Now its June 15!

In keeping with Shankar's history(Anniyan was especially atrocious in this respect), Sivaji's release date has been moved to June 15 from the previously announced 'official' date of May 31.

Shankar doesn't seem to have been the reason for this postponement though. According to Rajinifans.com, the date of May 31 became impossible after AVM decided to assign the film roll processing fully to Prasad Labs to avoid or atleast diminish the possibility of piracy that could occur if multiple labs prepared the prints. Though this would have moved the release back only a few days, June 15 was then picked since the period June 1 - June 14 is considered an inauspicious period. A couple of other reasons have been mentioned too - including Rajni wanting the issues around Sivaji release in Karnataka to be fixed.

Whatever the reason, the fact remains that the countdown has been restarted. 25 days to go...

But with almost all sites having begun their countdown to the release, there is no dearth of articles to read about the film though.

- Rediff had an interview with the cinematographer K.V.Anand. He talked a bit about the Vaaji Vaaji... and Sahana... songs and the problems he faced, especially for the latter song.

- They also featured an interview with art director Thotta Tharani. Interestingly he talked only about the same 2 songs. His descriptions of the sets for the songs sound real grand and his sketches for the same were cool. Can't wait to see them on the big screen.

- Found out from an article on Rajinifans.com - and then after a little googling - that Balalaika is a kind of folk music in Russia.