'Vishwaroopam' inspires the best retort of recent times...

The poster of 'Vishwaroopam'.

What did Tamilnadu State Government describe the Censor Board’s decision to clear ‘Vishwaroopam’ for general viewing as?
A decision made "without the application of the mind".

Brilliant!!! Bureaucracy always has a way with words.
So the fight that had originally started between Kamal Haasan and theatre owners has now completely morphed into something else. And, as of now, there is no confirmation about the film’s date of release on DTH.

'Alex Pandian' - Review (Tamil)

The poster of 'Alex Pandian', starring Karthi and Anushka.

And then I saw ‘Alex Pandian’…
The story is something like this – the hero kidnaps the Chief Minister’s daughters because the villain had hired him to do it. Why the villains want him kidnaps the CM’s daughter (Anushka)? That’s because they want the CM to give clearance to bring in some very hazardous-to-health pharmaceutical drugs and market them in India and the honest Chief Minister (Visu) is not ready to let them do it. The heroine gives a short lecture to the hero about the ill effects of these drugs and by the time it takes for you to read “pharmaceutical drugs”, the hero is reformed.

The film’s comedy and what is so wrong with it deserves a special mention.
Santhanam enjoys a close bond with the audience. He is more like the grown-up prankster kid that each family has. Santhanam as the reproduction-facilitator of farm animals was fine and hilarious too, but casting him as the desperate elder brother who has to keep his 3 younger sisters away from the lecherous games that the hero plays with them was very distasteful. The nation is still recovering from the gruesome rape of the paramedical student in Delhi. It is hard to find anything funny about those ‘tikilona’ scenes.
There are those mandatory stunt sequences, songs and very annoying romance track. I thought those tribal dances were gone with T Rajendran films of the 1980s. Another set of fights happens and then, abruptly, the film ends.
Karthi looks handsome, but his street-smartness and the mannerisms are getting a tad repetitive and boring. Hopefully ‘Biryani’ is different.

Daggubati Rana drops Selvaraghavan film? (Telugu/Tamil)

Rana Daggubati and Nayantara in 'Krishnam Vande Jagadgurum'

A while ago (we are talking months here), director Selvaraghavan had signed Daggubati Rana up for his next bilingual in Telugu and Tamil. But unconfirmed reports now say that the actor is giving serious thoughts about walking out of the film.

The reason seems to be a pretty believable one. Director Selvaraghavan has the reputation of taking his time to complete his films. How true this claim is, only the producers of his films know. 

In this instance, Rana was very thrilled that he was going to work with Selvaraghavan.

Then the waiting began...

Even after a number of reminders, the film hasn’t yet budged from the “we have signed up for a film together” stage. It seems the director hasn’t yet discussed the story and Rana is getting impatient. Hence the talks that he is planning to walk out of the film.

Nayantara in ‘Kahaani’ remakes (Tamil/Telugu)

Nayantara (Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

The gorgeous Nayantara is back in style and how!

Normally, when rumors of romance between an actor and actress surface, it is the actress whose career gets hit the most. But when Nayantara-Simbu rumors and those video clips from the latter’s “missing” mobile phone surfaced on the internet, everybody thought that it was the end of Nayantara’s career. The actress stayed away from Tamil for a while and concentrated on Telugu, but came back looking at least ten times more ravishing and beautiful than before.

The second big trouble came in the form of the alleged relationship with the then-married actor-choreographer-director Prabhu Deva. Before that could do much damage, she seems to have recovered yet again!

Recently, she had starred with Rana Daggubati (or is it Daggubati Rana?) in ‘Krishnam Vande Jagadgurum’.

In Tamil, she is starring as Ajith’s heroine in his new film. She is also making a special appearance in a song sequence with Dhanush.

And, now there is news that she is going to play the female lead in the Telugu and Tamil remakes of the Vidya Balan-starrer ‘Kahaani’ (which for some reasons, looked a lot like ‘Taking Lives’, the Angelina Jolie starrer).

Great job!

Beyonce and the art of blowing wind into the microphone

Beyonce getting the 'Oh my God, I'm so constipated' look while singing (Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons).

 She said all the right things; wore only the right clothes; was seen only in the right crowds (in entertainment and in politics) and mouthed her lines well. There was Beyonce everywhere – clothes, perfumes, baby pictures, strange names for babies…

But looks like the US national anthem didn’t meet her high standards.

In one of the reports, while Beyonce was busy claiming/swearing that she did indeed sing the song, her former bandmate sincerely defended her syncing. She said that Whitney Houston did it too.

Wow.

Meanwhile, finally watched the ‘singing’ too. Even real singers wouldn’t have flapped their arms and waved so much. Was that the reason why folks in the background in this picture were finding it hard to stifle their smiles – they couldn’t stand her excessive flap-flap and mic-hamming?

If the weather wasn’t good for your throat, it would have been just as bad for your skin. You could have just stayed at home, Beyonce. We would have been perfectly happy with the recording.

Then, there was the series of statements from the Marine Band and its officials.

First it was Master Sgt. Kristin duBois, a spokeswoman for the US Marine Band, who said that the singer had decided at the last minute to use the voice track she had recorded the previous evening. That proves Beyonce’s claims that she did practice the night before.

Then, Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Gregory Wolf said that the band didn’t play live and didn’t know if Beyonce sang live or if the voice was from the tape. This was confirmed by another spokesman, a higher-ranking officer of the Marine Band.

Hey, it’s about time we launched a movement to give Milli Vanilli their Grammy back. The song was nice. It sounds nice even after all these years.