October 21, 2004

Encounter specialist

Can you believe that this man Mr. Vijayakumar - IPS who headed the operation cocoon is 51-years old? Does he look the age?

Wonder how many remember that encounter specialist character of Kaakka kaakka was modelled on Mr. Vijayakumar's career?

If I am not wrong, he got the following - Veeramani, Venkatesa Pannaiyaar and a few other rowdies...all encounter deaths. Now the big catch - Veerappan.

Read this God-respecting, inspiring Police officer's interview here at rediff

Duh???

Jackpot show on X TV. Question to a family man
What are the names of highest posts held in Army, Navy and Air?
Bang came the response-
Attorney general
* * * * * *
SCV channel phone-in program. Compere asks to caller on phone:
Which country has the largest number of hospitals?
Entire family discusses, the caller finally responds...
Give us a clue
The clue is it is one of the Asian countries
Family discusses further, and caller responds back
Europe
* * * * * *
Raj Digital Plus
Which batsman has scored 30runs in an over twice?
Pls give us a clue
Ok, he is a left-hander
Maninder Singh
No it is wrong...
Illainga avaru left-la thaan poduvaaru, aaduvaaru
Boss...I said batsman
Pls give us another chance
Ok, tell me now...another clue, this batsman is not an Indian
Robin Singh
* * * * * *
I dont see the same presenter Raj Digital Plus these days!
A sample of Tamilan's IQ and General knowledge as shown on TV.
Perhaps a latest example of Tamilan's IQ & GK could be Jeyalalitha's Thanga Tharagai viruthu. Read this and my comment there.

October 12, 2004

Bride and Prejudice

As far the story goes, does justice to original 'Pride and prejudice', but fails to keep up the levels in the treatment...

Was waiting with bated breath for yet another "balle balle" routine to pop out...oh man, god!!! This one can compare only with "Hum Aapke Hain Koun" in terms song numbers....

Aish looks pretty...old! Her plastic smile right from Iruvar to Jeans to Kandu..Kandu to Bride - we are used to this...give us something different, and something original, lady!

Wonder why all the cross-over movies take such a pleasure in digging at the arranged marriage system and getting married to foreign-returned? The point is such portrayals have become boring, monotonous and repetitive.

Anupam Kher should be banned as Punjabi Dad of sweet ladies who is hen-pecked but always sways to girls' sides...guess we have had enough dose of Anupam Kher.

Coming back to movie treatment of the original-

Pride and Prejudice is a sensitive story, but the Bride lacks the spirit of Pride. The prejudices have not been dealt in-depth, so the way pre-judices are overcome is unconvincing. Four daughters of Anupam Kher - Jaya, Lalitha, Lucky and Maya (I was basically waiting for the other two to be named as Sasi & Kala - oh boy, it wud have been hilarious!) are being readied for marriage to rich guys from US/UK. Daddy cool says he can't leave his daughters to be married to some unknown people abroad. Lalitha also swears by it. What more? She even admonishes the US-based Mr. Darcy for the westerner's view of India as a mere tourist destination and nothing else...I could almost hear A.R.Rehman in the background crying "Vande mataram"...Mr. Darcy who had come to invest in a tourism resort as son of big hotel chain owner of US, out of love for Aish and taking her words seriously, pulls back the investment (P. Chithambaram will be a happy man).
....
When the story unfolds, finally, Anupam Kher is happy to have Jaya married to UK guy and Lalitha married to Hotel Owner from US. True Indo-UK-US conglomeration indeed!!!
....

Despite all of this, am sure, the movie will be hailed as a new-genre movie, a classic tale retold in lighter vein from Indian perspective etc etc...

Gurinder Chadha even has a snake dance of Anupam Kher's last daughter plugged in, where she dances with a semi-open blouse...nothing artistic in the dance, it looks more like a Midnight masala jig wantonly inserted.

Gurinder Chadha makes a great Indian mockery, and she will get away with it...
In fact with few international awards, and numerous interviews on such-nothing-else-to-show news channels like Deadlines today, Star nutwork etc.

October 07, 2004

Puthusu Kanna Puthusu

Offlate, FM radio and Tamil channels keep chanting "Puthusu kanna puthusu", meaning "New Dude New"...all about new look of Kungumam - a local Tamil magazine from journalistic household of Dayanidhi Maran. Similarly, the famous Tamil Magazine - Ananda vikatan - also promised its readers a rehashed, new "aalaiyay asathidum Ananda Vikatan". Not to be left behind, the other famous Tamil magazine Kumudam also brought new sections....

After a couple of motnhs of these re-launches where do they stand actually in terms of freshness?

Ananda vikatan is now more of Kumudam flavour in it with 3 page articles on how an actress spends her day (more in line of usual Kumudam's taste for glamourous actresses photos), little bit of religion, over dose of cinema, images bordering light yellow porno, spy vs spy rehashed as vetty-karaivetty, and the likes...Ananda vikatan lacks creativity and adds dashes of Sutti Vikatan, Junior Vikatan, Kumudam, Sakthi Vikatan and the likes....

Barring stuffs like 'Katrathum, Petrathum' by Sujatha, 'Hai Madan' by Madan and a few more, to me, today's Ananda Vikatan reminds me of Kumudam, and not much of their uniqueness in also writing a lot of non-cinema, non-glamourous articles.

Then, one can ask what happened to Kumudam and its unique flavour...well, Kumudam now resembles itself more like Kungumam, when Kungumam used to publish a scoop or exclusive every week, which will turn out to be not much of scope for scoop anyway. Kumudam also lacks depth in the articles. Though Kumudam used to be splashed with lot of articles based on people from cine field, those articles used to be different. Now, they are like Kungumam, which they write something.

If Ananda Vikatan is Kumudam and Kumudam is like Kungumam, then what about Kungumam? Wasnt it supposed to be a "puthusu kanna puthusu"...frankly speaking nothing puthusu in it including their ADMK bashing. Kungumam churns out articles lifted straight from filmfare etc, and also some dramatic invention about Jeyalalitha's aatchi. Nothing more than that.

Technically all magazines have upgraded their printing quality, and use nice paper, so that one cannot miss even the sweat on Aiswarya Rai's cleavage...but, to a person craving for good reading, what have they brought on? ZERO....

So, what new sections can be added? My twenty paisas....

1. None of these magazines cover anything about advertising field...to start with they can have something like ET's Brand Equity feature - Bekaar & Best ADs...

In Tamil, vilambaram means AD. Maybe something like WOWilambaram and Uvvaylambaram...

2. Next, instead of writing junk about internet and websites, and republishing forwards, they can publish blog posts every week with an intro about the author of the post, and some URLs...

3. Explaining science - and sceintific things happening around. Instead of Demi Moore's boobs in close-up and Aishwarya's Rai's half-clad dress with half-cleavage, mags can translate nice articles from net and take science and inventions and innovations to common man who would be delighted to hear about such stuffs...(first give them, then decide whether they like them or not)

4. I remember lot of good travelogues by Sivashankari and Manian in Vikatan, Kumudam etc...Why not start some of them?

5. Original humor as in Devan, as in Madan, as in Ess. Vee. Vee, as in Packiam Ramasaamy - why not search for such good humor writers and popularize them?

....
the point is "guys, get really new...dont be such somberi copy cats!! If not possible to invent, atleast innovate"

DD - Danda Darshan???

Was reading recently this post on DDMemoirs and Memories: Telewatch...
Sat back and thought...
Believe me, none of the new age TV channels are able to give the variety that DD gave or still gives...for example, yday there was a serial which was televised version of Sundara Ramaswami's story, or their regular dial-in programmes which feature non-cinema professionals who respond to many useful queries...not to forget the Sidharth Basu's quiz time or many such programmes...and any major function/celeberation like Diwali, Gandhi Jayanti, Independence day or Pongal, its only DD that makes programmes relevant to the special day...
Ok, forget entertainment programmes, new channels may beat DD with slick sets, rich costumes and good outdoors - even abroad...but talk about such programmes like Vayalum Vaazhvum - who else covers something that is of relevance to farmers or for that matter - which television channel discusses SSLC and +2 question papers (Kaanbom Karpom)...DD also has two education channels - Gayn Darshan and Technology channel...the other day, I was taken aback when for an hour, someone taught UML...clear, crisp repsentation that taught me concepts of all UML diagrams...
Maybe it is not right to discount DD as Danda Darshan...