Archive for the ‘Television’ Category
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“Hands Up” is a talk show on NDTV-Hindu hosted by Journalist and filmmaker Sudhish Kamath. The show’s concept is nothing new as it is another talk show involving famous film personalities from Tamil industry. The show though does it with little more fun and the questions asked by Sudhish Kamath is more interesting than the clichéd interviews we see on other Tamil channels.
Interviews on Tamil television involving film stars is rather boring most of the times as before even watching the show, you can guess what the anchor is going to ask. Koffee with Anu started well but now has become yet another run of the mill talk show. Tamil industry by itself is little conservative so we cannot expect the “in your face” interviews we see on Hindi channels but little bit spice can still be added. Most of the times Tamil channels are so worried about offending our superstars which makes their show pretty dull. The hero worship on such interviews is sometimes really hard to take.
Recently I got to see NDTV-Hands Up and I liked it. The interviews were fun and some questions asked were little bit open than the ones asked in a standard Tamil interview. The one interview I loved was Surya’s before his movie “Singam” hit the theatres. The actor was very open with his answers and also told that they went overboard with masala in his previous venture “Aadhavan”. He said that he had no intentions to carry on as a hero till he was 60 or something and will pick and choose roles which will suit his age.
He said that he is not that impressed with Masala movies but has to do such films due to market pressure. He also said that he has no issues with multi-starrers (Are the directors listening?) and would love to do such movies. So overall it was an interesting insight into the mind of an actor who has always been asked clichéd questions on other interviews. Surya was really modest when he said that he felt his brother was more talented than him and also mentioned that he still has a complex which makes him work that much harder on his movies.
So finally a word on the anchor Sudhish Kamath, he is doing an excellent job and asks questions without hurting the egos of our stars. I hope he continues in this vein and brings in more famous personalities in the future episodes.
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Hariyudan Naan elimination round has gotten me really confused. First of all let me explain the concept of the show from the round before the current elimination round. Hariharan judged the contestants and gave them different coloured badges according to their performance on that day. So according to color, green you were safe, yellow you needed improvement and red you are in the danger zone. So that wasn’t the issue for me as it was a straight forward exercise.
But the confusing part starts in the next round which is called the elimination round where anyone who performs badly on the day gets a red badge and gets eliminated. This happens even if you had green badge from the previous round. So why wasn’t this used as a yardstick in the previous round? I feel that this is really unfair to the contestants who got the green badge in the previous round. This means that people who received the red badge in the previous round get another chance to redeem themselves but the ones who did great in the previous round get eliminated based on just the one performance?
I am not sure who came up with the concept but this has lots of flaws in it. If the producers/organizers of the show decided to eliminate contestants getting the red badge then they should have followed that in the previous round and a natural progression would have been a better method. The concept should have been such that you cannot be eliminated unless you are in the yellow zone. Let me explain it more clearly. The singers who sing brilliantly according to the judges should be given green badge, the ones they think need improvement but were not that bad should get the yellow badge (which almost says that you can be eliminated if you don’t do well in the next round) and finally the people who get the red get eliminated.
So this way you cannot eliminate the people in the green zone just after one bad performance. They would have to get to the yellow zone first, get to prove themselves in one more round and then get eliminated if they don’t pull it off. This will make for much fairer judgment. Currently what the show is doing is ridiculous as they have given people with red another chance and have eliminated green after one bad performance. I hope that the producers take this to note as this does not make any sense to me. You cannot introduce the badge in one round and then change your policy in the next round.
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Hariyudan Naan - Unique in concept, repetitive in execution
I started watching “Hariyudan Naan – Yaar andha Naan?” about couple of months back and it does come with a unique concept. This is yet another singing competition but with a difference in what the eventual winner or winners would get at the end of it. Hariharan himself would be mentoring the top 5 winners and few of them will be even singing in his album along with him. So the concept is good and is unique compared to the other shows across the country.
The other good thing about the show is Hariharan speaking to the contestants after each performance and giving them tips as to how they can overcome their flaws. That actually is a very good thing as it will be a great learning experience for budding singers from one of the greats of Indian music. Even though the show has lots of good things going for it the execution of the same is still following the dead beat formula. It seems like the aim of every talent hunt show in India is to stretch it as long as possible.
We saw the same with Airtel Super Singer and countless other talent shows on Indian television. It gets irritating for the audience when they are expecting the winners to be announced in a week or two and there props up a recall round or a wild card round thereby increasing the contestants. This show initially is following the same principle. 16 people eliminated from 50 odd contestants and then the eliminated contestants competing again for 5 spots. The reason given for such a decision was childish too. It seems like Hariharan and Jaya TV thought that the 16 eliminated contestants were good but had one off day, so they deserved another chance to get back into the competition.
If they are going to follow the same yardstick throughout the show then I see a lengthy one year competition with numerous recalls and wildcards. The positive aspect of the show is the way Hari Ji has been judging in the past couple of rounds and also the talent pool has been fantastic. If only they can avoid the minor glitches and give us a short and slick competition it has a potential of becoming a trendsetting show. The way Hariharan has been mentoring the kids has been fantastic and is really different from the other shows.
He has been crisp with his comments and has never come of rude with any of his negative comments either. My only disappointment in the earlier rounds of the show has been the judging panel of James Vasanthan, Tippu and Harini. I can understand them being forthright and honest with the contestants but making fun of them and laughing at them is not on. Every contestant there comes with a dream and most of them have never been in front an audience before leave alone the camera and television.
People react differently to pressure and sometimes even the best talents have off days so the judges should be mindful of that fact. You can provide your critique to the contestants without being rude which they can learn from Hari Ji himself. So James the hate mails are not because you have been calling “Spade a Spade” but it’s because the way you have been calling it.
Well that being said the competition has been fierce and the top 40 contestants have been really good. Hariharan taking over the judging has brought a new lease of life for the show as the initial judges were too full of themselves. That’s the reason he is a legend. All in all a great show and I hope that they iron out the few flaws and make this a short and sweet competition.
- In: Airtel Super Singer | Entertainment | General | Movies | Music | Reality Show | Star Vijay | Television
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Airtel Super Singer season 3 auditions to begin soon
With the Airtel super singer juniors coming to a conclusion very soon, Vijay TV has announced that the Airtel Super Singer 3 would be beginning very shortly. Srinivas and Unnikrishnan made a special appearance on the juniors set couple of weeks back to announce that the auditions will begin soon. This is indeed great news for the Super Singer followers. It has been a year since Ajeesh was crowned as the super singer in 2009 and he has already lent his voice for a Yuvan Shankar Raja composition.
I am very eagerly waiting for the season to begin as I did not follow the Airtel super singer junior at all for the past one year and I feel there isn’t many talent shows as good as the super singer. I hope that we see great talent this year too.
Ajeesh and Airtel Super Singer
Posted on: March 3, 2010
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Ajeesh enjoys most viewership on my blog
I started blogging about 5 years back but not until I started writing about Airtel Super singer and Ajeesh did my blog receive overwhelming viewership. During my initial days of blogging my views were limited to sports and occasional write-ups about movies but when I started watching Airtel Super Singer in 2008 I decided to write about the same.
Only when I started posting my views on the show I realized that I was not the only one who loved Airtel Super Singer. It’s amazing to see the kind of fan following Ajeesh enjoys after his victory in Airtel super singer 2008. Even after one year since his victory, Ajeesh still enjoys the most viewership on my blog. Any posts related to Ajeesh still enjoy most comments and most views on my blog which is quite extraordinary. His first song in the movie Goa seems to have had a brilliant response by his fans.
I write about Sachin Tendulkar, Roger Federer, Rajinikanth etc, but none of them receive the same sort of response on my blog as Ajeesh does. I wish Ajeesh who happens to be my favorite as well a very bright future.
My Name is Khan is different
Posted on: March 1, 2010
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My Name is Khan was a good effort from Karan Johar
After the hype generated for “My Name is Khan” by the Shiv-Sena threat and SRK himself after he got detained at the Chicago airport for questioning, I thought to myself what could be so different about a Karan Johar movie? But after watching the movie yesterday I was pleasantly surprised. I never liked Karan Johar type of movie making. His movies are monotonous and his hero worship of Shahrukh Khan often gets on my nerves.
This movie though was completely different from his other efforts in the past. The movie is heavily inspired by “The Rain man” where Dustin Hoffman had played the role of a person suffering from Autism brilliantly. Shahrukh has copied the mannerisms of Dustin Hoffman to perfection and also speaks and behaves exactly like Raymond (Name of the character Hoffman plays) of Rain Man. His repeating of some sentences, avoiding eye contact and also the way he walks are heavily inspired by Dustin Hoffman.
Even though MNIK (My Name is Khan) also has a Tom Cruise sort of brother for Shahrukh’s character, but the similarity ends there. This movie is mostly based on the 9/11 tragedy and one man’s endeavor to meet the president of United States to say “My Name is Khan and I am not a terrorist”. So this movie is about an Autistic Muslim man (Shahrukh Khan) who wants starts off in search of the president of USA after his step son’s death.
The movie on its own was very good and the lead actors performance was very nice. Jimmy Shergil as Shahrukh’s brother was absolutely wasted in a role which seems to have been created just to get the protagonist to US. Shahrukh as Rizwan Khan was absolutely brilliant and has carried off his role with élan. Kajol though doing a good job, has played a character which she has done before on numerous occasions in Karan Johar movies.
The others in the movie are just adequate and do their roles as required. Karan Johar as a movie maker has surely made me change my opinion about his capabilities and I hope that this marks a turning point in his career. Shahrukh also has gotten away from his stereotypes and has tried something different which he had not done since Swades. Overall MNIK is a great effort. Even though the movie suffers from certain clichés associated with Indian cinema, the overall message doesn’t get lost in the same.
I never thought I would ever say this about a Karan Johar movie but I definitely liked this one and I hope that this is his foray into meaningful cinema.
Ghost Hunters – Alcatraz
Posted on: February 12, 2010
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Ghost Hunters new season begins on March 3rd in Alcatraz
The new season of Ghost Hunters is all set to resume on the 3rd of March on SciFi channel with Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson along with their team explore the haunting in Alcatraz, San Francisco. Alcatraz was a federal prison until 1963 but currently is more of a tourist destination. Located on the San Francisco bay it’s a small island often called as “The Rock”.
Alcatraz obviously has a disturbing past as there have been many deaths as it was a prison before. I have myself been there on an audio tour and walked those halls just couple of years ago but did not have a clue that it was known for its haunting. So it’s going to be kind of interesting for me to watch this episode. This is probably the first location in Ghost Hunters that I have actually visited so it will be kind of cool.
Well not that I saw anything strange while I was there in Alcatraz but will be kind of interesting to see what the GH crew find out.
Information about Alcatraz source – Wikipedia
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AR Rahman bagged couple of Grammys yesterday for his scores in Slumdog Millionaire
A.R.Rahman made India proud again with yet another award in the US yesterday. Rahman bagged two Grammys yesterday at LA for his scores in Slumdog Millionaire. This award is in addition to the OSCAR’s he received last year and also several other awards like the Golden Globe, BAFTA etc. for the same movie.
This award comes in the wake of yet another nomination for Rahman in this year’s OSCAR’s for his score in “Couples Retreat”. The past one year has been brilliant for the musical genius and I hope that he continues his golden run this year too. It’s brilliant to see that the man who is affectionately called as the “Mozart of Madras” to have become one of the most popular Indian musician in the world. Congrats again to one of the most humble and talented Indian musician of our times Allah Rakha Rahman.
Ajeesh sings in Goa
Posted on: February 1, 2010
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Ajeesh sings in Goa for Yuvan Shankar Raja
This article was a long time coming and for some reason it kept missing my radar. Well it has been more than 3 weeks since I listened to Ajeesh pairing up with Andrea for his first song in the movies “Idhuvarai illaadha unarvidhu”. The song was nice and aptly suites his voice. Yuvan seems to have chosen the right song to give Ajeesh the deserved break.
I think everyone by now knows that Ajeesh was the winner of the Airtel Super singer last year and it was promised that the winner would be singing for Yuvan Shankar Raja in his upcoming movie but I never expected it to be so soon. So it was a surprise for me when I heard his voice in the Goa soundtrack. I am happy for Ajeesh as he was in my top 3 favorites in the super singer 2008.
The song itself was very good and Ajeesh has done a brilliant job considering that this was his first in movies. He had little issues while hitting the top notes in the song which was repeatedly pointed out by the judges in the competition but that shouldn’t take anything away from the otherwise great rendering. The other observation I made was his style of singing resembled very much of the great Unnikrishnan (Airtel Super Singer judge), which might have crept in unknowingly. All it all a great beginning to his career behind the microphone and I hope that he scales greater heights in the years to come.
Vijay TV I think is doing a brilliant job in promoting their winners by giving them ample screen time. They have taken these singers to different cities in Tamil Nadu for concerts and have also invited them on their shows to perform like in “Koffee with Anu”. I hope that more singers from the super singer get to sing in movies and make a name in playback singing.
Airtel Super Singer Junior begins
Posted on: June 30, 2009
Airtel super singer junior’s season two began yesterday and the schedule in the USA seems to be in sync with India this time. This week it’s just a fun round with the last year’s junior contestants going against the best from 2008 Airtel super singer seniors.
It’s a great thing for the super singer fans that the junior version begins just 2-3 weeks after the 2008 competition ended. So this gives us nice filler and also a chance to see the kid talent of Tamil Nadu before the Airtel Super Singer 2009 begins again later this year.
From the next week onwards we are going to see the auditions starting first with Coimbatore. I will be watching it for sure as yesterday I got a glimpse of how the last year’s juniors were. The two kids who sang were brilliant and were really confident on stage. Mahati and Anitha were the judges and we had Ajeesh and Raghini competing yesterday with the two kids. The hosts were Malini and Yugendran as usual.
I am waiting for the main competition to begin as its going to be a fun few months with the best kid talent on view. Vijay TV talent shows are the best and it has become a trendsetter for the other channels to follow.
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