Friday June 6, seems to be an auspicious day in Kollywood as five films were launched. It is a record of sorts on a single day in recent times.

Among the five, the biggest was the launch and ‘pooja’ of Ilayathalapathy Vijay’s Villu in Palani. After the ‘pooja’ Prabhudeva the director started the shoot, of the film produced by Ayngaran International.

The other significant launch was Mysskin’s Nandalala in a five star hotel in Vadapalani. The film has Delhi girl Sniktha who did the item number Kathazha Kannale… in Anjathey and Mysskin in the lead. The film is jointly produced by Ayangaran Internationals and GV Films.

The shoot of Saritharam, directed by the controversial Saamy of Mirugam, Uyir has also started today. The movie is based on silambattam, a traditional game of Tamils and has Raj Kiran as a Silambam teacher and Aadhi the Mirugam hero as his student.

Shaam as an action hero started with the ‘pooja’ of Agamum Puramum directed by Thirumalai. Then there was the ‘pooja’ of Meera Jasmine‘s new film Deivamagan where she is featured opposite a

For a fees of additional Rs 2 lacs, Actress Charmi, who is doing a movie titled “16 days” gave a lip locking kiss to a new face named Arvind.

Arvind was found freezed with her kiss and said to have paid the producer that Rs 2 lacs from his pocket.

Charmi is taking every opportunity to expose her body parts for additional money.

Charmi aims to out perform Namitha and Nila and wanted to be identified as No 1 item in Kollywood!

Ramya Nambeesan, so hot girl, another one from mallu world is ready to open up things for cooling the eyes of Kollywood movie watchers.

All these days she was protecting her privacy in Kerala but as she understands that Kollywood is so competitive she prefers to go see through than hiding following the paths of her senior like Nayanthara!

Nambeesan is presently with Cheran (Cheran is famous for training girls with different tricks!!!), for the movie Raman Thediya Seethai.  According to her she is doing homely as well as modern (euphemism for item role?) role in that movie.

Already she did Chocolate

The audio launch of Surya - One Man Army saw a galaxy of veterans and young stars, directors, producers and technicians. Noted stunt director Jaguar Thangam turns producer and a director with this film in which he is launching son Vijay Chiranjeevi as hero.

The audio launch was well attended with a large number of film luminaries like Rama Narayan, Sivasakthipandian, Kaja Mydeen, Anbalaya Prabhakaran, Perarasu, M.Raja, Sathyaraj, S Ve Sekar, Raghava Lawrence, Khushboo, Sibiraj, Bharath, Jeyam Ravi, Uma Shankar Babu and Rambo Rajkumar amongst others.

Three songs were screened which included a duet, a kuthu number and an action song (run-of-the-mill ingredients in a mass masala entertainer). The young hero seems to have done some remarkable stunt scenes a la Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. These will surely entice youngsters to the theatres.

The event witnessed some emotional moments as each guest described his close links with the stunt director and the hard work he had put in to finance and make this movie. Jeyam Ravi said that it reminded him of the tough days when his own father had launched him in movies.

Sathyaraj praised the composure of the hero and his ability to speak so well on the dais, a task that is tougher than acting before the camera. The veteran praised the way the hero had remembered his mother and called her to the dais and touched the feet of both parents on stage.

Raghava Lawrence remarked that it was indeed a great moment for a stunt technician to make his son a hero and recalled his own days of struggle when he used to wipe cars for Stunt master Super Subrayan.

Perarasu paid the biggest compliment when he remarked, “Jackie Chan came to Chennai but he did not leave. He is here in the form of Vijay Chiranjeevi”.

Is Meera Jasmine getting desperate? She has been ‘unofficially’ banned by the powerful AMMA (Association of Malayalam Movie Artists), for not acting in their film Twenty:20.

The Kerala superstars Mammootty and Mohanlal had earlier itself made it clear to their producers not to cast Meera opposite them. She has one film in Malayalam and a Telugu in which she plays the hero’s sister getting ready for release.

After the colossal failure of in Nepali, she was willing to be more glamorous in Tamil, but there were hardly any takers.

Now the latest we hear is that she is the heroine in Deivamagan, with a rank newcomer as hero and Karnas in a pivotal role. It is written and directed by J.Vetri Vendan with music by Sreekanth Deva

The audio launch of Sathya Movies and Sathya Jyothi Films Jayam Kondan was a glittering and well conducted affair at the Sathyam Cinemas. Attended by eminent luminaries from Kollywood, the function was compered by TV artiste Brinda Das.

Producer T G Thyagarajan welcomed the guests and thanked the entire cast and crew for their efforts in the film. The stage saw a heavy duty turn out of dignitaries including Rama Narayan, KRG, RM Veerappan, Mani Ratnam, Kamal Hassan, Sarath Kumar, Abhirami Narayanan, Kalaipuli G Sekaran and Jeyam Ravi apart from the cast and crew including director Kannan, cinematographer Balasubramaniam, and actors Vinay, Bhavana and Lekha.

A riveting trailer and two songs were shown. The music is by Vidyasagar. The two songs included one picturised in lush fields on Bhavana ( Sutrum varum bhoomi..) and a duet on the lead pair ( Naan marainda suryanai…). Dances are by Brinda and Gayathri Raghuraman who debuts with this film. Lekha plays the role of Vinay’s sister and the trailer seemed to show a packed –with- punch storyline.

Jeyam Ravi gave an emotional speech about being honoured to be on the same dais with his idol Kamal Hassan and explained how Mani Ratnam’s simplicity had made him changed his own attitude in life. Lekha managed to speak in Tamil for a bit while Vinay did try a little. For Bhavana it was the first time she was attending an audio launch of her movie since for her earlier films she had always been traveling.

RM Veerappan gave a long and nostalgic speech and congratulated the producers for their discipline and production values. Kamal stressed that the experience of the pioneering producers in Kollywood was invaluable and must be tapped by the coming generations.

Sarathkumar and his Jaggu Bhai director K.S Ravi Kumar are in a fix over who will play the all-important role of his wife in the film! The trouble is that the wife character has also a daughter in the film to be played by Shriya.

When Sneha who had signed up initially to play the mom came to know that Shriya was to be her screen daughter, she backed out of the project in the last minute. Then a big hunt started for somebody to play the glamorous mom’s role. Those who were sounded out were Simran, Padmapriya and Vimala Raman.

Now the latest we hear is that Tabu, after her glam act in two Telugu films is being considered. Last week Sarath met her in Hyderabad, and the grapevine has it that she has agreed to play Shriya’s mom.

Tabu has only one condition, that she should be paid a whopping Rs 75 Lakhs for doing the role. The highest ever paid to an actress to play mother’s role in Tamil. But will the producers cough up such a huge amount remains to be seen.

There will be no “official” premiere for Dasavatharam in Chennai.

The grapevine has it that producer Aaskar Ravichandran is not in tune with the film’s hero Kamal Hassan over the media publicity of the film.

Kamal Hassan wanted his personal media manager and film PRO Nikhil Murugan to take over the media campaign.

But Ravi had different ideas. He wanted his own trusted film PRO Johnson to head the campaign and insisted on it.

Kamal, the gentleman that he is, immediately withdrew from any promotional activity regarding the film. Ravichandran has in turn gone high profile and started meeting the media and made a lot of sensational statements to hype up the film.

Now the latest we hear is that Kamal Hassan the brain and face behind Dasavatharam has got into a shell and refusing to give interviews.

Those who approached Nikhil Murugan including the national media are politely told - “Kamal sir will speak after the film releases.”

Finally, the cat is out of the bag. There were speculations on why Sruthi Hassan backed out of the Tamil film opposite Madhavan to be directed by Nishikanth Kamat.

The pretty young daughter of Kamal Hassan is all set to make her debut opposite Aamir Khan’s nephew Imran Khan in Soham Shah directed Hindi film Luck. The film also stars Sanjay Dutt and Mithun Chakraborthy.

Soham Shah has told the Mumbai tabloids that he signed Sruthi as she fit the bill for the character he had in mind. He said: “We wanted to cast a new girl opposite Imran and Sruthi seemed perfect for the role. We required a girl who would look innocent as well as convincing while doing the action sequences.”

Soham had met Sruthi in Chennai and she loved the script. But she told Soham that she would like to take her father’s opinion before saying yes. And once she got the nod from him, she has signed on the dotted line.

Shruti will start shooting for Luck from July 8 in South Africa where the film will be completed in one single schedule. Shruti’s role includes a lot of action and she will take lessons from action director Allan Amin to get into the skin of the character that she is playing.

Luck is produced by Dhillin Mehta of Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision.

The launch of Krishna as an action hero in Alibaba was done with great élan, by his dad producer Pattiyal K.K Sekhar at the Sathyam Cinemas.

There was a huge turn out of industry people as Krishna’s elder brother is the stylish director Vishnuvardhan.

Thankfully a trailer and two songs were screened for the audiences, before the audio of the film was released followed by speech marathon.

The film directed by Vishnu’s assistant Neelam Shekhar has peppy music by Vidyasagar. Krishna’s heroine in the film is debutant Janani.

Almost the entire producer fraternity- Rama Narayanan, R.B Chowdhary, Sivasakthi Pandian, K.Prabhakaran, Kasturi Raja, M.Raja, P.L Thenappan etc turned up for the event.

Among the stars who turned up for the function included Arya, Bharath, directors big brother Vishnuvardhan, Dharani and others. It was the best attended function in recent times.

Director Shankar’s former assistant G.Ananthanarayanan is directing his first movie, Valmiki. The title is an unusual one and the director explains, “Just like sage Valmiki was a reformed dacoit, my hero changes overnight to a new leaf”

Akhil of Kaloori fame plays Pandian, a pickpocket, while Meera Nandan, the girl who made her debut in a Malayalam film Mulla plays Vandana. The heroine runs a crèche and an incident unites the lead pair. What change happens to the hero and how makes a change to many lives in the society is the story.

Alagappan is the cinematographer who has done over 40 Malayalam films. He is the man who shot Nayanthara, Meera Jasmine and Prithviraj in their debut movies. The script was exciting enough for him to migrate from Malyalam cinema to do this movie.

The young and chirpy Meera Nandan was a TV anchor before she was spotted by the director. The girl fits the role of Vandana completely and that is one of the reasons Ananthanarayanan was eager to convince her to take up this film though she does not know Tamil.

The shooting is going to take place in some slums and the director has already taken the lead pair to the areas to make them familiar with their surroundings. The music is by Illayaraja and editing by VT Vijayan. Vaali does the lyrics.

Ananthanarayanan completed a characterization workshop with the artistes during the rehearsals so as to make them fit the character. Lets see how this ex-assistant of Shankar fares in Kollywood.

The name Rajinikanth sells.

The audio of Kuselan, a film that he is doing a special appearance has gone for a record price in Tamil music business.

The audio after a bidding war has been snapped up by Big Music, an Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group company for a new record high of Rs 2.25 crore.

The film has music by the comparatively new music director G.V Prakash.

According to an music industry spokesperson- ” G.V Prakash’s Kuselan has got an higher price for audio rights much more than what his uncle A.R Rahman’s Sivaji fetched. It is only because of the magic of Rajinikanth nothing else.”

Kuselan has five songs, with a Daler Mehendi number being the highlight. The others who have rendered their voice for the album include Shankar Mahadevan, Kailash Kher, Shriya Ghosal and Hariharan.

The audio will be launched on June 30 Friday in Chennai by Big Music.

Can veteran family film specialist director Vikraman and Vijaykanth revive the Vanathepole magic?

The old combo is coming together once again in an all new family saga to be produced by ‘Amman Creations’ Shiva. Vikraman has also signed up Meera Jasmine to be Captain’s heroine. It seems Vikraman’s narration of the story impressed Meera who has a meaty role in it.

Vijaykanth who is now doing “Engal Asan”, is planning to start his Vikraman film some time in August. The V&V combination- Vijaykanth and Vikraman’s “Vanathepole” was one of the biggest blockbusters in the annals of Tamil films.

The film had a rural milieu and was a steamy, feel-good tearjerker on family relationships, which worked big in B & C.

The buzz is that Vijaykanth wanted to do “another village milieu film on the goodness of the joint family system” to strengthen his rural vote bank.

Remember that next year, the parliament elections are due.

Kollywood’s entertainment king, director Shankar has gone on a three weeks world tour to finalize locations for his Rajinikanth extravaganza Robot.

Accompanying Shankar on the world tour is his new cameraman Ratnavel. They will identify the locations and the climate of the place. As of now they will be going to Vienna in Austria, and from there to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

The final leg of their exotic location hunt would take them to Hanoi in Vietnam.

They first flew to Vienna in Austria looking for lush new locations for a song shoot. Take any Shankar film; he will start the shoot with a song on his hero and heroine.

In Anniyan he shot O Sukumari… song in Amsterdam while for Sivaji, he first picturised Vaaji, Vaaji… song, before starting the talkie portion.

The buzz is that he will start Robot with the shoot of two songs on the lead pair Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai in foreign locations sometime in August.

Writer, director, actor S J Suryah was in for a shock when the producer of his Tamil film Vil quietly shelved the film.

Three days of shooting was done for the film in which Suryah was playing a temple priest. Shireen was his heroine.

According to Kodambakkam grapevine, the producer shelved the movie as there were no distributors willing to advance money for the project.

The producer is also said to have got a lucrative offer for the title of the film from a big production company making a film with a superstar.

Meanwhile Suryah unperturbed with this set back is going to take a temporary break from Tamil films.

He is directing a Telugu film Puli which has Power Star Pawan Kalyan in the lead, for producer Ramesh Babu of Kanakaratna films.