Weekend movies - Sindhu Bhairavi and Ponniyin Selvan

Sindhu Bhairavi - This is one movie whose many scenes I know by heart but I don’t remember watching the movie as a whole. So, wanted to revisit this. When they talk about the best films in the history of Tamil cinema, this movie easily finds a place in almost all of them. And I can easily see why everyone says so. This was a typical KB movie all the way. You have the trademark maverick character in Suhasini, who is definitely revolutionary, even when the movie is seen today. The fun part of the movie came when KB had to show that Suhasini and Sivakumar were making love. Oh my God. You should watch the scenes that KB had used to convey the same. I guess it would have been a lot more easier for him if he were to shoot the movie today. The Maestro won the National award for this and again, evidence & reasons for the same can be found all over the movie. Amazing songs and perfect background score. But the one thing that stood out for me in this movie was Suhasini's performance. Her performance was fabulous and flawless. There is this one particular emotion that she conveys which I simply love – after she is ridiculed by someone, still smarting under that & trying to cover up the same, she sarcastically gets back to the same person. The way she emotes in such a scene is absolutely beautiful. Everyone else, including Sivakumar, had done their part pretty well. The only place where I thought KB could have done differently was in revealing what was going to happen in the climax, some 30 mins before the end of the film. Suhasini is being shown as going to a clinic to abort her pregnancy and then she goes back without doing it on hearing that Sivakumar's wife can not become a mother ever. Then at the end it is shown as though we should be surprised on seeing Suhasini come back with a baby. The surprise element was completely not there since it is clearly been shown before that she visited the gynecologist. Bottomline - no wonder, it is considered a classic by many.

Ponniyin Selvan - Mainly wanted to see this movie for the director Radhamohan. It has become commonplace to find his debut movie - Azhagiya Theeye - in everybody's list of best movies of the last 5 years. I too concur with that, for I simply loved the movie. But this I have to say is definitely a below-par attempt by the director. If a single character can change what we feel about an otherwise OK movie, it should be Ravikrishna in this movie. He sucks. Period. And the less said about his voice modulation, the better. No wonder not many liked him in 7GRC (but we have to applaud Selvaraghavan for finding the right actor for that role in 7GRC). I am sure the Ravikirshna Haters' club only grew bigger in size after seeing him here. And the one thing we all liked about Azhagiya Theeye - its simplicity in both narration & execution of the script - is missing here, with the director's attempts at making this movie commercially viable by adding an item number & a duet in foreign locales not gelling with the nativity of the story, which he is so good at bringing to the table. He has the usual interesting dialogues and jokes strewn all over the movie and they are all very enjoyable. While watching this movie, I was thinking may be I should meet this director one day in person and talk to him. I am sure he is full of such interesting anecdotes & ideas, like the ones he brings to his movies and it would be a very enjoyable experience talking to him. Vidhyasagar's tunes could have been far better. Only the Vennila siragadithu song stood in my mind. Revathi & Gopika were outstanding. I am surprised on why Gopika is not getting too many chances while someone like Nayantara is bagging many offers. Prakash Raj plays a similar role here too, as the guide of the hero. So are the friends gang which we saw in Azhagiya Theeye. But one gets a feeling that we might get bored of Radhamohan's pattern of screenplay pretty soon. Ponniyin Selvan is a gentle reminder to the same. But I would be happy if his forth-coming venture Mozhi proves me wrong.

Friday afternoon musings...

As we head into the weekend, just wanted to share this good quote on leadership that impressed me the moment I read it.

I quote what Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning, has to say about leadership:

You have to decide: Do you want to make things happen or do you want to watch things happen? It's been my experience that most of the people who watch things happen are the ones who are usually wondering what just happened.

Also, read about this inspiring attempt by a marathoner, Dean Karnazes, who plans to run 50 marathons in 50 consecutive days in each of the 50 states. Those following the news channels here would be familiar with him, I guess. I didn’t get to hear about him until today when I was accidentally surfing channels. He is 43 years old and is currently in the 41st race of his 50 races. His final race will be the ING NYC marathon in New York city on the 5th of November. As always they have a site dedicated to this effort of his, complete with FAQs, mission statement, the entire schedule and a link to his blog.

Weekend movies - Taxi No 9 2 11 and AIBI

It has been a while since I posted my usual 'Weekend movies' post. I had written these posts long before I went to India, couple of months back. Just now getting the time to post it here.

Taxi No 9 2 11 - Only as I started watching it, it slowly dawned on me that this movie is based on the English movie Changing Lanes, starring Ben Affleck and Samuel Jackson. On googling, I did found out that it is a known fact and it was just that I was unaware of that. The movie is about how 2 people, who are frustrated with their lives due to some nagging personal problem/ conflict, meet with an accident and how they react to it & finally how that accident brings a good turnaround in their lives. And all this during the course of a single day. The movie almost religiously follows the screenplay & narration style of Changing Lanes. So, at a point, I lost interest in watching the movie and was only waiting for the movie to end. As far as performances go, Nana Patekar was awesome, as always. For us, who have been fed with an overdose of the 'Kamal brand of acting', Nana Patekar's natural acting comes as a revelation. At times he makes me think may be this is what acting is all about. Don’t know what to say about John Abraham. He tries his best to emote, falters in some scenes but has done a decent job overall. Sonali Kulkarni (heroine of May Maadham) as Nana Patekar's wife, was very cute and we also have an one-scene appearance at the end by Priyanka Chopra. The narration by Sanjay Dutt was neat. The Mumbai nagariya song was very good and catchy. If you have not watched Changing Lanes, you may like this. Me, did not but still would recommend solely for Nana Patekar's performance. BTW, why is this sudden spurt in the number of Hollywood movies that are being remade in Hindi?

AIBI - This was one movie I had been waiting to watch, mainly bcos of 2 reasons - Cheran has produced it and Yuvan's completely different songs. I kind of started loving the movie, right from when it started. The cute little things that the director had come up with, were so much enjoyable. The cartoons, even given the fact that he went overboard at times, were very refreshing. I even liked the annoying Renuka character (as Bharath's mother). The movie kind of started off like a spoof movie where almost all of the characters & situations were interesting. Like he shows the whole Kaadhal movie cast when the line Kaadhalai pirippethappadi comes in a song. Or when the camera follows and zooms on Bharath in a bike chase, he says to the camera andha pakkam po and the camera duly obliges by veering off somewhere :) You will have to watch the movie twice to absorb all of the innovative stuff that the director has come up with in this movie. But when you see this movie as a whole, it wouldn’t stand the test of scrutiny. But all the 4 lead characters from Bharath to Mallika Kapoor were adorable. The twist in the second half took me by complete surprise and so, once that was revealed I geared myself up for some interesting scenes ahead. But that is where the movie begins to falter and starts to drag with too much melodrama towards the end. Though the director kind of dragged the movie towards the end, the way it ended was pretty cute & different from the usual endings we see in Tamil movies. Yuvan, as always had some very nice background scores throughout the movie. Each and every movie of him only increases my admiration for the young guy. The parody about this movie is that inspite of the so many innovative & enjoyable stuff strewn all over the movie, it is hard to convince myself to say as the bottom line that the movie was good. A very different attempt at film-making definitely but it ultimately falls into the genre of "could have been a lot better, if the director had executed some scenes properly".

NFL Trivia

It has been a while since I posted any trivia. Now, that the football season is in full swing here, I thought that it is a good time to post some NFL trivia. This quiz again was prepared by one of my project mates here at work, for our bi-monthly trivia sessions. This trivia is a real hard one, in that couple of my friends who are like walking football encyclopedias, could not answer many of the questions in the list. I knew the correct answer to only 2 questions out of the 10 that were asked. So, here are the questions:

1) What number Super Bowl will it be this football season?

2) Name the top 3 players (excluding the quarterback) with the most touchdowns in a single season

3) Who was the first head coach to coach in 6 super bowls?

4) What is the maximum number of points a team has scored in a single game?

5) Who was the first running back to rush for more than 2000 yards in a single season?

6) How many Super bowl MVP awards did Joe Montana win?

7) Name the top 3 players with the most career touchdowns to their name?

8) What is the most number of sacks by a single player in a game?

9) How many AFC Championship games did John Elway win?

10) Which team has the biggest of all the stadiums in the NFL?

While on football, my mother on watching this game, goes: Why is this game called football when most of the players merely carry or thrown the ball? That was actually an interesting question but a simple google search gave me the answer. Thought of sharing it with you guys:

The origin of American football is in the history of the world's most popular sport: soccer. When soccer -- more universally known as "football" (which of course makes sense because soccer players use their feet) -- participants decided to change their centuries-old game with restrictions such as the no-use of hand rules, people who disliked this broke away to create rugby. In the states we have created our own version of the game under the same old name "football" with more of a rugby style, the whole time forgetting why we call it that.

Do you guys know of any other theories? The answers to the trivia as always will be in the comments section.

Weirdest Coincidence

This has to be termed the weirdest coincidence that anybody would have come across (or atleast I have come across). Check this out: Had been to Vancouver this past weekend. After roaming around the waterfront for a while and as we were driving towards the Stanley park (which is a 5-min drive from the waterfront), somehow our topic of discussion turned towards celebrities and I was lamenting to my friend how I have never met any celebrity here in the US, accidentally. And as we were turning towards the park, we see this: a bunch of south Indian looking guys in the sidewalk on a main road and one of them was handing a camera (like the one used to shoot films). I quickly realized that it was some film shooting going on and as we turned to get on to that street, there was the heroine standing on the steps of one of the buildings and it was none other than Nayantara :) So, we parked car nearby and proceeded to the spot to get a glimpse of the crew and also what they were doing.

Looks like it was the shooting of a Telugu movie called Yogi with a guy named Prabas as the hero. Nayantara was surprisingly short and more importantly, did not look bloated as she looked in Ghajni. She was very short, even a high heel shoe not helping her cause (wonder how she looked good with Thalaivar in Chandramukhi?). We spent a few minutes there and just left. I was wondering if I should go and ask her for taking a picture with her but then chucked that idea. Main reason was I wasn’t sure how she would respond. If she is snobby, then I would have been completely put off (Have had a forgettable experience with Robin Singh back in Chennai in 1999 – more on that later). The interesting part was that she spoke in Tamil with that hero. (Isn’t she a Mallu?) The other observation was that the whole crew looked like a group of rag-tags. The crew was really small (a total of 10 people, may be) and didn’t look like they were shooting anything serious/ worthwhile. But then I realized when has any song that was picturized in these supposedly exotic locales had anything interesting in it.

Now, with my long time wish coming true, I am going to wait for the movie to get released in January and watch it in DVD to see how the scenes that we saw them shoot has come on-screen :)

Best Cameos in Tamil cinema

While watching Devayani in Panchathanthiram sometime back, it occurred to me that I should blog about such cameos in Tamil cinema. To start with, it was kind of hard for me to arrive at a set criteria to classify a performance as a cameo. For example, let us take Aravind Swamy's role in Thalapathi or Prakash Raj's role in Kannathil Muthamittal or Madhavan's role in Anbe Sivam. While some may argue them to be cameos, I really think that is not the case. I thought we are confusing between guest roles and cameos there. IMO, cameos need to be defined by the number of minutes and the number of scenes that particular actor/actress comes on-screen. So, with that definition in mind, I came up with the following list, which in my opinion are the best cameos in Tamil cinema.

5) Jyothika - Vaali
This is probably not one of my favorite cameos but it is definitely a hugely popular one. This is a significant cameo bcos Jyothika has gone on to become one of the most enduring heroines of Tamil cinema and this cameo is where it all began for her. Though she looked kind of cute in this small role, I never expected to go this far in my wildest dreams.

4) Devayani - Panchathanthiram
Devayani was one of those actresses who had the potential (we could see that in movies like Bharathi) but was wasting all that in doing mostly meaningless roles (her highly irritating role in Ninaithen Vandhaai comes to my mind as I type this). In comes she in this cute little cameo in Panchathanthiram and changes my whole opinion about her. The scene involving her was easily the highlight scene of the whole movie. It is an absolute laugh riot. The fact that this performance of hers inspired me to write this post should justify placing of this cameo in this list.

3) Chiranjeevi - Maappillai
This is one charming cameo and easily the shortest in the list. The fight scene involving Chiranjeevi and his comment to Thalaivar on seeing Sri Vidhya at the wedding stage are both memorable scenes for me. Having the superstar and the megastar share the screen is bound to be magical and that is what precisely it turned out to be. But I am guessing this is the one cameo which many would disagree with, too

2) Prabhu - Anjali, Priyanka & Anna Nagar Mudhal Theru
Prabhu to me is probably the best when it comes to these cameos. He has done so many of these and it was tough for me to narrow down one of his cameos as his best. Take for example, his cameo in Mannan. Though he just comes for a few fleeting seconds, he leaves a lasting impression through his camaraderie with Thalaivar. But Mannan was just a light-hearted cameo. His roles in Anjali & Priyanka, to me, still remain the best cameos in the history of Tamil cinema, of course with the exception of the number 1 in this list. In fact, Prabhu is so good at cameos that his best cameos are better than his best roles as the leading actor.

1) Karthick - Mouna Raagam
This is a choice probably everyone would agree with. This is the most evergreen of cameos. We can even go to the extent of saying that this is how a perfect cameo should be constructed. Karthik should forever be grateful to Mani Rathnam for offering a role like this. If there is something that the phrase 'sweeping you off your feet' would fit, then this cameo has to be it.

Other notable cameos that I can remember and which I contemplated on including in the list (in no particular order):

Nagesh in Magalir mattum
Nizhalgal Ravi in Nayagan
Amala in Mella Thirandhadhu Kathavu
Aravind Swamy & Kushbu in Alaipaayudhe
Radhika in Jeans

Over to you guys. Agree/ disagree or just want to add some more to this list?

Wonder Why?

Please take a look at all the cities in this list. Notice anything odd in this list?

Athens

Portland
Cincinnati
Dallas
Los Angeles
San Francisco
New York
Chicago
Seattle
Tokyo
Istanbul
Kuala Lampur
Paris
London
Berlin
Beijing
Bangkok
Hong Kong
Brussels
Madrid
Johannesburg
Moscow
Milan
Ottawa
Montreal
Toronto
Sydney
Amsterdam
Melbourne
Cairo

Do you see any Indian city in this list? That is what stuck me when I noticed this.

The place I saw this list of cities was in a clock in the Taipei airport which was displaying times at these popular international cities. Though this list is not complete, I did make sure that none of the Indian cities were there. And I also made sure that there was atleast one city from all the major countries that I can think of. I was completely annoyed that they didn’t find it deemed fit to add any Indian city in that list. I couldn’t think of any reason why they would do that. The only reason I could come up with was may be these are the cities that flights from the Taipei airport fly to. But then, one look at the destinations of flights flying out of the Taipei airport confirmed that not all these cities in the list are serviced by flights from that airport. Do you think it has got to do with the hostility between the 2 countries? Any other possible reason that you guys can think of?

Cord Blood Banks

Some of my friends complain I mostly write useless stuff in my blog, which is true to a large extent. And being the big sport that I am, I accept those ridiculing with a big grin and write more useless stuff :) So, when my friend Karthick emailed the following about this enlightening topic to our friends group, I found it very informative as well as interesting and hence thought of sharing it here with all of you. This will be/ might be useful for folks who are planning for a childbirth in the near future. So, here it is, in my friend's words:

In today's age of high incidence of cancer and genetic diseases, stem cells, or cells that have the ability to become different other kinds of cells (like blood cells, kidney cells, lung cells etc.) are very valuable in treating those diseases. A specific kind of stem cells called the `blood stem cells' is particularly important. These are a kind of stem cells which can only become different kinds of `blood cells' (red blood cells, white blood cells etc.). These are found in the blood and the bone marrow. Basically to put it in layman terms, these are ones that are transferred in a bone marrow transplant operation, which is done to cure these diseases.

But for a bone marrow transplant operation, you have to go through the tedious process of finding a donor whose stem cells should match yours. Here in the US, though the National Marrow Donor Program maintains a registry of such willing donors, looks like 50% of all patients needing a transplant cannot find a matching bone marrow donor. I am sure the chances of finding a matching donor in India should be just about the same or probably lesser.

And so this is where the subject of this post comes in. Bcos these blood stem cells are found in one other interesting source – the child's own blood in the umbilical cord during childbirth. These stem cells in the umbilical blood usually go waste as they are thrown away during childbirth. On the other hand, if they are stored in a bank, they could potentially be very valuable in case of the child needing treatment in the future.

Basically, the child need not go searching for a donor or worry about the donor's stem cell matching it well. So, one can think of this as a kind of "medical insurance". The current costs for storing the cells for a period of about 21 years is around Rupees 60K which seemed as an amount many will find it affordable.

This site has all the details about the pros & cons of cord blood banks.

Only on sharing this with my friends here at work, I came to know that this is something every new parent in the US is being made aware of and that most of them do not go for it, as it is slightly pricey. Looks like you have to pay a premium every month towards this medical insurance and hence even parents with well-paid jobs, do not take up the option. Anyway, found these information very interesting and what else can I do other than post it here.

Monthly Sports Round-up - September 2006

September 3 - Tiger continues his dream run of winning PGA tournaments, which currently stands at 5. Though he has won 6 tournaments on the trot way back in 1999, that was split between 2 seasons - 4 in one and 2 in the subsequent one. So, this is the first time he has won 5 straight tournaments in 1 single season. The way he turned a 3 shot deficit entering the final round into a 2 shot victory was simply amazing. At times, like these, there is little folks like Vijay Singh, who was leading on entering the 3rd round, can do. It is now almost looking ominous, as Tiger keeps winning all these titles, after his dad's death and we are seeing more glimpses of the Tiger of old, winning Championships at will, leaving the rest of the field grasping for breath.

September 7 - The 2006 NFL season starts with a match-up between the defending champions, the Steelers and the Miami Dolphins. Everyone's pick to win it all, at this point, seems to be the Colts and the Panthers. Personally, I would be more interested in following if the Seahawks can follow their last season's Super Bowl run with another one this season. History is heavily loaded against them though - no Super Bowl losing team has had more than 8 wins in the season after the Super Bowl appearance. But I am sure the Seahawks, inspite of their tough schedule - road games at Chicago, Kansas City, Washington - will make it to the playoffs. The opening game once again showed what Steelers football is all about - build a lead and then grind the opposition out with the running game. The game, which appeared closer at one point with Miami having a 3 point lead, turned into a blowout after Culpepper threw 2 interceptions in 2 consecutive possessions.

September 9 - Sharapova wins her 2nd Grand slam championship, after the Wimbledon victory in 2004. There were many (including yours truly) who doubted if she will be ever able to win a second grand slam and that she will remain a one Grand Slam wonder. But she has proved otherwise in an impressive straights set victory over Justine Henin Hardinnne. Looks like it is the first time in many years that somebody has beat the world number 1 and 2 in consecutive rounds to win the Grand slam. While on Sharapova, this one is a good read, on how she has managed to balance her tennis with her off-court commitments.

September 10 - It is now getting all too routine - this Feder winning grand slams. When Nadal lost in the 4th round, my only hope of anybody challenging Federer in the tournament went down with that. Though Roddick was a vastly improved player at this Open, I always knew that he is not good enough to stop Federer. So, the Federer show continues, with 3 grand slam wins this year. The bad news is that apart from Nadal, I do not see any other upcoming player who can pose a challenge to this guy. Andy Murray from the UK is the one who looks promising. But before he can fulfill his promise and might pose a genuine challenge to Federer, he might have already broken Sampras record of 14 grand slam victories. The one thing I noticed in the matches that Federer played against Blake & Roddick (they are the only ones who were able to win a set against him) is that during a few moments of the match, both were able to match Federer in the intensity. But the problem is that they are unable to maintain their intensity during the entire duration of the match which leads to their defeat. And while talking about Federer, Ranjit Barot wonders what’s behind this man that makes him play on a level simply unthinkable by others.

September 10 - Michael Schumacher wins the Italian Open and cuts down the lead between him & Alonso to just 2 points, after Alonso pulled out of the race with about 10 laps to go in the race. After the race, as many expected the racing phenom announced his plans to retire at the end of the season. I guess it would be tough to imagine an F1 race without Schumacher, for over the years he has almost become synonymous with F1 racing.

September 14 - God returns with a bang. Apart from Thalaivar, the only other person whom I am mad about is Sachin. So, when Sachin came back to the international cricket scene with a blistering unbeaten 141 against West Indies, I was all excited & happy. This being one of his longest injury time off from the game, I was expecting a slow but sure way of him coming back to his peak form. But what happened came as a complete surprise even for an ardent Sachin fanatic like me - 141 which included 5 sixes. Ever after his back injury few years back, Sachin had resisted going for the big sixes and had almost complete removed that shot from his repertoire. So, the fact that he was able to hit 5 sixes in his first return innings only confirmed the fact that the master is back with renewed vigor. I was completely impressed by what Lara spoke about him after the 2nd match between India and WI and here I quote him: I don't know if he has any doubters in India, but there's definitely not a doubt here. It's nice to see him come back and show his class. Amen.

September 24 - After the Indians were defeated when they failed to chase a very gettable target of 214, the Aussies took control of the finals, as only they can and romped home with a 127 run victory against the Indies. It is really mind-boggling to see this team, win a tough tournament, right after coming out of a 5 month long off-season. And on top of that, they keep continuing their experimentation policy of rotating players all the time. They did not look a bit rusty and from the post-match interview that Ponting gave, it is pretty clear that the fact that they have not won the Champions Trophy even once yet is still hurting them and thus will motivate them. India, on the other hand, have to take a long hard look at themselves and start the retrospection process on what went wrong & where. After a dream season that they had last year, it has been a rough ride so far with losses to the West Indies and this now. But the reason for India's poor showing in this tournament was there for all to see : the men who made it happen last season match after match - Dravid, Yuvraj and Dhoni - failed to contribute anything substantial and that made all the difference in the end.

September 24 - The US fails again to put it beyond the Europeans in this year's Ryder's cup. Though from a very top look, it looks unreasonable that a country is playing against a continent. But a closer look at the players involved would suggest that it is indeed even competition. I kind of think the reason for the poor showing of the US golfers including Tiger Woods as the lack of motivation, bcos these victories don’t mean much, just like Davis Cup victories in tennis.