Saw this over the last weekend..With lot of express plannings and quick zip to the feltham cineworld straight from work..

This is roughly the same kind of theme as one of his recent movie Nishabd. Of late we end up seeing Amitabh in virtually every 3rd hindi movie.. Amitabh seems to be in a mode to fall in love with young females these days. In Nishabd it was a teenager Jiyah and in Cheenikum its Tabu (the age difference is also kum.. just 30 yrs). While the former bombed in the box office due to fact that it was too much to digest due to the serious nature in the movie, the latter i think will do considerably better due to the same presented in a extra light mode by Balki.. The best part in this movie is that the dad of Tabu played by Paresh Raval is supposed to be 6 yrs younger to Amithab.

The fact that Balki is an ad man shows up in the movie as he has cleverly put some ads indirectly. What is interesting is that Balki has shown that that life expectancy has nothing to do with age with Amithab's 90 yr old perfectly healthy mother and his cancer affected nine-year old friend.

As an ardent fan of Illayaraja, how can my review not touch upon the music. Raja does the background score with his impeccable perfection. He is undoubtedly the best when it comes to background scores. The songs in this movies are all from his yesteryears melodies in tamil. But he has spiced them up a bit to suit the new genre. I am sure the people who have not heard the tamil version would equally be mesmerised. Hope the hindi audience get to taste more of his works..

Cheeni Kum / Sooni Sooni - Mandram Vandha Thndrallu (Mouna Ragam)
Jaane Do Naa - Vizhiyile unthan Vizhiyile (Nooraavadhu Naal)
Baatein Hawa - Kuzhaloodhum Kannanukku Kuyil paadum (Mella thiranthathu Kathavu)

Cheeni Kum is the highlight song (you see it in all the trailers..). Soono Sooni is a bit of a sad song. The voice of the singer suits Amithab to the tee..

Similarly 'Baaten Hawa' comes in two modes 'With' and 'Without' Dialogs (spoken by Amithab). Though the without dialog mode suits casual audio listnening, the with dialog mode sounds nice while watching the movie.

Overall the movie is nice to watch. Good to unwind after a hectic as in my case..

Labels: Reviews

Was shocked to read this. A glitch in the VFS site used to apply for Business Express Visa to UK (and to other countries like USA, China etc..) would mean that all application details submitted would be available to anyone free on the internet. All that was to be done was a simple URL re-engineering...

Those who have applied in the past for a UK visa would know the kind of details we submit when we apply for a Visa to the UK. This includes all your personnal details including the passport details..It is nothing short of a treasure trove for identity thieves and terrorists to impersonate you.

As things stand the Indian online visa applications have now been suspended. What is interesting is that in February, the UK Foreign Office had reportedly awarded VFS a five-year contract worth 190 million pounds for visa processing.

The channel 4 report added that the online system had been running since 2003 and was known to have been compromised for at least a year with tens of thousands of personal details up for grabs.

Labels: Noted

Its the US President George W Bush's another goof-up yesterday. This time its while meeting Queen Elizabeth. He has indirectly suggested that the Queen was more that 200 years old. To top it all, he also winked at her in front of 7,000 special guests.

As part of his welcome speech to the Queen who is on her visit to the US, he mentioned “You helped us celebrate our bicentennial in 1796…Er, 1976”.

The New york times has gone a step ahead and questioned "How does George W Bush, a towel-snapping Texan who puts his feet on the coffee table, drinks water straight from the bottle and was once caught on tape talking with food in his mouth, prepare for a state dinner with the Queen? With tips from an etiquette guide, of course - and a little gentle prodding from his wife."

We need to wait and see if more fun unfolds..

Labels: Noted

I am astornished on reading this..

Labels: Noted

Last week it was the Jaipur court which issued an arrest warrant for the actor Richard Gere for what according to the judge was an act of "Higly sexually erotic" nature of the kiss he gave to Shilpa in an event organised for AIDS awareness. This event sent mixed reactions across the country.

This week we see the Iranians going a bit ahead in this race. Its their President who is now caught in the controversy. The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been accused of indecency. What he did was to publicly embrace and kiss an elderly woman on the hand. This elderly woman was his schoolteacher.

It all started with the Iran state media photographing him ahead of the Iranian Teacher's day last Tuesday. He was photographed stooping to kiss the woman’s hand and then clasping her arms in an embrace. The next day you find him on the front page of the newspaper Hezbollah critisised for his action.

It is to be noted that according to sharia law, it is forbidden for a man to have any physical contact with a woman to whom he is not related.

What is interesting is that this elderly woman, was wearing thick gloves along with a headscarf and long black coat. This meant taht that 'technically' Mr Ahmadinejad avoided any skin contact.

We need to wait and see how both these incidents unfolds....

Labels: Noted

Liverpool's exciting win over Chelsea on panalties reserved their berth to the finals. With Manchester United losing to the Italian club AC Milan yesterday, the scene is set similar to the Champion's League final 2 yrs back.

Are they going to paint the town red again?? Hope Athens ends similar to Istanbul on 23rd May..

The 2005 Victory

Labels: General

Today is the 300th b'day of United Kingdom. The two kingdoms of Scotland and England proposed to be merged into a single state. After much discussion in both the parliaments, the resolutions were individually passed in the respective parliaments of England and Scotland in favour of the move.
It was brought to implementation as on 1st May 1707. After the unification, there would be one parliament for both the countries together based out of Westminster.

The United Kingdom adopted a new flag based on the merger of the scottish flag and the english flag as below

The Scottish flag



The English Flag



Original Union Jack




After the merger of Ireland to the Union, UK's flag became as below as is used today.

Labels: General