Weekend movies - Kokki & Parineeta

Kokki - You know what I liked the most about this movie - the length of this movie. The movie ran only for 1 hour and 40 minutes. And I was so glad that the movie got over so quickly. It is one of those wannabe realistic movies which end up being really bad attempts. The theme that the director has tried to handle is different but he just didn’t know what to do with a different theme. Karan was OK in his role as Kokki. Nothing path breaking as it has been made out to be. Malaysia Vasudevan as the calm & composed guardian of Karan was impressive. The Vikatan review of the movie mentioned about how scenes depicting Karan running on the streets of Chennai were just too many. I couldn’t agree more. He wasn’t shown just running, he was shown walking, going on the cycle and going on the bus. Easily more than 50% of the movie had shots which were shot on the road. The heroine was totally unnecessary and whenever there is a scene involving her, you can bet your money that there is going to be a duet song around the corner. I would have been happier if the songs had been done away with totally bcos of many reasons - 1) the songs were a major irritant to the flow of the movie, 2) songs were ridiculous and 3) it would have made the movie all the more shorter, may be even helping it break the record for the shortest Tamil feature film ever made. I really don’t know what more to write about this movie with nothing good in it whatsoever and the thing that is annoying to me is why is this movie even mentioned, while discussing good movies that have come out in Tamil of late. Take my word on this, you wont regret if you miss this one.

Parineeta - The first thing I guess you will recall from this movie would be its pathetic climax. A movie when went on smoothly until the very end had this most ridiculous climax and unfortunately, that stupid climax changed the whole opinion that I had about the movie. Again a case of "what the heck went through the director's mind" scenario. Nadodi Thendral is the one movie which I could recall while watching Parineeta. Like in Nadodi thendral, there is no reason why this movie should be a period film. May be bcos it is based on a novel which was set in that time period. The story is nothing new and something we have seen in so many movies in the 70s and 80s. Saif Ali Khan was OK. But anybody else could have that role equally well. Vidya Balan is beautiful, acts well and no wonder Mani has signed her up for a role in Guru. The songs were actually the highlight of the movie, with the Piyu Bole song instantly catching and it has been in repeat mode in my player, ever since I saw that movie. Another thing that captured my attention was the wonderful art direction. Bottom line - If you are ready to forgive the ridiculous climax, the movie is passable.

p.s: It has been a while since I wrote anything about Sachin. Though I wanted to blog about his first innings after injury where he scored a century without any apparent discomfort while playing the complete array of shots, I did not do it since I wanted to wait till he gets back to the Indian team. But the following passage which I found in the article here, was too good to give a pass. So thought of just quoting it here. The article titled "Call the medics" dwells on the 11 most famous cricket injuries. Interesting read and the this passage about Sachin is the only entry for an Indian cricketer.

Sachin Tendulkar - elbow

After the litany of metatarsal injuries that have befallen their footballers in recent years, England's fans probably believe they are the most anatomically knowledgeable sports followers in the world. Tendulkar's devotees, on the other hand, all 1 billion of them, might beg to differ. In his long and illustrious career, Tendulkar had missed just three Tests and 45 ODIs in 15 years, but when tennis elbow struck in 2004, it ruled him out of a host of high-profile contests, including the Champions Trophy and the sharp end of a Test series against Australia. "There was a stage when I could not hold the bat properly, could not lift it at all," he admitted while traveling to London for an operation in May 2005, as India held its breath and their sports pages turned into medical journals.

I particularly liked the line Tendulkar's devotees, on the other hand, all 1 billion of them, might beg to differ. Could not have said better. Come back soon, Sachin!!

Geography Trivia

So, as I promised, here is the list of questions from the geography trivia challenge we had at our team meeting a while back. Let me know how many questions you got it right (and of course, googling is strictly prohibited). I will leave the answers in the comments section, like I did before.

• How deep is the deepest point of the earth's oceans? What is it called?
• What are the 5 largest countries (by area) in the world?
• What is the 3rd most populous country in the world? And what is the population?
• If you a drive a hole in Clinton, OH into the earth, what part of a water body will you come out of the other side of the earth? (This one is from a recent episode of Jeopardy)
• Monaco is the most dense country in the world. What is the density of population?
• What is the deepest lake in the world? How deep it is?
• How long is the Nile river?
• What are 5 biggest states in the US? Same question w.r.t India.
• What percentage of the surface area of earth do the oceans cover?
• How many countries are there in the African continent?

Let the geography geek in us come to life :) And do let me know how many questions you got it right. I got 5 of the 10 answers correct.

Paarijaatham movie review- Refreshing & enjoyable

Of late, there have been so many times when I thought that the giants of yesteryears like Bharathiraja, KB have lost it. Period. Bcos so many of their films of late have been insipid, to put it very mildly. Bharathiraja's outputs have been pretty mediocre ever after Kizhakku Seemaiyile happened. Same with KB, with nothing much to rave about Duet and Paarthaale Paravasam. And this list has only been growing with directors like Fazil who while dishing out that farce called Oru Naal Oru Kanavu, joining the list. I used to wonder if these renowned directors of yesteryears will ever be able to regain their lost glory.

Having said all this, it was only natural for me to be apprehensive while beginning to watch Paarijaatham, just anxious as to whether Bhagyaraj too has joined that list. The way the movie starts, you begin to wonder if your worst fears are coming true. But as it progresses, Bhagyaraj eases our anxiety and goes a long way in proving to us that he still retains his old magic and more importantly that magic can captivate the audience of this generation too. And the way he sets out accomplishing this is the best thing I liked about the movie – tightly knit screenplay & highly enjoyable sequences.

There is a reason why Bhagyaraj was considered to be one of the best screenplay writers in the country, during his hey days. And he proves in this movie how he reached that stature. I was simply blown away by the way each and every loose end of the movie was taken care of. Each time you see a loose end here or an unwanted character there, you begin wondering what is Bhagyaraj up to and he assuages your doubts pretty soon, by easily knitting up a coherent reason for the same. The story as such was no great shakes and even though we can guess what will be the logical conclusion to the movie right at the interval, instead of getting bored with the same, we get ready for the second half to unfold, bcos it is the second half where we expect Bhagyaraj to come in and solve the knot in his own interesting way. The concept of the story inside a story was done neatly. Though at times I felt that the inside story was stretching just a bit too much, the happenings later in the movie justified Bhagyaraj's decision to prolong the inside story that long.

As long as you see Sharanya Bhagyaraj as Bhagyaraj's daughter, you wont feel like her criticizing her (bcos of the soft corner for Bhagyaraj). She looks cute and she reminds us of her mother too much. But if you are able to see her beyond that protective veil, then I am sure you can say that it is a performance with tremendous scope for improvement. The moment she utters her first dialogue, I was like Oh my God!! I have to put up with this for 2.5 hours. She had this certain inhibition, be it in dialogue delivery or in emoting in crucial scenes. But after a while, you kind of get used to her expressionless face along with her other shortcomings and then you overlook them & beging enjoying the movie instead. Bhagyaraj could have saved a lot of blushes for her if he had shown long shots of her in some scenes where she has faltered badly. But there are no such complaints for Prithviraj, who turns in a fine performance. He proves that he can play the role of hero with the same ease, as that he played the role of villain with. All others, including Prakashraj & Bhagyaraj himself, chip in with some decent performances.

The major disappointment of the movie IMO were the songs. And I cant believe someone who is doing his debut movie could churn in such mediocre tunes. Bhagyaraj could have instead used some tunes from the Blogswara numbers. Couple of the Blogswara songs are just damn good and they are on repeat mode in my current playlist.

Other thing I disliked about the movie was that it had the flavor of a Vikraman movie in the first 20 or 30 mins, when Seetha is getting impressed with Sharanya. For example, the following are couple of scenarios that you would see in a typical Vikraman movie - A and B will be talking to each other about C and C would be shown standing in some hidden corner and listening as to what A & B are talking him/her. The other scenario is this: C is impressed with A and you will see characters D, E, F, etc singing praises of character A to somebody else and like you expect, C will be hiding (in a different corner this time around) listening to these praises. These are just some sample scenes that you will find in all Vikraman movies and whenever I see them in any other movie, I get irritated. That happened in this movie too but thankfully Bhagyaraj stopped that within the first few mins.

The very first scene in the movie has Bhagyaraj saying that we are not in for a roller coaster ride but we in for a boat ride in clear & calm waters. He delivers just that in his own inimitable style and succeeds in what he set out to. A very good family entertainer devoid of double meaning jokes & people tied to strings flying around (adhaanga fight scenes!!) No wonder that the king of screenplay finds himself in familiar territory - box office success.

Trivia Challenge At Work

Here at work, we follow this agile methodology in software development where we have 2 week iterations. We will have small modules (which are called stories) to be completed (developed & tested) every 2 weeks. And at the end of the 2nd week, we have this meeting called iteration meeting where we discuss how the past iteration went and also about the tasks for the new iteration ahead. Since this meeting usually lasts a good 2-2.5 hours and people were getting bored/ tired with too much information overload, someone in the team suggested that we have a trivia game to make the meeting more lively and interesting. Everyone was for it (as expected) and we started doing it some 6 iterations back.

So, here is what we decided -

1) Each iteration, one person in the team will be responsible for coming up with some trivia questions.
2) All the questions in a trivia quiz should deal with one particular topic.
3) And this topic should be disclosed to the rest of the team atleast 1 iteration earlier. Like for example, the topic for the last iteration meeting was the Soccer World Cup and that was revealed to us a good 3 weeks before.
4) Since we have around 20 members in the team, we will divide ourselves into 5 groups of 4 members each.
5) And for each correct answer, each member of that particular team will get a cookie or a chocolate or something similar that the quiz master brings.

6) We will have a question every 15 mins or so.

We have had this for 6 iterations now and needless to say the enthusiasm level of the team has increased bcos of this trivia challenge. The topics of the past 6 iterations have been the following - sitcoms, Seattle, Boston marathon (bcos one of our team members participated in the Boston marathon), Olympics, geography (I will post the questions of this one in a separate post) and soccer world cup (questions from my post 2 weeks back were from this trivia quiz).

So, that brings me to the reason for this post. I am thinking of volunteering to be the trivia quiz master for an upcoming iteration. But before I do that, I wanted to have a topic ready and also some questions to go along with it. The first topic that came to my mind was Sports (since it has not been done yet and also since it is my most favorite one) but some guys here in my team are so good at that they will crack any trivia you throw at them whereas the same can not be said about the girls in the team, who are not too much into sports. So, dropped that topic. The next one which sprung to my mind was India (what else). That would be an interesting option since only myself & one other guy in our team are from India and I can have that guy not open his mouth during the trivia.

But coming up with a list of questions for this one is a very tough task bcos the questions should neither be too difficult to answer nor too easy to answer. Like, say a question like, What is the capital city of India? would be too easy (some might still say Bombay, though) whereas a question like What is the name of India's equivalent of White House? would be too tough. So, I am basically looking for questions and I need you guys' help in that. One useful tip in coming up with questions is that it would be better if the answer to a question is a number, so that if nobody knows the answer (which would be the case most of the times), then the team with the closest number to the correct answer can be declared winner and thereby we can have a winner for each question. So, here are some of the questions that I have in my mind right now:

- What is the national language of India?
- How many states does India have?
- List the name of 5 cities in India.
- How big is the Indian population?
- What is the rank of India in the list of largest countries in the world?

I am sure you guys can think of similar questions. Looking forward to your help...

Weekend movies - Very Bad Things and Hyderabad Blues 2

Very bad things - Decided to watch this movie after reading here that this is the movie on which Panchathanthiram was loosely based on. As the movie progresses, though it is very obvious that Kamal has been inspired from this movie, the similarities between the 2 movies are just too little. The part where 5 friends go to Bangalore and hire a call girl during their stay is definitely inspired from here. Instead of Bangalore, it is Las Vegas in this one. But instead of a fake murder in Panchathanthiram, here they really kill the girl. The scenes after the alleged murder where everyone panics and how Kamal as the only calm head in the group takes charge of the situation definitely seems to have been inspired. In fact, the way how Yugi Sethu freaks out is eerily similar to one character in this movie too.

But overall, the extent to which Kamal has been inspired from this movie is definitely not as much as we have seen in other instances before, for example between Life of David Gale and Virumandi. This movie deals with how the 5 friends in their attempts to hide their murder of the stripper, end up attacking & killing each other in their own group. I was completely unprepared for the crudeness in the movie as I was expecting it to be another comedy movie, just like Panchathanthiram. In fact, the craziness of the this movie freaked me out. I really don’t have much to write about it since the main reason of watching this movie was to observe the similarities of this movie with Panchathanthiram. Next up in the list is Tie Me Up, Tie me Down which is the movie Guna is supposed to be inspired from (or atleast that is how it looks like from the plot summary of that movie).

Hyderabad Blues 2 - Was good. I will have to say the proverbial comment that the sequel was not as good as the original. The one person I badly (& sadly) missed from the original - Rajshri Nair, the heroine of the original. She was so cute and was a perfect choice in the first one. But here, the choice of the heroine was a huge letdown. Somehow, I just could not take it that Kukkunoor undergoes whatever he does for HER sake :) But Kukkunoor's choice of the girl at work who seduces him was spot on. Of course, the movie has his trademark witty comments, like when he says on seeing a group of people dancing casually Indians have to be the worst dancers in the world. Though watching the first part is not a pre-requisite, we will enjoy certain scenes only if we have seen the first one. The one memory I am sure one would carry from the first part is the childish & amateurish climax. That part was handled way better in this movie, his 4 movies directing experience has probably taught him something. The only scene which was irritating was the rock band scene where I thought he just stretched it too much, with myself wishing the scene gets over a good 3 minutes before the scene actually ended. Definitely enjoyable movie from a director whose stock is steadily rising.

Miles Away From Ordinary

Miles Away From Ordinary - San Juan Islands, Washington (please click on the picture for a bigger version)

Legal download of Tamil film songs

I am surprised that none of the popular bloggers have blogged about this. This is something I have been wanting and waiting for so long. Downloading songs form the internet - this is something many of us are guilty of. Just bcos the fact that the crime is a milder one and we get off without any problem, it does not justify our actions. It is for this piracy sake, I never download & watch movies from those numerous websites. I always wait for the original DVD of the movie to arrive here in the local Indian store. But downloading songs form the internet - I have always been doing it. Even though I have been feeling guilty about the whole thing, I haven’t been able to restrain myself from downloading them. The urge to download the songs whenever a new album is released is too tempting to overcome.

I have in fact thought very hard about ways to overcome this guilt of mine. One thing I was seriously contemplating about is to purchase audio rights of Tamil albums released in India and sell them through the local Indian store here in Redmond. Currently, we only have some high profile Tamil albums that make it to the store here and they too are exorbitantly priced at 9$ a CD and most importantly, usually reach the store a good 1-2 months after the audio was released in India. So, I was reasoning that if we were to sell the albums at say 3-4$ a CD, many would buy it. But since the scope of that working out is very slim, I dropped it. And so, the other thing I recently decided was that in future, I will do this – every time I download a new album from the internet, I will ask my sister in Chennai to buy the original CD of the same album and keep it there. And I would then collect it from her when I visit India next. All this to assuage the guilt feeling.

So, amidst all this, comes this news about legal downloads as a huge relief. This report here in the Hindu has all the details about the new venture by Galatta.com. The songs are up here in the Galatta.com website. The cost of the songs too are not too expensive. The price of a single song is anywhere between Rs 12 and Rs. 15 whereas a whole album can cost you anything between Rs. 35 and Rs. 100. The ability to buy individual songs is the biggest advantage of this idea and whoever came up with this idea should be lauded. They have got almost all the latest albums right up to Kedi, in there. They are in the process of adding the old albums/ classics like Johnny too but I am sure it is going to take some time to do that. I only wish that they carry this forward in full swing and develop this into a comprehensive database of Tamil songs.

So, to start things, I went ahead and bought the complete Raam album, for a decent 1.98$. And my mind is so much free of the guilty consciousness which was killing me all these days. I know so many of my friends had the same feeling about downloading songs from the internet and now it is time to propagate this good news far and wide. So, spread the word around and spare yourself & your friends from the guilt of downloading songs, illegally. Happy downloading :)

How Nadal tamed Federer

Courtesy: BBC SPORT Tennis

Kedi audio - Yuvan back to form

You are getting ready to leave work on a Friday evening. And while browsing your usual sites before you leave, you come across the news that a new music album has been released. You download the songs. You say to yourself "OK, let me hear couple of songs and leave". But it turns out that the songs are too good & compelling to hear that you don’t leave your seat, until you have heard all the songs in the album. You do a la Ted Ferguson, staying a good 45 minutes past your normal starting time, ON a Friday evening. That should say something about the album, right?! Well, the above is my experience of first listening to Yuvan's latest album Kedi.

Finally, there is an album where all the songs are so catchy that you get hooked on to each one of them, right on your first hearing. No exaggeration here. Each and every song has a fresh feel to it and after a slightly disappointing Vallavan, Yuvan comes back roaring to his form with this sure-to-be musical hit.

Right from the choice of singers for each of the song to the musical arrangements of the songs, everything is just about perfect. In particular, I liked the different hip-hoppish beats that he has used in songs like 'Aadhivaasi' and kedi paiyya. I really don’t want to go into details of each of the songs, bcos each of them is so good. The range of the songs in the album is quite different too. You have a typical annan - Thangachi sentiment song in Kunguma poove to Yuvan's typical heavy beats song in Chumma chumma to a typical college song College life-da (this song reminded me so much of Deva’s good old gaanaa numbers) to a item number in Unna petha aathaa

Pick of the album – Kunguma poove (Ranjith has done a fabulous rendition in this song which sounds so IR-ish)
Better songs – Chummaa chummaa, Kedi paiyyaa, Antha Vaanam, Aadhivaasi (loved Shreya Gosal’s voice in this one)
Can skip it – College life-da
Sure to be chartbuster – Unna petha aathaa (Jassie Gift at his usual best in this one)

This is the second consecutive album that Yuvan has not taken up the mike to sing a song. Looks like finally somebody has talked sense to him. (But I still wouldn’t mind another "Ore naalil" once in a while if Yuvan can reproduce the same magic again). Apart from that, the other thing that is too glaring to miss is the fact that the movie has been made for both the Tamil and Telugu audience. It shows in most of the songs with the item number standing out in particular.

When I read the interview of the director of the movie in Vikatan a while ago, where he had some glowing words to say about the songs in the movie, I was not too impressed since every director always tend to talk highly about every aspect of their film, music being the most important of them. But one thing still made me expect this album with more curiosity - this director's previous film was with Rahman and the fact that he has moved on from Rahman to Yuvan should have surely inspired Yuvan to justify the director's decision. And I do feel that he has done more than enough to prove the director right.

This album might not stand the scrutiny of music critics like Karthick bcos of its primary purpose to cater to the masses but I am sure every song in the album is bound to be a huge hit back in India, once the film releases. Yuvan has hit the final nail on the coffins of all those doubting thomases who just weren’t giving him the respect & attention he so rightfully deserved. And with movies like Satham Podaathey and Paruthiveeran (with Vasanth & Ameer respectively, directors who are known for extracting the best out of their music directors), due to be released shortly, I am really all excited while thinking about what is in store for us, Tamil musical fans, in the near future from the Ilaiya Isaignaani. In short, Yuvan pattaiya kelappi irukkaapla.

World Cup trivia

As the 18th edition of the biggest sporting extravanganza in the planet - the World Cup - starts today, here is some trivia to go along with it.

1) When did the qualifying games for this year's World Cup tournament begin? How many countries took part in the qualification process? How many matches were played to narrow down the field to the final 32 teams?

2) Who won the very first World Cup match in 1930?

3) What was the USA's best finish ever in a World Cup? And when?

4) Since 1930, there have been 17 World Cups played. Only 7 countries have actually won the title. Name them and if possible, also the number of times each team won it.

5) Since 1930, 2 editions of the World Cup have been postponed. What were the editions? And what was the reason?

6) In WC history, there have been 3 teams that have finished runners-up twice and none of these teams have won the World Cup. Name the teams.

7) In how many World Cups that the US has appeared in? How many games have they won in those 8 appearacnes?

8) The same question for Brazil.

9) Which team holds the record for the most number of goals scored in a single World Cup tournament?

10) In the 1950 WC, the US provided one of the biggest upsets in soccer history in what has come to be known as "The shot heard around the world". Name the opponent?

I am leaving the answers in the comments section. But hey, dont click on the comments section yet and let me know how many you got it right?!

Weekend movies - Saravana, Water & Aalavandhaan

Saravana - It is really amazing how K. S. Ravi Kumar can keep making masala movies without any great storyline but still make them look decent. Mistake me not, Saravana is not a good movie, but as typical as a KSR movie one can get. Mainly wanted to see how Simbu has performed in this movie. He acts OK, dances great and jokes around pretty well. The only problem with him is he is loud-mouthing his dialogues just too much. He should probably cut down on that. Watching Simbu act is like seeing a small boy who is just enthusiastic and carefree. It is still hard for me to take him as a serious actor. He just clowns around too much. Jyothika looked OK in this movie. Given Simbhu's boyish behavior, Jyothika looked too old for him. Though the quality of the songs tuned in by Srikanth Deva were of pretty bad quality, they still were hummable. I have in fact come to like this song kaadhal vandhu very much. But KSR didn’t have a clue as to where to place them and as a result, songs just come out at the most unexpected of places. Vivek's jokes weren't anything to carry home, though the one which he starts off with kitta thatta ladies maadhiriye irukkeengale, neenga ellaam yaaru? still brings a laugh or two to me. Watchable once but like many felt, a lot better than Paramasivan that was released along with it.

Water - Despite high controversies surrounding the making of the movie, Deepa Mehta somehow managed to shoot the movie and release it. I only knew about that there is some controversy surrounding the movie but I didn’t know what the controversy was all about. Or in other words, I didn’t know what the movie dealt with. Apparently, Deepa Mehta shot the whole film in Sri Lanka and that too in disguise - she let everyone know that she was shooting for another movie, whereas in reality she was shooting Water. The movie starts off with some amazing background score and I am like Wait a sec. It has music by ARR and how come we have such a good BGM. My question was answered in a few minutes when the credits rolled where it was revealed to me that only the songs were composed by ARR whereas somebody else had composed the background score. That behind my back, I started watching the movie. The moment you realize what this movie is about, the enormity of the task at hand for Deepa Mehta dawns on you. The film just shakes you to no ends. The crudeness will jolt you. It looks at the life of widows in the 1930s through the eyes of a 8-year old, who too is condemned to the ashram of widows. But the movie had a feel-good climax which will warm you. The casting was perfect, except for Lisa Ray. Somehow it was hard for me to picture her as a widow. Everything else about the movie - the cinematography, background score and performances - were just too good. The small girl should definitely win a national award for her performance. She was so cute & she makes you cry when she cries & laugh when she laughs. There were some really poignant moments in the movie which will move you. There is this scene where the little girl brings laddu to a very old widow who hasn’t had a laddu for years bcos widows are not supposed to eat fried food items. That scene was just too overwhelming. Gandhiji also appears in a scene at the very end of the movie. That scene was shot extremely well. The way how the whole town reacts to Gandhiji's stop-over & his short speech at their place really made me think that it was how it would have been during those days when the Mahatma was around & how well he was received in the villages. Totally gripping movie.

Aalavandhaan - I never wanted to watch this movie since even the best of Kamal fans came running out of the theater while watching it (please note it is 'while' and not 'after' watching the movie). But now, I understand their plight...poor fellows, you can not blame them. Aalavandhaan is to Kamal, what Baba was to Thalaivar. Like Baba, Aalavandhaan was one movie which came amidst dizzying expectations but flopped miserably (atleast the disaster of Baba did not bite the distributors' hands bcos of Thalaivar's magnanimity whereas what this movie's failure did to Thaanu is part of folklore). Anyway, one word to describe this movie would be terrible. This movie is probably the best example of what can happen due to Kamal's overindulgence in almost all the aspects of film-making. Recently in a blog there was this statement that this movie was technically superior (that was why I watched this movie in first place). Well, what can I say about that than just laugh about it. There were too many ridiculous scenes in the movie where the use of graphics was glaring to the eye. I mean, even the most amateur of movie-goers will easily spot the use of graphics in so many scenes. Particularly, the most technically challenging scenes where 2 Kamals shared the screen, it was almost very clear to my eyes that something has been done to show them that way. Each and every single scene involving graphics was pathetically done. To add to our woes, the film is 2 hours 50 mins long. The last 20 mins were completely unwatchable, with Kamal entering the 'full overboard' zone. Then, we had Manisha - completely bloated up and didn’t know what she was doing in the movie. Also, I have to say something about Raveena Tandon as the news anchor of Star Vijay. That would make you think that the Sun TV anchors are as good as Prannoy Roy. Pathetic Tamil. I do not understand why they had to show her as someone who reads Tamil news. They could have had her stick to reading English news, since the whole movie is based in Delhi. But then this is one such movie, with full of mis-steps like this. The only saving grace of an otherwise crappy movie is some of the tunes composed by the Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy combination. The Un azhagukku thaai poruppu song is one of my all-time favorites. This film deserved what it got as a response from the audience in terms of Box office verdict. And I am happy about it bcos if this movie had become a hit, we would have seen more of such stupid stuff from Kamal. It is when you watch movies like this, you realize how we all miss the Kamal from the Mahanadhi & Devar Magan days. He is long gone and I don’t think we will ever get to see him again.

Vallavan audio - flawed but enjoyable

Coming after the hugely successful Manmadhan, this was one Yuvan album I was looking forward to. (Of course, I look forward to every album from Yuvan but this one was extra special after the magic they created in Manmadhan). But unlike Yuvan's successful combinations with his other favorite directors (like Ameer & Selva) where he has only gotten better with each passing film, here Yuvan takes a small step backward. Mistake me not, this is no mediocre album but its just that I expected more out of the Yuvan - Simbu combo.

First up, people who hate Yuvan's voice (primarily after his sing-all-songs-in-an-album experimentation in AIBI), there is good news - Yuvan has not sung any song in this album, though the credits of the theme music have been given to Yuvan. But that is hardly a song and so you can breathe easy. Simbu has sung 4 of the songs and by sounding more like Yuvan, makes you suspect if it is Yuvan or Simbu who has sung those songs. But he is definitely a lot better than Yuvan. Now, to the songs...

Loosu penne - Pick of the album, by miles. There are 2 versions and the regular version is my pick. Simbu has sung pretty well. The song is replete with rap pieces and some very catchy humming by the chorus. The tune is very simple and haunting at the same time. The remix offers nothing new in it and hence can easily be passed on.

Vallavaa ennai - the second best of the album. Another instantly catchy melody from Yuvan. The orchestration is pretty neat in this one. Sunidhi Chauhan elevates the songs to new heights. A very high quality number.

Poduda aattam - this should be Simbu's intro song. It starts off with some heavy thaarai & thappattais and the kids choir definitely makes the song more enjoyable. But then it moves along expected lines, like any other Simbu intro song. You will not like to hear this, after a while.

Hooray hooray - though it reminds of others songs, it is instantly catchy. The beats are neatly done.

Kaadhal vandhirichu - this is the song that Yuvan has hand picked for remixing this time around and as always comes out on top. He has thrown in some liberal parts of 'Its your bday" song but this remix is very catchy. And Simbu has done an amazing job of rendering the song.

Ammaadi aathaadi - and finally there is this kuthu song about which I had blogged a while back. To put it in Simbu's own words, குத்துன்னா குத்து. கொலைக்குத்து :) The song does live up to its promise given by Simbu. And surprisingly TR has done a decent job of singing it, though he does falter at a couple of places where he has to sing high pitch. But even during those times, Simbu comes in and makes up for it with some superlative singing. The beats of that song are sure to impress anyone on the first listening and I am already looking forward to Simbu's dance in that song. Should be a perfect item number with ample scope for Simbu to display his dancing prowess. Sure to be a chart-buster.

Now to my disappointments of the album - there is no typical Yuvan melody in this one, something like Kanave kalaigiradhe in AIBI or the Edhedho ennangal vandhu in Pattiyal. The next grouse is that there are no songs with heavy beats either, similar to the Pul pesum song from Pudhupettai or Poga Poga from Pattiyal or ABCD marandhu pochu from Manmadhan. One more of each of these genres and this would have been a perfect album.

Bottom line - Like Karthik has mentioned in his 100 words review of the album, we can see more of Simbu in all these songs and less of Yuvan. That brings the quality of the album, just that little bit down. But even given all that, a definitely entertaining & adequate album overall.

Monthly Sports Round-up - May 2006

May 1 - This has nothing to do with any sports event. But this is a really weird & interesting coincidence. Kobe becomes a father on this day and guess who became father on the same day? It is none other than Shaq. Both of them had girl babies too and the babies were born some 6 minutes apart. It is so ironic that 2 players who are sworn enemies on and off the court, had to become fathers on the same day.

May 6 - The Clippers win their first postseason series since April 1976, when they were the Buffalo Braves. They snap a streak of 29 consecutive postseasons without winning a playoff series - the longest in NBA history whereas their more celebrated city team, the LA Lakers found themselves eliminated in the 1st round of the playoffs by a determined Suns team in a grueling 7 game series, which went right down to the wire. It was so sad to see my favorite Lakers team go down, after leading 3-1 and needing just a win to seal the series. Rubbing salt to the wound was the fact that Steve Nash was selected as the MVP of the league for the 2006 season. I was really hoping that Kobe would win the award, given his superlative performance over the course of the entire season.

May 6 - Barbaro easily wins the 132nd edition of the Kentucky Derby, with the biggest margin in the race in 60 years. Barbaro swept to the lead at the top of stretch and drew away for one of the more impressive wins in Kentucky Derby history.

May 7- Ferrari's Michael Schumacher wins the European Grand Prix at Nuerburgring to clinch his second win in a row and the 86th of his career.

May 12 - US Sprinter Justin Gatlin breaks the coveted 100m dash world record at the Qatar Grand Prix. He takes over the world record from Asafa Powell of Jamaica, who set the record sometime last year. Gatlin finished the race in 9.76 seconds, slicing 1/100th of a second off the previous world record. It is amazing to observe the pattern in which the 100m record is falling. Like 10 years ago, the record would go down by 1/10th of a second, whereas in the last few years, the record has always been broken by 1/100th of a second. Gone are those days when it was being said man can not run the 100m faster than 10 seconds.

May 13 - AskMen.com comes up with the list of the Top 10 angriest athletes of all time. And oh yeah, John McEnroe finds a place in the list. The only other athlete that I knew from the list was Rasheed Wallace of the Pistons. Wonder how a similar list for cricketers would look like...

May 14 - Nadal proves his superiority over Federer, with his 3rd straight win of the year over Federer, in the finals of the Rome Masters tournament. But as this article suggests, the gap between Federer and Nadal is only closing and all this means only one thing - an intriguing French Open where Nadal will clearly be the favorite to win it again.

May 14 - Alonso extends his lead over Schumacher by 15 points with another impressive win at the Spanish Grand Prix and thus ending Schumacher's quest for a 3rd successive win. He also becomes the first Spaniard to win the Spanish GP.

May 18 - Justin Gatlin's happiness at breaking the 100m record, is short-lived as the IAAF takes the record away from him, citing an error in the stop clock used in the Doha Grand Prix. Looks like the actual timing was 9.766 and instead of rounding it to 9.77, they round it off to 9.76. Gatlin will have to share the record of the world's fastest human with Asafa Powell, atleast for now.

May 20 - After an agonizing 2 week wait, Barry Bonds finally catches up with Babe Ruth at the 2nd position on the all-time career Home Runs list. Though the reactions to this one were very mixed, I sincerely feel that this is a feat that nobody else in future will be able to match. But at the speed he is going, the magical number of 755 does not look possible.

May 22 - This was something I have been waiting for a while - Martina Hingis' first ATP win after her comeback. She wins the Italian Open with a straight sets victory over Dinara Safina, Marat Safin's sister. Though this was not a great tournament to win, I was so happy for her, that she has made it back to top form that fetches her ATP tournaments. Having said that, I still have my doubts as to how she will match up against the likes of Sharapova and Clisjters. The upcoming French Open will have an answer to my questions.

May 25 - Team India is brought down crashing down to earth by a resurgent West Indian team with a humiliating 4-1 loss in the ODI series. Though the first 3 games went right down to the wire, the West Indians just walloped the Indians in the final 2 ODIs. The fact that India lost 2 close encounters consecutively probably took its toll on the Indians. I do feel that the team management has to arrive at a solid batting line-up for the middle-order. This exercise of playing around with Dhoni, Pathan and Raina need to stop, now that we have tried each of them at different positions & have seen what they can do. Did I hear someone say we missed Sachin :) Now, the focus shifts to the test series and it remains to be seen if the Indians can salvage some pride by winning the test series (or atleast drawing level).

May 28 - The French Open begins. And the interest of a billion people is killed on the first day as Sania loses in the first round, again. Meanwhile, Nadal re-writes the clay court record for the most number of consecutive matches won with his first round victory in the French Open.

May 28 - And then there was only one. Barry Bonds with his 715th career home run, overcomes the Babe in the all-time home runs list. He accomplished this feat during his game against the Colorado Rockies at home. Now, as expected, the ESPN bottom-line which was saying 'Chasing Ruth' before the homer now has been changed to 'Chasing Aaron'

May 28 - Renault’s Fernando Alonso took victory in an eventful Monaco Grand Prix this afternoon, extending his lead in the world championship to 21 points.

Best Sporting event of the month - The conference semi-finals between the Spurs and the Mavericks is my pick for this month's best sporting event. What a series it was, with 4 of the 7 matches decided by fewer than 5 points and 2 of them going to overtime. In the end, the Mavs prevailed, thanks to some superior coaching job by 'the coach of the year' Avery Johnson. I am happy for the Mavs and would be very glad if they go on to win the Championships.

Best individual performance of the month - This has to be Hingis. She might lose early in the French Open but I salute her for the perseverance she has shown, in her comeback to the game that she once ruled.