Cinema for once seems to have had a quiet week, taken the backseat and let the others provide the excitement.

Well, what’s so exciting about the week that went by you might ask. Then here you are! When was the last time you saw India beat Australia in cricket twice within the space of three days - that must be the first since one day cricket was incepted into the international calendar much to the anguish of the purists. It was hard to believe but it was true and what more, for the first time in a decade Australians were facing the World Champions, the men from down under were the challengers; that’s something they are not used to. India’s consecutive conquests of Australia may have passed off as a mild aberration in an otherwise predictable week in the sports world had it not been for Kimi Raikonnen, the man with the least chance of making it to the top, lifting the F1crown from under the nose of a rookie and a two time champion benefiting from the mistakes that the two made. That was F1.

Then we have tennis (this one is the most unbelievable) where (believe it or not) Roger Federer failed to win or should we say he was beaten fair and square by a man from Argentina named David Nalbandian: a name you would not have heard if you do not get interested in tennis tournaments before the semifinal stages. This was also the week that India truly celebrated something other than cricket, Vishwanathan Anand’s return to his country amidst a hero’s welcome stumped even the greatest optimist. This was also the week when we first realized that ‘racism’ is not something that exists only in history and in Europe’s football grounds and TV shows. We came to know that when it came to booing, gimmicking and cat calling Indians look every bit as rude as their European counterparts. This was also the week when we finally seem to be coming to a conclusion about whether India will ever buy Plutonium from the US. Benazir Bhutto returning to her homeland and the most shocking instance of terrorism in the recent months… it was indeed quite a week. We saw it all, the good, the bad and the ugly…….

But we also got to see movies……

In most places, tinsel town kept to itself, not revealing much. No exciting releases. Kollywood was quite with only Nyaabagam Varudhe hitting screens and with the kind of publicity that it has received it won’t be surprising if it is not remembered at all. Bollywood too remained amazingly low key with only Speed releasing which has turned out to be an extremely slow starter and is likely to turn turtle in spite of some good reviews. The only industry that chose to unleash a biggie was Tollywood with the ‘Prince’ Mahesh starrer Athidhi which as usual opened big. But the jury is still out on this movie…. It will make profits though.. That’s just about what happened the past week in cinema barring the few interesting tit bits that keep coming up. Next week, we promise is going to be a lot more packed. At least Bollywood has two very different releases ready to hit the screens.

And on a finishing note: the most interesting release of the past week was ……. Not a movie….. but a trailer…. That of Jodhaa Akbar….. Even if you don’t want to watch a movie just get into a theater to catch up on this trailer… it looks great.