Officially Confirmed- Rana Crew

It has been officially announced that 'Rana' will be the next film of super star Rajinikanth and the air is getting filled with the movements in Rana's camp.

 

In the official statement sent by the production house a few days ago, it came to light that almost the entire whiz kid team that was part of the phenomenon 'Endhiran' is being retained for 'Rana'. AR Rahman, ‘Randy’ Ratnavelu, Antony, Rajeevan and others will work for the Eros film also.

 

Now there are some more credits that have been finalised. Noted writer S. Ramakrishnan will be writing the dialogues of 'Rana'. S. Ramakrishnan is not new to Rajini camp as he has already written the dialogues for Rajini in the film 'Baba'. His other notable films include ‘Album’, ‘Sandakozhi’, ‘Unnale Unnale’, ‘Dhaam Dhoom’ and most recently ‘Chikku Bhukku’.  

 

On the musical front, AR Rahman is the music director. Vaali, Vairamuthu, Thamarai, Na. Muthukumar and Madhan Karky are writing a song each.

Arch Rival Priyanka Vs Kareena

The uneasy peace between arch rivals Kareena Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra looks fragile at the moment.

On Friday night, Kareena drove down from Pune to Mumbai to shoot for an award function but was kept waiting by Priyanka, who was already on stage.

Bebo assumed it was only a matter of few hours but Priyanka's prolonged rehearsal took forever.

All dressed up for her shoot, newly curvy Kareena was in for a dose of humiliation, but surprisingly kept her cool. Keeping her feelings in check, Kareena gave the organizers a piece of her mind next morning, only to be told that it had been a technical glitch.

Reveals a source present at the awards, "Kareena landed at Yash Raj Studios around midnight she found the stage occupied by Priyanka.

She waited patiently for a few minutes. On spotting her, Priyanka came down from the stage and told Bebo that she couldn't give up the stage till 1 am (though the latter had been assigned the stage at 12 am)."

Priyanka's spokesperson maintained she wasn't aware of Bebo's having to wait for four hours, saying:"Not that I am aware. Priyanka had a long act with many changes."

Kareena remained unavailable for comment.

Big Boss- 4's Shweta Tiwari married ?

Rumours of Bigg Boss 4 winner Shweta Tiwari tying the knot secretly with 'close friend' Abhinav Kohli have set the gossip mill turning.

According to reports, the couple tied the knot just before Shweta's stint in the Bigg Boss house, in a private ceremony. After weeks of strongly denying any romantic involvement with Abhinav, seems like the cat is finally out of the bag

Her ex husband Raja Chaudhary, whom the actress has accused of domestic violence more times than one, is getting increasingly protective of their daughter, Palak. Was that reason behind Raja's misbehavior at Shweta's home in Abhinav's presence recently?

Only time will tell!

Shruthi Haasan Stays Connected with her father

Many stars from filmdom and sports have now started connecting with their fans through several social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and Shruti Haasan is no different.

What is different about her is that, she has gone to the extent of connecting with her father Kamal through Twitter. Seeing Shruti tweet her father and him tweeting back to her, we asked her the reason and she says, “Father is busy with his work and me with my schedules and we hardly get to meet. There is no better way to connect with him but for Twitter.”

It was just a few days ago that we reported about Shruti being busy with projects and her daddy dearest being proud about that. Talk about tech-savvy strong relationships!

Siruthai Film Review

No qualms on formulaic flicks. If the variables are near to nil, the formula renders no use. Oops. Thats too much of math in the review, isn't it?? Well, the art of film-making is a math too. Petty flaws near and far could not just flip the movie, but flop its prospects too. Sadly, 'Siruthai' is one such movie, that comes with a formulaic, yet gripping storyline, that falls prey to a half baked execution. Lets take a sneak peek of where this 'Siruthai' Roars and where it Squeaks.

Roars:

Santhanam: Much inspired from the eminent humorist Goundamani, Santhanam has nothing new to offer for a vintage Tamil spectator. Still, he manages to tickle your rib in most of his attempts during the movie. A helping hand to place the movie from a 'worse' track to a 'bad' track.

Karthi's': The good done by Karthi to the movie stops with a casual, yet catchy performance as 'Rocket' Raja, an easy-go-lucky thief and the differentiations he managed to pull of through his looks and body language from this character of his to the other 'wannabe' powerful character of his.

Tamannah: Doesn't fail to make you drool in spite of a loosely knit love track.

Squeaks:

Screenplay & Editing: The much to be concentrated areas of screenplay and editing were weighed less for more attention to the Karthis, that left him lift the entire burden of the movie. The very essence of a successful movie, particularly commercial ones is that its snags should be overshadowed by its advantages. 'Siruthai' fails in that aspect. The illogical instances were extensively highlighted.

Cop Karthi: At a few places, Karthi as an upright, rough cop was a terror to the villains. At other places, he was almost a terror to the audience. Blame the screenplay, not him! A character that required the aggression of Sivaji Ganesan's SP Chowdhury, got stuck midway between Vadivel's Telex Pandian and Rajnikanth's Alex Pandian. Pity you, Rathnavel Pandian.

Siruthai is a total timepass if and only if you are one who likes Santhanam's flavour of comedy and eager to see Karthi in a larger than life role.

Kollywood fans are prone to keep kidding successful stars when they slide down. Sadly, guess Karthi would be 'that' centric attraction hereon.

Sorry, Karthi.. Jintha tha jintha jintha jintha tha tha... :)

My Verdict: 4/10

Aadukalam Film Review

After fighting an enduring battle outside the theatre to get myself a ticket, I entered the cinema hall, battered and bruised, all set for Aadukalam nevertheless. The ambience was just right; I was watching a movie in a village after a long time as I hadn’t booked tickets in advance. The mood of the people around seemed to be in blissful confluence with the onscreen characters.

The movie starts off with a breezy voiceover by Vetrimaaran, a slide show encapsulating the history of rooster-fighting making up the background. As the title suggests, the movie is about battlefields and the fights that are orchestrated on and off the same. It’s also a tale of pride, ego, confidence, revenge and infidelity.

Rooster fighting forms the backbone of the movie; the movie see-saws through the lives of characters in the heart of Madurai who are solely dependent on the same for livelihood. The resulting possessiveness about the “art”, the honour and pride that comes with it proves to be Aadukalam’s Aadukalam. The characters, their emotions and their actions are chiseled in accordance with the happenings on the battle-field!

Everything that happens as a result of the battlefield endeavors and results make perfect sense; they take the movie towards the rightful destination modeled on realism. But it’s the side-tracks and the romantic interludes that fail to strike a chord. The romance in this movie can be compared to that in “7g”: in both cases, the heroine accepting the hero’s proposal seems impossible just because the female leads in both the movies find their respective pairs repulsive initially; also for the simple reason that their characters are diametrically opposite and so are their family backgrounds. The scenes outlining the lead actress’s disgust for the hero are so strong in both the movies that, though the directors of the respective movies try very hard to make us comprehend to the ensuing battle of love between the two at an emotional level, they fail. But I have to add that Vetri’s effort to fool us with his romantic fantasy has surely met with more success than Selva’s. Acting is reason enough to give this movie a shot. I loved the old man who plays “Pettaikaran” more than Dhanush in this flick. Dhanush’s acting prowess, especially in the movies where he plays the “locallu” guy is well known. To emulate Dhanush and make a mark when Dhanush is playing his favourite character takes a lot of effort and surprisingly, the old man seems to have done it with graceful ease. Having said that, Dhanush himself has come up with a cracker of a performance. He reverberates with oodles of energy scene after scene and after Selva, Dhanush seems to be very comfortable working with Vetri! The partnership is a success again. Kishore is another asset to the team.

GV has come up with beautiful songs for the movie and they have beautifully blended with the mood; the placement of the songs warrant mention. The BGM though, didn’t appeal to me. It seemed very repetitive and monotonous. Editing is one big letdown in this movie: I wonder why our filmmakers are so intent on stretching a movie to 150 minutes and beyond. To make things worse, a lot of scenes have been scissored abruptly. Aadukalam is what it is solely because of its screenplay. The emotions have worked wonderfully well and the innovative engineering of a plethora of reactions around the red-hot core of rooster fighting made for intriguing viewing. The computer generated rooster fights have come out very well and the level of interest here is sure to keep the audience on seat edges. Lighting seems to be another neglected element in the movie, with the director making it difficult for us to differentiate between characters in a few scenes. Apparently, the director has employed this technique to reflect the emotions; but he needn’t have done it to this extent! It also takes the sheen of the otherwise flawless cinematography. One big surprise in Aadukalam was the disappearance of a seemingly important character after the end of the first half, who was apparently used only for the build up.

To sum it up, Aadukalam is refreshingly innovative and deserves applause for Vetrimaran’s eye for excruciating detail and desire for perfection. The movie is not without its set of flaws though. Go enjoy this flick and raise the bar on your expectation meter for Vetrimaran’s next venture! Hope he comes up with such innovative themes devoid of clichés in the future.

kaavalan Film Review

Having witnessed Sura-The Disaster FDFS,I had my doubts about watching Kaavalan.However all the "will it release/won't it" did its part,and suddenly I was all excited about this latest Venture of Vijay.

The movie starts off with a shot of a train,followed by few scenes of a woman giving birth to our protagonist.

So 1980s was the thought running through my head.This is followed by a couple of mundane,disjointed scenes where Vijay is introduced and His character of Bhoominathan is established.

Bhoomi gets into fights and considers Muthuramalingam as a demigod,Simply because he had an extra seat in his ambassador and is willing to drop a struggling pregnant lady at the hospital.So when hears about the impending danger Muthuramalingam faces he decides to pack his bags and serve as his Kaavalan.Again so 1980s.What follows is a song/fight sequence and you begin to wonder, "Won't Viay ever learn his lesson."

He has!When inquired about how his movies feel all to similar,Vijay has maintained that,its what his fans want and he is happy to play the same role over and over again to Please them.However the rest of the TC fans,have found his movies repetitive and it reflects badly on the Box office reports.The first 20 mins of the movie were similar to his previous movies and this could be to attract his "fans" and B&C audiences! What follows is anything but similar to Vijay movies of last 3 years.There is no looking back hereon.

Vijay is sent as the Body Guard of Asin to her college,and although he is just another student like asin studying in the institution he dresses up in a bodyguard uniform so that everyone knows that he is her BG.


Asin is tired of Vijay following her all around the college and decides that the only way to make him give up on his uniform is by pulling a prank on him.The film moves at a rapid pace and the pre interval block is engaging.

The 2nd half carries on from where the 1st left of,and is every bit as engaging. I am not going to dwell on the details of the 2nd half,to avoid spoiling it for you.

The movie had been Amazingly crafted and had impressed me for a good portion of 2 hours!The climax is a bit of a damper for me personally!It goes on a bit too long for my liking.Having said that,I have noticed that Several people have acknowledged that the climax is one of the major positives of the movie-So I leave that to your discretion.

Now to the Artists & Technicians involved:

Vijay: "The one man entertainment troupe is back."was the quote from one of the popular reviewers.So True.he is well and truly back.He underplays his role as Bhoominathan-The innocent,charming, humorous lover boy! Here he is not spewing punch dialogues directed at rival actors/politicians.Nor does he mesmerize us with his dance!Yet he manages to centre of attention,with his screen presence and comic timing.The scene at Botanical garden is a clear sign of how the actor has changed in 1 movie.

Asin: Hardly do you come across a Vijay movie,where the Actress has scope for performance.Then again,this isn't like every other Vijay movie.She plays her role credibly,however I felt that she broke into tears in every other scene-Which could have been avoided.

Vadivel: Lets get this straight,he isnt as funny as he was in friends!Not close to it!But he isn't as bad as he was in Sura/Villu either.Vadivel is funny and helps to carry the plot forward.

Cinematography: Top Notch.I am not certain about who has handle the camera here,but whoever it is has done a fantastic job.

Vidhyasagar: The BGM is appealing and all songs other than "Vinnai Kappan" are pleasing!Vidhyasagar is something of an enigma,you never know what to expect of him.He follows one great album with another poor one. He maintains his track record,He is Good in kaavalan and is appalling in Siruthai[more on that later]

Siddique: He doesn't have a great script,but he has a tight screenplay laced with comedy and makes the best use of the cast he has assembled.Job well done.

Bottom line:I am not really a fan of romantic movies,however this one is engaging and keeps the audience guessing.Its the perfect entertainer for this Pongal,and I hope it goes onto become a success at the Box office,simply for Vijays courage to 1.Finally break away from his formula. 2.Stand up against the mighty forces and ensure that his movie released against all odds. And also Because its a Good movie and deserves to enjoy Box office success.

Rating:3.5/5 There is no .5 on claps and Boos.So I had to go either 3 or 4,and I decided to go with 4,simply cos

Its something Different

Actress Namitha to Host JackPot

  The popular TV show Jackpot on Jaya TV is currently being hosted by actress Nadhiya. If sources are to be believed, Nadhiya has been shown the door and the producers have approached glam doll Namitha to take her place. It is noteworthy that the show was hosted by Kushboo before and the TRPs reached dizzying heights. But when Kushboo joined DMK, she was ousted from Jackpot and Nadhiya took her place.

Nadhiya has done no wonders to the show and the TRPs have gone down tremendously. Namitha is currently grabbing eye balls for her latest skin show in Illaignan. She was one of the judges in the show Maanaada Mayilaada in Kalaignar TV, and her infamous way of talking stylish Tamil is something of a mockery. Will she do well in Jackpot? Let's wait and watch!

Raid At Priyanka's house

The Bollywood divas, Priyanka Chopra and Katrina Kaif had surprise visitors today at their doorsteps. We are not talking about Shahid Kapoor and Ranbir Kapoor but Income Tax officials consisting of 50 members including officers and clerks at their respective premises for suspected tax evasion. The raids started around 7.30 am simultaneously at 12 sites, including the residences of the two actresses in the western suburbs. Priyanka's home in Versova, Andheri West, was raided. Also homes of Priyanka and Katrina’s secretaries, their respective office premises and other locations were raided, the official said. The income tax department had earlier sent several notices to both the actresses, seeking details of their finances but failed to get a satisfactory response. It seems both the actresses were a little too busy to pay their Income Tax.

Danush-Vetrimaran-Divya Spandana

The winning combo of Dhanush and Vetrimaran are all set to join hands yet again. Their first movie together was Polladavan, which apart from being Vetrimaran’s debut, also gave Dhanush a new dimension as an action hero. The film gave its female lead, Divya Spandana, the much-needed break in Kollywood. Nearly four years after the release of Polladavan, the combination was back with the recent Pongal release Aadukalam which is creating waves at the box office and is also being given a thumbs up by critics. They are to delight us again with another film that would hit the floors in 2012. We hope for a hat-trick!

Nadunisi Naigal gets an A certificate

 Nadunisi Naaygal has been certified with an A certificate. The Censor Board couldn’t place their scissors anywhere in this gripping thriller and so decided to award an A certificate.

Nadunisi Naaygal, which stars Veera and Sameera Reddy, will be released on February 11th, 2011 across the globe. The film’s Telugu version Yerra Gulabeelu is also expected to hit the screens on the same day.

The movie has garnered a lot of expectations among Gautham’s fans because it is a thriller and mystery.