i shall review

A movie which can be seen only on the big screen

2010-01-01T23:24:00.002+05:30

A movie made at a staggering half a billion dollars and promised amazing, never seen before visuals – you actually not know what to expect from this flick. I was blank as well, as I walked in to the theater wearing dark glasses thinking whether it was going to be a film that was just going to show graphics and graphics only and flush the story and narration down the sewer?

Anything could happen, I told myself to stave of any sort of disappointment, but coming from James Cameroon, I convinced myself that it would have a decent enough story and amazing visuals. Just like Terminator and Titanic – Both of them which had a pretty interesting story and even more appealing visuals and effects. Avatar reminds us about another great film Matrix that hit the screens 10 years back, probably when James Cameroon went to the floors with this film. Two bodies – one mind. Human Genome mixed with those of the humanoids of Pandora and so…. Well you kind of understand it even though you are sweating at the mention of few biological utterances. Our hero has Equivalent pandorian which he can control with his mind. His mission is to gain the natives of Pandora’s trust and negotiate deals with them for re locating them so that human’s can extract the precious stone worth 20 million Dollars. All hell breaks loose as the human’s led by a head strong major launch an offensive against their village that is on top of a tree. The tree (Their Village) is brought down and is smashed. The natives decide to take revenge. This makes the entire chunk of the visually appealing climax.

This review would have probably put you off if you are a cinephile, but it’s not for nothing that JC has taken 10 years for making this movie. 6 legged horses, giant jurrassic inspired reptiles, floating mountains tropical rain forests, inter connected trees (I mean, the humanoids have a personal connection with all the living beings, through their mind!), huge elephant- Rhino like creatures and jumbo machines of the humans- It has everything. The matrix hang over is seen in some of the weapons as well, Remember saving the city scene in matrix 2 where huge robotic machines operated by a single operator with huge machine guns? You see them here as well.

The most striking thing of Avatar as supposed to other films of this repute and more importantly the budget; lets say Jurrassic park or the 2012 is that - you don’t see where they have played around with graphics. Of course, you can easily find out in the case of weird creatures and all that! But, the humanoids themselves are very difficult to guess. There were dressed in blue suits or where they created in a computer. Did they shoot in a tropical rain forest or did they use a blue mat simulation? Did they construct the weird helicopters and huge machines or was it the handi work of graphic engineers? It does make an interesting exercise for the audience to guess where they have used it and where they have not! While in movies like 2012 you can actually pretty much list out scenes and say – Hey that’s graphics man!

That I think is the best thing about Avatar! The world pulled over your eyes called “Pandora” is so beautiful and dangerous that you would want to take a chance even with your life to see and marvel the beauty. Floating mountains and having a personal connection with animals with your hair and telling them what to do with our minds - Take that for Imagination!!! So, James Cameroon pretty much takes one frame for the film maker in him and gives one for the people. You have the clichés and you have the “Wow, how did he do that” instance in the same film.

On the whole, Avatar pretty much delivers what I expected out of it… A decent interesting story line and visuals I have not seen anywhere. It delivers it. It’s just right THERE. Skip the movie, if you want to kindle the cinephile in you. If you want to marvel at the technological advancement the movie has made – Go for it. You won’t be disappointed. Never see this on your computer. See it in 3- D.

Avatar - To be enjoyed only on the big screen.

Udhav Naig

What you expect is what you get!

2009-12-24T23:15:00.014+05:30

For those who have taken a liking to vintage classics of World cinema, you would have have noticed that they are based on great books, but imagine the quality of a film if its based on a book that already reads like a bollywood potboiler. That is precisely how I would define 3 Idiots. Make no mistake, the film is - as the director pointed out is only loosely based and adequate changes are made actually cater to what we now call as the "Bollywood audience". Yet, the movie borrows its best moment from the book.

Aamir Khan (Rancho), Maddy (Farhan) and Sharman Joshi( Raju Rastogi) are 3 friends having whale of a time in college, its a typical bollywood college with strict and funnily lisping principal. The characterization of the 3 idiots and other idiots in this film is pretty much Dittoed from the book. Aamir as the brilliant, bright and erudite guy who wants to enjoy learning and keeps telling his friends the same. Maddy can easily call himself the "forced" engineer, as his love lies elsewhere in clicking pics, while Sharman is a poor young guy from the village who has an ailing mother and to be married sister Maddy and Sharman are the low graders while Aamir always manages to get the first rank- the reason he attributes to his phenomenal success are- For me engineering is passion, you guys see it as a marks...Let learning be a passion, says Mr Rancho.

Farhan and Raju follow one dream, a dream that would give a great life for Raju's family and a dream which would fill the heart of Farhan's dad with happiness.Its a dream that the 2 families share, that is to get a job. All the fun that ensues and the funny experience that 2 idiots go through is towards one dream. Aamir is not bothered about a job or even marks, he says "Excellence will bring success automatically".

The principal is pissed with Rancho's ideas, and he is almost sure that he is man behind spoiling Farhan and Raju's grades. He tries to put him in his place but every effort is thwarted and ends up in vain. Pia (Kareena Kapoor), daughter of the strict principal himself is coochie cooing with one of the idiots Rancho. They fall in love and a good enjoyable song is danced out, which I confess, I enjoyed.

Mayhem ensues when Raju is caught doing mischief outside professors house. He is asked to turn the "Approver" and Raju does not budge, so he jumps down a 3 story building and damages his arms, and brains. He gets the job; All ends well and smiles and hugs are shared- and A twist. Aamir just gets into a car and vanishes. from the college, from pia's life and from his friends life. How they find him is the question that is answered in the final segment of the film.

Although it stays loyal to the book in most of their college life, the lives of these 3 young adults change - post college. The post college story is brief in the film, but the ramifications in each of their life - post college is pretty huge. The comic instances in the book like flicking the question paper or entering the professors house are religiously followed. The principal's role, acted out with good finesse with Bomman Irani is effective, it is not just funny all the time like how it always is...especially in a comedy film.

The movie is pot boiler, but with an innovation. It does not have skimpily clad heroine, does not have terrible nasal blowing singers trying hard to create an impact. Except for the 10 minutes in the film, nothing seems forced and effortlessly falls in to place - Thanks to Chetan Bhagat. It has its pitfalls too, Seriously, I expect much more from Aamir, of course, this movie is not boring and satisfies the basic expectation, but shouldn't he pull up the gear, esp after Taare Zameen Par?

Casting seems to be a mismatch, its not a film which should have been done by Aamir khan and Maddy. Although I would excuse 40 plus Aamir in exchange for his super good acting in this comical role, I am unable to digest Maddy as an engineering student who doesn't just look like a college student any more. No where close. Sorry!

The dialogues in the film has been well written, Pre Interval speech in Shudh Hindi, brings the house down literally, although it is not pretentious but direct sexual references, it is enjoyable. nevertheless. The songs become a formality, but the duet with Kareena is enjoyable.

Aamir Khan fits the role, but for his age which shows in many places. Maddy and Sharman also do a very good job in this film with good number of laughs. A movie meant just to make you laugh, panchathanthiram style. Aamir laughs all the way again to the bank!

Udhav Naig

X Men Wolverine!

2009-09-30T15:08:00.001+05:30

X Men – origins - Wolverine

Even as you enter the cinema hall, a mere look at Wolverine poster (Hugh Jackman) can reveal enough about what is to be offer. This movie chronicles the origin of “Wolverine”, unarguably the most charismatic Character in the entire “X Men” trilogy.

It begins with lousy story of the “Young” Logan and his half – Brother Victor running away into the woods after killing his father. As the credits roll, the blood brothers are shown decimating every other “gun” clad enemy during their stint in the American Army. Soon they are captured and sent to prison for “decapitating” a senior officer and when help arrives in the form of devilish Col. Stryker (Danny Huston) who offers them a deal which they cannot refuse. The blood brother’s finally make up their mind to join his “Special team” which has been promised with special privileges.

Cut to Nigeria, the team embarks on a mission. Unable to put up with the moral aberrations he had to endure during this mission, the do-gooder Logan leaves the team and finds solace in the Canadian woods with his lady love. But Col. Stryker isn’t done with him yet. By this time if you haven’t figured out how this movie is going to end, then this movie is for you and especially made for you. The routine super hero(s) revenge plot has been rehashed with predictable turn of events that fail to muster up anything that is even remotely interesting. What we get to see on the big screen is the old wine stuffed in an even older bottle. To the benefit of those who are still interested in the story here it comes: As Victor starts enjoying the “Animal” side of him, mayhem ensues as brothers are pit against each other.

Wolverine strides out in search of blood as he comes to know that it was Victor who has harmed his lady love. Out for revenge and with no idea of stopping without ensuring a blood bath, Wolverine seeks the help of Col. Stryker who arms the already armed Wolverine with even more ammunition. He is turned into a man of steel with Adamantium claws, quite literally. It is now revealed that Col. Stryker is an intelligent Villain who has bigger plans.

The threshold of those watching the film finally gives away and one wonders if the director is actually Gavin Hood, the man who directed “Tsotsi”. We also begin to wonder why this prequel was actually made in the first place. The very reason why X -Men was hugely popular was because of the mystic aura surrounding the wolverine and his steel claws. When this mystical past is revealed with such a primitive storyline there isn’t much you can do except bite your teeth and sit through the trauma.

The narration is pedestrian and boringly linear for a wafer thin plot; it actually induces sleep even though it runs only, for just over 1hr 30 minutes. The movie might have been worth its money had the screen writers (David Benioff and Skip Woods) concentrated on character building and plot points than banking on Hugh Jackman to carry the film completely on his shoulders.

There is absolutely no humor or intelligent tongue in Cheek dialogues that would have made “Wolverine” better than the previous installments. Wolverine is reduced to claw brandishing animal; He is boring because he heals himself quickly and pulls of insane stunts at the drop of a hat. After a point you realize the fact that there is nothing that can harm him and at the end of the day, you seldom care about him.

The movie has its moments as well, even though the stunts gives us an “I have seen this before” feel, it still manages to inspire awe in us. The spectacular climax showdown between Victor, Wolverine and the Ultimate Mutant who possesses the combined powers of other mutants on top of a circular structure has been breathtakingly conceived, it’s a treat to watch it on the big screen. Hugh Jackman has carried the film on his shoulders completely and is the ultimate saving grace in the film. If at all you want to watch this film, watch it for Hugh Jackman and the stunts.

Verdict – Old wine in an old Bottle.

Unnai Pol Oruvan is... A wednesday Pol Oruvan

2009-09-18T20:14:00.004+05:30

First set first game, Shah to serve – The police station complaint scene – No return from Haasan. Shah leads 1-0. Haasan to serve – The first few rounds of phone calls – Shah breaks serve and wins the next game, leads 3-0. Now, the first half of the soliloquy , about the common man… Its becoming a one man show – Shah leads Haasan 4-0.. Now the second half of the soliloquy, narrating the story, alternating between emotion, pain ,intensity and wit. Haasan serves 12 aces and breaks thrice in 10 minutes. Takes the set 6-4.

The above lines , however are not the complete representation of the show that Unnai Pol Oruvan has been. They just cover the lead. Unnai Pol Oruvan is the remake of a film that was good but not great. To expect greatness from it is madness but to see how much justice is being done to the original essence and to observe how much of it is actually better is the way to go.

Places where Unnai Pol Oruvan is better done than A Wednesday

1) LEAD(Casting+Charecterization+Performances) – It is almost a role reversal of sorts. In a Wednesday, Anupam Kher is stiff throughout and Naseer comes up with wit and sarcasm now and then. Here, Kamal is witty but intensity personified while Mohanlal has plenty of political satire to play with, especially in the scenes involving Lakshmi where they make light conversation of highly complex issues. Kamal is as classy as ever and some of Mohanlal’s reactions leave your jaw open. Both in typical elements rock the screen all the time.

2) The look – I am a layman, I don’t know what to call it. The film looked a lot better than A Wednesday, Maybe thanks to the Red Camera – The resolution and the whole picture was top notch giving it an ultra slick look.

3) The Dialogues – A lot more politics, A lot more satire, A new dimension. If there is one area where A Wednesday is better in dialogues, it’s the tautness and the intensity which seems to be lacking in Unnai Pol Oruvan

4) The Music – Whenever there is Guitar, there is MAGIC. Especially when kamal is first shown on screen working on a drill, with a paper near him flying due to the wind there is complete hysteria as his name appears on the screen. However, his Allah Jaane is an ear-sore.. Rest of it is fine.

Places where Unnai Pol Oruvan just doesn’t come close to A Wednesday

1) The soul – Well the essence is an old helpless common man playing with the entire police force. This is virtually messed up in this remake… One sometimes feels they have missed the point, man.

2) The generalizabilty – No the theme is not universal. Its more mumbaish. No resident of Tamilnadu will feel the emotions of what Kamal describes. There are a few dialogue to rectify this flaw but doesn’t work.

3) Suspense – Its sad but when one remakes a thriller with a twist in the ‘tail’, once cant hope a person who has seen the original will like it… Even otherwise, I did try to view it from the perspective of a newbie to the Wednesday story but some scenes reveal this guy is a common man wanting to kill the terrorists – Especially the scene where he mentions that the addresses belong to the people who died in the blast

A THING THAT I OBSERVED ABOUT THE MONOLOGUE

in in a wednesday naseeruddin shah chooses one really suppa story of some guy he knows from train who died in a blast and does an amazing job narrating it. But namba Kamal has one ultimate emotional story to say and does mega brilliant job at it. It pretty much represents their career doesn't it? Nasser choses really suppa roles and makes them special through his performance... while kamal has to do really special roles and make them even more special.

Overall, a film that tries to be as sincere to the original as possible. Hence doesn’t get better. And since the original is a good but not great film, so is this one. One thing to look out for is the last 10 mins of the Kamal monologue about the 4 month old pregnant girl raped till nudity – A complete master stroke. Also watch out for some super brisk Mohanlal moments

A 3/5 for the slick flick

The ugly Truth is.......

2009-09-10T21:47:00.002+05:30

I was one of the few guys lucky enough to be let inside studio5. Why?, you may ask. Firstly, It was the premiere of the Chick flick "The Ugly truth". Secondly, The most important reason to be deemed luck worthy is for the fact that it was an "All Girls Premiere". With girl/boy ratio being absolutely high, and girls dressed up like dolls, and me gazing endlessly, I was already a winner, this evening It didn't even matter if the movie was going to be good, I was going to enjoy the movie anyway. :D

The movie is all about Men and Women and about relationship's, probably you guys would be familiar with Men are from Mars , women are from Venus. How to seduce any woman....etc etc...

Its time to throw those books away and grab the DVD of this movie because it gets as close to what men think, and in fact , Gerrard Butler, who plays Mike, a relationship guru on a popular show, does exactly just that in the film. He burns all those ridiculous books and says..."Welcome to the Ugly truth" and he goes on....

"Men should try to peel the lady up on by one, until he reaches the garden of Love "and ....

By then you would start guessing what sort of a film is this. Its an adult romantic comedy with emphasis on Sex, and of course, "You know it plot" But shit yeah, It works well for the film. Gerrard Butler who plays Mike, is signed up for the "show" run by a local TV in Sacramento, USA...Where....No no no...no prizes for guessing, our female lead works as a executive producer.

She is as usual, the young, Dynamic, Hot, hotter, hottest, Voluptuous, bimbish and goddess sort of a girl, and (here is the most ridiculous part of her characterization) she is on look out for a BF and she claims to not have had sex for 11 months. yeah, I know, you have seen this stuff many times over, But no, the Ugly Truth is you may still like this film.

Mike, the hero helps her to get her man, and the deal is that, she has to stop being arrogant, and start being nice to him, and work with her to make the show a success. Oh Didn't I tell you that these 2 wouldn't get along in the first few scenes, If not it either means you haven't seen enough of Chick flicks, or you were trying to peep at your Gf's friend whom you met at the theater. :P

So, he keeps revealing the "Ugly truths" one by one, and she does exactly like he says and finally manages to woo a doctor, who looks absolutely Hot(The ladies went oooooooo, I am not gay :P), she goes on frequent dates. But one such date goes horribly wrong, when she wears the "gift". Yeah, Mike (Gerrard Butler) asks her to wear Vibrating underwear for her Date, she wears it and it goes horribly wrong when a kid gets hold of the remote, which ofcourse falls down from her Purse. The kid apparently turns on the vibrator and our heroine has an orgasm :P on the dining table in a restaurant.

The whole theater was laughing for it, me included, then we have some more cheeky sex lines, and few scenes here and there, simply written with an intention to bring a hearty laugh, you reach the climax, I mean, the climax of the film unless of course you and your girl friend/ Boy friend were busy with your hands grabbing the respective toys.

Its now time for "You know its going to happen" climax, suddenly Mike realizes his love for Abby, the heroine, just when they come out with full love and Yeah, baby you got it right, the Doctor comes in the climax leaving Mike Stone faced.

And we have the usual Climax where Abby bids good bye to the doctor and falls in love with Mike saying that he knows the real "She" and yet fell in love, where as she was just "not herself" with her doctor boy friend......we start melting and they start kissing and the ice cream melts too. This is the time, when guys need to make their move and women need to let their men make their move. As the lead pair romance on screen, you guys can have your spotlight by kissing and cuddling for a great night ahead.

So, Never ever go to this film alone(I went alone cos I was writing about the event), and you must be knowing that you are a fool to go with male friends if you are a guy but All girls gang might just be fun, I guess.

Best option is to buy a corner seat, pop corn and your girl by your side, hands on her knees and your other hands working and stroking her palm, and seeing her and the movie periodically. Movie cater to your "Love" and sexual urge to turn on instantly at the same time. Don't go alone and feel for it, Go with your Girl and your girl might just love you more than ever.

UDHAV NAIG

Greats and Kamal

2009-09-04T00:44:00.004+05:30

Ever since the owner of this blog requested me to write about Kamal Hassan standing up to arguably the 2 greatest of actors of all time, namely - Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, I couldn't help but Chuckle at the very thought of it. I "knew" there wasn't any reason to possibly come to a conclusion that Kamal does stand a chance to overshadow these 2 actors. But private thoughts of just "Knowing" aren't just good enough, Isn't it?

Lets get to the business, Shall we?

So, the first question.

Why?, I will give you my reasons.

First up, to be even compared to these 2 actors, he should come up trumps against actors like Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Marlon Brando, Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington and......... the list is endless. In fact, both these actors in question themselves have been overshadowed by the names mentioned above on some instances, Yet....the law of averages has its own advantage and it works heavily in favor of De Niro and Pacino. The comparison, IMO doesn't make sense if we pick up best movies of these actors weigh it up on a scale , and pass a judgement. So, lets us dwelve deep and do a thorough postmortem of sorts just to be sure.

Al Pacino, as we know has done some remarkable films, Some of them which I have seen are Dog Day Afternoon, Devils Advocate, Scent of a women, The God Father, Serpico, Scarface, Heat and Any Given Sunday. These are the films which made Al Pacino into what he is today. In my honest opinion, Al Pacino , in hindsight plays the "Evil" in most of his films. The man has a profound affiliation with evil, he fills the screen with uneasy tension, the self inflicted fatalism is his forte. To me Al Pacino's most enigmatic roles are from the films Dog Day Afternoon and God Father, all other films are derivates of these 2 roles. No matter how many different characters he has played the memory of the man with hand pistol and the guy sitting on the big chair with people kissing his hands linger on my mind. The "Evil" is quite evident form the man's eyes which breathes fire in every frame, Yet....we like it or not he gets stuck with that image in every role of he has portrayed so far.

So, how does Kamal Hassan match up to this line up of brilliant films?

Unlike Al Pacino , Kamal doesn't suffer from what I call the "driven fatalism". Kamal Hassan manages to paint a picture of righteous and the crooked with elan. This is something which we expect Kamal Hassan to do, just like how we expect Al Pacino to stare endlessly at us through the lens. Kamal doesn't even lack as far as creating a euphoria is concerned, Just like Al, Kamal has managed to create an aura around him which has kept him in good stead financially, But what I think puts Al ahead is the fact that Kamal himself has picked up things from Pacino and
innovated on it.

The most prominent of them being the laughter, the famous Kamal laugh. If you had been careful enough to notice the way Al says "Hah", made very popular by him in his master piece classic , "The Scent of a women". The act itself, dates back to time of Dog Day After Noon. Somehow, Kamal's laugh has a distinct similarity to the Al' way of saying " Haah , what now? you going to fuck with me?". Kamal has, IMO, definitely taken the que from Al and improvised on it and made it his own in his unique style. Well, this is what great actors do, improvise, but aren't we talking about who is the best of the best?

Kamal has infact, re invented Marlon Brando in his gangster flick "Nayagan". He reproduced the Brando effect very well, but I guess he went too far in aping Brando. The fact that he chewed tobacco just to do a "Brando" takes a good chunk away from Kamal. (Again, the best of the best?). When you make a film based on arguably the most influential films of last century, you ought to have these "Inspirations". But to be compared to pacino and Deniro and Brando, you are on your own. While brando and Al Pacino are in a war fighting with fucking Mig 319, Kamal
has a hand pistol.

I do have to say that Kamal Hassan definitely stands tall as far as Comedy is concerned but again, I have not followed Al Pacino's career as much as Kamal Hassan. Therefore, I cannot come to a conclusion if Pacino is not as good as Kamal Hassan in Comedy, because to be frank I don't even know if he has acted in a comedy film. I presume the comparison is a nonsense, yet, Let us assume Kamal is the winner there.

When we do consider the intense drama which Kamal is the most famous for, its only fair that Pacino takes the cake.

Next up is my favorite actor, the man who has just amazed me not only by acting but the sheer capacity to push the limit every time. The man, Robert De Niro who just took the world by storm with his act "You talking to me". Any article which even remotely talks about acting or remarkable films isn't complete without the mention of Raging Bull, this film possibly inspired a generation of film makers and actors for years together.

The very visual of Muscular Jake La Motta dancing in his robe at the ring side is riveting to say the least. The scene itself is so famous, that it was literally copied in the film Billa, with Ajith doing the same, this time with a sand bag. No actor in the world has an answer to the kind of work Robert has done in Raging Bull. The guy trained with boxer la Motta, got his 8 pack ab's for the role and the complete transformation can be seen as he slowly gains weight thorough out the film and you can just see his flab getting thicker and thicker. At the end, he appears as a 40 something bloated man with 40 inch paunch. The very thought is out of this world. 8 Packs and 40 inch paunch for a film? and I have not even started talking about his act in the film.

According to De Niro, there is something called "Auditioning for the film and acting in it". Auditioning is something one does to get a role in the film, acting is something one does when he does act in a film.

According to him this is how you act. Martinc Scorcese revealed that Robert Wanted to do this film more than scorcese himself. De Niro had earlier turned a taxi driver literally during the night to study what these drivers are up to, " method acting " took a whole new avatar. From then on, Raging Bull, Good fellas, Cape fear, King of Comedy, Untouchables, Heat, Casino, Awakening, The Mission, Deer Hunter, Mean Streets, GodFather,Newyork Newyork....thats some line up every actor would die to have.

Each one of those films need a write up like the one I am trying to do here, So where does Kamal stand here?

Let us see what Kamal has done that De Niro hasn't done.

Kamal has played a "dwarf", but dwarf's are also normal human beings its just that they end up staying short, and also I don't find anything uniquely intriguing in the role except for the fact that it was very convincing. For example, the way kamal tweaks his Jaws in Anbe Sivam spoke of his injury and damage to his skull is something detailed than a dwarf. I couldn't see or comprehend anything unique to Dwarf's. If they are just normal human beings, then credit should be given to director in Kamal or the art director in Kamal.

The Actor in Kamal, should be credited for his portrayal in Guna, Anbe Sivam or even Aalavandhan. Kamal has played an artist, Be it a classical dancer in Salangai Oli or a western Dance master in Punnagai Mannan, De Niro also has done his share with King of Comedy , where he plays a wanna be Stand up Comedien. He even plays a Stand up comedian in his illustrious Raging Bull.

Casino - seriously I cannot think of a performance close to this film. The arguments and Counter Arguments in the film between Nicky and Sam Rothstein are out of this world. Films where someone contests on equal footing with Kamal are Anbe Sivam and Kurudhipunal and to an extent virumaandi. But Casino wins it by a mile to spare.

Just 2 scenes are enough for me to decide that. The famous desert scene between Joe Pesci and De Niro, and the one between these 2 at Sam Rothstien's house. I.E When Pesci intimidates the officer from the bank. Its not the ease at which De Niro acts, even Kamal is effortless, its the way De Niro takes us into the lives of these men in Las Vegas that pushes it above Anbe Sivam and Kurudhipunal. While Kurudhipunal is more complete, Anbe Sivam is not.

Kamal has played a a gangster, so has De Niro. kamal has played lover boy, De Niro has never played such a role, in this case Kamal knocks De Niro down. For a Nayagan, De Niro hits back with a Good Fellas, When Kamal comes up with Sigappu Rojakkal - De Niro hits back with a Taxi Driver. When Kamal places Guna and Anbe Sivam, De Niro smashes it with his Awakening. When Kamal plays his card called Anbe Sivam and Kurudhipunal, De Niro plays an Ace called "Casino". When Kamal gets pissed off and tries to hit De Niro for a boundary with Mahanadhi and varumaiyin Niram Sigappu, De Niro hits him for a six off a no ball with Deer Hunter and Untouchable and Heat. When Kamal asks De Niro to play his card first this time around, he plays his trump card called the "Raging Bull" and Kamal forfiets after playing half a card
called "Moondram Pirai".

I take offence at people saying De Niro was just at the right place and at the right time, its as if De Niro was just plain lucky, Why couldn't Martin Scorcese do a Raging Bull again with some other actor?. The fact remains that the duo complemented each other and Raging Bull wouldn't be complete without these two.

In Tamil Industry, when Kamal was trying to break away from the main stream cinema after getting bored with it, he was alone. There wasn't one soul who would say, I want to be like Kamal. Every actor wanted to do a Rajinikanth. Everyone wanted to be a Star . This was both a boon and a bane. Boon - Because you would be the only one doing something different, and whatever little you did was deemed a "Different Effort", even a simple change in looks would have been looked upon as pioneering effort.

It was also a bane in the sense that his films could have very well lost in the scores of nonsense going around in early 90's and late eighties. Just like how a cute little Pug would be lost in a herd of pigs, his guna was lost amidst mud,filth and feces. His Hey Ram was lost in the same garbage. As we see, being Kamal in Tamil Cinema was both advantageous and disadvantageous. There is more of a disadvantage when you consider the finance part of it, not so much when you consider the recognition.

What about De Niro? It was just the opposite in Hollywood. Every fucking actor wanted to be either Brando, Pacino or De Niro. They all wanted to do a God Father, a Raging Bull. Hence we have seen some extraordinary talents like Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman,Russel Crowe, Denzel Washington, Di Caprio, Daniel Day lewis, Edward Norton etc.

These guys were constantly pushed, never could they rest on their laurels, they had to churn out a classic after a classic no matter how tired they were. This was a boon and Bane in itself.

Remarkable talents that Pacino and De Niro were, enjoyed the competition, reveled in it, Dug deep and made the place their own, and still came up trumps. The best of the roles weren't confined only to a few, but were distributed to a group of good actors. While an Indian could only be done by Kamal in Thamizh Cinema, it was not the same in Hollywood. De Niro still had to earn the right to play the lead in Casino. Respect had to be earned by whosoever it might be. And they also had the "Casting" director who wouldn't care to hoots while casting fora film , they wouldn't give an inch unless and until they felt so.

So, the whole idea of De Niro or pacino being an automatic choice wasn't on at all. There was a Tom Hanks to do a Terminal and Russel Crowe to do a "Beautiful mind" unlike Tamil Cinema.

Taking into consideration, all the above arguments condensing it, it seems as though Kamal still falls behind these 2 actors. While there are areas were Kamal scores over them, but as I said at the beginning the law of averages is quite arrogant and De Niro and Pacino score heavily in other areas.

A Small Digression, Recently I heard Bullet trains were to be introduced in Chennai- I was just thinking - is it not great to be proud about something we have or going to have in the near future than to think that bullet trains which we are going to have in Chennai is not as good as the latest bullet trains in Europe?

I remember those cheers
They still ring in my ears
And for years they'll remain in my thoughts
Cuz one night I took off my robe
And what'd I do
I forgot to wear shorts.
I recall every fall, every hook, every jab
The worst way a guy could get rid of his flab
As you know, my life was a jab...
Though I'd rather hear you cheer
When I delve into Shakespeare
"A Horse, a Horse, my Kingdom for a Horse,"
I haven't had a winner in six months (he lights his cigar)...
I know I'm no Olivier
But if he fought Sugar Ray
He would say
That the thing ain't the ring
It's the play.
So gimme a stage
Where this bull here can rage
And though I can fight
I'd much rather recite

That's entertainment!
That's entertainment.

I end this debate therefore.

UDHAV NAIG

Kieslowskii - Freak who freaks me out! Part I

2009-07-09T16:41:00.010+05:30

I was really surprised and flabbergasted to know that some people couldn't comprehend even the simplest of simplest of films, Of course , I don't claim that I can understand every damn frame this film maker throws at me. But how on earth do you want me to believe that you have not understood the simplest of that he non-chalantly shows on screen. Any person with slightest sense of emotion should by general principal understand and comprehend what he shows on screen. I cannot accept "feigning". This write up is a lampooning attempt for a film which I have selected for today is "Krzysztof Kieslowski's: Three Colours: Bleu".

Like all his films, this film deals with distinct human emotions which we all can relate to. Any reasonable human being who claims not to have felt or come across these emotions needs to look at his life seriously.

This write up is not going to explain the plot , instead I will discuss about the brilliance of this genius. The story revolves around Julie who meets with a car accident. The accident kills her only daughter and her husband, who apparently is one of the biggest music composer of all times. The film deals with trials and tribulations of Julie and how she grapples with the sudden spate of changes in her life.

Julie is not the kind of heroine which we are used to seeing in some of the contrived women centric films , She is one among the thousands who is still trying to cope with her husbands death and of course her unfortunate change in fortunes.Now, before going into the details, I would like to state that, I am more concerned about the people who have seen the film and still couldn't understand why Krystoff is called one of the greatest and I would be really itching to call him THE greatest, and still debate on it.

The film is named blue for obvious reasons. The film has blue tone through out, but blue here signifies the memories Julie has about her past. please keep in mind this very interpretation as we move on.

Coming back to Julie, she is not a very headstrong woman who can stand up and come to terms with what has happened. It would be utterly illogical to show her as getting on with life after losing her celebrity husband and her only daughter. She obviously struggle's to come to term's with reality. Do you guys remember the first scene where a boy sits on the side of the road with wooden ball attached to a stick and he tries to fit the ball over the stick. The moment the ball fits the stick the car crashes, I am sure it was meant to be an allegory but I cannot comprehend as to what KK really tried to mean here?, That accidents happen by chance? or does he mean that it was meant to happen only when the ball fits over the stick, which obviously means FATE. It could have been anything and upto us to take it in which ever way we want to.

Coming back to the story, Julie is admitted to the hospital and more than the bodily pain which she suffers, the mental pain and heart ache seems to be getting the better of her. She distracts the Nurse on duty by breaking the glass window pane; As the nurse goes out to check the mess . She slips into the adjacent room(filled with medicines) and tries to consume random tablets in an effort to end her life. The nurse soon finds that out,and on seeing the nurse Julie spits it out. It was obviously the most weirdest situation to be in for Julie. She asks sorry for breaking the glass. Now this obviously should lead anyone to think that Julie thinks that breaking the glass was bigger vice than trying to end her life. Nurse quite quickly replies "the glass can be replaced". Just look at the way dialogues are written, if this is not a punch dialogue then what is?.

So, Julie recovers goes back to her country house with haunted memories (Again we can see shades of Blue). But after coming to a conclusion that ending her life wasn't the right way to go about her life, she becomes convinced that completely cutting her off from everyone and everything would do her more good, because she cannot even think of falling into an maze made of emotional strings. She sells her house, sells her antics except her daughter's Blue wall hanging made of Blue crystals and she wants to go to a place where no one knows her, no one can recognize her. Again her memories haunt her, she is not able to get over her husband and her love for her. What does she do? Calls her friend who apparently fell in love with her and makes love to him. The casual sex doesn't do any good to her rather it only rekindles the memories of her friend and her husband from time to time. She now goes away to Paris takes an apartment where there are no kids, furnishes her house with her daughters antique wall hanging. Every time, Julie has a ridiculous or a negative thought the blue shades turn to black. This cannot be a brain child of an average film maker at all.

Like memories Music too plays a vital part in the film, Since her husband was a famous musician it is obvious that music forms one of the best memories for Julie. She tries to destroy her music as well, throws all her notes she had previously written with her husband into garbage van. If you notice as she picks up the notes , the music is played in the back ground . The moment she throws it into the garbage truck the music fades out.

Well ironically later on in the film, you would find a solitary beggar playing the same tune again, and Julie asks the beggar from where he learnt it. He says that he composed it on his own. This is again a brilliant way of saying or rather a slap in the face of Julie that "You might have destroyed the paper having notes, but you cannot destroy your music". Life beckons her, her memories follow her everywhere she goes, but its Julie who cannot come to terms with her life. Haven't we come across such people?

You cannot even argue that beggar is not needed for the film, he is not the typical character we have most of the films there to fill up the screen space and time, the beggar makes her realize that she is important and so are her memories. The most striking part about the music in the film is as I said is as important as her memories themselves. A self proclaimed fan of Beethoven himself, KK gets in to the head of how a musician thinks about his music, how they write music. In the final sequence when Olivier and Julie try to finish the composition, Julie makes a lot of changes to the notes and she changes the instruments. Every time they run their hand through the notes , there is music in the back ground. Beethoven apparently thought about music as as he lost his hearing capabilities, because he could never hear it. I obviously didn't know it was directed at Beethoven but I am sure we can appreciate at how the music changes when Julie changes the instruments in her notes, from trumpet to piano to flute and so on.

She always prefer's to swim when no one is present, During the course of the journey to her new life in the apartment, she gets acquainted with a prostitute and make friends with her, both begin to share a good amount of closeness and suddenly Julie's heart is looking to confide into someone. One day, the girl sees Julie running off and she goes to the swimming pool to meet her,and she asks her if she was crying. Julie replies "no it was water". And suddenly group of children run and dive into the water.

It simply means people are forcefully starting to come into her lives again. the next scene is where she goes to meet her mom. This is vintage film making where there is a shot of Julie's mom watching TV, she is watching a man walking on a tight rope and Julie's face is reflected on the glass door which means Julie is also walking a tight rope.

The most important and the most unique scene is when she swims alone , IE , before she goes to meet her Mom. She tries to end her life by curling herself into a shape of a baby in the womb inside the water. After a few seconds, notwithstanding , she comes out, this means that she is reborn again. Again, I never understood the reborn angle of it, but you cannot possibly tell me that you never understood the purpose of that scene, which to mean that no matter how hard she tries; she is not able to cut herself off from the outer world.

I am sure this would induce movie enthusiasts in knowing more about this film maker, for those who claim to have not understood the movie, Allegories cannot get better than this. Decide for yourself.

UDHAV NAIG

Valhalla and Ilayaraja

2009-07-01T22:00:00.001+05:30

It's 11 in the night. I am about to make my bed. Mom and Dad are already asleep. I keep the TV volume to a nearly inaudible low. I go to my room to check if my laptop has been shut down. From the living room, the sound of guitar repeatedly strumming a set of notes emanates. From the Idiot Box. I know the tune. One whiff of the music and I know what's being played. I rush to the living room with the glee of a child rushing to meet its Christmas presents from Santa. The concern for my parent's need to catch some Z's vanishes in thin air as I accelerate the volume up. After all, even if they wake up, they wouldn't mind listening to this; I console the angel in me.

The Pallavi begins shyly, giving glimpses of the genius to come. Almost like a shy bride, singing for her in-laws and fiancee when they have come to her place to see her and judge her worthiness. Like how she starts coyly, but within that demure cantabile, she impresses them. The would-be groom expectantly looks at his father, who is overjoyed. The mother is unmoved, however is waiting to hear how the song unfolds.

The first line is simple. Has only 1 Swara. Anyone who randomly places the bow of a violin to a string in the middle would get the sound. 1 Swara. Only Sa. 1 Swara.

As the song plays out, the violin faithfully accompanies, giving an almost aching end to the otherwise cheerful lines of melody.

There is no fuss about the song. There are no layers of music. No fancy digital sampling. No unheard-of-instruments captured by a synthesizer. The beats don't beat down the lyrics. There are few instruments. The violin, the Veena, the flute, the keyboard and drums. Nothing fancy. For most of the song, they don't try to overshadow the singer. SPB. No one could have sung it better. Even if it were sung better, it wouldn't have sounded like SPB. And it wouldn't be the same song.

The interlude flows by. The Carnatic extends its hands to the Western in a dignified manner. Starting with the flute, it progresses to the keyboard till the violins take over. All the while, known only to the discerning listener, the background beats is provided by Drums! In an unassuming way, no grand Thani Avartanam for the drums here. And with that, a whole generation was introduced to the composer's brand of East-meets-West music in a subtle way.

In the semi-classical Charanams that follow, the music also pushes the lyrics into the frontstage. Few composers have been gracious enough to give an equal importance to lyrics in the song. As the Charanam reaches a crescendo towards the end, the lines become bolder :

"Kaigal idaithanil nuzhaigayil idaiveli kuraigaiyil
eriyum vilakku siriththu kangal moodum "

(As the hands clasp and the gap between the lovers reduces, the burning lamp laughs and closes its eyes in shame). Incidentally a similar imagery is used in the Charanams of "Nenjinile Nenjinile" from "Uyire".

Sample this in the next Charanam :

"Viyarviyin mazhailae payiraagum paruvamae"
(In the rain of sweat that arises out of sexual tension, the youth gets fructified and harvested)
Bold lines for 1982. And till date, our lyricists keep harping around similar ideas about love.

Probably the only sore note about the song is its picturization. The beautiful melody is reduced to an amateur gymming session in the garden between the hero (a young Karthik, who desperately tries his best to save the choreography gone horribly wrong) and the heroine (a deadpan Jikki, Gemini Ganesan's daughter who thankfully disappeared after this film) who seem content playing Catch-Catch with each other. And that this was directed by none other than Sridhar, who gave us great movies like "Kadhalikka Neramillai" and "Kalyana Parisu" with great songs picturized beautifully, just shows us how bad a swansong a great auteur can get.

The song is "Panivizhum Malarvanam" from "Ninaivellam Nithya (1982)". I always have loved Ilayaraja. My early childhood was spent astonishing relatives with renditions of "Sundari Kannal Oru Seithi" (Thalapathi) and "Innum Ennai Enna Seiyya Pogirai" (Singaravelan). All this before I was 5. When I was 5, "Roja" happened. A.R. Rahman became the rage of the day. I was swept off my feet. Ilayaraja faded away into the dark corners of my grey cells. When I was in 9th Std, I heard this song for the first time. But I was so mesmerized by its beauty that I could only half retain its tune and its lyrics. So I couldn't search the song out in the net. Then 2 years later, in my 11th Std, I heard it again. And this time I made sure to note the first lines. And I got the song. It was an eye-opener for me. It opened me to a world of music beyond Rahman. It introduced me to the beauty of Raja songs. The songs were a brilliant mix of light carnatic music with glimpses of western classical and contemporary pop. For a guy grounded in Carrnatic Music, but thankfully without any shackles preventing me from having a myopic vision towards other styles of music, this was perfect. With "Panivizhum Malarvanam" I had found my Valhalla in the music of Ilayaraja.

Look at the history and Innovate YOU IDIOTS!

2009-06-05T11:38:00.008+05:30

Here comes an article from me after a long time, I was under extreme dilemma to decide on a topic to write about and I had zeroed in on a few topics namely , "Brilliance of Stanley Kubrik", "Kieslowksi fucks you through his lens" , "Martin Scorcese declares war".

Somehow, I realized that there is nothing mendacious about these film makers and I decided for once that tribute's can wait. This write up will precisely deal with our very own Tamil Cinema and its history of Innovation. I am not going to pin point the year and the dates , Chronologically provide succinct data about Tamil films that have been successful till date, I have not seen much of Tamil Cinema to do that too. But, I am going to illustrate the need to innovate, and how innovation has reaped rewards in the past.

I can't help but talk about the pusillanimous directors and actors we have today....though I would refrain from talking about their doleful state of affairs WRT to films.

Lets start from our very own MGR and Shivaji, Frankly I don't know about Tamil Cinema before these 2 icons, and I think its not really appealing to talk about cinema before 1940's. MGR carved a niche for himself through his songs and he was very good at stunts too. The songs were hugely popular with people because he could practically deceive people that it was literally god's words. People were absolutely convinced that the man makes sense (Of course he did) and he could bring in a sense of Personal bond with his fans. This paved the way for his meteoric rise.

Now,If you askme, I would call this an innovation, He convinced people that... he is a GEM of a guy, he can Fight, he is strong, he can decimate any opposition, he is man of values and WHAT NOT. TN was swept under a MAT called MGR. MGR was a man who was looked up to as THALAIVAR. This personal bond was telling factor that made his name common in every house hold.

The unimaginable fan following he had was directly proportional to amount of "Good Values" he propagated on screen. He mastered the art of aggrandizing his on screen persona that reflected his growing exponential fan base.

He never allowed the audience to see the "Character in his films", whether he played a "Rickshaw puller", " Cop", "Brother", "Rich Zamindar", even sometimes "Thief"...
I have always wondered Why people chose to cloud their minds from seeing just the character on screen, and always "focused" on "WHAT MGR their Thalaivar" says.

I am not going to go in to this very uninteresting debate on how it all started, I presume it was a simultaneous cycle, where in MGR tried to project himself as do - gooder, the audience also picked it up and concluded that MGR is always magnanimous. Other than this simple hypothesis, I cannot not speculate anything more and I will not speculate anything more.

I still insist, MGR did something that other people couldn't manage to do, If you are a rational man(man here refers to human) you would be asking number of question sto me, and one among them would be "Then why didn't our audience reject him once he got redundant after few years."

My answer would be slightly irrational, I would say, he already managed to carve a niche for himself, that "He" means what he says on screen, more often than not he always backed his words with his action...his fans were smitten by this capacity of MGR to "Do" things that he says "ON SCREEN". This elevated him to god level status and thus the legend of MGR still lives on , not only does he is a legend but also rakes in votes once in 5 years till today.

This era is incomplete without talking about Shivaji Ganeshan. He was a different commodity all together....Now, what did he do to keep "His" kind of audience hooked up to him. He lived the character literally, whether it is "VeeraPandia KattaBomman " , my favourite "Deiva Magan" , "Pudhiya Paravai", "Bharatha Vilas" and the most famous of them all "Thillana Moganambal". His era , unfortunately Coincided with arguably the most influential On Screen performer of all time in South India.

Then how on earth did he manage to stand tall?.

The Magic Word - INNOVATE!!

The way he portrayed complex characters and the way he emotes on screen were simply impeccable and his "Method" of wooing audience was directly and diametrically opposite to MGR's. The difference is blatantly obvious. He made audience forget that the person on screen is "Shivaji" and it was "Veera Pandia Kattabomman" himself. The man made it possible every single time he donned the grease paint. Though , am not really impressed with these 2 actors, I still relish his films , a few of them that I have already mentioned.

Again the magic word is INNOVATE and be different, this fetched Shivaji Ganesan lot of laurels and a HUGE fan base.

Marlon Brando reportedly remarked " Shivaji should not be called Marlon Brando of Tamil Cinema, Rather I should be called Shivaji Ganesan of Hollywood" .I really don't know if the quote was authentic, but I would say the quote actually doesn't have irrationality written all over it.

We have to move on to the next generation, RAJINIKANTH and KAMALHASSAN. The 2 are undoubtedly the top guys in TC right now. Innovation has played a vital role in their careers as well...

Rajinikanth AFAIK, broke into the limelight with thunderous THUD. He was the most unique person on screen, doing something different all the time, the way he uttered his lines, his gimmicks on screen, his cunning-ness , his negativity, his hair style , the dark complexion everything about him was new and different.

After seeing arguably 2 stout actors for 30 long years , time had come for our audience to switch to something different...The change was Rajinikanth and Kamal Hassan.

Back then, Rajini was everything what a conventional hero will not be identified with.He was dark, Slim, Fiery eyes, full of gimmicks, handsome but not so handsome, fast and oozing style. This repertoire of style included everything from flipping a Cigarette Nonchalantly into his mouth, or running his hand through his head, or flipping his coat with hands around his waist.

What he did on screen was something very distinct, unique appealing and belligerent, he broke all rules of a conventional hero and that's a telling factor of his success so much so that, his " Gimmicks" still sells today, which re-Iterates that the investment towards innovation has paid him rich dividends.

This Era was also flooded with extremely talented and refreshing film makers like K. Balachander called the "God Father" for the 2 pillars in Tamil Cinema today, Balu Mahendra (Helped Kamal to a National Award), SP Muthuraman( Or (Rajini - Courtesy -SPM), the most intelligent Screen play writer of 80's Bhagyaraj and many more.

All these film makers were different from Each other and the MAGIC WORD AGAIN IS INNOVATE.

Let's move into the late 80's and the 90's, this period was spewed with successful films (At least a majority of them) is what we now call meaningless and NON- Sense cinema. It wasn't completely meaningless back then, because like always,Audience wanted something new.

They decided that they have enough films that were realistic and they were ready to lap up even nugatory films that can only be compared with pigeons pee in 2009. Some huge hits include Sagakalavallavan, Chinna Thambi(What nonsense was that!!!), many Rajini Movies that were ridiculous like Dharma Durai, Naan Sigappu Manidhan (GOSH!) and many more.

Once - So - Popular directors like Balachander and Bharathi Raja were seen in disarray and they completely lost their foothold and people demanded different films. Sadly KB and Bharathiraja could neither make films that people expected nor could stake a claim for their films with the audience.

Then came the MASS masala Bandwagon made popular by Rajinikanth, and paraded on by Ajith's(And his derivatives) and Vijay's(And his derivatives),both apparently are derivatives of Rajinikanth himself. Rajini interestingly shifted his focus from his style to a more MGRsque method of having the personal connection with his audience. Super star's fans always looked for hidden but not so hidden messages on various things. Namely, Spirituality, Religion, "Values" (Though we can have criticisms about it, people were OK with it), and Of course the most important of all Politics.

Kamal's career also took a hit with his "In ability" to put up with paradigm shift, he innovated with his "Own" brand of cinema ,providing an explicable mix of Great acting with ample "commercial factors" , namely an item song or a KUTHU song or arbit heroism. However, Kamal the actor refused to give in to rigors of industry and continued to do films that he liked. This helped him hold his own against barrage of actors who were hell bent on doing everything that RAJINIKANTH does in his previous film.

Kamal took up script writing, direction, Production to constantly keep differentiating himself from the rest of "MASALA" coterie. I am sure he was aghast at the pollutians bothering Tamil cinema namely his good friend, but he couldn't do much as people were unanimous in their support for Rajinikanth. Kamal still soldiered on, with every flop came a Big hit and followed by a "film" that spoke of his credentials to experiment.

His biggest HIT in 90's was Indian , it was a distinct mix of "Kamal's idea of Innovation"....it coupled Great Acting and entertainment...it had ample comedy, Love, Exposure everything to please the foolish front benches.

So, as we can see, the Magic word again is to be different and Innovate.

Just when we thought that MASALA cinema is here to stay, post 2004 people have rejected many films that are supposedly made to entertain people. Post- Ghilli, very few MASALA films have made it big, one's that made it big also had something new in them, starting from music ,dance stunts, costumes etc.

BILLA is an interesting film to analyze, it had the same things that are considered despicable and it didn't even have good acting, still it was liked by people because it was different. The whole idea of bringing Hollywood style visuals to Tamil Cinema was something new. It of course clicked with the audience because of its Innovation.

I do agree some films have clicked with completely no innovation at all, these films would actually be the ones that were successful because of the "WAVE" created by the trend setters.

Just like how some films set up with a village theme were successful largely because "It was similar to Bharathi Raja's films"

Just like how many films following the GHILLI pattern were successful.Some films just tend to be lucky and get people's nod. But that is no way a deterrent for film maker's to not to INNOVATE.

You needn't be a poly math to do this analysis, anyone with a slight sense of brains can do it, I am amazed at how film maker's themselves have ignored this crucial factor.

The present state of Tamil Cinema is appalling, we have 2 good movies every year all other movies flop at the BO , this suggests that another wave is waiting to HIT Tamil cinema, and we are going to be taken back to the glory days of KB and Bharathi Raja and Balu Mahendra.

With Rajini at the fag end of his career and Ajith's and Vijay's biting dust too often for them to feel safe, I guess its an interesting road ahead for people who like Innovations.

So, please INNOVATES YOU IDIOTS.

All said and Done, I am also reminded of a saying "If wishes were horses, only beggars would ride them".

See ya Soon

UDHAV

Two Leaves, One state and that Romance -( Off topic)

2009-04-19T17:14:00.026+05:30

Some ten months after I was born, the man closest to her heart (her only moral support and her political mentor) died. All that she wanted to do was to have a look at his dead body. She wasn't allowed. She somehow survived the trauma and went to the state assembly where some men headed by one of India's 'greatest' hypocrites ran out of arguments against her and resorted to physical assault. They tried to pull off her Saree. She survived this third grade act too. She would go on to survive a lot more in her way to create Tamil history. On June 24 , 1991 - J Jayalalitha became the first elected women chief minister in the history of Tamil Nadu.

From that very day it has been a very romantic tale. The people love her and she loves them back. And suddenly they are angry with her and she is angry too. They irritate her by going on a blind date with the sad guy and his family for five long years and they are too bored of his false promises by then. So they come back and she accepts the love of her life with open arms. This article goes back in the "sands" of time to reason out why she is definitely the better of the two things to have happened to Tamil Nadu.

To start off with, it is completely undeniable and a fact that Jaya would only be proud to accept that most of her even now growing popularity is thanks to her association with M.G.R. who for many other Tamilians means another three letter word staring with G and ending with D. In fact there are still remote villages in Tamil Nadu where people believe M.G.R. is alive and every time they vote, they vote for their 'thalaivar'. But there has to be something in the work and effort that politicians put in, in order to sustain the already available support of the people. And it is this extra effort that Jaya has put in without which it would have been impossible for her to be so popular despite being the target of a witch hunting of an unimaginably huge scale launched by the sad man who despite being in the political scenario for almost twice as many years as Jayalalitha is still not sure of holding on to his government for two consecutive terms.

Her first term as chief minister saw some of the most interesting ways of misusing power. We need pioneers in all fields and here was a very independent lady with complete control over a very important state of the country. She did do a lot for development but not a lot enough to attract the controversy addicted media. The most infamous among her notorious activities of those times were making Balu Jewellers go down under, causing a huge stampede in the kumbakonam mahamaagam, indulging in excessive corruption and owning a special 'collectors version' of 'wealth' :) [something which sun news (an open insult to unbiased news making) went on to publicly display a million times as soon as Jaya was arrested after being voted out of power]

But why did the media not look at the fact that during this very first term of her government, she banned high interest private loans, almost completed the Veeranam Water Supply Scheme for Chennai,banned lottery tickets to encourage savings, set up All women police stations, installed 'Rural Women Self Help Programme benefitting lakhs of ladies in villages, initiated the 'thottil Kuzhandai Thittam' which definitely is the work of an administrative genius.

Well one can't expect the people to take notice unless its told to them, and Jaya did not do this properly. More over there were multiple factors like the minds of Rajinikanth (offered a Padma Bhushan in exchange of campaigning - how lame) and Cho Ramasamy ( who genuinely wanted change and now repents ) which voiced for a change of governance and unfortunately led the people into a whole family of brilliant squanderers. Also known as the cement pirates, these men in charge of the state from 1996 to 2001 built more subways than necessary and took more commission than they could possibly handle.

But by the end of those treacherous five years from 1996 to 2001, an entire state was nodding in
disagreement with the way they were being governed. Jaya was in a pre-poll agreement with some similar minded parties. She went from district to district in break neck speed. Campaigning hard. Getting to the grass roots, speaking about the real issues. And what the 'makkal' gave her back was what she called the 'maghesan theerpu' - an absolute rout. Independent majority and complete power. And this time it truly was a golden era. Where there was a lot more right than most of the wrong. She wasn't allowed to be CM for some time, but she used puppets to continue administering the state with some great courage and caution at the same time.

Very good things happened to Tamil Nadu during this second term. The New Veeranam project was completed. The revolutionary 'Rain Water Harvesting scheme' was introduced. Veerappan was caught and killed. Video Piracy was brought to a minimum. She also carried out some very innovative acts like introduction of video conferencing in Jails and Courts, thus eliminating the need to bring the accused to extend the remand every time.

The best part, however was the mighty display of the iron hand during the teachers' strike. Though all political analysts say, it is this act of tough and near-oppressive administration that helped the DMK alliance come back to power in the next elections, I personally feel it is probably the best way of curbing chaos in a state where millions of people reside. 'Nethi Adi' is what they call it in tamil - she hit the nail on the head. And the people on strike had to comely come back to work.

But as it happened, an alliance of discomfort came together just for the sake of setting up their kids as union ministers and are presently ruling this state with the worst ways one can ever use to rule the place.

And you should see how the people, midway through this dreadful phase yearn for their mother. You should see how they react to her calls for support in the meetings. There is bliss and poetic silence in the multiple ruptures of noise that they make when she says "karunanidhiya thooki poduveengala? seiveergala?". The way she is campaigning and getting closer to HER state for these Lok Sabha elections are only a sign of things to come. The real romance will start in 2011. When the state will run back and jump into the arms of the real mother of theirs and the mummy will return. Again.

Udhav's Ode!!

2009-04-15T21:40:00.004+05:30

I had a weird feeling about this film the day I watched it, I did watch the film 2 years ago and somehow never ever thought of revisiting it again, until yesterday. Until yesterday, it didn't occur to me that it was indeed a masterfully made film until 10. PM , 15/04/09.

Before talking about the film, I want to say a few words.

"Breath takingly brilliant and oozing splendor in every Scene".

This film has been an aberration of sorts from Spielberg, who has quite often been seduced by the whim's and fancies of the Hollywood's Big league. Schindler's list is a deviation from his ever present boisterous human chasing beasts and how group of men finally escape the repugnant animals to safety, there by upholding the human race of perseverance and all that Bull shit. To be frank and square, he gets on my nerves, why the hell can't he get a divorce from his first wife(Science fiction and animal chasing humans).

Schindler's list is all about the list Schindler prepares , in the movie, what is that list all about and how and from whom does he gets it done is told in such a poetic way forms the crux of the film.Schindler later goes on to save the lives of Jews who work in his factory, not only that, he makes a huge list of names of Jews and buys them, literally from Kommandant , there by saving the lives of 1,100 Jews.

I am just itching to write about various scenes where in I could just feel my legs go numb.

One of the things which strike's me the most was way the it was shot, it was meant to be a take on history and rightly so, it was shot in black and white. The pernicious honesty was the telling point of the narration, where in every detail of the horror's of the holocaust was accounted for, and how Schindler realized the demons of the Nazi party and got the humane thought of saving Jews. The Schindler's character has been written and etched out so well, that Liam Neesan was simply Brilliant!!!. I would have to take my hat off to him.

Steven Spielberg is the prodigal son of Hollywood, for him to come up with a film with such precision and a film with such a primp screenplay is some thing which needs to be appreciated.

The film as such deals with demons of holocaust,so....the fear and blood stains are ubiquitous through out the film,the opening itself gives fair share of idea of who Oskar Schindler is all about. This sequence gives detailed gist of how he goes about bribing the Nazi bigwigs to help him set up a enamel factory, for almost, throughout the first hour,Oskar behaves as a despotic Capitalist with vested interests, and of course the war and the inflow of Shipment, the prisoner's THEY mean, help him get the worker's for his factory for a very meager sum by just bribing the big dogs of the NAZI Germany. In fact the scene preceding the one which I was talking about, shows him putting on his silk coat, wearing his cuffs and Tie, and taking bunch of notes to the party. This simple narrative tells us volumes about the stature and nature of Oskar Schindler.

Another scene which I am Curious to talk about is "cleaning the Ghetto" sequence. Jews would have been housed in an incubus small area, and they would be FORCED to shift to another place, which of course is other wise known as concentration camps. Jews would just be HERDED through on to the streets and literally washed out, every nook and corner would be searched and anyone who even thinks of hiding would be Shot.

Of course, some try to hide in the houses built in the most eff able fashion for STORING the Jews, quite literally. The soldiers begin the combing operations to search for people who are hiding and they mercilessly kill or Exterminate them, one of the most gut wrenching scene I have seen. Spielberg's narrative needs a special mention here, especially in bringing out the psyche of the kid, a kid jumps into a small drainage of sorts, where they would be few other kids who would be hiding, and those kids would say to him that it is "their" place and he cannot use it to hide. Such beautiful melancholy could be seen in the way that sequence was conceived.

Another instance is where , Oskar Schindler talks to the maid of Herr Kommandant, the conversation between the 2 is straight out of this, they don't talk strenuous English nor do they speak with a complex tone, which you usually find in most of the period films, She says something like " There are no set of rules which you will feel safe if you can abide by it" and she goes on to say, "Herr Kommandant hits me a lot", He hits me more when I ask him Why he hits me, I just can't help but marvel the way in which the emotions of Jews are brought out, there is nothing that the Jews can do. They cannot even hope for a better tomorrow. Coming back to Ghetto scene, surprisingly there is a small girl shown in a Pink color dress, who later on in the final phases of the movie is shown as being dead, apparently that girl would have escaped the ghetto cleansing. No Jew could have escaped once they are into a concentration camp, such was the fallible nature of the kommandants and soldiers involved in these camps. The only motto was to exterminate Jews and build fear among them. The other scene which really holds my attention right now, is the arbit firing of workers from the balcony by the "herr kommandant", he just picks up a sniper and starts shooting the workers working in the field.

So, much attention to detail is given, that I actually wanted to cross check it in Google, for example, the gas chamber at Auschwitz , had been imbibed to the last drop. In fact, the very thought of the gas chambers sends a chill down my spine. Quite on the contrary, there is a scene where a group of ladies would be discussing about how it has been "rumored" that Jews are being killed in a gas chamber. Incidentally when the same people are put through the same rigors of getting their hair cut and getting naked, and sent into the Gas chamber and women just clinging on to each other was just too intense, Spielberg gets 100/10 for this scene alone, for the manner in which he makes me to actually experience the feel of it, women get so anxious and tensed and the showers open inside the gas chambers and what happens next is a suspense, I don't want to bell the cat.

Another place where Spielberg hits me for a Six is the scene where the Rabbi is taken out by 3 guards and they try to shoot him, fortunately the pin in the gun fails to work properly , infact the guard tries to shoot him almost 5-6 times, that moment is captured with masterful perfection and impeccable and true emotions, a very contrasting ones too. Rabbi feels helpless and he is almost dead before being Shot and the guards actually feel, Rabbi is a worthless man, its actually worth to "Just" shoot him and Kill him.

Simply magnificent.

Lastly, the most touching scene of the film was the Schindler speech to the survivor's, where he goes on to declare that they are free from midnight today and that they should forgive him. He even remarks to his guards to either Kill the Jews as per the orders or leave the place as honorable men. The climax succeeding the speech was even more touching....

Schindler simply breaks down saying that he could have saved lot more people, and Jewish women come closer and hugs him. The accountant who takes care of his factories affair's actually present's him with a ring made from his golden teeth as he tries to flee. The workers reciprocate the gratitude by signing a letter in favor of Schindler if in any case he is captured. Its such a pious film with so much detail's stuffed in, surprisingly, it doesn't simply become another UNTERDANG, but it captures the horror's of holocaust and the climax just hits it on the head as to how grateful his "Descendants" are for him.

Watch it for the experience !!!

AYAN MOVIE REVIEW - SKIP IT, this is just another MASALA affair

2009-04-04T07:58:00.008+05:30

Fortunately Krish King Nishanth did not have a lot of hopes on the KV ANAND film starring SURYA - AYAN. ( Thanks to three reasons. One - The distribution house. Two - The trailers and. Three - the fact that the director openly declared pre-release that this is a "commercial entertainer" (typical of all other dishonest film makers who make cinema for some arbit imaginary crowd)). So I wasn't really sad when the film got over. I was only slightly disappointed that we, the fans of good honest cinema have lost a POSTER BOY.

Now, since AYAN is a true to form Commercial "ENTERTAINER" (LOL) ,and sticks to all the cliches that exist in tamil film making, lets analyse it element by element

Element ONE :- The pre hero intro scenes and the hero Intro song

Here AYAN is thankfully refreshing. There is a sequence of semi intelligent scenes that establish that the hero is a learned con man and then there is a song that is a good dance number but is not about message to fans. Rather it takes the plot and the intro forward.

Element TWO :- The self obsessed villain, The hero villain meeting scene and the hero villain 'interaction' scenes

One is shocked to watch the man who scripted and depicted one of tamil cinema's most unique villain roles in kana kanden , fall for the cliche in only his second attempt at movie making. Yes, this is the most often repeated and completly stupidly characterised villain that we are watching and it is totally irritating to know that such characters are still written in tamil cinema. The interaction scenes of surya and this fellow are even more predictable and the ONE ON ONE CLIMAX fight is pathetic to say the least.

Element THREE :- The completely and obviously Unnecessary LOU (LOVE) TRACK

Shit. Crap. Puke. WHAT THE FISH? Why the heck is every Indian film maker obsessed with love . Lust rather. Yes, we wrote kamasutra but the writers of kamasutra never asked us to unnecessarily add a lust-track to every film we make. Regardless of whether it has anything to do with the plot or not.

Element FOUR :- The SQUEEZED in songs. (CONVERTING all action, comedy, thriller,horror,psychedelic and arbit movies into MUSICALS)

ishallreview and KRISH KING NISHANTH are completely okay with Such sudden, nothing to do with the story, MUSIC VIDEOS, in movies, PROVIDED they have some really listen-able music and stunning or unique or stunningly unique visuals. But its harris over here - The man who is miserably out of form in just his 28th off film.

Element FIVE - The separate track for the famous comedian.
THANKFULLY, there is nothing like that in this movie. Otherwise we would have had vadivel and padmashree vivek cracking insane un-laughable jokes in the name of humour.

Element SIX - The action scenes and the PUNCH.

This is probably the only area where AYAN stands out. ACTION scenes are brilliantly choreographed and there are no punches and double meaning. But just this doesn't make the movie. Does it??

OVERALL, We lost our POSTER BOY to them. But even in this complete masala film , Our Man has come out with a very NEAT performance. But it is not great enough to demand an entire 100 rupees and 180 minutes to be spent on the movie.

SKIP IT.

POIGNANT POETRY ON SILVER SCREEN - Revisiting EK DUJE KE LIYE

2009-03-28T19:00:00.015+05:30

The beaches of GOA are witness to the tragic love story of the waves and the rocks. A story which often ends in a violent splash. The camera then climbs up the stairs to a completely deserted fort with haunted interiors chuckling with the voice of a man and a woman deep in love with each other. We hear them talk about how they would want their love story to make history. The camera shifts to "वासू सपना " written with chalk on the rocks, walls and sands of the wet and slippery Goan terrain। I haven't seen an opening sequence as haunted with love as this one. The build up to what went on to become one of the greatest tales of love in Indian film history is simply irresistible.

But before we continue writing an ODE to this ODE of a movie, We should first know why the author of this post watched this movie after a long long time. It all began when Notting Hill was played for the nth time on my computer and the lover of Indian cinema in me rose in curiosity trying to figure out the names of equally good Indian romance films. There were plenty which came to mind - Dilwale dulhaniya le jayenge, Qayamat se Qayamat tak, Punnagai Mannan, Bobby and some others too. Looking into the nuances of each of these films, I realised that all these movies have in them some aspect or the other of One Single Romance film made by Prasad studios in 1981. The Mother Of all Twisted Tales Of Love. The quintessential romance saga. The most poetic set of romantic sequences ever scripted on screen. A movie whose very title is the most accurate definition of what love is all about. EK DUJE KE LIYE. एक दूजे के लिये । And I set about watching this brilliant piece of film making. I was literally reading the poem being enacted on screen. Here are a few thoughts about one of the most beautiful cinema I've ever come across.

Ek duje ke liye is like a compilation of all the K.BALACHANDER SYMBOLISMS that exist. There is communication between the lovers through night lamps switching on and off, clothes being banged on the washing stone, dogs barking and books being dusted. There is tea and coffee - the allegoric equivalents of the lives of two women in love with the same man and they get it wrong in the restaurant only to exchange with a typical K.BALACHANDERISH dialogue closely following. There is the Saree falling off the rocks and into the sea showing that the woman is being raped. There is a morphed naked pic shown by a local rowdy to the heroine showing lust. There is playing around with the bindi on the forehead to show the alternating emotional feelings of a widow. And then there is Bharatanatyam to show frustration, anger, love, disappointment, and every other human emotion.

All this apart, EK Duje Ke Liye is also the birth place of all the present cliches of Indian Love stories. This was where it all started - what now has been repeated n million times on screen was once a set of very imaginative ideas.The lovers getting lost on a trip and returning together(ddlj). The lovers having parents with basic difference in ideology and hatred towards each others cast and language.(mani ratnam's Bombay,x,y,z,n,) The lovers being asked to spend an year without seeing each other(suri,etc). The lovers misunderstanding each other thanks to unfortunate events.(every other love story) The lovers dying in the end of the story just when everything is almost in shape for a wonderful future. (aamir juhi - qsqt, and others).

And unlike its soul less successors the tragedy in the climax is not just for the sake of it. It goes with the flow and the mood of the movie and wrecks every nerve which watches the film. There is multiple irony towards the end of the film and that is probably the most difficult thing to write.

And, In between all this great direction and script writing is ONE rocker of an acting performance. A mega display of end less talent. From this gem of an actor called KAMAL HAASAN. The man is totally into the role. Beautifully essaying the part of a tamilian trying to learn hindi. A man mad in love, torn in between reality and passion. Fighting for love and survival of the love. Kamal does a class act. Apart from his absolutely superior emoting skills, Kamal shows off the gymnast in him and also does some daredevil stunts on the BULLET bike. His dance is a treat to watch as always. The polyglot in him comes to the fore in the scene just before the climax where kamal effortlessly essays dialogues in all existing forms of Hindi in perfect accent. All this, just 6 years into acting as male lead. The man is a genius for sure.

However any tribute to this movie would be incomplete without the mention of two more names. Two people who have got together to give 5 absolutely unforgettable melodies. Laxmikanth and Pyarelal in what probably is the most dynamic work of an all-blues composition for a hindi album. Starting with the eponymous track of hum bane tum bane and moving to the spell binding Lata Mangeshkar class act in Tere Mere Beech me and solah baras ki bali umariya, There is romanctic divinity all around. There is also vintage SP Balasubramaniyam in the very imaginative Lift song - The song of titles - Satyam Shivam sundaram - a high flair song with text full of names of hindi films alone.

The film ends with lines which are probably the best thing K.Balachander could do to round off his greatest tribute to ROMANCE. "प्यार एक अजीब सी भाषा है। यहाँ जीतने वाले को कहते हैं हार गया और हारने वाले को कहते हैं जीत गया। इसमे जीतने वाले शादी कर लेते हैं और हारने वाले एक दूजे के लिये जान देकर अमर हो जाते हैं."

yaavarum nalam ( 13/B) Movie Review

2009-03-08T09:01:00.003+05:30

One Legendary lens man who has no award left to win and no greater laurel to achieve, Three super-hit musicians who have close to a 100% record in giving hit and soul searching hindi music, One Honest actor bugged by the formula system, a neat attempt at genre-specific screenplay and one hell of a spooky plot come together to give tamil and hindi cinema a clean horror/thriller film after a long long time.

Yaavarum Nalam doesn't have ghosts scaring you, But it is just the unnatural circumstances and a horrifying flashback that leave you clutching your neighbour's hands in the theatre. The stress on 13 and B and the LIFT (ala rgv ke bhoot) may seem cliched sometime but they do have an effect. The fact that this author had the lights on last night before going to sleep is ample proof of the fact that the movie has had an effect on the audience's psyche and that is what a horror is meant to do. In fact the major victory of the movie is that a bunch of uncouth mass lovers who were trying to make fun of the movie in the first half and hour, remained shut in silence and shock for the rest of the film. :)

There is an unnecessarily producer-driven duet which thankfully ends soon and then there are no set backs in narration. Minute detailing required for a good horror film are in plenty. The typical crazy characters who have now become an essential part of every 'i wanna scare u' movie are also present. In fact every body's face is some how made to look scary in this film.

PC SRIRAM simply plays with the camera. This is astounding experimental camera work completely new to tamil cinema. The legend has come into the film and made it his own. The camera crouches slowly and suddenly rushes in to peek at the thrill with screaming BGM from Shankar Ehsan and LOY. The camera also oscillates during unsteady situation and a beautiful piece of constantly tension building music flows in the back ground

Madhavan has done a very neat job. But he somehow doesn't seem to have come out of his evano oruvan character. Probably this character is similar in sketch. Neetu chandra is perfectly cast. So is the blind man and every member of the flash back family. Saranya too is just perfect.

In another move that ishallreview completely appreciates, the director brings in small doses of humour for a small time without missing the beat/flow of the thriller. Kudos.

Overall, Krish King Nishanth is not a great fan of horror/supernatural cinema but this film made him more than sit through its thrills. He appreciates it for sticking to its very well written plot and some never seen before technical wizardry. A very good film and a welcome break for the tamil industry.

ps:- PC Sriram speaks louder than language :)

Psychedelic Cinema is Finally here - NAYAN TARSE - to see more such Dev D's

2009-02-25T16:19:00.018+05:30

"TALKIES" is the name on the hotel board sign as Singeetham Srinivaasa Rao's Puspak gets its credit card rolling - An amazing symbol of Irony - the film goes on to have nil dialogues. Anurag Kashyap seems to have taken a cue from this and has decorated the entire film of his with such super-symbolic hotel sign boards glowing relentlessly through the dark nights of Delhi. One of such boards is a class act - HOTEL GRAND is the place where CHANDA - the "commercial sex worker" carries out her night duty and Kashyap's cameraman cuts the G out to show us just the RAND part of it. Later DEV and CHANDA go on to laugh about how no one uses the word "randi" and its just "C.S.W" to describe people like her.

Filled with such deep allegories and some of the most psychedelic music hindi cinema has ever heard is DEV D - Conceptualised by Main man Abhay Deol (who in just a short time has become the poster boy of hindi parallel cinema and has given it a new lease of life) , written and directed by Anurag Kashyap. The film is so much like the picture above(on my blog). Its a brutally honest, beautifully self indulgent and stunningly different version of subash chandra chatopadhyaay's otherwise boring love saga - Devdas. And From what i have seen, this is the best adaptation of the book on screen so far. (vaazhve maayam starring kamal haasan and sridevi would come in at number 2).

The film is divided into three simple parts, each meant to go deep inside the mind of the three main characters - Paro Chanda and Dev - played very satisfactorily by a tantalizing Mahi Gill, a super-expressional kalki koechlin and a perfectly self-casted ABHAY DEOL.

PARO - The episode starts with anurag explaining literally what "being madly in love" is all about even as Dev asks Paro via phone whether she touches herselves or not and the 5 school girls sitting near me in PVR theatre in Forum at bangalore went ewww. Paro is madly in love with Dev and fate which incarnates through the local worker this time and later on through so many other people sees to it that they don't get together. Anurag's screenplay develops Paro's complex character in a fairly simple manner straight on your face - with a sequence of scenes showing that this girl can go to any extent to please and get the love of her life. Paro version 2 after dev rejects and insults her maintains the passion and tempo in blood flow. The scene where she meets the totally coke addicted, irritated by display light of the mobile- dev and cleans up his room is an emotional master cut. One more special scene in this episode is the STILL CAMERA sequence in the centre of the farm. (When dev rejects paro's advances and blow jobs)

illea(wht was that?)/CHANDA - Anurag at his imaginative best. He takes the 4 year old case of the DELHI PUBLIC SCHOOL, noida MMS and predicts what the girl would have gone through in the next ten years of her life.This is the film's best written and best enacted role. The anglo indian girl caought in a sex scandal devastated by dad's suicide and a families plan to murder her ultimately takes to prostitution and changes her name to guess what - madhuri's character in sanjay leela bhansali's devdas - yeah thats chanda for u and thats anurag at his best for u.A super positive and well reasoned out look at a prostitutes life. A prostitute who is so internally steady that she can be the perfectly motherly anchor to the desperately drug and vodka addicted life of our hero Dev. Anurag's spray's some nostalgia within nostalgia when he shows that the train Illea(before being named chanda) takes is the same one which PARminder (PARO) took to get the naked picture of her's scanned, so that she could mail it to dev - the dude from her id - chamma challo.

DEV - Self indulgence takes off from here. A solid twenty minutes dedicated to the mindset of a man who has had more vodka and more coke than one can ever imagine. The journey of a mind shown so fantastically through cars, bikes, underground dance shows , pukes, kicks and of course the deadly hit-and-run accident. A dev who remains neither Paro's nor Chanda's is too high to know what he is doing and runs over 7 people. (Another true incidence intelligently adapted). His once strict and later doting father dies and dev almost returns to normality before going on one more vodka filled tour with a dishonest punjabi driver. He is almost done in when in a shocking sequence he just escapes a similar drunken driving accident and realises that its chanda (no more a prostitue) whom he needs. A thankfully happy and peaceful ending to one of the most disturbed stories of all time.

There is still a lot more to write about Dev D. The music by amit trivedi deserves a special article in itself and the handling of the music on screen deserves another one too. :) But the who has the energy to write? I don't.

As a parting line "ishallreview" would advice its readers to NOT miss Dev D at any cost. Apart from treating you to an intensely honest attempt at movie making, DEV D will also make u feel HIGH for at least thirty minutes after you leave the cinema hall. (with no additional lung cancers involved)

Tata Kano(m) - when randomness hit its real peak.

2009-02-17T06:15:00.004+05:30

Day 45 :- I met some one cute. Very cute. Really cute.

Day 46:- I changed a tyre.

Dream from 46 to 47 :- " It is there for you" - SS Arulappan - with a wicked smile. "It is THERE for you" -SP Sivaprakasham - with a wannabe wicked (but ending up being an obnoxiously dumb) smile and the index finger of his right hand pointing at my chest.

Day 47 :- Bangalore is a hell hole. The IMT gdpi should not have been the first. It should've been tapmi or lbs or bim-bra. Krish King's New hairstyle rocks to the core 2 duo.

Dream from 47 to 48 :- "Deivama paartha ponna thevidiyava paartha eppadi sir irukkum?"

KILL MASS

2009-02-10T22:02:00.003+05:30

Kill Mass

The reason for me writing this is well known, I have been really wondering how people can stoop to such a state so as to not comprehend things in a rational and logical way.

I have tried my best to project what I think about various ridiculous idiocies.

Definition of MASS HERO:

1) The first scene of “his” movie should start with an introduction song or a fight.
2) The story is usually tailor made to make his fans happy ( I really don’t know how he satisfies the audience) :D
3) The heroine’s scenes are strategically placed and really move the story forward.
4) The producer cuts production cost by usually reducing the clothes of the movie.
5) The money saved by point no.4 is used in buying aruval…until recently for guns.
6) The movie SHOULD have 6 songs and 4 fights.
7) In between the 6 songs and 4 fights, 5 comedy scenes …. 5 love scenes, one love making scene and of course the main story (If one exists) has be told.
8) Few unwanted dialogues like “20 varusham munnadi enna paatha madhiriyae irruku” dialogues which we have heard over and over again.
9) Hero should come in every other scene.
10) Heroine should strictly get married to the hero at the end.
11) Include any other Illogical, irrational and ridiculously sentimental scenes.

End Product -: The hero successfully has given a quality product which has satisfied his fans.

The above points are just to warm you guys up.

Chapter One:- 1

Theory of relativity

This is one important theory which has made my hair at the back of my stand up, this theory talks about how people “think” some one is a good actor, good director, good musician etc.

An actor ”Y” is called a good actor if he is better than some other actor, say X…why??
The answer is simple, the other actor X has given shit movies and does not know ABCD of acting.

Yes you heard it right.

You are considered good student even if you just pass your assessment, because all other students have failed. This is one great logic used by MASS RASIGARGAL to just reinforce the very point that their hero is a good actor.

Another analogy

Imagine you are a part of a team consisting of 4 salesmen, the target is to sell 100 candles every month, your colleagues are so damn poor and cannot even sell 10 candles a month…now you sell 50 candles. That is 40 more than your colleagues, and voila...you are a good salesman.

Yes…doesn’t matter even if you have sold 50 less than the required target, still you are better than others. So you are good.

Please don’t exactly go by the above example. Its a farce, and proclaiming you as a good salesman will put you in a hot soup.(If at all you are a salesmen)

Many fail to realize (some cannot comprehend, we need to help them) that to be called or considered good you need to be able to validate your claim to be called good. A person who can sell 100 candles also cannot be called as good, because they are expected to sell 100 candles a month, so he is just normal salesman. A person who sells 150 candles is what you call good. He is pretty good salesman who can do wonders when given conducive work situations.

The above example is just to illustrate how people perceive someone as good, bad, excellent etc.

These analogies can be used to any of the “Supposedly “ over rated “Actors”, “Versatile” , “Different” Directors, movies, Musicians etc.

The very point I am trying to make here is, that one cannot be called good if he is merely better than others. He can only be called good , only if he is better than average or holds his own against someone who is already called good.

Chapter Two:-

Subjective opinions:

This is close to what you call ridiculous, rib tickling, comical, satirical, irresistibly funny argument a MASS FAN can have in his defense.

I will try to present a case here.

1) Shakila is a better actor than Meryll streep, Julia Roberts and it is subjective view.
2) My friend (assuming I study in 12th standard) has a better knowledge about aeronautical study than Mr. APJ Abdul Kalam and it is my subjective view.
3) Rajini’s directorial debut Valli was better than Hey Ram, and it is my subjective view.

The above statements are few examples of subjective arguments which I can have with any of you.

Just because those views are subjective to me, it doesn’t mean that I make sense, and it doesn’t mean that my view should be taken as subjective and I should not be mocked.

Any sane person who has seen devil wears prada and Erin Brokovich should by general principle ridicule me, and rightly so.

Now if I make all these claims and say “I don’t care…I like rajini kanth more than Kamal and I don’t care even if a good reason exists”. Then I am sure the very sane person wouldn’t even care to argue with me.

I am of course not justified. I have no reasons to believe so.

Still I make that claim…it’s purely my personal view and of course something without no rational or logical conclusion by me. I am perfectly OK with this, and I am sure the other guy should also be OK with this.

Now what the other guy would not be OK against is that, If I make an argument saying that, I have equally justified views to consider Shakila to be a better actor than Meryll streep or Julia Roberts. I cannot expect the sane person to just leave my subjective view, but to think that I have a poor intelligence quotient related to my ability to comprehend films in a way a film should be perceived.

I may be a shakila fanatic, but if I say that for me she is a better actor than Meryll Streep or Julia Roberts than I must be by all probability be a FOOL. Because even though my view is subjective, it doesn’t make sense at all.

Absolutely No

Yeah, you can ask me “are individuals not credited with their own personal opinions”

Yes, they are…but when you make a statement in public, when the things come outside of your mouth then it’s no more subjective… if things are so subjective then why make it public at all?????

Now, when you and me have diametrically opposite views about a particular topic then how do you expect me to keep quite when you make such a stupefying statement?

Why do you get all touchy when I question your view of how you perceive films, after all you have decided to make your “ Subjective / personal views” public, it deserves the flak it deserves, it deserves the criticism it deserves, especially when you are talking something diametrically opposite to what I believe, just because there are LOT of ignorant people like you, it doesn’t mean that you have a right to be justified in calling every other view as subjective. We can debate and come to a solution, and not just consider views as SUBJECTIVE because, I find the argument extremely extremely escapists and cowardly argument.

Let us take up a very popular argument.

“I like the mass movie X over pithamagan or color trilogy or full metal jacket or any other classic.”

Now this is the most common SUBJECTIVE argument which I often come across.

I like the mass movie X because it gives me satisfaction more than that of pithamagan or any other movie that deserves to be called sensible.

It would simply be because he / she just likes the hero, so he would, by all probability like what ever is being dished out to him.

I usually press for the reason as to why he likes what he sees as good.

He says….song , dance gaana bajaana..and I tell him how pithamagan and other movies have been beautifully conceived and how the actors have literally lived the characters with heart and soul.

Then my friend would be offended…he would say..” Ennaku pudichuruku avlo dhaan”

This is the very point I am trying to make, no fan will be able to justify other than saying, I like X over Y, because I just like Y and I accept Y even though I cannot give a comprehensive answer.

The fact that one argues that I prefer entertainment and you like art is farce.

What is entertainment you are referring to?
Villu is entertainment? And it is subjective?
Aegan is what I call entertainment and it is subjective?

What are movies?

To call Aegan a movie or villu a movie is itself condemnable.

These “attempt” at filming sequences and calling it a feature film is equivalent to abusing the celebrated film makers. Fine, you may not like NK over shivaji, there are so many movies..take for example Kill Bill(Not an art film), even then I know you would prefer shivaji over a movie like kill bill, or say a better commercial movie like speed, or say spider man.

Ask these questions to a hard core Rajini Fan and he would always say, that he would prefer shivaji over any other film that you can possibly mention any day.This is the point I have been trying to convey, unfortunately I was never given a chance to.

The fact that one would like a movie of his favorite star over every other movie (art, entertainment, commercial, crap , shit) should suggest the point I am trying to make here. The very fact is he has tuned his mind to accept anything and everything from his fav star.

This is what I call stupidity transcending all barriers, that’s all I can say.

Chapter Three: -

Hypothesis-Ajith is a Good actor

This is the most simplest one for me to write on, a very interesting one too. :D

Let me not take too much of time giving an intro who Ajith Kumar is, and his films…so I would straight away jump into my reasons for thinking that he is not even good enough to be considered as good.

Some of the claims by his rasigargal.

1) Valee- Deaf and dumb character.
2) Villain
3) Varalaru
4) Kireedom
5) Mugavari

Valee- I am usually corrected when I say, valee’s acting was not realistic…any performance that is not realistic cannot be called as good. True, he did what was expected But to call it good, he needed to be realistic in his portrayal.

The fact that I am so confident saying this because, I have seen and moved with people who suffer from Hearing and speech impediment. The way they laugh and way they cry, way they communicate are completely unique and nothing was projected in the movie.

Any person, who cannot speak or hear, would have been taught sign language, and no where I have seen people understanding what a person who sits outside the cubicle is talking. I mean, it is statistically very very improbable.

Even then I feel a movie whose main protagonist is a person with hearing and speech impediment and none use sign language or very very minimal sign language is laughable.

In all households who have such a person, almost every one would know sign language, this can be seen in day to day life. None of this happens in Vallee.So, by all means, the performance might have been satisfactory, but it cannot be called as good because as an ACTOR he needs to give his own inputs to the actor. Like I have already discussed, something that is satisfying to the context need not be necessarily good.

Varalaru :-

People who learn bharathnatyam and seen bharathnatyam performances can pretty well conclude, it is most unconvincing portrayal of a bharathnatyam dancer.

All his other feminist mannerism were great, but that was out side of the whole character, he needed to convince me that he is indeed a good, as proclaimed in the movie, bharathnatyam dancer.

Villain- The other abnormal character was good enough, al though movie as a whole was crap.

Kireedom- Please compare with the original.

Kandukondein Kandukondein- I don’t understand why people take up this movie to re iterate that Ajith has done a good job, any body could have done what Ajith did. Even after 10 years in cinema, if ajith can’t do such a simple role in KK, wonder what he can do…

Similarly, all other performances are trivial, irrelevant, unimportant or unimpressive.Take any movie, amarkalam-Again a very ordinary movie of a rogue turning into a good man because of love, almost every other actor in TC has done it.

Dheena- Again a very normal movie about rogues again.

I sincerely hope, the first 2 principles namely Theory of relativity and subjectivity are being heavily used to conclude Ajith is a great actor.

He is not…he is pretty ordinary actor with good looks.

A mass actor fan will not open his ears come what may and would always like his fav actors movies over every other movie…whether it is good, boring, bad.

This is what I call being reason less, and being illogical…

I would really Appreciate people, who say, I like him because I want to like him, there is no sane reason to like him.

UDHAV.

NAAN KADAVUL MOVIE REVIEW - From a man shocked beyond limits

2009-02-07T00:59:00.004+05:30

Naan Kadavul is the extreme. It is a stunning shocking vayatha-perating ( i mean gut-wrenching) master cut from a director who is at the peak of his film making powers. It is a film that for me marks the zenith of tamil film making. A movie with so much detailing deserves an equally thoroughly detailed review. But the author is in no mood. He is just back from the theatre and carries his uneasiest-est feeling ever. Still he manages to write as much as he can...

Anyways , Here we go.

THE DIRECTION - Its a text book. Its a reference book. To make a film dealing with such a complex issue and make it look this simple on screen. To make so many differently abled, disabled and differently psyched people ACT. To curve out of an inexperienced lead cast a performance of their lifetime. To induce into the audience a rough feeling of uneasiness immediately followed by free laughter.To do all this within just 3 years is seriously a film maker at the very EXTREME. This is the film making heights. Bala is right up there among the best directors this author has experienced.

THE STORYLINE - looks weak from a bird's eye view. But it is actually a deliberately simplicised act of a very complex concept. Still it takes the whole of the first half to introduce itself and the goes out at breakneck speed in the second half. Making every stomach twist and turn in pain, agony, shock and anticipation.

THE PERFORMANCES - Arya has the brightest future in tamil cinema. The bala stamp is all over him. U can literally see him mature as an actor in the film... The scene just before the interval is probably his best act in the film...The dialogue where he declares himself as GOD... I wonder how Kamal would have acted in the scene... It would have looked so much Truer!

Pooja's performance again takes Bala to a new level in making people act... She has given her absolute best in every frame of the film. A wonderful act.

The beggar crew - This is what makes the film Great. A group of faces which u would not even see twice in normal life is made to be loved by Bala... Humour from unexpected corners, Emotions galore... The gang rocks...

Everybody else - IS super-mystic and super talented.... Its like watching a hundred people each giving his/her best performance ever....

THE CINEMATOGRAPHY :- Stands out tall. Arthur Wilson has magic lens... There are so many unused effects and camera tricks and they are real obvious... Super work - especially with the opening scenes of KASI.

THE ART WORK :- I never knew some one could recreate so realistically and yet so beautifully the southern part of tamilnadu and the areas where the beggars beg and live... SUPER WORK

THE B---G---M -AH my RAJA. Ah the MAN. Ah the music SPOKE A MILLION WORDS... An effect thats beyond explanation... There is simply no one else who could have made music for this film...

Overall Naan Kadavul is the showcase of an absolute genius of a director called BALA. A man whose class simply stuck on to everyone else who worked in the film

Don't watch it if u are okay with missing THE experience of Your Lifetime....

the Clog before the Slog - waiting for "naan kadavul"

2009-02-04T08:12:00.005+05:30

I know. Its been a rough three weeks for the readers of ishallreview. The hits suggest that you linked it once in every 4 hours only to be disappointed at the absence of any new post. Here it is. A pre - review warm up post ( For the first time in the history of ishallreview )

Naan kadavul is just 2 days away from release and expectations can't be higher. The movie is bound to be the soul saviour of tamil cinema at the start of what has been an absolute disastrous beginning to two thousand and nine A.D.

I watched villu in half an hour on the comp and walked out 10 minutes into the second half from the theatre which screened padikadhavan. I found Silambattam "amusing" and 'Luck by Chance' cliched. I think slumdog millionaire is an "over-awarded" film. I loved Milk and Wrestler and managed to sit through Benjamin Button. Meanwhile I watched Vaastav again - I bought the DVD in Goa - I had been there on a week long super trip....

Keep watching this space for the review of NAAN KADAVUL - AHAM BHRAMASHMI - FRIDAY NIGHT OR SATURDAY MORNING......

The Seventeenth Year of 'Rahmanaddiction' - A Tribute

2009-01-12T09:48:00.010+05:30

I remember. I was six years old. I was in Hyderabad. I watched Roja in theatre. I remember. I remember remembering only 3 to 4 scenes from the movie. I remember the super strong music that goes in the background when Arvind swaamy is kidnapped and later when he falls to put off the burning Indian flag. However , there are so many things that I don't remember. I don't remember how the teenagers and the twenty thirties of the early ninetees were pissed off with mani ratnam for breaking the golden combination with Ilayaraja. I don't remember how half of the other mentioned crowd and the rest of everyone else fell flat listening to what probably will be the best debut album ever composed. I don't remember how some one that year had got into every home in Chennai on an aeroplane called music. On an aeroplane called scintillating Music.

In fact, my first memory of properly (i mean proppperly) appreciating a RAHMAN album was as late as in 1995. Rangeela. That cassete with yaayi re, hai rama, the theme and the tapori song on its "A" side and tanha tanha, hai rama again and two more songs on side "B". Imagine how much of Rahman i had missed by then. In that gap of 3 years this man had made kollywood music his OWN. He had composed absolutely unforgettable tracks for Gentleman, Thiruda thiruda, Duet, Kadhalan, Bombay, May Madham and Indira. Each of these albums is a masterpiece on its own. Kadhalan had 6 songs and all six were individual chart busters. They were the only reason for the movie being a giga-hit. In that one album Rahman had composed 1)A national award winning carnatic classic, 2)An ultimate dance number which even till this date is the first choice of participants in any dance competition,3) A super cool jazzy duet and above all 4) A rap song in tamil that would be played day and night every week that year in all radios and TV channels. What versatality. The man was just 29 then. In the above mentioned albums Bombay and Thiruda thiruda are ample proofs of how brilliant the RAHMAN background score can get. Thiruda thiruda especially. The pulse of the crime thriller is completely captured by the music.

I have just decided that this tribute is now gonna go through Rahman's glorious career three years by three years. The next three years (from 1996 to 1998) saw Rahman's already super duper career go a huge step higher. He reigned both bollywood and tamil cinema like no one has ever done. Infact no one has actually ever ruled over both the worlds of film music . In what happened to be the starting of an absolutely DEADLY combination, Rahman joined hands with super star rajinikanth to compose Rajini's best opening song TILL DATE. Oruvan Oruvan Mudhalali from Muthu in S.PB.'s timeless voice gives maximum goose bumps to any rajini fan around. Unfortunately in Muthu Rahman did one bad thing to tamil music. He introduced Udit Narayan to tamil cinema and the latter went on to cut,butcher and burn Tamil - alive!! . On the music front Rahman made rapid strides this year. He gave an exhilarating score in Shankar's most powerful film ever - Indian - the Kamal Haasan starrer which required very powerful music and got just that. We also got some super-soothing melodies in Kadirs Kadhal Desam, HAUNTING tracks in Deepa mehtas FIRE, fresh musical fragrance in Rajiv Menons Minsara kanavu /sapne and to top it all we had IRUVAR- Mani Ratnams most technically SOUND film and that technically sound part of it is also thanks to the sound sounds that rahman created. Rahman went on to win the hearts of all youngsters with peppier than the peppiest numbers in JEANS, DAUD and Rakshagan. Then came the masterpiece. From his heart. Dil Se - Oh what tracks. The best of singers collaborating with the best music director in the country to give the best songs Krish King Nishanth and his countrymen have heard in years. Sukhwinder Singh is all soul in chaiyya chaiyya, Lata Mangeshkar is all poise in Jiya jale, Udit Narayan is all melody in Aye ajnabi and sonu nigam is all pain in satrangi re. Add to all this we have the Rahman himself in a stunning title track.

The goose bumpy combo of Rahman and Rajinikanth returned in Padayappa - formula intact - had one opening song, one 'hero rises from ashes' song, one sad number and two duets. A mind rattling combo of class and mass. We had more magic in Taal, Takshak, Mudhalvan, Kadhalar dinam and tajmahal - a film which even Rahman's music could not save from being a flop. Thanks to this star-son called manoj.B....

Then in the year 2000, Rahman did the UN-DO-ABLE. He composed absolute gems of albums on a trot - Pukar, Alaipayudhe, Kandukondein, Rythm and Zubeida - ALL IN A TIME OF A FEW MONTHS!!! - BELIEVE IT? No other Indian composer has ever been in such a music making form. Rahman was. This was the GOLDEN ERA for sure. This was the time when people totally fell in love with him. WE surrendered to the GENIUS.

2001 , for RAHMAN had a bang on brilliant start in Lagaan. The movie which almost made it to the oscars had a collection of very "made for the situation" songs - again of all genres and also had a 'well researched and made' back ground score. After a dull year Rahman struck back with the most patriotic album ever made in India- THE LEGEND OF BHAGAT SINGH. THIS album remains the "most played album ever" in Krish King Nishanths tape recorder history.
Kadhal Virus And Boys were hip and very very hot on the market. They made more money for the audio company than all their previous albums put together. Then came the super BGM and international glory in WARRIORS of heaven and earth. Followed by more hip songs for unfortunately undeserving movies like Meenaxi, e20u18, Yuva and New.

Then began a slight slide downwards in touch and form but Rahman kept bouncing back every other film with mind boggling chart busters like RANG de basanti, Sivaji the boss, Guru.
More international glory with Elizabeth:- the golden age. And more show of sheer versatality in Jodha Akbar and Jaane tu ya Jaane Naa - how different the two of them and how satisfying - both.

And finally ALLAH RAKHA RAHMAN - NOW JUST 42 years old - Has truly arrived on the International stage. A dozen awards for his soul-stirring scores in SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE iced on top with the GOLDEN GLOBE and high chances of being the first INDIAN to win an OSCAR award in a live category - Rahman has made it bigger than what anyone could have ever imagined.

But guess what? - This is just the beginning.

Pure Rahmaninan Magic with Just One Minute and Thirthy Two Seconds of MUSIC

2009-01-10T19:24:00.002+05:30

eh masakalli masakalli. ud matakalli matakalli

eh masakalli masakalli. ud matakalli matakalli

eh masakalli masa masakalli. ud matakalli matakalli

masakalli masakalli. ud matakalli matakalli

Zara pankh jhatak - gayi dhool attak

aur lachak machak ke door bhatak

ud door dagar dagar kasbe kooche nnu

kar basti me yaay yaay

ikdi se mud. Adaa se ud.

kar le poori dil ki tammanna.

hawa se ud. adaa se jud

bur burr burr tu he heera panna re

masakalli masakalli. ud matakalli matakalli

masakalli masakalli. ud matakalli matak matak.

(laughs)

Even as I listen, eyes closed, to this thoroughly high spirited piece of excellent music with lyrics that are totally language independent and burst with freedom of expressions, I stop just short of thinking that Rahman is now probably one step ahead of Ilayaraja.

This song ( yes, even this one minuter) is as rahmanic as it can get - meaning one needs to listen to it exactly 4 times to start loving it and totally 6 times to completely fall in love with it.

One doesn't even need to watch the video to realize that this song is to describe a person who has complete license to do what he/she wants and is composed by some one who is also in a similar frame of mind.

Open is the word to describe the song. The song is sung absolutely open-throated ( no technicalities i no :P) and is super-spirited.An Absolutely mood uplifting act by Rahman in his complete elements.

WE bow down to the MADRAS MAESTRO

WE can't wait till we see him with the OSCAR in his hand

WE also can't wait for jan 14 when the audio of 'Dilli-6' releases.

WE just can't yet call him better than Ilayaraja but we can be confidently lock kiya jaaye that He is right on track.

Naan Kadavul Ke Audio Ka Review

2009-01-05T12:01:00.009+05:30

Sincere and Regular followers and readers of ishallReview would know that every work reviewed is categorised under only three categories - good, bad and super. But while reviewing Ilayaraja's songs in the album- Naan Kadavul, i wanted to add a category called "not competent enough to review".

I watch Airtel super singer on Vijay TV every night at nine and most of the time my judgement of a performance is diametrically opposite to that of the judges. When i like the way Vijay Narayan sings, Unni Krishnan says that the sangadhi was not right. When i feel Ravi was absolutely tasteless, Srinivas says that the shruti in the pallavi was brilliant. I don't understand what Shruti Haasan and Pallavi Joshi are doing in ravi's song. More than Unni and Srini its Sujatha chechi whose definitions of feel,voice,pitch,gamagam,etc, are my major source of nightmares.

This was just to say that I am the vijay/ajith/mass movie fan equivalent of music. I can appreciate a song only if its catchy/emotional/funny and only if it appeals to me in the first or the next two "hearings" ( what other word would you use? "listening" ?) I can't get into the aesthetics or the real carnatic magic involved in a song. Therefore this music review of Naan Kadavul says the album is as a bad one but also confesses that the review is not written by a person competent enough.

Coming to the actual review of the Naan Kadavul audio. We'll make it short and sweet. There are six songs out of which song(pichai paathiram) is repeated from Ilayarajas album "Ramana Malai" - This one is just OK.

The two songs Madha un kovinil and Amma un pillayil sung by madhumitha and sadhana sargam respectively are completely similar in tune and are melodies ranging from average to good. The former runs only for 42 seconds but makes a mark.

The catch of the album and the only one that is gonna be retained in ishalleview's iPod is "Om Nama Siva" - The divine dholak to begin with and the mystifying sanskrit chanting later- it leaves the listener charged with raw energy.

The rest of the album is unlistenable as far as iReview is concerned.

But, as the world knows, in NO film does Ilayaraja's work end with just the songs. The bigger and the better role is obviously played by his masterful BGM bits. His are probably the best background scores in Tamil cinema history.

With the movie being made by the 'King of tragic endings' - BALA himself and being shot by some one as talented as Arthur A Wilson, there is a lot to expect from it regardless of the music album being a dampener of sorts.

On a saturday on a wednesday...

2009-01-02T19:54:00.008+05:30

ishallreview(Krish king nishanth) has a major problem. Basically ishallreview resides in (at?) Trichy (at least for the next three months) and hence can't get its hands, eyes and ears on the latest hindi/english film released and the latest original tamil movie sound tracks released either. So the review of the film about which so much has already been written is coming this late - on a saturday, at least 20 Wednesdays after A Wednesday released. (and the review of iLayaraja's Naan Kadavul will come even later)

A Wednesday owes all its financial success and critical praise to the mediocrity that is surrounding Indian Cinema at the moment. A Wednesday is (even individually) an interesting and a good film no doubt but had it released in some other part of the world - Israel, Korea, LA , Germany, or where ever- this Wednesday would have been just another Wednesday.

The movie is just One hour and Thirty five minutes long and after the first fifteen minutes of basic introduction, it moves at break neck speed. It exploits cell phones, computers and hackers more than any other Indian film has ever done. But Vivek in Run would have rushed in to say "Naanga idhu ellam National Treasure laye Paarthutom". The movie is absolutely non-formulaic. It avoids songs, 'louse', duets, genre-mismatch etc. etc. But that doesn't exactly make it great cinema. In India, it does. :P

There is more than just reviewing in this post. Krish King Nishanth saw this movie (second time) because of rumours that Kamal Haasan may do the tamil remake of this movie and don the role that Naseeruddin shah played. These rumours also lead to debates on whether Kamal will in fact be able to do the film.(:O :O) Shocking to say.

First of all iReview doesn't consider this role as Naseeruddin Shah's best. Secondly iReview bursts out laughing at people who say kamal might not be able to do this and thirdly, iReview goes one step ahead to say "A Wednesday in general and Naseeruddin Shah's Role in particular are simply not worth Kamal Haasan"

Coming back to the film, Krish King feels the best thing in the film are its dialogues. I'll call them ' a class apart'. iReview is happy that the hindi dialogue writing has finally come off age and has thankfully moved away from the "me tumhare bache ki maaa ban ne wali hoon"s and the "mere paas maaa hai"s. Omkara, Johny Gaddar, Aamir, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye and this film are ample proof.

Anupam kher is supposedly an amazing actor but often comes up on the screen to do irritatingly silly roles. He is the most wasted actor in Hindi Cinema. A Wednesday tries to restore some glory to his career but succeeds only partly. The man who played the desperate dad in Mahesh Bhatts saraansh(?) will be lost for ever. He has never come back since.

Finally the one last thing that iReview enjoyed in the film was the written character of Arif (played by Jimmy Shergil in a casting thats almost a blunder but is saved by the fact that the actor has more than 10 years of experience in doing abslutely worthess roles). That is the ideal cop. The best one to show in cinema.

So, I feel A Wednesday is a superb fast paced film no doubt but it surely doesn't make the list of Great cinema. And double surely, its not worth Kamal.

Bachao, Bachao, Yeh AADMI Meri Izzat LOOT raha HAI !!!

2008-12-29T19:57:00.017+05:30

The People You see in the above picture are film makers whom Krish King Nishanth calls "The Gods Of Tragedy". In them, Krish King sees the future of good Tamil Cinema. He sees rational minds who can take Tamil Cinema away from its present miserable state. He sees people who are so much not what Vijay, Ajith, Simbhu, Sundar.C, Lawrence, Shantanu, Pee Vasu, Dharani, Perarasu, Hari and a million other like-minded male -formula- whores stand for.

As you can see in the pic, Balu Mahendra is the only guy who doesn't belong to this generation. But he is the root of this revolution - if u can call it that. Bala, Ram and Vetrimaran, Selvaraghavan (partly) were direct assistants of Balu Mahendra. Ameer was Bala's assistant and Sasikumar was Ameer's assistant. Myskin, to my knowledge, does not belong to this assistant tree but has emerged as a leading figure among Tamil cinema's new set of bright minds.

Whats so special about these film makers? After all, none of them have made more than 3 films till date. The fact is that these directors (except Ram, maybe) can be associated with a feat very rarely achieved in Tamil Cinema history. They are people who make non-formula films which not only satisfy their own tastes but also end up being loved by the audience. In short (as Bharadwaj Rangan once said), their work is the 'Holy Grail Of Film making' - Something previously done by a very few genius minds like K.Balachander and Mani Ratnam, who refused to join the rat race and made the audience love what they made and not the vice versa.

This boring post is ishallreview's salute to this set of young directors and their hugely impressive films. Their story is one which I am sure will be the talk of the town some day tomorrow. For they are the only few people who allow us to call Tamil Cinema as Tamil Cinema.

WHAT FOLLOWS IS THE PROFILOMETER OF THE "GODS OF TRAGEDY"

1.BALA

A STILL FROM HIS NEXT FILM - "NAAN KADAVUL"

FILMS :- Sethu 1999(Vikram) , Nanda 2001(Surya) , Pithamaghan 2003(Vikram, Surya)
+ Naan kadavul 2009(Arya,Pooja releasing jan 15th)

TRADEMARK :- The sad stories of sad men which almost get a face lift mid way through the movie only to jump straight into a deep dark tragic hole in the climax

MOMENTS OF BRILLIANCE :- He made the soul weep with "enge sellum indha paadhai" in sethu and again with surya's death in Pithamagan,(followed by the image of surya laughing in the skies)

PERSONAL LIFE :- A man with a whale sized ego, ultra short temper and a major addiction to drugs ( supposedly).

Mainly Acknowledged... :- For teaching Vikram and Surya the 'method' of acting. For giving us two of the currently most versatile lead actors in the industry.

2.AMEER

A still from Paruthiveeran

FILMS :- Mounam Pesiyadhe 2002(Surya, Trisha) , Raam 2005(Jeeva) , Paruthiveeran 2007 (Priyamani, Karthi) + Yogi (not only has he written the film, but also plays the lead in it - shooting in progress)

TRADEMARK :- Versatality Redefined. His First film is a romantic suspense story in an urban setting. Second is a crime, psycho thriller set in a hill station. And his third and most acclaimed film is a 'Village Tragedy'.( bharatiraja ishtyle)

MOMENTS OF BRILLIANCE :- The opening sequence in Raam, The first and the last fifteen minutes in Paruthiveeran -The fine line between magic and indulgence cant get can't get better than that.

PERSONAL LIFE :- Just out of jail for openly supporting LTTE in a public meeting. A very good speaker and a balanced mind. Has a solid opinion on all issues.

Mainly Acknowledged... :- For Paruthiveeran, which got Priyamani the National Award for best female lead.

3. SELVARAGHAVAN

Pudhupettai Poster

FILMS :- Kadhal Konden 2003 (Dhanush, Sonia Agarwal) , 7/g Rainbow Colony 2004 (Sonia Agarwal, Ravi Krishna) , Pudhupettai 2006 (Dhanush) , Aadhavari Maatlaaku Arthame Verule 2007 ( Venkatesh, Trisha). + Aayirathil Oruvan (Karthi, Reema Sen, Andrea - Filming)

TRADEMARK :- Gets as close to realism as possible. Scenes from 7/g... and his ghost direction - thulluvado illamai are ample examples.

MOMENTS OF BRILLIANCE :- Making An amazingly awesome film with dumbest of the dumb people like Ravi Krishna in the main role. Pudhupettai - the film as a whole.

PERSONAL LIFE :- Looks Very Shady. Has a wannabe superstar in brother Dhanush. Has a supposedly rocky relationship with wife Sonia Agarwal, is the son of Soft porn film maker Kasthoori Raja and the genes are sometimes obvious in his films

Mainly Acknowledged... :- For A stunning debut with Kadhal Konden (rated by Bharati-loose-raja as the best film he has seen after Nayagan) ; Setting the box office on fire again with a very realistic 7/g ; and finally for making the technically brilliant film - Pudhu pettai

4. SASIKUMAR

subramaniapuram poster

FILMS :- Subramaniapuram 2008 ( Jai, himself).

TRADEMARK :- He is just one film old and hence no real "trademarks"

MOMENTS OF BRILLIANCE :- Showing the killing of the characters played by himself and Samudrakanni in a way never shown before in Tamil Cinema. Famous Film critic Udhav Naig claims the Subramania puram climax was like watching a Scorcese film

PERSONAL LIFE :- Don't know much - From what I saw on Anu Haasan's show, He has scant respect for women, and has a very good sense of humor. He (unfortunately) wants to act more than create.

Mainly Acknowledged... :- For The perfect recreation of the look and the mood of the Madurai of 1980's in Subramaniapuram.

Every one runs out of patience and so has the author of this post. He has a lot to say about Myskinn , Ram and Vetrimaran. But has no energy. Hence he would like to finish this off in a paragraph or two. ( Anyways, I am sure none of u came till this part of the post :P )

Myskin- stunned the cine world with Anjadhey - a three hour 20 minute saga sailing over two totally different stories. One of a misunderstood friendship and the other of a new police officer and a wierd case to solve. Specialities are the characterisation of Prasanna, The use of camera, and The rigidity in narration.

POSTER AND STILL FROM "KATRADHU TAMIL"

Ram - The director of Katradhu TAMIL is my personal favourite among all these people. He has made what probably is the most hard hitting tamil film I've ever seen.The director excells in presenting this shocking psycho dramaHe uses tamil just as an outer cover to go through the life of a person full of personal loss and death.The best part is the use of "props" in the movie. Props which are close to the protagonist's life make a bigger impact than the protagonist himself sometimes.And a wonderful camera work + perfect bgm sync....

Vetrimaran - I like his interviews more than his maiden film - polladhavan ( which had some super solid action scenes) . He comes across as a very matured, very knowledgeable film maker who is sure to make some classics as well as blockbusters as well as both in the future.

TAMIL CINEMA :- Bachao, Bachao, Yeh AADMI Meri Izzat LOOT raha HAI !!!

GOD :- kaun? who?

TAMIL CINEMA :- AJITH AUR VIJAY

GOD:- WAITEES, i will send u "the gods of tragedy".

IF u are reading this article and IF u are reading this last line first, then iReview strongly recommends you to NOT read this Post.

Shabbba.
enake en mokkai thaaaaangala.

good night.

Remakes Should be Better - Review of the hindi film - Ghajini

2008-12-25T19:09:00.004+05:30

A.R.Murugadoss is both Lucky and Foolish.

Lucky - because not every tamil film maker gets to watch his film , review it, understand the weaknesses, imagine the improvisations that could have been made, mistakes that could have been corrected, and also then end up getting a chance to remake it with an actor whose movie is sure to be watched by an audience atleast 25 times bigger than the one which saw it originally.

Foolish - because the climax was not the only thing that was wrong with the original tamil Ghajini. There were a million other loose ends, scenes which could have been grander, sharper and hip'er. Sequences that had to be more logical. And without looking at these gaps Murugadoss makes Me review his original film more than the new one, which is actually a tough job to do.

I have been forced to see the same tamil ghajini all over again, in a different language, with a better built hero , a shorter (and not necessarily sensible) climax and No other significant change worth mentioning. So I am basically disappointed after watching the film.

But this review of the film tries unsuccessfully to look at it individually as a new Hindi film, without the shadow of the original (whats the difference anyway). So here we go.

The director - ( the lucky and the foolish one)

He is partly impressive and partly irritating. There were scenes where I had an urge to go and tell him to change the way he shot it. The scenes where Sanjay Singhania is shown body building had a nice effect but again could have had even a bigger one had he done it properly. Generally, his direction is good. Nice angles, good reference to some minute details, making Jia Khan emote (:D) , etc.etc. are credit worthy.

The Performances -

Asin is as awesome as she was in the original. Sadly, Ghajini is the only good role she has done in tamil (after that she had to do kuthu dance with all masala monkeys) and I hope this is not the case with her hindi career. ( err, shes acting with salman next. ewww)

Amir Khan has an amazing body. The rest of it, however was like watching Surya all over again and his performance is not as great as what hes been telling in the 24x7 shows on Ghajini being played on Mtv, [V]channel, Ndtv, Cnn Ibn and even damp squibs like Headlines today. But he has been sincere to the role and I have never seen any actor put so much effort on building a brilliant physique for one single role (He is gonna shed it all for "3 idiots"- the film). His body is an amazing work of art, if i can call it that :)

Jiah - she is not made to run as much as nayan did but her role is equally dumb. And it would have been nice if she had at least exposed more. What else is she really meant for?

Riaz Khan - I hope he makes it big in Bollywood at least. Wah. What a physique

Other actors - Tinu , rawat and the others were "OK ok" ... ( the first Ok said with more stress on "o" and the second one with more stress on the "k")

THE MUSIC -
A.R.Rahman has typical Harrisesque instability in BGM, which is superb at times and out of place otherwise. His songs are a mind-blowing and Behka sung by Karthik is my personal favourite.

THE Camera
- Ravi k chandran does a nice job. The movie "looks" very niche and colorful. He has differentiated well between the Asin part and the Revenge part, which was expected anyways.

Art direction is notable , especially in the bekha song - nice work.

Dialogues, unlike other tamil remakes are thankfully not a translation. They are fresh and cool.

ALL THIS APART, THERE IS ONE THING THAT HAS RAISED THE HINDI FILM WAY BEYOND ITS TAMIL COUNTERPART. --- ITS THE EXCLUSION OF THE FOLLOWING DIALOGUE

" 10 digits. This must be a MOBILE number" .

LOL

2 and a half stars on 5.

Legally Thrilled - A tribute to John Grisham

2008-12-23T23:11:00.008+05:30

In 1984 at the De Soto County courthouse in Hernando, Mississippi, a 29 year old Democrat legislator who had finished law school three years ago, witnessed the testimony of a twelve year old rape victim .The legislator then thought about what would have happened had the rape victim's father killed the accused. He began writing a crime fiction novel built on this idea. The rest is not just History. Its a lot more than that. What resulted was the beginning of a spell binding collection of law based crime thrillers from the man who was not long ago (before a bunch of mug faced magicians took over) the most read American author - John Ray Grisham. And this post is a tribute to the man who should by now be privileged to know that Krish King Nishanth has read every word of every thing ever written by him.

The first Grisham book i got my hands on was 'The Broker'. It was in 2005 - I remember looking at that Red covered book lying uncared for in Atul's room. And I also remember Anerudh telling me that this book was way below Grisham's best and that he did not like it. I picked it up and read the extract part and the 'build up from the magazines' part.I was as jobless as jobless can get and so did not mind reading a book not really recommended. To my surprise by the time I was midway through the book I was in love with his style of writing. He forced me through the last hundred pages, a practice he would follow for almost every other book I read of his. And by the end of it all the irony settled on me. If THIS - supposedly "way below Grisham's best work" is THIS good, then what about the rest of it?That is how I started off on a wonderful journey. A legally thrilling ride.

Grisham's strength is plainly his knowledge of law. When you read his books you feel as though you too have been using the technical terms and the lawyer jargon for years now. The reason being He explains these terms without actually explaining them. His protagonist is never super-special. He is just another loser student at law school almost done with it, a jailed judge almost relegated to 14 more years at prison, a bored professor of law almost retired into the monotony of his life, a young recruit almost lost in the rat race of big firm lawyers. There is nothing special about them expect that they are 'almost' done till they bump into a case or an incident that is potentially the most explosive thing any American would have ever heard of. And this transition is not unnatural. It happens beautifully - Like a fluid rushing into the smaller end of a nozzle. Its so Newtonian. In their ultimate dash for survival, they are both aided and stopped by consequence. They jump past the unexpected traitor and cautiously walk into the unexpected friend, finally ending in a rare combination of supremely magical yet thoroughly believable turn of events.

Just a mention of the basic plot of some of his stories sends a thrill up the spine. Take for example 'The Last Juror' - where some many years after a jury of 13 sends an accused killer to prison for life, the members of the jury start dying one by one. Or 'The Runaway Jury' where a ferocious battle is being fought for the survival of the biggest tobacco empire and suddenly One man from inside the jury and One lady from outside of it start controlling everything the jury does. 'The Street Lawyer' where a well-off rich firm lawyer is unexpectedly held hostage and later rescued from a poor man in need of legal assistance, leaves the firm to join a low-level street law firm only to recognise that the one file he has with him from his previous firm is potentially the biggest case in the country and that he has to fight the firm he just left. 'The Brethren' where three jailed judges run a gay scandal from inside the jail and their latest target is unintentionally the next presidential candidate. (wow). 'The Partner' where a fat partner of a law firm feels cheated, fakes his death, runs away with 90 million dollars of the firms money and is finally caught and tortured after 4 years only to run away with it one more time [:)]. 'The pelican brief' where a small brief prepared as project work by a bright law school student lands her in the greatest spot of bother and gets her enemies more powerful than any one else.

All this is just a small part of it. There are more absolutely un-put-down-able classics like the Rainmaker, The Testament, The firm and a lot more. John is always at his descriptive best and he does it without boring us. One gets a super fine picture of the thrill in the waiting and then one is rushed into the climax. And the epilogue is the perfect down gearing expected.Its not just hit-hit bang-bang from the beginning. There is a very emotional build up to the events. Its as personal as writing can get. He explores relations as much and as properly as he explores law. And that is the difference between some one like Perry Mason and John Grisham's Heroes.

John, in a shocker of a decision ventured into sports fiction after he was presumably bored with crime. Out of the two books he wrote in this genre, 'Playing for Pizza' remains a delight. 'The bleachers' did not interest me as much though. Grisham has also got min- auto-biographical at times with books like 'Skipping Christmas' and 'A Painted House'. His non-fiction book 'An Innocent Man' is a great read if read in the correct spirit of mind. NINE his books have been made into successful and appreciated movies. He has also written original screenplay for a couple of films like 'Mickey' and 'The Gingerbread Man'.

Overall, John Grisham is, among many other similarly entertaining people, one of the best things to have happened in my life. To people like me who are strict practitioners of the art of time-pass, John Grisham is God and provides the very necessary moments of thrills that we yearn for. He doesn't stop with just that. He also creates a major effect on how we look at English - the language and how we use it. Here is Nishanth thanking John Grisham for all the wonderful works of his and waiting for more from him. Yours absolutely faithfully.

Where is The Pulp?? :O - Review of the film 'abhiyum naanum'

2008-12-21T07:55:00.007+05:30

DEAR uppu chappu - Mr. and Mrs. SALT AND PEPPER - Where did you sleep last night? For you were definitely not available in Radhamohan's damned script. Abhiyum Naanum is a wannabe feel good semi-bio pic which ends up looking like a substandard documentary.A screenplay which (with dreadful results) goes against the basic rule of having at least one twist in the story line is coupled with extremely ordinary performances to give Abhiyum Naanum. Here is the review of what has to be one of the worst tamil films to have hit the screens in recent times.

The story(?) Abhiyum Naanum is the simplest of all two-liners. Here it goes...

"ONCE THERE LIVED A HAPPY FAMILY. THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER"

No, the author of this article is not against feel good family films with a happy ending. He watched HUM AAPKE HAIN KAUN thrice in theatre. But even Hum Aapke Hain Kaun had some thing going in the story. It had a twist. It at least had fifteen minutes of sad scenes after Renuka Sahane's death. Why H.A.H.K. alone? Every other feel good film has to have some moments of anxiety unless it is an out and out rib-tickler, which Abhiyum Naanum is absofuckinlutely NOT.
Only 50% of the dialogues are intended to be humorous and only one fourth of these end up making us smile (forget laughing).

Everyone is miscast. Prakash Raj- the producer- definitely knew of his fate while the film was being made, which results in him looking sad through out the film. Aishwarya D/o Lakshmi, who has in the past acted in highly acclaimed characters like 'sound' Sarojakka in AARU, is the most irritating thing on screen. Trisha is there just for the sake of it. Everybody else is absolutely obnoxious- So obnoxious that the stink sometimes comes out of the screen into the theatre. (Its surely not the theatres fault because the place where I watched this film happens to be the First seven-star cinema hall in Chennai).

The music, art direction and camera - the three things which need to be very innovative and of superior quality when dealing with dry scripts like these, are a huge disappointment. There are a plenty of moments when we wonder if its the same team which made Mozhi - which was ranked number 2 in Krish kings list of best tamil films of 2007.The obvious problem is that Viji who penned the ultra-funny dialogues of Mozhi is not the one incharge of dialogues for this film and hence we are forced to sit through 2 and a half hours of shit-log which can hardly be laughed at.

The Punjabi element,the story of Joginder Singh, his profession,the family he adopts and rest of the crap tale is disturbingly boring and out of place. The whole film leaves us with just one question. "What was Radhamohan trying to do???"

Mudinja answer pannunga pa. Ennala mudilla.

CHOO CHOO MAARI - review of the film "POO"

2008-12-16T12:08:00.005+05:30

Without Wax- sans cere- sincere- Sincerity - That is the word. Sincerity- The quality which almost every tamil film maker including the legendary Kamal Haasan seems to be missing these days. And it has come out finally, now, from a totally unexpected corner. From a man named Sasi and a dumbster of an actor called Srikanth. Sasi - the director who made average flicks like Roja Kootam - an urban romance with super cool songs, Dishoom -dealing with the life and love of a stuntman, Sollamale - a half baked movie where the protagonist pretends to be dumb(oomai) to get the heroine's sympathy(... she falls in love...) and in the climax he is forced to cut his tongue to prove his love for her.

From the man who made all these movies which can best be described as average cinema, comes POO - a simple yet enthralling ''one-way romance'' saga with startling performances from the lead cast. There are cliche's a plenty, like the standard village setting, the fact that a girl is in love with her thaai maaman right from childhood, and last but not the least - the typical "village-childhood" song which we have been watching in every Thangar Bachan film and even got to see in Veyil and in Ameer's Parutheeveran.

But the essence of the movie however is the purity of love that 'Maari' (played by a stunningly different from how she looks in real life, Parvathy- The otherwise fair cute girl from Kerala, has totally tanned herself and made significant changes in mannerisms, language, dialect and body language to look the part) has for Thangaraasu (srikanth - underplaying beautifully) - the boy she was introduced to as her 'will be husband' when she was as young as four years old. After school Maari works in a factory in the village and Thangaraasu goes off to study engineering in the city but Maari continues dreaming about him. In a super-symbolic directing effort, what we see is that in all her dreams, Maari only gets to touch Thangaraasu's hand and no other part of his body, and vice versa - This is later explained to her by a friend that probably they are meant only to be friends and nothing more than that - for which Maari is more than upset and ends up injuring her friend.

The movie starts with Maari's marriage life (she is married to some one else) and so, we know that Thangaraasu is not gonna be her man, but how the events unfold is what matters and the narrative holds us through it perfectly.

There are stand out scenes and characterisations - The climax is definitely the best scene in the film - Maari who cares for thangaraasu's well being even after knowing that he is married to someone else, cries her heart out on finding that his wife ill treats him to the core. This one scene brings out the whole essense of this wonderful love story. Close behind is the scene where Thangarasu has to make a decision on whom to marry and decides against marrying Maari when he finds out that kids from an inter-family marriage may not be healthy. The character of Thangaraasu's father is super-clearly etched out- the manasthan father who has oodles of self respect and plenty of dreams about his son, which fall flat when he is informed that a course in mechanical engineering in an arbit college will not fetch heavy salaries.

The songs are not spead breakers and are wonderful to listen too. This is a rare genre-specific cinema and does not act like its commercial-crappy counterparts which boast of action, romance, sentiments (what the fuck is sentiments supposed to mean?). This film is pure romance, pure innocent, heart warming. - Poo is a semi-classic.

Kudos to Sasi, who made a 5 and a half page short story look this well planned on silver screen.

POO gets 4 stars out of 5. From Nishanth himself - which means the movie is really good.

THE GOD OF - 'The God Of Small Things'

2008-12-15T18:48:00.010+05:30

The first thing i learnt from Arundhati Roy's only novel - 'The God Of Small Things' is that one should never name the title of a creative writing before creating it. I realized later, that there is great fun in doing such an act as it throws up a thousand and one more ideas into the write up. And that is not the only thing that I liked about the novel. The God Of Small Things is semi-autobiography at its best. Arundhati converts all that she has seen of her home town of aymenem and all that her childhood has been through into a seemingly simple but unarguably spellbinding collection of words in what remains her only published novel till date. ( Which sometimes is surprising because I don't believe that Man ever went to moon for he never went there twice. But the question of authenticity is quenched by the autobiographical nature of this splendid book).

The God Of Small Things is essentially the story of a pair of fraternal boy-girl twins and their lives which are altered permanently thanks to a dreadful combination of love,extra-marital love,marriage, divorce, caste,religion (the usual villains), and infinitely many more factors. But as a quote in the opening page of the book goes "No story shall hereafter be written or read as one single story" , the book doesn't really deal with just the story of the twins. Interacting with their lives is the beautiful yet disturbed state of Kerala,the bitter truth behind communist politics,the history and religion of the syrian Christians, the life of a young kid blessed by the blessed one, the heart-break of a young girl in love with a church bishop, the story of a self made man who is tied down by retirement, the agony of a divorced mother who loses her only child when she makes a trip to her ex husband's place, the purposeless life of a woman and her servant maid who watch TV 24x7, the death of a dalit who made a mistake of loving a once-married woman belonging to an upper caste,the disgusting episode of a canteen owner making a young boy hold his penis to help him masturbate and a lot more.A lot lot more

In this narrative which goes back and forth and then flashes forward only to race further back, every mini-tale which ends up constituting this mega-tale is a heart wrenching experience. Every line is tragic and the language is fresh, even ten years after the book was written. She uses repeated phrases, which individually have no big effect but on repeated reading set in the nostalgia ball rolling. A lot of importance is paid to poems which the protagonists sang as kids, objects that they loved, tales that they heard and repeated, handwriting lessons, and every other cute thing that childhood is all about - the major irony being, this almost picture perfect childhood is later ripped off into an irreparable mode.

There are some major highlights where Arundhati hits the peak of brilliant writing. She travels the fine line between over-indulgence and magnificent descriptive writing. For instance the chapter towards the fag end of the novel where she describes the doped kathakalli dancers who want to apologise to god for having sold their art to the foreign tourists and so, come up with a breathtaking show at the temple.

Overall a stunning novel which unlike other uni-sense-drivers, makes every sense of yours get up and imagine-Not only do you imagine the picture she paints, but you also end up tasting her food, smelling her scent,hearing her cries, feeling her touch and more than all that losing your heart to her tale.

I know I am ten years late reading this novel, now in 2008, but the fact that i loved it suggests that this novel has not only withstood the cruel test of time but has ended up triumphing over it.

Krish King Nishanth - The Flash back

2008-11-03T12:12:00.009+05:30

I am 21 years, 8 months, 1 day ,2 hours, 30 minutes and 21-22-23- seconds-old. Here is a small flash back of the time that passed.

when I was inside my mothers womb:-she fell from a scooter and with great foresight,predicted, that I would be born mad.

when I came out(was forced out) of the 10 month sleep:- I did not cry-and the nurse held me upside down and gave a spank on my butt to make me breathe.

at one:- I pissed at surendran -my male nanny and he had a mini divorce later because his wife did not like the smell.

at two:-my seven year old sister's seven year old friend dropped me from her lap and she too,with great foresight, predicted, that I would go on to become a genius.

at three:- I attended a pre-pre-school and i am told i spent most of the time with the guardian in her kitchen.

at four-I did LKG and was found to be mentally not capable of going on to the next grade(read - failed) . I was selected to participate as one of the 12 doggies in "OLD MACDONALD Had SOME dogs" part of the "OLD MACDONALD POEM RECREATION"... and i started crying in the last moment and pulled out, only to meet my mom and sis at the stands, ready with a camera, waiting to take a pic of mine.

at five:-I played tennis, backhand cross-court being my favourite shot.

at six:- I drove a 'luna' and broke it.

at seven:-I left hyderabad and cried all the way in the flight to calcutta...things would have been different had i been in a position to appreciate how good air hostesses look.

at eight:- I called my elder sister "akka", whenever she had to draw diagrams in my record and I called her "HARINI", as soon as she was done with it.[:)] .Vizac occured-1995 to 1997 remains the best phase of my childhood till date. we had tambola parties every weekend at the ninth floor terrace and its in one of those dinners that I started eating chicken.

at nine:- Harita, sirisha, devendra singh, vijay, vinay, nilgiris, kr beach, jagadamba mall, steel city,annapoorna, and the summer holidays with atul that i ll never ever forget.

at ten:- I had to leave vizac. Enter portblair(aka forest)... snakes, centipedes,millipedes, more snakes and ... sabina

at eleven:-more portblair-ross island, I puked into the Bay of Bengal on my way to The sink island,and for the first time I actually felt I liked a girl...don't remember her name though.

at twelve:- chennai-my home for the next 6 years-and a phenomena called psbb occurred. i met my friends for life-viki-ajay- then there were anerudh sunil,subra..it is at this point that (courtesy suniL), I stopped being a regular part of conversations with female classmates.

at thirteen-more ajay-more viki-and of course-this goddess of a woman named srimati mam... and...anerudh kicked my focal point (twice)... I am still potent and its truly a medical miracle.

at fourteen:-It came out one night, for the first time-its up to you to decide whether its too late or not... (NOTE:- its not that I did not have feelings before 14. I remember feeling the sauce only at that age, not before)

at fifteen:-my weight was going up at an exponential rate and I had macaroni for the first time and it remains my favourite Sunday dish to date

at sixteen:-it was a dull evening at satyamoorthy iskool( the place for IIT classes) and i saw what they also refer to as an angel-the name is ranjani vishwanathan- and thanks unknown elements-she remained a girl of the dreams for the next two years to come

at seventeen:- More weight gain and more brain loss. I wanted 12Th standard to get over as soon as possible.

at eighteen- I had to pee in an Indian type w.c for the first time in my life-thanks to 'agate' -the first year hostel in NIT, TRICHY

at nineteen-every girl I met and spoke to ,said ''suck it'' (refer DX-WWE) in her own unique way

at twenty-CAT PREP HAPPENED , and STOPPED MIDWAY - KAMAL HAASAN HAPPENED

at twenty one- www.kamalhaasanvideoblog.blogspot.com