Thoranai – Movie Review

Starring: Vishal, Shriya, Prakash Raj, Santhanam
Direction: Saba Ayyappan
Music: Mani Sharma
Production: GK Films

Thoranai is a very simple story in which long lost brothers reunite.Geetha has two sons,the elder one influenced in the wrong way does something inappropriate that really angers his mother and she in rage physically punishes him. In anger the elder son runs away from home.

Years later, his younger brother(Vishal) decided to come to the city in search of him,to take him back home. But the city is not friendly to him.He runs into trouble with the local dons of the place(Prakash Raj and Kishore).

In the midst of the dons and the brothers, the director has made space for a romance track and a comedy track too. The comic scenes, handled by Santhanam, Paravai Muniamma and Mayilsaamy should be able to impress sections of the audience.There had been a lot of talk about how Vishal was going to try his hand at comedy in Thoranai. But, barring the scene where he dresses up as Lord Rama and performs a gag to escape from a tight situation, there is nothing else. Even that scene does not have the desired impact. But, it is the romance that fails to leave any impression whatsoever. The chemistry between Vishal and Shriya is totally non-happening. The movie for a large part keeps oscillating between the main plot and the side tracks, frequently interspersed by songs which prevent the central theme from gaining momentum. That is the major drawback of the Thoranai. That apart, the key scene where Vishal identifies his brother could have been better. Also, the means of identification is fetched straight from the annals of cinema (birthmarks, family songs and other similar things).

Overall, Thoranai is a film that has been made with the right intentions; to entertain.Debut director Saba Ayyappan (also in charge of story and screenplay) has not made full use of a great opportunity. Thoranai does entertain, but a tighter script and better execution could have yielded far better results.

DC Youth Orchestra

If you had the means to send your children to the best music classes, would you send them to a run-down building with dirty bathrooms and broken windows?

That’s exactly what happens for students in the popular DC Youth Orchestra, an independent program in Washington, D.C., which borrows space at a local public high school. There are hundreds of youth orchestras around the U.S., but this one has found a way to be affordable, competitive and diverse — in every sense of the word.

For Ava Spece, it’s the same story every Saturday morning: cockroaches and burned-out lights. Spece is executive director of the DC Youth Orchestra, or DCYO. She can rattle off a litany of problems she faces at Coolidge High School, where nearly 600 students gather every Saturday to take classes and practice with one of 12 different performing ensembles.

The halls ring with a wide range of music. At one end of the school, a beginning orchestra sounds like it has a lot of room for growth. At the other end of the hall, there’s the more advanced Youth Orchestra, the top dog of the program. And there’s just about everything in between: a junior philharmonic, jazz ensembles and chamber groups.

Barbara Mori learns English from Hrithik Roshan

Hrithik Roshan’s co-star in Kites, Barabara Mori has learnt to speak English, a language which she did not speak or comprehend while she was signed up for the project. The producers of the film were looking for a Spanish actress because the character in the film demanded that.Though Barbara did not have knowledge of any other language the producers decided to take her onboard. Barbara Mori plays Spanish lady in the film having no knowledge of any other language.