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Kollywood 2003 – Music :

a) Best Picturised Song – Ennai Konjam from Kakkha Kakkha. Splendid camera work from R.D Rajasekhar. The new style of editing called avid editing reached the audience. A clear difference between the normal editing methods and the avid editing techniques were seen. Harris Jayaraj’s Amazing tune that gives the pace. Offlate many of my collegues have started to drive car with this song singing continously in the background. Also the romance in Jyothika’s eyes, very evident of her true life.

b) Best Picturised Solo Song – Devathaiyai Kanden from Kadhal Konden and
Kadhal Vandhaal from Iyarkai. Both were pathos songs from the single male lovers. D.Kanden had amazing camera work and some freeze techniques. K.Vandhaal showed the unexplored harbour machinery and shyaam singing the song in a small boat. It also had amazing sea side visuals and nice pallavi.

c) Best Lyrics in a song – Vaali for Secret of Success (Boys) and Thamarai for all songs in Kakkha Kakkha, specifically Uyirin Uyirey and Thoodhu Varumma. Vaali was at his best in Boys. SoS had simple yet thoughtful lyrics. Thamarai, the female lyricist, certainly brings a new dimension to film music. Her lyrics have a feminine touch and is a relief to us who have been hearing to the stereotyped lyrics from male lyricists. Especially the songs in Kakkha Kakkha proved her nerves. Thoodhu Varumma is one such song. It went very unnoticed because of it’s bad picturisation.

c) Best Male Singer – Karthik for Manase Manase(April Mathathil) and Harish Raghavendar for Devathaiyai Kanden (Kadhal Konden). Great work by these youngsters.

d) Best Female Singer – Sadhana Sargam for various songs. Specially for her fabulous vocals in Iniya Nadhi from Manaselaam.

e) Best Bit song – Kanni Saami, the ayappan song from Boys. Scored by Pravin Mani, this is one song that I keep humming from the day I heard it. Good folk tune.

f) Best Ghana – It is the Madras Ghana and not the Hindi ‘Ghana’. Manmatha Rasa falls into this category and hence the clear winner. Though it had bad lyrics like the heroine calling the hero to Enna Kanakku Pannenda, it created a wave. Good job by the ‘Kannin Mani Kannin Mani’ Dheena.

e) Best Song – Uyirin Uyirey from Kakkha Kakkha. Undoutedly the best song of the year. With blasting music and soul searching lyrics, this takes over it’s contender Devathaiyai Kanden by a photo-finish. But it was badly picturised however.

f) Best Movie with good music – Boys and Dhool. Both had the good variety of music in the movie. Something that all directors wish to have in their movies. Dharani was however successful to extract the best of the best from Vidhyasagar. Though Shankar’s Boys was an honest attempt, the music wasn’t the same. Secret of Success was inspired by Eminem’s Without Me and Maro Maro had the underlying beats of Michael Jackson’s They Don’t Care About Us . However, the experimental number like Dating and the electric guitar special Girlfriend were some of the best of the year. Since it was a musical , Boys also joins the list.

g) Best BGMs – Kadhal Konden and Kakkha Kakkha, both had fabulous BGMs. Especially the encounter bgm in Kakkha Kakkha was close Mission Impossible tune. Also the theme music of Kadhal Konden was amazing. Interestingly, both are the most used ringtones in Tamil Nadu.

h) Best Music Director – Harris Jayaraj for Saami and Kakkha Kakkha. You know why.

i) Best of the Best – Illankathu Visuthey from Pithamahan. After a long time, a song that was picturised well and had the magical maestro touch. It’s a song that can stand time. Maestro Rocks!!

Some more on Kollywood music coming up !!

Kollywood 2003 :

This section of Kollywood 2003 will contain the best and worst of 2003 but with a slight difference. The categories will be different from the normal ones, more technical and more important ones. Leave your thoughts on the comments box. I will consolidate them later.

Though Anbe Sivam was released on pongal 2003, it is not considered as a movie released in 2002 because it recieved it’s censor in 2002 and hence not considered here too. Else it would have won most of these categories for the kind of class it had.

Best Media Indiblog of 2003 :

Thanks to all (punniyavaans) who voted me as the BEST MEDIA INDIBLOG OF 2003. Thanks to the Indiblogger who arranged a great event like this.

Thanks for all your wishes. I am overwhelmed.

The Making Of Virumandi:

Now that Kamal has opened up himself about the subject of Virumandi, it is evident that Virumandi is India’s voice against sentence to death. Just like how Sean Penn made us cry in Dead Man Walking, Kamal should re-create the same moving saga in Virumandi. The issue by itself is very debatable and is still unexplored enough in the filmdom.

Dead Man Walking, is on the best films I’ve seen and here is the my blogpost on the movie. I’ve been left with tears in the corners of my eyes by the time, the film finished. Given Sean Penn’s immense talent to become the character and Susan Sarandon’s verastile acting, Dead Man Walking was nothing less than a emotional miracle. Now after I have read that screenplay, I can understand the effort in making a simple screenplay into a great movie on screen. The movie completely swept me away with the clarity and the simplicity in screenplay and some amazing Hindustani type BGMs.

Kamal is always good in customizing anything to his audience. If Virumandi is about the same war against death penalty, it would be so strongly vouched for that our tamil audience will be moved by it. Be it making Doubtfire into Avvai Shanmugi or making Bob into Thenali, he has had good amount of success. There isn’t an issue with being inspired about a hollywood movie and he is to be congratulated for his efforts to bring international issues into tamil cinema.

Virumandi music is doing wonders in the box-office, re-instates the maestro that he is still the one.

Chennai Kutchery:

Chennai is very hot and very cold now. Especially after the cyclone deceived the chennaites and went off to Andra Pradesh just to kill 31 people, the weather has cooled down so much.

Marghazhi month (dec 15th – jan 14th of every year) is here and the roads are already filled with kolam and rangolis. The difference between a rangoli and a kolam is that rangoli is in color and a kolam is drawn in just white with the black background of the tar on the roads. That is a silly way of putting it. As always the marghazhi month is cold hence off late people have modernized the kolam technology. Instead of the classical practice of kolaming (sorry for the taminglish) in the early hours of morning, they are kolaming in the night itself. So if you were a latecomer from office, you would have tough time riding the bike without interrupting the kolaming ladies and the kolams, of course. However, because of this kolam culture, Chennai is decorated throughout the month. Gives you a good festive feeling. So as I wade through these kolams every morning on my way to office, I get this feeling of celebration and the morning mood is aptly set for the rest of the day.

Also there is so much happening in Chennai in marghazhi and that makes it HOT. If you are lover of performing arts, this is the place to be. From a range of music to dance and drama, it happens now and here. The Kutcheris have begun and people are busy buying the season tickets to these carnatic performances.

Last Sunday in Vani Mahal, for Aruna Sairam’s kutchery, the hall was a crowded and many of the nodding heads were teenagers and 20’s who were interested in carnatic. This is a very clear of sign that the carnatic music still has a long way to go. Aruna Sairam is rocking the scene just like the last couple years. With her little touch of masculine voice, she hits a boundary even with the toughest of raagas. Some other biggies who are talked about include O.S Arun, Sikkal Gurucharan, Nithyashree, Unni Krishnan and ofcourse my fav Sanjay Subramanian.

Jaya TV conducts performances in Chettinad Vidhyashram school and broadcasting in throughout the month. This morning it was the famous violinist T.N. Krishnan. His acquaintance with violin happened 68 years and he flies down from US like many others to perform in the sabhas of chennai. It was a sheer experience to listen to him in the morning. Vijay TV competing with Jaya in this played the performance of Chinmayi’s Meera Bhajans, this evening. After listening to Chinmayi’s voice in A R Rahman’s E20U18, this was very different and enchanting.

This evening when I was driving down the TTK road, I found that AVM Audios has arranged an audio mela in Sankara Hall. With 10% discount on all items, carnatic music section was crowded like hell and selling hot cakes. I picked up a couple of them by Sudha Raghunathan.

Connected to this Kutchery news, vintage tamil movies of carnatic greats are screened at P.S High Sec School, Mylapore. The schedule includes M.S.Subbulakshmi‘s 1941 hit flick Savithri on 23rd. Also Santha Sakkubai on 24th. When I was a kid, Santha Sakubai was screened once on the doordarshan. I ran out of the house because someone told me that it had more than 40 songs. Now, I am anticipating to watch the same movie, which is one the biggest musical hits of tamil. That is what time does to us.