Inception – A direct lift from Disney Duck Tales

I was still under the illusion that Inception was a work of Christopher Nolan’s ingenuity until I saw a link one of my friend’s had shared in Facebook.

http://disneycomics.free.fr/Ducks/Rosa/show.php?num=2&loc=D2002-033&s=date

I have always belittled the Indian film industry of having a poverty of imagination for lifting stories from one regional language to other. But I am flabbergasted to see a Hollywood hit being a direct lift from not even another movie, but from a comic strip!! I vouch never to criticize another Indian movie for being based on an epic.

Walt Disney’s imagination for sure will keep you gripped far more than Mr.Nolan’s. Here’s the teaser first page of the comic

The link once again to read the rest of the comic : http://disneycomics.free.fr/Ducks/Rosa/show.php?num=2&loc=D2002-033&s=date

What’s keeping me from posting?

   Yeah, Yeah I have not been posting for a loong time (10 days is very long if some one is new to blogging – it really hurts the already minimal traffic my site boasts). I can’t just blame on ‘no good movies released in the past week’ or rather no good prints on internet of the movies I wanted to see. Some other things are also distracting me and keeping me from my writing.

         My husband got an IPhone and ever since the evil gadget entered our home, I’ve not been able to be away from it for all the time my husband is at home. Then he got a camcorder – another one of those electronic stuff for me to toy with. I got addicted to “Everybody Loves Raymond” show and am watching all episodes from Season 1 like mad.

         And finally, the most important of them all – at last the dates for our India trip is '”ALMOST” confirmed and am busy packing stuff and selling off items here. I am all excited about moving back to India and that excitement seems sufficient to stop me from watching movies :)

         But I have managed to watch “Jhoota hi Sahi'” today and I promise that there is going to be a review post tomorrow.

         BTW I cannot stop myself from bragging – this is my first doodle on IPhone :)

Chettinad Pepper Chicken

Generally my chicken dishes don’t turn out to taste very good but that has never kept me from trying new recipes. Yesterday I tried a different variation in chicken cooking and to my pleasant surprise came out very well. So I wanted to share the recipe. This time around, I was able to take a picture of my dish.

Ingredients:

Chicken: 1.5 lbs (get wings or drumsticks) Cleaned and cut into pieces

Whole garam masala (Cinnamon sticks: 5 inches, cloves: 4, Cardamom:2)

Mustard seeds: 1 tsp

Fennel seeds: 2 tsp

Onion (big): 1 finely chopped

Tomatoes: 2  finely chopped

Ginger Garlic paste: 3 tbsp (freshly ground paste gives the best taste)

Green chillies: 3 finely chopped

Ginger: 2 tsp (finely diced)

Curry leaves: 1 bunch

Turmeric powder: 1/2 tsp

Chilli Powder: 2 tsp

Coriander Powder: 3 tsp

Cumin Powder: 1 tsp

Black Pepper corns: 3 tsp (coarsely crushed)

Salt to taste

Oil: 3 tbsp

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan and splutter mustard seeds. Add fennel seeds and let them splutter. Add finely chopped onions and sauté till they become golden brown. Make sure they turn golden brown only then they will become into a silky gravy upon cooking.

2. Add turmeric powder and Ginger Garlic paste and sauté till the raw smell goes off. Then add 1 tsp of diced ginger, curry leaves and chopped green chillies.

3. Add tomatoes and sauté on medium flame until they are thoroughly mashed and oil oozes out of the gravy. Cook for another minute or two, then add the chilli powder, coriander powder and cumin powder. Mix well and cook till the raw smell disappears.

4. Add chicken pieces. DO NOT add water. Chicken will ooze out water and the chicken has to cook in that. Cover and cook on medium flame for 10 minutes stirring occasionally so that the bottom doesn’t burn.

5. Check if chicken is cooked well, else add 1/4 cup of boiling water and cover and cook for another 5 minutes. Add enough boiling water to make the gravy to desired consistency and allow to boil for about 3 minutes.

6. Add the rest of diced ginger and crushed pepper corns and cook for about 1 minute. Switch the flame off and cover and let it sit for about 5 minutes.

This dish goes well with all Indian Rotis and Rice.

Do try the recipe and tell me how it came out!

Uthama Puthiran Music Review

Given the past tracks from Vijay Antony, there is nothing much to expect from this one too. All the songs have been tuned to catchy beats and just like any Dhanush movie songs, these will go for a round in FM and TV and will then be soon forgotten. In all there are 6 tracks in this album with 4 beats number and two melodies. “Usumu Laresay” is yet another of those meaningless words to join the list of ‘Omahazeeya’ and ‘Allegra’. This is the title song with forgettable lyrics and after few minutes, the ‘takkunu takkunu’ gets irritating. “Kan Irandil’ reminds at least a couple of hit numbers in terms of the rhythm. Naresh Iyer has a beautiful voice that is the only consolation. “Idicha Pacharisi” has the foolproof folk beats and there is nothing special about the lyrics here either. “En Nenjil” is a passable duet number but what hurts the most is the poverty of imagination that has stooped to a new low. “Thooral thedum” is the only track that will possibly make any impression. The lyric is good compared to the others in the track. The only track I’d recommend for a listen. Given that “Ulagam unaku” is penned by the same guy who wrote “En Nnjil”, one doesn’t expect anything with the lyric but in this the music was also not noteworthy

.

Don’t go buying this album. Hear this one on Raaga if you want to.

Tracks in this album:

Ussumu Laresay
Sung By: Vijay Antony, Emcee Jazz, Janani
Lyrics: Priyan

Kan Irrandil
Sung By: Naresh Iyer
Lyrics: Eknath

Idicha Pacharisi
Sung By: Ranjith, Vinaya, Sangeetha
Lyrics: Annamalai

En Nenju
Sung By: Vijay Prakash, Saindhavi
Lyrics: Priyan

Thooral Podum
Sung By: Ajesh, Janani
Lyrics: Eknath

Ulagam Unnaku
Sung By: Vijay Prakash
Lyrics: Annamalai

I’d rate this album at 2 stars.

Anjaana Anjaani Movie Review

Genre: Romantic Comedy (Supposedly)

Director: Siddharth Anand

Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Zayed Khan

Storyline: A stock market crash stricken young man and a ‘got cheated in a relationship’ lady meet on a bridge trying to commit suicide. When attempts fail, they decide on a date to kick the bucket and go about living their bucket list . They end up realizing they want to marry each other

Bottomline: The same no-brainer we get to see all the time. I was unfortunate enough to watch it and my sincere advice – Stay away from this

An absolute debacle. The poster by itself started as a controversy for copying frame to frame from a poster of famous Hollywood flick ‘A Walk in the Cloud’. It was later changed to what we see here. I had my doubts if was the film was going to be any better. How can directors still expect audience to go through a totally no-logic, no-story, dumb-comedy, silly-sentiment movies? The song sequences are just inserted to extend the length of this already intolerable nonsense. And even they are not impressive and remind us of the famous songs seen in the recent past movies.

Bright Spots: Guess what? I’ve been thinking for the past 15 minutes for one bright spot in this movie. But I’ve to accept defeat. Absolutely none!

Bloopers: The entire film to be honest. Worst logic ever – guys who don’t have money to buy tickets to Vegas have money enough for a luxury yacht for mid-pacific swimming spree. A girl who was cheated in a relationship goes off to another city, sets her entire life up again and then goes to commit suicide. Poor humor – if that Gay strip bar was the funny for the writer, for one thing it didn’t work at all.

Hit or Miss: An absolute waste of money. A definite flop. Don’t ever watch this crap if you had all the time in the world. Read this on twitter and find it the most fitting description of how this movie fared at box-office: “Apparently ‘Endhiran’ movie’s car parking collection was more than the first day’s collection for ‘Anjaana Anjaani’.” I don’t doubt it did!

Had the misfortune of having to watch this no-brainer. Share your curses :P

Endhiran Movie review

The only reasoning that stood between Rajinikanth and impossible stunts was that he is human. Being a ROBO has allowed him defy all odds and that gives us an ultimate entertainment blockbuster – Endhiran. Tamil cinema scales new heights with this magnum opus by Shankar. This movie is a proof that with enough cash under the belt, guys down here can make James Cameroon look a dwarf.

Its Rajinikanth all the way. Be it the subtle portrayal of the scientist Vasi or the awe inspiring Chitti or even better the upgraded Chitti 2.0, Rajini was on the dot. Just like any Rajini fan, I was left longing for the slow-motion winning Rajini walk (the one in Kadhal Anukkal doesn’t count) and the punch dialogs (I just loved the single punch dialog – the one when the cashier at jewel stores asks: “Cash a, Card a, Cheque a? Chitti2.0: Gun). Though that sense of missing something lingers, the film still leaves me happy for its entertainment quotient. I couldn’t help thinking that this was a fitting reply to guys barging about ‘Dasavatharam’!

Agreed that Aishwarya looks darn pretty at 30+ (am green with envy) but she a college student? Huh! And has she ever thought of acting or did she think her role was to just look pretty on the scenes that involved her?? I don’t think the romantic scenes between the scientist Rajini and Sana made any impression at all but Chitti 2.0 did a better job at it.

Everything about this movie is brilliant. Just when I start thinking that Indian cinema must grow up and stop having meaningless song sequences that dampen the pace, something like “Endhiran” comes up with such exceptionally choreographed songs that I didn’t at all mind them stopping the flow of the story. Though ‘Kilimanjaro’ was the only song that seemed to have been ‘fitted in’, it topped the others in choreography and singing(I cannot write enough of Chinmayee and Javed Ali). 

As every other Rajini fan, all the hyped-up promos for this movie made me get nervous that this must not become another ‘Baba’ or something. But after watching the movie, I thought that Mr.Maran could’ve saved his breath (and also money thrown in for publicity) for, such a well taken Rajini-fare can never fail! Hope this movie plants seeds for braver efforts from Tamil film makers.

Don’t even think of watching “Endhiran” anywhere other than a theater. Rajini Rocks. Its already Diwali time indeed for Rajini fans when he says “Happy Diwali” folks.

Jhootha Hi Sahi Music Review

I doubt if I can ever call any of the A.R.Rahman albums anything less than ‘Good’ and that’s not just me. “Jhootha Hi Sahi” goes to prove that right once again. I am very happy about this album mainly because of the number of tracks in it. There are 9 tracks - each one a treat to our ears.

“Cry Cry” the first track, is in the same league as ‘Kabhi Kabhi Aditi’ in terms of the lyrical theme sung beautifully by Rashid Ali and Shreya Goshal. Shreya has one of the most admirable voices that makes this song work. 

I’ve still not had enough of listening to “Kilimanjaro” from “endhiran” that the same duo (Javed Ali and Chinmayi) strike again with another absolute brilliance in “Maiya Yashodha”. Awesome exemplification of their unbeatable singing talent. Just like any Chinmayi/Rahman/Javed magic, this one is the best in the album and will top the track list! The crescendo that Chinmayi and Javed build up in the end will make you exclaim out loud. The flute work in this song is creditable and I liked the ‘Jamuna mix’ better than the ‘Thames mix’ but hold on ‘Thames mix’ is a beauty in itself too.

“Hello Hello” made me ask “Hello? Is this from this album or ‘Karthik calling Karthik’ because of its lyrics. Karthick has the silky voice that carries this song very well.

Rahman and Sonu Nigam just added another song to my ‘all time favorites’ list. “Do Nishaniyan” is just a cakewalk for Sonu and it caresses the soul so beautifully. The ‘Heartbreak Reprise’ of this number focuses more on the lyric and Sonu’s vocals and makes you long that it never ends.

“Pam Para” – Ok, I must admit this. Even though it has a catchy tune with Shreya Goshal singing, it is the only song that fails to just sit on your mind may be because the other tracks are too good. Someway it reminded me of Rangeela songs.

Rahman’s innovative trials with the Indian audience paid of well in ‘Vinnai Thandi Varuvaaya’ when he tried introducing ‘Blues’ to us in ‘Aaromale’. His trials continue and this time with Jazz. A surprise in the package “I’ll be Waiting” has been rendered excellently by Vijay Yesudas. My my! this guy is one talent. The ease with which he transitions from English to Hindi  is absolutely commendable.

The title track “Call me Dil” has some interesting lyrics and a good rendering by Rashid Ali with complementing Guitar.

The Album is a definite buy. And if you didn’t feel the magic the first time, hear them once again for just like all other Rahman albums this grows on the listeners. Am sure you’ll not stop humming “Maiya Yashodha” after you’ve listened the album.

Details of Tracks in the album:

Cry Cry
Sung By: Rashid Ali, Shreya Ghoshal
Lyricist: Abbas Tyrewala

Maiya Yashoda (Jamuna Mix)
Sung By: Chinmayee, Javed Ali
Lyricist: Abbas Tyrewala

Hello Hello
Sung By: Karthik
Lyricist: Abbas Tyrewala

Do Nishaaniyan
Sung By: Sonu Nigam
Lyricist: Abbas Tyrewala

Pam Para
Sung By: Shreya Ghoshal
Lyricist: Abbas Tyrewala

I'II Be Waiting
Sung By: Vijay Yesudas
Lyricist: Abbas Tyrewala

Maiya Yashoda (Thames Mix)
Sung By: Chinmayee, Javed Ali
Lyricist: Abbas Tyrewala

Do Nishaniyaan (Heartbreak Reprise)
Sung By: Sonu Nigam
Lyricist: Abbas Tyrewala

Call Me Dil
Sung By: Rashid Ali
Lyricist: Abbas Tyrewala

You can listen to the songs and buy them too here

Heard the songs?? Did you like them? Share your views!

Western Digital WD TV Live Review

Okie! Here goes my first gadget review. I am going to tell about a very cool bit of technology innovation called Western Digital WD TV Live player. A small cute device that is going to change the way you viewed connected media before!

Honestly speaking I didn’t appreciate this amazing piece of work when my husband bought it. Well he is a gadget freak or more rightly an electronics-shopaholic. But just like any shopaholics he has his own way of convincing why that was a ‘can’t live without’ stuff. I was really skeptical if any of his reasoning was going to even convince me on this. But this time, it was the product that convinced me! I’d not say that it’s a gadget you can’t live without, but I’d definitely say its worth every penny for its versatility.

Features:

Full-HD 1080p video playback.

Plays almost all types of media

Audio - MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV/PCM/LPCM, AAC, FLAC, Dolby Digital, AIF/AIFF, MKA
Photo - JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
Video - MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264),MTS, TP, TS Playlist  PLS, M3U, WPL Subtitle -SRT (UTF-8), SMI, SUB, ASS, SSA

Doesn’t require a Western Digital networked device to be able to play the media in it.

Live streaming from YouTube, Flickr, Pandora, and Live365. What’s more here?? You can login to your personal accounts in these internet media sites and play just your favorites! (Unfortunately Netflix and Picasa are missing)

Comes with a good remote control.

Hitches:

Yeah it does have few hitches.

1. Though the network setup is really simple (just have to plug-in the cable from router), a small mistake in setting up file sharing in connected PCs can take ages to resolve. I personally had this problem (I had one Win7 laptop and one Win XP laptop – WD infact offered to take the device back as they couldn’t say why I couldn’t connect to the networked laptops. Thankfully I had sense enough to Google for the solution and we were able to do the network media sharing!)

2. No inbuilt wireless connectivity. But this can be excused as streaming media over the network is better when its wired rather than wireless. (We did try the Wireless-N adaptor, but it works pretty good as our router is also 802.11 draft2 N class - but definitely not as good as having it hard connected). So what's the hitch? The extra bucks that you’ll have to throw in for the wireless adaptor (and a N router)

Final Word:

This all in one wonder box is sure enough worth the money and will have you hooked on to it. Its a real piece of entertainment – Go for it! Its time for you to experience the good things that come in this small package.

Already own one and like it? Share your awe!

Having trouble with WD TV Live? Do drop me a line in Comments – I’ll try to answer those (as I had run into quite a bit myself during the initial setup)

Internet explorer 9 Beta Review

IE version 9 was officially launched on 15th September 2010 with a lot of promising features and a magnitude of reengineering to give a fast, clean, secure, never before web experience. You can download IE9 Beta from Beautyoftheweb.com.

Web browsing or internet browsing constitutes almost over 80% of usage for a PC / Laptop users. Still it is one of the most compromised areas too. Browser crashes and slower loading time of graphic web pages are going to be things of the past with the latest IE in action. One of the most striking feature of IE 9 is that it puts content first. The screen space for the website is increased and browser controls reduced. So how does the experience get better?

1. Hardware acceleration: With the use of Microsoft DirectX technology in this browser, premium quality graphics will be displayed at ease.

2. HTML 5: Now enjoy Adobe Flash and Microsoft SilverLight without any need for plugins – thanks to HTML 5 supportable IE 9

3. JScript engine: The javascript engine used in IE9 is “Chakra” which compiles scripts on the fly that the running time is reduced

4. SVG: With SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) incorporated in IE9, the images and charts and maps will no more be pixilated in browser.

 

IE 9 has some very cool features over its previous version.

Single search/URL bar: With the unified search and URL bar, the browser has more space to display the page contents using lesser space for browser tools.

Pin websites to taskbar: If you liked the feature in windows 7 that allowed you to pin the frequently used applications to the taskbar, then you are going to love this new feature in IE9. You can now pin a website like an application to the task bar. Voila, you get to browser your favorite site just by a single click. Whats more, if the site had configured meta tags for jump list, you’ll see them upon right clicking on the pinned icon.

Smart Security: The IE9 is smarter in identifying and memorizing your regular download types .The built-in download manager doesn’t pop up  annoying warning for your most common types of downloads (like winamp) unlike the smartscreen filters in the previous IE versions.

Tear off/Aero Snap tabs: Well, this is not new if you had experience with Firefox 4. I thought this was one feature that IE was missing with respect to tabbed browsing and now thats there too!

Add-on Advisor: I’d say this is the smartest thing in IE9. It tells you when an add-on is slowing down the browser performance and gives an option to close just the add-on. So no more browser crashes! One might argue that this is not something new as Chrome already has tackled this browser crash problem. Yes, but at the cost of large memory usage (chrome uses different processes for each of the plug-ins/add-ons)

With respect to performance, security, ease of use and web standards and Development tools, IE9 beats the other two competitors hands down. This link here gives the best comparison of the browsers that I’ve seen so far.

 

I tried IE9 last week and since then my other browsers lay forgotten. I find the experience beautiful indeed!

Have you tried IE9 yet? Do you think IE9 is better than other browsers? Do share your comments!

Spilled Water on Laptop

"What an Idiot!" Thats what I said to myself when I spilled water on laptop - not just drops but a lot :( In an over enthusiasm to show a fish bowl to my niece, I lifted the bowl above the keypad and unknowingly tilted it!! I know that you are just thinking "What an idiot!" But anyways,whats done is done and am out of action for days to come. Here's what I did immediately upon the spill: removed power,removed all external devices connected, removed battery,turned it upside down, bloated water on surface with tissue paper, vacuumed the keypad area (i don't mind if my vacuum doesn't work ever again) and left it turned upside down near a light bulb to dry.

Now I am keeping my fingers crossed as the warranty on laptop has expired!!!

Do you have any ideas on what I can do now??

We Are Family Review

Genre: K Jo Drama

Director: Siddharth P. Malhotra

Cast: Kajol, Kareena, Arjun Rampal, Aanchal Munjal, Nominath Ginsberg and Diya Sonecha

Storyline: A terminally ill single mom transferring responsibilities to a Stepmom.

Bottom line: K Jo’s big guns in action. Sadly they fail to fire!

I’m sure you’ll want to see the credits of this movie once again when you are done with going through the mawkish debacle just to check if Karan Johar’s name came under ‘Produced By’ or ‘Script and Screenplay’ section. This movie has all the K Jo elements-big stars, beautiful and rich houses (Does K Jo have a doctorate in making NRI stories?), cool locations and cute kids. Can you think of one K Jo film that didn’t have any of these? This is a baaaad remake of Julia Roberts starrer ‘StepMom’. Why is it bad –because there has been excessive usage of glycerin and almost zero usage of brain.

Bright Spots: Kajol’s commendable acting and Arjun Rampal looks very HOT (Poor guy he didn’t have anything to do in the movie- the director could’ve given him some more scenes and importantly with dialogs).

Bloopers: I don’t know from where the script writers get ideas for the things that kids do on screen. Its totally unrealistic and beyond a point actually starts to be irritating. The pace of the movie is very slow in the second half and the climax is over stretched. Even for some one like me who cries for the emotional scenes, just the hospital scene between kareena and Kajol brought tears!

Hit or Miss: There is certainly going to be some family crowd for this movie at least in the initial weeks. Make sure you take a tissue paper box for mommy. But otherwise, its not really worth a watch at theaters- wait for a couple more weeks, Colors TV will do a World Premier of this movie. I rate this movie at 2 stars.

Va Quarter Cutting music review

The mere title by itself is intriguing and raises an expectation to see a well made comedy. It is rumored to be Tamil Padam – Part II and I hope its not. Spoofing movies cannot sustain the humor quotient for long! Happened to hear the album today and I was not expecting a lot (even though music director was G.V.Prakash as this seems to be a comedy movie and comedy movies usually don’t have much weightage on music) as the songs these days do not seem to make a lot of impression on us. But I was pleasantly mistaken, for the album is quite good. All the songs are good to hear and have interesting lyrics. Kudos to Kumarraja,  for penning such refreshingly new lyrics. In an air stale with mix and match of same lyrics lifted in bits and pieces from other songs, his lyrics come as a breath of fresh air.

‘Unnai Kan theduthe’ is going to be a hit among the youth and is sung well by Gana Ulaganathan. All ‘kudimakkal’ are gonna be very happy about the lyrics. The beat might remind you of ‘Un mela aasai than’ – an other G.V. number. ‘Thediye Thediye’ is a rhyme like melody that sticks to your mind soon enough. A very beautiful song that starts with a sad tone but ends on a happier tone. Andrea has added soul to this song by showing the variation of the mood in her voice. ‘Saudi Basha’ has cool arabic / islamic beats. ‘Shake Shake Shake’ is going to be the way of youth for sometime to come now. Absolutely enjoyable lyrics by Siva and R.Amarendan (they’ve the credits for just this song in the album). ‘Saarpu Saarpu’ is a ghana type rap. Cool bit of music and lyrics again here. The last number is the remix of ‘Unnai kan theduthe’ and the ‘quarter quarter quarter’ humming is all that remains in mind after listening to this.

A interesting bit of innovation in this album – 4 dialogs are included as a part of track list! Those are hilarious too. Overall, this album is going to be a sure shot hit among the youth and FM radios are all going to play these songs nonstop on all their primetime shows!

A strong yes to buy this album. Rate this at 4 stars.

Click here to download these songs or to here to hear them online

Tracks in the album:

Dialogue 1
Artist(s): Siva, SPB. Charan

Unnai Kan Thedhudhe
Artist(s): GV. Prakash, Gana Ulaganathan
Lyricist: Kumararaja

Dialogue 2

Thediyae Thediyae
Artist(s): Andrea Jeremiah
Lyricist: Kumararaja

Dialogue 3
Artist(s): Siva

Saudi Basha
Artist(s): GV. Prakash, Bhargavi
Lyricist: Siva, R. Amarendran

Dialogue 4
Artist(s): Siva, SPB. Charan

Saarpu Saarpu Ji
Artist(s): GV. Prakash, Lakshmikanth
Lyricist: Kumararaja

The Quarter Song: Clubmix
Artist(s): GV. Prakash, Gana Ulaganathan, Remix: DJ Vijay Chawla
Lyricist: Kumararaja

 

Did you like the tracks? Do share your reviews in comments!

Boss engira Baskaran Review

Genre: Drama, Comedy

Director: Rajesh

Cast: Arya, Nayanthara, Santhanam, Rajendran, Chitra Lakshmanan, Subbu Panchu

Story line: Vetti hero loves heroine, family denies to marry girl off to a no job hero. Hero raises in life and marries heroine

Bottom line: Complete Galata, non stop entertainment, carnival for college students!

Arya (Boss) is a vetti officer who has still not completed degree and has been writing arrears for 5 years. Nayanthara (Chandrika) is a temporary lecturer and Boss falls for her at the very first sight. Boss’s brother Saravanan’s (don’t think hard where you had seen this handsome dude before – he was the villain in the serial ‘Arasi’) marriage gets fixed to Chandrika’s sister. Arya tries to ‘correct’ Chandrika but she says he has to get permission of her family if he wants to marry her. Family members don’t agree as Boss is jobless. Chandrika’s dad is hilarious!! So Boss sees ‘Annamalai” movie and wants to become rich soon. So he along with his friend nallathambi (Santhanam) start a tutorial college. Did he succeed? Did he get to marry Chandrika? The rest of the movie answers these.

A  complete clean family entertainer. Arya seems to be on a roll. This is his third consecutive hit and he is cute on screen. Santhanam seems like the second hero of the movie. His comedy is nice. Hope his comedy doesn’t get stale doing the same things in another movie. Jeeva comes in a guest appearance just like how Arya was the rich groom (cameo) in Siva Manasula Sakthi. Nayanthara looks tired in most of the scenes.  There are 5 songs in the movie:

1.“Ada Boss Boss”
Sung By: Sathyan

2.“Yaar Antha Penthan”
Sung By: Haricharan

3.“Thathi Thaavum Paper Naan”
Sung By: Karthik

4.“Iyley Iyley”
Sung By: Vijay Prakash

5.“Mama Mama”
Sung By: Vijay Yesudas, Shweta Mohan

Show stealers: Santhanam – he is just awesome. This film has shown his true potential. I bet college go-er’s famous dialog now is ‘nanben da’!  No unnecessary elements in the movie like fights

Bloopers: Songs, Songs, Songs. Though the songs are good to listen, they dampen the pace of the already slow second half. Nayanthara looks old to be Arya’s pair.

Hit or Miss: A certain hit! I rate this movie at 4 stars for total entertainment. Have fun watching in theaters.

Dabangg – What a movie!

Genre: Action, Drama

Director: Abhinav Kashyap

Cast: Salman Khan, Arbaaz Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, Dimple kapadiya, Vinod Khanna, Sonu Sood

Story line: Good triumphs Evil – simple as that

Bottom line: Absolute paisa vasool!!

With all  the gray shade the in betweens andcharacters marking the bollywood movies these days, it is like a cool refreshment when we get to see movies like Dabangg. The magic formula that ignited the screens in 80’s is brought back with the good conquering evil said in a complete entertainment package. Chulbul Robin hood Pandey is a fearless cop who is not really the HonestRaj types but is still good in his own way. His mother (Dimple) is widowed when he is very young and she marries Vinod Khanna. He has a step brother Makhanchan (Arbaaz Khan) who is dull headed. He is fond of his mother but remains distant with step-father and step-brother who also do nothing to amend this. He meets Rajo (Sonakshi) with whom he instantly falls in love. After his mother’s death, he severs all ties with the rest of his family and marries Rajo and lives separate. The evil Cheddi singh (Sonu Sood) brings the brother against each other just so that he could avenge Chulbul. How he is taught a lesson is narrated with all the essential masala in place.

For Salman fans this is one great treat after a very long time. Malaika Arora Khan sizzles the screen in her cameo number ‘Munni badnaam hui’. Thankfully, the song is better lyric-ed than other item numbers which is just a mixture of words from some other item song. Sonakshi looks pretty and does decent bit of acting.  The stunts are good too!! I was just wondering how Salman went without baring his torso for so long, that the climax came for him to exhibit the toned body.  “Tere Mast Mast Do Nain” lingers long in the mind after watching the movie. An out and out entertainer, with lot of reasons to watch in theaters.

Hit or Miss: A definite box office hit. I’d rate the movie at 4 stars just for the entertainment quotient.

The best home remedy for cold : Chukku Kashayam (Dry Ginger Potion)

As promised, I write this post to share one of the best remedies for cold.

Ingredients:

Chukku (Dried Ginger) – about 5 inch long piece

Black pepper – 10 to 15 (crushed fine)

Cumin and Coriander seeds – 1 tsp each crushed fine (optional)

Karupatti (Palm Jaggery) powdered – 1 cup

Tulsi (holy Basil) leaves – 1 bunch

Water – 5 cups

Coffee powder – 1/2 tsp (optional)

Method:

Crush the chukku in a mortar and pestle  till it almost gets powdered (If you get really good dried ginger, it’ll become powder with relatively lesser crushing – ask for ‘maavu chukku’). Dissolve the karupatti in water in a thick bottomed vessel, to this add the powdered chukku, crushed black pepper, coriander and cumin seeds and the tulsi leaves. Allow this mixture to come to a boil. If desired, 1/2 tsp of coffee powder can be added now for the flavor. Allow this to boil on a medium flame for about 10 minutes. Let it sit for about 5 minutes to sediment. Pour out the clear liquid and drink.

This is a sure shot home remedy for common cold. This mixture would be spicy(hot) and if you have a moderate cold, you can use a little less of the chukku and black peppercorns.

Cold or not, this drink is quite refreshing and can be taken everyday!!!

Do try it sometime and let me know if it helped. Have other home remedies for cold? do write them in comments!

The annoying ‘common’ cold!!

That’s right, I was down with a sore, painful throat and a bad cold for the past few days. I feel that the common cold is the most annoying of all the illness, thats bcos, one is not actually sick but still cannot go about the regular discourse without a feeling of unease. Since it is said that ‘A cold cures in 7 days without pills and in 1 week with pills’, I thought this time I’d take the 7 days trial :)

I am going to write a separate post on the ‘sukku kashayam’ (the dry ginger potion) that actually worked wonders on my cold. But here goes small tips that work in a big way! If you have a bad cough, try these home remedies:

1. To 1 glass of hot milk, add 1/4 tsp turmeric powder and crushed black pepper (3 to 4) and natural brown sugar (panam karkandu) and mix well. Drink it when it is tolerably hot. This not just soothes the throat but also controls the cough.

2. To a teaspoon of honey, add 3 to 4 crushed pepper and powdered cinnamon (about 1/2 inch long). Drain this down the throat slowly so that the taste lingers in the throat for sometime.

3. It can be really irritating if coughing does not cease when we try to sleep. Try having one black pepper (slightly crushed) and 1 rock salt (size of the black pepper) in your mouth. Don’t swallow it, just keep it in the mouth and let the flavor get to the throat slowly.

4. Gargle with hot salt water at least 3 times a day and keep drinking hot liquids all through the day whenever the coughing sensation sets in.

P.S: Even though the cold kept me from posting new posts, it didn’t stop me from watching a lot of movies. So look out for many reviews in the next few days!

Do you have any other tips that had come useful when you had cold? Do share them in comments.. I am sure they’d help me next time around!

Inception Movie Review

Genre: Action, Sci-fi

Director: Christopher Nolan

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, Dileep Rao, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Marion Cotillard

Storyline: Of Dreams, dreamers and their ideas

Bottomline: The director must’ve been on hell of a dreamer – excellent – undoubtedly the movie of the year

When insanely unimaginable stuff is presented on screen in an unprecedented way with unparalleled clarity, there is no way that one could help being swept off the ground! Inception just does that to you. A brilliant no-chaos script that doesn’t confuse the viewers even though it is ‘the most freshest’ and the most unimaginable idea. Leonardo has just cake walked through the Dom Cobb character – arguably the best by DiCaprio so far. Not to leave the supporting cast – every one has done an excellent job.

Leanordo (Cobb) specializes in extracting the secrets from the subconscious mind by sedating them into his dream (shared dream). He has many corporate espionages that makes him one of the ‘wanted’ man by International police. Cobb also has the blame of his wife’s (Mal) death to his name which makes him stay away from his kids for he cannot enter into US. Mr.Saito, a powerful man offers to clear his name and get him into states if he could plant an idea in his rival’s (Robert Fischer) mind – just the opposite of extraction that Cobb specializes in. Cobb accepts the job and plans to take Robert into three levels of dreams. God knows how Nolan imagined this stuff!!! Now this three shared dream level is complex and unlike in less complex dreams, death in this doesn’t wake one up but gets them into a limbo where they have to stay till the dream will end. Does Cobb succeed in his mission? – the answer comes in the action packed second half of the movie. The best part of the movie for me is its conclusion. Nolan lets the viewer decide if Cobb’s totem did topple or if he is still dreaming!

I’d be surprised if it doesn’t bag in at least an handful of Oscars. The best movie that I’ve seen in this year. Watch in theaters and take your friends along, am sure they cannot thank you enough!

I rate this movie at 5 stars!!!

Peepli[Live] movie review

Genre: Draorea
Director: Anusha Rizvi
Cast: Omkar Das Manikpuri, Raghuveer Yadav, Malaika Shenoy, Naseeruddin Shah, Shalini Vatsa, Farrukh Jaffer
Storyline: A social issue handled in quite an intelligent way
Bottomline: Hits the chords just right – A Definite yes!
I don’t think there is much left for a hobby critic like me to review the movie. After all, it had won accolades even before its release in Dublin international film festival. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from writing this for I wanted to share my awe at such an intelligently thought out movie and the excellent way in which the extremely sensitive issue of farmers suicide has been handled.
The casting scores cent percentage. From amma to the agri minister and everybody else in between, they just seem to be die cast for the role! The scene in which the brothers decide on who is going to suicide (that you see on trailers) is just an example of the black hue in the flick. The scene where the reporter fakes as if two ladies are possessed by ‘Mata’ may look hilarious on scene, but the disgusting truth is that it is in fact the most realistic portrayal of today’s irresponsible, TRP crazy news media. Everything about the film is realistic and there is no over exaggeration at any point.
An excellent movie which has rightfully reached the masses (thanks to the bollywood Demi God Aamir) unlike the other movies of such genre that go out of box-office without any noise within weeks of release. Do make sure you watch this movie on theaters, for its going to be the best in its class for a long time to come!!

How to make a flop extravaganza?

This year has seen many high budget extravaganza movies that went straight to the dumpster from the box office within a week into launch. And with me reviewing the movies, was ill-fated to sit through those. I am really fed up watching these no script/dumb joke/total nonsense movies these days that I can give tips for making movies getting inspiration from the likes of Sajid khans. So here goes the 10 ways to make a extravagant flop movie:

1. Sign the top hero and heroine for the movie – their salary would eat up almost 1/3 of the total budget

2. Shoot the entire movie at international exotic locations.

3. Have songs that are totally irrelevant to the movie.

4. Get as many well known supporting cast as possible – even if they are going to show their faces in just one scene in the entire movie

5. Make a flashy and costly Poster for the movie.

6. Make a grand audio launch in a 5 star hotel inviting all big shots and making them say “this movie is going to be the hit of the year”

7. Create publicity stunts (like spreading rumors that hero and heroine of the movie are going out together in real life too)

8. Get the stars as special judges into all the reality shows with Judges on TV (whether they know the art or not).

9. With all these hype created, see the distribution rights for a whooping fortune!

10. Most important of them all, don’t bother to have any script for the movie (who cares about the script after all when you have the top hero and heroine romancing at international exotic locations)

With all these done, the movie hits the box-office with a lot of expectations and finally disappoints the poor audience and goes into the trash bins. The TV channels get lucky with these movies – they do the “world premier screening” of the movie within weeks of its release!

Dabangg Trailer

Saw Dabangg trailer today. Interest provoking indeed. Salman looks so cool and handsome with dress on :P

 

Aisha movie review

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Director: Rajshree Ohja

Cast: Abhay Deol, Sonam Kapoor, Ira Dubey, Cyrus, Amrita Puri, Lisa Haydon

Storyline: Trio of jobless young Delhi girls going about finding their life partners.

Bottom line: Run as fast as possible in the opposite direction – not even worthy to be watched in pirated DVD

The most shallow movie that I had the misfortune of having to watch. Actually dozed off midway through the movie. Had to watch those part again to write the review.. GRRRRRRRR. As the tagline of the movie says, its a total confusion.

For someone who didn’t know better, the movie would only give an impression that Delhi girls have nothing worthwhile to do except bumping at beaus at various parties, dancing and boozing. Sonam has no clue what acting is and I am still left wondering why Abhay Deol ever accepted to do such a nonsense role. He was better off in the tough roles.

All through the movie, Sonam keeps trying to find a partner for her friend Shifali while all the men she tries to do in fancy just her and how dumb is Sonam not to see that!!! I think the director took an overdose of Jane Austen that she tries to bring in the ballroom dance, social parties and girls bumping into guys in the same way. She seems to have forgotten that Victoria era is long past and thankfully girls now-a-days have better things to do than groom hunting.

I don’t know how this movie is called as a box office hit. I seriously doubt if the media is being fed to project it that way!

Total waste of 3 hours where you will not get to see either a good story or some good acting. So if you have 3 hrs to spare, the best thing to do is stay indoors and watch “Taare Zameen Par” and have the satisfaction of having watched something meaningful in those 3 hours. I had to do that after watching Aisha to get over the dumb effect. (Yes am totally jobless that I can watch 2 movies back to back)

I rate this movie at 1star.

Inidhu Inidhu Movie Review

Genre: Drama, College

Director: K.V.Guhan

Cast: Narayan (Tyson), Sonia (Shravs), Arun Iswaran (Sidhu), Reshmi Menon (Madhu), Vimal (Vimal), Bennas (Appu), Sharan Sharma (Shankar), GiaUmar(Sangeetha), Sunny Sawrav (Sanny Balboa), Abhishek (Arjun), Krishna (Sanjay), Ajay (Ajay)

Storyline: College life

Bottomline: This seems to be the director’s fantasy college. Unrealistic and Hollow

After movies like Mozhi and Vellithirai, expectations are very high when Prakash Raj produces a movie. This movie did nothing to even get close to 1% of the expectation. The film is a remake of the Telugu movie “Happy Days”. It doesn’t even qualify to be stated in the same breath as the original version say my friends who had watched Happy Days.

I guess the director had not even passed by an engineering college in his life. In his world college is all about flirting, boozing, gang fights, ragging and farewell :P. Nevertheless, the debutant actors Arun (Siddu), Reshmi (Madhu) and Bennas (Appu) have done a good job in acting. The only touching scene in the entire movie was that of MilkPandi (Paalpandi). Yes, that was also the only thing close to reality in the movie.

When did engineering girls and boys start going out on private tours?? I wish we were in the era that the director has dreamed of :P The lone good part of this entire fiasco is the music. The music review can be read here. I could not help thinking that with college stories like ‘3 Idiots’, how could a director dare to make such a bad movie.

Anyways, the final word is that the movie is NOT AT ALL worth to be watched in theaters. Don’t waste your 120 bucks, wait for CDs to come to burma bazzar

I rate this movie at 1.5 stars (My big heart doesn’t let me go below this – few may rate it in negative terms.. he he)

Upload Files To Blogger

Never knew that I could even upload files to blogger other than pics n videos.. An eye opener post!!
Upload Files To Blogger. ~ The Blog Doctor.

Naan Mahaan Illai Review

Genre: Action

Director: Suseendran

Cast: Karthi, Kajol Agarwal

Storyline: A middle class young man who turns violent to avenge

Bottomline: A fresh makeup for an old idea.

Apt casting and brisk screenplay are the main strength of this movie. As the title goes to say, Karthi (Jeeva) is not a homely, decent boy. It seems to be Karthi’s forte to look cool in the not-so-good boy role. The film starts off with a group of adolescent boys smoking pot and committing a murder for their lust. Little would one imagine that the film could be such fun with an opening scene like this.

Karthi is a carefree youth who as usual has parents who dote on them. It is amazing that both of them don’t mind him being jobless. Anyways, he meets Kajol Agarwal (Priya) at a marriage and its love at first sight. Sadly as in any action movie, the heroine in this movie is also pea-brained and comes just for 4 scenes and the songs.

There are quite a few interesting light-hearted scenes like the one in which Karthi and his friend go for collections and the scene in which Priya’s father trying to get a goon’s help and Karthi becoming his friend.

The adolescent boys kill Karthi’s father – a call taxi driver fearing that he might turn as a witness against them. The hero decides that the punishments by law are not just enough for these criminals and turns violent to take law into his own hands. The climax is the usual bloodshed and it is increasingly worrying to see that we have hero gruesomely slashing the villain in the climax and walking away with that.

The music of this movie has been reviewed in an earlier post. You can read the music review here. The songs have lyric that match the situation and looks good visually too.

Over all, though it is not romantic as the posters show it to be, the movie is worth a one time watch in theater. For all those unlucky oversees movie lovers, drop your mail id in the comments and I will mail you the torrent file – trust me the quality is very good!

Pingback and Trackback for blogger

http://mymindstalk.blogspot.com/2010/08/pingback-and-trackback-for-blogger.htmlI have spent the whole day today trying to find how I could do a trackback/pingback from my blogger account. Still haven’t found anything that I can use. I thought I would use haloscan, but it is not free anymore. I tried installing GreaseMonkey along with this script - but even that didn’t work. Is there any way we can do that in Blogger??

Naan Mahan Illai Music review

Naan Mahan Alla is yet another hit album by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The songs are refreshing and melodious. This album has 4 original tracks and 1 remix track of one of its own original tracks. ‘Va Va Nilava Pudichi’ has good lyrics with matching music and leaves you humming after listening to it once. “Iragai Pole” is a classic Yuvan refreshing number – a good melody even though there is nothing admirable about the lyric. “Oru Maalai Neram” is another good number from the album. The “Thaeivam Illai” song has such exceptional lyric that the music is outweighed by the lyrics. The last track is the remix of “Va va nilava” with chennai beats to it. Overall a not-bad-at-all album and yes I would recommend buying if you don’t grumble about getting just 4 songs for the cost of the album.
I would rate this album at 3 stars.

The list of songs:
Va Va Nilava Pudichi
Artist(s): Haricharan
Lyricist: Na. Muthukumar

Iragai Pole
Artist(s): Yuvan Shankar Raja, Tanvisha
Lyricist: Yugabharathi

Oru Malai Neram
Artist(s): Javed Ali, Shilpa Rao
Lyricist: Na. Muthukumar

Theaivam Illai
Artist(s): Madhu Balakrishnan
Lyricist: Yugabharathi

Va Va Nilava Pudichi - Remix
Artist(s): Haricharan
Lyricist: Na. Muthukumar

Inidhu Inidhu Music Review

Inidhu Inidhu is a remake of the Telugu Hit “Happy Days” produced by Prakash Raj. The music was released on the Friendship Day. Music for this album is composed by debutant music director Micky.J.Meyer. In all there are 7 songs and I must say the album is actually nice. Vairamuthu proves yet again why he is the best in the business. The lyrics of all the 5 songs that Vairamuthu has written are very interesting, intelligent and meaningful. In fact in some cases (Ammakale Appakale, Kalloori Thaye) the music doesn’t seem to live up to the lyric standard. Na.Muthukumar has penned the other 2 songs which are also lyrically good (unlike his fiasco in Sindhu Samaveli). “Inbam ethirile” is definitely a song that you might want to your collection for a long drive. “Valkai oru” song is worthy to be heard many times for the quality of lyrics. “Kodi Kannavu Kannil” would probably be the only average song in the album but is definitely better than most of the songs that come out these days.

The album is worthy of a buy. I’d rate it at 3.5 stars.

The list of songs in this movie are:

Ammakalae O Appakalae
Singers: Micky.J.Meyer, Krishna Chaitanya, Adithya, Kranti, Sashikiran, Siddharth
Lyricist: Vairamuthu

Inbam Ethirilae
Singers: Karthik, Timmy, Gridlock
Lyricist: Na. Muthukumar

Inidhu Inidhu
Singer: Karthik
Lyricist: Vairamuthu

Vazhkai Oru
Singer: Karthik
Lyricist: Vairamuthu

Ennangal Vaannoki
Singer: Kalyani
Lyricist: Vairamuthu

Kodi Kanavu Kannil
Singer: Naresh Iyer
Lyricist: Na. Muthukumar

Kallori Thayeh
Singer: Micky.J.Meyer
Lyricist: Vairamuthu

Sindhu Samaveli Music Review

Sindhu Samaveli is one of the new music tracks that has been released recently. The music for this album is scored by Sundar C.Babu and lyrics by Na.Muthukumar. I would actually say this album was a disappointment esp because I was expecting something that would beat Anjaathe in music and also was looking forward to hearing some good refreshing lyrics. But Na.Muthukumar seems to have lost his marbles after he finished writing “Ovvoru manithan nenjum”song. The others are just collage of the usual lyrics that we hear all the time. The “Thappu Thanda” started with good beats but again it just didn’t make an impression. The lyrics made me compare that with a better version of the same thoughts in “Sirichi Sirichi vandha cheena thana” in Vasool Raja.Anyway this was a typical Malgudi Subha number. “Yaar ingu nallavargal” again has no originality in terms of lyrics and neither is the music catchy. If the music director was planning to give an instrumental to match “the king arrives” instrumental of “aayirathil oruvan”, I must say he has failed miserably. It was more of noise than music.  The female version of “Yaar ingu nallavargal” has the same lyrics but has Janaki singing the number. I seriously don’t understand why veterans like S.P.B and Janaki agree to sing these

The last track in the album “Muthathale Sanda” is the only track that might stay on your mind.

Overall, I’d say that this album is not worth a buy. If you want to still listen to this, go to Raaga.com and listen to the tracks.

I rate this album at 1.5 stars (just for the lyrics of “Ovvoru manithan” and music of “Muthathale Sande”)

Track list:

Oovaru Manithan Nenjum  
Sung By: Karthik 

Thappu Thanda  
Sung By: Malgudi Subha 

Yaar Ingu Nallavargal  
Sung By: SP. Balasubramaniam 

Theme Music  
Instrumental 

Yaar Ingu Nallavargal  
Sung By: Janaki 

Muthathale Sanda  
Sung By: Naveen, Rita 

Endhiran Audio release videos

Endhiran audio release that took place at Malaysia was an extravaganza by itself. A very enjoyable presentation of this audio release function was telecast on Sun TV recently Just like every other nice program, I couldn’t watch it live.
But what’s internet for He He..

All those who missed out viewing that, here are the links:
Click here to see Day 1 telecast
Click here to see Day 2 telecast

Endhiran Lyrics

Endhiran CD sales has slashed all the previous audio records. The music and the lyrics are awesome. Got hold of the lyrics pages.. Sharing those images here










Enjoy!!

Designed a Blog!!

Yeah! you heard that right. Though I got a template from somewhere, I tweeked it so much that it no more remains the template that I took. So I think I can safely claim that I designed the blog.

See the blog that I’ve designed by clicking here. Alternatively you can also visit http://frank-virtualizationtips.blogspot.com/. Now I know a bit of CSS too!!!
Do let me know what you think of this blog. Also please comment on where I have not done a good job and areas of improvement.

ROBO trailer rocks!!

Happened to see the ROBO endhiran trailor today. Wow!! just amazing. Trailer looks promising and interesting. Left me wanting to see more of ROBO.. Do comment if you happen to know some other trailer videos other than the one given here.

Click to see ROBO trailer

Endhiran Poll

Endhiran Music Review

Album: Endhiran (ROBO)
Music Director: A. R. Rahman
As with any A.R.Rahman album, the songs of Endhiran grow on you as you listen to them.
Click here to listen to Endhiran music online and to download Endhiran songs for free
‘Kadal Anukkal’ is the best with Shreya Ghoshal crooning to sooth the soul. The melody is very good. ‘Boom Boom’ and ‘Arima Arima’ are the pacey tuned songs with good techno music. A.R.Rahman has the tribal fusion done in the ‘Kilimanjaro’ song. ‘Irumbile oru Idhayam’ makes you move your body – an absolute A.R.Rahman stamp song. The Rap part is awesome! Listen to the voice of A.R.Rahman’s daughter Khatija in ‘Puthiya Manitha’.Vairamuthu proves yet again why he is the best in the industry in this song. ‘Chitti Dance Showcase’ – a western techno number is an interesting fusion too.
On the whole the album is a treat to your ears and worth a buy for all the different varieties that you could get in a single album

List of Songs in ROBO:
In all there are 7 songs:
1. Boom Boom Robo Da
Sung By: Yogi B, Keerthi Sagathia, Swetha Mohan, Tanvi Shah
2. Arima Arima
Sung By: Hariharan, Sadhana Sargam
3. Kadal Anukkal
Sung By: Vijay Prakash, Shreya Ghoshal
4. Kilimanjaro
Sung By: Javed Ali, Chinmai
5. Irumbile Oru Idhayam
Sung By: A R Rahman, Kashn Krissy
6. Chitti Dance Showcase
Sung By: Pradeep Vijay, Pravin Mani, Yogi B
7. Puthiya Manitha
Sung By: S.P.Balasubramaniam, A.R.Rahman, Khatija Rahman

Endhiran (ROBO) Songs released!

The much awaited thalaivar movie Endhiran’s songs are released at last!!. The audio release was done on 31st July at Malaysia and the audio release was an extravaganza on its own.

Watch the Endhiran audio release video clips here

Kalavaani

Genre: Drama

Director: Sargunam

Cast: Vimal, Oviya, Saranya, Ilavarasu, Soori, Kanja karupu

Storyline: Irresponsible village boy loves school girl, Boy enemies with girl’s brother, Boy and girl elope to marry and happy ending

Bottomline: One of the best – if not the best film of the year

Click here to see kalavaani movie online

Wow!

Recently saw this movie, online of course.. but would definitely have seen it in theaters had I been in India. It was a such a refreshingly entertaining movie. When there is a debutant director around the corner, it will be either a lot of bloodshed rat-eat-rat story (where nowadays everyone dies in the end) or it would be no plot-total nonsense movie with a lot of skin show to pull the crowd or just simply a college love story.

But thankfully director Sargunam has avoided all these and has come up with a clean family entertainer. The story line may be a simple love story, but the screenplay does not let in even a single dull moment. There are several reasons that make this a good movie. For starters, there is not much violence nor is there any heightened melodrama. For a change, comedy scenes are not predictable. They made me really laugh out loud. The best part is the casting.

For me, the highlight of the film was Saranya who has portrayed the role of the hero’s mother. Although we have seen Saranya in mother role in more than a couple of films, she seems to distinguish each of her performances. Illavarasu also has made his mark in the role of the father and is a credible embodiment of the Dubai dads.

Vimal and Soori are on a roll and have lived the role. Heroine oviya looks just perfect for that innocent school girl. Over all the movie is a all through fun and I’d rate it at 4 stars (and a 0.5 more just for Saranya!!!)

.

Power Outage

We had a power outage in our apartment today (yes in US!!) for around 4 hrs. I still don’t know if it was an outage local only to our apartment or for the entire block… Since power outages are quite normal from where I come from (Chennai), I was simply waiting for the power to come back. But after 4 hrs, I thought that I’d call and inform. I was amazed by the kind of service esp this being a Sunday. There was a request created with a request number and they even offered a curtsey walkup call for any day in the week!! I could just not help comparing how power outage reporting happens in my place… Lets imagine I have a power outage in chennai, this is how my conversation would be:

Note: I must call within the first 5-10 mins to have the phone answered (else the intelligent people at the substation would place the receiver down!!)

Me: Sir there is no power in xyznagar.

Substation technician (SST) : which area?

Me: xyznagar, abc street

SST: Lineman is working. Power will come

Me: When is the power expected to be back?

SST: Power will come ma

Me: Ok.. (he hangs up even before I say okie )

Where as here, I get a request number, an expected time when the power is going to be restores and what was the issue that caused a power outage. They also ask if I want to be informed when the power is back and to which number they should call to inform. Within minutes two technicians came from the “Illumination Company” and did something to clear the outage. And as said, we also a got a call to confirm if the power has been restored..

How I wish this system was present in India where power outages are just a part of everyday life

Trying out the Windows Live Writer

Got introduced to the Windows Live Writer through one of my friend. She hosts an excellent frugality website Wealth Informatics. Do check that out!!

Getting back to Live writer, it is just so cool to use.. and this is my first post with the live writer editor.. Do try the live writer

New York Touring Tips

Keeping up with my pledge here is the post on our New York trip. Instead of going on saying how great the trip was (yup it was indeed greaaat!!) I am going to say my tips on how to save better and see more on a trip to New York. I may not be the frugality expert to give my tips, but I did have my own ways of sightseeing New York.

How to get there??
We took a rental car and drove up to New Jersey. Now the question comes why New Jersey, why not New York. The answer –

1. Staying in New Jersey is way cheaper than staying at New York whatever be the star rating of the hotels you are looking at

2. New York is at a very close commutable distance from here and there are multiple options how you could reach New York - all of them equally exciting. (We took the Lakeland Bus service which took us to the port authority bus terminal, the busiest terminal in US - one of the places to see in NY)

3. If you ever took a car, parking is either complimentary or real cheap at the hotels in New Jersy whereas, in NY, it could easily be anywhere between $15 - $25

4. Even better if you flew to NJ. You could stay at a hotel closer to the airport and almost all hotels near airport has complimentary shuttle to airport from where you can take subway to NY

Plan ahead to save on attractions
Next, all the attractions at New York are really worth seeing and if you are planning to cover most of them, there is no better way to do it other than getting the coupons. You have a variety of coupons to choose from depending on the length of your stay.
Check out these links for the passes they offer

1. The New York Pass
2. New York City Pass
3. New York city Explorer Pass

We took the 2 day pass from “The New York Pass” as we were going for a long weekend. Even otherwise, I find that this is the cheapest amongst all the ones available and offers 55 attractions that you can see with the pass. So the next question is how to use your coupons to the fullest. (Remember that the New York pass comes with $10 coupon on the store and $10 coupon at their restaurant –don’t miss to use it)

How best to use the pass?
To gain profit out of your pass, you must plan to visit as many attractions as possible without compromising the time that needs to be given to each of them. If you are only planning to visit the Empire State building and the Liberty Island, please DO NOT buy the pass. Buying the pass is only meaningful if you use it well over than what it cost you actually. So even before you go to NY spend some time to look up at the list of attractions – again the New York Pass website has the most comprehensive list with links for each of them. You can see them clicking here. There are around 4 cruises (including night time cruise) including the Liberty Island ferry. So if you are a fan of the boats/ferry/sail plan your itinerary around these cruises. You can look up at the time when each of the cruises starts from their respective websites and make sure you reach to the deck at least 15 minutes in advance. Yeah! that is one advantage of your pass, you can skip lines at most places (except the Empire State Building)

How to draw out the itinerary?
Notice that each attraction is a hyperlink in the website. Clicking on the link will give you the webpage of the attraction where you can find the address for them. Span the attractions over your days of visit. Most importantly, plan them based on their address so that you don’t waste time travelling from one end to the other of Manhattan to see the attraction.

Commuting to the attractions
If you have a iphone/Blackberry/any3G phone, I would advise against the Red/Blue Bus that you can hop on/off to see attractions. The reason - they are costlier than what they are worth. Have Google maps installed in your phone and there is no better way to navigate around.
If you don’t have one (which I seriously doubt :) ), do take the bus or else you would lose time and energy trying to get from one place to another. You can see the details here for Red Bus or here for the Blue Bus.
But if you do have the technology in hand, you can get one day unlimited fun pass from MetroCard for $8.25 as compared to close to $60 for the hop on/off bus for a day. This can be used in both the bus and in the subway. Trust me it is exciting!! Your Google maps will show the next available public transit to reach your next destination. Walking up to the bus stops/subway stations is again great because NY Street is where all the action is. I actually had a neck ache craning my neck to see those massive sky scrapers.

These are the basic tips that you can consider before your trip. So enjoy your trip!!!
Please do share your ideas and experiences on New York trips. I’d love to hear them

Madharasapattinam

This movie can be said to be a cross of Titanic+Lagaan+Some Kollywood masala :) But this movie is a definite yes to watch because of the art direction and the sets in the movie. It is always a nice feeling to see the old Madras in paintings or in antique photographs collection. I must say that they have brought those images to life in the movie. The heroine in this movie is Amy Jackson who has the Miss Teen America title to her name and sure enough looks pretty (but certainly not comparable to Kate Winslet on any scale). Arya looks cool. I don't know why the director choose the titanic style of narration, but in my guess the film would have looked much better in the typical tamil film flashback style of narration.I would rate the movie at 2.5 stars.

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