7 Embarrassing Event Moments of 2014

A Silverscreen Special

Cinema events are awesome opportunities to see our favourite stars, face to face. The biggest names in the business (even the most reclusive ones) come out in full force for these things; great music is played, and songs from unreleased films are showcased.

It’s a fairy-tale life.

For the most part.

However, these picture-perfect people do sometimes put their worst foot forward, ending up on lists like these. 

We also have a ….Happy New Year moment, in keeping with the theme.

The Lingusamy – Anthony Mithradass Moment

Lingusamy became the butt of all jokes following the Anjaan debacle. Memes were made, and they went the viral way. While most of the film fraternity rallied behind the director, there were some (or in this case, one) who made more fun of the man. At a director’s union event to celebrate the 101st birthday of director Anthony Mithradass, actor Radha Ravi joked about Lingu’s drastic weight loss, attributing it to the failure of Anjaan. 

The tasteless remark made everybody uncomfortable. A seething Lingusamy tried to explain his side of things to the audience and what was supposed to be a birthday celebration, turned into a mud-slinging match.

The D Imman Moment

D Imman’s youthful appearance belies his rather serious nature. The very shy composer didn’t know what hit him when actress Priya Anand pinched his cheeks at the audio launch event of Oru Oorla Rendu Raja. Once it began, it looked like there was no end to the madness. Imman’s cheeks became the focal point of every event since, and many an actor has tried to do the same. In vain.

The Radha Ravi Moment:

Radha Ravi struck once again, this time at the audio launch of Sandamarudham. The legendary actor used swear words of the worst kind (some we knew, others we learnt) when he addressed the issue of plagiarism and the legal cases that threatened to postpone the release of Lingaa. While the sentiment behind the outburst can be appreciated (the man was part of Lingaa, after all) the tone didn’t sit too well with anybody and left many an actor squirming in discomfort.

The Keyaar Moment

Keyaar is famous for hijacking cinema promotional events to talk about something totally irrelevant. Usually, it provides for some welcome distraction, but the producer took it a little too far when he spoke about Samantha Ruth Prabhu at the audio release function of Anjaan.

The producer tried to correlate Samantha’s glamorous outfits in Anjaan with her rumoured ‘skin problems’ – “Samantha is a clever girl. In every scene, she has shown off her body…daring the very people who spread rumours of her skin disease to find trace of it now.”

That Samantha didn’t grace the audio launch, must have suddenly seemed like a blessing in disguise to the organisers.

The Happy New Year Moment

Film events are notorious for beginning late. While an hour here and there can be borne in stoic silence, waiting for over three hours at a promotional event for Happy New Year frustrated journalists so much that most of them walked out.

So not cool, Rahul.

The Murugatrupadai Moment

First time heroes are the cutest, most adorable people one can ever hope to meet. They pose for pictures like good little boys, are always up for last-minute interviews and are game to answer even the most controversial questions.

It’s only when they bring their best friends to audio launch events that they draw our collective ire. These friends clap, laugh, shout and generally do everything that makes noise when they see their best bro onscreen. Saravanan, who made his acting debut with Murgatrupadai, wasn’t satisfied with his grand opening shot, stunt sequences and that Sathyam audio release function (all courtesy his father who is also the film’s producer). He also filled the gallery with the closest of his friends, who made sure that nobody could hear what was said on-stage. Thanks, guys.

The Mooch Moment

Don’t get us wrong. We love going to these events. We really do. The monotony never gets to us. Well, almost never. Sometimes, it so happens that there are two promotional events for the same film on the same day. The same trailer and songs will be watched twice…or more number of times. And the same people will say the same things onstage. Thanking the “producer, parents and God” can be heard only so many times, before we begin to bleed through our ears.

This happened at the audio launch of Mooch. Ironic, right?

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