouble with line, do me a favor, don’t ask for Harry Pepper.” Corie’s mom who comes to visit her daughter newly rented apartment, literally has a stroke and replies annoyingly, “If only there was a knife shop in the apartment basement, I would have killed myself instead of climbing all these stairs”. Charles Boyer as Victor Velasco adds more flavor to the humor. The climax is of course dramticised and comical, similar to that of Michael Madhana Kamarajan. Barefoot in the park is a feel good movie and even watched nearly 38 years of it’s release it seems convincingly relevant.

I did think, before the movie, that if only I watched the movie, I may not be pushed to watch the play. I got it all wrong. Those complex sequences of stairs and the witty remarks make me curious to see how EVAM would unleash the play on stage. I am also extra curious to see the act of the heroine, Corie Bratter, for its around her the play is twined. Looks like the part would be played by a member of Girish Karnad’s theatre group.

Though I haven’t seen any of Evam’s plays till date, I have known them by their publicity which hit my office notice boards during their performance of Woody Allen‘s Death. Combined with their prime sponsors, Royal Sundaram group, they have put together a wonderful marketing effort to get back the awareness of theatre among the Chennaites. Karthik Kumar [remember the Alai Payuthey’s American mappillai] and Sunil started Evam after their course at Mudra Institute of Communications. They are probably trying to take back the theatre from the Jollna-n-Jibba clad, self-proclaimed cerebral groups and give it to the yuppie MNC guys who do nothing big than watching numerous nameless Hollywood flicks in multiplexes. That by itself is a noble virtue and I am personally interested to watch their play even if they haven’t screened the movie for us. If only they keep level-headed with this motive for a couple of years, Chennai would get the grasp of theatre and we will see more theatre groups emerging which would pump up the theatre business.

Here’s the commercial info – Barefoot in the Park is staged at Sivagami Pethachi auditorium near the TTK road on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd weekends of this month. To pick up tickets call 98842 77338.
January 30, 2005

Saarang 2005 – Images

[More here…]

Saarang 2005 which just went by had some cool moments that would be recorded in the official photographer’s camera. But here are some Saarang images that I clicked. I personally liked to click them because the pictures have an amateurish flavor as you can see. And these were clicked outside the OAT [Open Air Theatre] where the pro shows were conducted. They frisk chewing gums to cameras at the entrance of OAT and hence I didn’t want to take along my camera inside.

Have put in captions for each of the images. They were selling a photo CD of Saarang 2005 at the venue, which had images shot during all the professional shows and the crowd of Saarang. It had pics that were something like the Spirit of Saarang and was just costing 20 bucks. If I can get hold of that CD, will upload some professional show pictures taken from the terrace of the OAT, for those who missed Saarang 2005. Do let me know if you enjoyed the pics. Also will write about Prasanna’s Jazz show.

Thanks to the Google Picasa. As Google released Picasa 2, last week, I downloaded and to my suprise found it a lot better than what I had expected. So the picture page that you will be seeing is a Picasa generated page. All I did was to download the images from the camera and clicked on export to webpage. Vroooomm. It’s Done. Great software as it even digged my entire computer to bring out pictures that I was assuming to be mis-placed. Try Picasa for your PC.

What’s up filmdom ?

A Mani Ratnam scoop or a spoof

MSN has a new look,

Evam’s Barefoot in the Park

Saarang 2005 – Images