'Slumdog' is Critics' Choice, AR Rahman wins 'Best Composer' song for 'Slumdog Millionaire'

AR Rahman has walked away with the Best Music Composer award for Danny Boyle's 'Slumdog Millionaire' at the 14th annual Critics' Choice awards in America.
The movie, which follows the story of the young boy from rags to riches, has walked away with five gongs at the award ceremony, reports Variety.
Director Danny Boyle won Best Director award. Writer Simon Beaufoy, also won an award for the film.
Actor Dev Patel added another trophy to his credit with the young actor/actress award.
Actor Sean Penn walked away with the top award for best actor for his film Milk, while Anne Hathaway for 'Rachel Getting Married' and Meryl Streep, for 'Doubt' won a combined award for best actress.
Heath Ledger was honoured posthumously for his role as a Joker in "The Dark Knight".

'Slumdog Millionaire' in Hindi will be 'Crorepati'

Based on Vikas Sawrup's novel 'Q&A', the film is a heart-warming story of an 18 year-old slum boy who goes on to win a staggering 20 million rupees on India's 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' game show.

Bangkok Dangerous -Nicolas Cage, Charlie Yeung

An adrenaline-charged action thriller, Lionsgate's Bangkok Dangerous stars Nicolas Cage (Leaving Las Vegas, National Treasure) as "Joe," an anonymous assassin takes an unexpected turn when he travels to Thailand to complete a series of contract killings. Joe (Nicolas Cage), a remorseless hitman, is in Bangkok to execute four enemies of a ruthless crime boss named Surat. He hires Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm), a street punk and pickpocket, to run errands for him with the intention of covering his tracks by killing him at the end of the assignment. Strangely, Joe, the ultimate lone wolf, finds himself mentoring the young man instead whilst simultaneously being drawn into a tentative romance with a local shop girl. As he falls further under the sway of Bangkok’s intoxicating beauty, Joe begins to question his isolated existence and let down his guard …just as Surat decides it’s time to clean house....

DIVINE EXPERIENCE. FAITH WORKS WONDERS .

I received an Interesting mail & I would want to share it out with all of you.
Please read on...

In the late summer a devotee visited a few relatives and friends in Germany. While in Hamburg, I saw an old friend who owns and runs a small goldsmith shop and studio close to the city.

Since her husband, who had also been a friend and colleague, had passed over many years before. She mentioned a few times her concern regarding security in the shop where she spent most of the time alone.

I carried a small spare photograph of Swami with me, I bought a nice little picture frame and put it in a showcase next to the counter. I said “Sai Baba will protect you. I believe in it and you must do the same.” He told her.

She thanked me for the picture and said she believed in Baba even though she knew little about Him, other than what I had told her.

Fourteen months passed, one day in the late November, I received a phone call from Germany. It was my friend in Hamburg. Totally upset and excited. She told me that she had just been held up in her shop by a young man waving a pistol at her and threatening her life. He demanded five of the most valuable rings from the central showcase. She was not able to step to the side in order to press the silent alarm connecting the shop to the police.

The thief took the five rings and, moving backwards, threatened to shoot if she followed him. He left the shop and the police arrived minutes after the alarm was activated. But by then the thief had vanished.

I felt sorry for her when she said, “You told me that Sai Baba would protect me and I really believed so much in it. I could only say, He actually helped and protected you and you might have been hurt- or worse-if that man was violent type.

After the telephone call, my thoughts went around in circle. I was aware of her predicament, since the valuable rings were not insured as she could not afford the insurance. The loss was substantial for her.

A few days later I received a long letter from her. To my surprised, she wrote to say that two days back after the incident she received a phone call from the Catholic priest in an outer suburb, asking whether her shop had been held up two days before.

Bewildered about his knowledge of the incident (at her request, the news papers had not mentioned the robbery). She admitted it had happened. In return she wanted to know where he had obtained the information.

The priest told her that a young man came to him and handed over five rings and a gun, saying that he had committed a holdup on a jewelry shop at such and such an address. He said he had threatened a woman in the shop with the gun in order to obtain the valuable rings.

He asked the priest to return the rings, saying he had not found a single peaceful moment since the robbery.

Grateful and happy, my friend visited the priest who gave her the stolen rings.

But Swami works even more thoroughly. A few days later, the young man walked into the shop to apologize in a really nice way and to ask to be forgiven. And he was !. There is no place, not even an inch of space where I am not. I am found all over the cosmos. It is no exaggeration. He has contacted people who have His impact on them, in Japan, in Germany, in Iceland, in Russia and all over, wherever He is called. You may not know that He is there, but He is everywhere.

LATE PROF KASTURI'S STORY.

Jai Sai Ram
Ram.Chugani Kobe (Japan)

'Ghajini' grosses nearly Rs.900 million worldwide

Mumbai, Aamir Khan starrer "Ghajini" is raking in big money not only in India, but abroad as well. The film's box-office performance has almost equalled the big grosser of the year "Singh Is Kinng", which opened with Rs.900 million worldwide.
A Christmas release, "Ghajini" has collected revenues totalling $4 million (nearly Rs.200 million) till Sunday, taking its total worldwide collections to nearly Rs.900 million in just five days since its release. According to BIG Pictures, Reliance BIG Entertainment Ltd (RBEL), which released "Ghajini" in 22 countries, opened with $0.92 million in the Middle East, followed by North America with $1.4 million and Australia with $254,000. "Ghajini" is also faring well in Britain. The movie will also open in four additional countries - Myanmar, Uganda, Malaysia aand Morocco in the coming weeks," said Jawahar Sharma, COO International Film Business, BIG Pictures. "We are extremely pleased with the film's overseas opening, which has created benchmarks in various international markets, like North America, Australia and the Middle East." Bollywood trade circles, meanwhile, believe that the pace at which "Ghajini" is collecting revenues all over the world, it may end up grossing Rs.1.40 billion by the end of second week of its run, outranking all the Bollywood hits of 2008.

Thought of the day - 1st January 2009

Truly speaking, nothing new has happened today. Do not wait for the celebration of something new in Time until the minutes, the hours, the days, the months add up to a year. Celebrate the immediately succeeding second by an honest effort to get lasting joy. There is no touch of meanness in trying to get joy or Ananda. It is only the means that make it unworthy and futile. As a matter of fact, it is to fill himself with JOY that man has come to this world, equipped with speech, mind, intelligence and conscience. Only man has the chance and the capacity among all living beings. But man has forgotten his goal and is wandering in the wilderness of trivial pleasures.

- Baba

ITS 2009 - HAPPY NEW YEAR & GOD BLESS

Ghajini (December 25, 2008) The Review...

THE MUSIC OF GHAJINI IS..

FANTASTIC ... OUTSTANDING - SIMPLY GREAT..That's the best way to describe the expectations that one has from the music of Ghajini. An Aamir Khan project is always big. When A.R. Rahman gets involved, it only becomes bigger.
Ever since the music release of Roja, the common saying for almost a decade and a half has been - 'Rahman's music takes time to grow'.

Ghajini is what one calls as a chartbuster album in the offering. Clearly boasting of Rahman's best soundtrack of the year (yes, it is better than Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Naa, Jodhaa Akbar, Yuvvraaj and Ada), Ghajini in fact, sees Rahman-Aamir collaboration being successful yet again after some of their best work together in Rang De Basanti, Lagaan: Once Upon A Time In India and Rangeela. The music of Ghajini is all set to make waves way into 2009 after the Christmas release of the film. When 'best of the best' list would be compiled at the year end, it would be hard to ignore Ghajini.


NOW THE MOVIE

Sanjay Singhania, a rich businessman who owns a cellular phone company named Air Voice. Kalpana, an advertisement model goes around telling her advertisement crew that she is the love interest of Sanjay, in spite of her having never met him & also goes to the extent of giving an interview about her relationship to a popular magazine.

Sanjay happens to hear about this through the media & wants to settle scores with her. On his way, he catches a fleeting glimpse of a young woman (who happens to be Kalpana) helping handicapped children cross a street. It is love at first sight for Sanjay. He moves on to confront Kalpana at her advertisement studio. He is pleasantly surprised to realize that she is the same helpful woman he saw a while ago. He chooses to hide the fact from her that he is Sanjay, calling himself as Manohar. Kalpana eventually falls in love with him.Once, while on a train to Mumbai, Kalpana saves a group of young girls from abuse by a group of goons led by Lakshman.

After a few days, the same goons come to Kalpana’s house in order to avenge their embarrassment. Incidentally, Sanjay arrives at the scene & fights off the goons, but during the ensuing fight, Kalpana is murdered. The irony showcased is that Kalpana never finds out that he is Sanjay. Lakshman then strikes the downcast Sanjay on his head severely with a metal rod.

Sanjay survives the blow, but acquires ANTEROGRADE AMNESIA because of the trauma of his brain injury. At any given time, he does not remember anything that happened more than 15 minutes back, although he frequently has flashbacks of Kalpana’s murder. He determines to take revenge on those responsible for Kalpana’s death. The rest of the story is about how Sanjay, along with a medical college student Sunita goes about finding Lakshman and the goons.

Aamir delivers his career-best performance. In the first place, it requires courage and maturity to name the film after the villain. Knowing how egoistic our stars are, something like this is next to impossible in Hindi films.

The film itself is impressive in bits, with some terrific sequences, but the romance takes away its thunder. It is a breezy watch that could have been a really crackling one, and while there really is timepass fun to be had, the overwhelming feeling is one of regret.
For what can you say about a film on memory loss that turns out to be so absent minded, and then again violence, more violence and.. cuts / cuts / cuts..Ghajini is a must watch for an Aamir Khan fan.

Golden Globe Nomination for A.R.Rahman for Slumdog Millionare

This is an extraordinary film. From the original concept of the novel on which it is based, the screenplay by Simon Beaufoy (Full Monty) but especially the masterful creation and direction of the film by Danny Boyle. From the opening moments until the final scene, the audience was fully engaged. I was completely lost in the world that Danny Boyle created. This is not a story that has been told and retold, hashed and rehashed. It is fresh and engaging - all at once quickly moving, romantic, violent, culturally insightful, desperate and slightly fantastic. There are some comic elements to the film but to describe it as a "comedy" seems inappropriate. The film was shot on location in India, mostly in Mumbai. Slumdog Millionaire is yet another testament to depth and range of Boyle's artistic talent who has directed such diverse films as Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and Sunshine.I saw the film on at the 2008 Telluride Film Festival as a "sneak preview." The film was introduced by Boyle who said that the official opening of the film would be the next weekend at the Toronto Film Festival. He also said that there may be some final tweaking of the film prior to Toronto.In the discussion after the film Boyle strongly recommended three Indian made films: Satya, Company and Black Friday. He described each as superb. Boyle also stated that a portion of the Slumdog Millionaire was shot with a Canon EOS still camera, especially around the Taj Mahal, rather than a proper movie camera which creates unwanted attention while filming at popular tourist locations in India.