From Toy Story to Finding Nemo it was a journey through the wonder world of animation.
Now, it’s just two days left for The Incredibles to rock. The guys at Pixar are making it happen again. I’m looking forward to it, very anxiously.
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Pattu Pavadai strikes back
[Pic – chennaionline.com]I was expecting this article quite sometime back on Hindu about the Cinderella Pattu Paavaadai[silk skirt] of RMKV Silks which is THE sensation of this year’s deepavali.
Cinderella Pattu Pavadai has Cinderella’s fairy tale story twined in silk on the borders of the skirt. The latest ad with the young girl in a green Cinderella pattu pavadai is a big hit, already. Ramya had a post on this sometime back.
Young school girls are said to be crashing the gates of RMKV to have a look at the pattu pavadai. Priced around 1500-3000 bucks the orders are overwhelming and if you are planning to get one for your kid this deepavali, you might not. My colleague who wanted to get her daughter this fairytale silk skirt, found the current delivery date might be aroud 20th November. Book your orders for Pongal, now.
Did someone say fashion gets recycled ?. We are getting back to where we were before. This one is a good comeback.
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Music as a metaphor in the Morning Raga
Reading this In Conversation, this morning in Hindu, with Mahesh Dattani, the director of Morning Raga, I started to expect the film. For it promised a intact movie on a carnatic musician, played by Shabana Azmi. Most important, it had Nasser, the cinematographer was our own Rajeev Menon and edited by Shreekar Prasad. A dream team. You and me think. Here’s a little from the talk with Mahesh Dattani.
How does a convent educated Gujarati, writing and directing English plays, choose a Carnatic musician as protagonist in an English film he calls “Morning Raga”?
I’ve grown up in Bangalore. I’m more comfortable in the south Indian Kannadiga milieu. I got acquainted with Carnatic music when I learnt Bharatanatyam. These classical arts had a deep impact on me. Not that my gurus or I had any illusions about my becoming a great dancer! But I understood in some inexplicable way that when you work not just with your body and mind, but also with your spiritual self, art becomes a transformational experience.
Then eventually when I went off to rediff, I did read the Morning Raga review. I’m throughly disappointed after that. I’m still planning to take a spin to see atleast what went wrong in this dream team knowing the dream is becoming a nightmare.
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Footprints 2004 – A Runaway Success
With over 250 young aspiring film makers, television achors, news readers and all other available professions in media, the chennai version of Footprints 2004 was a roaring success, yesterday. Usually in such day-long seminars, either just one session would be the highlight or every other program is as boring as the other. But the dudes at Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication did bring in the variety at the seminar which made the whole day whiz past us in minutes.
K Balachander, who inaugrated the seminar said, did come with a written speech something our present day film makers lack. Though it was a short speech and he had to leave, he did give a good start by defining creativity and it’s spread. It would been a pleasure to listen to him, more.
Krishnan Menon from the advertising giant Ogilvy and Mather, started off the first session named Does creativity in advertising kill or build brands ? He started off with the Simon says game and did get to the crux of the issue soon. He was probably the one who stuck to the topic thoroughly. Attribute it to the industry he comes from, Krishnan, was able to get the attention of the crowds so easily. His presentation had more ads than slides which probably made it seem so lively. Who doesn’t love ads. It was with groups of such ads he distinguished between the good idea and bad idea, the strong idea and the weaker ones. Using the Hutch [Dog and The Kid] campaign, that O & M handled, he explained how a strong idea helps boost the brands. And finally, he did play a audio clip of clients abuse them in advertising through which he communicated, think before you jump. But jokes apart it was a session so gripping just like the ads.
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Vikatan Deepavali Malar 2004
Vikatan Deepavali Malar 2004 is already out. Unlike the declining standards of Ananda Vikatan, this special diwali issue rocks. It has some of the best writers writing short stories and articles for it. From Sujatha to Karunanidhi, Ashokamithran, Balakumaran, S. Ramakrishnan, Pa. Raghavan, Thamarai and whole lot of celebrity writers. The last year’s Vikatan special issue was also a big hit.
Vikatan stopped publishing Deepavali special issues 25 years back and it was last year they got it back to existence. I’ve heard stories of people saying that those days, Vikatan Deepavali special issue was a part of Diwali itself. It would rest among the new dress and the cracker lot and once they are done with the customs on diwali morning, there would be a huge fight to get hold of the special Vikatan issue and read it thoroughly. I don’t see that race today. However Vikatan, with the kind of neat publishing, nice laminated pages does bring in the look and feel of a special issue. And we know it’s worth the 100 bucks you pay for it.
Coming back to the recent standards of Vikatan, it isn’t just my view. Many other who are vikatan fanatics have been completely annoyed with Vikatan’s quality over the last few months/years. Just because the other contemporary magazines are hanging onto the kollywood girls and their gossips, Vikatan doesn’t have to barge into those segments. One of Vikatan’s latest column Hollywood/Bollywood is nothing but a space given to show off the glamorous peek into the film industries. Also their story on how Chandramukhi evolved from Rajini’s fort was completely speculation and didn’t seem to impress someone who loved Vikatan for years. Vikatan has a set of readers who love it’s style and so I think it has no neccesity to ‘adjust’ to other contemporary magazines and their fickle reporting styles.
Will write more on this special issue once I complete reading it.
kirukkal.com 