தசாவதாரம் - Music Review

I always feel some kinda alienness in music when I hear tamil music composed by a predominantly Hindi music director. Bappi Lahari, Laxmikanth-Pyarelal, R D Burman had composed music for a few tamil movies before and they have been reasonable hits at that time. Himesh Reshammiya's music for தசாவதாரம் is not too bad an attempt.

Vaali and Vairamuthu's lyrics are effective and there is a new singer Vinith (at least I have not heard of this guy) who had sung உலக நாயகனே, probably the intro song for one of the Kamal. Vinith's voice sound really fresh but the song is average. Hariharan has tried something new with his vocal in கல்லை மட்டும் and it is very impressive. கருப்பனுக்கும் is a mediocre disco style number rendered by Shalini Singh.

As always, Kamal himself had sung 2 songs in the movie. I was almost surprised to see Kamal's name in the song முகுந்தா முகுந்தா because I heard only Sadhana Sargam's beautiful voice till almost the end of the song. I almost felt, like பத்து வேஷம், Kamal changed his voice and sang like Sadhana. Kamal was his usual self in the other song Oh Ho Sanam and this is one of the better song of the movie.

Not sure who decided on selecting the music director for such a high profile movie, I am afraid the album is not so ecstatic.

Where is our "culture" bodyguards?

I read this very sorry story in Hindustan Times and was wondering where's our culture bodyguards and why they haven't crowed foul yet on IPL cheerleaders. When Shriya's attire was inappropriate (according to some attire police), they made a meal out of it. Similar fate for Shilpa Shetty when she got kissed publicly by Richard Gere.

We have incidents on women being attacked, even though they have not provoked anyone even a bit. In such a country, why would you make these half naked girls dance in public, when our countrymen until recently are used to seeing these type of dances only in rated movies. I was wondering how comfortable it will be for parents to take their pre-teen kids to these matches.

I have no idea as to why we need to copy western culture on everything. I don't want to sound like an oldie baldie, but we have seen on numerous occasions, our cricket fans show up for any "tamasha" match in large numbers in almost every single venue even without cheerleaders, supported their teams inspite of scorching heat, poor stadium facilities including food courts and toilets.

"ஆஹா" moments in music

I recently came across this quote in Chinmayi's blog:

"Though a lot of us have grown up listening to old songs, it sometimes requires some kind of an 'aha' moment for a song to come to us, in a rush and its surprising how we suddenly perceive a certain magic in it that we had previously failed to notice. "

I think that is almost perfect explanation on how we comprehend the true feel of a song at some random moment. I have had similar moments on several songs, not just the old ones but on several recent ones that I have heard multiple times. There are also instances when you hear a tamil version of popular other language song and get "wow"d about it. "முழுமதி அவளது" by Srinivas is one such song. This is the tamil version of "Jashn-E-Bahara" sung by Javed Ali in the movie Jodhaa Akbar. Outstanding melody by Srinivas.

I have also felt that when a male singer render a female version of a popular song (and vice-versa), the transformation is most often phenomenal. I don't know if the singer gets some distinct advantage in such situations or it's truly different perception of the listener or if it is combination of both.

Couple of months back I was watching Vijay Tv's "பாடும் Office" and one of the girls sang 'இசையில் தொடங்குதம்மா' from Hey Ram (Orginally sung by A Chakraburthy). I am not sure what her musical background is, but she sang so well and outclassed everyone else in that show with that performance.

This week I was watching American Idol and one of the contestant, David Cook rendered his own version of Mariah Carey's "you will always be my baby". It sounded absolutely brilliant.

My all-time favorite in this category (male singing female number) is the one from movie "கேளடி கண்மணி" and this one is not even a regular soundtrack in the album. There is this scene where SPB sings "கற்பூர பொம்மை" for his daughter and he will only sing a few lines in that scene.... truly magical!!!

"Kublai Khan Paw Paw Chow Chow Chow" and "Hatch-chan"

If you are wondering who is "Kublai Khan Paw Paw Chow Chow Chow" and "Hatch-chan" and why they merit being in the news, here's the scoop.

Kublai Khan Paw Paw Chow Chow Chow is the popular Martha Stewart's dog who died recently (I have no idea as to why CNN.com would carry this in their homepage) due to renal failure. I can only imagine what if an Indian celebrity have a pet with this name and how our "esteemed" political parties and organizations would have staged protests.

Hatch-Chan is six-year old cat, who has his own blog (I know what you are thinking, someone actually owns the blog) that gets 50000 hits a day per this website. The cat must be busy everyday posing for the pictures to keep the blog going.

Imaginary dialog between the two:


Chow Chow: உடம்பு சரியில்லாததிலேர்ந்து வீட்டுக்குள்ளேயே பூனை மாதிரி சுத்தி சுத்தி வரவேண்டிருக்கு!


Hatch-Chan: அட நீ வேற, தேனோம் photo-க்கு pose குடுத்து குடுத்து என் வேலையே நாய் பொழப்பாயிடுத்து!!

Cookie Cutter

On one Friday morning, one of my co-worker dropped by my office and said "Hey, I am quitting in 2 weeks and I going to become a fire fighter. It's my long time dream". I didn't get it immediately. Here's a guy who is Senior Manager for one of the sales division in one of the largest company in the world, earning what most of the americans can only dream of, and he wants to drop all that in 2 weeks to pursue his passion. Mind you, fire fighters are paid well in this country, but their life is very risky and they will be out of home for at least 18 FULL days in a month.

For a person like me, who was born and brought up in a country where MOST of the people start their career by getting some job, work vigorously to move vertically and almost retire in the same company or similar job, I seriously didn't get it immediately. Some of us do chase our dreams partially, but I have seen only very few people who have pursued 2 different careers in life (not by default) and still be successful and more importantly happy.

Forget one or multiple careers, I always think about what my friend Suresh once told me "Do whatever you want, but make sure that you do things that make you happy". I guess the tough part is finding what makes you happy, right?

How easy is it to be an Indian Cricket Fan?

- Jaffer failed the whole series in Australia and continue to fail in home series and there is no talk on his performance or replacement.

- Physio says Tendulkar is not fit, but he declares himself fit, but does not show up for fielding for most part in first test and scores a duck. Guess what, he is indeed not fit and ruled out of series. He probably realized that all he needs is a few weeks rest to be ready for IPL, so played @ Chennai inspite of being not fit.

- RP singh was pathetic and not fit for first test, but played first test and performed badly, got a chance to play second test and bowled pathetically under helpful conditions.

- While RP singh is finally dropped, his place was taken by Munaf, which is even more surprising. Munaf has always either been unfit or whenever he played, his bowling was average and his fielding was always awful and have shown no signs of improvement in any area.

- Ramesh Powar in tests ahead of other spinners? Well, the less you say the better it is.

- Irfan Pathan in tests is a huge luxury and it has been proved on several occasions. We need a bowler who can bat a bit. Unfortunately Pathan looks like a batsman who cannot bowl.

- Kumble appears to be not fit either and he played in the second test too. He might play third as well since he is the captain.

- Kaif is included in the squad (huge surprise in first place) and might not get a chance before getting dropped again.

- Suresh Raina, Dinesh Karthik, Gambhir, Badrinath, Praveen Kumar, Rohit Sharma and bunch of others must be wondering what they need to do to get in to the squad.

- Modi and Bindra are busy trying to get every dollar added to the BCCI treasury, Pawar is not concerned about anything happening locally and looks either incompetent to solve issues or looks too keen to take over ICC, Vengsarkar is only busy promoting Mumbai players and not ready to accept any blame.

Meanwhile Indian fans are confused with all these questions, still trying to post mortem Ahmedabad defeat, anticipate Kanpur test and IPL and hope India wins inspite of all goof ups.

அஞ்சாதே - திரை விமர்சனம்

சமீபத்தில் அதிக எதிர்ப்பார்ப்புகளுடன் பார்த்த சில படங்களில் ஒரு படம் "அஞ்சாதே" . எதிர்பார்த்ததை விட அதிகம் impress செய்த படம் இது.

தமிழ் சினிமாக்களில் போலீஸ்காரர்கள் படம் என்றாலே, ஹீரோ வருவார், நாலு பேர் சல்யூட் அடிப்பார்கள், சட்டை கசங்காமல் எதிரிகளை பந்தாடுவார். அப்படித்தான் தன்னுடைய Inspector வாழ்க்கை இருக்கும் என்று நினைத்துக்கொண்டு நரேன் போலீஸ் ஸ்டேஷன் நுழைய, யாருமே
கண்டுக்கொள்ளாமல் இருப்பது ஒரு புதுமை, அதை விட புதுமை ஹீரோ சந்திக்கும் முதல் கேஸ் - ஒரு கட்டை பையில் ஒரு தலையை கொண்டு வரும் மனிதனும் அதை அடுத்து வரும் காட்சிகளும்.

பாண்டியராஜன் மற்றும் பிரசன்னாவின் காரெக்டர்கள் பெரிய surprise. இப்படி ஒரு வில்லன் காரெக்டருக்கு ஒத்துக்கொண்டு நடித்த பிரசன்னாவின் தைரியத்திற்கு பெரிய பாராட்டு (அந்த wig-ஐ தவிர்த்திருக்கலாம்).

படத்தில் ஆங்காங்கே வரும் கேமரா angle-கள் வித்தியாசம். குறிப்பாக, வெறும் கால்களை மட்டுமே காட்டி, கடைசியில் வில்லனின் சின்ன புத்தியை காட்டும் இடம் பிரமாதம்.

பெரிய நட்சத்திர பட்டாளம், முன்னணி/கவர்ச்சி நாயகி, அதிக செலவில் foreign பிரம்மாண்டம், ஹீரோயிசம், தாதயிசம் இப்படி எதுவும் இல்லாமல், வெறும் வேகமான திரைக்கதை, யதார்த்தமான காட்சி அமைப்பு வைத்து ஒரு நல்ல, விறுவிறுப்பான க்ரைம் ஆக்க்ஷன் படத்தை எடுத்திருக்கும் டைரக்டர் மிஷ்கின்னுக்கு ஒரு பெரிய சபாஷ்.

Don't miss it!!

RACE - Movie Review

As a kid, if you have lived in major metros in India you definitely must have experienced waiting along with other vehicles in front of railway crossing. While waiting, usually you would have played the train guessing game (either by yourself or with another friend or brother/sister if you are travelling with them). The game is to predict from which side the train would come and pass. You play this for a couple of times while waiting and after a while you wonder why you are waiting so long and you start to get frustrated about everything that happens around you like waiting, other vehicle noise etc. and the whole game becomes a huge irritation. Race is a movie that starts of well with enough promise and twist in the first half. The later half has too may twists to the original twist and you end up as a person waiting just too long in the railway crossing.

Saif Khan looks like a matured actor, Anil Kapoor looks like an old actor and Akshay Khanna looks old with no maturity and acting. Bipasha and Katrina switch between sides and at one point you get so confused that you begin to wonder who is with who. Sameera Reddy comes as a dumb assistant to Anil and she does justice to her role:-) Of course, all the three heroines have item numbers.

Technical aspects of almost all the recent movies are always good and this movie is no exception.

Inspite of all the sloppiness with the screenplay and never ending climax (in fact climax starts from second half) and lack of logic (South African police's absence, Saif joining one of the heroine in the end etc), I would still like to give some credit to the directors Abbas Mastan for their effort to come up with a different thriller movie.

The movie is actually watchable for most part if you start with no expectation.