Wanted: Decent Tamil Movie Directors

Now, I know Kollywood has been going through a rough patch lately but after watching Azhagiya Tamil Magan over the weekend, I think it is in desperate need of decent directors. Now, I didn't say "good" directors because that's asking too much. We'd just take "decent" directors who can provide good movies that dont suck so bad.

Whenever I go watch a Tamil movie, I "switch" to a very low expectation mode - with a limited budget and a star such as Vijay, there's bound to be some masala value in the movie. But ATM was unbearable. I literally predicted what the next scene was gonna to be before it happened. There was no logic to the movie. Both Vijay and Shreya acted poorly to say the least. Rediff review was right on.

I went to the Movie for two reasons -- first of all, I liked the songs by AR Rahman and was hoping to see them in action - they were butchered. My favorite song of the movie - Nee Marilyn Monroe - had some item girl who was overweight - not Shreya who was the second reason I went to the movie for. And, I was thoroughly disappointed on both fronts. And what's with overt references to Shakeela and her movies? The movie was so bad that I was happy that I could leave before the climax for other reasons.

With Mani Ratnam and Priyadarshan fully dedicating themselves to Bollywood, Shankar who's expected to make the move to Bollywood with Robot, Jeeva who unfortunately passed away and with 3B's (K. Balachander, Bharathiraja and Balu Mahendra) in retirement, we are left to only look forward to movies by a select few - Gautham Menon, Vasanth and that's it. Don't tell me S.J. Suriya and Silambarasan are also directors. I meant "decent" directors.

Kollywood is in desperate need of decent directors.

Recently added to my iPhone

Here are some of the songs/albums that I recently added to my iPhone and my quick hit rant/review of them:

1. Cheeni Kum - somehow listening to classic Ilayaraja's songs in newly remixed versions and that too in Hindi sound really nice to me - wonder why he doesn't do this often. My favorite song has gotta be 'Sooni Sooni' which is a adapted from one of my all-time favorite tamil song - 'Mandram Vantha'. But why does Shreya Ghoshal have to sing 4 of the 5 songs in the album?

2. Justin Timberlake - I know, I know -- he's the symbol of the chewing gum pop generation, but listen me out. I miss those fast-paced disco songs that came during the Michael Jackson era with elaborate arrangements and an amazing music video to go with it. Watch and listen to What Goes Around / Comes Around and you'll know what I'm talking about. Its got none of the nasal screeching stuff but is very different and good. Another good song from JT is LoveStoned / I think She Knows.

3. ATM - Well, I just found this tamil album from the Vijay movie with music score by none other than A. R. Rahman last night and can't stop listening to the song 'Nee Marilyn Monroe'. The lyrics go like this:

'Nee Marilyn Monroe cloning-aa? illa
Jennifer Lopez-oda scanning-aa?
One-day mattum girlfriend-aaga variya?
Hey rock-and-roll-il kilaaadi
Rap song-ilae minnae(?) munodi
Saturday night party-ku pogalaam variya?

It's sung by Benny Dayal and Ujjayinee who I have never heard of before but Ujjayinee sounds really crisp and fresh. Especially the hook 'variya' is quite catchy and will certainly be a hit. Other songs on the album are also great. Overall, Rahman is kinda back to his best in this album, I should say.

That's it for now. If you haven't figured it by now - Yes, I listen to music from all three languages - Tamil, Hindi and English. It helps keep my music thirst satisfied ;)...

Dasavatharam

It's a still from the upcoming Tamil movie, Dasavatharam, starring Kamal Hassan. While the movie looks promising, I have just one question: How'd he lose all that weight?