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November 22, 2004

Kamal Hassan’s Mumbai Express

[Pic : hindu.com]

After the comical Vasool Raja MBBS, it’s Kamal’s turn to care for a movie for himself. And this formula of one-mass-movie-one-class-movie has been continuing for some time now[except for Panchathanthiram following PKS]. Expectedly, Kamal Hassan pens the story/screenplay and packs bag to board Mumbai Xpress.

Mumbai Express is said to be a family entertainer and will be directed by the veteran Singeetham Sreeenivasa Rao. As remarked by Kamal himself Singeetham and KamalHassan, though generations apart by age, have a great chemistry between them that makes this duo an interesting combo. As Kamal is tight-lipped about the story line, it makes me speculate that the movie could be of the genre of Anbe Sivam where the classy theme was mixed in propotion with the comedy.

When the bi-lingual Mumbai Xpress was announced publicly on his birthday, there weren’t many details to decipher the feel of the movie. Now with Kamal Hassan engaging Manisha Koirala on the lead role and having illayaraja to tune it’s getting a lot clearer. The tamil train will include Nasser, Ramesh Aravind and Pasupathi while the Hindi express will have Om Puri and Mahesh Manjirekar.

Here’s the link to Hindu’s article on this. BTW, who comes to your mind after you see this new makeover of Kamal Hassan ? It reminds me of Bally Sagoo.

Update – Mumbai Xpress Flash teaser here at Kumudam explains all. Kamalhassan sits on the top of a Dharavi hut and talks about the democracy in Mumbai city. Also say his nick name is Mumbai Xpress, original name is Avinashi. Another interesting character, a horse is named as Baazigar. Must Watch.

Another gallery of Mumbai Xpress at India Glitz.
November 21, 2004

Manmadhan – Serious Serial Killing

[Pic : galatta.com]

Simbhu requests a shoulder to cry, talks a mile long amateurish dialogue about his girlfriend, who ran away with someone and when the cricket fame Mandira Bedi consoles him, catches her by her hips and over her shoulder winks at the camera. You know by then what manmadhan is going to be. Don’t you?

Taking off as a modern day adaptation of Sigappu Rojakkal, manmadhan is all about serial killing girls who are unfaithful to their husbands/boy friends. While this fact hasn’t been established clearly through dialogues, the screenplay makes you to assume this. Similar to its predecessor serial killing thrillers, the protagonist/anti-hero has a purpose. That purpose as expected is a lengthy flashback. By a chance most of the girls whom our hero meets are diseased by infidelity. Contradictory to real life, these girls fall for the hero in the first pass he makes at them. This disease, again as per the kollywood grammar doesn’t affect the heroine.

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November 21, 2004

IIT Madras – Lighting up a life

On Friday evening, the stars shined brighter over the sky just to make up for the rain that poured few weeks back. Two weeks back on a Friday, it poured like hell and the music show named Light up a life, organized by the IIT Madras Atma charity wing was postponed. This week it happened at the Open Air Theatre of IIT. And it happened with full josh.

Gangai Amaran‘s musical evening started exactly on the shceduled time. That’s something which happens only for some of the carnatic kutcheris in Chennai. And we know how Gangai Amaran can get the pulse of the crowd so fast. He did. From 7 in the evening till 10:30 it was sheer music. Music of all kinds Bhaghavathar, Kannadasan, A R Rahman, Vidyasagar, Ghazal, Hindi and Telugu film music. What reverberated even after the show were Illayaraja’s numbers that occupied the main theme of the show.

SPB Charan has the yesteryear SPB’s voice. Remember the number Then Sindhuthey Vaanam, Slightly feminine, very SPB. SPB Charan has that exact voice. And fortunately, like his dad he could dwell in any octave so profoundly. Some evergreen numbers that amazed me were Sankarabharanam and Sorgam Madhuviley. Added to it was his rendering to Manmadha Rasa. Seemed like SPBs version of the song, fantastic variation to Shankar Mahadevan’s original rendering.

The final medley lasted for more than 15 minutes where SPB Charan, Venkat Prabhu and the whole singing group were catching up on each other like a competition. The song that started all was Cheena Thaana and finally ended with Chinna Pasanga Nanga [Aruvadai Naal]. And as expected at the end, Gangai Amaran finished it with the Malar Polla Manam Vendum song that’s broadcasted everyday morning in Vijay TV.

IBM who was the sponsor of the show gave away goodies to the audience. Software as goodies? The last thing you would expect from a musical show. Yeah, they gave away a whole bunch of CDs that consisted of a enterprise edition of DB2 ver 8.1 [one that was looking to download from the net], Lotus domino and Web Sphere studio’s evaluation edition. Of course, the brochures that they gave away were finally flying high, as rockets. We know our guys, right.
November 20, 2004

My blog has been reached

My blog has been reached in record numbers for the past two days. Looks like the huge crowd is coming from this Google search of Dhanush-Aishwarya marriage.

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November 19, 2004

Have shifted to Total Choice

Have shifted to Total Choice Hosting service from Bloghosts. Bloghosts are closing for business and hence I had to switch to a new one. The guys at bloghosts were amazing and I didn’t want to actually leave them.

TCH guys gave away a great deal for bloghosts customers of a free upgrade. So currently I am on a plan that gives more bandwidth and ample storage space. These guys also have great support. What more do I need to ask for.

Last evening, I switched the nameservers and so for sometime you must have been seeing older entries because my new site was backed up few days back itself. I have brought back the older enteries from the copies I had. The comments of the last four posts are missing. I know the previous post did have a good debate going on. In a day or two I will back up all the comments and put them as they were posted.

Kamal Hassan’s Mumbai Express

Manmadhan – Serious Serial Killing

IIT Madras – Lighting up a life

My blog has been reached

Have shifted to Total Choice