Cinema, Karam, Kapi

I have seen Ajith grow from a boy next door in films like Pavithra and Ullasam to a mature actor in films such as Vaali and Godfather to majestic successes such as Veeram and Aarambam. That the Billa series gave him an undisputed position in the top 3 among next-gen actors of Tamil Cinema is no surprise. What I like about Ajith is that he chooses purely commercial, tried and tested formulas and has been on a winning streak for a long time now. While he experiments with his looks like Kamal Hassan, he sticks to his "Thala" image and larger than life persona created by his ardent fans, many of whom happen to be Superstar Rajnikanth's fans as well. He is also a simple man, as admonished by many people within the industry and outside. There was a video clip of him visiting Tirumala Tirupati temple with just two people around, right before his latest film Vedalam's release. It showed his simplicity and reach among the common people, who were taken by surprise. So, I

Disclaimer: I am an ardent fan of Kamal Hassan, the actor. However, I don’t endorse most of his personal views, especially on religion. Kamal and I are Scorpios, a day apart rather and have so many commonalities in life. I was all excited to see Uttama Villain. His last few movies haven’t been like the ones he has given in the 80s and 90s which was probably his golden period. Uttama Villain, seemed to be a movie about a movie star, one who has achieved superstardom rather. From the trailer and hearsay, I was expecting to see how an aged actor reinvents himself touching upon his Professional Guru while also embracing a first time Director and a 20-something Music Director. Who else, other than Kamal Hassan has the guts to test new talent in today’s age, especially given the fact that big budget movies and the expected results are projected to be a big hype. The star cast looked impressive too – Pooja Kumar, Andrea, Urvasi, Jayaram, MS Bhaskar, K Vishwanath and the legendary Late K Bala

I have been a self confessed fan of Director Shankar for many years now. My first tryst with his direction dates back to Gentleman when I was still in school and had limited understanding of the art that is cinema. But he was one of those Directors, I thought then, who has a bright future since he had tread on a sensitive subject in that film with elan. I have enjoyed all of his movies thereafter. In each outing of his, he brought out a different panorama of film making - something that the commercial directors have always refrained from. His heroes were larger than life, be it the "One day CM" in Mudalvan or the "Bribery conscious old man" in Indian. Ofcourse, and naturally my most liked movies of his are Sivaji and Enthiran, which feature my personal matinee idol, the Superstar of Indian Cinema, Rajinikanth. After watching Sivaji, I felt that for a change, Shankar has made a film for someone else - for Rajini fans in this case. After a successful run, his

Madras I There are two things that are making the news these days in the city, probably three. Madras, as the city has been known historically (and I choose to spell the city's name that way most often) is also the name of a recently released movie. Featuring Karthi, btoher of veteran actor Suriya, Karthi has been quite experimental with Tamil Cinema ever since his first release 5 years ago with Paruthi Veeran. He has played a village lad, unemployed Chennai youth, and many a time a happy go lucky guy. His box office records have been topsy turvy, where he has the most returns when least expected. Back to Madras, the film is shot in North Madras, which has been largely neglected in Kollywood for a long time. Except for a one-off gana song or a kuthu song, nothing has captured the imagination of this part of the city, which was also the original settlement along the sea shore. I have had the privilege of travelling to North Madras twice or more every week to work where my prev

Came across this interesting note about the origin of Filter Kapi - by Mr. Elangkumaran Jayabharathi and wanted to share with our readers...  T here are multiple speculations as to why its called "degree" coffee: The most plausible explanation is that it's not "degree" coffee. It's Chicory  which came to be pronounced as  tikeri  and eventually became degree . Chicory helps extract more flavour from the coffee beans. Milk certified as pure with was called  degree milk  owing to a mistaken association with the thermometer. It is claimed that coffee prepared with degree milk  became known as  degree coffee. The first  decoction  is sometimes called the  first degree, thus leading to the  name  degree coffee South Indian coffee (a.k.a  filter coffee ) is a milk coffee (perfect example of South Indians' affinity for dairy products). Most of the beans are grown in India (Arabica and Robusta varieties are grown in Tamil Nadu primarily at

Big news coming our way... Kochadaiiyaan featuring Superstar Rajinikanth and Deepika Padukone, which is created using Motion Capture Technology for the first time in the history of Indian Cinema, is expected to be telecast on Jaya TV coming Deepawali. The film was directed by Soundarya Rajnikanth Ashwin, the younger daughter of Superstar and the Direction was overseen by ace Director KS Ravikumar. The film created a huge buzz with the kind of technology it had used but hardcore Thalaivar fans were a tad disappointed since they couldn't see their matinee idol in flesh and blood. All the seven songs, composed by Oscar Winner Isaipuyal AR Rahman were chartbusters and still remain favourites among music afficianados which was release at a Sathyam Cinemas in which Shah Rukh Khan was the Chief Guest. The film had a huge star cast including Nasser, Jackie Shroff among others and had a special role of actor Late "Nagesh", mimicked and performed by a comedian. It is expe

Poojai is Tamil film featuring Vishal and Shruti Hassan, elder daughter of Actor Kamal Hassan. Vishal has maintained his position among the top 5 young heroes in the Tamil Film Industry and most of his films have been hits. This film is being produced by Vishal himself like some of his earlier movies and is directed by Hari who has earlier given super commercial hits like Vengai. Hari's scripts are usually racy and fast, and adopts a surprise twist and turn in most of the critical sequences. Vishal  had a good box office release with his recent release "Naan Sigappu Manithan" and the expectations from him are quite high from this film too. Shruti is back in Tamil Cinema after a long hiatus, almost after three years. She has been choosing her projects carefully and wish her to do well. Sarathraj sports a bald look in the film and is suppsoed to have a critical role and is supported by Radhika who now moves to Cinema after her successful TV serial Vani Rani. Kausalya and