Tamil Padam - An uniquely cliched story

One of the movies I've been looking forward in 2010 released and I should say it definitely met my expectations, if not exceeded. Making a spoof isn't a difficult task but entertaining people with a spoof is quite a work. During my coll days, we did a spoof of the movie 'Arul'(Can I call that a spoof) and nobody even gave a smile and the judges were hoping(/praying) that we finish it much ahead of the scheduled 10 min slot !!

To understand the nuances of 'Tamizh Padam'(TP) you must have been a movie buff who has watched quite a lot of Tamil blockbusters from the 90s. The movie kick starts with a take on Simbhu. And after that no one is spared from the Tamil industry. From Rajni, Kamal, A R Rahman to Vikram, Vijay, Raghuvaran, Ramarajan, TP leaves no one. The first half runs just over an hour and its a complete interlink of scenes from Thalapathy, Baasha, Ghajini, Run and believe me the spoof of every scene was just bang on.

Some of the highlights of the movie:
1. First half as i said a laugh riot. Each and every scene is a treat to watch.

2. The killing sequence of 'Delhi' Ganesh using the technique of Aboorva Sagotharagal was just amazing. The body language of Shiva is just irreplaceable. Shiva tries a 'Aboorva Sagotharargal' Kamal and uses a marble to kill 'Delhi' Ganesh only to find that his target gets missed each time. And after trying for more than 5 times he goes to 'Delhi' Ganesh and says "enna sir. unaku oru interestey ila. yean ne aadite iruka. oru edathula nillu sir. miss aaite iruku paaru"..

3. The 'Pachcha' song and 'O Maha Zeeya' song are definitely a perfect Tamil movie number. Dont forget to note Shiva's reaction when he sings 'Lalaaku Dol Tabi ma' in the 'O Maha Zeeya' song.

4. The scene where he meets the heroines father and challenges him that he would marry his daughter only after becoming a multi-millionaire. After this dialogue, the heroine's dad asks his servant to bring a cup of coffee. Followed by A song sequence where Shiva becomes a millionaire in 2 mins and comes back to the Heroine's house in a BMW and says "ipo naan unna vida kodeesvaran". The servant brings the coffee and the heroine's dad says "coffee kondu varathukulla epadi da ivan periya aala aanan"

5. The Bharathanatyam sequence by Shiva is yet another highlight. Watch out for the scene and the manner in which this scene ends. 2 words "JUST AWESOME"

Having said all these, there are so many scenes where I had great laugh. Be it the 'Mouna Ragam', 'Run', 'Anniyan' spoof it was an entertaining 2.5 hrs. On the whole, it's a different experience after having seen decades of cliched Tamil movies. The second half of the movie is a lil slow, but I would say its worth it. After all, its a different attempt and Shiva proves to be a revelation.

4 stars out of 5 for TP and a must watch..

Aayirathil Oruvan - Aayirathil Oru Padam

With two and a half years of effort by the whole crew of AO it all comes down to this. A movie that had a concept that could've taken the whole industry by a storm and could've easily been the "movie of a lifetime" marred by profane dialogues mostly towards woman, horrible scenes tat sometimes makes you feel "why the hell I'm watching this movie", unbearable background score, graphics work that makes it look like a cartoon movie, a completely lost polt at the end and finally after the 3.5 hr so-called "epic" you think how the censor board cleared this movie for release!!

Here's the story:
A group of archeologists headed by Reema Sen with Andrea in the team head to a dense forest in Vietnam where the Cholas supposedly escaped during the war, hid there and made their last footprint. Karthi joins the team to help them. To reach the place they had to cross thru some 7 traps(or should i call Crap). And at the end of the first half, as you can expect, just Reema, Andrea and Karthi get into the place and then they stare at the world of Black Magic ... Tadaan.. !! Interval..

The trio get into the world of Cholas.. Yes .. Literally.. The Cholas still live in that same place and they do have a King. And that is Parthiban.. and what an entry for Parthiban.. Parthiban climbs down the chariot and while he walks down he walks only on the blood of his own people.. everytime he climbs down, 4-5 heads get chopped and he walks on the blood spilled out of it. and then he goes near a woman and she shows her breast and presses it and blood oozes out of it.. I am not exaggerating that's wat is portrayed.. ok..back to the movie.. so these 3 enter the world of 'dark' cholas and they're about to be punished when suddenly Reema uses her black magic power and tells the Cholas that she is a Chola Messenger and come a long way just to tell that war is over and Cholas can get back to their place.. Listening to this everyone in the Cholan empire give her a warm welcome like asking her to urinate standing !!

Meanwhile there is flashback. Reema is a Pandia descendent and has come to get a God's idol that the Cholas robbed from the Pandias.So she dances with parthiban, has sex with him and gets to see the idol and by this time you would know that Karthi is the actual messenger. and then there is a confusing climax where there is a war between the Indian Army and the Cholas !! I think Selvaraghavan forgot that we've got Indian AirForce to drop bombs from the sky. They go along with fighting against the Cholas and capture everyone including the Cholan Queen. And Cholan queen is made to dance to 'apadi podu' song and is urinated by the army .. Seeing this Parthiban and all his people get into water and die.. Karthi saves one kid of the Cholan dynasty and you get "Cholan payanam thodarum" and the credits..

Don't ask me what I wrote in the last para, "enakum oru mayirum puriyala da dei"..
Reema is hot but the vulgarity is too much that you can't withstand it and worse if you are with the family you would've to leave the theatre midway to prove that you are good guy.! Selva can claim that for the first time in the history of cinema more than 1,00,00,000 heads have been beheaded and 10,00,000 liters of blood has been used and there are more beep sounds to censor the bad words than the original dialgoues ! The second half is full of loopholes. why is Reema not using the black magic power to fight against them, what the hell is Andrea for in the movie, why the hell is the movie titled 'aayirathil oruvan' but you better forget all these and go home and take rest to get back to normal.


The stunt scenes were completely copied from 300, Gladiator but lets not compare, after all he has given such a wonderful movie for all of us to see. I hope this movie fails bigtime in the BO so that we don't see anymore of this kind..

1 star out of 10 for this movie just for the effort that thousand people who have put in for the movie. Refrain from watching this movie.Especially children, women and those with a faint-heart

Vinnaithaandi Varuvaya - Music Review

After having waited for more than a month and a half for this album and at times frustrated for not getting the album as promised on Dec 18th, the moment finally came down to listen to VTV.. Here's a lil review of mine on VTV. This movie is at the top of my "most expected movies for 2010"(Followed closely by Goa and Tamil Padam)

1. O Manna Penne
Sung by Benny, this song is surely a 'top-of-the chart' material. Interesting beats, superb lyrics by Thamarai and beautifully crooned by Benny.. The Malayali lyrics in between make it unique. The album opens up with this wonderful number and you can't wait to listen to other songs.. Just can't get my mind out of the chorus 'O Manna Penne' and the last stanza where benny sings "podiyan".. My Rank : 1

2. Anbil Avan
A decent number by Chinmayi and Devan.. The natasvaram bit after the first stanza is simply superb and the fast lines in between stanzas makes it more interesting. A Not-so-great song but you'll definitely love it if you keep listening to this song. My Rank: 3

3. Vinnaithaandi Varuvaya

My favorite singer Karthik is back to rock with ARR but this time for a wrong song. A very slow number that makes you switch over to the next track soon.. Just 3 min song but it's sooooo lengthy.. Probably the song might go well with the movie, but definitely not a great number.. As i said, this is a song that you would love to skip.. My Rank: 6

4. Hosanna
The 'leaked' song.. The leaked version and this one is a lil different with ARR using so many instruments at the background. But amazing lyrics by Thamarai yet again. Never knew so many

tamil words sound so good.. Great rendition by Vijay Prakash and rap by Blaaze.. This is definitely "the" song that is gonna be played on all FM Stations for the next couple of months..
The rap part especially by Blaaze couldn't have gelled with the song better.. My Rank: 2

5. Kannukul Kannil
A song that sounded similar to "Karu karu" atleast for the beats when i heard for the first time. Sung by Naresh Iyer this is the only fast number in the entire album.. Great percussion and the final few seconds is just mindblowing.. My Rank: 4

6. Mannipaaya
ARR and Shreya Ghosal get-together to give us this yet-another-slow number. SG as usual is at her usual best and the moment ARR starts singing you think you're gonna have a great song. But not so great.. :( a 6 min song which is far better than the 3 min Vinnaithaandi Varuvaya track.. The bgm of the song at certain places like the one before the start of the second stanza is brilliant.. May be if you are on a train journey you would love this song.. slow and soothing.. My Rank: 5

7. Aaromale
A full Malayalam song sung by Alphonse.. I heard many ppl telling tat ARR has copied "Pink Floyd".. i've not heard Pink Floyd, so i am not sure.. Its a decent number with a great guitar intro, excepting the last portion where Alphonse shouts "Aaromaleeeeee".. that time u feel like u shd take the headphones of your ears for sometime .. A "OK" number... Probably i need to listen it for some more time before coming into any conclusion on this one. but currently, My Rank: 6

Being an ardent fan of both ARR and Gautam this review might be a little bit biased but still the album is not that bad as many claim(one of my team mate said it Sucks..!!). I would rate this album way ahead of 'Sivaji' , 'Blue'. This may not be a trendsetter of sorts but definitely a beautiful melodious album.. If you ask me if its Gautam-Harris or Gautam-ARR combo that works out, I would still go ahead with Gautam-Harris simply cos they've given 5 great blockbuster albums.. I am quite unsure how commercially VTV will be accepted by the audience.

Whatever said, I can't wait for Feb 14 for the movie to hit the screens.. !!

Independence day with News Channel

i've never been "the" partiotic citizen of India. its been 62 years since independence and wat status have we got apart from being called "corrupt nation", "polluted nation", "most populated". there is nothing for which india can be really proud of. atleast to my knowledge. Foreigners come over here just to click a pic of this poor country. the heritage/culture comes secondary to them and we give a damn about all these.

was watching tv today morning and i was really happy to see this program called "jai jawan" in NDTV. the program showed the life of army ppl at kargil and a chat with the jawans who were involved in the kargil war. i sit here happily blogging because of some one who i never knew/who i might even never meet in my life fighting for my safety. when i was watching that program came a breaking news "SRK detained at US airport" and the program ended soon and the news reporters got a good piece of commerical news with which they can keep up the TRP ratings of their channel. and then the reported suddenly shifted gears and started "breaking news coming in just now. King khan is detained at the US airport because of his surname".. and then we have the whole set of jobless bollywood fraternity in front of the media mikes shouting at their pitch of why US shouldnt have dont it.

Grow up, guys. whats your problem. as if no other person in the whole world have ever been questioned in such a manner. if it was not for King Khan and if Mr.AAA Khan was questioned by the US, would the media be following them as well. ?? whats so spl about this person who knows nothing other than crying on screen. and what i hated most was that SRK himself called each and every news channel and started sharing his 2 hrs interrogation. and the news channel had their day. "SRK spoke exclusively to Headlines Today". "CNN-IBN Exclusive: Is real imitating Reel for SRK". and worst is this "Share your thoughts of what we should do for questioning SRK-Times Now".. Thanks guys you are all doing a great job,. !!

Then we have the director who knew nothing other than shootin at NY.. Yeah, Karan Johar. It was time for him to share his thots. and he said "SRK is a global icon. you cant do anything like this"..a couple of weeks back Abdul kalam was detained by some airline company. did he do anything like these? then why the hell did SRK make it such a big scene. I know that his yet-to-be-released "My Name is Khan" has a plot similar to this. and I'm 200% confident that this bloody SRK and Karan Johar are doing this to publicize the movie. because they know that the movie cant do a s**t in the box-office. and from now till tonite this is the topic in all news channel. and Times Now has a spl show at 8 30 wit Arnab(one-of-the-worst TV anchors I ve ever seen in my life) on this i believe.

India independence, Swine flu are all second priority when compared to SRK being detained at the airport. !@#&%$^ ..

If this is how we are gonna be, then we can better forget about being a developed nation by 2020. not 2020, even at 4040 we wont be a developed one. !!

First day at T.I.M.E

Joined T.I.M.E recently and you smart guy, you guessed it right !! For my CAT .. Yesterday was the first day at T.I.M.E and it was my favorite class 'Quants'. I've always loved Maths from my school days. Not sure whether i inherited that love from my dad who is a Math Genius himself.. Still remember the last time i got beatings from him for wrongly solving a differential equation during my X holidays !! Yeah ..!! He made me study my XI subjects when I was thinking off enjoying my X holidays. !! I dont know what all I cursed him tat time, but now all those fond memories bring a wide smile on my face and wish that I never got older !!! Back to the Karnataka Sangha School(T.Nagar. thats where my T.I.M.E coaching happens), where I was a stranger to everyone around. The watchman, the aaya and to the hundreds of wanna-be IIM-ites.

Not knowing where to go from the entrance and as a perfect tamilian of not liking to ask anyone else too (!!) was giving a thought of what i should do. And then there came a good-looking gal wearing a t-shirt with a wordlist printed on it. Not to waste any more time, i started going through the wordlist, [:)] and followed her. After finding that she belongs to a senior batch, i found that my classroom was C11. After searching the whole building(even went to the terrace not knowing that there were only 2 floors), found that the class room was actually G1 and not C11.

Settled in the Vth standard classroom(last bench again!) and waited for the staff to come. A small built guy,looked like he was a teacher for the XIth Math teacher, came in and introduced himself as Murali. Everyone in the class stood up !! Found utterly weird to me .. In the company you never do such things, but almost everyone in the room were college students. So that explains it all.

On the big black board, he wrote 'Simple Equations' wrote the following

2x=8

3y=9

5z=20

"Can someone tell me whats the value of x,y,z ?" The first question stunned me completely. Is it for this ive paid 16k !!! Everyone else in the room were perplexed like me, and no one was sure whether to answer him or not. With no one ready to answer such a difficult set of questions, Mr. Murali taught us "Take the 2 onto the right side.. What ll you get?? Its 8/2 = 4. Hence x=4". So similarly you get y=(9/3)=3 and z=(20/5)=4 .. Thought he was going a little overboard. Everyone in the room were atleast Engineers and dont they know this !!

Then comes the second difficult question

if x=1, y=1 what is x+2y ?

I thought this class was gonna be a total waste of time and even thought of doing something useful back home like watching Isaiaruvi and Sun Music. !!

But after sometime I found that he was trying to gauge the level of Math knowledge of the class and I found he was quite interesting !! He gave some really cool and complicated problems and the class was on the whole interesting. Couple of problems were really a problem to me.

At the end of the class, he asked everyone of us to introduce themselves. And the whole class was a bunch of engineering students and a guy from TCS. As I was sitting in the last bench, I was the last one to introduce. I told "Sridhar. Working for MindTree Limited". The whole class(including Mr.Murali) went like "Ooooh.. MindTree uh.. !! "

The whole hush meant something like "He is working with MindTree. So he is sure to get into an IIM !! "

"Dei. MindTree nalla company thaan !! Athukum ithukum enna da sammantham!!.Sathyama puriyala. Think I should have told i m working for Kekkaran Bekkaran Company " !!

It's the second day today and the expectations from me have already gone sky high !! Don't know what's gonna happen !! :(

The song that made me cry !!

Having updated my SE with a lil of old-cum-favorite Tamil songs, i knew i was gonna ve a good time in the 2 hr train journey (how many times i am gonna say "2 hr train journey".!! But i feel good when i vent out my frustration) And being an ARR maniac i was happy being partial to load most of ARRs old collection.  I had no idea of what I am copying on to my mobile. Just loaded it til my windows warned me of "no more memory space"

Next day evening, when I was on the way back home, a song started to play with light drum beats in the background.. I was not sure of what song it was and I wanted to keep the surprise till i actually found it.. And then the voice of MSV kicked off the song.. yeah ! most of you, you might have guessed it rite.. It was 'vidai kodu engal naade'  from Kannathil muthamitaal.. I've not heard this song for a long time, in fact couldnt think off when i heard it last.. so i just left the song continue.. but what was actually there was simply unbelievable.. 

The lyrics of the song was so mesmerizing and i had no option but to leave this song in loop for atleast 10 times.. !!  The song which absolutely suited the present Srilankan scenario made me emotionally attach myself without my conscience. The line that brought tears was this

"Kann thirantha desam ange, kann moodum desam inge !! "

The voice of MSV and the magic of ARR(leaving the bgm as simple as possible and letting the lyric do the work)  was at its best.

Many of my frnds(Illayaraja maniacs of course) ve told me that ARR doesnt give classic hits as Illayaraja.. And for all those guys, this one song is the answer.. This song, exactly of 6 mins is an absolute pleasure to listen.. 

PS  : When I started thinking off writing this as a post,  I dint want to write about this, as I've already written a post on the SL scene. But I felt this was a post that i  was emotionally attached to and so continued with the same

PPS : Guys, if you've not listened to it for a long time, please give a try now.. its on my "must-hear" list

Cheers !!! 

Listening to IPL ..

It was this time of last year when cricket just stormed to every nook and corner of India. TV showrooms were mobbed, people had their a** glued to their sofa, SET MAX enjoyed a plump of profit, actors made their publicity stunt even on the stadium. But this year.. ??? Nah, Mr. Lalit Modi.. Though the tournament is wide open, and a series of good cricket is about to follow. there is the X-factor that's missing out this year. Probably the crowd in the stadium .?? May be.. 

Consider the commentary in this year's IPL.. Hilarious.. What comedy.. And you've even Kishan Kahaniyan(KK) (Ravi Shastri.. impressed by FakeIPLPlayer :) ) blabbering.. Yesterday's match between Chennai and Jaipur. KK was there at the toss and as usual started yelling with the mike !! This is what he said, if i could remember correctly.. "Kimberley, are you ready for yet another fascinating game of cricket".. (No response from the crowd, and the camera man himself had to shout a big 'yes').. "So, we've Javagal Srinath, the match refree and we have the two captains.. MS Dhoni of the Chennai Super Kings and Shane Warne of the 'Kings Royals of Rajasthan' " .. WTF .. You are on air and you make a cent percent blunder with the Team name of Rajasthan Royals !!  I couldnt stop laughing.. Even Shane Warne and MSD had a good chuckle.

Then we've the Sandy Mandy Babe(Mandira Bedi, again impressed by FakeIPLPlayer :) ) with a player of a team who lost the toss. (Couldnt gather which team and who the player was).. Her question "Are you happy that your team lost the toss " ..  What !! :) who would be happy losing a toss. The player was out of the team and the best question comes on now .. "Are you happy that you are not in the team ".. Give me some break. Got to jot down all these, but it keeps on coming and I'm losing track of them..  Who would not agree to sit in the bench and get paid a hefty sum. !!. She is distracting the viewers from these stupid questions by showing her off .... So the next time you see her dressed up like that, dont fall in her trap but be ready for some great comedy questions.. 

Then you've Ranjit Fernando,.. Yesterday's match between Punjab and Hyderabad. Jayawardene was playing well.. and you know what his commentary would've been.. Even a mere push to long-on at 30Kph for a single is hyped as if he has hit six sixers in one over. And the commentary ---> "Thats a beautiful, elegant,classic shot on the front foot and the ball races to the long-on who desperately tries to stop the ball ".. Even before he completes the word "classic" the bowler would've been ready for the next ball.. 

Lakshman SivaRamakrishnan.. How can I forget him.. I think even if he is in the commentary box, he used to watch it on TV.. There would be a fielder at third man and the batsman would ve nudget it down for a single, and as soon as the batsman strikes the ball "thats a brilliant shot for a boundary.. " and when he sees third man fielding at it, he would change.. "but there is a fielder at third man and thats smart captaincy. it would ve been four if he has not been there ".. 

As if no one knows that if there is no fielder, it would reach the boundary. 

With Harsha Bhogle coming up, there could be some respite to the appalling commentary.. But let's see. With Rameez Raja coming up, we've got a Pakistan flavor to the tournament. Have to chk out what he's gonna tell.. Throw in Aamir Sohail into this team and the commentary would rock .. !! 

I think Set Max made a smart move by buying all of them for a mere Rs. 10,000 for the whole tournament !!! 

@guys : Check this out.. Absolute Comedy .. http://content.cricinfo.com/iplpage2/content/site/iplpage2/hearhear.html

Cheers !!