Sun eats mobile signal

According to this Inquirer article solar flares can attenuate mobile signals significantly. And this does not mean if you go into a burrow you'll be getting signal bursts. The sun actually causes the signal-towers that face the Sun to lose signal for brief periods. And since the Sun attacks the hub, the tower, solar flares are apparently responsible for 8-20% of the dropped calls.

At least now the mobile companies don't have to take the blame anymore and better yet, they can blame a cause that does not have any solution, the Sun.

Wine tastings gone wild

Doug Kuntz for The New York Time

I had earlier written here about wine helping us to live longer. But meanwhile, being a teetotaler, I've been thinking (a) what are the consequences of trying to live long by consuming wine? and (b) Do I really want to live that long given people around me will be all high on wine all the time wanting to live longer?

Frankly, I don't understand why people drink. The main reasons I don't drink is that I want to remember that I had fun and to remember the fun I had. And not only do people around me drink and float in a puddle of puke, but also often make me share the miseries they go through!

According to this New York Times post:

There also are reports of tastings gone wild involving intoxicated visitors who have tossed back full glasses of wine without regard to nose or body until they grabbed the brass spittoon for baser purposes.

The above is one reason I wouldn't run a vineyard or a wine-tasting event.

The latest additions to local lore include a story about members of an inebriated group at the Palmer Vineyards here who hopped off a hayride and began gallivanting naked through the vines.

Aforementioned is one reason why I would not want to be around people who're inebriated on wine.

One thing going in favour of alcohol, quoting Jerry Seinfeld, "Say what you want about alcohol, but not only are there not a lot of optional accessories, alcohol actually helps you get rid of things. Family, home, job, driver's license. In fact, at a certain point, the only thing you have to remember to get, is more alcohol, and maybe a rag for your squeegee."


I'd rather follow the Bible:

Do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly!

In the end it bites like a snake, and poisons like a viper.

Your eyes will see strange sightes and your mind imagine confusing things.

Amen.

Review: Chennai 600028

Dokku, Gaaji and Bet-matchu you can relate to.

Rating: 6/10(6, 5, 7, 6, 6, 6, 5, 7)

This low budget venture by Venkat Prabu, son of Gangai Amaran, is a street-cricket centric light hearted tale of two teams, Sharks and Rockers, and about their rivalry saga reaching a pinnacle at the impending flood-light tournament. The beauty of the story is that, if you ever lived among the 'local' cricket teams, you'll immediately be able to relate to every character. The characters don't have depth enough, but even the superficial portrayal elicits memories of someone that you match each character with, and that made me relive my fond street-cricket moments (this is why I gave the story a 7/10). Visalakshmi-Thottam, the home of the Sharks, reminded me not only of my local-cricket past, but also of my frequent visits to a friend who actually lived in Visalakshi-Thottam. The portrayal of Visalakshi-Thottam is very accurate, with jobless guys bullying around newcomers and kids, extracting rides from their new bikes and borrowing their new bats/balls (I've been a victim, and so the emotion :) ).

The movie starts with SPB introducing the characters of the 'hero' team, Sharks, in a magnific voice and a jovial tone. This kickstarts the movie on a very light vein that immediately puts every cricket lover in a comfort zone. Raghu (Jai), a lead 'Royapuram' Rockers bowler, moves to the Sharks' area since his father gets transferred from Royapuram and this creates friction between him and the Sharks. Also owing to his inability to attend Rockers' practice, he is suspected of being a Sharks-spy and is demoted in the batting order. This rubs him the wrong way, causing him to gradually shift from the Rockers to the Sharks. Meanwhile, Karthik (Siva), the Sharks team captain, falls in love with the sister of the lead Sharks batsman, Pazhani (Nithinsathyaa) which creates a intra-team conflict when the big game around the corner. To further complicate matters, Karthik gets stabbed by one of his brother's enemies, and this prevents him from playing against the Rockers. Raghu's Rockers knowledge comes as a vital weapon during the Sharks semi-finals against the Rockers.

I enjoyed a few characters and situations that I could completely relate to. Seenu (Premgi Amaran) is a self-proclaimed all-rounder and I immediately fell in love with his character. I mean, who would not fall in love with a character who is pretty bad at cricket, is the funny bone of the team and is happy being that way. Seenu's delivery of a Chandramukhi take-off is nothing less than hilarious. Half-way into the movie, the team wants to garner money for a 'thaNNi' party, and compels a middle-school team into a bet-match on the beach. If you've ever played bet-matches, you'll realise how funny this gets - I've been in situations where we were over-confident getting into a bet-match, without having money at stake, and later had to pawn our cricket-kits for a few days until we gave the winning team the money.

The movie ends in a very unexpected but a very funny note. This way, you forget the unspectacular meat of the movie and just remember you were happy during the start and at the end and have an illusion of satisfaction after the movie.

The movie negatives were average performances from the amateurs and not-so-special screenplay. The positives were that it strikes the love of the masses - cricket - and that it still does not make a fool of itself unlike movies such as I love you da. The last time I remember seeing cricket as even a side theme was in uLLam ketkume and the movie did a reasonable job of portraying it credibly. I would like to see more movies with cricket as their theme, mainly because of the audience base that it can muster. But since the audience are very aware of the subject, it becomes difficult for the director to give a real-feel. Chennai-28 succeeds in giving the movie a real feel by resorting to street-cricket and by studying the nitty-gritty of the game.

The song Yaaro-YaarukkuL by SPB is my favourite in the movie and has the SPB feel that reminds me of ellorum sollum paattu from Marupadiyum. World cuppa is a catchy number with funny lyrics and un paarvaimele pattal has a classic Yuvan signature. It is noteworthy that the music was composed by ILayaraja-puthran Yuvan and Amaran-puthran Premgi.

Review criteria

The following is the method I came up with to calculate the rating-metric of a movie and will try to tweak it as I receive feedbacks from you folks.

I shortlisted the elements I generally break down a movie into. They are -

Direction(3)
Acting(3)
Story(2)
Dialogues(2)
Screenplay(1)
Music/background score, Stunts & Choreography(2)
Cinematography & visual effetcs(1)
Comedy(1)

The numbers in the bracket represent the importance associated with the respective criterion. Each movie will receive a score for each criterion out of 10 and then the final score will be evaluated by factoring in the importance of the particular criterion. For example, let's say a movie has the following ratings:

DIRECTION (3) : 8 = 24
ACTING (3) : 8 = 24
STORY (2) : 8 = 16
DIALOGUES (2) : 7 = 14
SCREENPLAY (1) : 9 = 9
MUSIC/CHOREO (2) : 6 = 12
CINEMATOGRAPHY(1) : 7 = 7
COMEDY (1) : 10= 10

The overall rating comes to 116/15 = 7.8.

I know this sounds too meticulous, but I don't intend to make this excruciating for every review. I will assign a score such as 7.8/10 (8, 8, 8, 7, 9, 6, 7, 10) for the above movie and link to this post, and anyone interested in knowing the details can read this post. The scores in the brackets correspond respectively to the scores for the individual elements listed above.

I've often wondered what would be a good metric to assign a numeric rating to a movie. I really like Balaji's method of star-rating a movie, and I've always wanted to discuss with him how he comes up with the ratings. Since his rating mostly coincides with how I feel about the movie, I rely on it heavily to decide whether or not to watch a movie. But, for example, when I see a metric in RottenTomatoes the take-away is not clear to me at the end of reading a movie review. If there is a clear metric associated with every movie, and I know how the metric was arrived at, it would give me a reasonable idea as to why the movie is rated the way it's rated especially when it is rated by a single reviewer.

I hope I'm able to keep up with this rating system, and that it is of some use to you readers. Any comments on how to improve the system is much appreciated, as I've mentioned above.

Taj Mahal is still a Wonder

Taj Mahal is still among the seven wonders of the world. According to the WSJ article:

Brazil's Statue of Christ Redeemer, Peru's Machu Picchu, and Mexico'sChichen Itza pyramid were chosen alongside the Great Wall of China, Jordan'sPetra, the Colosseum in Rome and India's Taj Mahal....

Among the places left out were the Acropolis in Athens, Greece; the Statuesof Easter Island, Chile; Cambodia's Angkor; Turkey's Hagia Sophia; and Russia'sKremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral....

The Great Pyramids of Giza, the only surviving structures from the original seven wonders of the ancient world, kept their status in addition to the new seven.

Glad, I am. But, who is attesting the status of these wonders? According to the wikipedia article, it is organized by a Swiss corporation called New Open World Corporation (NOWC). Why should the whole world, including you and me, crave for this attestation by a not-so-established organisation? Taj Mahal was given the world heritage status in 1983 and no private organisation can strip it of the status. In fact, according to UNESCO:

In order to avoid any damaging confusion, UNESCO wishes to reaffirm that there is no link whatsoever between UNESCO's World Heritage programme, which aims to protect world heritage, and the current campaign concerning "The New 7 Wonders of the World"....

UNESCO's objective and mandate is to assist countries in identifying, protecting and preserving World Heritage. Acknowledging the sentimental or emblematic value of sites and inscribing them on a new list is not enough. Scientific criteria must be defined, the quality of candidates evaluated, and legislative and management frameworks set up.

To me, the seven wonders of the world are like the ivy-league institutions. It is not about whether there are new institutions that have surpassed the imposing nature of the older ones - it is about a rich history, with splendid credits - both of which can never be stripped from institutions that have been proclaimed to have the status.

Again, I'm very happy to learn that Taj Mahal still stands as an edifice that evokes awe from the majority of the world, but I'm not so sure I would have been disturbed if it had not made the list. Whether or not it made this list, Taj Mahal would have always retained its sheen - officially too.

Short story: Leftovers?

Disclaimer: Read this story at your own discretion. Children, expectant women and weak-hearted are strongly discouraged from reading this story.

Belgokiler, a 43 year old Belgian man, invited Dumby for a casual dinner party to introduce his stepson, 11 years old, and his wife, 46 years old, to Dumby. The dinner was a grand affair and the guests were delighted by the scrumptious food and wine. Anticipating the guest crowd to heat up the air around the dinner table, Belgoklier had already arranged an alternate place for his family. A place that was cold, freezing cold, away from the bodily warmth and the heat generated by the candles in the dinner table.

After a boisterous dinner, but still not having met his family, Dumby helped Belgokiler pack the leftovers. "Do you have place enough to stuff all of these left overs?", asked Dumby. "Are you kidding me? We, in Belgium, have freezers that can house an entire family, well, almost.", he said. Still feeling a little queasy about not having met his family, Dumby continued to pack the leftovers, now at 43 boxes.

Dumby walked to the freezer to put the boxes and opened the freezer door. Belgokiler rushed to her saying "Mrs. Dumby, meet Mrs. Belgokiler and her son." Dumbfounded, Dumby looked at them and said "Heeelllllooooo. Sooorrryyy yooouuu'rre lalall..lllate".

Curtains.

-------------------------

That was an inspired short story, inspired from real-life events with the names of characters modified. THAT is spooky!

Review: Karuppusamy Kuththagaidhaarar

Old wine in a new bottle. Fresh start, but familiar aftertaste.


Rating: 6.2/10(6, 6, 7, 7, 6, 5, 5, 7)

Given the number of films that come out each year with love as their subject, directors have to scout consciously for new ideas to serve the old wine in a new bottle. That is exactly what director Murthy has done with Karuppusamy Kuththagaidhaarar. He has served a premeditated theme in a new setting - love hindered by the lovers' desire for education.

Karuppusamy@Jerox (Karan) is a cycle stand contractor (which might justify kuththagaithaarar in the title), also runs a dance troupe that stages actor-lookalikes. This blend of professions gives a unique air to the movie's setting. The movie opens with Nagesh, Chandrababu, Kamal and Sivaji clones dancing on stage when Karan is introduced as a Rajni Kanth 'Jerox' and comes dancing on stage for the song pothuvaaga enmanasu thangam. I was actually quite surprised at how closely he resembles KaLai. Jerox is a happy-go-lucky Madurai-bred youngster mouthing a thick Madurai-Tamil accent. All his friends from the troupe form a jolly circle that is portrayed beautifully. Jerox meets Raasathi (debutante Meenakshi), a medical student, who is a customer at Jerox's cycle stand. She is drawn to him owing to his illogically close character resemblance to Raasathi's mother - a character that is unassumingly selfless, and casually caring which makes the audience invariably develop a liking for Jerox. Raasathi expresses her feelings to Jerox, but also mentions that she is unable to concentrate on her education since he disturbs her emotionally, and guarantees that if he stood by her, she would go on to become a successful Doctor. Initially confused, Jerox slowly develops a liking for Raasathi and his main motive becomes to see her successful in her career (at this point, I was reminded of the Suryavamsam relation between Sarath Kumar and Deivayani). Uptill this point, the movie is fresh and the relationships portrayed are believable.

When Raasathi's father starts opposing her love for the lower caste Jerox, the movie flashes back to explain why and how Raasathi, her father and her grandfather willfully estrange themselves from the rest of the family. Raasathi's father, now, reunites with his family primarily because he thinks they will be able to save them from an impending discomfiture. Jerox's main intention still being to see Raasathi successful, trades his love for her education. But the villainous characters (resembling those in Kadhal), plot against Raasathi and Jerox. What happens to the star-crossed lovers forms the rest of the story.

The Jerox-Raasathi relationship's undercurrent of education adds a special dimension to love that no other movie has exploited. The simplicity and clarity of their relationship is very touching. The climax of the movie floats like oil on water, and does not fit well with the simplicity that was established all through the movie. The second-half of the movie is difficult to digest and starts smelling of old wine. The occasional jibes in Madurai-Tamil are really funny.

I have not yet seen Karan's Kokki. But since I saw him last, he has gone down tremendously and looks as young as ever. I used to like Karan as an actor about a decade back, and more so because he used to live opposite to a friend of mine from school. Even purely as an actor, I've always felt his potential wasn't exploioted and about 6 years back, I've argued with friends that his potential is as untapped as was Chiyaan Vikram's. I'm happy that he is getting projects that scratch his talent. Meenakshi is impressive for a beginner and has a homely look. But her appearance might deprive her of chances in non-village based subjects. Her eyes, eyebrows and facial make-up reminds me of Sruthika. Vadivelu's comedy track isn't all that funny and like many of his recent films, is patched over the movie almost as an after-thought. But the movie's comedy was likeable and subtle except for Vadivelu's sections.

Dheena's music is run-of-the-mill for most part. I liked Sangam Vaithu for Karthik's voice and for a pleasant fusion of folk and western music. O. S. Arun, I feel, has been brought into the soundtrack for no big reason. His song Kaadhal Enbadhu is very ordinary as is the song by Bombay Jayashree - Uppu Kallu. The song Karuppan Varan is inspiring and fits the movie perfectly.

More TVs than people

I read elsewhere this humourous article, but could relate to it instantly since my grandmother always talks about Gayathri as if she were her daughter. Gayathri is actually a character in a Tamil serial on SunTv, or so I think. But the following was hilarious:

The average American home now contains more televisions than people. What do you think?

Danielle Prediger,
Systems Analyst
"Does that include the people on the televisions? Because they are just as much a part of my household as my children."

George Riley,
Furrier
"Are you sure that report wasn't talking about books? I could see that being the case with books. As a nation, we love to read."

Lionel Kelley,
TV Repairman
"As a TV repairman and serial killer, I feel partly to blame for this problem."

What do you think?

Eternally Sweet-16

The fact that we are at the brink of a bio-technological revolution is substantiated by researchers' finding drugs that combat aging! Think about it - why would scientists try to find drugs to stop aging? Is it a disease? Have we solved and cracked the cures for all the other diseases in the world that we are jobless enough to start combating aging? Soon, I think, we will find scientists researching drugs for reducing a person's age!

Jokes apart, it is an earth-shattering finding that a chemical found in food products, as common as red-wine, is anti-aging, anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory and life-prolonging. Yes, life-prolonging. The miracle chemical is resveratrol. The consequences of the discovery of this drug have tentacles that seek to explain the French Paradox. The paradox is that French have a very low incidence of coronary heart disease inspite of diets with very high saturated-fat content. The explanation is that the resveratrol present in red-wine offers its benefits as an anti-oxidant to promote over-all health.

According to CNN's article on resveratrol:

Resveratrol is the ingredient in red wine that made headlines when scientists demonstrated that it kept overfed mice from gaining weight, turned them into the equivalent of Olympic marathoners, and seemed to slow down their aging process. Few medical discoveries have generated so much instant buzz - even Jay Leno riffed about it in his opening monologue.

One of the first companies to invest in this chemical is Sirtris Pharmaceuticals. There have been animal studies to buttress the working of the chemical and it is yet to be established that this works in humans. The company was started by a few Harvard alumni with Professors from MIT and Harvard on the advisory committee. They even went public end May.

How does someone find so much promise in such an inceptive concept as to give up lucrative jobs/careers to start-up? I understand that is what starting-up entails, but still, sometimes it is hard to see how people take so much risk. I admire their passion and hunger for more success, and I wish I develop such instincts and passion someday.

Meanwhile, let's all party, mind you though on red-wine only so that we may all live longer. Long live...

Review: Unnale Unnale

It translates to 'because of you' but really, whom do we blame?

Rating: 5.3/10(6, 4, 6, 5, 5, 6, 7, 3)

The movie's director Jeeva passed away on June 26 2007 after a fatal cardiac arrest when he was shooting for his next film, Dhaam Dhoom, with Jayam Ravi in Russia. May his soul Rest In Peace.


The earlier ventures of the cinematographer turned director Jeeva, 12B and ULLam Ketkume, were fresh, youthful and funny. This movie has a mild dose of youthfulness but glaringly lacks in the other two aspects.

The movie is about 3 educated youth involved in a love triangle. The subject of the movie is so trite that it is difficult to handle the subject without sounding clichéd. Here, one should appreciate Jeeva's efforts, since this is not the aspect of the film that lets it down badly. Karthik (Vinay) who is now a Civil Engineer, in flashback, falls in love with Jhansi (Sada) during their college days. Their characters are poles apart. Jhansi is a stickler with respect to what she expects from her love and Vinay is a compulsive flirt who flirts at every chance he gets. After an implied break-up, Karthik still likes Jhansi but isn't able to understand her expectations and thinks she is unreasonable. Well, with their characters designed to repel each other, I don't know why two such people would even talk to each other, let alone fall in love!

Karthik gets an opportunity to fly to Melbourne for his project, and in his flight to Melbourne he meets a chirpy bubbly girl Deepika (Tanisha). Some of her pranks and antics on the flight are lovable, but does not do much to save the film. In Melbourne, Jhansi, Depika's colleague, comes to receive Deepika at the airport. At this point in the film, it become blatantly obvious that the movie is going to revolve around the three protagonists going in and out of a love triangle. Deepika slowly develops a liking for Karthik, but still sincerely tries to patch-up the two poles. By taking the characters in and out of emotions, the movie does well in the keep-guessing aspect of the suspense - which was what prevented me from pressing the 'stop' button.

I think all 3 protagonists have dubbed voices, which actually slows down the pace of an already snailing film. There is an idiom in Tamil - 'kadichu thupparathu' - which perfectly describes Vinay's dialogue delivery. Vinay's light-hearted look helps in many scenes, but isn't a strength in serious scenes. Sada does not have much of dialogues, and I think her character was such that she had to do much of the acting only through her eyes and facial gestures which she does reasonably well. Tanisha, living up to her sister Kajol's reputation, does very well to raise the spirits of an otherwise flagging movie. Sridhar's comedy comes as nothing less than annoying. It completely stalls the pace of the inching-film and his slapstick and loud style does not gel with the subtle emotions the film tries to convey. I'd prefer not to comment on Raju's (Raju Sundaram) comedy stint in the movie.

The song unnale unnale is the highlight of the soundtrack. Karthik's voice does the magic again as it did in oru malai iLa veyyil (Ghajini) and oru ooril azhage (Kakkha Kakkha). June ponaal has Harris Jeyaraj written all over it, and one interesting fact about this song is that it was written with the movie name July katril in mind which was later changed for tax reasons. Hello miss resembles the song vaNNaththu poochi from Bala. The other songs did not make much of an impact. The background score is kept alive just by the tune of unnale unnale and is otherwise quite dull.

Other interesting trivia about the movie is that Arya and Sonia Agarwal refused when offered the lead roles in this film.