Wolfram is the new computational knowledge search engine that has become public alpha yesterday. This one was projected to be the Google killer next gen search engine and yesterday morning I tried it for some time. First thing, there is a difference between the way Wolfram searches its database from Google does. Everybody knows Google does a keyword search on all the web pages it has crawled, cached and kept in its servers. What wolfram does is answer natural language questions instead of keywords, computes it real time and produces the results. The results are not just website links but presented in text and graphical form including graphs and charts. Some of the queries that I ran include:
When did man land on moon? What is Wolfram? Who is the american president? sin 30 / cos 30, What is the value of pi? square root of 2, pottasium nitrate, what is laughing gas, etc…

It was amazing to see the way results are presented for mathematical values. For example, when you look for the value of pi, it gives the decimal approximation (with option of showing more and more digits), series and integral representation, etc…When you search for location (where is bangalore) it brings up Indian map and shows Bangalore (Google does too, and satellite image link takes to Google maps :)) and when i ask for stock comparison (Goog Yhoo) it shows a lot of information about the two companies (not in Google). So pretty neat for all these queries. But for natural language queries, which Wolfram is trying to address, I think it is not there quite yet. Queries like “When did man land on the moon”, “Who shot kennedy”, “What happened on September 11, 2001” it was not able to produce results. Or did i read Wolfram wrong? I am not sure. But if it is trying to address natural language queries I expect these questions to be answered.

In my opinion, I don’t think Wolfram can be a Google killer. Both would co-exist. But what Wolfram has started is a very big step in terms of answering questions in natural language and real time computing of the answers. There should be millions of lines of code and a wonderful algorithm behind Wolfram which actually does this. And the way the results are shown are also pretty good. One can interpret and arrive at conclusion easily. Keywords search is still very much required until we build systems that can understand all of human queries. And that day would be the beginning of the Judgement Day when computers understand us a whole lot better 🙂 (Yeah I am in the mood of watching Terminator: Salvation :))

…yes, after some dry months of Hollywood not releasing any decent action flick, looks like the coming months would see some real action movies coming in. Starts with X Men Wolverine, followed by Angels and Daemons which I heard is better than Da Vinci, we have “Terminator: Salvation” and “Transformers: Revenge of the fallen” quickly following. I am big fan of action / Sci-fi flicks (no surprises) and I have seen Terminator 2 countless number of times. Though Terminator 3 was very disappointing, reviews say that Salvation is better than Terminator 3 but not up to the mark set by Terminator 2. I think James Cameroon needs to come in and give something better than T II. The trailer of Salvation looks impressive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcg5t0mT8V4

Watch the video at 0:47 for a bike sequence and the famous T II BGM at 2:18. This BGM was missing in T III but now looks like its back in Salvation. Its getting released on May 21 in the US. But looks like Indian release would be little late. Hope to catch up the action soon in RDX at Satyam Cinemas 🙂

And the next one is Transformers 2. I loved the first part for the amazing visual effects and the awesome sound effects. In fact its the sound effects that impressed me a lot and I had seen the movie couple of times at the theatre itself for that. So I am expecting the sequel to be equally good. But the trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb2fUOW1ne4) gives me a feeling that they have gone little bit higher on the visual effects. I mean, it gives an impression that the bots are everywhere on the screen. The first part, though had the bots in action, had the human touch too. Anyways, its another RDX one at Satyam 🙂

I guess before these, I would be watching X-Men Wolverine and “Angels and Demons”. Would be waiting for one of my friends to come back from the US. He too is a major movie freak. I hope these movies forget me the haunting days of watching Tamil movies at theatre.

Have been completely out of writing for about 6 months now owing primarily due to hectic work schedule. Had tight schedules for the product we were working on and we went live by April. I have so many things to write on and starting on right away.

Last Sunday, my sister went back to Ahmedabad to continue with her training and I had booked a cab with Fasttrack for airport drop and coming back home. And I am pretty impressed with their service. Whenever I require a cab, I always call up Fasttrack though there are umpteen number of service providers in this line. This time when I had called up and told my mobile number they were readily able to pull up my data from their system. After the representative took my details, she suggested couple of packages that are available and finally gave me a confirmation number. Till this, it is pretty much expected out of any service.

Next day morning, 30 minutes before the pickup time, I got an SMS from Fasttrack saying that the cab is on the way and the SMS had details on who is the driver, the driver’s mobile number and approx time by which the cab would be present at my door. And the cab was present right on time. In the past, the cab actually comes in well before the pick up time and the driver would start the meter exactly at the pick up time. On the way back, just minutes before the cab reached home, I get another SMS saying “Hope you enjoyed your trip. For any assistance, please call at…”. That was just two simple SMSes but from a pure customer experience point of view, it gave the feel good factor and I would definitely go back to Fasttrack.

Had a word with the driver too and was enquiring about their model. Looks like Fasttrack doesn’t own most of the cabs. The driver’s themselves own the cab and they run it for Fasttrack. Fasttrack does the advertising part, running the system, coordinating different routes. Drivers’ would get allotted a pickup – drop route and each cab has an ID attached. When the trip starts, drivers’ update Fasttrack through the in-car equipment and when the trip ends they update again so that the next trip can be assigned.

Though the rates are little on the higher side, the experience was pretty neat. They could do something about their website as Google reports the site has malicious. If that gets fixed and one can book through internet too, then it would definitely add a lot of value to the customer.

Watch this and then this.

Except the fact that the singer has done a good job, I do not have any further comments. Didn’t expect this from Vijay Antony.

p.s: couldn’t embed the video in to the post as youtube was giving some errors.

Warning: If you watch movies just for entertainment – just go to the hall for 3hrs of time pass and relaxation, then you should be leaving the theatre when the interval card gets shown.

There could be thousands of reason why one would like Gautam’s Vaaranam Aayiram. But I guess the single most reason why he made the film is his dad. He seems to have drawn lots of inspirations from his dad and has tried to make a film out of it.

You could watch this movie more than once, because its really worth spending that money to experience what Gautam does to you at least in the first half of the movie if not the most part of the movie. He just fills the theatre with love in the first 90 minutes of the film. Fill as in full of love…:) Starts with the dad Suriya chasing Simran it goes on till the other Suriya sweeps Sameera of her feet in the US. By the time “Mundhinam Paarthaenae” and “Nenjukkul Peidhidum” songs gets over, supported by the evergreen numbers of Ilayaraja songs there are just three possibilities of things running in your head.

1. If you are in love, you would go even more crazier.
2. You could be thinking of that first love that didn’t happen. The memories of good old days when you were actually crazy about some one.
3. You would be cursing yourself, why you wasted so much of your life without experiencing anything like that. And why things just don’t happen to you alone 🙂

Certainly I would rate the first half next to the 30 minutes of Karthik/Revathy in Mouna Ragam when it comes to how Tamil movies have portrayed love/romance. The Mouna Ragam 30 minutes is something that can be watched over and over and every other time it would bring a smile in your face invariably. Well its the same case here too. Somehow Gautam does this very easily.

Yeah I am coming there. It is an out and out Suriya show. This guy has shown the real meaning of commitment and it clearly shows that he has put his heart in to this film. Right from the expression on his face when he sees Sameera for the first time, the 70s Suriya going behind Simran, the school boy who starts drawing inspirations from his dad, showing some guts to his senior, the typical college guy who feels responsible for his family and also having Sameera on the other side…The 40 year old Suriya, the Major Suriya, the shell shocked Suriya on the death of his girl, the drug addict, the 70yr cancer patient, the inspirational dad…You seamlessly get lost in the different Suriyas you see on screen and he does every role perfectly. The home work he has done definitely shows in the screen and all girls would certainly be jealous of Jothika 🙂 Especially with the six pack he has got which probably gets shown only for max 15-20 seconds in the movie. He certainly has moved on to the next league and if he continues to do so, can definitely take Tamil cinema to next levels.

Dad plays a very important role in any guy’s life. He is the first person whom a guy looks up to draw inspirations, set role models and imparts certain quality of his in to himself. As a kid one sees dad as the man-to-be and looks up to him for lot of things. The same is valid for even girls because dad is the first man in their life too. Whenever they choose their life partner too, girls I think would compare certain attributes of the guy to their dad. And Gautam has tried to tell exactly the same thing. Probably one common attribute to all the dads is that they don’t want their kids to know with what difficulty they are being raised. You could see this in any middle class family, where the dad could be working in a bank/public sector company/govt trying to meet both the ends. But he won’t even let the kids know what all he goes through to get that first bicycle, the first excursion fees in school, that engineering seat, takes a loan on his provident fund to do your MS App/flight ticket, sees you off in that train/flight when you start to pursue your dreams and the list goes on. And all these without a single element of selfishness, the only thought of “my son/daughter should be in a better position than what I am in”.

And Gautam gets amazing numbers from Harris to open that champagne of love and spill every drop of it in the movie hall. “Mundhinam Paarthanae” set in the 70s is the initial gush out of that champagne bottle. As Gautam shakes the bottle more and more “Nenjukkul Peidhidum” and “Oh shanthi” carries the feel over to the interval of the movie. “Anjala” tells you that if you shake the champagne in full enthu it gushes out real fast and gets over in a blink of the eye. Harris has given a pretty decent BGM and does well in the re-recording area too. Somehow Gautam was able to see the today’s girl next door in Sameera. Never liked her for whatever she was doing in bollywood films. But here she is just the modern yet simple girl you meet in your today’s colleges and offices. Can’t blame Suriya for going crazy about her 🙂

I don’t think the movie is going to do well in B & C centres. There are conversations that happen fully in English and terms and life style that you would understand only if you were brought up in the city. But people in the cities would certainly like the movie. Of course there are flaws in the movie like the US consulate guy getting moved by the explanation Suriya gives to go to the US (gets a 5 year visa:) ), not much emphasize on the ill effects of smoking/drinking, thin portrayal of Divya ( noway I am talking about her size here:) ), how the old Suriya went in to advanced stages of cancer and the family didn’t even care all through the days, no convincing scenes on how Suriya comes out of drugs, with all the loans that the dad Suriya had, the son flies off to US for 3 months to just meet his girl (yeah, cmon Gautam), etc… At the same time, if you are in 20s or 30s you would be able to relate the movie to your life. At one moment in the movie you would have thought about how inspiring your dad has been for some part of you, for whatever reason it could be.

…is the first “Gana” attempt of Harris Jayaraj. And I would say he has done it pretty well. It is certainly not the typical Deva “Gana” type song. It’s kind of a blend between “Gana” and “Venmathiyae” (Minnalae) type Harris song. What I liked the most is the way Karthik has sung this song. Out of all the songs that Karthik has sung, I would rate him well for “Kadhal Sonna Ganamae” from “Boys” and “Aval Ulaga Azhagiyae” from “Lesa Lesa” and of course “Oliyilae” from “Azhagi”. But this one stands equally against those songs for the way he has sung a “Gana” song. Especially in the second stanza when the lyrics goes like

“Velicham thandhava oruthi
Avala iruttula neruthi
Jora payanatha kelappi
Thaniya engae ponalo…
Thaniya engae ponalo… “

Creates a great impact on you especially with the kind of words the poet has penned. Why I like Karthik in “Kadhal sonna ganamae” and “Aval ulaga azhagiyae” is that he clearly gives life to the words in those songs. If you listen to them in headphones in a quiet dark room, you would definitely have a smile on your face. He clearly lifts your mood off and shows how a person feels in love. You just gotta listen to

“Avalathu azhagellam ezhudhida oru baashai illayae
Avalai naan adainthadhum uyirin mael oru aasai illayae”

in the second stanza of “Aval Ulaga Azhagiyae”.

This “Anjala” is on same lines clearly expresses how a guy feels when his girl has left him. I could already visualize Surya with the “one line moustache” and curly hair singing in roads in a lungi and yellow banian after his girl died/left him.

Gautham somehow manages to get awesome songs from Harris. Though “Mundhinam” (Another great work by Naresh Iyer), “Oh Shanthi” and “Adiyae Kolludhae” (Shruti Haasan’s western voice, oh man!!!) equally impresses anyone, Anjala steals the show for me 🙂

… talking, thinking, get in to a different world…A world of mottais music…Well, every one listens to music and I am no exception. I have listened to so many songs from all these music directors from different languages (predominantly Tamil, Hindi and English). But it is Ilayaraja (IR alias Mottai) who can take me to a different world through his simple music. From most of the people whom I have interacted with, they like a song because of the words in it. Because that has the maximum impact in terms of expression of emotions. Many people still appreciate IR for letting the words heard. I mean, latest music trends suppress most of the words and only the music is given much of importance. Well, that’s what most people say. Though I kinda accept that argument, I feel it is IR who gave a lot of importance to music. He had so much of music in all his songs but at the same time the words were clearly audible.

But I don’t care about those words too. I don’t exactly remember all the words of my favorites songs. But I can reproduce the music part of it. That’s the impact of IR’s music, especially the violins he uses. “Rakkama Kaiyya Thattu” from “Thalapathy” is anyone’s first example when it comes to how well he has mixed the violins. In the first 30 or so seconds of the song, there would be two groups of violins playing in different pitch and they would seamlessly blend and then SPB starts it. On a similar note, one song that lingers in my mind most is “Engirundo Ilam Kuruvi” (SPB version) from the movie “Brahma”. It starts with a bass guitar and Piano, next 5 seconds is two violin track in parallel in different pitch, a flute too in parallel and the Cello(Big sized bass violin played by keeping in the floor) starts in the background…Now this pattern is repeated 3 times in different tunes to express the shock of “Kushboo” hearing her dad’s tune.

This “Cello” instrument has a major impact on me. This being the bass element of the violin family creates that strong impact where words cant express the feelings. This instrument is used typically in background musics when lots of violins are playing and this is played in parallel. And IR has used it extensively. You gotta listen to the songs using headphones to really appreciate this. If you listen to the back ground scores, for example, Anjali BGM or Padikkadhan court scene where sivaji collapses when he realizes Rajni is his bro…a lot of such scenes have this Cello in background. And when you listen to the songs of “How to Name it” (specifically “Do Anything” song) you would definitely appreciate how good this instrument is and how well he has used it.

Violins, violins, violins in all of these…”Karpoora Bommai” song from “Keladi Kanmani”, “Anjali Anjali” from the movie “Anjali”, “Kalyana Malai” from “Pudhu Pudhu Arthangal”, “Poongatru” from “Moondram Pirai”…Yeah I know, I can’t complete this list without “Kaala Kaalamai Vaazhum Kaadhalukku” from “Punnagai Mannan”… 🙂 This actually is a huge list; I have mentioned whatever struck me right away. Well, you certainly gotta carefully listen to this “Poongatru” song where he creates and approaching train’s sound using violins.

Almost every song of his has lots of violins between the stanzas and they literally take you in to a different world. A world where you just float with music filled everywhere and wish you at least had once chance of being in IR’s recording studio witnessing how he composes and organizes. I once heard that this “Kanmani Anbodu” song from the film “Guna” got composed right away when Kamal was sitting in Mottai’s studio and reading out the lyrics and explaining the situation. Well, it is not that it is just violins in his music. Best example is “Mandram Vantha” song from “Mouna Ragam”…Absolutely no violin there and anyone would agree what a good song it is…And then you can talk about how well he uses chorus and the best part of silence in movies. He just leaves like 10 seconds of a emotional scene in silence and then starts his BGM and you would be moved by it.

Certain things you learn from others, there would be a guru who can teach you stuff. The rest of things you learn by yourselves mostly by experimenting. But with IR I guess it is there in the genes. I think the DNA code is filled with “Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Da Ni Sa”. Science says there is so much information in the DNA, for IR I guess those are just tunes. People say that he has lots of ego and lot of directors and producers had many issues with him because of that. I guess every artist has that element of self pride on his creation. Probably it is true in IR’s case too. Or may be it is not. But it certainly doesn’t matter to me as long as he gets those violins and pianos and guitars playing. I keep wondering what would you actually feel when you are in the recording studio where, say, IR is sitting with his “Harmonium”, Vaali/Vairamuthu is penning down lyrics, Kamal/Maniratnam/Balachander narrating a situation.

Just couple of lines from some songs which I feel are very much relevant to IR
Mayakkam Thanthadhu Yaar…
Tamizho, Amudho(music), Kaviyo(poet).. of “Sippi Irukkudhu” song from “Varumayin Niram Sivappu” and

Pirakkaiyil ennodu pirandhadhu valarndhadhu paatu
Nadakkiyil ennodu nadanthadhu kalandhadhu beat-u
Irukkudhu guitar drums-ugal trumpet flute-u
Ivaigali onraga isaippavan yevan ingu kaatu

Vidha vidhama vagai vagai sugam sugamai suram padipen
Imayam mudhal kumari varai idhayangalil idam pidipen

That’s from the song “Pudhuchery kacheri” of “Singaravelan”…And that’s mottai for me and for the millions of people who sing in silence one of mottai’s song whenever they are happy, sad, jubilant, crying, remembering their old love, missing their parents, having tougher times in life or just in a road trip with close buddies. And as I publish this post, “Engirundo Ilam Kuruvi” is running in a loop in my Winamp and I wouldn’t get sleep for quite some time…

Yes yes yes…after so many years I had a great sense of satisfaction today. I, briefly, for about 2 minutes felt like the happiest man on earth. Yes, I was able to get some petrol filled in my bike after waiting for 20 minutes. Oh cmon, 20 minutes is not a big deal. I got petrol!!!! Can you believe it? I was one amongst those Chennaites/Indians who achieved this astonishing feat.

Well such is the hype created by the Oil Marketing Companies/dealers/Mr.Chidambaram & Co. They successfully instilled the feeling that we are consuming the last few drops of available crude on earth. Yeah now every one in this country tracks crude prices on a daily basis. And inflation has become a house hold term. I never used to understand that term for some time until I realized that the 100Rs credit in my bank account is actually worth 90Rs when I withdraw it from the ATM a week later. The beggar at Teynampet signal no more accepts one rupee. He says “Sir, the one rupee you give becomes 90 paise when it reaches my hand. I can’t buy even a water packet for that amount”. Thanks to US dollar and crude prices, we understand economics a lot better these days. Well no one actually knows how much of crude is left down below. But available estimates (read “under estimates”) says Saudi has supply left for 97 years, Canada has reserves for another 80 years or so and there are other nations like Iran, Russia, Nigeria, etc with supplies left. That gives us ample time to switch to alternate sources of energy. With current demands, we still have lot of time to invent technologies for alternate energy sources before earth depletes out of crude.

So, it is an obvious question on why so much of panic? I guess it is just because US economy is in a bad shape, the dollar following a south trend, few of the investment guys want to earn their share of profit, are playing this game. Since oil is traded in US dollar only, to get more return for their investment in crude they obviously would like oil prices to be on the higher side. Now Kamal can take his next film on chaos theory with this concept:
One manager at Country Wide Home loans in the US takes a decision to hide certain facts about home loan interest rates/hidden charges and frames a policy – People start buying homes like crazy with high EMIs – War crazy Bush sends troops to Iraq and Afghanistan – US sub prime crisis hits the street – dollar starts falling – investment guys not happy – speculate crude prices – crude jumps from 65$ to 144$ a barrel – India’s 70% crude imports takes inflation to 11% – stock market keeps falling – automatically forces me to become long term investor – can’t invest any more in stocks as I donno the bottom – so keep the cash at bank – 100Rs in my bank is actually worth 90Rs – with 3% interest rates and 11% inflation my net loss is 8% by just keeping it at bank – beggar not accepting 1 rupee as it is not worth a rupee. According toe butterfly effect some one in the weird hours of work at Country Wide is the reason for Teynampet Signal beggar talking about inflation 🙂

Uff, and the truth is that 11% is not the actual inflation number in India. Because I heard that in India inflation is calculated based on Whole Sale Price index which is not the price at which you buy at the departmental store. That’s the whole sale price of the commodity you buy. So the actual number is somewhere around 25% is my guess. And yeah the biggest worry for Manmohan Singh & Co. is convincing the left for the nuclear deal. I mean, probably nuclear deal can give us little bit of energy security. Still, India would be importing heavily on the crude side. You are not certainly going to run your two wheelers and cars with nuclear energy. So why not first solve the problem on hand? And why not heavily invest on technologies for alternate energy sources to make India energy self sufficient, say, by the year 2020?

But I think the only worry point of the UPA government is whether to go for elections in October 2008 or May 2009. The Oil Marketing Companies have already switched to 7AM – 7PM working hours in the city; I am not sure about the highway scenario. And some companies sell only premium brand of petrol on which there is no cap at max price. Every one understands that this has a multiplying effect to the amount of rice and dhaal one eats every day and in some cases the number of meals one eats in a day. Of course you just cannot control crude prices as it is an international factor. But certainly you have to look at other options that are within your control. I am sure you can clean up a lot of things in domestic market. Like the whole sale price is fixed by the government. This is the rate at which farmer has to sell it. From there are on so many middle men speculate the market and dictate the price of food items. And there is so much of food items blocked just to be sold at higher prices. I am just giving couple of examples where cleaning can happen. I am sure there are many more such scenarios.

But I know the reality. These things are not going to change. The change would be in IT professionals’ salary structure. Along with CPI (Company performance variable), VPI (Vertical performance variable), IPI (Individual performance variable) we are going to have one more: ICPI —> International Crude Performance Variable.

First thing first: I like Kamal for his acting/effort he puts on each film/knowledge base. But I am not a crazy fan of him who would blindly say Rajini movies are crap 🙂
And, this is not a review about Dasavatharam as a lot had been already written about it. But of course it is about the movie 😀

So, I had been waiting for quite a long time for this Dasavatharam movie and I was so sad that I couldn’t watch the movie in the first week. Finally I saw it and I am certainly not impressed with the movie if at all satisfied. He took a good subject called “Chaos Theory” but made the narration chaotic. I certainly appreciate the amount of effort he had put in getting those 10 roles done. I wish he had put equal effort on the narration front especially when it comes to dealing with Chaos Theory and Butterfly Effect. The chaos theory is as such well explained in the movie depicting how an event in 12th century can contribute to something like a Tsunami. He even shows the butterfly flying in 12th century and at the last scene. But what about the in between 150 odd minutes. Having taken a complex subject, the narration became a lot more complex in dealing with Sand Quarrying, Religion, God, and, God only knows what else… The real part (story) and the imaginary part (screenplay) together maketh the complex movie and as such the screenplay became invisible 🙂

My guess is that he would probably scripted it with 3 or 4 characters but eventually someone in his circle might have told him “Why not make 10 characters and create a world record?”. Anyone would easily agree that he could have avoided 3-4 characters in the movie. And certainly I didn’t get the kind of satisfaction one would get watching movies like “Indian”, “Michael Madana Kama Rajan”, “Anbe Sivam” and the likes…”Anbe Sivam” had a very long lasting impact on me and made lots of sense even though it dealt with a complex subject called God. But here in Dasa I wow at a lot of individual scenes, especially the first 10 minutes of the film. They are just independent scenes and when all of them flow through as a movie, somewhere the link is lost. If it is so difficult for people who can immediately Google and Wiki and find out info about Chaos Theory, I couldn’t disagree with the saloon wala and auto walas I met who said the movie is a crap. Now this is where Rajini differs as a mass entertainer.

OK. I think I have blamed Kamal a lot in this post than all these years. Having grown seeing his movies and acting skills I guess I have the right to say these when all his hard work goes unappreciated. I would sit and watch “n” number of times movies like Nayagan, Varumayin Niram Sivappu, Moondram Pirai, Punnagai Mannan, MMKR, Apoorva Sagodharagal, Devar Magan and the list goes on till Anbe Sivam. The precision with which he acts in every frame, the sheer brilliance he shows in adapting to a character and just living through his entire life for cinema surely stands as a great inspiration for me. Cutting down on height, increasing on weight, sporting an 80 year old guy, running around in a “Madisaar” he has shown variety in every film. Having studied around class 10 or so, his knowledge base is comparable to a researcher in any field. Getting to know so many things, keeping them indexed in his brain, he can start talking about any topic on earth. And when it comes to cinema the quick adaptation of technology and complex story telling techniques he certainly has taken Tamil cinema to the next level during any period.

Even in Dasa, you would definitely notice how much research he has done for each character. Getting trained on George Bush accent and mannerisms, unique walking style for the Dalit guy, punjabi accent, speaking Japanese, Iyengar “bhaashai” for the paati he has literally crafted every frame of the movie. He has taken Visual FX to the next level for Indian Cinema. In fact he tried that in Alavandhan itself when he got special motion controlled cameras for scenes having both the Kamals. People don’t even want to talk if I mention Alavandhan. But in my opinion even that movie was like Dasavatharam. A lot of scenes can be enjoyed individually. On the other side, as my colleague says Kamal fails miserably when movie is just seen for entertainment purposes. Like, there is a business side of it. A lot of people’s career, hard work and most importantly one guy’s huge huge money at stake. That’s where Rajini excels; Sivaji having just a moderate story with mere marketing and Rajini’s screen presence became a runaway hit. I am not saying that people only like masala movies. Of course a lot of movies that were serious have done good at the box office too. But 90% of such movies dealt with relationships, not the ones that handled complex subjects.

Another big let down in Dasa is the music (Songs, BGM and Re-recording). I do not understand the rational behind having Himesh as the composer and choosing Devi Sri Prasad for BGM. If it had been ARR or IR (my personal preference) that would have helped the movie a lot. Both of these guys are capable of creating themes for each period/character in the film and the BGMs will have a long lasting impact on the audience. I am not sure if it is just the dates problem of something the producer had in mind for marketing purposes (when the movie is released in Hindi). Also I missed Sujatha a lot in this movie. His dialogues would have surely made a difference.

I now wish this: if K.S.Ravikumar had directed Sivaji and Shankar directed “Dasa” it would have been really wonderful. Ravikumar rocks when it comes to masala movies and Shankar can create that impact in audience by emphasizing the social message in the film. But wait, I haven’t given up on Kamal. No one would for that matter. I have already started waiting for “Marma Yogi” and I want a Kamal – Mani Ratnam – ARR combo pack in some time… 🙂

…well that’s the theme of the movie Speed, one of my all time favorite. I have seen this movie so many times that some two weeks back when I was brushing my teeth, I heard this “Sam…Sam…” voice of a female and immediately I could recollect the scene where Sandra Bullock would be driving the bus and Keanu Reeves would be addressing the passengers. Though the movie theme is quite simple I liked the way the movie was taken keeping you interested for the full length (except some of the conversations between Sandra Bullock and Keanu, she would be asking some really dumb questions). The movie got released sometime in 1995 when I had just come to Chennai. Devi theathre, then the biggest and best theatre in Chennai, had got itself renovated with Dolby Systems. I in fact watched the movie with a brand new VCR player that we had bought at my aunt’s place when two of my cousins studying abroad had come for vacation.

The freeway scenes were just awesome for me those days. I couldn’t believe that roads could be that wide and long. Scenes from helicam showing the bus number as 2525, cops blocking certain access roads for the bus to take a sharp right turn are still fresh in memories. The scene where a helicam just pans out from the top of the bus showing the police vehicles retreating and the bus accelerating at full speed trying to cross the 50 feet gap in the freeway is still awesome for me. And it was a brilliant performance from the villain too controlling everything from his living room. He just depicted a typical mean character and just meant business. Though I didn’t like the elevator and train drama of the movie, the sequences that happen in the bus and the long freeway shots compensated for them. Even after some 13 years since it released I would still sit and watch it if aired in one of these movie channels 🙂