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The title song by Calvin Broadus featuring a ‘poonjabi’ Snoop Dogg is straight Doggy ishtyle, but in the Indian milieu this hip hop mix is rather bland. Pritam’s variant of the title song, Bas ek king, on the other hand, is bang-on with excellent vocals by Mika and Neeraj Shridhar. Jee Karda and Talli hua are catchy but strictly assembly-line, while Daler infuses life into the raucous Bhootni ke. The lovely Teri ore, sung with verve by Shreya and Rahat takes a curious Celtic turn. A couple of decent tracks don’t add up to the hype the Kinng has generated!

Note: Wondering who Calvin Broadus is? That’s Snoop Dogg’s real name :-). The ‘Singh is Kinng’ title song is composed by Calvin Broadus along with the RDB trio - Surjeet Singh, Manjeet Ral and Kuldeep Ral.

Keywords: Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Junglee Music, Sonu Sood, Snoop Dogg

Cinema cinema starts eulogizing the medium, but ends up heaping praises on Rajinikant and getting inflation wrong – cinema for Rs. 10? Saaral and Sollamma sound like outdated, sparsely lilting Rahman rejects - the former is perhaps THE Nayantara ’scene paattu’, so why bother about the tune? Daler Mehndi minces and spits out Rajinikant film names in a silly Om zaarare while in Perinba pechukkaaran, GVP rehashes his Veyilodu track, right up to Kailash Kher’s vocals. GV Prakash Kumar gets it all wrong in Kuselan’s soundtrack. But, since a Rajinikant film is always about his screen presence, P.Vasu – over to you!

Keywords: Rajinikant, Nayantara, Pasupathy, Meena, GV Prakashkumar

Why don’t singers realize they are only as good as the tunes composed for them? The so-called Indi-pop singers, in particular! Getting a perennially sidelined composing duo is the first blunder. Granted, Sajid Wajid scored big time in Partner, but given their track record of non-descript and uninteresting music, Telugu pop singer Smita should’ve guessed the fate of her debut Hindi album. Not that she’s any better. With a couple of crappy albums in Telugu and one terrible remix album in Tamil, wonder what gave her the confidence to go national! Stay far away from this joke of an album.

Keywords: Whatever!

Anu Malik not only has Sukhwinder contorting his overused vocals but also wastes Shilpa Rao in the pathetic Main sajda. The title song is even worse - Adnan sounding as uninterested as he can. Krishna’s Soniya aaja ni takes the album further down - one tedious experience! Thankfully, the album is nearly saved by the Lucky Ali - Vasundhara Das duet Nazar mein hai chehra. With its middle eastern tune and arrangements, the track is fairly interesting even though it hardly sounds like a Anu Malik song! This humdrum soundtrack may not bring to this film, what the title asserts!

Keywords: Aryeman, Sayali Bhagat, Ranvir Shorey, Lucky Ali, Annu Malik

Hara hara sambo has a rather likeable rhythm but a strictly average tune made lively by Jassie Gift’s enthusiastic vocals. Krishna krishna and Nenjil aathaadi are plain annoying signifying the composer’s early, massy and mundane compositions. Even Neenda mounam and Pudhiya paravai ondru are strongly reminiscent of Vidyasagar’s late 90s melodies, shorn of the mature and evolved spin he adds these days. Alibaba’s soundtrack has the usually dependable composer in terrible form. It’s strange actually – the music he has given here is completely outdated and seems like they’re selected from his song bank from the 90s. Vidyasagar’s disappointing streak continues!

Keywords: Krishna, Janani, Vidyasagar

Nope, this post is not about music/ movies, for a change! Given the number of blogs springing in India every day, it seems to me that blogs, as a medium is being taken seriously just recently. More celebs are blogging and they’re making news for airing their opinion. The earlier model was such that they aired their views discretely to a journalist who added spice and published it. Now, a star of Amitabh’s stature blogs and publishes his opinion online, himself. Whether he was paid an obscene amount to do so by a questionable Ambani is besides the point

The reason for this prelude? The results of perhaps the first ever Asia-Pacific wide survey of bloggers. This was a survey conducted by public relations firm Text 100, on a range of topics including bloggers’ attitude to Public Relations outreach and what sort of content they prefer. The aim was to better understand bloggers as an audience, how they like to work, and how Public Relations professionals and their clients can better engage with them.

Out of the 125 predominantly tech/ business/ news bloggers surveyed, Indian bloggers secured maximum participation! On an APAC level that is mighty impressive.

Considering many regular readers and visitors to Milliblog are bloggers themselves, this may be relevant. Text 100 has also released the results of this survey in the form of India’s first social media news release (SMNR). The SMNR is a new form of the age-old press release and adopts the so-called web 2.0 tools/ tactics to make it more presentable to the online media, in particular.

So, here goes - the results of India’s first ever bloggers’ survey (PDF, 1.67 MB) | Social Media News Release announcing the results.

Disclosure: I work for Text 100 and was part of the team that facilitated this survey in India.

Four of Yuvan Shankar Raja’s tried and tested tunes from the Telugu hit, Adavari Matalaku Ardhale Verule make the cut in this soundtrack. Nee chumu and Mandaara with Rajesh Krishnan, sounding very much like Mano and SPB are expectedly neat. Hey baby continues to annoy while Minugu fails due to Gurukiran and Apoorva’s rendition. But composer Gurukiran swoops up the soundtrack right under Yuvan’s nose with the lively Modala - Kunal Ganjawala impresses with his effortless singing. Gurukiran’s other track, the forlorn Antu intu too is notable! This dual composer soundtrack has at least 4 good tracks going for it!

Keywords: Ramya, Yuvan Shankar Raja, Aditya Babu, antu intu preetu bantu

Given the starkly folk influence in the film’s theme, it’s no surprise to hear Vidyasagar dipping into traditional villupaattu-like tunes for Kattipudikkum karadiya and Kodaangi vandhirukken. Both are steeped in extremely familiar folk tunes, but with utterly disjoint structures. But Potta kuruviyo is vintage Vidyasagar with a lovely melody wrapped in a pleasing, mod orchestration. Kombuvitta kaalaiyenna is rousing and rhythmic like a standard hero intro track should be! The Imayamalayum remix is haphazard and painfully messy. Barring Potta kuruviyo, Vidyasagar’s tunes fall completely flat at least in the soundtrack – they may perhaps add better value to the movie, visually.

Keywords: Bharath, Vidyasagar, muniyandi

Neeraj Shridhar’s buoyant vocals, rapper Indee’s (surprisingly credited!) bloody catchy hook and Pritam’s overall arrangements make Aai paapi (Tu hai meri soniye) absolutely scintillating. This is one heck of an exuberant track! Bakhuda tumhi ho too works big time - Atif’s magical vocals at work beautifully here, along with Alka Yagnik’s, besides the soulful tune Pritam cooks up. But Move your body is mundane while Is this love is plain routine. So is guest composers Sajid Wajid’s assembly line Soniye ve. But make no mistake – Kismat Konnection’s soundtrack makes the cut just for the first two tracks! Rock on, Pritam!

Keywords: Shahid Kapoor, Vidya Balan, Atif Aslam

Dasaavathaaram is a movie experience meant for people who are familiar with Kamal Hasan and his body of work. If you are not one of them, this exhausting exercise in multi-tasking may be laughably silly.

This may be the very first movie on chaos theory/ butterfly effect in India and the basic premise works quite well too. The populist idea of tying up the Tsunami as the necessary counter for something far more deadly is a plot point that works like a charm - though, the scenes that build this premise perhaps required a more explicit construction, for the benefit of the Indian audience.

The 12th century prologue, albeit short, is massy and mesmerizing. The American roles of Kamal Hasan (George Bush and the unstoppable killing machine, Fletcher) are, quite frankly, tacky. While it may seem like nitpicking, the prosthetics seem to completely miss the skin tone and border on albinism, quite unfortunately. Balram Naidu’s crowd-pleasing role is, well, crowd-pleasing, as intended. The man is on a roll expounding the cause of Telugu.

The Japanese avatar is obviously forced, but thankfully looks much better than its American counterparts. Khalifullah Khan is simply the worst - in terms of prosthetics, character and scope. Amongst the two other brief roles, Vincent Poovaraagan’s make-up is quite appropriate and the actor has visibly and vocally done his job well. The Krishnaveni paatti role is as laboriously silly as Sukanya’s prosthetics in Indian.

Avtaar Singh’s garb looks convincing and his stage antics in the Oh oh sanam song is vintage Kamal. His cancer treatment is straight out of a Rajinikant parody, however. Asin’s only dialog seems to be ‘Perumaale’ and she merely reprises her hapless, sprightly role in Ghajini, against a visibly older and tired looking Kamal in the role of Govind, the ‘terrific scientist/ scientific terrorist’ as Balram Naidu puts it. Mallika Sherawat is wasted - and this comment may seem like a stretch given the fact that its corollary has never really happened.

For a plot this serious, the surrounding situations are mostly juvenile - something director KS Ravikumar is known for, unlike his ambitious peer, Shankar, whose screenplay displays a certain polish, thanks to his association with writer Sujatha. But, considering Kamal Hasan is in charge of the screenplay, this is a surprise. The inclusion of Crazy Mohan styled gags are enjoyable to an extent, but tend to become tedious since they’re overdone at various points in the movie.

Technically, the film amazes with a scale hitherto not seen in Indian films. But, while the scale and even the scope seem huge, the execution, even in the much talked about Tsunami scenes, lack the finesse you associate with a relentless perfectionist like Kamal Hasan. To be fair, they are incredible for an Indian movie, but when the ambition is of the scale of ‘Ulaga Naayagan’ (Universal Hero), the comparison may be appropriate with The Day After Tomorrow and The Perfect Storm, not necessarily from those in Hindi, Tamil or Telugu film industries.

The songs by Himesh Reshammiya thankfully end abruptly and are one of the weakest points in a film of this scale. Devi Sri Prasad, however, seems to have imbibed the nature of the script rather well and has done his homework of watching as many Hollywood films as is humanly possible. The dialogs are thoughtful and on target in most places, specifically in places where the actor propagates his pet topic - atheism!

The beginning of the film, with a stage set-up where Govind starts to narrate the story and the ending when the director excitedly and irresponsibly goes on a hero-worship jig seem to indicate to the audience that this elaborate effort isn’t meant for the serious, discerning side of the audience. For an audience that is more open, willing to suspend disbelief and is aware of Kamal Hasan’s penchant for such experimentation, this film is a veritable feast. Too many cooks, of course. But, what the heck, this is world cuisine and every diverse ingredient adds to the rollicking fun! So immersed are we in the assorted avatars of this actor, that towards the end of the film, the person in the adjacent seat suddenly starts to resemble Kamal Hasan in a miraculous new garb!

Keywords: Kamal Hassan, Asin, Mallika Sherawat, Jayaprada, dasavatharam, dasaavatharam, dasavathaaram