Arai En 305il Kadavul

Starring: Santhanam, Ganja Karuppu, Jyothirmayi, Madhumitha, Rajesh, Ilavarasu, M.S. Baskhar, ‘Thalaivasal’ Vijay, Delhi Ganesh, Madan Bob, Kuyili

Direction: Simbhudevan

Music: Vidyasagar

Production: ‘S’ Pictures
Simbudevan’s Arai En 305il Kadavul, produced by director Shankar’s S pictures, is an attempt to explore the theory of existence of God through a comedy! The film seems inspired by the Hollywood comedy Bruce Almighty which starred Jim Carrey and Morgan Freeman.
Unemployed Santhanam and Kanja Karuppu find themselves suddenly thrown out on the street in the middle of the night because the Mansion manager, M.S. Baskar, refused to be burdened by their rental arrears anymore. However, their friendly neighbors take pity on them and request Baskar to postpone their ousting till morning. Having been granted mercy for a night, the frustrated duo swears in distress, hurting the Almighty’s sentiments. God (Prakashraj, who else?) himself appears before them, but is subjected to their denial and mockery, questioning his authenticity. A few tricks and avatars (costume) later, the astonished friends are at His feet.

Prakashraj agrees to stay with them for a week and reveal his secret of running the world. He shows them his hi-tech galaxy box with which he communicates with his teammates (the folks in heaven, to be precise) and explains to them that whoever is in possession of such an asset will be bestowed with all the wealth in this world. Having been provided with sufficient inspiration and information, our young friends steal the Galaxy box from God, reducing him to a human being!

Left with no choice but to make His way in the world, Prakashraj (aka God), begins leading a normal human’s life, while the duo make merry with the help of the Galaxy box. Prakashraj, however, teaches the duo a few life-lessons about simplicity and virtue as he follows them around. Will God ever regain the Galaxy box? Will the duo find everlasting life and happiness after acquiring the Galaxy box? The answers, now, are in the hands of Fate – because now, ironically, even God is subjected to fate.Arai En, as anybody can gather, is a social satire that intends to preach a lesson or two without trying to be judgmental. The lesson is mostly about God’s existence, and what His ideal contribution to current society ought to be. Although funny in parts, the movie is unable to sustain its flow with a script so serious that it forgets to amuse and entertain. For the same reason, the dialogues between Prakashraj and Rajesh on the topic of God’s existence seem like they jumped straight out of some debate show on television.

Prakashraj’s role as God does not emerge as meaty as it sounds and is anything but challenging for the actor. Having said that, it is also difficult to imagine another actor in his shoes and the choice couldn’t have been better. Santhanam deserves a

special mention for largely underplaying his character without going overboard with the customary earsplitting dialogues he is usually identified with. Kanja Karuppu isn’t too bad either.

Rest of the cast worth a mention include Thalaivaasal Vijay, Madanbop, V S Raghavan Rajesh, M S Baskar, VMC Hanifa, Madhumitha, Jyothirmayi and Kuyili. Baskar, Manobala, and Hanifa lighten up the somewhat dreary screenplay with a few laughs. Kanja Karuppu’s police station comedy also provides a little respite from the ‘God or No God’ preaching.

Vidyasagar’s Aavaaram Poovukkum sung by Shreya Ghosal is the catch of the album and the duet number Thendralukkuu Nee is also worth paying attention to. It is evident that the editor found it difficult to trim the canned scenes, and so can’t be blamed for the length or the sluggish pace of the movie.

Simbudevan seems to have begun making an attempt to classify the movie - either into a children’s movie or a full-length all-class comedy entertainer- and then given up in the end, leaving his comedy with an identity crisis.

Get ready for some preaching!.

Vijay, Surya and Maddy team up

In an effort to encourage children to go to school, the Tamil Nadu government has decided to come out with a documentary. Sensing the pulse of the children that film actors would drive home the point easily, three extremely popular stars, especially among the kids – Vijay, Surya and Madhavan – have been signed up for this venture. Director K.V. Anand, though busy with Ayan, is the lucky man who will direct all the three stars simultaneously. The shooting of this documentary has already commenced and is expected to be released during the summer vacations. The documentary will be extensively televised across all Television channels and theatres to promote the cause. Should be an interesting project!

Actress Trisha Best Actress Award 2008

Sultan The Warrioir Trailer

Kuruvi-Trailer

Trisha too pricey?

The Indian Premier League matches are due to start on April 18th. The Chennai team, going by the name Chennai Super Kings, is captained by M.S. Dhoni and owned by India Cements.

The brand ambassadors for the team are Vijay and Nayantara. The buzz is that when Trisha was approached, she quoted an exorbitant sum, some say to the tune of Rs. one crore. When the franchisers heard this rate, they dropped her like a hot potato. They then opted for Nayantara, who agreed to the amount the franchise quoted.

All is fair in cricket and business. Right now, the theme song of Chennai Super Kings is being composed by G.V. Prakash Kumar and lyrics by Vairamuthu.

Some hollywood pics

Again Its Jessica

Chak De Kollywood: Kangana

Bollywood bombshell Kangana Ranaut says that her heart always beats for Kollywood.

Making her debut in Tamil opposite Jayam Ravi in ‘Dhaam Dhoom’, she says she loves to work in Kollywood.

'People are so professional in Tamil industry. They are punctual. This is so different from Mumbai films,' says the actress while saying a big 'yes' when asked whether she like to do more Tamil films.

On the demise of director Jeeva during the shoot of ‘Dhaam Dhoom’, the actress says, 'I'm here today only because of him. His sudden death has created a void. We all miss him a lot. He was responsible for my career in Tamil.'

Jessica Alba Njoy

For someone who claims she doesn’t dress to get attention Jessica was sure screaming for attention at the MTV Movie Awards. She showed up on the red carpet wearing a sheer green dress with no bra on.Guess there was a time in her life when Jessica did in fact dress for attention. She must have been quite the talk of the event.

Britney Spears Nipple show

Song Whic Gave me a LIFE

guys U dnt believ dat aft hearing this song with ma girl ,the love between us developed and v started our new life......... (is it funny)
u guyz also can share ur lovable songs ,inncidents etc

Hrithik and Sachin versus Shahrukh and Ganguly

So it begins, at Bangalore when Ganguly’s Knights take on Dravid’s Challengers- the IPL, the biggest carnival of Twenty-Twenty cricket with all the glamour that one can ask for begins in a day’s time. For the first time since the days of Kerry Packer, cricket will be played seriously without national colors. Sachin will face Ishanth Sharma, we have not seen that, Sehwag will swing at Balaji, we have not thought about that and Ganguly will bat with Ponting, we never thought that was possible. And all this will happen when Shah Rukh, Hrithik, Vijay, Juhi and Nayanthara cheer from the stands, while billboards, television, Mallya and Ambani carefully monitor the numbers as each ball is bowled. The IPL is not just about cricket, it’s an industry. Maybe that’s why each team was called a franchise and (how ever much it is denied) players were treated like valuable commodities during auctions. This is has not been seen even in the long-standing football leagues of the world. Of course, there’s a lot of money that goes around during the transfer periods and records are broken every year but what mattered most was always the player’s preference. In the IPL however it is the bosses who decided whom they wanted, only the ‘Icons’ got their way. The IPL is not selling cricket, it is selling well packed entertainment capsule in which cricket is the main ingredient.

Getting back to cricket. That’s a tough thing to do, especially with all the distractions there have been a lot of talks about which team is the most balanced and who has the edge and so on. But to put things in perspective, nothing can be predicted here because most of the big stars going head to head have never done so before, they have always been on the same side and have not tested their powers against each other. So, we do not know whether Gilchrist will be the same demolition machine when he has to ace Glenn Mc Grath or Shane Warne. All these guys have played together and one can be sure that they know things about each others’ games and about the chinks in the armor that others might not know about. Many things are going to be thrown open. Ganguly or Sachin might know a thing or two about setting fields against a rampant Sehwag or how to deal with Kumble’s wrong uns. A lot of beans is going to be spilled and the results one might dare say will be evident when the first series after the IPL is played. Players suddenly will realize that the opposition knows far too many things about them than they ought to, than is safe, they will have to find new ways to survive in the ‘Open Era’. In short, cricket will be thrown open- Indian quickies might learn to perfect the elusive art of reverse swing from the Aussies, the South Africans will learn doosras from Murali and the art of sledging may evolve to a higher level of verbal unruliness or dissolve into gentlemanly conduct, both being distinct possibilities. Some countries have decided to keep away from this integration of international cricketers. They might have their own reasons for doing so but they are missing the bus on cricket’s next big global evolution. Its not about the money, its about the things that will be shared, revealed or even discovered. For all the money, injuries and the supposed ‘greed’ that the IPL is said to bring into cricket, there will also be something good.

From cricket to the other face of IPL- the entertainment. Well, you are not short of it and to repeat an oft-used statement ‘it happens only in India’. SRK sings and dances his way into the hearts of millions of fans for his Kolkata Knight Riders, Preity Zinta ropes in Daler Mahendi and does a Punjabi number for the Kings 11, Vijay and Nayanthara join hands even before ‘Singam’ for the Superkings of Chennai and Hrithik Roshan cheers with all his heart for the Mumbai Indians. That’s a deadly combination of stars doing the cheering, the most expensive cheer leaders on planet earth or are they as crazy about cricket as you or me, not impossible as they are also Indians. Maybe no one really had plans of promoting their teams with music videos, dance numbers etc…but once King Khan started doing things in his own way it was a headlong rush by the others trying to play catch up. SRK seemed to have things neatly panned out months in advance: he called Vishal Dadlani to do the music score, designed some ‘cool’ and ‘knightly’ helmets for every Knight Rider and grabbed ever bit of news space that was being given to the IPL. It had become more of the Knight Riders’ space with even controversy featuring when the unfortunate ban on Shoaib Akthar robbed the team of one of its most deadly weapons. That changed only a day back when Mumbai Indians dealt a powerful blow as they uncovered the Hrithik promotional number, enough headline material in the nick of time. Down south, the Chennai Superkings have been doing fine with their target audience; Vijay is as big a draw as you can get, especially when he is with Nayanthara.

IPL- the business. Now, if this goes wrong then we have no IPL next year, forget that the contracts have been given out for 5 and 10 years. We never knew that big business houses had interests in cricket that were deep enough for them to put crores and crores of money into it, making millionaires out of teenagers overnight. Pepsi paid no less than 50 crores to the official IPL drink. Let’s say that more than 500 crores have been put into the IPL from various sources and all that has to be recovered between 18th April and June 1st. That’s the budget of 10 Sivaji movies in a month! Now we don’t know the complex methods in which revenues are worked out through media rights, royalties, television TRPs and whatnots but we can say for sure that the ticket sales at stadium counters is not going to be nearly enough to account for that amount. We can trust the high officials of the BCCI and Lalit Modi to have the mathematics worked out for a profit, else experienced businessmen like Ambani and Ness Wadia would not have ventured into it; but no one can deny the element of risk at work here. This is aptly summed up by what Shahrukh Khan had to say the other day. He was a bit shocked on the first day of ticket sales for the matches at the Eden Garden. Having barred no holds in promoting the event, announcing great plans and saying that he will personally hand out every 1000th ticket purchased, the turn out was least inspiring, even discouraging. Expecting full houses at the Eden Gardens is one thing and getting that done is another, you have to attract 1 lakh people to the stadium. SRK has confessed that things are not as he expected them to be, not the rosy picture that was painted out. But cricket gets exciting as the days go on and things for sure will pickup.

Simran, Balachander to team up with Chennai Mayor

Veteran actor Rajesh plans to open a resort tomorrow in the Chennai-Bengaluru highway near Rajiv Gandhi memorial in Sriperumbudur called East-West resort. For the inaugural function, many dignitaries from Kollywood are expected to attend. For the convenience of the film fraternity, Rajesh has arranged for a luxury coach from Film Chamber office which will bring the guests to the venue. The special invitee for the event is Chennai Mayor Maa. Subramanian. He will be accompanied by Simran and director K Balachander.

Kamal unwraps Dasavatharam story

Kamal is busy with the post production work and the audio launch of Dasavatharam. Amidst his busy schedule, he took time off to talk about this much coveted project to a popular daily ¬– The Hindu. In the interview with Malathi Rangarajan, he says that his story telling techniques are time tested and would keep it simple.For the first time, the actor lets us know what Dasavatharam is about putting all speculations to rest. He disclosed that the film deals with environment, science and religion. In his own words, “Dasavatharam has a lot of Al Gore in it, and also Ramanujar.” It is also interesting to note Kamal’s statement that has explored religion at great length in the film.

Having penned the story, screenplay and dialogues, Kamal said that working on the screenplay was the toughest part, as the subject itself was very complex. This out of the ordinary story line should be another reason to draw the crowds to the theaters.

Raja’s tough grind for Genelia

Santosh Subramaniam, the Tamil remake of Bommarillu directed by Raja is running to packed houses and the trade and audience have lapped up the film heartily. It is a hardcore family subject which can be enjoyed by everyone and is rightly called the ‘feel good’ film. With this film’s success, Raja has retained his reputation as the director who has a mastery over remake subjects. His earlier victories include, Jeyam, M.Kumaran S/O Mahalakshmi and Unakkum Enakkum.

When talking to the media he says, “Though I have given hits with my earlier remakes, the happiness that Santosh Subramanian has given is incomparable. I have been getting appreciative calls from people belonging to different sections who are very happy with the film”. When discussing heroine Genelia’s character, Raja says that he worked very hard on this as the entire script rested heavily on this. The character of Hasini in the film is an amalgamation of innocence and independence who cannot be kept under control and luckily for him Genelia has fitted the bill perfectly. Raja further added that for hero Ravi, this film would be a milestone in his career.

Kuruvi’s low profile launch!

Kuruvi’s audio launch was held yesterday at the Little Flower Convent in Chennai sans the usual fanfare despite the buzz surrounding the movie. The low key affair, held in the school for hearing and speech impaired, witnessed minimal star participation. As a novel attempt, the audio was released to senior journalists from renowned dailies like Daily Thanthi and The Hindu. Gangadaran from Daily Thanthi and S.R. Ashokkumar from The Hindu released the album to the students of the academy. Representatives from other media houses like Sun TV also participated in the event. Vijay and Sangeetha, Vikram, Vishal, Trisha, producer Udhayanithi and his wife, and director Dharani are the other celebrities spotted at the event.

Addressing the gathering, director Dharani revealed that he has reason to hold the event in a school for physically challenged. “Once, I met with an accident and was immobile for a few months. That was when I realized how tough it was to lead the life of a physically challenged person,” he reminisced.

Dharani also declared that Kuruvi has every aspect to woo the audience. Kuruvi is scored by Vidyasagar and is slated for a May release.