Stars on song in foreign shoots
Producers don’t shoot Tamil song sequences abroad. These days, they camp there for months, canning an entire film.
The longer stays mark a break from the past, when the cast headed to exotic locales for one or two songs sequences.
The trend was mirrored in Dasavatharam, the Kamal Haasan-starrer that released to big fanfare last month. “Nearly 35 per cent of the film has been shot abroad,” Haasan had said. The producers had hired Hollywood specialists for the make-up and stunt sequences.
Prominent ad filmmaker in Chennai, Latha Menon, was of the opinion that the foreign fascination would stay. “Shooting in foreign locales has become the trend now.”
Last year’s blockbuster, the Ajit-starrer Billa, a remake of the 1980 Rajni hit by the same name, was mostly shot in Malaysia. Among other recent releases to be largely filmed abroad were Unnale Unnale and Vegam.
The makers of Robot, Rajni’s next, are scouring Australia, Vienna, Brazil and Hanoi for locations. Actor Vijay will soon fly to Italy for Villu, directed by Prabhu Deva.
Pay less for cable: CM
After free TVs, the DMK regime has switched to cheap cable.
M. Karunanidhi said subscribers of the government-owned Arasu Cable TV will not have to shell out more than Rs 100 a month. The company began services last week.
Arasu Cable caters to households in Thanjavur, Nagapattinam, Tiruvarur and Tiruchirapalli. The corporation was being started to “help people who had been paying Rs150 to Rs 300 every month”, Karunanidhi said.
The government received complaints about overcharging, prompting it to start the company, the chief minister wrote in Murasoli, the mouthpiece of the DMK.
“When the government launches a new initiative, there will some teething problems. One of the problems is the collection of fees. That is why the fee should not exceed Rs 100 per month.”
In Chennai, where the conditional access system is in force, those without set-top boxes won’t be charged more than Rs 100. Arasu’s charges will differ across households using the boxes since their payments will be based on the number of channels they watched, he said.
Court clears dargah hurdle
A court has plucked out a hurdle to a plan aimed at securing one of Mumbai’s most-frequented religious landmarks.
The Dargah of Makdoom Ali Mahimi, better known as Mahim Dargah, will finally have a security gate after a sessions court rejected the residents’ objections to the construction.
Locals had refused to allow the shrine’s trustees to set up the gate over fears that their access would be restricted. Forced to the courts, the trustees argued the dargah, over 350 years old, had to be fortified to ward off possible terror strikes.
Judge A.S. Tamboli recently allowed the trust to take all possible security measures to shield the shrine and provide locals with identity cards to ensure smooth entry and exit.
The resident’s plea to call for a police report, on the threat level that the shrine could be possibly facing, before clearing the plan was also rejected. The judge said there was no need to seek such an assessment from the police because the gate was a precautionary measure after all.
(UNI)
Room for more
The capital could have more room than previously expected for its 2010 Commonwealth Games guests. The MCD is considering simpler licence procedures for guesthouses.
he standing committee of the civic body met last week to firm up the system of issuing the licences. “A single-window system is needed where the applicant can get all his work done in the minimum time,” panel chairman Vijender Gupta said. Municipal commissioner K.S. Mehra has been asked to ensure future applicants don't have to go through the rigmarole.
MUMBAI: This Friday, watch City of Dreams, a close-to-life play about a Bollywood wannabe who realises Mumbai isn’t the El Dorado it is often made out to be. The venue is St Andrews Auditorium in Bandra (West). It is on St Domnic Road. Time: 7.30pm. Call 26140669 for more information.
