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I travel a lot, at least 3-4 hours everyday (to and from work). I have lot of time to kill and hence listen to lot of music. But I have never tried reviewing songs or music albums because I don't think am much of a music expert. Just a music aficionado. Recently I added 3 new music albums to my playlist and thought I shall write about them. More because the blog has been idle for quite sometime.

Thuppakki (Harris):
The most hyped about album among the 3. It's a Vijay film so it comes with lot of talk as he is known for his dance numbers. The music is by Harris Jeyaraj, one of the leading composers in Kollywood. Though he seems to be losing his touch a bit of late (Maattrraan was just ok, except for 'Kaal mulaitha poove'). Coming back to Thuppakki, "Google google" was easily the pick of the lot. Had a nice peppy feel, good singing by Andrea and some decent singing by Vijay. None of the other tracks impressed me. They were ok-ok. They seemed to be good dance numbers, may be tailor made for Vijay and might work well with his dance moves. We need to wait and watch.

Aadhi Bhagavan (Yuvan):
The Sound track of this movie took me by surprise. I like Yuvan's compositions. There will be atleast a couple of good songs in his every album. I liked this album, more because it was different than being great. "The Bhagavan Rap" by The Prophecy and Sathyan (anyone heard of that singer/band before?). Later found that he is a Canadian singer Rajeev (known as ThaProphecy).  This has become one of my most favorite songs in recent time. Has been in infinite loops. Also is this the 1st time there is a full length English rap in a Tamil movie? I know other raps  from Yogi B etc., but they were Tamil raps or had English-Tamil mix. This one except the 'Bhagavan chant' was totally in English and absolutely rocked. Couldn't believe it was a Rap song composition by Yuvan!
Another track which was different was "Agadam Bagadam". Again was this the 1st time there is a full length hindi track in a Tamil film? Mohit Chauhan's voice was good to listen to and a good tune by Yuvan. 

There was one more song with Arabic flavor "Eisalaamey Eisalaam" and the rest had nothing great to write about. But kudos to Yuvan for trying something different this time. Hoping that the BGM and re-recording will also be great in the 'Mafioso Action' movie, as they are calling it.

Podaa Podi (Dharan):
I reserved my favorite for the last :) This was one entertaining album! I loved almost every track and Dharan Kumar has done a great job. All the songs are peppy and neat. They are refreshing and makes you want to listen again and again. I wasn't a big fan of the teaser of the movie released with "Love panlama venama" intro. But once I heard the whole song, I knew it was going to be addictive. It's also my favorite track from the album. I also liked "I am a kuthu dancer", had a nice beat it with the power house voice of Shankar Mahadevan. The idea behind "Appan Mavanae Vaada", a dad singing to his son, was nice. Hare Rama Hare Krishna" was refreshing. Knowing Simbhu's moves, am confident he would do great justice to all the songs and it's going to be fun! 

Overall, add these to your playlist now!
The Bhagavan rap | Love panlama venama | Google google

Rise of the Dark Knight

A terrific cinematic experience. A great end to the Dark Knight trilogy inspite of small inconsistencies and logical loopholes. As always Zimmer's music lends soul to the narration. Bale-Hathaway chemistry was good to watch and their face-offs were interesting. It's a known fact that even Nolan himself might find it hard to better the 'Joker legend', so the comparisons to Bane are not necessary. Bane does his part of terrorizing the Gotham population. As a Nolan-Batman fan, I sincerely hope that Chris Nolan reconsiders his decision and makes the franchise bigger than just a trilogy. Hope he atleast makes a Batman-Robin feature with Bale & Levitt just to erase the memories of Joel Schumacher's disaster

8 Legged Reboot

The Amazing Spider-Man. I was not really excited to watch this movie. Especially since the original Spider-Man was not that old to cause excitement for a reboot. The final movie released just 5 years back.
This time, there were lot of improvements. Graphics and action sequences were definitely better. But it had less action and more drama for a super-hero movie. That would leave ardent fans disappointed. Talking about the technical aspects, the stunt choreographers have made the 'Spidey swing' more real this time. Usually it was just CGI. But this time, they made an international Gymnast to perform the stunts and captured the pattern. For example, in CGI the downward and upward motion will be in same speed. But after observation they have made the downward motion fast paced so that it gains momentum for the upward swing. Wonder how something basic like this was missed in the original franchise.

The red and blue suit looks cool as always and this time Peter invents a device that he ties to his wrist which throws the sticky substance to create the spider-web. One notable difference.
For Indians fans, the talented Irrfan Khan plays the role of tough boss at Oscorp.
The lead pair (Garfield and Stone) and their chemistry were great. The villain was not that 'fear-inducing'. Heard Sony has plans to make at least 2 other movies in the Amazing series. Hope the villains are more menacing than Dr. Lizard. *Spoiler start* The villain staying alive at the end doesn't get my hopes high. Looks like there will be more of him in the sequel. *Spoiler end* The after-credits scenes (don't leave the theater too soon) also seem to suggest the same. Overall, it was a fine movie. It had his funny moments and Garfield has nicely managed to fit into the shoes of Peter Parker.
But for me, the Actual Spider-Man > Amazing Spider-Man. Also Green Goblin >> Dr. Lizard.
One thing I still don't understand is why Spider-Man was never part of The Avengers even though he was a Marvel comics Super-hero!

Go Play!

Been possessing an Android Tab and a Mobile for quite sometime now. So, thought of jotting down few app reccos like the one I did for iOS earlier.

Before getting to the games, here's a list of Android apps that you must have!

Handy apps:

• File Manager
• Instagram
• Cricbuzz
• Data Monitor
• ngpay
• Tiny Flash Light
• Birthdays
• ColorNote Notepad Notes - Also supports checklists

Social:

• Foursquare
• Facebook for Android
• twicca
• WhatsApp Messenger
• Skype

Entertainment:

• MX Player - It's the VLC player of Android. Plays all the crap you throw at it.
• IMDb Movies & TV
• PVR Cinemas
• BookMyShow
• TicketNew

Games:
Card games:

• UNO Free
• Solitaire

Angry Birds and variants:

• Angry Birds, Rio and Space - Awesome and addictive!
• Various AB Seasons
• Siege Hero

Aim at 'em:

• Paper toss
• Can Knockdown - Amazing graphics. The slow-mos kicked arse!
• Tank Hero

Kids: (None of them needs an intro)

• Tic Tac Toe
• Minesweeper classic
• Bubble Shoot (RunnerGames)
• Four in a row

Sports:

• Stick cricket
• Virtual Table Tennis 3D
• Cricket T20 Fever 3D

Slash:

• Fruit Ninja - Amazing stress buster
• Slash Lite - Neat and pretty good

Stupid tests:

• The stupid/moron/idiot test

Board games:

• Checkers
• Chess
• Sudoku - Play a game of Sudoku daily. Very helpful in keeping those cob-webs away. More so, if you are a S/W Engineer

Puzzle:

• Rail Maze - Simple, yet good
• Unblock Me
• Guess the code
• Where's my water?
• Cut the rope Lite - ZOMG! Isn't that little creature you are supposed to feed cute!

Arcade/Adventure:

• Line birds
• Cordy
• Temple run

Word games:

• Hangman
• Draw Something

That's all I have installed or could think of. If you've any suggestions, pls post them :)

Oscars 2012 - A round up

After Dark Knight, Avatar and Inception failed to pick up Best Picture Oscars after my predictions in the past years, I decided not to write a pre-Oscar post this time. Not only that, I din't have any favorite movie to vouch for this year. Probable exception was Tintin for the Best Animated category, but damn those dumb academy members, it wasn't even nominated! Rango eventually won it.

The Oscars happened today and thought of doing a small write-up from what I observed.
The big winner of the day is "The Artist". Kudos to the team. It isn't easy to be so successful being a silent movie without no backing from the big studios (I believe). Jean Dujardin was at his charming best as the Best Actor. Though I would have been equally happy if Clooney or Brad Pitt had won the award.
Meryl Streep was nominated for an umpteenth time and won it for the 3rd time. Heard she was awesome in The Iron Lady, though the movie was a plain bore.

The host Billy Crystal was classy. Robert Downey Jr & Emma stone were funny, Cameron Diaz, J Lo & Penelope Cruz were lovely and beautiful! Other highlights were, Sacha Baron indeed turn up at the Red carpet as 'The Dictator' and Christopher Plummer's acceptance speech was neat "You're only 2 yrs older than me darling. Where have you been all this time?". He also became the oldest ever artist to win an Oscar. That's something. Also Pakistani 'Saving Face' won the Best Docu. It's about a plastic surgeon returning home to treat victims of acid burns.

Here is the final Oscar tally with the wins and the nominations:
Hugo - 5/11
The Artist - 5/10
The Descendants - 1/5
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - 1/5
The Help - 1/4
Midnight in Paris - 1/4
Moneyball - 0/6
War Horse - 0/6

Though Hugo and The Artist were tied with 5 wins each, the latter took the cream of the awards winning The Best Picture, Director, Actor, Music score and Costume Design. Whereas Hugo largely won the technical awards - Visual Effects, Sound mixing/editing, Art direction and Cinematography.

The Descendants was expected to win a few more and the one of the biggest snub of the day has to be Moneyball failing to win none out of 6 nominations. Deathly Hallows failed to grab any in the technical categories. War Horse deservedly did not win any.

And finally, it was heartening to see Rahman at the Oscars donning the Keyboard. Since Slumdog Millionaire, there is no Oscars without Rahman :) He has made Oscars something Indians can relate to!