Pooja's tete-a-tete with Rajinikanth : Actress Pooja is on cloud nine as she is receiving rave reviews about her performance as Hamsavalli, the blind beggar in Bala's Naan kadavul.
She tells us that her phone has not stopped ringing since the release of the film and she is enjoying every bit of attention that she is receiving.
And for the actress, the icing on the cake was when she met superstar Rajinikanth at his residence. Says Pooja: "I met Rajini sir and he congratulated me for my performance in the film. Actually, he lauded the entire team and said that Naan Kadavul was one-of-a-kind and that every character had come across very strongly"
Pooja confesses: "I was so impressed by Rajini sir's simplicity and down-to-earth nature. He told me that I had proved myself as a talented actress and made enquiries about my forthcoming projects".
A thrilled Pooja presented Rajnikanth with a 'holy' shawl, which her father had gifted to her requesting her to present it to a man whom she respects a lot. In return Rajni presented Pooja with a picture of Sri Raghavendra and a shawl.
Suriya shinig with 'Aadhavan' : Suriya has now bagged a new film titled 'Aadhavan'. Udhayanidhi Stalin, grandson of Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, will produce the film. This is his second film after 'Kuruvi'. K. S. Ravikumar will direct the film. Nayantara will be the heroine. Her red card was revoked by Tamil Film Producers Council recently.
Suriya is ready with the released of 'Ayan'. His another film with director K. S. Ravikumar 'Jaggubhai' starring Sarathkumar and Shriya is also complete. Suriya will also supposedly do UTV Productions' 'Mugamoodi' to be directed by Mysskin. The film will have him as a macho man. Udhayanidhi Stalin is confident that Suriya - Ravikumar combo will be successful. Harris Jayaraj will be scoring music. Ramesh Khanna is doing the story of the film, Ra. Ganesh will do the cinematography, art is by Rajeevan, Don Max is the editor and Kanal Kannan is handling the stunts. The screenplay, dialogues and direction are by K S Ravikumar.
Wedding bells for Jayam Ravi : Jayam Ravi the most eligible bachelor in Kollywood has finally been hooked.
He has fallen in love with Aarthi a Chennai based girl and elder daughter of Sujatha Vijayakumar noted Television producer who had made Veerappu with Sundar C.
For the last few days, Kollywood grapevine was abuzz with rumours about the affair between Ravi and Aarthi and that they had tied the knot on Valentine Day.
But director M. Raja, brother of Ravi clarified to Sify.com: “Ravi is shooting for the last schedule of Peranmai in Talakona forest near Tirupati. Once the film releases, the date of the marriage will be announced by the family”.
Raja also added that Aarthi is an MBA graduate from UK and the family will be supporting the decision of Ravi. There have been rumours that Ravi’s dad the noted Editor Mohan was not in favour of the alliance.
Daily Cinema Report - Feb 15 : Cheran turns pamphleteer!
The Sri Lankan Tamil issue is still causing a lot of heartburns in the Tamil film industry. Directors like Ameer, Seeman and Cheran are still trying to cough up enough support in the industry for the cause. All mainstream heroes who had espoused the cause of Tamils are keeping a studious silence, as they do not want to go against the Government of India's foreign policy on the Lankan issue. However people like Cheran who is busy shooting for his Pokkisham have turned to pamphleting by distributing pamphlets that contain the last letter written by Muthu Kumar, who laid down his life for the cause of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Cheran says that he is doing it to create awareness about the Tamil cause and the happenings in Sri Lanka.
Nandalala postponed!
Mysskin's eagerly awaited acting debut in his own directorial venture Nandalala which was slated for release on February 20 has now been postponed to March. The producer of the film Karunamoorthy of Ayngaran International said: " Since there are too many releases in February and theatres are all booked, we think the best time to release the film is now in March ."
SMS premiered for Kollywood
An exclusive premiere of Vikatan Talkies Siva Manasula Sakthi was conducted at 4 Frames preview theatre for selected Kollywood invitees. The producer of the film Srinivasan welcomed the guests. Among those who saw the film were directors Venkat Prabhu, Dharani, Mysskin, Crazy Mohan, Kumaresan, S.V Sekhar and his son Aswin Sekhar. The hero Jeeva, Silambarassan and poet Na. Muthukumar were also present on the occasion.
Nayan in testing waters : This certainly isn’t a very good phase for south sensation Nayantara. She has landed in the bad books of Tamil Film Producers Council and the South India Film Actors Association. On Wednesday she was issued a red card by them meaning that she won’t be a part of any projects in Tamil unless further announcement from the council. The two bodies took the decision jointly. The action has been taken against Nayan following a complaint lodged by Subash Chandra Bose, producer of ‘Paiyya’. Nayantara was supposed to play the female lead in the film opposite Karthi. She was signed for a whopping remuneration of Rs one crore which already created a stir in the industry. The producers citing global economic meltdown waived off a part of her salary. This led to allegations and counter allegations. Nayantara was asked to opt out and she has been replaced by Tamannah.
The producer formally lodged a complaint with Producers Council alleging that the actress had not returned the advance paid to her. A statement issued by the Producers Council after the joint meeting said the actress did not pay any heed to the requests that the advance be repaid. The council had issued a directive to its members not to cast Nayantara in their films. The council held discussions with the producers councils of other languages not to rope in Nayantara for their projects.
Valentine weekend looks bright! : Three Tamil films- Siva Manasula Sakthi, Perumal and Kudiyarasu are releasing for the Valentine weekend (Feb 13 to 15).
Then there is Kalanithi Maran's Sun Pictures first English film distribution Outlander and Priyadarshan’s Kuselan remake Biloo.
Among the lot Vikatan Talkies Siva Manasula Sakthi looks ideal for Valentine weekend. A boy Jeeva meets girl Anuya love-hate relationship, super songs by Yuvan and urban feel about it. But without the backing of Sun Pictures can it work at the box-office?
Sundar.C's long delayed Perumal is due for release this Friday after repeated postponements. A typical B and C kind of mass masala, with Namitha and Meenakshi for glamour. Nothing much is known about Kudiarasu, said to be inspired by the Watergate scandal!
Sun Pictures is promoting the new action hero Jim Caviezel's Outlander and its dubbed Tamil version aggressively through their channels. It's a decent action movie and provides solid entertainment and is sure to be lapped up by our audiences who likes this kind of films.
Biloo, Priyadarshan's remake of Kuselan has been lukewarm with the theatres in Tamilnadu. It is only releasing in Chennai and there is no hype around it.
Maddy's YN confirmed on March 6 :
Madhavan’s long delayed Yaavaram Nalam has been confirmed for release on March 6 and is directed by debutant Vikram K.Kumar and produced by Reliance Adlabs. It is said to be an edge of the seat thriller and Neetu Chandra is the female lead in the film. Vikram K. Kumar, who won a National Award for his 10-minute film 'Silent Scream', says: "There are not fights, no violence, no bloodshed and no dance. But, we have songs, tuned by Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy and ace cinematographer and National Award winner P.C. Sreeram handles the
Shriya is back from Kodaikanal : Dhanush and Shriya Saran are back from Kodaikanal after the second schedule of Kutty the Tamil remake of Arya. She has also completed work on Jaggubhai , which she says has shaped out well. In Kutty she plays a very simple girl with no glamour attached and director Mitran Jawahar is all praise for her work. Shriya is hoping that 2009 will be a good year as last year she did not have a single release. She is also working opposite Vishal in Thoranai and her big summer release will be Vikram’s Kanthasamy.
Vikram sings for Kanthasamy : It looks like our 'Chiyaan' Vikram will put Tamil playback singers out of business. He has sung four out of the six songs in Kanthasamy
The big budget action adventure musical Kanthasamy directed by Susi Ganesan and featuring Vikram and Shriya is going to be the big summer 2009 release. The film produced by Kalaipuli S.Dhanu is a musical entertainer and the entire team wants the audio to be different.
So Vikram has sung four songs- Poda Podi, Excuse Me Mr. Kanthasamy, Kuchi Mittai and Mania have been sung by the star himself in Tamil and Telugu version of the film.
Asin's civic consciousness leads to injury! : Asin's civic consciousness left her bruised. Taking a leaf out of her Kalpana character in Ghajini, Asin while sitting in her car at a busy traffic junction saw a child trying to cross the road. As per reports in a Mumbai tabloid, Asin got out of her car immediately and helped the child reach safely. While she tried to avoid speeding vehicles, she lost control and fell on the road sustaining minor bruises. It is said that she was given first-aid. There is a very similar scene in her recently released Ghajini, where she helps physically challenged children in a difficult situation.
Vettaikaran cameraman replaced! : Ravi Varman the noted cameraman who was signed up for Vijay's AVM film Vettaikaran, has been replaced by Gopinath. Though reasons for the change is not known the buzz is that there has been criticism on his work in Vijay's earlier film Villu. The official reason is that Ravi Varman would be busy doing the finishing work of his debut film Moscovin Kavery for Aascar Films.
Vishal and Selvaraghavan part ways : Even before Vishal started work on his ambitious project with Selvaraghavan, the film has been scrapped. Vishal who is now shooting for his home production Thoranai directed by Ayyapan has written in his blog that he has decided to call off his project with director Selvaraghavan. Though no reason has been given the buzz is that Vishal feels Selva's style of filmmaking is highly risky and tedious and does not suit his style of wrapping up a film in five months flat!.