Kuruvi ‘Where Eagles Dare’

November 7th, 2008

First things first - IF YOU ARE EXPECTING ANOTHER GHILLI, YOU WILL BE DISAPPOINTED. Kuruvi is a different film than Ghilli and remembering this before starting to watch the film will help you enjoy the film more. Kuruvi, starring Tamil Cinema’s current youth sensation Vijay along with Trisha, Vivek and others entertains you in wholesome manner although one feels it could have been a little better, especially from the director Dharani who is known for giving razor sharp entertaining films like Ghilli, Dhool and Dhill.

Gotcha (Suman) along with a few of his villian friends have captured people and have put them as slaves, which includes Vijay’s father Manivannan, in Cudappah of Andhra Pradesh to extract diamond from that area. Vetrivel (Vijay) is the typical Chennai youth (carefree guy!) who is burdened with the responsibility of taking care of his big family. He goes as a Kuruvi to Malaysia along with Vivek to get some money from Gotcha (Suman) so that he can help repay the debts of his father and support his family. There he meets Trisha who falls madly in love with Kuruvi. Vijay comes to know that his father is captured as a slave under the clutches of Suman. How he frees his father and the other slaves, forms the rest of the story

Screenplay & Direction: Director Dharani is in his full elements in the first half with some rip roaring comedy scenes by Vivek and Vijay, even though some of the scenes resemble a few other Hindi and English films. Dharani has also made sure that the songs have been picturised in a very extravagant fashion and in a very colorful manner. But the director slips up quite a bit in the second half where the inspiration heavily comes from a hit Telugu film ‘Chatrapathi’ which has been modified and looks like it has been pasted to the first half to make a full length feature film.

Some of the scenes in the second half are pretty violent and dragging and could have been trimmed (heard that some were trimmed eventually in theatres across India). The scene before the interval where Vijay flies from the building to the train dilutes the enormous impact created by the first half (it almost induces laughter!). The racing scene at the beginning could have been trimmed a little bit.

Rating: 6/10

Music & BGM: Vidyasagar has as usual rocked with his music and background score. Considering that he is working for his favorite Dharani’s film, he keeps his record intact with some mind blowing music and background score. Especially the fight scene at the club makes the fans go clapping in delight with the background score enhancing the effect. The songs coupled with the stylish picturisation make a grand impact on the screen making the fans dance to their heart’s content

Rating: 9/10

Camera & Other Technical Aspects: The camera work for this film has been really splendid. It especially shows through in the picturisation of the songs, especially “Happy New Year” and ”Thaen Thaen”. The editing work is also very good, though the second half could have been made a little bit shorter to make it more racier (but the editor has done what the director wanted him to do!).

Rating: 8/10

Other Cast & Crew: All the cast have performed exactly according to what the director wanted them to do. Special mention needs to be given to Suman, who is menacing as Gotcha and brings a punch to the character. If he excelled as “Adiseshan” with his quite and cool personality in Sivaji, here he is aggressive and fierce as the diamond hungry ‘Gotcha’. Ashish Vidyarthi deserves a better role than his portrayal of ‘Konda Reddy’. Blink your eye, and you could miss seeing Malavika on screen in Kuruvi. The characters who make up the family of Vijay have all acted very well.

Rating: 8/10

Trisha & Vivek: Trisha is at her lively best in this movie. She provides adequate support to the comedy combo of Vijay and Vivek. She provides ample glamour to entertain her fans. Her chemistry with Vijay is electrifying, and she looks gorgeous in the songs and in many of the scenes. One notices a marked change in her costumes and make up and they further enhance her beauty. She also dances well along with Vijay who is the industry’s best “dancer”. But the presence of Trisha is greatly limited in this movie unlike Ghilli where she formed a vital part in the pace of the movie. Vivek as “Aaps..” (does anyone know his name in the movie?) is as usual a revelation in Dharani’s films. He did a great job in Dhill and Dhool, and he outdoes that with his brilliant coming timing in ‘Kuruvi’. He includes quite a few double meaning dialogues that if understood can be really embarassing, but overall his comedy in this film is excellent and invokes a lot of laughter. He combines perfectly with Vijay, who in himself is a very good comedian. Some of his comedy (e.g. the mimicry of certain actors and directors) sound funny when done by Vivek onscreen.

Rating: 9/10

ILAYATHALAPATHY Vijay: Be it dancing, comedy, romance, action, expressions among other things, Vijay shows that he is a master. He does not need a good story, he does not need expert direction. He can carry a film all by himself and take it to the brink of success. He does just that in Kuruvi by literally carrying the film on his own shoulders. His dancing keeps improving with each and every film, and he can be rightfully called the ‘Best Dancer in Kollywood’. One cant imagine the amount of effort that he must be putting into those complex dancing steps! His brand of comedy as usual rocks, and he makes a terrific combination with Vivek. His chemistry with Trisha is fantastic (the highlight being the ‘Thaen Thaen’ song shot in Switzerland). His encounters with Suman in the second half are entertaining to watch, and his punch dialogues certainly pack a punch (e.g. “Nee Kedi naa naan Jilla Kedi daa..”)

Rating: Can you rate this man? I can’t…

OVERALL VERDICT: Considering Dharani’s lofty standards, its a disappointment from his side. If compared with Ghilli, might not fulfill your expectations. But it is certainly an entertaining film that is worth a watch (if you’re a Vijay fan, wonder how many times you will watch it!).

MOVIE OVERALL RATING: 8 / 10

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Sathyam fires 30

November 1st, 2008

Satyam Computers has sacked over 30 employees following internal audit findings that they might have ‘fudged’ bills after relocating from Hyderabad to the city.
The sacked project associates allege foul play by the company. “They have taken bills that are almost one-and-half years old and are asking us to prove its validity. Even if we are able to prove that the bills are original and not fudged as they claim, they are unwilling to listen to us,” a few associates told The Times of India.
The staffers’ salaries have been withheld and profiles removed from the company records. Some of them are planning to take legal recourse. “The company is trying to lay us off giving such trivial reasons.
“The HR is not even willing to listen to us and we are not given a chance to resign,” an affected employee said.
The bills in question relate to nearly Rs 3,000 incurred by the associates after their transfer last year. The associates insist that they were entitled for this amount and even this was not reimbursed by the company. “We had used packers and movers a year-and-half back and how can we prove that we used their service? Satyam management is not willing to listen to us,” another employee said.
“They are terminating us because of the financial meltdown, and we are being made scapegoats with such unwarranted reasons. A list of nearly 400 people to be terminated across the country, is being prepared,” one of them said.
S V Krishnan, Satyam’s global head of HR, said this is a ‘routine process’ of the company, where a separate audit team reviewed bills. “They might complain that they are being laid off because of the global economic slowdown. But it is never the intent of the company to put people away just to save some amount of money. This is done as part of good governance. There were areas with certain bills where doubts over ‘potential fraud’ arose. For example, two of the associates might have moved their belongings together but might have submitted separate bills as showing they had moved it separately or they might have submitted false bills. We want to be above board on integrity issues.”
Krishnan said an audit is conducted every six months and hence it has taken so long for them to identify these bills. “We give the employees a chance to prove their integrity. We give them several weeks to get back to us on this. But where they have not been able to prove they are not guilty, we had no option but to terminate them. Resignation is not an option. Otherwise, people who have been terminated on grounds of lacking in integrity earlier will also claim such an option.”

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The Boy Wonder

October 24th, 2008

Not many have been able to make an impact as strong as the one Darsheel Safary has with his performance in his very first movie.

Darsheel Safari’s performance in Taare Zameen Par (TZP) as the struggling dyslexic Ishaan Awasti was the most talked about debut in recent times in Indian cinema.
They said the then 11-year old kid was a natural born actor who was awesome and absolutely smashing.
As accolades poured in from all over the world,Darsheel soon became a little superstar and attained stardom as a child. He became the youngest ever actor to win the prestigious Filmfare Best Actor award in the critics category for the year 2007 for his outstanding lifelike performance in TZP.
Darsheel became a celebrity overnight and fan clubs of his sprouted worldwide as he attained iconic popularity. The whole country went ga-ga over him and he became a star attraction on television shows and even signed record endorsement deals, but did not sign any new films even though he was being offered a crore!
This July, producer and director of TZP, Aamir Khan, decided to launch the DVD from the Green Lawns High School, Darsheel’s school, to honour him. At the function Aamir praised him and said, “Darsheel is a very happy child, full of life and vibrance. I would say the huge success of TZP is largely due to him.”

But the boy and his parents decided to keep Bollywood in suspense over his next film, as his parents were very particular that Darsheel, who is good in his studies and now in his sixth standard, concentrate on his education. However, a few weeks back they sprang a surprise by signing Priyadarshan’s Bhum Bhum Bhole, an Indianised adaptation of the famous Iranian director Majid Majidi’s off-beat Children of Heaven.
Last week, the shoot of the film started in Ooty, and Darsheel, who has Diwali holidays, joined stars like Atul Kulkarni, and Rituparna Sengupta in the unit.
Chennai Times visited Priyadarshan’s location of Bhum Bhum Bhole in Ooty to meet Darsheel Safary, the hero of the film. The unit of the film is shooting in Kollimalai near Ketti, a few kilometres from Ooty.
“Actually,I have Indianised the film which is set in Assam, and I have woven in the ULFA angle to give it a local flavour, though the film tells the story of two kids. Darsheel is the protagonist of the film. As we could not shoot in Assam, art director Sabu Cyril had to recreate an Assamese village in the green meadows of Ooty,” said director Priyadarshan.
There is something magical about Darsheel. His brown eyes, toothy smile and constant chatter with unit members and other kids on the sets immediately catch your attention. And between shots, at times, you can find him reading Hardy Boys or holding court as he has the elders and the kids listening to him in rapt attention.


When asked why he chose to do this film, the smart kid replied, “My parents signed the film. And later, I watched Children of Heaven and liked it very much. The boy I play in the film, Pinaki, is extremely intelligent, good at studies and also devoted to his family, something similar to what I’m in real life.”
Darsheel has a manager who looks after his career, and the boy said he had plans to do films only during holidays and breaks.

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Best midrange GPU

October 20th, 2008

Nvidia’s Geforce 9600GT has grabbed everybody’s attension,which delivers high-end performance at a mid-range price.

G94 is the codename for 9600GT chip, G92 was the chip model used in 8800GT.This G94 chip have an number of improvements at silicone level when comparing it with previous generation  stream processor GeForce 8-series.

Nvidia is touting a 20 percent improvement in overall performance thus allowing the stream processor to run at higher clock speed and still drastically improve performance.

GeForce 9600GT uses an second-generation stream-processor which runs at 1625MHz,supports 512 MB GDDR3 RAM on 256-bit bus.Now Nvidia is trying to upgrade it’s mid-range card from 256 MB to 512 MB.

GeForce 9600GT supports Nvidia PureVideo HD.It also has Dynamic Color Enhancement which is used to isolate and improve skin tone in frames.

It has no support for DirectX 10.1,whereas AMD’s has been providing in its 3000-series cards.This support may play a major role in future when new games take advantage of it.

XFX 9600GT comes with dual-link DVI,HDMI.It comes along with single slot cooler.The pack includes  YPbPr component video dongle and a single DVI-to-VGA adapter.There is no sign of HDMI adapter whereas AMD’s 3000-series card comes with HDMI output.

We tested XFX 9600GT,through out the test the card ran superbly cool and quiet through out the test.After overclocking temperature went around 46 degrees C,now we can slightly hear noise from the fan.

This card performs better than 8600GTS but still lagging behind 8800GT.

AMD has recently exploited with it’s 3850 and 3870 card cards.AMD’s offering doesn’t match 9600GT.

XFX card comes around MRP of Rs 13000,but the price seems falldown as soon as possible.Best price for this card should be around Rs 8000 to 9000 as per the performance.

GeForce 9600GT specifications:

Transistor count                           : 505 million

Fabrication process                       : 65 nm

Stream processors                        : 64

Core Clock (MHz)                          : 650   MHz

Shader Clock (MHz)                       : 1625  MHz

Memory Clock (MHz)                     : 900    MHz

Memory                                       : 512MB GDDR3

Memory interface                          : 256-bit

Memory Bandwidth (GB/Sec)          : 57.6

Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec)        : 20.8

HDCP,HDMI support                      : Yes

Form factor                                   : Single slot

Max Power consumption               : 95 watts

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Silambattam

October 18th, 2008

The shooting of cameraman-turned-director Saravanan’s Silambattam is complete with the last song canned in AVM studio recently and picturised on Silambarassan and Sanaa Khan. The music of the film by Yuvan is already a hit and popular among Kollywood music listeners. Simbu plays an angry Brahmin priest who is calm and composed till he turns into a “raging bull” against the system and the corrupt people who control it. Says Silambarasan, “When Saravanan narrated the storyline of the film, I got hooked to it. The film has shaped out as a family entertainer with lovely songs by Yuvan.” The film is now slated for release in the last week of November.

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Sri Lankans to make easy MONEY!!!

October 12th, 2008

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) will inform its top cricketers on Wednesday about the status of their England tour next year, Graeme Labrooy, the secretary of the Sri Lanka Cricketers’ Association (SLCA), said. The series clashes with the Indian Premier League for which 13 of them have signed three-year contracts.

Labrooy told Cricinfo that two options are being actively explored to find a solution but the “bottomline is that players will be allowed to play in IPL”. “I have checked with the board’s CEO [Duleep Mendis], and I have been informed that they spoke to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) on Friday and the options being considered are to hold a five-ODI series or rework the dates of the Test and one-day series,” Labrooy said. “The board expects a reply from the ECB tomorrow. The players will be notified about the situation on Wednesday.”

Labrooy said that the Sri Lankan players are yet to commit themselves to a particular formula and are focussed on the India series starting on July 23.

However, Cricinfo has learnt that the Sri Lankan cricketers privately prefer the five-ODI option towards the end of May - the IPL is scheduled to run from April 10 to May 29. Apparently, pushing back the Tests, which start on May 7, as late as possible and cutting the ODI series is another option, while possibly compensating some low-profile IPL players to take part, but there is concern about not playing warm-up matches due to it being early season in England.

When asked about the players’ preference, Labrooy said: “The players have not committed to anything so far and are waiting for the board to get back to them. They are right now wrapped up in the India series. We have told them ‘Forget about this, just focus on the India series and we will look after this issue’. Actually, we have not even discussed the issue in detail with players because we don’t want to distract them ahead of the series against India. Of course, they are concerned but they have not taken any stand as yet.”

On July 8, the ECB announced the dates for the Sri Lanka tour in 2009, which starts with a warm-up game against Leicestershire on April 21 and ends with the third and final one-day international against England on May 30. But two days later, following an intervention from the country’s president on behalf of the players, Mendis announced that the Sri Lankan players would be allowed to appear for the IPL and that a compromise would be worked out with the ECB.

The hitch is that SLC officials have already signed tour contracts with the ECB for three pre-Test warm-up games, two Tests, a one-day practice game against Somerset and three ODIs that will be held between April 21 and May 30 - any shift would lead to financial losses for the English board and give rise to demands from England players to join the IPL for the same period.

The tour was firmed up during the recent ICC conference in Dubai, where SLC’s interim committee chairman Arjuna Ranatunga agreed to the ECB’s request to fill in the slot vacated by Zimbabwe for the 2009 season. The 13 Sri Lankans on three-year contracts with the IPL franchises include Mahela Jayawardene, their captain, Kumar Sangakkara, the vice-captain, and Muttiah Muralitharan.

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Norms for 11th pass

October 2nd, 2008

While the school education department is seriously considering a proposal to hold public examinations at the end of the eleventh standard — to curb the tendency among schools to skip the year’s syllabus and teach the 12th standard portions —, the present system of holding annual exams at the district level for ‘Plus One’ seems to be a farce, say educationists.
There is no stipulated norm to decide whether a student has passed or failed in Plus One (11th), rendering the system questionable, they contend. At present, there is no hard and fast rule on promoting students to 12th or detaining them after nearly five lakh students take their examinations at the end of 11th class. While a team of teachers sets the common question paper at the district level, valuation is done at the district or zone levels. However, the staff council of the schools concerned enjoy the ultimate discretion to declare whether a student has passed or failed.
“If the school’s staff council resolves to promote all those who appeared for the exam, a student will be promoted to 12th even if he or she has scored zero in a particular subject. This is not the case for lower classes like sixth to ninth standards, where students must secure at least 25% for promotion to the next class,” remarks R Muthukrishnan, who retired as chief educational officer.
Enquiries reveal that Coimbatore, Udhagamandalam and Pudukkottai gave ‘all pass’ for Plus One students last year, while in nine other districts, the failure percentage was in a single digit.
Exploiting the lacunae in the system, many schools skip a major part of their 11th standard syllabus. They start intensive teaching of the 12th standard portions as marks obtained in the second year alone are taken into account for admission to professional courses. “As a result of automatic promotions in 11th standard, students struggle to cope with their studies at the college level,” says S Aruna, physics lecturer a government arts college. Government school students suffer more, as they study their 12th class syllabus only for a year, but some private schools train their students for a few more months.
However, R Mathivathani, a Class XI student, is afraid that facing examinations continuously (from 10th to12th) would be too stressful for students.

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Ameer’s anguish

September 28th, 2008

Ameer’s arrest has created a piquant situation for the director who was planning to launch himself as a hero with the Subramaniyam Siva-directed Yogi. Though he has been granted bail in the case filed against him for his provocative speech against the Sri Lankan government, he is still required to stay in Madurai until further court orders. Also, the judge has ordered him to report and sign in at the court as long as the case is on. Ameer says it is good in a way as he gets time to spend with his family who are settled in Madurai! On the other hand, his Yogi is nearing completion and was to release in December. It is learnt that there are 15 days of shoot remaining and that it has to be be shot in Chennai as the story is about a Chennai slumlord. This film will make the critically-acclaimed filmmaker join a long list of directors who are turning actors due to various reasons. Though technology is at its peak these days, continuity problems are bound to arise if they shoot in Madurai. Meanwhile, the Paruthiveeran director has also blocked the dates of actor Jayam Ravi for his next directorial venture titled Kannabiran, which is to start in January. We hope that the courts will relook on his bail issue and Ameer comes back to his passion, which is cinema.

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Dhoni opens up on Anil Kumbles’ retirement

September 13th, 2008

Anil Kumble’s sudden and unexpected decision to quit may have come as a huge surprise to most of us but somehow India’s new Test captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, knew that the veteran would not hang a day longer once he believed his time was up.
About six weeks back, long before rumours of the so-called VRS scheme came to life, Dhoni told this scribe, “I’m not sure about other guys, but I know for sure that Kumble will be the first to take the call by himself.’’
Indeed, when Sourav Ganguly announced his retirement on the eve of the first Test in Bangalore, one thought that perhaps Dhoni’s prediction was off the mark. However, by a quirk of fate Kumble’s hand injury played a part in his unexpected early departure ahead of Ganguly, thereby becoming the first among the senior pros to walk into the sunset.
Maybe that’s precisely why, even when the critics were needlessly debating whether or not Dhoni should take over the reigns of Indian cricket from Kumble, the man himself was pretty cool about it.
“I’m too happy and privileged to be playing under someone as great and as modest as Kumble,’’ Dhoni had told TOI on the eve of the Irani Trophy.
In fact, he went on to shower heavenly praises on his captain saying, “Kumble commands the respect of his team. He is a legend and a great matchwinner.’

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MRTS

August 30th, 2008

North Chennai, the neglected backyard of the city, could end up lapping up the prestigious Chennai Metro Rail project if the state government’s plans to extend the metro rail to Tiruvotriyur fructifies.
Chennai Metro Rail managing director T V Somanathan on Friday said the state was planning to extend the metro rail by four km from Washermenpet to Tiruvotriyur following repeated requests from the residents in those areas.
The government initially considered seven alignments for the metro rail project and decided to take up two corridors — from Washermenpet to Airport and Fort to St Thomas Mount — in the first phase, he said at a seminar organised on the second master plan by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA).
Despite the earlier plans to extend the link till Tiruvotriyur, he said the consultants had left out Tiruvotriyur after a study indicated that the project would not be economically feasible as it would not get patronage in North Chennai. F u r - t h e r, the gove r n m e n t would have to demolish rows of private buildings to accommodate the project.
However, he was non-committal on whether the Tiruvotriyur link would be taken up as part of the first phase itself in the revised scheme. “In case it is not included in the first phase, it could be covered in the next phase,” he said.
Somanathan said the two metro rail corridors covering 45 km would have 20 underground stations and 16 elevated stations with eight stations linking the MRTS, Koyambedu bus terminus, MTC routes, suburban trains and air traffic.
Out of the 80 hectares required for the project, only 8 hectares would be acquired from private parties. Only under impossible circumstances, the state would resort to compulsory acquisition, he said.
To maximise the reach of the project, the Metro Rail and Metropolitan T r a n s p o r t Corporation (MTC) would promote joint developments along certain feeder routes, he said.
Southern Railway chief administrative officer R Ramanathan called upon civic and development officials to help the railways remove encroachments along the approach roads of the Mass Rapid Transit Systems (MRTS) stations for integrating it with other modes of public transport.

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