Hi friends,

Yesterday, had nothing to do except sit around waiting for something or someone to call me. Nothing turned up. My sister wanted to watch a movie. So while waiting for dinner, I went out to the video shop. On the way back, bought a Digit magazine (100 Rs. gone down the drain).

Watched "Manasellam". Ordinary story with illness, flashback. Tamil cinema has nowadays become very predictable. I can predict the start of a song, a fight sequence, or why even the next dialogue to a second (maybe plus or minute a couple of milliseconds).

One thing I liked about this movie was its ending, albeit on expected lines, something that I have always believed in. Over the past couple of years, these type of climaxes have become commonplace. Trisha was more or less a leaner Jothika (same voice dubbing, gestures and body language). Srikant, better than previous films, but same old beard style. Most of the film, he seems to be wearing the same dresses. Our stunt master have gotten over the Matrix effect. The slo-mo and the instant action scenes have now become irritating.

Ranjini, what happened to Hariharan? Forgot him?

I have almost stopped listening to music. My cassette player has gone kaput. I don't get CDs (expensive). Most of all, no time at all to listen to music. At work, not much of music aficionados here. At times, can hear a few English songs wafting in the air.

As I am composing this, Richard Marx's version of "I can't help falling in love with you" was running in one of the multimedia systems.  Elvis Presley had originally sung this song. With his wonderful voice, it brought to mind emotions of beaches and walking along it with your loved one. One of my favourite songs, this song has appeared in the movie "Speed 2: Cruise Control". That song was by a British pop group, UB40.

Now, the original version of Alaipayuthey has taken over the air, not the song in the movie, but the original version by..... I don't know who.

Bye,
Jax.