I've never walked out of a movie hall after a Spielberg flick like this, so untouched. Coming from H.G.Wells novel of the same name, War of the Worlds fails to impress because of it's loose knitted screenplay and the influence of numerous movies that have stemmed over the years on alien attack. Considered to be the Mother of Alien Attack fiction, this HG Wells book is best read with its context in place than to be seen. Spielberg fails to impress, leaving a die-hard fan think, whether summer blockbusters are made just for seizing the box-office.

We have this husky voice-over of Morgan Freeman, quoting first few lines from the book and after that the camera briefly pans over the post-9/11 skyline hinting us on the social/political metaphors, the movie is set to deliver. When the aliens [not essentially our favored Martians] attack through the tripods [not IPODs], buried under the earth's crust some million years back, the day on earth is July 4th. As the world slowly succumbs to the alien invasion, a father tries to save his kids from the terror and in the process fights for the survival of human race. All this and more masterfully told by Spielberg from one man's point of view, just as the original story of HG Wells.

Instead of the thrilling dialogues and clichéd super-hero characters of the Independence Day types, War of the Worlds feature a rather unassuming divorced dad who runs from/after the alien creatures to save his kids. In the process of saving his family, he emerges as an unsung hero by making on-the-fly moral decisions, at times of catastrophe. Ever alien attack movie, including this, doesn't even outline the reason for their attack, leaving the audience to ponder. As the dock worker, Ray Ferrier [Tom Cruise] tries to 'baby sit' his teenage kids over the weekend, he has the slightest clue of what terror is. Even as he looks up to the sky, he is puzzled by the weird movement of leaves moving to the eye of a storm. When he witnesses, the tripods plunging from the earth and breaking buildings with a practiced ease, he knows his kids are in danger. And as the tripods send rays of light to just evaporate people, leaving their clothes flying in air, he knows they are under attack.

With the grey dust on his coats and panic stricken people running on streets, Spielberg subtly reminds of the 9/11 attacks and the makes a statement on how men on earth, wage wars-of-survival at times like these. There are no worlds involved here. Just a single family's witnessing of the Armageddon and its aftermath is misnamed as War of the Worlds. We see the blood sucking tripods and the creepy creatures called aliens walking into a house to inspect it and how a young girl kid watches it with open jaws. This long sequence has Spielberg's brilliance except that I wished he never showed the aliens on screen like Stanley Kubrick's 2001 - A Space Odyssey. The family also gets into trouble because an unruly mob attacks them. This is one silent yet powerful sequence displaying the mental attitude of a panic-driven mob.

While there are sensational episodes all over, the movie as a whole fails to impress. The sweet ending framed for the summer blockbuster is a true let down. While I was largely excited by major part of the movie, it fails to deliver in the end. It's an intelligent move for Spielberg to stick with one man's point of view in the movie and that by itself should be able to grip the audience. It's the screenplay that doesn't allow the audience to cuddle up with the movie. It's detached at various fronts, especially due to the characterization of Tom Cruise. Also logical errors prevent from getting related to the story.

Tom Cruise is missing while Dakota Fanning as his daughter is impressive. But the impressive of all is the Justin Chatwin as Robbie, a teenaged rebellious son of Tom Cruise. Not to forget the impressive short note of Tim Robbins as the man with the gun. The special effects are as brilliant as any other Spielberg flick and one reason why the movie has to be watched in a big screen. Vivid images of the dead bodies seeping through water, a speeding-burning train, blood sucking of the tripods and ofcouse the human sucked by laser with their clothes flying on air, show the doomsday without any pretensions. John Williams scores the music just like every other Spielberg film and this one has some extraordinary BGMs with a classical tone. This movie is one good example of what digital film-making is capable of. Yet another long timer with Spielberg, Janusz Kaminski's cinematography scintillates just like Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan.

Though the movie is set to be a summer blockbuster and money spinner at box-office, this isn't the best of Spielberg. While I am sure, I could identify Spielberg in his next coming films, hugely missing him in this one, will be a long-running nightmare for me. Again, I've never walked out of a movie hall after a Spielberg flick like this, so untouched.

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[Click image to enlarge]

Yeah!!, truly mouthful, this time. All the restaurants in Bellevue. Thanks to Google Earth.

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kaadhal yaanai varugiraan remo....

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Whenever we have a Hollywood flick like Armageddon or Phone Booth opens up from a top angle shot of planet earth and glides down by gaining speed to quickly narrow down on a busy New York street, we are awestruck. When a piece of code called Google Earth does the same thing in your convenience, you know those flicks are now a part of history.

Google has been talking about their version of Earth for sometime now. Earth is a 3 dimensional mapping tool of the entire earth provided by satellite imagery. It’s only when you download/install and execute the Google Earth you would understand that its not just baffling you with the graphics, it has just eased your life a little more.

Though we know this effort by Google isn't a NASA project of sending manned shuttles to outer space, this effort would touch thousands of peoples lives in the near future.

I just played around the Earth for about half hour and I'm already happy about it. The driving directions using Google Earth is brought about by combining its Maps and Keyhole's 3d imagery of earth. Though some may doubt, I was actually able to spot the bush behind my house.

The more Earth is put to use, the more we know what it is capable of doing. In the days to come, await surprising uses of Google Earth.

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I ain't sure if this is the coolest looking mobile in town, but its the most profitable to own. Amazon allows me to buy this Samsung E315 for $100, with a T-Mobile connection and gives back $200. So I get the phone for no cost and also get an extra $100. Cool. I would probably buy few books and DVDs for that extra money that would come to me through mail after 3-4 months. BTW, I have no idea what I would do the with T-Mobile's 1000 minutes/month plan with unlimited minutes on weeknights/weekends.

This Samsung E315 has a VGA camera and video recorder with 15 second clips. Also allows me to take profile shots of myself. I was looking out for Nokia 6620 and just because T-Mobile doesn't offer that in my zipcode, I had to settle with this. On the merry-go-round of my mobile shopping, I bumped upon a common truth, myself. In Asia/India, we have more advanced phones than what's offered here in US of A.

Now, you guys don't bounce those comments on the latest cell phones and make me feel more envious !!

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Sachein was horrendous. When the movie was announced, from the posters, I sensed that it was a going to be a 3 hour long advertisement like Minsara Kanavu. It ended up just as expected and was also hugely non-interesting. Yet another good example of how a movie can bore you to the core because of bad/no screenplay.

With the screenplay nearly non-existing and the ghost of 'Khushi' wavering around, one couldn't expect much than this. Though the characters talk naturally like the college crowd, it's the characterisation and the predictable story that's irritating. The movie seems better as it nears the end, or probably I felt happy as it was about to end. Why whould someone want to direct his debut movie which is a out-right rehash of a earlier movie done by the same star ? That just says how the producer and the director 'believes' a tamil movie fan. Forget Johan, the debutant director doing the mistake. Imagine Vijay himself, who wants to do Kushi again. Clearly shows how Vijay cares-a-damn about his audience and his belief that his fan following would make this movie a super-hit.

While Vijay, like other characters in movie, starts artificially, he goes on to carry the light-weight movie upon him to the end. Vijay has a long way to go in acquiring dialogue delivery skills. As he starts to talk at the camera after every 5 minutes, it seems like a movie shot strictly for his fans. I couldn't believe Harini can act so bad. While she did a good debut in Boys, she is intolerable with her performance. Her inspirations drawn from the well-performed Jyothika hasn't helped at all. Bipasha Basu could very well stay polluting the bollywood with her vamp looks. The bloated Vadivelu with his paunch and overdone powder makeup, seems out-of-place.

In a movie, where everthing except photography[Jeeva] is overdone, the smoke machine operator walks away with the credit for the 'best overdone component' of the movie. As every single character walks into/out-of a room/scene, the smoke seems to follow them sacredly. This starts to irritate right from the first shot when Vijay walks into the airport. With two ghanna songs asking to tap foot, I'm still googling for the BGMs.

Though it was partly my mistake to expect Johan to perform like his father, Mahendran, his story/screenplay has been the biggest villain. Lastly, if only Vijay wants to take over kollywood by talking to the camera and by rehashing his older flicks with newer heroines, he is having a bad dream.

P.S : Johan has a long way to go before he could be compared on the sames lines as his dad. Being an avid Mahendran fan, I only hope Johan 'delivers' a good show, next time.

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I've been lazy, not offlate, for quite sometime. From Shalini's new kid to Anand's Silicon India Interview to Srikanth's Curry Rock[i know you are in India, Sriks], there are a bunch of friends with special occasions and 10 digit numbers that I need to dial-in to get in touch with. That's my only job this week other than the 8 movies that have arrived from the library today.

Well, yeah!!...there is car search, bellevue strawberry festival, shopping uppu/pulli/perungayam at mayuri, hair cut, guests for lunch on saturday and ofcourse the favorite blogging. All this in less than 48 hrs from now. Gotta go....

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From a big Chee!!..... for Boys to a whooping 48/100 for Anniyan from Vikatan thatha, this could be one of the reasons why Shankar was burning his midnight oil for over a year. He should be a happy man now not mention the large integers being added to his fortune.

I haven't seen Anniyan yet. May not see it until the DVD is out because all the tickets are sold out in Seattle. If only they add one more extra show for movie buffs like me, I can witness Shankar's grandeur presentation on-screen.

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... men get tired of everything, of heaven no less than of hell; and that all history is nothing but a record of the oscillations of the world between these two extremes. An epoch is but a swing of the pendulum; and each generation thinks the world is progressing because it is always moving. But when you are as old as I am; when you have a thousand times wearied of heaven, like myself and the Commander, and a thousand times wearied of hell, as you are wearied now, you will no longer imagine that every swing from heaven to hell is an emancipation, every swing from hell to heaven an evolution. Where you now see reform, progress, fulfilment of upward tendency, continual ascent by Man on the stepping stones of his dead selves to higher things, you will see nothing but an infinite comedy of illusion. You will discover the profound truth of the saying of my friend Koheleth, that there is nothing new under the sun.

- by Geroge Bernard Shaw in one of the best books ever written, Man and Superman. I only wish we had a dozen of GB Shaw's alive to set the world on a wisdom quest. Though quoted by The Devil in the play, this single quote can balance you from overdosing your ego, whenever you feel accomplished. Adangumaa Kannu !!

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When Tamil Nadu government, served an order to cancel the entrance examinations for Medical/Engineering collge seats, I thought of it as a welcoming move. It was certainly one. The idea of taking the entrance exams out, was to help the rural students to be on par with the urban lot who have abundant oppurtunities of getting trained for entrance examinations. This certainly gives an upper hand for the city folks over the rural dudes. The number of Agarwal's and Subramaniam's are more in urban areas to teach entrance exams syllabus for a hefty sum of money. So you see this line of TVS scooties and BSA SLRs being parked in KK Nagar even from 4 am in the morning while the rural folks are still busy milking their cows.

But we have to admit, when there are different standards of education system like the CBSE, Matric and State Board in India, it's tough to decide the right candidates for Medical/Engg colleges without having a common examination. The entrance examination which was in effect was doing this balancing very effectively. However it had these pitfalls of not enough entrance exam training centers for the rural students. What's welcoming out of this whole hungama, is that the high court, apart from dismissing the govt's order, has sent out a positive note to come up with a 'third formula' of cleansing these differences in education system/entrance examinations which would be help the ovehaul the system in the long run. Atleast, it made me believe that we have a few 'Rules Ramanujams', alive and kicking.

TN govt walks away with the cake for bringing this debate to life, High Court gets a applause for streamlining the debate and at the end, I only wish the winners are the students. Not trying to be cliched here but I still strongly believe in the system of government and law in country while I hate censors for films. Kind of double standards but then isn't this a paradoxical world ?

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Ev Head's new venture on podcasting, Odeo has been on the talk over the blogosohere for sometime now. Curious to see what EV is onto this time and also try my hand on podcasting, I had signed up for their beta version earlier when it was first announced.

Today I recieved the Google type invite for Odeo. When you sign in, you need to download a synchronizer with which you can subscribe to podcasts or create your own. While I subscriebd to some podcasts, I'm contemplating to create a podcast. Probably I will and will also be the only one listening to it. If you are the unlucky joe, you might get to listen my podcast where I drool over the Sonia Agarwal or go gaga over Spielberg's latest addiction to pre-visualization.

From Odeo's create podcast page -

Odeo Studio - A browser-based tool that makes it easy to record and publish audio. With the Studio, and a cheap microphone (or even the one built into your laptop), you have everything you need.

Phone Posting - If you can leave a voicemail, you'll be able to podcast, with Odeo's phone-posting service-a quick and easy way to put your voice on the web (and in people's ears).

Feed Creation and Hosting - If you already have audio, and you just want to get it into podcasting form, Odeo provides the turnkey way to do that. Just upload your MP3s, and you're done.

Neverthless, the first impression on Odeo is 'Exciting'. Way to go EV and team !!

For starters - Podcasting is for radio what Blogging was for print media. It's the name of technology by which you, as an individual, can create radio shows and air them through internet. Now, it won't be exactly sent through air, but will be dumped into your domain server as an mp3/wma file. Your audience, if you get some, will download these mp3 files or podcasts into their IPOD/mp3 player and listen to it on the go. Podcasts can be like radio shows or comentaries with/without music as the background. Imagine instead of reading through a review of Star Wars, you will actually hear your favorite podcaster talking through it. This adds just another human dimension to it and you don't need to actually read through the review, like audiobooks. It has it's own pros/cons and the good news is that, many are still figuring out this animal.

That's my definition, more on Podcasting in Wikipedia.

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Is this another case of scoop-or-spoof like the Mani Ratnam one, which came about few months back ? The fans are equipped with Photoshops and other titles to make dream posters of their superheroes. And we have the vast internet and silly blogs like this to make them popular !!

Thanks to Karthi for forwadding this. Am not sure of the source though.

P.S - Shouldn't it be 'Naan, Kadavul' like Raa Ki Rangarajan's novel Naan, Krishnadevarayan and Robert Graves book I,Claudius [someone mentioned these during the book tag meme].

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[From - Economic Times]

I'm not a full-fledged Times of India group basher. But this was the first headlines of today's Economic Times. I had no idea when I saw this title up there until I read the article which the headline linked too, Western bros are aping your grandfather’s sex skills.

[From - Times of India]

As I jumped from there to read Times Of India, I get to see this and this on the headlines there.

While agreeing with the content of these articles or not, is a different issue. But these are certainly not the kind of headlines that one looks for, first in the morning, that too in a national/financial newsdaily. Agree ?

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I'm car shopping busily and it sucks big time. I have no idea why desis push other desis, infact torture them until they accept, to only buy Honda or Toyota.

For the money that I'm investing, to get a 'dubba' 95' Honda with manual windows and coffee stained back seats, I can get a slick 2001 Dodge Neon or a ultra equipped 2000 Mercury Mystique clad in leather seats and 4 disc changer attcahed to 6 Bose speakers. I know that these cars might lose their values soon but why should I end up rotating the windows when I have a choice to click a button to make them go up/down.

Oh !! yeah, I love Honda Civic and that's like the ideal middleclass vehicle. It's like buying a Kinetic Honda or Hero Honda Splendour back in India. As days go by, I'm petrified to even look at other cars also. It's like wearing a blind-fold from the minute and finding my way through fellow dudes.

Seattle's used car market is huge and costly too. Unlike the lazy/pleasant lifestlye, the car market is busy. The cars come and go in no time. So the minute you narrow down on the car and try visiting the car on the weekend, there are couple of others who want to test ride the car there and you end getting fed up by competition and come back after eating masala dosa in Redmond's Namaste.

Back to the honda syndrome, the minute I start describing the nice Mustang, I got to see/ride, my friends would go busy saying,"Thuddu waste da. Onnu Honda/Toyota vaangu, illaena kamunu engakuda bus'la vaa". To run from them, can someone help me with escape velocity ?

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[Pic - NY Times/MTV Desi]

When MTV Desi starts airing Indian music for desis[second-generation immigrants from the Indian subcontinent as described by NY Times], we can believe music of Rahman and his types, will get a wide opening to the mainstream music in America. The musical boulevards of LA will await them to come over and render soul searching, foot tapping, IPODish numbers only to get the American musical industry, another addition to their genre list, Indie music.

While I'm positive about the music from peninsula will have a positive honeymoon with the american youth for the first few days, it remains to be seen, that some of our manufactured filthy music and annoyingly explicit copycat versions of 'Cotton Eye Joe' and ballards of Richard Marx, don't get aired through MTV Desi. It's time to spice-up the music album scenes in India. The hindi pop has already come of age and hence MTV wants to get them aired across America. I am personally not a great fan of Indie Pop because I think there is enough trash alongwith some good ones.

The media in US is already mis-understanding any product as a bollywood piece, Tamil will have very less role to play in this hungama. The Tamil pop music has already died with Suresh Peters' last album, it's time Yuvan and his teammates rise up to occasion and start delivering tamil music albums. I would be more than happy if Suresh Peters would come back. Even if we have some good albums in Tamil coming out because of this move from MTV Desi broadcast, tamil music lovers will be happy to resurrect a bygone genre.

More on MTV Desi in NYTimes article, I Want My Hyphenated-Identity MTV [need userid/pass]. Link Via Tilotamma.

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[Pic - News Week]

Question - It's been 30 years since "Jaws." You've achieved every measure of success. What keeps driving you to make movies?

Spielberg - I've often asked myself that question, and my answer comes back the same way every time: I love it. Being a moviemaker means you get to live many, many lifetimes. It's the same reason audiences go to movies, I think. When my daughter Sasha was 5 years old, we would be watching something on TV and she'd point to a character on screen and say, "Daddy, that's me." Ten minutes later a new character would come on screen and she'd say, "No, Daddy. That's me." Throughout the movie she would pick different people to become. I think that's what we all do. We just don't say it as sweetly.

Seems like a Deja vu. I've posted Steve's view of filmmaking, before. This time its reasoning out the filmwatching experience in the interview to Newsweek.

This is Steven Spielberg's honeymoon with the media. Just when his movie's post-production is all done and he is waiting for the verdict, he loves to talk to the media. A little hype, for his latest film, may be behind these interviews but what comes out are some amazing quotable quotes.

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Nope this is not about Parthiban's Houseful. That was a gem. Outlook's note on how multiplexes are re-defining the meaning of houseful, in this not-so-interesting article, is interesting.

Strangely, alongwith the outsourcing stuff, we are also inheriting the Hollywood's way of movies in India. Bollywood with it's wider audience, is obviously the first market to catch the trend of opening weekend box-office. The article lists numbers that clearly show how producers/directors are more interested to grab the eyeballs during the opening weekend rather than relying on repeat audience or deferred success.

The other pleasant/unpleasant is the audience segmentation. It's a long awaited wish to have more movies made specifically for genres. For years, Indian cinema has been a one-stop-shop for all types of entertainment. It had a family drama, a steamy romance, a touching sentiment and moving saga. But as the example on the article quotes Kya Kool Hain Hum, a supposedly mega-hit of the year, wasn't an all-in-one fare. It was targeted the youth and despite being a super-hit, the movie only reached it's targeted audience. Such segmentation is certainly a welcoming move but it's harmful too. Too many movies for the urban youth will just endup as a saturated market, after a year. Just like what happened during the late 90's in kollywood. With Agathiyan's Kaathal Kottai, innumerable movies of were produced as variances of the movie only to tire the audience after a year.

From the article, Housefull! (But... Kitne Aadmi Thhe?)

In a nutshell, there are far more avenues to catch a film and that has led to a concomitant reduction in crowds at any one theatre. The same number of people can now view a film in a week as would have earlier in a month. No wonder, most films are making money in the very first week itself, at times just the first weekend is enough to recover the cost of a film. "What a film makes in 15 days today is as good as what it used to make in 15 weeks earlier. The duration of the a film's run may have declined but the collections have risen," claims Mehta.

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Blogs made a headstart over main stream media because of the personal voice they had in every single blogpost. In the process of getting wider audience and millions jumping into the blogging badnwagon, if they end up being badly written, poorly gestated trashes of email driven culture, someone has to take note of such blogs and vrooooomm !!

- Thumbi, the MP(D) of lazygeek

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[Pic - Frontline]

Reading this quasi-review Matrubhoomi directed by Manish Jha, I'm pushed to look out for the availability of the film in video stores around me. While most science fictions deal with gizmos and fanatasy stuff, here's a sci-fi with a social sense.

From what's been written, the movie could also end up as yet another message movie. It's the premise of the movie excites me for this is what is expected from our folks at woods of India. Also the note that Jha, the director of this movie had already won a Prix du jury at Cannes his feature, for A Very Very Silent Film, makes me have high regard on his abilities as a director.

From Frontline -

Futuristic films are supposed to be an escape into fantasy, even if they do make passing or pointed references to current attitudes and cultural fashions. They are usually not grounded in current social reality - a reality rooted in centuries of accumulated prejudice and burdens of history. Jha's film is more a doomsday warning - of the approaching apocalypse of moral collapse and sexual depravity caused by selective decimation of women - than a futuristic sci-fi scenario. The film describes the nightmare of what happens to a society that systematically kills girls - after they are born, if they have not been finished off in the womb itself. Our past foretells the future. The past Jha resurrects is from the Mahabharata, of a Draupadi married to five brothers - in this case, not out of the choice of a swayamvar but because there is a dearth of brides in a sex-starved patriarchy. Will this enhance the value of women and the girl child? So the proponents of sex-determination tests would have you believe, as they try to offer a sociological rationale for the morally indefensible practice of selective abortions.

His short A Very Very Silent Film (a pavement dweller is raped through the night by the many passers by till it is discovered to be a corpse the next morning) won the Prix du jury at Cannes in the year our media went gaga over Devdas (ignoring the quickly emptying halls) to the exclusion of everything else - including the arrival of a major new talent.

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In the case of new films, the ban would be subject only to some rare situations such as the treatment of historical personalities known to smoke, and period films. Also, it would be allowed as part of social messaging against smoking itself. As for old films, due to technical difficulties, it was agreed that instead of a prominent scroll containing a health warning accompanying smoking/tobacco-using scenes, theatre owners would have to show warning slides.

Similarly during a smoking scene in the movie, if they are showing the scroll, Cigarette smoking is injurious to health, our friend would get reminded of the single cigarette left in his pocket an walk out of the movie hall, to smoke. Aren't you LYAO ??

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[From Slate]

It's the summer movies week at Slate and to celebrate the block busters releasing this summer they got their dudes to write some hot gossip. With George Lucas' Star Wars already taking a box-office by storm, StevenSpielberg's sci-fi thriller War of the Worlds is set to rock the theatres by June 29th. To cook some masala here is pretty easy. They do it pretty well in this article named, Lucas vs. Spielberg - The worst best friends in Hollywood.

Not just gossipy but this story seems to have some really interesting trivias on the duo. If you are a fan of atleast one of them, you would read it without taking a breath. If you love both, it is a treasure because the kind of stuff is said seems pretty true. I don't think Slate can just bluff like this in public space. It talks about the outwardly friendship and the true inside competition that goes on between Steven Spielberg and Lucas during their movie releases. Steve seems to admire Lucas so much from his debut film, THX 1138. And Lucas seems to be extremely aware of the sharp director in Steve right from his first tele-film, Duel.

Spielberg—it was revealed—had lent a helping hand to the climactic light-saber duels in Sith. "George gets stuck sometimes," said producer Rick McCallum, as if the Star Wars saga were a particularly stubborn patch of lawn. "He never asks for help, but you can feel it when he needs it. With Steven he got encouragement from a directing peer and a good friend." Meanwhile, Spielberg hired the same pre-viz-effects supervisor sent to him by Lucas to help with his aliens for War of the Worlds, much as you or I might borrow a trowel or Rotavator. "We've always helped each other," said Lucas when approached by the cable network A&E about a documentary detailing the rivalry between the two directors. "[Spielberg] and I have never had an argument in our lives. ... I want DreamWorks to succeed. They want me to succeed. And we're going to help each other succeed." So, there you have it: just two successful movie titans succeeding, side by side, successfully.

Not just this but a no-harm debate on - Did George Lucas and Steven Spielberg Ruin the Movies?. Don't miss it.

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When Mani Ratnam directs Kamal Haasan, Vikram, Madhavan, Abhishek Bachchan, Vivek, Laila, Sadha, Asin, Pooja among others for an A.R. Rahman musical, with sets created by Sabu Cyril and lit up by Rajiv Menon, on a stage which is 80 feet wide and 40 feet deep, you know it does not get bigger than this, At least, not in this part of the world. With over a hundred dancers around sets such as the train from `Chayya Chayya' and the ship from `Atho Antha Paravai Pola,' the latest edition of the `Netru Indru Naalai' show will be nothing short of a spectacle. On par with what people usually find only in musicals in Broadway and Westend, Mani Ratnam told the media at The Banyan on Tuesday evening. "We have one change to announce. We are positioning it in August to make it a spectacle," he said.

"We want to make it a special show because it is for a special cause and for special people," the filmmaker said. "It's our desire to recreate the magic of the songs over the years. We are looking at the journey of the film industry over the years, from the black and white era to colour to the futuristic sets and sounds of A.R. Rahman. We will hopefully recreate those moments," Mani Ratnam explained.

"Kamal will do a Sivaji song and a MGR song while Vikram will do a Kamal song and a Rajni song," Mani Ratnam said, explaining the theme for the musical. "As a part of the audience, I would be more interested in how the stars of today interpret what the stars of yesterday did.'

Adeyappa!! Enjoy Chennaites. Read more of Sudhish Kamat's article from The Hindu.

I read the same news from New Indian Express too. Is it because of Sudhish or Hindu, the article was more interesting and informative, than New Indian Express, for the kind of filmy news it dealt with. One more reason why I love to read Hindu, anyday.

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I had no idea what Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi was until I watched it. Srihari had written a review which I comfortably forgot to read. I heard him comment elsewhere about HKA being a good film and hence I wanted to watch it. Turned out to be sweet.

Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi a.k.a Thousand Dreams Like These, has Che Guevara, Beatles, Bob Marley, naxal movement, sex, politics and love in widely varying proportions. All these described and experienced through three people who lived in the post-independent India during 70's. HKA can just me defined as Sudhir Mishra's tribute to the 70's generation. With Subha Mudgal's opening song and those explicit politically charged lines on screen, I was certainly suprised that it wasn't the kind of film that I expected it to be from the DVD cover.

Delhi. St Stephen's College. Three people who meet here as friends, with just their emotional attachment in a triangular fashion, see the extremes of life by living life they choose too. After a decade, their lives changed beyond recovery, their love undying. Delhi was intellectually charged up at 70's. Voices in need of reformation ended up being naxal movements. Many rich class college yuppies were moved by idealistic ideas and moved to villages for reformation. Sidharth is one such. With the corrupt political cloud over Delhi, one could just talk his way-up the career. Check-out Vikram. Then we have the girl. For the 70's she is the educated, independent but emotional Indian woman. So we have Geeta. They follow life and it's dark corridors only to finally end up with thousand dreams like these.

Sudhir Mishra's portrayal of India at the politically charged 70's era is something that I couldn't relate to. Not many movies have tried to tread this way. With the cry for true freedom, political imbalances and the times of emergency forms the canvas of HKA. Without harping too much on the political issues, Mishra takes a tight-rope walk. He wins. He wins first for his intriguing, non-boring and highly charged narattive of HKA. Then for his casting skills. Kay Kay Menon as Sidharth, Shiney Ahuja as Vikram and Chitrangada Singh as Geeta are great finds for theie respective roles. Chitrangada Singh looks and smiles like Smita Patil. The kind of dark beauty we see in Balu Mahendra's flicks. Kay Kay has a role that needs downplay. He does that with grace. Shiney Ahuja as the vivacious Vikram out performs others. The talkative role adds up to the personality. If only Mishra would have mixed the english/hindi in proportion, it would have been a rational move. There was excessive english even after the characters live in the deepest villages of Bihar, for nearly a decade. Could have been handled better.

Yet another gem among the heap of half-baked nonsensical hindi films made these days. If you get some leisure movie-watching time, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi is a good watch.

BTW, I also wanted to comment on Madhur Bhandrarkar PAGE 3 which was dubbed as a rare film of the year. All I wanted to say is that Page 3 is one among the heap that is mentioned in previous paragraph. It should have been directed by Shobha De. She has probably lived and written more about Page 3 people of Bollywood than anyone. What starts as good idea ends up as a pretentious movie that canont convert the original idea on-screen. The whole movie is sprinkled with skin-deep characterisation, party clips, neon lighted dance floors and low/no hip culture of the 'happening' bollywood. Madhur Bhandarkar's earlier flick Chandini Bar was laudable. He should probably be highlighting Chandini Bar in his filmography. Page 3 is yet another sample of hazaaron bad films aisi.

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The flow of spam comments keep increasing even I keep a blacklist and also make sure the ones that escape blacklist filter gets deleted. This takes a good half hour during weekends. To cut this maintenance time, I finally decided to cut the HTML in comments which would discourage spammers from leaving a comment. I've done that and am happy the last few days spam comments have reduced by half.

The recent fad is to move to WordPress and many known bloggers have moved out of MT and Blogger. I am contemplating to do this but the only thing that stops me from doing are these spammers. The spam issues that I'm facing with MT wouldn't be resolved with WP too and hence moving out would re-energise me psychologically but would leave me doing the same blog maintenance during weekends. As rambled before, one thing that I want to do is to switch back to blogger. I've even written emails to the blogger team asking them to include the import entries option in blogger. They seem to be doing everything else except this. They even have AJAX technology for their commenting system but an import from other blogging tool is yet to be fixed. Huh !!

My instinct says that google in the coming year, might hugely invest in Blogger and would probably come-up with a tool like Picasa which can be downloaded to the client machine and run blogs from there. If they could pad a host of other utilities by studying the competing blogging products, blogger will continue to be the most successful blogging tool.

P.S - I've also tweaked my commenting system in the blog. The comments which were appearing old-to-new for the last few weeks, will continue to appear new-to-old in descending order as such.

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Blogger's Park is probably the first no-URL-wrongly-spelled column in the main stream media. Ramya's acquaintance with the Indian bloggers has reflected well in the article that details blogger meets. It was truly suprising to know about the two bloggers who got married after meeting in a blogger meet.

There are many blog sites listed on the article which would probably open up many readers to the blogs. Have to appreciate Ramya, the journo bloggers and Hindu for spreading the blogging magic with well researched article.

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Sujatha, in this week's vikatan column, lists out practical stumbling blocks of making Kalki's Ponniyin Selvan into a movie and how Mani Ratnam had etched a neat script which encompasses all the five volumes of the novel in just eighty scenes. The stumbling blocks included popularity of the novel over 5 decades, budget and ofcourse a bunch of producers who wanted to make Ponniyin Selvan for small screen. All this and more made Mani Ratnam/Sujatha drop Ponniyin Selvan in it's intial stages.

More to it he also underlines the possible means to make Mani Ratnam's script come alive on-screen. He lists his dream-team that would make Ponniyin Selvan happen and interestingly he introduces interesting combinations of Mani Ratnam-Shankar, Rajini-Kamal and Illayaraja-Rahman. While it sounds utopian at a concept level, it makes me wish that it should happen.

Making Ponniyin Selvan, into a film, is a herculean task. While I am sure the movie cannot convey the depth of the book, I am sure they can make a better attempt at it. Especially when Sujatha appreciates the script of Mani Ratnam, I'm hoping it must be a well-conceived script. Before going into the details, wait a second. Is this a curtain raiser for Mani Ratnam's next venture??

Update - Have removed the snapshot of Vikatan column much to the delight the copyright puritans. More on this to continue.

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For starters, there is a meme that's rolling in the Indian Blogosphere which intends to make bloggers list their acquaintance with books. It was Chenthil who tagged me. So here is my list.

Total Number of Books I Own : Must be close to 200. This excludes the book that I gave off to cousins at various points in time.

Last Book I Bought : I imported Collection of Sujatha's Shortstories Part II through a friend in India recently. Bought J D Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye last week, for my personal collection.

Last Book I Read : Best American Shortstories 2004, Fred Moody's Seattle and the Demons of Ambition, Ashokamithran's Thaneer and Jumpha Lahiri's The Namesake. Actually I tend to read around 3-4 books at a time, being lazy !!. One before bed, one/two during commute, one in the bathroom. There are 30 books that I've booked in the library and I've no idea when I will read them.

Five Books That Mean a Lot to Me : I'm going against the meme. Who cares !!. I can't get just 5 books listed. No way.

In Tamil -

Sujatha's Nilla Nizhal. I read this during my teens and it made me fall in love with tamil fiction. Though this wasn't the first story of Sujatha that I read it was my breaking point. The protagonist Mukundan is partly me and partly you. While I read it today, I don't see why I loved this book so much but at that point, it reflected my teenage thinking towards various things in life. Include 24 Rubaai Theevu also in this category.

Sujatha's Shortstory Collection and Guru Prasadin Kadaisi Dhinam. Read them to agree with me. Guru Prasadin Kadaisi Dhinam is arguably Sujatha's best small-big story.

Aadhavan's Enn Peyar Ramaseshan. I only wished Aathavan lived to write more stories like this and enthrall us.

Kalki's Parthiban Kanavu. Though Ponniyin Selvan is also hugely inspiring, as you read Parthiban Kanavu, one could directly feel a virtual movie screen opening up before you. A perfect historical thriller. Kalki is probably the most inspiring writer after Bharathi.

Ashokamithran's Pathinettaavadhu Atchakkodu and Thaneer. Pathinettaavadhu Atchakkodu explains why Ashokamithran is Ashokamithran.

G Nagarajan's Naalai Matrumoru Naaley. An unknown classic.

In English -

Jean-Paul Sartre's Basic Writings and Nausea. A good friend of mine introduced me to Sartre. It was Krishna who first spoke about Existentialism and Karma in Bhagavat Gita. Then it was Sartre.

Dostoevsky's Demons. A Russian classic and often compared to the George Orwell's best.

R K Narayan's Swami and Friends. The simple yet classy style of writing of RK Narayan is something that many of us yearn for. It was with Swami and Friends, the world of Malgudi was uncovered to the world. An classic forerunner to Harry Potter and Hogwarts adventures.

George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman. The king of sarcasm with wits unlimited and philosophy topped.

Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. Made into a movie by Stanley Kubrick, Lolita was a true classic of it's times. I saw the movie first and then I went back to read the book. Unlike the general opinion, I liked the rather long, descriptive and romantic version of Nabokov's Lolita as a book than the movie. Thought the movie by itself was fun, in my personal opinion, the true work of Nabokov wasn't reflected in the movie.

Mark Twain's Tom of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Jules Verne's Passepartout of Around the World in Eighty Days and the Dickensian pathos of Oliver Twist had great impact in me during my early teens.

Tag five people and have them do this on their blogs:

Desikan, Kinglsey, Anand, Latha, Ragu and Ramesh.

Thought the last three don't have blogs and they are my offline friends, I will send this across to them on email to see if they can fill this up. Anyone who reads this and is interested, please pick it up.

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If I had bought 100 shares during Google's IPO on August 19, 2004, at a price of $85/per share, my initial investment woud've been $8,500. At today's closing price, my investment would be worth $29,100. Thats a 242% increase in 10 months.

What started as a rebellious approach in 'going-public' has proven worthy for Google now. With $82.4 Billion market cap, Google is the most highly valued media company. Though I personally consider them as a technology company than their new born love for media, the Google guys take a pat for that. FYI, Yahoo is $27 billion behind them with strong content capabilities.

With this huge money pumping into Google, I'm sure there are better plans on using the money in making the life on net easier and better. Probably they will add 3 more gigs to your Gmail box before you wake-up tomorrow morning. Watch out, Google is on a kill !!

P.S - Appreciate Google for throwing money into research and summer projects with open source software.

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Tilotamma writes on the renown mylapore bookwala Azhwar in a Madras Musings column, Finding Alwar. Enjoyed the read. BTW, Tilo writes irregularly for Hindu, truly loves Chennai & Books.

Meet the Blogger Fans !! says Sujatha in The Woods[As we nick the Woodlands Drive Inn], much to my envy. I missed it. For those who missed it, like me, there is podcast of an interview with Sujatha. And to hell with Desikan who arranged it when I wasn't there !!

Chenthil and Sudish Kamath have given raving reviews for Evam's Indrajit. If you are in Chennai, don't miss it.

I am not sure if Nilu was inspired by Swades. But he did a Swades. Yeah !! he went back. And he says its to find 'himself' [Nilu!! I know, I'm rubbing the wrong side]. But the whole point is, the dude who was rather on-the-face with his comments has softened. I've been reading his Chennai Adventures and the way he puts it is rather soft and not the usual Nilu way. Is that what Chennai does to someone radical in thoughts ? I don't think so. Nilu comeback with your usual gibberish.

Ammani has been making people write good fiction. Her quick tales has inspired and been inculcated by many bloggers. Chandru being the last one as of now. Ammani was also mentioned by Sujatha in his Vikatan column, Katrathum Petrathum. Great going !! I would love it if she called it fast fiction instead of quick tales.

Divya was probably the only one who flew over to Chennai for a blogger meet and went back to meet with Singapore bloggers. That was partly true. Though she flew over to India, it was for her friend's wedding and also her yearly quota. Read her account of Chennai/Singapore Blogger meet, The Legend of Blog Meets. I've asked her for 6 Vithyaasangal between Chennai/Singapore bloggers. Let see what she's upto.

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To cut the small story short, they said Snoqualmie Falls was taller than Niagara. Since I didn't have a measuring tape of that size, I couldn't confirm. But it was sure fun and tons of tiredness. The walk from the top of the falls to the bottom was a through a trail and finally I had jump a fence to touch the ultra-cold water. Clicked tons of pictures. Have uploaded a few on Seattle Photoblog.

If you are visiting Seattle, its a must go. Oh !! forgot to tell you, Burger King's Onion Rings rock. Vengaaya Bajji.

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Writing with strands of
watery hair on her bare back
a love haiku

Enjoyed the Haiku by RK Singh.

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[ Click image to blow up. Thanks - Karthi/Daily Thanthi ]

...And thus the theory of being paid more than King Khan is proved beyond approximations.

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[Pic - Vikatan.com]

This interview of Mani Ratnam on the occasion of Nayakan being selected on the All-'Time' list, made me jive. Indeed I felt happy for a true professional living among us. For a question on why he chooses to make movies that become threat to his life sometimes, he quotes, " If I have to take movie just like my previous movie, I would rather stay at home doing nothing. Ironically, even to attain peace, we have to fight. And I'm doing it through a medium that I know, cinema."

While, there could be arguments and truths, that some scenes may have a striking resemblance to the scenes from his earlier flicks, as a story teller, I personally feel, Mani Ratnam has been consistently different from his previous attempts.

On a note about Nayakan reaching the Time's list, Mani Ratnam seems to be a happy man but is just being modest about it. Though he looks at it as a magazine screening few films and making a list of classic, he conveys that Nayakan was a movie that was perfect in every regard. He goes on to praise Kamal Hassan, Illayaraja, PC Sriram and Thotta tharani for their exemplary contribution. Nayakan's birth seems to have taken place in thirty seconds. While asked to remake a hindi film with Kamal Hassan, Mani seems to have told a one-liner of Varadharaja Mudhaliyar and Kamal readily accepted for it.

For me the picture above is a treasure. It tells me a dozen things. On to the right with Kamal and PC, I see Mani Ratnam as a yuppie willing to learn the art. The picture to the left talks about the perfectionist in him. It could be that Mani Ratnam is a famous director, I am harping so much on a photograph which was taken then. But then as a kid I faintly remember watching this same Mani Ratnam with those geeky specs, shooting Nayakan.

I've heard some of friends and fellow bloggers say that Mani Ratnam never digs deeps into a subject. They say he does a 'Nunni Pull Meithal' and tries to get hype. While I am accepting that Mani Ratnam knows how to hype a film, I also know he doesn't go beyond a scope to search hype. The reason why many of Mani Ratnam's films gets hyped is because the story never gets revealed until the release. Even if it gets leaked it gets in bits and pieces. Not like the mediocre directors who sell the best scenes and songs to cable even before the movie is released. If people could see the best scene on their television sets again and again, repeatedly, why would they come to theatres. In that regard, Mani Ratnam has always had the guts to keep to himself until the movie release. Ofcourse, his marketing agency tries to create a hype during the release. Movie making is also for money making and as he declares himself to be a commercial director, he wants every single person to view his offering in theatre and make more money. Business dudes. Mani Ratnam being superficial in dealing with sensitive issues ?? Another post another day.

Thanks Prabhu V for the pointer.

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Going forward we will only have movies which are rehashes of Thiruvilayaadal or Thirunilaakandar and Veera Pandiya Kattaboman. No Mughal movies as they have scenes where the Sultans smoke Hooka. Why ?

Smoking to be banned in movies, television serials. All our movie heroes will chew bubblegums from today, on-screen.

Let them even ban making movies in India but in the name of censor or such explicit laws, I hope these wouldn't happen to the growing media industry. Why wouldn't they ban making movies in India ? Why won't they ban cigarettes itself from entering the country rather than resorting to such bans ? Both these might not happen because both fetch money like nobody's business.

Let's not fool ourselves that media reflects society or viceversa anymore.

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