kirukkal.com

Bite The Mango film festival, which concuded on 26th of last month in UK, had more than enough share of Bollywood films. Along with films like Bruce Almighty and Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, it spotlighted A R Rahman. A small documentary called The Making of Bombay Dreams also featuerd along with Mani Ratnam‘s Saathiya.

Indian cinema reaching reaching international screens is the best thing ever happened to the Indian Film industry. Moreover, a dozen hindhi films including Shantaram’s 1955 classic Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje and Shekar/Anil Kapoor’s hit flick Mr.India got nominated for the screenings. 1942 – A Love Story was one of the highest rated films in this festival.

Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now Redux (*ing Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando and Matrix fame Laurence Fishburne) was also spotlighted. Undoubtedly it is one of the extraordinary films carrying the genius of Coppola. A must see.

Cellular Hangama 😉

All the 3 GSM cellular providers (you know whom) in Chennai (excluding the govt controlled BSNL) have this funda of hidden costs to their tariff bill. With TRAI coming to rescue (!) of the mobile users in India, these guys have decided to stay put and confine to their mantra of High-Price-at-Low-Cost-and-Fool-the-Customer.

The last 3 months has had too much color and drama in the telecom circles and we are now seeing shades of dirty gray in them, now. When TRAI took over research over the hyped cellular prices and tried to regulate them, it resulted in reduction of high incoming rates to free incoming calls. From then on, these cellular companies started getting less revenue than they used to get. This resulted in them changing their tariffs every now and then. At one point, the market was a perfect competition, meaning, all the 3 companies with same Postpaid and Pre-paid tariff. The customer was then left to select whichever provider he wished too. All 3 were giving away free incoming calls but the outgoing call’s tariff changed totally. Till then cell-to-cell outgoing calls within the same provider was costing less than a rupee. I had a postpaid connection and I was charge 50 paise a minute for cell-to-cell within the same provider. But after incoming became free, all outgoing calls were made Re. 1.50.

Oh !! Here is the funda I thought. You guys advertise in bold colors as free incoming but charge 1 rupee more per call. Now that equals your revenue, which is lost in incoming-call-free scheme. Atleast during those days, myself and the receiver were sharing the costs. Now it is on the only one head. The best part in this whole hungama of TRAI price limitations, these guys are getting more profited. But we customers (read as poor foolish customers), think that the rates have really come down and use the mobile more. Result, Mobile phone bills for thousands of bucks. Moreover, many new PFCs (Poor Foolish Customers) are jumping into this cellular bandwagon. So even as many more people joining the cellular club, these companies are not ready to reduce their profit margins. And by lobbying with other competitors they can keep their prices fixed to bring the customer to a fix. So what is the use of talking perfect competition market, TRAI, Globalization, Mobile Phone era etc.

Meanwhile, while these private cellular guys are tampering the market, BSNL increased its price list by 50%. It was under the assumption that since more people would move to mobile phones, their revenue would be reduced. As a double whopper effect, finally it is the goody-goody customer who got crushed between the much-hyped TRAI intervention. A similar issue is happening in the Cable TV CAS issue. The dispute between Cable TV Operators and Private Channels has enlarged so much and it is now on the customer’s head. I know the final outcome. It will be nothing but DUMP the price on the customer for he has no other option of leading a life without TV. Even the gods cannot save us now. Already they are being played football in Ayodhya. Who else can?

Jayalalitha’s regime has been bold enough to oppose the strikes by the goverment workers belonging to various departments. But her goverment is now criticized for taking a tough stand over the tamil cinema industry. Raising the rent for outdoor shooting in tamil nadu it has made the tamil cine indutry go bonkers.

Afterall, the current position of the tamil cine industry is in doldrums with producers waging a virtual war on high-priced heroes and skyrocketing production costs, this has become a yet another stumbling block. The goverment does has its rationale for the hike in rent and it is valid. But who else except the goverment can help this.

Save this sinking ship.

Shankar’s Boys website is now up and running. Designed by newenmedia, it is full of rich flash graphics. Yet we have a lot of scope to improve the quality of these movie websites. See Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon website designed by IndiaFM.

Shankar’s Boys music will be out tomorrow (Saturday, 28th June ) to set the city on fire. It is the most expected album of the year. AR Rahman’s fans including me are already queued outside Music World in Spencer Plaza to snatch their first privileged copies. There has been no mention where the music release function would be. I would like to personally watch the music unraveled. Boys music samples are already out on the net and a song called Secret of success is rocking its way. There has been numerous reviews already posted by AR Rahman fans and everyone hopes a paradigm shift in Rahman’s music and also a trendsetter. You too…pick a copy of original CD of Shankar’s Boys. End Piracy. Stop!!

Suraj Barjatya’s Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon is released today. It’s been 4 years since Rajsri’s last movie Hum Sath Sath Hain released. Suraj’s version is that this movie will no more have the same tone of Hum Aapke Hain Koun but will sound more contemporary. The music is already topping the charts and Anu Malik gets a good break by this film. Hope he forgets his copycat days and come back original. Chali Aayee rendered by Chitra and KK is the topper but I personally like Sanjana…I Love you song by Chitra and Sunidhi Chauhan. It is the fastest song ever in Suraj Barjatya’s film. Looks like it is a film of mistaken identities in a love triangle. Kareena Kapoor, Hritik Roshan and Abishek Bachchan are all praying for a hit with this movie. Kareena in an interview ” I have only two best friends now. God and Suraj Barjatya”.

The punidts are skeptical about MPKDH because of the false hype created by Ram Gopal Verma’s Bhoot that only horror movies sells. I am sure Suraj is all set to change these imaginary mindsets. Suraj himself is the biggest film lover of all. He is someone who only watched movies before he became a director. Once he remarked, ” The only thing I did to become a director is watch movies. I watched as many movies as I can in the dark crowded cinema theatres in Bombay. I doesn’t matter if a movie is good to watch or not. I watched all movies. Good, Bad and Ugly. Only this has shown me how to make movies which people like”. And he did. My friend senthil used to say during HAHK days “There is no one else left in Delhi who hasn’t watched Hum Aapke Hain Koun. Everybody has watched more than twice. I don’t know why the movie is still running.” That is the magic created by Suraj Barjatya. Hope MPKDH repeats it.

Jim Carrey has sent all his critics home by his master entertaining performance in Bruce Almighty. His setback came from the sober movies like The Truman show and Man on the Moon. Critics wrote him off that he could no more be the master entertainer of Hollywood. Bruce Almighty, still not released in India, is hitting the Box Office in Hollywood. The story line could be very familiar for Indian audience. Bruce (Jim Carrey), who is a media guy, gets too depressed and wishes for the powers of Almighty (God) to get his life back on track. God (Morgan Freeman) comes in face-2-face with him and grants him those wishes. The rest must be as expected. After reading the movie reviews, I am tempted to watch it as soon as it hits the Indian theatres. Morgan Freeman, my most favorite Hollywood actor adds value to this film with this simple yet gripping performance. That’s the reason why this movie has kindled my interests.