Bought lazygeek.com, finally, I mean finally, after a long long wait. Intially when I was looking for a domain two years back, lazygeek.com was booked by someone so I had to settle down with lazygeek.net. Then the domain got released but was locked by the registrar. I had to talk with the registrar and bought it for an inflated price. Thanks to enom for that.

If only IE never had a control+enter shortcut key for .com domains, .com would never be felt as the lovable single child of internet domains. Other domains are now made to look as orphans. I am prey to that shortcut key.

For time being, I’m planning to re-direct lazygeek.com to the current site [lazygeek.net] itself. You don’t have change bookmarks from your blog at all. To do a permanent switch, I am searching for tools that can change the links on this blog and repoint appropriately to lazygeek.com. Do let me know if you are aware of such tools.

With all the hungama swirling around, Mark Jen chose to talk yesterday about his termination from Google. Mark Jen’s termination came from his blog posts relating to Google’s financial information and future products. Though he took them out when he realised it was classified, it was all over.

From Mark’s entry on his blog, Ninenty Nine Zeros,

i was just too excited. i felt like i was joining a small start-up family; i thought i was going to start new initiatives and improve existing ones; i thought i could jump in the deep end and immerse myself in the revolutionary development environment; i thought i could make connections to real people in the outside world and get first hand feedback; i thought google would love it. i thought wrong.

Personally, I think Google should have given him a chance but then their recent IPO and their quarter offerings have made analysts sensitive to any information about them. And Google probably wanted to show their stand on blogging-about-work policy. It’s definetly shocking for this news came from a company that promotes the number one blogging software, Blogger.

After all, didn’t some one say, Google after the IPO isn’t the same venture capitalists funded company run by a couple of young dudes who love technology, as it was a couple of years back. Now, they are answerable to their share holders and those who have stakes in them. We are getting to see that coming right.

[Pic : SALRP]

Ashokamitran, the writer’s writer, has a simple elegant style of writing. Be it a social novel, a movie review or a commentary on various contemporary issues, he writes without any pretence or exaggerations. So if you are reading a Ashokamitran article you can be rest assured that there are no play of words.

Being with Kannayazhi magazine for a long time, Ashokamitran’s contributions to the tamil literary world is higher than what’s known. Now after 50 years, since he started his invaluable writing career, Kadavu Literary circle and Kizhakku Pathippagam are celebrating it as a gala festival, tomorrow [12th Feb 2005]. Kizhakku Pathippagam recent released compilations of Ashokamitran’s Shortstories and Columns during the recent Chennai Book Fair.

Ashokamitran 50 happens at Film Chamber hall, Anna Salai. Time – 6:30 pm on 12th February 2005.

Sundara Ramaswamy talks about the short stories of Ashokamitran, Gnana Koothan on Ashokamitran columns, I.Ra. Venkatachalapathy on the novels and Paal Sakkariya about the translations of Ashokamitran. There is also a screening of Amshan Kumar’s short film on Ashokamitran. Check out Badri‘s tamil weblog for more.

Being a big time fan of Ashokamitran‘s writings, I love to be there. It is for sure that I may not be able to make it. Blame my friend to have his marriage tomorrow at the same time. I am sure Chenthil and Ramnath, fellow bloggers and fans of Ashokamitran would be there to give me an update.

Tata Telefilms ties up with Sivaji Films on the Chandramukhi marketing. The similar effort by Pepsi for Rajini’s BABA which costed nearly 25 lakhs(?). 75,000 Sq Ft of hoarding space in Chennai alone. I never heard anything like this. the biggest effort until now was for Kamal Hassan‘s Aalavandan. Pity the Chennai traffic.

Did watch Lingusaamy-Ajith’s Ji trailer on the cable. Gripping and ofcourse there is Trisha. But we need to wait and see if Lingusaamy can strike hatrick. If he can it might prove to be a moral booster for Ajith. Pray Ajith Pray.

Kollywood’s summer releases are set to be out by April 14th. There is illayraja [Mumbai Xpress], Harris Jayaraj [Anniyan] and Vidyasagar [Chandramukhi]. None except Chandrmukhi have announced music release dates. End of February would be right time to release soundtrack and allow the music to sink in. Are they listening ?

Watch Anniyan while it’s still on the sets.

Mayaavi is set to release on 25th Feb. Produced by Bala’s B Studios and starred by Surya-Jothika, it could possibly keep theatres enagaged until the summer release films. If only proves to be a laugh riot, nothing like it.

Page 3 people on the premiere of Bhansali’s Black.

The screen dissolves into black. A little androglossian strained voice starts to speak-out, feebly. It narrates a story as a first-person account. A story that is nothing but a state-of-mind. A story that transforms the mind and vision of blackness into white. All this transformation accompanied with a lot of trouble, anguish, agony and zillion other words that you relate to the word PAIN. Cut.

Film Fare Awards 2005 – And the filmfare award for the best – film, screenplay, direction, camera, back ground music, actor, actress and child artist goes to the cast and crew of BLACK. Will sport a moustache if this doesn’t come true. Sometimes, even if you are stiff emotionsless critic, you fall shaken with emotions when a movie moves so deeply from the heart. Black is one such gem. A classic that can stand over gimmicks and modernities of film techniques. Cut.

A Hellenkellrish story that carves lives of two people, where both become teacher and student to the other, at various points of the thorn-filled garden of life. A story that could well be complained for being straightly copied / stollen or even inspired from the life of Hellen Keller, known to us from the english textbooks of 4th grade.

Take a vivid look into the black, non-imaged, non-pixelated, muted life of Michelle McNally [Rani Mukherjee], living in Shimla. Take a detailed view into the life of the humane, adorable and angry old Debraj Sahai [Amitabh Bachchan] who is losing his worthy life and it’s memories to Alzheimer’s diesease. Their lives gets inter-twined when Debraj comes to hand-hold the blind ‘n’ deaf Michele. And what would you teach to a child who has no idea about the world around her, except for the sense of smell, taste and touch. All Michelle knows is her maa who has a hand that is soft that touches her cheeks. Any other hand and Michelle reveals her ultra famous emotion, anger. It is this anger that when postively charged gets her moving in her life to the heights, she never had imagined even in the wildest of dreams.

The movie moves firmly for a two and half hours without a single boring frame. Not only it makes you cry, laugh and applaud but also it teaches you that a movie needn’t pronounce a message. A movie can just arouse plethora of emotions in you. The physically challenged have a zest for life. A thirst to know more and know it completely. Shallow knowledge gets them upset. Their anger is sharp and uncontrolled for they are the ones who react appropriately at situations than the normal mortals who are numb with emotions. Michelle gets angered when Sahai slaps her for not typing as fast as expected. She reacts immediately. From 10 words a minute, she types 30 a minute. She bursts out when her sister makes a miunderstands her on the engagement day. Proves that she has much more to offer than what’s known to the outisde world. Also she becomes a patient teacher to her ex-teacher only to create a miracle on him.

For the first time, one would understand the demon behind Alzheimers disease. You could forget to carry a pen, forget to meet someone at four o’ clock. But what if you forget yourself, your past and every single thing around you. Terrible.

As Debraj Sahai, Amitabh Bachchan carries the entire movie on him. With the intonation so accurate and expressions very classy he takes away the cake in the movie. I’ve never seen such a spell binding male performance in a bollywood flick before. With those wide-open eyes and that stupendous acting performance, I see Kamal Hassan. As a south Indian, I’ve known Amitabh as a bollywood hero compared to the Rajinikanth of south. Being a Rajinikanth admirer, I hated Amitabh for a reason because some of Rajinikanth’s earlier flicks were remakes of Amithabh’s bollywood hits. And I hated to believe this fact. As a carorepathi host, Amitabh was convicing but did not catch my fancy. Many bollywood films that featured after that used him as a brand ambassador for their films. This one is a killer effort. A perfect way for Amitabh to prove he is truly the the BIG B. As he catches the young Michelle with strands of her hair to control the blind kid’s anger, as he slaps her when she could never type more than 10 words a minute, as he walks effortlessly with his head shaking of aging and being suffered with Alzheimers, Amitabh creates magic. He adds color to this rather black movie. A true champion.

Rani Mukherjee. WOW. No exaggerations but this is far most one the best performances by any actress in recent times. As a grown Michelle McNally, she occupies the second half of the movie ans stays throughout in the heart. She has this amazing voice that brings in reality to the movie. It’s her voice that narrates the entire movie. A swaggering gait with a walking stick on her hand, she sometimes reminds the Chaplin walk. And not only that but also dances so rapturously. She listens to the college lecture by feeling the lip movement of her mentor. What everyone does in 3 years, she does it in a two decades withstanding all the pains of being blind and earing impaired. And yeah, even as a blind woman, she wants to know how it feels to be kissed by a man on her lips. She has just her teacher to help her with that. Afterall, isn’t he the one who teached her life, maa, papa, water, cry, snow and every other damned thing of life. She asks. He teaches. A classy scene that brings out gross realities of life as they are without exaggerations. Rani Mukerjee can be announced as the Indian actress of the decade, undoubtedly.

Ayesha Kapur, as the young Michelle grabs the first half with her lovely debut performance. With a movie full of scope for performance, it is the casting department which needs to be appreciated to have casted Ayesha Kapur as young Michelle. Hats off.

Ironically, for a movie that details the life of a blind and deaf girl, the images and the sound stand out first class. Ravi K Chandran, known for his stylish modern camerawork in Mani Ratnam‘s Kannathil Muthamittal and Aayitha Ezhuthu goes in for a conservative yet astonishing camera work. It is through his lens that we look into the life of Michelle and Sahai. The lighting is modern but the camera angles are truly old fashioned. And probably thats what Bhansali drove Ravi K Chandran to do. If only the movie was shot and edited as modern as Aayitha Ezhuthu, it would have failed to impress. This slow movie requires patient camera movements but yet needs to touch the audience. Pre-dominantly colored with black, wherever possible, the color tone itself is rich, lavish and conveys what the movie is upto. I could devote a paragraph for the music by Monty. It would be right to do that. The music and camera are inter-weaved in the movie. So is the review. If only we get to watch the movie with either one of this(visual and sound), it wouldn’t make any sense . The camera pitches the emotion while the music accompanies and heightens it ten fold. There are no songs however and hence the distractions are reduced largely.

The editing and the sets adds more value. The sets of the bungalow as situated in Shimla are realistic and to re-create them after a fire accident must have been a great effort for the entire team. From the title card, it looks like most of the movie was shot in Himachal Pradesh.

Bhansali did a great job in Khamoshi but it was just not reaching there. His efforts that followed in Hum Dil De Chukke Sanam and Devdas were lavish and were heavily commercialised. With Black, Bhansali proves that he is the bollywood master of melodrama and blacks out the better movies of Bollwood. Black is a picture postcard movie. Any single shot can be blown out into a poster and to this Bhansali has compromised to heavlily exaggerate at some places. By making the story revolve around an Anglo-Indian family situated in a a hill-station, Bhansali tries to show places, people and their costumes which a normal middle class Indian, couldn’t relate so easily. That gives you a feel that the movie happens far away from India. You can shirk these off for the kind of movie Black is. Am sure this effort of Bhansali wouldn’t go unnoticed. If only the reviews/reactions to Black turn-out the otherway it could be because of the prepossessed mind-set on Sanjay Leela Bhansali and his movies.

Black is an effort that needs to be showcased inside and also outside India. While outside India, people would definetly see Black, it needs to be taken to places deep inside India. The best way would be to dub them in many regional languages without affecting the moments of the movie. If you don’t want the rest-of-the-world to dub bollywood from looking at the colorful Monsoon Wedding and Bride and Prejudice, represent Black to the world as an ideal Bollywood flick and articulate the fact that we are one of the movie super stars. For it takes a huge effort to create a movie of this excellence. Whatever it takes, beg-borrow-steal, watch BLACK.