Tea & Tiffin @ Shangeeta Chennai

My Mini Tiffin Idlis

Chennai Coffe 4

Sundar's Paper Dosa

Dinesh's Vada n Sambar

Shashi's Upma

Dinner @ Kim Ling Chinese Restaurant Chennai

Mushroom & Couliflower in Sauce

Vege Kueh Teow Fried

TomYam Soup

Prawn Oriental Sauce

Mandarin Promfet Fish

Chinese Tea

Vegetable Fried Rice

Raja's Great Concert

Snack @ Bee's Kopitiam Chennai

Patato Murtabak

Sesame Toast

Spring Roll

Bubur

Rajapattai Review

Director Suseenthiran [Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu, Naan Magan Alla] has a distinct tally of dealing in both countryside and urban centred stories and hones it, which is matchless. Notably, he is never game for stardom to entice box office; and that’s ability. This time around he sees to a U-Turn and gives his hero a go.
Rajapattai [King’s Course] starts with Anal Murugan [Vikram], a Cinema fight boy, muscle man and an aspirant Villain, who shares roof with his film fellows including Shanmugam [Thambi Ramaiah] who is a wannabe film director. Murugan’s tryst with Dhakshnamurthy aka Dhakshna [Director K Vishwanath], an erstwhile merchant, endears them at once and they become buddies. Dhaksha’s son Chidambaram [Avinash] tries to pocket an orphanage property from him much against his will. In comes Ranganayagi or Akka [Sana] who is a minister in power; grabes properties of natives above suspicion, for her political benefits. She is supported by rowdies of Vappa [Pradeep Rawat]. No price for guessing rest of the story.
Now, several ideas in the movie seem to have clean references of earlier blockbusters in Tamil cinema. While land grabbing played a subject in Singam, Persona of Vikram as Anal Murugan is very similar to that of Kamalhassan in Pammal K Sambandham, not to forget the Sivaji-Vijay starrer Once More in which a similar bond between the male leads was showed. Its not only tough to see Vikram do a regular Romeo-types, he also looks older for a coward lover.
5 time national award winning director K Vishwanath as Dhakshna steals the show by leading the lighter portions during the first half. Sana as Ranganayagi lets her powerful eyes express the umbrage but her clichéd role has very little substance.

The string between satire and humour and intelligence is not as thinner as Suseenthiran imagines it to be and his engagement of the so-called sharp and subtle phrases by Vikram, the fuzzily choreographed stunt sequence in the Temple scene, and those Vikram-Vishwanath-Ramaiah talks, steer the ‘Mo’ word in the balcony every now and then. A national award winner [Thambi Ramaiah] is a bad call for the role.
Once again Tamil Cinema uses the female lead, here, Dhiksha Seth [debu], only for songs and a concluding kidnap; and only here can we witness someone being snatched off; but benignly allowed mobile phone in pocket. The entire hostage drama, intended to be clever, ended being ridiculous. We can only remember the much sharper Dhil and Dhool of Vikram and how they convinced us. The 45-year-old actor gets a sprint in the movie as he gets to don multiple looks, but many of them are mere make-overs and not roles.
Yuvan and Yugabarathy get our pity as their decent work in an ordinary script sound nuisance. Lest, the disco number “Villathi Villangal…” [Malathi and Mano] is the pick among the 4 songs and melody could have been avoided in the fore. By the time “Ladu ladu….” stars with the credits, the hall gets empty.
The amount of details put into Vikram’s miniature make-overs, stylish good looks and trendy outfits could have been done with the script as well. With good screenplay, the movie could have been an all time comedy of Vikram’s Filmography. The movie is baby honour to the much-exploited gym boys in Tamil Cinema. The stunts often seen in the air, with sounds of bone cracking makes it all the more irksome. In Rajapattai, many of them manage to rouse chuckles with their hairdos and cowardice. They will survive as long as nutty heroes dominate Kollywood.
Only clear sense of humour and not mere references could have put a good show for Rajapattai.

Mayakkam Enna Review

Story

Dhanush is the pivot around whom the whole story revolves. Karthik (Dhanush) is a freelance photographer who lives life his own way. He does work hard and wants to leave a mark as an photographer. Though he does portfolio and weddings, his pasion is wildlife photography. His only desire in life is to work with Madhesh Krishnaswamy (Ravi Prasad), a world renowned wildlife photographer. 

Karthik prefers to spend his time with his close buddie Sundar (Sundar) and their gang have a gala time. One fine day, Kartik is introduced to Yamini (Richa), Sundar's girlfriend. Kartik and Yamini turns cat and mouse and often end up quarreling. But call it fate, Yamini is slowly attracted towards Kartik. There begins a different journey in the lives of these three people. What happens then forms the rest.

Performance

Its straightaway a Dhanush special. The National award winning actor has proved that he can do any role with ease. His expressions and body language  are the hallmark of the movie. Selvaraghavan has understood the strength of Dhanush and played it well.

Richa is a Revelation. She brings right emotions and has a meaty role to play. Sundar walks away with honours and does chip in with his best.All the erst of the characters add pep to the proceedings.

Direction & Technicalities

Selva has a nose for picking right technicians. Cinematographer Ramji is the apt choice. He pictures a poetry on screen. His camera captures the events in rich colours with clarity. G V Prakash's music adds strength. The background score give filip to the scenes.Kathal En Kadhal, Pirai Thedum and Naan Sonnadhum are all woven into the narrative seamlessly, while the first number Voda Voda.. is shot as a fun music-video style number. Selva's dialogues too deserve a mention.

Strength

Dhanush, Ramji's camera and Selvaraghavan's screenplay.

Verdict

Very Good 

Lyrics - Why This Kolaveri DI... From 3

oh boys i am singing song

soup song

flop song

why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di

why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di

why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di

why this kolaveri..di

distance la moon-u moon-u 

moon-u  color-u  white-u

white background night-u nigth-u

night-u color-u black-u

why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di

why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di

white skin girl-u girl-u

girl-u heart-u black-u

eyes eyes meet-u meet-u

my future dark

why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di

why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di

maama notes eduthuko

apdiye kaila snacks eduthuko

super maama ready

ready 1 2 3 4

wat a change over maama

ok maama now tune change-u

kaila glass

only english.. 

hand la glass

glass la scotch

eyes fulla tear-u

empty life

girl come 

life reverse gear-u

love love 

oh my love

you show to me pov

cow cow kozhi cow

i want u here now

god i m dying now

she is happy how

this song pass to boys

we dont have choice

why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di

why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di

why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di

why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di

flop song

LUNCH @ Italiannies, The Gardens

 

Bread And Balsamic Vinegar

Toasted Bruschetta

Topped with marinated tomatoes, pesto sauce and Parmesan cheese

Parmesan Crusted Fish

Oven baked fish filet, served over fried zucchini and red onion strings with white capers sauce

Seafood Risotto

Da yums! But i prefer the rice is cooked not that raw. Another ways to eat the RICE!

Tiramisu

Epic fail

Velayudham Review

Velayudham - Extremely Hopeless Movie

Velayudham Oh My God! The most horrible movie I have seen in a long time. I also have a few serious questions for Vijay (at the end of this blog post).
Velayudham is the masala story of a milkman trying to eradicate corruption, first unknowingly, then knowingly. This is a direct copy of Assassin’s Creed without any exceptions. The start of the movie gives a good idea of how the movie will end, but never expected the end to be the worst one I have seen in many years.

Genelia looks like a direct import from the north, with zero tamil accent – but at least her dialogues are original and she speaks exactly the way she knows it. Hansika Motwani is another heroine in this movie, who looks much bigger in size when compared to Genelia.
Vijay is introduced with just what you expect from a funny Vijay movie, without any serious story build up. The scene in the train when Vijay makes everyone eat the food cooked by his sister is the best. Santhanam comes as ‘Speed’ and is consistently excellent in the timely delivery of his dialogues. Until this point the movie is exactly what we expect from a good time pass movie.
If you are seriously thinking of watching this movie, see if you can enter into a deal with the guy at the ticket counter to sell you the ticket for half price in return for watching only till the interval – that would be the best deal you could get for this movie.
After the interval, as each scene goes, the quality of the movie goes down and down, and finally achieves the most horrible level towards the end of the movie.
WARNING: Some of the content below this might be too dramatic for many people to take. Please read at your own risk

I am guessing it has become very normal for Tamil movie fans to accept the hero killing 100 people in each movie. I remember the same starting from Nanbargal, Subramaniapuram, Endhiran and even in 7am Arivu. Vijay just goes one step further and kills about 200 people in this movie and the way he kills them is even more worse.
By the way, I am not talking about the throwing of people against electric posts, from the train, from the bridge, etc, (all these are also in this movie) as I think that has become normal in fights. I am talking about taking these fights to the next level of cruelty.
In one scene, Vijay cuts one guy into two half not horizontally, but vertically. If you felt bad thinking why he did not cut horizontally, he does that in the last scene, where Vijay reserves the straight cut of the hand and then the horizontal cut of the head for the head of the bad guys (that guy ends up as the head without a head!). Oh, also, in between, Vijay also pokes a few bad guys with his sword, just that his sword is so sharp that it enters from front and comes out from the back – I guess it is ok! If that was normal, here is something new, he stabs one guy from the throat and the end of the knife comes out of the back of the top portion of the head! What is wrong with you people????? Are you barbarians??
Vijay, you are seen as a leader of the masses of the future. You go to Anna Hazare’s Anti-Corruption movement to support his cause. You give all signals in the movies and in your actions in Indian political scene, that you are interested in becoming our leader in the future. Is this what you want the kids of the future to remember about you?
Just one last dialogue from you in this movie to people that every one has a Velayudham inside you for 30 seconds do not erase the memories of all the killings shown in this movie with your multiple swords – It never justifies any of your actions. You are justifying your actions, I guess by saying the Government and law is helpless. That is against what you say in real world, then why act something else and say something else in real world? Vijay – dont confuse people by educating them to take the law in their own hand in their own hands in your movies, and then talk about Gandhiji style of protests in real life. Standing up for your rights is one thing, showing that killing bad people is ok is not acceptable – then why do we need all these laws? Did not expect this from you, Vijay.

Be the change – Vijay – both in reel and real life. Be the change.

7am Arivu Review

Just came back from wasting three hours of my life watching this movie called 7am Arivu.
7am Arivu movie starts with Chinese martial arts – Shaolin Temple and explanation about how Bodhi Dharman, the third prince of Pallava rule travels to China, reaches Nanyang village and teaches medicine as well as martial arts to the natives there.

The first fight scene in China itself is full of unbelievable stunts (also called as ‘reel’ in tamil). Normally my mind is tuned to accepting such stunts performed in english movies or Rajini movies, but this happens to be Surya and so could not accept it. I guess the director wants to see us thinking  it is Bodhi Dharman defeating 100 people. So the benefit of doubt in this one goes to the director.

Bodhi Dharman is known as Damo in China and with the fifteen minute introduction, the China scenes are done. My recommendation is the director should have ended the movie here saying this is the documentary about Bodhi Dharman..but the director had other ideas in mind.
The story then comes to present day and takes the form of Operation Red, an operation executed by a Chinese guy called Dong Li. He is sent to India for this.

Dong Li is very tall,  smart and handsome, but he suffers from a disease which I realized as the movie progresses. (Will discuss about it later in this blog, but want to retain some suspense.)
btw, Operation Red – the director could have called it Operation Halwa, would have been apt for Deepavali.
Surya has matured into a fine actor. His looks, body language and mannerisms show the confidence that has developed in him and it only brings out his good acting skills. Some of Surya’s jokes are excellent – especially the one when Surya and Shruti are on top of an elephant, when Shruti says are we sitting on a patient and Surya says yeah in this case we cannot carry the patient.

Shruti looks slim, elegant and presentable. I wish I could have added the adjective ‘beautiful’, but something is definitely lacking. Shruti looks amazing in many scenes and reminded me of Tabu in many scenes and Sonam Kapoor in a few.
I am not sure if the director told her to talk as much as she wants, as it is her first movie, she just keeps on talking about genetics and DNA forever. Also, she talks great about tamil, but her tamil is so bad to hear that I felt she is better off talking in english itself.
By this stage, the story is very clear – the usual blah, blah, blah and blah.(I will let your creativity run for now).
Munnandhi Chaaral song is quite melodious, while the train soft solo song by SPB is just average. Harris Jeyaraj has shown his class in almost all the songs. They are just amazing.
The second half starts quite interesting with Dong Lee chasing Surya and Shruti.
Around this stage, the director has no clue how to end the movie. So he exposes the disease that Dong Lee suffers from. It is called hypnotic diarrhea. Dong Lee just hyptonises every single person and makes them fight against Surya and Shruti. It was so effective that one person in the theatre got hypnotised and ran towards the screen chasing them.
The actual story should have been that Dong Lee suffers from this disease and he comes to India to get it cured, but the director had other plans in mind.
Finally, at the end of the movie, Surya delivers the big halwa dialogue to every one asking us to go home and relax.
Went to the theatre after seeing all the hype about 7am Arivu.  It was very interesting to note that there is not even a single banner or poster for 7am Arivu, while the theatre is full of Ra.One posters.  I was not sure what to interpret from this, but it was interesting.


What a waste of time! I am guessing Velayudham will be a big hit..thanks to 7am Arivu.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 vs Apple iPad 2 - PART 4

Performance:

If there’s one thing we utterly adore about the two, it has to be the fact that they offer a solid one day’s worth of normal usage – without the worry of having to recharge at any point during the day. On that note, having spent quite some time with both tablets, it seems that in our experience that the iPad 2 has an edge over its rival, but nevertheless, they still offer tolerable levels over the existing crop. Once fully charged in the morning, we didn’t have the need to plug it up even before getting some sleep at the end of the night.


Conclusion:

Literally, it’s a coin toss between the two mainly because they are priced evenly and have their own unique strengths that appeal to certain individuals out there. In terms of design though, we know that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 has the prestigious title of being the thinnest and lightest, but when thinking about their starting price of $500, the iPad 2’s thin profile, solid construction, and choice of premium materials radiates more value for the buck. However, Android 3.1 Honeycomb on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 offers a higher degree of personalization, better implementation of notifications, and an integrated experience that’s barely contested by the iPad 2. Additionally, Samsung’s tablet is the go-to device if you’re intimately interested in shooting photos and videos. In the end, it’s truly the platform experience that vastly separates the two, but no matter which way you dissect it, both are undoubtedly regarded as being the top contenders in this ever-growing tablet space right now.

Test Center Scorecard
	20%	20%	15%	20%	15%	10%
Apple iPad 2	9	8	9	8	9	8	8.5 Very Good
	20%	20%	15%	20%	15%	10%
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1	9	7	8	6	9	8	7.8 Good