In and As Saravana[Remember Saravanan Irukka Bhayamen in Chandramukhi].

The recent interview of Steven Spielberg[via Ajay] with Time’s Richard Schickel, is an interesting look into Spielberg’s mind as a director. Not only Spielberg talks from his heart, he also effectively conveys his steadfast approach towards doing the film he wants to and how he escapes without succumbing to the pressures of success.

When I don’t have a movie, I don’t take a job just for the sake of working. I just sit it out until I find something I’m passionate about. If I find something light, I’ll make it. Like Terminal. It wasn’t a film that I’ll be remembered for, but it’s a film I’ll remember for the rest of my life, a sweet short story that gave me a chance to work with Tom Hanks–and people think I’m crazy for saying this–giving what I think was his best performance. Some people have said, “Why did you make that little movie when you could have been doing something important?” And I said, “Well, at the time it was important.” And if I find something dark and historical–like this Doris Kearns Goodwin book [Team of Rivals, about Abraham Lincoln] I’m working on now–I’ll do that. It’s just how things work out. It’s all about timing.

Richard also writes in-depth about Spielberg’s yet-to-be released, Munich, a film on the killing of Israeli atheletes during 1972 Olympics.

Meanwhile, 2 people from Redmond are named as the Persons of the Year 2005. Bill Gates & Melinda Gates are the duo. Also named as Person of the Year is U2’s Bono.

Domaru…Dapsaa…Dhommai….Kumaaru..Kokki Kumaaru !!

Hey Padicha Naaye Kitta Varathey
Enga Area Ulla Varaathey !!

A/C Potta Bathroomil Enna Varum Ponga
Thandavaalam Kitta Othunguvom Naanga
Nethu Vecha Meenkozhambu Kaathula Pesum
Malli Poovum Inga Pootha Meen Vaasam Veesum !!

These are a series of ramblings on Marghazhi month. May not be all that interesting as these are personal posts. Just wanted to register interesting and funny stuff about childhood in chennai. These were one of the prime intentions when starting the blog. Along the way, I drifted elsewhere and now I’m trying hard to get back the original groove.

Let’s start from Ven Pongal. During the month of Marghazhi[15th Dec - 14th Jan], when you rush to a perumaal koil in the wee hours of morning, you get two things. Apart from sighting aathi pinnal girls, you get handful of suda suda ven pongal and spirituality to the heart’s content. Perumal Koil pongal is much better than Ghee Pongal[Rs.13.95] in Saravana Bhavan. But those days when I went to the seenivaasa perumal koil along with my mom at 5:30 in the morning, I knew nothing about Saravana Bhanvan or Naachiyaar Thirumozhi. All I knew was that my mom, quietly made a big kolam and went to koil in the early morning of marghazhi month. When she came back, I was still brushing my teeth, thinking about the boring social studies homework given, the previous day. She came back with a dhonnai full of steaming hot ven pongal. So after brushing my teeth, I got to eat the pongal even before my coffee. There was something special about the pongal and hence decided to hitchhike my mom during her kaarthala koil trips.

I landed in perumaal koil, after bath, sharp by 5:40 am. Along the way to the temple, women keptdrawing, what is called as Theruvadaichaan, a maavu kolam that spread the breath of their respective lanes. In the koil, they recited a sloka and mom would recite alongwith them. With atleast 50 people, reciting the same sloka(I thought) at the same time, I had goose bumps for no reason. After sevichu’fying perumaal and thaayaar, a queue(?!) gets formed for the highlight. As you proceed along the queue, one maama stuffs a dhonnai in the hand. The other bhattachari, has a huge karandi in his hand. He scoops a mountain of the ven pongal from the andaa and filled the donnai. I always get this itching feeling that the bhatachari gave me less pongal than whoever stood before me. Anyway, the minute I get my donnai filled with ven pongal, I would go to the main pragaaram of the temple and eat pongal to my heart’s content. My mom gets her share also to me. Now that I’m done with both the donnais of pongal, I head back home and sleep again by 6:15 am.

Till this day, Marghazhi reminds me of Ven Pongal even before Thiruppavai. Thiruppavai ?

He just started blogging. Here is timbl’s first blogpost, So I have a blog.

Before that, in 1989, he proposed something that changed the world forever. He is Sir Tim Berners-Lee and he invented the World Wide Web. Welcome Vaathiyaarey !!

An outright commercial. Fantasy flick. Overtly sentimental. Glitches here and there. Popcorn muncher’s special. Graphics Galore.

Yet its an accomplishment in modern cinema. Its bigger than what you have seen before. While it pays tributes to many classics, its tries to get better than all of them. It slightly succeeds too. If you are a sane person you wouldn’t attempt to make a movie like that. One would assume it was Matrix or Charlie Kaufman flicks which were unconceivable. Even after conceiving, bringing them on-screen would be a tight rope walk. But King Kong is very much conceivable but the script to screen conversion is where Peter Jackson displays his genius in movie making. If Lord Of The Rings was anything by grandeur, King Kong is an epitome of this show business. With this PJ proves he is one among the top showmen in Hollywood.

Oh !! yeah, its the same story. The beauty and the beast. The same moving fantasy tale that we have witnessed before more than once on-screen. But there’s not one beast here but an array of them. While the gorilla falls in love with blond babe, the other spooky creatures try to eat the beauty, flesh and blood. Its like making Mahabharata or Bible, as a film. The whole world knows the story. So what are you going to do different about it ? Peter answers that with an utmost ease. Even succumbing to have a very ‘believable’ ending, PJ still works his crazy ways of getting there, to the climax. With a three hour movie you could pretty much bore the fans with all the build-up. PJ does take his own sweet time in unleashing the beast but doesn’t allow you to sink in the seat, even until then. Howabout having King Kong + Titanic + Jurassic Park + all the what-if-you-get-lost-in-a-creepy-forest movies in one movie. Its a sheer tact to combine the best of all these and pack them into one movie.

The beauty and the beast are so well attached to each other. Just like the previous Kong flicks, you would fall in love with the Kong even at the very minute you meet him. At the end, it does compel you to shed a single tear. Though it might be laughable to watch the inter-species romance, this is how the original was made. Kong loves the Ann Darrow, a suffering actress. Ann just sympathizes Kong for that. But no where as I feared, Naomi shouts,” Kong…Kill them”. And thats a big relief.

An effort of re-creating this classic is an herculean task. There are hundreds of infinitesimal details that needs to be taken care. Without a worthy team, PJ wouldn’t have succeeded in creating this to-be-classic. Yes, PJ’s King Kong is the most complete movie in the Kong series and its an instant classic. A perfect cast which includes, Naomi Watts - the babe from Mulholland Dr., Adrien Brody - with a nose of namooru Vikram and the superb Jack Black. I would crime if you missed to mention, Andy Serkis as the man behind the CG Gorilla. You just can’t ask for more in the casting department.

Re-creating the depression-era New York mustn’t have been hard with computer graphics. But the production values are just mind-blowing. The skull-island and those wacky creatures seem horribly true. King Kong by himself seems completely alive. Be it the way he jumps thunderously to catch the blond girl or the way he sneaks through the streets of New York after finding her. while the most brilliant sequences being the above, there are also masterfully picturised stunts between the Gorilla and T-Rexes. You wouldn’t be skeptical, that Kong is a computer generated creature. However there are places where the cast caught in between graphics, seem unreal. An amazing support from the music director for those splendid BGMs.

It takes nearly 100 minutes for the Kong to enter the story but the entry is with a build-up much bigger than a Super Star entry. From then on until the end its pure action, every shot. At times it gets so high that you just wish, PJ would give a few minutes of break for the action.

As Peter Jackson says, its his childhood dream to make King Kong. But none including him would have believed that it would turn so spectacular. The whole three hour movie seems to be a big dipper of fun, romance, action and fantasy.

A must see, ofcourse in the theatre. Don’t even dare to watch in on the DVD. Forget your logic and critic hats at home. PJ’s King Kong like Spielberg’s ET is one of those reasons, why movies exist.

[Click Pic for a bigger version]

[Scanned from newspaper, this morning]

Recieved this Sivaji poster a few minutes back from Karthi, a friend and a theevira Rajini fan, who eventually told me first about Jaggubhai stuff. If only I got my hand on this yesterday…what a birthday post, it would have made. Yo !! is that Rajini, looks a lot younger with the new hairstyle(!!).

So they are starting today in Hyderabad and there you go, I’m already drooling the sort-a-dream-team - Rajini(obviously), Rahman, Sujatha and ofcourse Shankar. Add to it K.V Anand, Thotta and Raju. Are they selling tickets already ?

Seems like movie of the year has finally arrived. Ananda Vikatan’s review of Thavamaai Thavamirundhu[needs uid/pass] would even make a Cheran basher, develop an urge to watch the movie.

Cheran has been writing a series for Vikatan on making of this movie. Vikatan’s overwhelming response could be a result of that but I choose to think that this is truly good cinema. All I could do is keep hoping that way until I get to watch it.

Even with a string of not-so-big movies and a long tail of media ventures failing, I was hoping that Spielberg’s Dreamworks SKG would never go away. But the ancient theory of big fish eating small fish happened to spill over Spielberg’s dreams too. And Paramount bought Dreamworks for $1.6 billion.

By no way one could write a tribute for the eaten-up production house of Spielberg, Dreamworks. I’ve been thinking atleast for 2 years that Mani Ratnam’s Madras Talkies should be cloning what Spielberg and his partners at Dreamworks are doing to Hollywood. So what where they doing ?

The new studio was portrayed as heralding a tectonic shift in the way the industry operates. The perception was fed by the principals themselves, with Katzenberg telling reporters at the launch news conference, “I look at the three of us and think this has got to be the Dream Team.”

It’s hard to think that we may not see the boy throw the fishing rod from the moon. It was a symbol of good cinema. There is always another hope left.

Shankar & his team manages a mallu back-up. A hefty back-up thats arguably better than the originally chosen ‘one’. Big B would have been nice-to-have on the tamil screen. Still, I’m lovin’ it !!