Bournemouth

The sea and its beach are not new to me. I still remember clearly the day i went out to the marina by myself, feeling bored, joined a group of volleyball players for a hour's play. It was not the usual volleyball net. It was a smaller one and i could spike really hard and fast. It was the gang of anbu, shridhar, saeed and other friends. That was in 1998. Ten years back. I got very used to the sea and its salty wind. My contacts spread out to other groups which played regularly during the weekends and the association was very very good. Those years were fulfilling. I, ofcourse, remained very slim all the while :)
But never have i ventured deep into the sea anytime. Not even ten metres !
But things were not to be the same. I went to Bournemouth last friday, 23rd aug, 2 days back. The beaches were not that huge but there were kayaks available at 5£ for half-an-hour. I was never hesitant, surprisingly. While other friends chose to play with a sponge ball in the ice cold waters, me and another friend of mine went for kayaking. It was good fun, rowing against the sea waves. Except for a single moment of jerk where i was about to overturn the kayak. A time when the huge sea turned into a fun filled large sized swimming pool :)

After a game of golf, mini-golf actually, at the park, i went alone for a hot-air ballon ride. It was a great sight from the top. The poole beach could be seen and the mountains et al. But the air was very cold at the top, so cold that my teeth started chattering and my body became shaky. How does it feel if you are flown along with a kite. The same sort of experience, hanging from a thread :)

Fun filled saturday.

Hellboy II, The golden army

This director is spanish. Ive always felt that any name that ends with a torro is spanish. Hope im right. Well, does'nt matter actually. He is i.e., the director is a visionary film maker. He is famous for Pan's labyrinth. A movie which had a gory creature speaking to a little girl, as i remember it. But then, i knew that it got an oscar for its visual effects or something. & then i had a chance to see Hellboy, the golden army II, today.
How was the movie? pretty good. It had a whole lot of visuals. More than what you can ask for. Pretty amazing. I'm the kind of audience every filmmaker would like to have. Whether its the 'Sixth sense, or its 'perfume' or 'hellboy', i never jump to conclusions. My brain stops thinking and i watch every movie as though it was my first one. As a result, i appreciate every single twist i see in any movie as though its the first time im watching such a scene. This movie too had its own twists. The director had given plenty of hints before the climax. Let me see what all i can remember.
1. When the prince fights with his father's men, he gets a cut in his face and the camera moves towards the princess' face ( the prince's sister ), & u can see a cut there too, indicating the link that they share from birth as twins. A fact that is later mentioned in the climax.
2. That the gas-man can move into any object and show his power. The way he enters in into the golden army and fights against them was very good.
3. At a time when it looks impossible ( it was never possible always, ofcourse ) to fight with the golden army & when hellboy challenges the prince, u remember that the golden army does'nt always follow the one who wears the crown. There was always the challenge, mentioned either by the narrator or by the king somewhere during the initial stages of the movie.

Such scenes, i would call them 'reminder' scenes are always nice & having so many of them at the right places, does good for the movie.

Hellboy, attaboy !

Jogging Usain, Lightning Bolt

Just minutes after i wrote a desperate article to keep the blogging spirit running, i have one for which i dont have words to express. But im going to try this somehow :)
196cm / 6'5" tall, weighs 86 kg. A human. An athlete, a runner. The youngest world junior gold medalist till date. The first junior to break the 20-second mark in 19.93 seconds. The boy who ran 9.72 (+1.7 m/s), establishing a new world record in the 100 m at the Reebok Grand Prix in New York, breaking the 9.74-second record of Powell.

Usain Bolt, the new world champion in the 100 metres event, setting a record at 9.68 s.
But the whole world knew that he was capable of atleast 9.6 or 9.55 or even less. That was not required at all. He was racing with Asafa powell, the previous world record holder. But not anymore. Usain, aged just 21, shattered everyone with his record breaking performance. I have seen tennis matches being one-sided. I have seen cricket matches being one-sided. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I'M WITNESSING A 100 m DASH LOOKING SO HOPELESSLY ONE-SIDED !!!!!!!

The other athletes were merely competing for the second and the third slots. Asafa seemed so disheartened at even running alongisde Usain. Both jamaicans.

Whats special with Usain. Look at his dash first. The first half of the race, he is so normal. The second half, he dashes ahead leaving everyone else so so far behind that he looks like some weird machine-man, who is accelerating himself continuously. But once he is 20 metres or so before the finishing rope, he starts celebrating. He's fit to race with the gods, a poet would say for sure. He starts celebrating and does'nt look straight. He starts dilly-dallying, looks sideways, beats his chest. Once you become a fan after seeing that single race, someone like me, you curse him for not making it even faster. For not giving his best, i can say. But thats not all about it. He is making it look so easy giving himself a majestic feel. Its like him saying, give me powerful opponents, give me stronger runners, for me to run. Dont make me run alongwith kids !! Dont make me jog towards the end :(

Jogging Usain is all i can think of for a title for this post.

Settu-win comedy kathaigal

I was thinking of writing again for sometime now and was just not getting any interesting topics. But not for long... I struck upon this really interesting one in a kollywood gossip site. I will tell you what is interesting in the end. Read through to see if you can find it yourself ;-)

Ilayathalapathi Vijay is nearing his 50th film. Vijay who started his career at the age of 17 has starred in 48 films so far in his career spanning 15 years without any experiments or mask gimmicks. Following the footsteps of superstar Rajinikanth, the actor has always tried to satisfy his fans with the simple ingredients of a good movie.

Now he is playing the same simplistic and youthful role in the forthcoming Prabhu Deva directed produced by Ayngaran International. His next film will be produced by AVM Balasubramaniam under the legendary AVM banner. This would be his 49th film.

The actor is having some plans to celebrate the launch of his 50th film. This film would be produced by his father S.A.Chandrasekaran under his own banners either VV Creations or Shobha Creations. Chandrasekharan himself announced this in an audio release function held recently

This 'wonderful' article has been written by one 'settu shankar'. I had a weird thought instantly. Why would someone be called settu. settu in tamil actually refers to 'seth' - north-indians settled in south are invariably referred as seth's. i knew that the person was called sethu shankar. But there can be only 2 reasons to explain this. Either its been changed numerologically or its a printing mistake. But one thing in the above paragraphs is not a mistake. Its the best comedy ive come across.

Read these lines again -
"........who started his career at the age of 17 has starred in 48 films so far in his career spanning 15 years without any experiments or mask gimmicks......"

No experiments and no mask gimmicks ???? Mr. 'settu' calls acting a gimmick & an experiment. My good god ! What is an actor supposed to do then ?

This is what you call extreme 'stupid'-optimism. Paint all your negatives with positive shades shamelessly !

The image ive put for this post is what you can call as 'tamil cinema's irony'.
Something no one can escape from. You can see kamalhasan handing over a trophy to vijay for his film's 175 days completion. Even an actor like kamal cant avoid this. But how does he take it in his stride. He does that with his own style. When it was his turn to take over the mike, he simply said that vijay works hard, a couple of other formalities and left the dias. Nothing much for a movie that ran for 175 days !

& dont try to think too much over the "-win" in the title. I saw it first in a poster near velachery which said 'simbu-win ....' ;-)

My verdict

sudama alias kuselan alias pasupathy !
what should have rightly belonged to pasupathy went to the superstar. The publicity of the movie kuselan is what i'm talking about. A whole-hearted, sincere performance by 'real star' pasupathy. Every single frame of his in the movie was perfect. Whether it be a family scene with meena or an emotional scene with the 'superstar' himself or whether it be a crap scene involving the comedians - vadivelu, santhanabharathi, livingston, vaiyapuri and others. He scores a perfect 10.
Will kuselan be a hit ?
Yes and no. The emotional chemistry we saw between munnabhai and circuit is what is missing in the most important scenes - The climax. Rajini fails to appeal in one important scene where he has to slap Balu ( pasupathy's name in kuselan ). These are scenes which should make the audience cry. This is the only way this movie can score. such is the story line. such is the subject written by srinivasan. I have'nt seen katha parayumbol myself. But i can imagine how touching it would have been as rajni had decided to remake it and act as himself in the movie.
It's like walking over a knife and its not always that you can pull off a mighty performance.
Meena was at her own best. But when nayantara's name appears before hers all we can do is just have some sympathy for her. Thats cinema. Rajni may not score with his latest offering but robot will recover him from this near 'baba' :)

Verdict : Average ! Nothing like chandramukhi.