Random Thoughts

The release date of Kamal Haasan's much awaited movie Dasavatharam is announced.The shooting for ‘Dasavatharam’ is almost coming to an end.The movie is expected to release this coming April 2008.The movie was planned to be released on Pongal but now the schedule has gone too far till April.The movie will be released all over Tamil Nadu and a few centres in Andhra,Kerala and Karnataka.Kamal haasan is playing ten roles in the movie.Sure the movie has got a lot of expectations not only in Tamil Nadu but all over India.Asin Jayapradha and Mallika Sherawat play the female leads.The cast also includes Napoleon, Santhana Bharathi and M S Bhasker.

A.R.Rahaman who was supposed to compose music for the movie has supposedly walked out of the movie and Himesh Reshammiya has been hired to do the music.K.S.Ravikumar who is known for his excellent quick clever wits is directing the movie.Besides playing the lead role Kamal Haasan is doing the story, screenplay and dialogues.This turns out to be another huge expectation for the movie.The audio release of the movie is expected in the mid of March.Will this movie take Tamil cinema to the next level??.Let's wait for the answers till April.

Hrithik Roshan's latest movie Jodha was protested across the country on its release date.The film was mired in contoversies from the start. It began early on with People For Animals (PFA) charging that the 'Akbar' makers were abusing innocent animals on the sets. It continued through to the warnings issued by Maharashtra's Kranti Sanstha, and saw major burning of its actors, Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai, posters and effigies last week amidst threats of violence in Rajasthan by the Karni Sena there. According to Karni , none of Mughal emperor Akbar's 34 wives were named Jodhabai. Akbar married the former maharaja of Ajmer, Bharmal's elder daughter Karkbai alias Heer Kumar in Fatehpur Sikri on Feburary 6, 1562. Prince Salim was born in 1569."Jodhabai was the daughter of Moteraja Udai Singh and she would have been three years younger than Salim and hence, in no way could she have been his mother," Kalvi claimed.According to these organisations, Jodha was the daughter of Udai Singh of Marwar and was married to Salim, Akbar's son."Thus, she was Akbar's daughter-in-law. So, depicting Jodha as Akbar's wife is not tolerable," Karni said.

It is now seeing the controversy reach a national and international scale after those Rajputs of Rajasthan have called for a nationwide counterattack on what they are calling Bollywood's propoganda against their and India's history of struggle against Mughals and Muslim invasions, ignoring the real Jihad based slaughters, depicting Mughals as heroes, and showing the rajputs as in the end vassals complicit with the mughals with their women in the harems; when they believe with few exceptions, they were largely defying, resisting and fighting them before, during, and after the death of Akbar as well as the Mughal empire.

They've raised the question why no big budget commercial scale movie on the Rajputs' continual struggle has been made, implying an Islamist bias and political charge against Mumbai's film industry.The opening week box office collections of Jodha Akbar in India are a shocking 50%, totaling out at around Rs. 23 crores net when at full houses expected of it, it should have done closer to a 50 crore opening week. The movie was made on an epic scale, budget, and starring premiere stars; it was expected to have shattered all opening records in every corner of the country.

However, the makers miscalculated the response and overestimated their welcome. Not only was the film literally forced out of Rajasthan, forcing it to be a loser acrss the north west from day 1, it now is going to be a loser in Madhya Pradesh also; effectively neutering it in the entire CPCI-Rajasthan territory. Even in a liberal center like Bombay where the film should have shown record opening close to 8 crores net, it failed to match even a Heyy Babyy.
To be fair however, in terms of week 2, the film is expected to see a reasonably good weekend in Mumbai multiplexes and a few other metros. But overall, the Hrithik Roshan - Aishwarya Rai starrer has been rejected in most of the country led by Eastern Maharashtra, Gujrat, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and of course Rajasthan.

Given its mammoth cost and scale, the film is the first commercial disappointment of the year.

Ryan Fitzgerald is an unemployed who lives with his father.So, he decided to offer his ear, to anyone who wants to call.He posted a video of him saying he wanted to "be there," for anyone who needed to talk. "I never met you, but I do care,".He began receiving calls and a lot of text messages to his number.He planned to take and return as many calls he could, but on Monday at 5 a.m., his T-Mobile cell phone payment will begin charging him for his generosity when he is no longer eligible for free weekend minutes.


Fitzgerald, who said people consider him "easy to talk to," was inspired by Juan Mann. YouTube video clips of Mann offering "Free Hugs" to strangers became wildly popular on the user-controlled Internet site. Within a day of posting Ryan got more than 5000 calls and a lot of text messages.Now his video in many video hosting sites.I have included the video from megavideo.

I agree with you when you say the games for the PS3 are for older audiences. The Xbox 360 is a rather wide range, but has lots of shooters and driving games, which he might like but would probably get bored of them quickly. The PS3 is EXTREMELY expensive, and in my opinion a waste of money. The Blu-Ray system is far too expensive, and so the cons out weight the pros. However, the systems are very reliable, with only a 0.2% chance of system failure, or something like that. Xbox 360's are unreliable, and if they overheat you get the Red Rings of Death, which is a sure sign of permanent system failure. The DVD drives are normally faulty, and the lasers break a lot. There are some very good games however, and the Xbox will be good to you if you look after it. Wiis are a lot cheaper than both consoles, more reliable and the games for Wii are for a wide range of audiences.

Comparing Game Prices:
PS3: Average New Game Price: $130.00
Xbox 360: Average New Game Price: $110.00
Wii: Average New Game Price: $90.00

...not to say the games are better for PS3 and worse for Wii, though. PS3 has it's really good games, like Resistance: Fall of Man (aimed at older audiences...) but also has it's terrible ones, like Lair which the movement controls don't work properly in. Xbox 360 has some great games too, like Perfect Dark Zero which I quite enjoy playing. It doesn't have any that are totally absymal, so it is good. Wii has some games that people believe are perfect, like Zelda: Twilight Princess (I am one of them, note my profile picture) but there are some really bad ones which you need to stay away from, such as Rampage: Total Destruction.

So in the end, it is really up to you. Only get an Xbox 360 if you look after your things and doesn't go destroying all your stuff. Don't get a PS3, they are a waste. Choose between a Wii or an Xbox 360 for him. I am sure he will love either of them!

My final ratings:
PS3 - 6/10. Most of the games are short, shallow and not very good anyway. But there are some very good ones, and the system is very reliable so won't break down easily.
XBOX - 8/10. Due to the high amount of system failures, the Xbox gets a lower rating. But it has some great games, and if you look after it will last you for a long time.
WII - 8/10. The system is revolutionary, ingenious and amazing. There are some spectacular games, but there are some bad ones too which lowers the rating. Also, they chomp through the remote batteries.

A computer worm is a little like a computer virus. It invades computer systems, interfering with their normal functions. It travels along any available compatible computer network and stops to knock at the door of systems attached to that network. If there is a hole in the security of the computer system, it will crawl through and enter the system. When it does this, it might have instructions to do any number of things, from sending computer users a message to trying to take over the system. What makes a worm different from other computer programs, such as viruses, is that it is self-propagating. It propels itself forward, wiggles into a new system and propagates itself at the new site. Unlike a virus, a worm doesn't latch onto a data file or a program. It is autonomous.7

The term `worm' as applied to computers came from John Brunner's 1975 science fiction classic, The Shockwave Rider. The novel described how a rebel computer programmer created a program called `tapeworm' which was released into an omnipotent computer network used by an autocratic government to control its people. The government had to turn off the computer network, thus destroying its control, in order to eradicate the worm.

If for some reason you haven’t seen The Bourne Ultimatum yet: Go. Now. It’s not just the best movie in the Bourne franchise, it’s the best movie of the summer and maybe even one of the best action movies ever made. It’s that good. It’s also the perfect way to end the Bourne movie franchise… should it come to that. The film wraps on a note that could easily finish the story off in satisfying fashion, but leaves enough unanswered that a fourth installment in the franchise has plenty more to explore.

For the most part though, it’s sounded like Ultimatum is the last we’ll see of Jason Bourne. Back in May Matt Damon was quoted as saying, “The Bourne thing I'm definitely done with.” Now though, after the massive critical and financial success of Ultimatum, it sounds like he may be softening.

Matt Damon spoke to The Guardian (a publication which plays a prominent role in The Bourne Ultimatum) about his Bourne movies and their future. In the interview he talks a lot about the problems they had in getting the first movie, The Bourne Identity off the ground, but he’s also started to hint that a fourth movie wouldn’t be an unwelcome addition to his upcoming calendar. He says, “It wouldn't be the worst thing.” At least that’s progress. It sounds like the main holdup for him is a fear of becoming stale. He continues, “You identify your beachhead and then vow to protect it. In doing so, you start making safe choices, and I don't want to do that.”

I don’t think Matt needs to worry about playing safe. In between this Bourne movie and the last one he did critically acclaimed, high-profile work in The Departed and The Good Shepherd. He’s currently slated to work again with Paul Greengrass soon, but this time on a controversial examination of the United States’s “Green Zone” in Iraq. As long as they space these Bourne movies out by a year or two, he has plenty of time to change things up. It’s worked so far. Give us more Bourne!

The nominees are
Picture: "NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN," "Atonement," "Juno," "Michael Clayton," "There Will Be Blood"
Animated Feature Film:
"RATATOUILLE," "Persepolis," "Surf's Up"
Actor:
DANIEL DAY-LEWIS in "There Will Be Blood," George Clooney in "Michael Clayton," Johnny Depp in "Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street," Tommy Lee Jones in "In the Valley of Elah," Viggo Mortensen in "Eastern Promises"
Actress:
MARION COTILLARD in "La Vie en Rose," Cate Blanchett in "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," Julie Christie in "Away From Her," Laura Linney in "The Savages," Ellen Page in "Juno"
Supporting Actor:
JAVIER BARDEM in "No Country for Old Men," Casey Affleck in "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," Hal Holbrook in "Into the Wild," Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Charlie Wilson's War," Tom Wilkinson in "Michael Clayton"
Supporting Actress:
TILDA SWINTON in "Michael Clayton," Cate Blanchett in "I'm Not There," Ruby Dee in "American Gangster," Saoirse Ronan in "Atonement," Amy Ryan in "Gone Baby Gone"
Director:
JOEL COEN AND ETHAN COEN for "No Country for Old Men," Julian Schnabel for "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," Jason Reitman for "Juno," Tony Gilroy for "Michael Clayton," Paul Thomas Anderson for "There Will Be Blood"

ANd the winners: