Kamal’s poem recently appeared in the Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan — guess it will be available through vikatan.com too. It was reproduced in a couple of places.

The poem seems to have political undertones. If someone has a good explanation, please post it as a comment here.

Here’s a slightly old interview (in Tamil) of KS Ravikumar, the director of Dasavatharam. Ravikumar speaks enthusiastically about the movie, showering praise on Kamal.

There are also some tidbits about Kamal. I’m not sure if all of them are true.

This interview is made available through UniversalHeroKamal.com, which as the name suggests, is a site (best viewed in Internet Explorer) dedicated to Kamal. You can get to view some unique material here.

Whenever Kamal gets together with a hot director, there is talk of problems between them. But in most cases, the output indicates the contrary. Remember Indhian?

Vaettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu, with Gautham wielding the megaphone, released recently. This would be a good time to re-visit the uncut version of an interview with Gautham published quite some time ago. Excerpts:

• …lots of stuff happened between me and him because of the production. He was pissed off with change in producer, the film was not taking off, his time was getting delayed all. He was very unhappy and hesitant initially. He was like “Bunch of kids, what they gonna make” and stuff like that. He kept to himself mostly. So I’ll give him the scene, he’ll take a look at it and he’ll act. He’ll make a couple of changes… Simple ones, like “Can I hook this line and this line?” He would tell me when you write, you tend to write a little more. “You can cut this line.” So I take stuff from him. He let me handle it. I can never say he bossed over.
• …when you see somebody peforming that to the hilt… To the T… you realise it’s awesome. And, he gives you much more than that. Certain expressions of his, you can never write. He would do something different for every scene. But we kept him totally subtle throughout.
• It was a beautiful experience working with him because I learnt a lot in terms a lot on how my writing should be. Like, how an actor’s expression should be written, which we don’t tend to do because we write in the classic screenplay format.

Thanks, Sudhish!

Kamal was seen 3 days ago in Hyderabad on the occassion of the release of a commomerative stamp in honour of LV Prasad. Kamal has a lot of respect for Prasad, who produced his first movie in Hindi (Ek Duuje Ke Liye) and also acted in his first production (Rajapaarvai).

His new look may give some indications of what to expect in Dasavatharam…or maybe not. Check out my picks (Photo 1 | Photo 2 | Photo 3 | Photo 4 | Photo 5 | Photo 6) or the whole collection.

Courtesy: musicandhra.com / Telugucinema.com

Love him or hate him, Shah Rukh Khan is the “Badshah of Bollywood”. His respect for Kamal was news especially during Hey Ram, a movie which he is supposed to have done without remuneration. Why he did so might be explained by the below quote…

I walk down the road and people want to kiss me. I’d never do all that to anyone. Not Mr. Bachchan or Mr. Rajnikant. The exception is Kamal. I asked him if I could touch him when I first met him. He has an amazing sense of using space. When he plays an old man his gait and the way he stands is enough to convey his age. He doesn’t need make-up. I find him greater than Dustin Hoffman and De Niro put together, I know Kamal can make you cry with a look in his eyes. I know his pauses. He has an amazing sense of timing that he knows the audience likes. He’s a technician par excellence. That kind of knowledge and control every actor should strive to get.

This quote is taken from Bollyspace blog. Double thanks to Bollyspace, for also listing this blog in the Filmy Blogs section.

Image courtesy: Philip Lutgendorf, University of Iowa.

The problem-laden Vaettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu seems to have struggled till the eleventh hour of release. The last two involved Kamal himself, one involving his remuneration and another about him not being present in the preview show. Whatever is true, fans are happy that the movie is finally out and doing well…