Questionable words

aa yo yuvan, yo thare
ya
spin that s**t up

the song "Pushing it hard!!!!!" from 'kanda naal mudhal' indeed has a s**tty start. I'm gonna leave this in a corner and think of the bigger picture here. Whats the big deal in swearing in a movie? Does swearing in english more acceptable than swearing in tamil?

Well, i guess swearing is looked down upon in most of the societies. First, i am gonna go into TV. I don't think there is anything inappropriate (who decides this???) in Indian television and in US, the censorship is so ridiculous that the less said about that the better. If you want uncensored TV then you are looking paid cable. But we all know that in lots of situations, the censorship serves no purpose. All it does is to irritate the viewer and prevents him from going inside the mood of the program. For example, writing f**k or saying ff**BLEEP**kk serves no purpose at all. Everybody knows what it means. whats the point? i don't get it. I think the canadian television is a bit more sensible than its US counter parts in some areas (i c'd be biased). In CBC, (the public funded television), in documentaries, they don't edit. I don't even think they edit in news programs. For example, in documentaries or news clips covering iraq war, they did not edit out the swearing from the journalist when there was a sudden blast, or the angry iraqi people protesting. I don't think it will give the true picture if there is editing involved.

Coming back to movies in the west (in general), anything goes here, as long as the movie is categorized in an appropriate section. (although the general feeling that FCC is a fascist, is another story). In india, as there are only 3 types of certification (U, A, U/A), things become a wee bit difficult. But even this 3-tier system could work, if applied properly. But it has never been applied the right way. thats the reason why people from all the sides complain. the makers complain that the censor board is too biased and the viewers (WHO?) complain it to be too lenient. the reason, coz' they don't know what they are gonna get. nobody knows. we need some structure and cemented guidelines around the censor board.

MACHI MACHI TOO MACHI!!!

When the leaders laugh, everbody should follow suit. Note the security person behind.

Karunanithi: hello.....Don't let the water during this fatty's reign. Release it when i become CM in the next elections. Do it for me bro. I will make your voice influencial in the centre. (sucker!!! )

Karnataka CM: hello....of course bro. thats exactly why i am not releasing right now. When you become CM i will definetely release (sucker)

Dayanithi maran: he..he..he (listen you old farts, get clean bowled, so i can climb)

Guy in the suit: he..he..he (hope these suckers see me laugh for their lame jokes and give me some more money)

Security person: he..he..he (i can't belive these morons believed when i showed them the black belt from moore market as a karate black belt)

yet another TOI bashing

It has beome almost boring. ya, ya, TOI is no good. Whay do you even go to that site, dude? Simple, it so bad, that you want to go back. Its like jokes from lots of our friends that are sooo bad, taht you can't help but to laugh thinking, 'how the hell did he think of pulling it off'. So far, i've seen 'news' that go horribly wrong in TOI, or exploitation of news by giving it a title such as 'stocks do a pamela anderson!!!'. But this time, those cheezy crap that they write claiming it to be news itself has gone bad. The only guy to be happy from this is GEORGE, the master of his domain.

oscar 'jollu'

With the long awaited 'The Rising' just released, indian critics will undoubtedly praise it so much and declare that 'this horse is gonna win the oscar'. When it is hyped this much for the award, if it fails to fetch an oscar, it'll be a disappointment. But we should let go of this 'jollu' for oscar. Oscar if for mainstream hollywood movies and thats it. Please don't even think it represents american movies. coz' there are so many great movies made and goes to the creators house-shelf unnoticed. The hollywood's giant production houses use the oscar platform to increase their alreay over-the-top $$$. The release their 'oscar-worhty' movies in months just before the show to create the BUZZZ. For some weird reason, for a movie to win a oscar releasing a long time before the show, it has to be doubly good as the one released just before the show.

Oscar award show, in itself has bent down and following the footsteps of its master, the giant studios. For example, in a year when no 'big-hit' hollywood movies or 'big-time' hollywood stars are nominated, their TV rating slump like crazy. So they make sure that the big players are always on their nominees. Add to this, politics like left wing, right wing, pro-african american, anti-african american, etc., and you got yourself a bong show.

I don't know why it even bothers giving out a 'best foreign picture' award.....ohh, wait a minute, maybe it has a political movitive. For example, Palestinian filmmaker and actor Elia Suleiman's film 'Divine Intervention' was denied entry on the grounds that "Palestine is not a nation". But the same academy gave the award to 'crouching tiger hidden dragon' representing 'taiwan'. Isn't taiwan too not recognized officially as a nation?

Anyways, the pathetic situation arises when the foreign people (we) treat the Oscar as some kind of yardstick to measure their own worth.

Misses the mark

Gajini...for some reason i was expecting lots for this movie. When i learned that this movie is an 'inspiration' from one of my favorite movies of all time, momento, that expectation just sky-rocketed. An unique story like momento needs an unique musical score. The score definetely is not unique, but at the same time not a crap either. The 'problem' is that this score could easily fit into every other run-off-mill romatic movies like sachin, etc.

First things first, this one doesn't have a theme music, which is a good thing. Theme music in tamil music albums are always fillers. Good to aviod those, unless you score a haunting theme (read 'thenpandi seemayilae' from nayagan).

Oru Maalai by Karthik...easily the best of the album. Karthik glows like a deepam. All of harris best ones have a bit of carnatic music influence and this one is no different. But for god sake, stop using some gibberish shoutings in nice songs. Can somebody please tell him that.
REWIND

X-machi by Nakul and Maathangi...Even since the 'aged' MGR days, this fictional club has existed where sexy dancers do their thing, led by one who is not that good of a dancer, but the sexiest. Everybody knows that all the other songs are fake, in the sense, the story doesn't move during the song. The story stops, song begins, hero and heroine change their dresses and locations every minute, song ends, and story starts again. But in this 'club genre' songs, we are made to believe that the song is happening as the story is moving. But somehow the dancers take the old habit of change their dresses and the background every minute. Donno how that works? Anyways, where on earth (supposedly chennai) is this fictional club? coming back to the song itself, it is from this genre and i got nothing to say abt it
FAST FORWARD

Suttum Vizhi by Sriram Parthasarathy and Bombay Jeyashree...Potentially awsome song. But ends up not that good, due to the weak performace by Sriram. I donn't think he is a good choice. Gotto have gone with hariharan or somebody who can match Bombay Jeyashree.
REWIND

Rahatulla by Anupama...Yet another song in the 'club'. Man, do these guys actually go to clubs or they just watch some jayamalini songs and get their inference of a club scene.
FAST FORWARD

Rangola by Shankar Mahadevan and Sujatha...Average song. Good work by shankar. Sometimes he can go over board, but in this he keeps it within himself.
PLAY

Overall, Average. But a big let down considering the hype surronding Gajini. Hope he doesn't do the same in 'VV'.

The beginning of the end?

Ever since the unreasonable 'unkoda doo!!!' by google against CNET, i have started to wonder whether the end of 'google, the good guy' is near. Is it following the 'my way or the high way' attitude of microsoft? Only time will tell. Tho' i am using may of the awsome 'googlies' to even write this post, i cannot help but wonder, how long am i gonna use these things having the attitude 'hey, they aren't evil'. One thing for sure. They have hooked us all like a coked up song by bob marley.

But the funniest thing is the sarcastic apology by the 'leader' (who is that?)

First Citizen of Canada

Michaelle Jean, born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (the poorest country in the western hemisphere), the 48-year-old Quebec television journalist will be Canada's first black governor-general. She fled her home country troubled by dictatorship at the age of 11 and came to Canada. From then on, her home has been Quebec.

She is an intense journalist and I am personally a big fan of one of her show 'the passionate eye' on CBC television. She is very vocal about racism and the language divide that exists in canada (between the minority French speaking people in Quebec and the English speaking people). She also has some 'taboo' viewpoints. She made sense when she said after 9/11: "Why such outpouring and compassion for New York and so little for the hundreds and thousands of victims in Rwanda a few years ago?"

Agreed, the governor-general post is more of pomp and prestige than actual power. But it always feels good when a minority person is named as the first citizen of a country, be it Abdul kalam, Zail Singh, or Michaelle Jean Jean. Interestingly, the outgoing governor general of canada was also a person of visible minority and a journalist: Adrienne Clarkson (born in Hong kong and came to canada as a refugee). Although it is easy to dismiss these things as mere ritual/symbolism, one should never under estimate the value it can have on the struggling minority.

One can only wish our neighbor to take some cue from us.

Pioneer of alternate Indian cinema

This title may remind us of people like satyajit ray or mrinal sen. But the one guy who made everybody happy at the end of the day is undoubtedly "mithunda". He was a trend-setter. He stepped aside from the pretentious bollywood movie scene and started making 'alternate' (not necessarily of better quality) cinema. The great thing about him is that he didn't pretend to change anybodies life with his movies or shout 'my upcoming movie is shoo different' or my movie is a classic. Instead he found the simple formulae of success. Make the hero change from an innocent guy to dada and take revenge for his dead mother or wife, and oh ya, shoot the whole movie in ooty. Repeat the same formulae 50 times. He used to release a movie every some months. And none of them bit the fingers of the producers (an issue discussed in Lazy Geek's post). Instead of spitting at the sewage while living and benefiting from it (like the regular bollywood baadshahs), he started embracing it. This concept has been around for a long time and followed by lots. Even kill bill is supposed to be a homage to 70s b-grade hung-of flicks. Cinema is a mode for entertainment and for making money. Nothing else.

Now, in tamil Satyaraj is following the footsteps of mithunda. He is releasing a movie every some months. As far as I know of, he is the only tamil actor to reduce his salary accordingly. The story line of these movies can be described, at best as 'horrible'. But he makes these work with his comedy timing sense. He makes spoofs of everybody that we can think of. Recently watched 'Englishkaran...Thamizh vazhga'. He makes fun of people like simbu, dhanush, bharath, ravi krishna, jyothika, etc. He is not pretending to make classics here. He mixes spoofs, double meaning dialogues and excessive glamour, and walla, money making movie is ready.

Bottomline is that, in both these guys case, nobody can question their ability to act. Both have been there and done that. And I think, this is the main reason, people sit back and watch their b-grade (whatever the hell that means, as if other movies like alavandhan are A-grade) , but money making movies.

Jumped off a cliff!!

Was a great long weekend. Went to Banff, a beautiful hill station. Though of doing something fun. So did the white water rafting. Can only describe that as a "crazy" experience. I was screaming and swearing the whole time. Swearing!!Oh, ya. You would definitely do that when you don't know swimming and your 'boat' goes crazy.

Before the start of the rafting, there was half hour of instruction, mostly of what to do when you are thrown into the water by the currents, which direction to swim, how to catch the rope while swimming, etc. The whole time I was like 'holy S***'. But still was cocky that nothing would happen to the korangoo. When the sensible me was trying to yell at the instructor 'hey, I donno swimming', korangoo took over me and stopped me from getting insulted. ya, Korangoo always puts insult over death by drowning. In spite of its cockiness, korangoo managed the whole thing without falling down. Then came the final test of saneness.

The instructors where standing on top of a 40 ft cliff and inviting people for a delicious cliff-jumping (optional tho'). Lot of people backed out (around 1/3rd). Although korangoo didn't have the balls to take the first jump, it did have enough to stand in line for the jump. The guy little bit front of korangoo took the jump. He was freakin out in the water and the instructor immediately jumped behind him and dragged him to shore. Another instructor took over at the cliff and he told us that 'anything wrong, shout help and will jump behind you'. Korangoo, at this point starting to panic a bit, as it does not know even basic swimming, leave alone swimming against the current on a bumpy surface. A light of saneness hit korangoo. It decided even before the jump that it is gonna yell help as soon as it hits the water. Now, its korangoo's turn to jump. Ohhh man, was it ever high? No thinkin, no thinking, just jump, just juaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, splash, heeeeeelp.

The dude jumps and drags korangoo to the shore. Korangoo thinks that it did a pretty good job of pretending as if the strap of the helmet it was wearing was choking its throat and that's is the only reason it couldn't swim. The instructor probably thinks "whatever...what a moron".

All these with the life jacket on. For some reason I am not able to completely trust those jackets.