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Dr. Allu Ramalingaiah, father-in-law of one of the leading Telugu movie stars Chiranjeevi, was a yesteryear comedian. As a tribute to him, an award had been instituted namely “Allu Ramalingaiah’s Memorial Award.” This award is given to a talented comedian every year. “Hero Rajendra Prasad has been awarded with the prestigious award for this year” said Allu Ramalingaiah Kalapeetham president Sarepalli Kondalarao. Governor of Andhra Pradesh, Actor Chiranjeevi, Minister Mandali Buddha Prasad and Others will be present at the award ceremony on 1st October, 2007.

So, what is wrong with that? Do I have any problem? yeah! I do… My problem is that whenever an award is constituted in any industry, it is of utmost importance to first recognize the talent at home and then if our home is an empty vessel… then, one should go in search for talent outside… I regard and know that Actor Rajendra Prasad is one of the most versatile actors that Telugu film industry has ever produced. But as usual, our learned Jury members of every award committee recognizes him not as a first thought but as an after thought. And this time it is after an outsider Johny Lever (I know that he is a Telugu person from Ongole, but he is not from Telugu film industry…) has already been awarded with Allu Ramalingaiah Memorial Award last year… Legendary actor Rajendra Prasad has never been given his due for his true service to “Kalamathalli”… Now-a-days every undeserving actor talks of Kalamathalli… never knowing who she really is… So I decided to write a short Biography on Rajendra Prasad as my bit in giving him his rightful due… —KALCHA

CHIRUTHA, as expected opened huge for a new comer and posted some fantastic figures on its first day. But I still stick to my earlier prediction… Read KALCHAs CHIRUTHA Box-Office Prediction

Area Wise Chirutha First Day Collections (SHARES):

Ceded(Rayalaseema) - Rs. 1.32 Crores (GROSS) - 45 Prints
Nizam(Telangana) - Rs. 92 Lakhs - 115 Prints
Krishna - Rs. 29.27 Lakhs - 16 Prints
Guntur - Rs. 47 Lakhs - 16 Prints
East Godavari - Rs. 29 Lakhs - 13 Prints
West Godavari - Rs. 42 Lakhs - 13 Prints
Utharandhra (Vizag area) - Rs. 17.5 Lakhs - 24 Prints
Nellore - Rs. 20 Lakhs - 15 Prints

Center Wise Chirutha First Day Collections (SHARES):

Tirupati - Rs. 14.5 Lakhs
Anantapur - Rs. 8.13 Lakhs
Kurnool - Rs. 12.5 Lakhs
Kadapa - Rs. 9.1 Lakhs
Dharmavaram - Rs. 3.3 Lakhs
Tadipatri - Rs. 3.7 Lakhs
Guntakal - Rs. 4.1 Lakhs
Adoni - Rs. 4.5 Lakhs
Markapuram - Rs. 2.85 Lakhs
Done - Rs. 1.92 Lakhs
Nandikotkur - Rs. 1.95 Lakhs
Giddalur - Rs. 1.4 Lakhs
Pulivendula - Rs. 1.58 Lakhs
Prodhutur - Rs. 5.6 Lakhs
koduru - Rs. 2.93 Lakhs
Rajampeta - Rs. 2.65 Lakhs
Nandyala - Rs. 6 Lakhs

For your kind information, Terminology used is as follows:

Gross = Total Collection
Share = Gross Minus Expenses

***Please remember these are speculative figures from trade circles and not officially announced and are rounded to the nearest ball park figure… So, by the very nature of speculation, they may or may not be incorrect…

SOURCE: OnionDosa

CHIRUTHA MOVIE CREDITS:

CAST:
LEAD ACTOR (Ram Charan): 0.5
LEAD ACTRESS (Neha Sharma): 0.25
REST OF THE CAST (Ashish Vidyarthi, Prakash Raj, Ali, Dharmavarapu Subrahmaniam, Brahmanandam, M.S. Narayana, Surya, Pragathi, Sayaji Shinde, Venu Madhav, Tanikella Bharani, Daniel Balaji and others): 0
STUNTS (Vijayan): 0.25 (For the first fight in jail)
ART (Chinna): 0
CINEMATOGRAPHY (Shyam K. Naidu): 0.25
EDITING (M. R. Varma): 0
CHOREOGRAPHY (Raju Sundaram, Nobel): 0.25 (For the first song)
LYRICS (Sirivennela Sitaramsastry, Viswa, Bhaskar Bhatla, Kandikonda): 0.5
BACKGROUND MUSIC/SCORE (Mani Sharma): 0
MUSIC (Mani Sharma): 1
PRODUCER (C. Aswinidutt): 0.25 (For the premier show at Prasads)
BANNER: Vyjayanthi Movies
STORY/SCREENPLAY/DIALOGUES/DIRECTION (Puri Jagannath): 0/0/0/0
CBFC RATING: U/A
RELEASE DATE: 28, September, 2007

KALCHAs RATING: 3.25/10

PERFORMANCES:
RAM CHARAN: Well, Ram Charan is a revelation… He has Pluses and some Minuses. As for the pluses are considered… He is a great dancer like his father Chiranjeevi, he has an athletic body like Allu Arjun… He has the ease in his body language like Pawan kalyan. He is at his best when it comes to stunts… Ram Charan has a rhythm when it comes to dances and fights and it can only improve from here on… He has a deep Baritone in his voice that is very manly for his age… (Especially, when you consider Puri’s brother Sai Ram Shankar now-a-days, tortures us with his Unmanly voice…) Ram Charan is good looking from sideways…

Now a few minuses… He is not that great looking straight and up close. His jawline is too bulky… And when it comes to his performance, he is still camera shy… but that will fend off with experience and he really needs to work on his dialogue modulation. Great voices like his, need careful modulation…

So, as for my prediction… He would(should) develop his own mannerisms and style in the future… I have a gut feeling that he will be one of the Pillars of the Telugu film industry in the years to come. Like there were Chiranjeevi, Bala Krishna, Venkatesh and Nagarjuna in the past… Ram Charan, Mahesh Babu, NTR, Ram, Allu Arjun, Prabhas will stand as pillars for the Telugu film industry in the years to come…

NEHA SHARMA: The heroine Neha Sharma is an obvious scapegoat… if the film fails at the box-office. I’m not saying she has done a great job… but she hasn’t done a bad job either. She was given the role of a rich spoiled ultra modern girl and she has done enough justice to the role that Charan’s fans will hate her for insulting Charan in the movie (Which the character demands).

As for my prediction goes… I don’t think she has a bright future in Tollywood… because, although she is sexy and has an Oomph factor, she isn’t beautiful enough or homely looking girl to sustain in Tollywood in the long run… Because 90% of Tollywood heroine roles demand those qualities from a heroine…

OTHERS: Others??? Who…? There are ‘n’ number of forgettable roles to portray for others… In fact, though Ali’s transvestite role evokes some cheap humour, his character is one of the cheapest roles he has portrayed in his career… There are no other good or bad performances to even mention…

BACKGROUND MUSIC/SCORE: Mani Sharma has rendered very lackluster background score… There is no theme, richness, exhilaration or anything else that should be… In fact very cheaply he copies and extensively uses Rishi Rich’s track “My eyes on you” in the first half…

MUSIC: The only department from Chirutha that scores full marks is music. Mani Sharma has given the best possible tunes he could for this uninspiring movie…

CHOREOGRAPHY: Despite the tremendous potential of Ram Charan when it comes to dancing skills, the choreographers completely failed to bring the best out of him… as except for the first song none of the others are good enough…

STUNTS: Vijayan completely failed to deliver a memorable fight sequence except for an O.K. fight sequence in the jail… Ram Charan has an agile body and Vijayan could have made use of his agility to compose some memorable fight sequences… which he didn’t. Vijayan should really rent/buy Hollywood slick flicks Bourne series of films to learn how to compose man to man fight sequences…

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Shyam K. Naidu has done a shoddy job. Except for a couple of night shots in the island that the lead pair are trapped… nothing else is good enough… let alone breath taking.

EDITING: In general, editing is done to show us what the director of the movie shot but may fail to show the audience… As Puri Jagannath didn’t shoot anything good enough to show the audience… Varma remained jobless… So I don’t blame him.

PRODUCTION: Except for the Grand Premier of Chirutha that was organized in Prasads which is a first in Telugu film industry there is nothing else to show us the rich production values that were being publicized about…

STORY/SCREENPLAY/DIALOGUES/DIRECTION: The screenplay pattern and the story of Chirutha is so pathetic that it makes me sick again after Vijayadasami. Puri Jagannath churned out… what can at best be described as… “Copied, Pasted, Tore off the script, Pasted the pieces back in a haphazard manner and then finally forgot the story itself…” or “One pathetic scene, one song, one fight and the rhyme goes on…”

Well, if you are still interested in the story… “Hero’s father(Surya) witnesses a murder by Mattu Bhai(Ashish Vidyarthi)… and so, young hero(Puri Jagannath’s Real Son) is forced to witness his father’s murder and in the process his mother gets injured severely (There are ‘n’ number of Indian movies with the same flashback or opening… so no point in picking one…). Now, to save his mother he needs money for the surgery. So with some help from Tanikella Bharani’s character, the young lad owns up someone else’s crime and goes to Juvenile Prison (In Gangleader, Chiranjeevi owns someone else’s accident and goes to jail…). After he is bullied for some time by the inmates, the young hero fights for his rights (Again, ‘n’ number of Indian movies have these sequences…) by eating an egg from someone else’s mouth… literally (To the director’s credit, this is a first… in our films…).

The hero (Ram Charan) who should be longing to see his mother strangely settles scores with the inmates and extends his jail term every time he does that. And more strangely he is released out of jail along with his buddy (Venu Madhav) on the same day, same time… (Nice facility…) As soon as he is out he starts inquiring about his mother’s whereabouts. In the process gets to know she is resting in peace and before he cries over her grave to his heart’s content, the scene changes and he asks for work from Tanikella… And quite strangely despite being a baddie (revealed later… as if we didn’t know already), he offers a job in a travel agency in Bangkok (Quite a great job in a great city for a jail returned…).

Meanwhile, the hero and his buddy get almost hit by heroine’s car while she cleans the footpath mess with her car as a broomstick (Yeah! daily routine of the rich spoiled brats… in our movies since 1970s). Gotta tell you something here… as soon as the hero hits the window shield of the heroine’s car, he starts falling in love which can be understood as love at first sight… but the problem is that he never actually sees the heroine’s face as she instantly looks away in fear… (or did he fell in love with her hair or back…?). And then in another scene the heroine strangely never knowing her friend’s brother, comes and closes the hero’s eyes mistakenly… (must be a super fast girl… otherwise, who does that to an unknown person?). And now the strangest thing happens as our hero suddenly starts talking in well accented English… in fact through the rest of the movie and even gets the job as a guide in Bangkok (as if he knew Bangkok as his backyard… which is jail) for his English speaking skills (Must be an English medium jail…).

Very conveniently, heroine visits Bangkok with her friends and more conveniently lands in the same travel agency the hero is working in… Then starts the heroine’s brashness… and strangely she never recognizes him from the earlier meeting when she closes his eyes despite having seen him up close (must be medium term memory loss). The rest is straightly and blatantly copied from Kaho Naa Pyar Hai which in turn was copied from an English movie Blue Lagoon. During the climax fight, hero beats up many goons very easily in one of the worst composed fights… in the so called hunting by Chirutha Puli. And then very strangely and yuckily hides himself in the mud and plays a peek-a-boo with the villain who was much older than all the ones that he just beat up… (copied from Predator and which was completely uncalled for…)

Finally, I know every fan would hate me for this… but I recommend after watching the movie please get some pain killers on your way home… The headache is really unbearable… Once again i reiterate that it is Puri Jagannath that has ruined Ram Charan’s debut movie…

BEST DIALOGUE: When offered money in exchange of freedom, Young Charan says to the Police Officer - “Bhayam Vestundi…”
FUNNIEST DIALOGUE: Before the prolonged climax fight, Prakash Raj tells Ram Charan - “Velli Nee Pellanni Techchuko…”
WORST DIALOGUE: Prakash Raj in the process of warning his daughter - “KUTURU Kante KUKKANU Penchukovadam Melu.”

READERs RATING on CHIRUTHA:

DON’T MISS Kalcha’s Chirutha Box-Office Prediction…

CHARMEE, one of the most exposed persons in Telugu film industry (quite literally)… is doing her 25th film titled MANTRA. Her age seem to be forever stuck at 18+ (according to her ridiculous claims)… but it feels great to see that she is at least making progress in her career. But the progress is in quantity (25) rather than quality (Her only good film till date is Anukokunda Okaroju)…

Anyway, DTS works are in progress for Mantra directed by Tulasiram and produced by Kalyan Ram with Charmee playing the title role. According to the producer Kalyan Ram, the film is a thriller. The film revolves around various incidents that occurred in the life of a girl called Mantra. What kind of incidents she faced? How she thwarted them? What kind of bravery she showed in attacking the odd circumstances is the subject. Kausha’s character would give a good twist to the story. The Mantra team is planning to launch the audio very soon and the film will subsequently be released without any further delay as the movie already suffered a time lag…

MANTRA MOVIE CREDITS:

CAST: Charmee, Rallapalli, Jeeva, Vijay, Chitram Sreenu, Karuna and others…
DIALOGUES: Surendra Krishna, Ravi Kolikapudi
ART: Satyanarayana
STUNTS: Ramana
LYRICS: Bhuvanachandra
MUSIC: Anand B
EDITING: Upendra,
CHOREOGRAPHY: Prem Rakshit
STORY/SCREENPLAY: Ravi Prakash
PRODUCER: Kalyan Ram
DIRECTION: Tulasiram

CHIRUTHA is the biggest disappointment of the year. I have seen many failures before in Tollywood but never this big… especially when the expectations were sky high… Chirutha’s failure has got nothing to do with Ram Charan… He is a great revelation and very obviously will be a huge star in the future of Telugu cinema. But that doesn’t mean he is completely devoid of any drawbacks. So a complete preview and prediction of Ram Charan’s future will come soon… So, coming to the movie, the failure of Chirutha lies 99% with the director of the movie Puri Jagannath. Anyway, you can read a complete review of the movie Chirutha later…

IN A NUTSHELL: Chirutha will open huge very obviously, but will fall miserably at the box-office by the third day or by the end of its first week… No matter how much positive talk and publicity generated by the media, fans and Chirutha team… the movie would never recover from the obvious debacle. And lastly, no matter what is the number of 100 days centers (usually it is the job of hardcore fans…), Chirutha will at best be a safe venture commercially as the curiosity factor of Ram Charan’s debut might just push it over the safe line and in to the safe zone… Telugu movie buffs are always interested in the number of 100 days centers and the like… But they got to understand the movie economics. For example, SIVAJI - The Boss was not widely liked by the Telugu audience… and in fact, was out of majority theaters before it reached 100 days… but the estimated gross collections are around Rs. 27-32 Cr. in Telugu alone… till date. Whereas, Sankar Dada Zindabad posted around Rs. 10-15 Cr. loss according to market estimations…

UPDATE: Dear Prakash, through comments you have brought up an interesting point which I am clearing now… Actually, I never expected a MESSAGE ORIENTED as you put it or a GREAT MOVIE as I put it from Ram Charan’s debut…

Chiranjeevi acted his best in some of the finest pieces of art of cinema that is ever produced on this planet. And I mean it ‘Coz on an average I see one English movie a day… But, Chiranjeevi’s SWAYAM KRUSHI, RUDRA VEENA, ARADHANA, CHANTABBAI, APADHBANDHAVUDU, CHALLENGE, ABHILASHA, IDI KATHA KADHU, PUNNAMI NAGU, 47 ROJULU, SUBHALEKHA… and the like are still and forever ever remain masterpieces. I always feel proud to be a Telugu person whenever I watch them… (I have enjoyed them at least 10 times each…) But as for your concern that they are MESSAGE ORIENTED… I’d say that Chiranjeevi acted in some of the most entertaining commercial cinema ever on Telugu screen… I really enjoyed TAGORE, MUTHA MESTHRI, HITLER, ROWDY ALLUDU, GHARANA MOGUDU, KONDAVEETI DONGA, JAGADEKA VEERUDU ATHILOKA SUNDARI (I still remember not having the money as I was a kid… back then, to buy the ticket in BLACK, so I tried for 4 days for the tickets standing in line), ATHAKU YAMUDU AMMAYIKI MOGUDU, YAMUDU KI MOGUDU, RAKSHASUDU, VIJETHA, ADAVI DONGA, RUSTHUM, MANTRI GARI VIYYANKUDU, KHAIDI… and the like.

So as an admirer of his acting talents I was expecting a movie of the standard of any of the above commercial cinema… And I feel that even the biggest of Chiranjeevi’s flops like Sneham Kosam, Jai Chiranjeeva, Andarivadu and the like… are better than Chirutha. —KALCHA

DON’T MISS Kalcha’s Review On CHIRUTHA

CHIRUTHA will be previewed in USA on 27th itself by Great India Films. 15 prints including one Canada print are on their way in Lufthansa flight from Hyderabad to JFK/Chicago, and they will be routed to the respective cities by the first available flight. So Chiranjeevi’s son Ram Charan Tej is on his way to conquer and then probably loot NRIs in USA… literally… What am I talking about? What do I mean? Read On…

Hordes of Chiranjeevi fans would be waiting for the release of his son’s debut movie Chirutha and they would be heart broken… if they don’t find any tickets for the first day of the release. Now here enters the dragons… The Production Team and the Distribution Team. Sensing the craze and vulnerability of these gullible fans, the production and distribution teams got the cheapest idea to charge double the normal price for a single ticket of Chirutha. The normal ticket price for any big budgeted Hollywood release in USA is around $8. But the Chirutha production team are charging $16 for Chirutha. Some of you might question… why not charge NRIs as they make huge money anyway… But you got to take into consideration the cost of watching a Telugu movie in USA is around $50 (Rs.2,000). That’s because first Telugu movie fans would have to drive down to the theater screening Telugu movies which usually would be 2-3 hours away by road… And, now that the cost has gone up to $60 (Rs.2,400) due to the increase in the ticket price, they might as well look out for a cheap pirated copy on footpaths and in the process killing the Telugu film industry in the long run…

Well, NRIs must take in the punishment for loving our Indian films and in this case Telugu… ‘Coz their favorite heroes and producers are pouncing on them to squeeze in that extra dollar until sense returns to their empty brains when piracy kills the Tollywood Film Industry itself… A recent example would be Chiranjeevi’s film Sankar Dada Zindabad itself. The movie toppled miserably at the box-office in USA (in India too…), despite the huge frenzy among the fans… Apart from being an unbaked movie, the ticket price of the movie also played role in killing SDZ.

So my question is simple… If at all the movie is good enough to charge that price for those greedy dollars… why don’t these heroes and producers have the guts to maintain normal ticket price and let the movie run on its merit and earn the producer the big bucks… Eventually, it is Tollywood audience that are suffering… —KALCHA

Bala Krishna gets busy again after his daughter’s marriage. He is teaming up with the (vintage) Director Raghavendra Rao for their new film Ranga Panduranga… I know this news is old but what is new is that the shooting of the film is commencing on 21st October, 2007. The Pooja ceremony will be held in the second week. It is being planned that after a week of scheduled shooting, Bala Krishna will again start working on Okka Magadu. And then after the entire Okka Magadu finishes, Bala Krishna would join the shooting for Ranga Panduranga.

I wonder if he gets to wear this pant in a mythological movie…!!! —KALCHA

Raghavendra Rao is producing it on his RK Film Associates banner. Two leading heroines and several other upcoming actresses will star in this movie.

I really wonder as to how many heroines would go through this torture again… If you are wondering as to who is the poor heroine desperate for breath in the picture below… She is Deepti Bhatnagar in Pelli Sandadi. —KALCHA

AKSHARA… Yeah! That is the new name that former Rekha would like to be called as in the future… If you forgot her in the first place… let me remind you that she was the heroine of yesteryear hit Anandam. And since then she never had any Anandam at the box-office and in Tollywood. Well, quite ambitiously, she tried to squeeze through Bollywood gates but never made it inside… So she is back with a new name (for change of luck) and her Freaky Frankenstein Eyes…

Usually in the movies, the Cameraman and Editor does a great job in hiding every star’s real personality in every way and project what ever they feel is presentable. But off-screen it is very hard to hide their real personality which is quite often caught by any camera (nowadays, mobile does a great job… isn’t it?). You don’t agree with me??? Let me have the pleasure of proving you wrong…

Doesn’t this Photograph remind you of Kallu Chidambaram? I know Kallu Chidambaram has much more freaky eyes… But to be a glamorous heroine these eyes are still freaky enough… —KALCHA

Well, you might ask isn’t she beautiful at all…? The answer is yes, she is beautiful in the picture below… —KALCHA

MALLANNA… Yeah! This is the title of the new movie that is launched on 24 September, 2007 in Prasad Labs of Hyderabad. But what makes it special? Well, the movie stars one of my all time favorite actors VIKRAM and beautiful SHRIYA in the lead… So, it is a killer combination… Don’t you agree? What else is interesting about this movie? It is a Bi-lingual. If anyone of you are not aware of the term… it is just that the movie will be made in a couple of languages. In this case Tamil and Telugu. There will be no problems that arise out of dubbing a Tamil movie into Telugu or Vice-Versa. And, the movie is conceptualized and being directed by Susi Ganesh. He worked with Mani Ratnam in the past. And according to Vikram, Susi Ganesh is a perfect combination of Mani Ratnam and Shankar. And I believe his take on him… The reason being the Promo, Teaser or Trailer… what ever you call it. Just watch this magnificent trailer and tell me if you disagree…

Did you watch it? What do you say? Simply fabulous… isn’t it? Anyway, the extravagant launch was attended by Dasari Narayana Rao, DVS Raju, K. Raghavendra Rao, Ramesh Prasad, C. Kalyan, Susi Ganesh, Ekambaram, Devi Sri Prasad, Priyamani, Kaveri, Vikram, Shriya and Kalaipuli Thanu. The Tamil version is called Kanthaswamy (Lord Muruga) and the Telugu version is called Mallanna (Lord Shiva). According to Susi Ganesh, the movie has a social message and will especially be liked by kids and youth as the movie is being crafted on a Hollywood scale… Moreover the lead actor Vikram is appearing in various getups heightening the curiosity factor. The movie would be ready for release in April, 2008.

According to DVS Raju, Kalaipuli Thanu specializes in getting everybody’s attention with extravagant acts. He always make sure that his films are special. And that the trailer of Mallanna reminds him of Hollywood trailers. And according to Vikram this extravagant invitation is just the tip of the iceberg and also the trailers of Mallanna sparked tremendous response. He says, Kalaipuli Thanu is also called as Publicity King back in Chennai. And that Mallanna will be another feather in his cap after Siva Putrudu and Aparichitudu.

MOVIE: Mallanna
CAST: Vikram, Shriya
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Ekambaram
MUSIC DIRECTOR: Devi Sri Prasad
PRODUCER: Kalaipuli Thanu
BANNER: V Creations
DIRECTOR: Susi Ganesh

TO VIEW MALLANNA MOVIE GALLERY CLICK HERE