Giri’s Blog

As the 2008 comes to a close and the list tradition bears on, I thought a list of Best & Worst Movie surprises from the 2008 Kollywood (Tamil) movies would be a good recap. The year 2008 has been a period of rough tide for the Tamil movie industry as well. But as long as we are not either on the screens or behind the screens, we enjoy both flops and hits. The hits are savoured and the flops are ridiculed. Either way, movies entertain us. But still, lets go back in time through the last 12 months and browse the pages of Kollywood diary.

The Underdogs: Movies which were not expected to be good, but turned out to be a better choice for the viewers, in 2008:

Anjathey
Anjathey lacked any over-hyped promos. Though Narain had given out a hits in his record, nothing great was expected out of this movie. The movie didn’t have a great box office opening. But all of a sudden, this movies was claimed by everyone to be one of the best Tamil movies ever made. The cult song “Kathale Kannale” helped the movie mark itself in the hits board. My blog post about Snigda Alokar in the song, is one of the most popular
 
Jayam Kondaan
Neither Bhavana nor Vinay were riding on the Hits. Nothing great was predicted out of Jeyam Kondan. Bhavana wasn’t looking as gorgeous as expected. But Jeyam Kondan saw some great performance from Lekha Washington. Surprising the movie was not a boring one to watch. It had a decent story line and it was pleasant to watch a down-to-earth movie.

Pirivom Santhipom
Pirivom Sandhipom was not expected to be a hit. Cheran was prone to deliver slow unintersting stories and he faced the dirt with his Mayakannadi. Nothing much but the same amount of rantling and family sentiments was expected. It didn’t have a great opening, but this movie connected with many audiences. When people started reading the reviews and storyline, they reacted with almost the same reaction. “Hey! this movie is similar to my life…” That made this movie pickup pace at the box office. Sneha was seen a different role and she had handled it well.

Santhosh Subramaniam
There wasn’t much hype about this movie prior to it release. Nobody envisioned this movie to be a super hit. But it was a clean entertainer. Fast paced storyline, bubly acting by the lead pair, good humour line and some excellent dance steps contributed to the success of Santosh Subramanian.

Arasangam
150th movie for the captain and he wanted it to be a grand success. But with highly predictable array of captain’s characters, any movie goer would expect him to fight terrorists and thrash 100 odd thugs with bare hands. But this movie was a pleasant surprise. Neat screenplay, underplayed heroism, funny English dialogues, super funny serious scenes made Arasangam a happy watch.

Poo
With a row or flops and monotonic dialogue delivery Srikanth was not in anybody’s watchlist. But Poo made a difference. Though Srikanth had a small role, he was utilized well. But the credit goes to the debutant Parvathy. She has been essayed in a role of a joyous girl who travels the rough terrains and let life teach her lessons to be become a strong woman. She was just fantabulous to watch. Greater credits go to Sasi’s screenplay. This movie sure turned out to be the surprise hit of the year.

M3V
Any movie which is targeted towards specific audience is sure a cat on wall. But this cat definitely made it to the other side.  Mudhal Mudhal Mudhal Varai (M3V) was a movie targeted towards the urban youth. It definitely hit the right note. Little mistakes and a few boring scenes was digestible and surprisingly, the flick was a good one to pass time.

Subramaniyapuram
There are movies which are hit even before its released and there are movies which are flops even before shooting starts. But some movies are silent assassins. They creep into the box-office and run silently for a week and then burst the bubble. Subramaniyapuram is one such movie. The makers did not extra efforts to market the movie. They left the word of mouth and the sheer strength of storyline to do the marketing for them. Following the cult song “Kangal Irunthal”, this movie proved to be surprisingly good moola raker.

Dhurai
Arjun is an ardent follower of a political leader and his son doesn’t approve it when the leader wants to make Arjun his heir. The son kills the leader and burns Arjun’s family and attempts to kill Arjun. Arjun gets his vengeance. Hold on! isn’t this storyline familiar? “Gladiator?” mmhm, forget it. Are you an Arjun fan? You give a damn about movie logic? You want a movie that doesn’t bore you for 2.5 hours? Then Dhurai is the surprise package of 2008. 

Super Hyped Flops: Movies which were expected to deliver, but failed in 2008:

Kuselan
Kuselan was the hyper-hyped movie of the year. After the success of Sivaji, everyone was eager about this movie. Infact the base story was tweaked to accommodate a lot of Rajini in it, as it was initially a guest role for him. But the movie turned out to be a boring watch. Nothing could save the distribution houses to run into losses, unless Rajni himself volunteered to part with a part of his salary.

Aaegan
With his comeback movies Varalaru(God Father) and Billa, too much hope was riding on the Ultimate star Ajit. The current hottest starlet of kollywood, Nayanthara was envisioned to set the temperature high. Adding to the hype-factors, this movie borrowed its story-line from SRK’s “Mein Hoon Naa”. But poor performances, casting, choreography and screenplay rendered this movie a great flop. Thalai is lost in translation once again.

Arai En 305il Kadavul
I would call it the biggest disappointment of the year. The cast and crew were the reason for the hype created around the movie. But on the screens, this movie turned out to be a suicide to watch. Irate jokes, stupid logic and weak storyline were the causes of this catastrophic flop.

Bheema
Kandaswami’s trailer was released around the time of Bheema’s release. From the lead pair of “Saami”, could have been the tag line of promos. Natually everyone was interested in it. So good was the chemistry between Trisha and Chiyan in Saami, that everyone believed that Bheema would be a sure success. But unfortunately, the movie had little to offer. Trisha looked older and less intersted in acting. Vikram’s stunts were cool but the storyline totally failed. Though the music did fairly well, its a Huge box-office disappointment

Indiralohathil Na Azhagappan
After the success of the 23aam Pulikesi, Vadivel’s next movie as Hero was anticipated to be a success as well. Indiralohathil Na Azhagappan happened and it happened all wrong. Every aspect of the movie from casting to storyline was faulty and had a feel of cheap quality build. It bombed at the box office so badly that Vadivel had decided not to do anymore Hero roles.

Kuruvi
It’s been a while since Vijay had a hit. So he handpicked all the crew from his hit movies to make this Kuruvi. The audience, the producers, the cast and the crew everyone anticipated the movie to be a massive hit. But cliches, gravity defying stunts, weak logic, ineffective and irritating one line punch dialogues made this movie nothing but a headache in disguise.

Sathyam
Skimpily clad heroine, mindless action sequences, casting the happening stars and super hyped promotions could never set any movie on the race to the hit list. Sathyam is a classy example of such a strategy. Mediocre performance, poor story line, misplaced camera angles and editing rendered this movie a flop.

Sakkara Katti
What if you get the Maestro ARR to score the music for you? That not the end of a Hit Recipe. The makers of Sakkarakatti got this totally wrong. But for the Soundtrack sales, nothing else was positive about this movie. It was a pain watching such movie. Because, naturally everyone would expect something great when there is a hit track. But when the movie has nothing but only the hit track, it disappoints further.

Thozha
The Chennai 600028 team proved that they could also render flops. Irritating jokes, moronic dialogues, irrelevant storyline and illogical heroism are the ingredients of this huge package of disappointment. The movie was expected to do good because of the Chennai 600028 team Premji and Nithin in it. But it was a worthless movie to watch.

Looking forward to some good movies in the coming year and Happy New Year to the folks out there at Kollywood.

I really dunno why I decided to watch this movie. But I don’t regret it. Disney’s Cheetah Girls: One world, is a trequel to its Cheetah Girls series of movies inspired from the TV Series. I haven’t heard of it earlier, but I am a fan of dance/music movies. The cheetah girls are one short and now 3 is their team size. They want to make it big in hollywood, but they end up in bollywood. Initially they think that all 3 of them are gonna be stars in the movie. But due to budget constraints only one is to be cast. They have compete against each other. Its a story of friendship, following your dreams, bollywood, colorful costumes and some good looking chicks. I liked the movie mainly because of its Indian connection. The dance choreography was enjoyable and the music was awesome. Never got bored except for some mundane romance/flirting scenes.

gAdvice: Watch it if you like dance, music and bollywood.
gRate: 2.5/5

Watch the video of me unboxing my new mobile. I haven’t yet given up my N95-8GB. But needed a backup mobile. I wanted a slim mobile with music features and camera was not a big deal. I had to choose between Nokia 5220, Sony Ericsson’s S302 and Nokia 5310. Owing to its size and price, I went for 5310. If you already own this mobile, let me know your user-review.  Soon will be writing a review on it. Until then, watch the video.

[Direct Link] [Video shot using N95 8GB]

[Source]

I like animated movies and who doesn’t. Everyone likes to watch a light storyline combined with lively cast, neat animation and intelligent filming. Open Season was one such movie. It was about a domesticated Grizzly bear that is de-domesticated one fine day and his voyage to find friends and a life in the wild. Open Season 2’s storyline has nothing to do with the first part. Its fresh, new and exciting.

Well, now our bear Boog is back in the wild and having a good time with Elliot and other wild animals. Elliot has fallen in love with Gizzlle and they are about to get married. Just before the marriage, Mr Wheeny, another de-domesticated dog gets lost and is found by his owners. Elliot, breaks the marriage and runs to get Mr Wheeny. Joined by Boog, Gizelle and the rest of the gang, they set on a trip to seek and rescue Mr Tweeny.

I expected the movie to be an average one with occasional humours. But I was surprised and I enjoyed the whole movie. Just the starting few minutes was tough to sit on, but once the movie starts rolling, it becomes intersting. The animation is not a 3rd generation out of the box stuff. But it does the job for you, and that is all that matters. The voice casting was brilliant. Funny lines, figurative speech and excellant timing does good to Open Season 2.

gAdvice : Watch it and you will not regret
gRate : 2.5/5

The guys at Google are on constant roll. They are always innovating something or the other. Now their Maps application for Symbian and Windows mobile has got a drastic upgradation. Earlier iPhone, Android and Blackberry were the lucky ones to have Streetview. Now its in Symbian as well. As you search for a place or directions in the map, you can switch to streetview to get a real life feel of the street and navigate along. Before visiting any area, you can just check how the place looks like. But this service is not yet available forIndia and many other countries. But soon Google will be photographing our streets and bring streetview worldwide. This application is quite data intensive. So with the weak GPRS connection and absence of 3G service, Streetview will not be missed in India for a while. I just experience it via my WiFi at home just for fun. But the actual potential will be realized when there is a high speed connection at the streets. Point your mobile browser to google.com/gmm and get it.

Here are some screenshots from my N95 8Gig’s Google Streetview Maps.

Read the rest of this entry »

The increase in plastic waste is directly proportional to the increase in plastic usage. Plastic has become a cheap substitute to almost everything on the market. Banana leaves in hotels, tumblers, spoons, packing materials and much more has been replaced by its plastic alternatives. People prefer it as it is cost effective. Use and throw plastic cutlery, reduces the cost of maintenance and is also hygienic. But its effect on the environment is not considered by many. Recently I was in the Reliance Fresh supermarket. I carry my own bag to these shops and I don’t take plastic bags from them. But the guard was reluctant to let my bag in for some stupid security reasons. I had to raise my voice to take my bag inside. Big chain of supermarkets like the Reliance, Spencers, Nilgris must promote customers bringing their own bags. Maybe they can reward them a few more points in the loyalty cards, or something like that. As responsible corporates, big houses must set an example to its employees and customers. This can make a lot of change.

If you are having any function or party at your place, don’t forget to go green. Avoid/reduce plastic usage. We can stop getting bottled waters and order a big mineral water can and serve in small re-usable/re-cyclable cups. That will do good both for the budget and the environment.

Its a common sight to see in public places how people try to vandalize public property. Restroom doors and walls, train compartments, bus seats, subway walls, etc are prone to such attack. I actually don’t understand why people go about writing their names with telephone numbers or just their girl friend’s names around. Even if there is some public message, I can understand to an extent. Graffiti is different and ill drift off-track if I discuss that. I remember seeing people write gossips in school or college private areas. But there the person whom the message is intended happens to be around and he or she may get the point. But on public area, no one is going to care on whats scribbled on the walls. Still why do people resort to such vandalism acts?

Recently I was travelling in one of the so-called deluxe buses in Chennai. The standards of the buses have gone up, the conductor has upgraded to ticket vending machine, the door closes automatically, and our people’s vandalism has also taken a new dimension. I prefer to call it non-destructive vandalism. They don’t write directly on the seats or the walls. Instead they write in a piece of paper and wedge it between the seat and the glass lamination behind it.