Manmadhan Ambu - movie review

I kept wondering what ever happened to the Kamal-Mysskin movie that was planned to go on floors after Unnaippol Oruvan. Kamal started Manmadhan Ambu and Mysskin, Yuththam Sei. Looks like Kamal needed a well deserved vacation in a cruise in Europe and thats exactly what he got !

MA is a typical Kamal movie. Kamalism overshadows in every bit of the movie so much that you even forget the character he is supposed to play - Major Mannar. Agreed, that is partly because he has taken the responsibility of story, screenplay, dialogue (with who else? crazy mohan) and even lyrics. But, the problem is I had to put up with so much of Kamal's own life in every aspect of the movie. Look at the characters for instance - a movie actress who is suspected to have an affair with a co-star, a cancer patient and a divorcee with two kids. Agreed, that in any movie, the protagonist usually voices the opinion of the writer who creates the character. In this case, Major mannar expresses Kamal's ideas of non-violence, ahimsa and political views but only at the wrong time when he is expected to feel sad and angry over the culprits who killed his beloved wife. His idea about "Veeram" has also been heard before in Virumandi ( Manninkka therinjavan....)

Even though the screenplay is just above average and characters had no graph, the performances should be applauded. Very natural and neat acting from Maddy and Trisha. Sangeeetha, Ramesh Arvind and Urvashi were good too. The surprise packages were Usha uthup and the kids. Camera and editing were excellent, felt like a nice Eurotrip. I liked the rendering of poems. It also proves to be a neat entertainer without skin shows, bloodsport and dappanguththu songs.

The best of the movie was of course Neelavanam and the way it has been shot and edited. Kudos to the team for that.

Uh...yeah BTW the director is KS Ravikumar, one of my favorite directors. But since I was not able to give him credit to anything about this movie, I added his picture in this review at least.

Quickest test to check if your startup idea will win

I bumped into this article about failed startups whose founders eventually moved on to something else. You wouldn't find such stories very often. It describes why many startups were not able to survive in short and bitter excerpts from the founders.

Your startup would win ONLY if you do at least one or more of the following to your customer

1. Solve a crucial pain they have in a wrong place
2. Help them make them more money
3. Cut their cost
4. Save time


If your customer is aware of the problem and how crucial it is, probably he is already looking for a solution, So selling your product would be pretty straight forward. But hey, you are not the only player in the market so he is going to be looking for alternatives. You will have to prove your durable competitive advantage to him to have a winner.

On the other hand, if your customer is not even aware of the pain area, then making him realise would be a herculean task ! But remember once he perceives it to be crucial problem, then you have an easy winner in your solution or product. If you manage to do this, you've actually managed to create a niche market of your own and have the first mover advantage.

The other 3 need no explanation, you win if your customer wins !

If your startup idea is about doing something else, STOP right there and go back to sleep, dream more !

Journalism - reality and fictions about it

A lot has been said, written and watched about Bharka Dutt, Vir Sanghvi and Niira Radia.  This made me go think about ethical journalism and check my memory of movies that describe a similar struggle.

The first one that comes to my mind is timeless classic All the President's men in which Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford wonderfully bring out the struggle journalist undergo to collect information and the extent to which they risk their lives to gather evidence before they publish a story. The next one is of course Wag the Dog in which Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman tell us how a manipulated promo and marketing can make or break a country's top leadership positions.

In Tamil, we had Oomai vizhigal an with Jayshankar, the newspaper editor struggles to uncover the mystery behind beach resort murders of chennai. Page3 is another excellent effort from Madhur Bhandakar in the same lines. Then we have the latest offering from Aamir Khan, Peepli live which showcases the brutal realities of today's Media. This list would not be complete without mentioning about Alaigal a TV serial which I watched in my childhood days. Sivakumar is at his best as the publisher of a newspaper in it.

My own post in this blog talks about yet another fictional movie about the same topic. In the edited versions in front of the camera, we see the shows where journos and anchors grill the opponents and we even feel that they go overboard to sensitize the issues. But in reality (and as all the above movies depict) it looks like the politicians, corporates and nay their lobbyists are the ones actually in control of the media !

Drohi - movie review

Drohi (or Betrayer in English)  is one of the movies in Tamil which shoots high but fails to reach anywhere even close to the target. Yet another Maniratnam student Sudha K Prasad has debuted as director in this movie.

There are many interesting twists and turns in the movie and that probably is the only good thing about it. There is a huge lack of sewing these interesting sequences into a good screenplay. Sreekanth and Viishnu have done a commendable job. Pooja does an impressive cameo, wonder why we don't see her more often in screen. But hey Laila was also MIA after Pithaamagan.

In spite of a couple of my friends advise that the movie is full of violence, blood I went ahead and watched Drohi. This movie is definitely not for kids or family viewing. I mean, I can ignore a bit of violence and bloodshed, but Sudha has seriously disappointed and betrayed me for the following reasons.

As mentioned earlier, this has a bad screenplay in spite of the falshbacks being a threaded by a very fresh and interesting sequence. I mean, it defies the basics of screenplay - the narrator cannot narrate incidents of  which he is not part of or he doesn't know ! There is complete lack of continuity in execution. When Viishnu gets on the train to Hyderabad for Police selection, he sports a beard, in the selection room he is clean shaven, the next day, back in Chennai, he is again full bearded ! And what a mean and cheap portrayal of women (except Pooja's Roja) in the movie. One of the heroines is all over a ruffian Srikanth who hates her. So forces him into an intercourse and then asks - "How will you escape now?" Seriously, is she so dumb to understand the regard this baddy might have for her chastity ? In a public market, she catwalks to a totally stranger (Viishnu) kisses him and asks - "Oru kiss thaana, so what? Karpa poidum?" meaning "its just a kiss am I going to loose my chastity in it?" Now, how many Chennai Brahmin girls would do that even if they are around the worst slums? Narayanan's character ( played by Thiyagarajan) is a joke ! He would take revenge at anybody who even dares to hurt his family a bit even if it is a genuine mistake, but forgives his henchman Srikanth who plots and kills his son ( is this not betrayal ? ) He keeps claiming he knows Srikanth's friendship with Viishnu more than anybody else but could not see through the plot by both to kill him.

All said, it is a cat and mouse chase between unworthy ruffians and we have seen a very better version by the guru himself, so you can afford to miss this.

Paparaazi

Seriously, how crazy and absurd can the paparaazi get? Why should I watch the video and photographs of MS Dhoni and his wife having a good time in Goa? I can ignore if this news is about showbiz icons or if it appears in Page3, but WHY in the sports column of a national newspaper ! A south Indian male actor recently tweeted - " It is easy to become journalist today, just follow somebody's tweets and yo! you have a 100 words writeup."

Thiray Beta Launched

An year after venturing on my own with V and V Media Technologies, our first product Thiray (www.thiray.com) is officially beta launched on 10/10/10 at 10:10. Public registrations are open and free ! Thiray is an exclusive networking platform for media professionals where talent meets business. Do visit, and also recommend Thiray to your friends.

Thank you for all your support and wishes !!

Puducherry Kacheri

On Saturday evening it just occurred to me that I have been in Chennai for the past few months and never tried out the ECR. So we just decided to drive down to Puducherry the next morning. It might sound as an ad-hoc decision I did do my bit of homework on Sat night to explore Pondi online first.

So we hit the road in my car on sunday morning 6:30 am. We stopped at Thiruvadanthai to visit Nithyakalyana Perumal, but the Darshan was only from 8 am (so much for my homework!). Our net stop was at Mahabalipuram outskirts for breakfast. I wouldn't recommend the noisy A2B, but as a vegetarian you don't have much choice. I had always wondered why they collect a 48 Rs toll for the ECR which does not even have a median or what you call a divider. But the ride was smooth and easy, but be very careful about incoming traffic from the side roads from villages and the speeding vehicles in the opposite direction. You do see the wonderful seashore to your left here and there, but the road does not actually run near or along the coastline.

We took a detour at about 7 km before Puducherry town to check out Auroville, the city for universal human being. You gotto take the muddy, bumpy road for about 8kms to reach the Visitor Information center. This is not a tourist attraction as they declare in their website, you need to understand and appreciate the purpose of universal harmony and peace and the divine humanity. You have to call up and book ahead if you would like to visit the Matrimandir, otherwise you just get a glimpse of it from a distance as we did.

Once we reached Pondy, we checked in at Executive Inn - a pretty decent hotel I must add, and had lunch. We started out on foot to visit Aravindhar ashram. We had to wait in the long queue till 2:15 pm when the gates were opened. I had no idea what to expect. But was not happy by the way one of the volunteers was yelling "switch off the mobile, don't speak, follow the line". You are allowed to pay respects to the Aravindhar and Annai Samaadhi. We did some shopping at Pondi bazaar (the real one), bought some stuff at FabIndia in sufferon street and picked some souvenirs.

Then we walked along the beach. For the first time in India I found concrete blocked streets here and enjoyed the mix of French, Indian and contemporary styles of architecture. But contrary to whatever I had read online, the beach is no different from the Chennai's Marina. It was crowded and dirty. At 8pm we visited the famous Manakkula Vinayagar temple. It was nice to see the Vinayakar carvings from various places around the world including Java, Indonesia !!

I always explore different cuisines when I visit places, I mean whats the point of traveling if you still want to have Idlies and Dosas? If you are not familiar with the cuisine, ask the Chef for recommendations based on your appetite. You can always give pointers like you don't want too spicy too oily stuff etc. We dined at this wonderful place called Hotel Du Parc.We had Pastas, Connelini, Lasanga and French cakes. It was awesome. They had a friendly staff and great ambiance. Great way to end our one-day tour ! 

We woke up early the next day drove back in 2 hours.

Its time...

How unique is our Unique ID Aadhaar ?

The ambitious UID project was launched yesterday in India. But how different or useful it is from the numerous numbers we already have. 

UID claims to solve the problem of each person having 10 different numbers for 10 different departments. But the registration process itself takes the very same documents as proof of Identification and Address ! Also, not to leave out the poor who might not have a ration card of any of these 'proof documents' UIDAI has come up with the introductory system which is similar to the bank account opening introductory system. Now, knowing how power can be misused in this country, the harassment and fake registrations some "introducer" can accomplish is any body's guess. The next fact I'm confused about is the number itself. Contrary to the popular expectations, the 12 digit number is just unique, and means nothing more than that. Unlike similar efforts worldwide it is not made up of any codes or numbers of any significance to easily identify the location or date of birth or any information about the individual. One of the documents available to the public explains this logic behind not having any intelligence in the number as follows - The approach of storing intelligence in identification numbers was developed to make filing, manual search and book-keeping easier prior to the advent of computers. This is no longer necessary, since centralized database management systems can index the records for rapid search and access without having to section data by location or date of birth. Well...well ! The last bullet is always the killer - UID registration is NOT mandatory !! Now that certainly makes me wonder WHY do we need this number at all ???

Are we trying to stop another 26/11 ? Are we using GPS / GIS so that our police and soldiers don't have to end up lost or massacred in jungles while fighting ? Are we trying to ensure basic healthcare and education is available to every citizen ? We have so many other issues in the country where the time and effort of somebody like Mr. Nandan Nilekani could be useful. No the UID does not attempt to solve any of these but hey, it never claimed so !

Day labourer Bhiru Mali, who was among the first few who got the card said "They say the card would improve our lives and support (Aadhaar) us, but nobody explained how"

Why Tier II Indian cities struggle to become IT hubs ?

Yesterday, my friend with 3+ years of IT experience went for a job interview in an IT company in Coimbatore. The company whose parent group is into many industries from hospitality to entertainment has ventured into IT also almost a decade ago and has managed to get hold of a bunch of clients all over the world. Yet, the HR first wanted to know if my friend would be willing to "come down to local standards" in her salary expectation. Also, if she would be ready to get into an agreement with the company that she would stick on for 2 years at least. The work culture once you are inside an IT company in tier II cities is also not up to standards. You face a huge hierarchy, not the usual flat IT office.

The attitude of new entrants and biggies from traditional industries who want to venture into IT MUST change. The HR policies need to be overhauled in these organisations. This recent article could be a starting point for learning. Improving infrastructure and building IT parks do not solve the puzzle completely for any city that tries to become the next Bangalore.

My friend asked the HR if the company is willing to "come down to local standards" in her deliverables at work?

My short film

My next short film in youtube, thanks to my friend (who also happens to be the hero of the movie). Please watch it and give me your comments. Sorry non-tamil folks, I don't have subtitles as of now, will release one more version later.

Oodagam, here we go....

Endhiran - the robot - music review

I took a blogging break since there was a huge pileup of backlog in my to-do list. But I could not resist coming back to write about the Endhiran - The robot album.

Shankar has proved yet again that he is THE 'clever' filmmaker in the Indian movie industry. Just listen to this album and you would know how the person who extracts music out of a creator makes the difference in how the album comes out. Rahman as usual, is at his usual best churning out chart busters. I just can't believe he made these tracks back in 2008 and it sounds so fresh.

I try to do a guessing game of the storyline of the movie when I listen to the songs from the clues in the lyrics. So the following views are my own guesses and nothing more.

Puthiya Manitha: This song is either during the making or when Chitti is done finally and ready. Dr Vasigaran talks about his robot in this. An SPB-Rahman-Rajni number with the typical punch lines, but very very different from Ballelakka or Oruvan Oruvan muthalaali due to the techno accompaniments. And Khatija Rahman sounds good - a mini Rahman in making.

Kadhal Annukkal: A melodious duet number trying to reproduce the magic of Sahaana. Looks like Vijay prakash is making rounds after Hosaana. Shreya's chirpy voice is cool and the Oh babby chorus is the highlight of the song.

Irumbile oru irudhayam: This is the first taste of love for Chitti, the robot. Now, you get one more clue about appearance of Chitti and my guess is it has something to do with how an INSECT looks. And possibly, it falls in love with Aish?? I don't know ! The song is rendered by Rahman himself and he sounds very much similar to Yakkai Thiri.

Chitti Dance: Now, this is gonna be a visual treat. Chitti is doing a Bharatnatyam dance in this sequence. Well, Shankar sir if you can use motion capture all the way back in  1998 for Jeans, I won't be surprised if your Chitti does everything including my morning coffee. And what a fast Jathi rendition in this number?

Arima Arima: Okay, this is where things get serious. This song must probably be placed in the second half of the movie like a Adhiradi of Shivaji or Mudhalvane or Mudhalvan. This must be a struggle between Chitti Rajni and Vasigaran Rajni to win Aish's love? Hariharan rocks !  and what a fanfare and March of the percussions. This undoubtedly is my favorite number of the album if I'm forced to choose one. Silicon Singam..ha ha !

Kilimanjaro: Another duet in the album with a folk and tribal theme. You recognize it is Chinmayi only in the first Ghamaga. Looks like she has made a point to sound different in each song. Ash is described as Pulichcha keera, Aatuchedi, Pasumpull etc in this song. Yeah, this is the one shot in Mohanjedaro, Machupichu etc.

Boom Boom Roboda: This is the last and final song of the album and hopefully in the movie as well, remember the dance sequence at the end of Jeans after all ends well? And yeah, the lyrics goes on to bully Issac Asimov, Issac Newton, Albert Eienstien and what not? Chitti Chitti robo does remind me of Rahman's previous Thala Thala Thala from A..AAAh.

Well, Rahman has not reached new heights with this album but nay, who expected that in this album anyway. Endhiran album blasts the hell out of you ! I love it.

RaavaNNan - review

"A book is the reader's view of the author's narration whereas a movie is a directors view of the director's narration. Whether you like it or not. " - I used to keep debating with a friend of mine who loves reading books as much as I love watching movies. That is exactly what Raavannan ( the Tamil one) is. It would join the list of Avathaaram, by Naaser.

No marks for guessing that Mani excels as usual in his own department - Direction. Wonderful,way of using metaphors to show the 10 shades of the Raavanan. But you've gotto watch closely to observe these - for instance -  Vaiyapuri, who plays an eunuch falls from a boat full of kids and Veera emerges in a flash replacing Vaiyapuri on top of it. This is when the softer and feminine shade of him is revealed  for the first time.

I don't know if it was Peter Hein or Sham Kaushal who did the Sugar-in-diesel-tank action sequence, but that was the only action sequence which was interesting. The other chase and even the climax sequence were not impressive at all. But on retrospect why didn't the STF have any clever action while the Raavanan gang was working almost like a commando force? Ganesh Acharya (who also appears in just a quick flash) could have done some more research on the dance forms of the tribal people rather than doing ballad moves for the songs. That would have been more real.

Much has been written and talked about this being the most beautifully shot movie and so on, well I can't agree more with it. A couple of India's best cinematographers ( Santhosh Sivan and V Manikandan)  are at work, so go and enjoy the six course visual feast. AR Rahman's music is good, but nothing was Wow !

Casting is perfect, the supporting characters gel nicely to the roles. And did you know the now famous Ranjitha plays a cameo in this movie ? To reveal a bit about the charecters, Vikram plays Veera the good guy (yes you read it right), Prithviraj plays Dev the bad guy and Aishwarya plays Ragaini who is typically the viewer you! Notice that Veera is never shown as a decision maker. He is always confused by the ten voices in his head. He often echoes and reflects the personality of the people around him.  - a moment it is Ragini the devoted wife, at times it is Singarayan his elder brother, and in the police tent it is Dev and at times it is you the viewer ! when he questions who decides what is good and evil ! Where the ace director slips is developing the good or bad friction between these characters and the reasons for it. And I think that is what he admits in his synopsis here (The tension between the opposite is too electric that it isolates them from the rest of the world leaving just the two). Now, can you live with that explanation and forgive the absence of character sketches is the question.

Samir Chanda's effort in creating an adobe in the thick jungles deserves special kudos. I'm sure the set for Kodu potta  is gonna be a trend setter for years to come. Production design in excellent, but I wouldn't agree the South Indian wedding sequence taking place in a North Indian temple. Unfortunately the special effects department (was it by PrimeFocus ?) is a big let down. It is high time India ncreative graphic artists turn their ship towards "hiding the art". C'mon, the composition of the climax ladder shots were a joke !

Coming to acting, what a performance by Vikram ? He speaks less and emotes a tonn. Prabhu ,Karthick , Priyamani and the supporting cast do a very neat job. Prithviraj is great in a negative role after a long time. Aishwarya fits the bill for the first half as the graceful woman whose charm spoils Veera's mind. But she is no where close to the changes the character goes through in the second half. Just crying wouldn't work !

Mani lets Vairamuthu's lyrics deliver a lot of backstory, so you'll have to listen carefully. Cheeyan kaatta thondi paaththa semmann oooththu raththam thaan  - Wow ! Suhasini has taken charge of the dialogue department and I kept wondering throughout the movie if I'm in Tamzh Semmozhi Maanaadu. I don't know how a tribal would ask "Prayannam ellam sowgariyama irunthatha??" in forest.

Okay, this is NOT Mani Ratnam's Ramayan. There are as many deviations from the epic as there are similarities. To quote some, in Ramayana, Lakshman is not abducted and his head shaved, Raavanan is not single, Rama does not kill Vibeeshanan when he goes to him seeking asylum. And ofcourse, this Raavayanam does not end the way Ramayan does. Thalapathi was not Mani's Mahabharatha; Nayagan was not Mani's Godfather but we did enjoy them. So why complain now?

Among various things, Mani is most popular for his screenplay. He could make an interesting 2 and half hour movie out of a storyline that is as simple as - 2 terminally ill people falling in love - remember Idhyaththai Thirudaathey? In Raavannan, Mani yet again experiments a different narration and yet another dimension of drama. Whether is works for you or not is something else, as I said in the beginning, this is the director's view of his story. To me it did not work ! There are 2 reasons for it.

One - in spite of great performances, the "need" of the characters and the back stories were not defined clearly. For instance, the song did not convey the depth of love between Dev and Ragini and so I felt like why this all hungama ?

Two - Some great director's cleverly put the viewers in situations of their protagonist so that they can feel the pain and power of the character and connect to it. Remember Momento ? If I assume that Mani tried to do something similar, by keeping us in a jungle of mix and match emotional and action scenes, even then I feel there is too much confusion and too many unanswered questions for me to appreciate the clarity in Raavanan's mind in the climax. And I do feel that Sreekar Prasad's editing is part of the reason behind the damage. 

No, I haven't watched Raavan (hindi)....yet !

RaavaNNan

Yeah, the wait is over, gonna watch it today....will review soon.

10 Free Filmmaking tools I use

Guerilla filmmakers can use the following tools for their work.

1. Celtex: Script writing

2. Google Sketchup: Set decoration and lighting

3. Paint.net: Image editing

4. Movie Planner: Planning and scheduling your production

5. Windows movie maker: Video editing

6. Audacity: Sound editing

7. Virtual Dub: Sound editing and effects mixing

8. Blender: Animation and graphics

9. Wax: Compositing and special effects

10. Cinecode : Video Format conversion

All the best !

Innovation

A recent news about India's Smart Grid Task Force pushed my interest in further probing about Innovation in India.

Taking or Bringing technology to the grass roots to solve problems is a great way to innovate. Business today explains how Indian companies have managed to innovate. Their recent issue also talks about a handful of independent Indians have managed to do it at their level. One hot startup ideas (next to only to social media strategising) is Innovation consulting - helping other startups and companies to innovate. Quoting BT, a few myths about innovation are

1. Innovation is expensive, demanding lots of resources... Failure to innovate is what is costly.
2. Create hundreds of ideas because of high failure rates... Fewer, bolder ideas based on your company's capabilities and unmet customer needs you discover work best.
3. Early financial analysis is key to approving concepts... Nearly always wrong—build prototypes instead.

Surprisingly, it looks like the National Knowledge Commission's (NKC) very definition and viewpoint on the topic is in contrastingly different. According to its report on innovation,

The Innovation ecosystem is a complex environment that requires the coordinated functioning of a number of diverse factors in order to function effectively. Innovation also needs to become as wide spread as possible, spreading across the entire economy, from the grassroots to the large firm level. It is felt that a comprehensive effort to address these issues would act as a critical enabling factor for India to be amongst the global leaders in Innovation.

We will have to wait and see how fast the NKC manages to do the above, considering the fact that the smart grid initiative which was launched recently was suggested years ago by a Stanford University student here

How to beat competition

I can't believe this !

I just took a very short break from working on my start up idea ( to give some time to my other passion - film making) I come back and find yet another competitor to my yet-to-be-launched business idea. And I had thought this was one of its kind, unique business idea when I started working on it. Eventually I did find "similar" ideas already floating around and the latest was the 15th. Competition is something every entrepreneur WILL face today or tomorrow. So how to take advantage of your competitors.

1. Know them first. In and out - read every piece of information you can find about your competitor to understand his strengths and weakness.

2. Know yourself ! Yeah, know your strong and weak points from the customer's perspective, not yours. Remember, perceived value of your product is always going to be different from your cost and effort.

3. Learn from other's mistakes. This is crucial since startups don't have the luxury of making costly mistakes. So learn from your competitors mistakes and work on to avoid them

4. Don't just copy your competitor's features and products. Probably, your absence is a certain space aligns with your company's vision or makes you stand out from the crowd, so think twice before jumping to work on that feature your competitor has in his product.

5. Be his customer, this helps in understanding the benefits and problems your prospective customer faces.

6. Strengthen your strong points than working on your weak ones. Make your USP stronger.

7. In a sales pitch, if a customer brings up the competitor's feature that you don't have, find out the customer's actual business and explain how your product addresses the need rather than getting into a comparison of the features.

8. Make sure you market your advantages loud and clear ! Bang on !

9. Keep a close watch on competitor's products. Competitor analysis is not a one time activity but a hygiene factor.

10. Lastly, may be having a competition is not that bad. As they say it's easier to get a decision from a customer when he has a choice between product A and product B rather than between product A and nothing.

Kola Kolaya Munthirikka - review

KKMK is an attempt to make a laughter riot like Panchathanthiram. Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognizing stories and behavior and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. So essentially, you need a conflict for laughter to occur. The only group in KKMK which is fwith situatgoes through situations that have this kind of funny conflicts is a smart Veerappan and his dumb gang. Every other situation has characters with no conflicts or conflicts which are not really making new connections. That is why this movie fails to evoke laughter.

I felt Karthik has been made to overdo a bit in his portrayal of Krish. His strength  lies in naturally underplaying and being realistic in his roles. I don't know why he sounded loud in certain places ! Shika is a great dancer. Her effort to pronounce Tamil dialogues shows (though Suchi has done her dubbing) Anand raj is awesome, he should market himself for different roles like this. Jeyaram has been wasted, trying to do a Pink Panther. So are Pandiarajan  and Delhi ganesh who are known for their talent as comedians. I felt like crying out loud  - "Leave the professionals alone !" Radharavi is at his usual best, I liked his careless take on a dhadha. I don't know why the team tried so hard to keep Sarath Kumar's role under wraps. It would have been a good marketing if it was the other way.

Music by Selvaganesh was good, but the songs were terribly misplaced. I enjoyed the "Oru varam" by S.P.B and Chitra. There must have been a mandatory disclaimer at the beginning of the movie warning viewers to remove their brains. Point is, if I want just Crazy Mohan's dialogs for my laughs then I would go for his famous theater dramas. Movie, is a different beast altogether. Director Madhumita's arrow misses its target by a fairly long distance.

A piece of you everywhere, for everybody

The other day my wife made a strange observation that she gets promotional messages to her mobile based on what she spoke about in her conversations. For example, in one of her phone calls, if she spoke about having a clean drinking water for us, the next day she got Ads about water purifiers. To say that I was shocked would be an understatement. Being in the contact center industry for many years, I knew this was technically possible using Speech recognizers and caller segmentation. But would TRAI, the regulator in India allow the provider to do anything of that sort?

Much has been written and talked about Facebook's recent changes, the perils of it and how to safeguard yourself against it. Welcome to the next evolution of www, this is where we are heading - what Facebook or any online company wants to know and track is what you are doing everywhere online and offline , not just in their website ! Thanks to social media, wherever online we go, we can Digg it or delicious it, tweet it. Look at this company Blippy, which wants to know what you are buying and suggests it would be easy if you just give them your credit card numbers and they would track the information for you ! Do you know that instead of having various login IDs in various sites, you can be just one unified online avatar with an open ID.

So what happens with all these information about you and why is everybody after it? Well, a whole bunch of data mining companies exist doing things like social monitoring, social media discovery and much more. Considering the fact that every company (online or in general) wants has Social Media Management as a bulk part of their IT budget you realize how this information could be used to sell you anything. I guess the day we sent our first email, we all fell into the trap and trusted a stranger with information about us. And I don't think we are ready to go switch back to postal departments.

Digging further, we figured out my wife's claim was not correct, at least for now. I  and a couple of my friends also got the same SMS Ad the next day in my phone and we had not spoken about water over the phone.

Employee vs Employer

As an employee, right from my hardware engineer days in a very small firm through working in multinationals,  I was always confined to my own work responsibilities and never went bothered to even know about my employer. Forget going that extra mile to contribute to the company's growth. All I was concerned only about my takeaway in anything from training sessions to day-to-day work.

This is the single most important difference between doing business and being employed. As a startupper,(if I can put it that way) you always think about how you can add value to your customers. You think about how every situation and every person you meet gets benefited from you and / or your venture. One person who grew his business exponentially by this way of thinking is Mr. Dhirubhai as Mr Krishnamoothy explains here. We have an excellent ecosystem ostartups in India (TiE, Headstart, Startup saturday, NSRCEL ).But you are not gaining anything out of these forums if you are not contributing by way of sharing in these networks. Information sharing can be a start.

"Money is just a by-product" - well, I'm yet to understand how this works :-)

Mundhinam Paatheney ! - review

Five minutes of watching Mundhinam paartheyney I was like, "Oh my god, Another story about a guy desperately looking for the perfect girl !". Must have been the effect of Vinnaithaandi Varuvaya, Theeratha Villayaatu Pillai and numerous other recent Tamil releases I watched. But then very quickly, I realized this is going to be fun and different. The movie is fresh and entertaining. I felt like watching numerous episodes of a wonderfully written sitcom. And I missed watching this along with my friends, that would have been a blast. Music is refreshing though the songs slowed the pace of the movie. Special kudos to Thaman and team for the very creative re-recording and background effects. Good performances by almost everybody in the cast except a very few of Sanjay's friends. Sai Ganesh and the girl who played Priya have a promising future.

Magizh Thirumeni, the director, dares to walk along dangerous borders in a couple of scenes like the 12th grade student commenting about a condom in her brother's wallet and so on. He has chosen the narrative style for the movie, but there is too much of narration. Sometimes I wonder if he has forgotten the first rule of screenplay - "Show, don't tell". For instance, when the narration is through the hero's point of view, suddenly emerges a very short sequence of the dancer girl narrating her dreams of buying a house. This jump confuses the viewer. 

No doubts the dialogues are spontaneous and funny. A trick writers use during the "initial setup" phase of a  story is to start the scene in the middle of an event that is happening. For instance, a scene opens up in a staircase with Sai Ganesh refusing something. During the next dialogues we come to know that Sanjay had asked Sai to accompany him for Salsa  class and that is what he is refusing. This makes the audience more attentive and eventually follow the movie more carefully. But this usually this is not followed in the second and third acts of story telling since it would give a feeling of  the audience being left out  of the happenings. Unfortunately, Magizh follows this in-the-middle-of-the-event in almost 80 % of the movie. Something has already happened and you see one character narrating or explaining it to another character. And also, I don't see any need for the whole thing to be a flashback from London if the hero decides not to meet her again.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy a few interesting twists like the train scene and the way the truth behind gossips about a girl are revealed in the story. With a typical feel good movie, Magizh thirumeni shows the promise to be a Sekhar Kammula for Tamil

Google - Second for the first time?

Google, with the launch of its new search interface today, has probably come second or third in the search race for the first time. 

The new result interface of google looks very much similar to Yahoo! and Bing . As John Battlle explains in his book "The Search", the way Yahoo and Google handle the search intent of the user has been different historically. Google always tries to give the "objective" answers using a mixture of PageRank, downloading statistics etc. while Yahoo tries to be more "humane" and gives related and relevant results of the searched term based on what other users are searching for. Now with this latest development, is Google taking the Yahoo ! route ? Are we walking towards a consolidation in the search space ?

Funny thing, when you search for "Search" in Google, the top result is Bing and in Bing it is Yahoo ! :-)

It rained here !

Had been to DakshinChitra recently, our first official weekend getaway in Chennai. While I enjoyed the various exhibits and had a great time catching them through my lens, I was not sure if they capture the culture of the southern states completely. As a south Indian I felt the place was slowly becoming more of historical museum more than a center for arts. Perhaps a 2 hour stroll is not enough to get the  vibe of the place or I must have taken a guided tour. For an outside this place does serve as a great window to South Indian traditions.

I've always wondered why many tourist destinations in India have different entry fees for locals and foreigners? I have not seen this anywhere abroad.

I did not get a chance to witness any performing arts in DakshinChitra. But what came as a pleasant surprise was Rohini Thotta Tharani's art exhibition. I did get to see the man himself, but did not want to gate crash the party as he was with his friends. As for his daughter's paintings, well "புலிக்கு பிறந்தது பூனையாகுமா?"

Oh yeah, it rained here in Chennai !

Panorama in video

This could probably the next BIG in movie entertainment after 3D magic of  AVTAR. Check out this video to get an idea of what I'm talking about. Yellow birds don't have wings but they fly to make you experience a 3D reality.....relax that is the name of the camera which made this video possible.

Imagine the possibilities it might open for entertainment. Consider a scene where a guy and a girl is talking. Instead of an usual over the shoulder shot of the guy which you normally see today, you might be able to to just turn your view and keep looking at that hot girl he is talking to ! (Though this is unlikely to happen in the near future since the cinema halls have to keep up with this development.) It feels like you are literally in the movie, in between the actors ! That could really change the perspective writing a screenplay, nay the very basics of story narration ! Whew !

At this point of my movie career :-P, all I can do is pass the word to one tech-savy crew in India which might probably show interest, yes, it is Mr. Shankar. I scrapped one of his cameramen who happens to be my friend, hope it gets some attention.

Kosuru news : Enthiran is getting ready in 3D !!

Porkkalam

Porkkalam is one of its kind Tamil movie, no doubt about it. Ever since I saw the teaser where Kishore blows away a Ford Endeavour with his punch, I knew I wanted to watch this movie.

A couple of years ago, Hindi cinema industry witnessed a paradigm shift where a bunch of fresh directors and story writers emerged bridging the gap between commercial cinema and art cinema. This resulted in the first copies of what is called as Multiplex movies (Mithya, Bheja Fry, Khoshla ka Ghosla, Manorama 6 Feet under and more...) which were good in content, made at shoestring budgets and targetted at a specific group of audience rather than the masses. Porkkalam probably confirms the arrival of a similar trend  in Tamil cinema. Bandi Saroj Kumar, the director of the movie excels in extracting the best from almost all the departments. You are bound to get surprised when you learn the 21 year old has not gained any prior experience as assistant director. When he had gone to join the factory, RGV had apparently sent him back saying "if you have a good story go ahead and make it yourself"

From the point of time-line I felt the suspense (though a good one) in the first half is a bit lengthy since you are not given enough clues that there is in fact a suspense in the movie. Only thing the viewer keeps wondering is the reason or motive behind the disconnected subplots and action blocks. If the reveal would have been a bit more earlier and the sequences connected to one another it would have been even better. Nevertheless the canvas of the movie and the action sequences do stand out. Kudos to Super Subburayan team for a having meaningful single-blow actions. Music is good and even though misplaced a couple of songs are good to hear. The sparingly used of special FX is also appreciable. The very short dialogues and absence of it in some places have to be appreciated. The flash back could have been a bit more crisp. The second half of the movie takes the normal B and C center tracks.

Kishore is just too good with his performance and so is Sathyan. While the character of the protagonist is etched very well, the same is not the case with others except probably Sathyan. For instance, "a corrupt police officer with ethics" alone does not make the character interesting and believable ! And what a waste of Sampath, a highly capable actor ! I felt Tinu Anand and Biju Menon were not needed at all for the movie. Remove their portions, the movie would still look good. In spite of making a visually striking and different this movie would still fall under the category where the heroine's role is under developed. I mean, with all her problems back home why would she fall in love ? Is it because love is Blind?

Why were there so many English sentences in the dialogue?
Why were there so many Fade-to-Black and Slow motion?
Why was there only one gun in whole Lanka and that too with the hero?
How come the villain's brother was not able to realise a crucial fact about the hero when he was in the hero's custody for almost a week, but finds out the very next day in an action sequence?

and of course..."Why two orders?" - the "A-few-good-men" question. - If the hero is not ashamed , if he is so intelligent, capable and confident to overcome his weakness, why does he have to hide his it from the world ?

I would love to see what Saroj has in store next.

Are you content with the content you consume?

I've always had some questions in my mind about the media. Media exists to question, publicize, expose or opine on the happenings as this recent article claims. And so confirms our Supreme Court in its judgment. But does the responsibility of the media stops there? or should it take some positive actions beyond just bringing the issue to notice of us the consumers ?

I happened to be in an event where Mr. Vinay Tiwari, CNN IBN's head of operations was one of the speakers. He sure had the audience delighted with his one liners like "The difference between erotic and porn is just lighting", "Two things nobody in India understands completely are Duckworth-Lewis method of resetting target in cricket and TRP ratings of media". In response to one of the questions from the audience on how they decide to prioritize the content shown in news television media, he said it would be impossible to satisfy the whole nation's audience in terms of what is exclusive and breaking and important news. As long as the news it correct and accurate his channel runs it. "When we say it is breaking or exclusive, we mean it is breaking and exclusive for us the channel". Now, how much do you concede with that as a consumer of news media content ?

Also, who questions the media which questions the happenings? Social media wins the race in this case. For instance, I write a review thrashing or praising a movie but who rates and reviews my review? the comments to my posts is the solution in case of blogs. We see less and less of "Letters to editor" and "Edhiroli" in case of print and television media. I wish the channels ask the viewers to SMS them answers to "How well did we cover IPL controversy?" instead of "Should Modi be removed ?" The viewers don't have the final say in the second question anyway.

Mr.Vinay Tiwari concluded by saying "Remember, the TV comes with a remote, using it is the only way you can punish the channel"

Paiyya

"Make a film like RUN" - Karthie had apparently asked Lingusamy when they decided to do "Paiyya". While Lingusamy has tried to achieve the goal, he has  consciously chosen to ignore the vital element of a movie  - the story. And he does not fail to tell you so in the first few scenes through the careless attitude of the protagonist. A director I met recently told me the value of 'screenplay' is increasing day by day in the Tamil film industry than that of the 'story'. Very true with movies like Payya. Having said that, I wouldn't bother listing it as a "Road movie" since all the action happens off the road and but for some comedy sequences and a few songs, it is just travel on the road with long monologues. And when are our action-directors gonna understand that the scope of "action" is  more than just "fight sequences".

You've to give it to Karthie for making us believe the "will-cross-the-river-when-it-comes" attitude of the protagonist and bother less about how he happened to be so. He has performed effortlessly after an Aayrathil Oruvan. A commendable third step in his acting career. He is good in action sequences too. Among the supporting cast Jegan stands out with his comic performances. A capable Sonia Deepti could have been used better I felt (having seen her in Happy days). Milind Soman does provide a fresh air to a Tamil cinema villain but I'm afraid he is gonna be type-casted if he repeats a Paiyya again.

"Adada Mazhai da" and "En kaathal solla" are good numbers. Now we know Lingusamy had opted to remove the soulful melody "Panikaatre" in the final released version of RUN to ensure the pace of the movie. I wonder why there we so many songs in this one which is supposed to be a fast paced movie.

Thama..

Among the many things you have to assume in the story, you should also take it for granted that none of the Andhra or Mumbai gangsters are aware of a thing called firearm.

Go for it if you wanna mid-day no-brainer comic ride !

Data theft and IP rights violation in India

As an aspiring startup company, I was happy to see the move by the HC to close down operations of askme on charges of data theft from justdial Askme, the infomedia TV 18 venture has been convicted of stealing the vast database that Justdial had built through years of research. One of the things that any startup must ensure is the securing IP rights. You can either apply directly to the patent controller or through the facilitating center here

Justdial (the red line in the graph) has managed to work its way to the top over the years as indicated by Google trends here The other players in the local search are Sulekha, asklaila and getit yellow pages. and of course there is Google

Raavan - teaser

Hu hoo !! The first official teaser of RAAVAN is out here
It says the music launch is on Apr 24th, wonder what happened to Ashokavanam ? or is it Raavana now?

Usability design

When you work single-handed (literally all alone like me) on a startup idea, you need to get your customer's feedback frequently on your product as you do in an agile. This ensures that you don't get carried away by viewing through your lens.

Just when I thought I had the perfect design for my company's website, I realized that it is just my view and not the end user's view. so I was wondering how I could ensure the best experiences for the end user. I bumped on this wonderful article about usability centric design of websites. Also I tested my website in using this cool tool. Guess what, I was not half bad at my estimates. It is quick. Whats more, its free for 5 results and you can earn karma points by doing other's tests which you can use to get more results for your test.

Angadi Theru - movie review

A couple of months ago while this movie was still in production I was wondering about the title, why "Angadi Theru"? why not "Kadai veedhi" which is the more common way of referring any shopping street be it the "Town hall" road of Madurai or the Orchard road of Singapore. Has Mr. Vasantha Balan tried to have a poetic title and stopped half way ? I feel that is what he has done with the movie as well. He has perfected the technical departments including production but not the story and screenplay.

The soul and concept of Angadi theru has the capability of becoming a Lagaan of Tamil, but nay, at one point of time you wonder if this just another tragic teenage love story. Yes, the movie has some scenes which leave you with a disturbed mind. But that’s all; overall the movie does not impact you with any resolve. Some questions that come to the mind of a keen observer

- WHAT exactly is the problem if a salesboy and saleswoman fall in love? Of course you would end up in trouble if you get caught for calling your supervisor "karungaali" in your love letter.

- How come Pandi tries to end his friend's romance to save his job and just 10 mins later he gives a "Savuri mudi" his crush Sophy.

- There are a just a couple of instances where the salesperson is beaten up or manhandled in a private dark room, every other ill-treatment and violence is shown to be happening in the shop floor itself. Where were the customers?

- A few auto-drivers chase the couple to get the girl but why not in their AUTO ?? !!

- The employer ties the pair for romancing in the store and then gets the hero arrested on a false complaint. Hero gets squashed in the police station. He cries that he knows all the illegal ways in which the owner does business. The inspector promptly calls the owner and tells him "the boy knows too much, let us release him" Hero goes back to the shop, makes a big scene in front of the customers and gets the girl released who was tied up in the godown till then - realistic movie anybody ? Oh yeah, on his way back the hero promptly challenges the supervisor that he will survive in the same "Angadi Theru"

As mentioned there are a few cute and intelligent moments as well - I did enjoy the scale, strawberry, "savuri mudi" cues to romance and of course the sister act chasing the shopping bag. Also noteworthy are the quick sequences like the restroomwala, the shirt vendor etc. But if these supporting cast were given more screen space it would have been a complete picture.

The thing I don't like with capable Tamil directors like Bala, Selvaraghavan is that they believe they will be considered critically acclaimed and famous only if they make dark and heavy movies. Yet to see what Sasikumar and Ameer have in store. VB is no different, why make an Angadi Theru when you've done a Veyil as your first ?

Angadi Threu is much of Angadi and less of theru !