Movies Movies and More Movies

After a long time, I have been in movies. Not the camera print from under the jute bag variety but the real stuff. My thoughts... (as always I think that they matter!)

Unnai Pol Oruvan - I think a camera print would have been better than seeing it with the latest digital projector that Sampige theatre uses. But considering it is only 50 bucks for a balcony, lets not complain.

This was sooo much better than that 10 role nonsense! I have to thank Kamal for going back to being a no gimmick actor. And he ROCKED! There were some trademark Kamalisms in the movie! But he was simply in awesome form just by not wanting to dominate the screen presence. Of course, much has been said about Mohanlal and how great it was. I for one, having seen Mohanlal before, thought he was not good. He was one dimensional. Every response that he was giving was predictable. The interpretation of this role by him and the director could have been better. The others were good in their parts. After a long time, I was able to associate myself with the happenings on screen in a tamil thiraipadam! And yes I have seen A Wednesday. Unnaipol Oruvan is right up there along with it. Oh by the way, Shruthi Hasan score was nice too. Way to go babe!

Wake up Sid: When you go have a Benne Masala Dosa at CTR, you know what you are getting. In fact that is why you go there. When the waiter brings it in front of you, you look at it. For the smallest fraction of a second admire it and then dig in. Every bite you take is exactly what you had ordered for. You know it and it meets the expectation in every bite and crunch. And of course, the logical conclusion to that story is you order for one more...if you are dieting it is Benne Plain else Benne Masala!

The feeling without the reorder is what you get when you are watching Wake Up Sid. You know what you are getting into. Every scene is known at the title scene. You know what Sid is going to do and with what. There are NO SURPRISES in Wake up Sid. But still it is like the yummy BMD at CTR. And Ranbir makes it that way for you. This movie works because of Ranbir. No Ranbir, it would have been Snooze Sid! The role of all the other actors is to make Ranbir look better. And they do a great job. I loved Konkona, Anupam Kher and Supriya Pathak. It is so good to see someone other than Kiron Kher in the mom roles! I loved the lady who plays Lakshmi and Sid's friend. I hope Rahul Khanna does not play the boss who gets dumped all the time. I am sure he is a great actor and hopefully he gets a better role. The movie is made better because of Shankar-Ehsan-Loy They rock! I really loved the background score. It was so rich and made the movie a better experience.

Inglorious Basterds: When you read up the web on this movie, one finds a perverse sense of pleasure in noting that the international media is as jingoistic as the local ones. You read reports on how this is really not a war movie and how things are 'inaccurate'...duh! what did you expect! Personally, I felt that this movie rocked!!! It was just so creative. I believe that the Indian version had scenes scapeled out because of the violence! There was still enough gore, but you set your insensitivity index to a high and this movie does not affect you. And you have to commend the characterization of Hans Landa! Christoph Waltz rocked! It was one of the best performances you can get to see. And you know it is genuine acting and not the spliced up stuff that you see on the Indian screens. With that technique even a mannequin can get a best actor award. But Christoph was the real thing. Brad Pitt was really cool as the American from the Smokies. But end of the day this was the director's movie. Every scene was crafted nicely and no scene was too long! Like the great directors, Tarantino builds the suspense by letting you know what to expect! And then he adds some twists as toppings! This is no WW II movie but is a work of fiction! And a damn good yarn at that!

UP: When you sit back at the end of UP, there is a tinge of disappointment. Why cant our movie makers in India think of stories like this. Why cant we make kids movies that adults can actually be a part of than just be patronizing and watch a kiddy movie? Why?

Because a movie like UP was sooo good! It tackled so many topics sooo well. It tackled love at first sight, growing old, not having kids, a kid with divorced parents, and being just a good human being! You cannot help but admire at the way they have made this movie. The kids loved it and I loved it to the point I forgot to 'explain' to them the scenes. They did not need any as I overheard their discussion later. That was 6 thumbs up for this movie!

The lone bright spot in India seems to be the Amar Chitra Katha DVD release. They are no Pixar movies but nice in their own way.

Thank Murugan for that!

Last week Kandasamy let us down, this week Murugan picked it up! And thank the six faced one for that!

Walked in to the theaters with no expectations! And was taken in by the intelligent script and great execution. Here was one group of people who never pushed a gag too far. Even the epic MMKR had a bad last 10 minutes! But this was one was good fun. The script was the hero, the music was super and the direction was near perfect. They were doing a farce and they made no pretense about it.

From the beginning scenes with Gun Powder who likes Bullit Idlis, to Rice Plate Reddy (an over the top Naser, just perfect!), to the Pandari Bai look alike Anni, to Mango Dolly, to Rowdy MBA and of course Quick Gun! The movie was a treat to watch and I thank the stars that I watched it in English. Each of the sequence has nuggets (from the mind it, to the Gita quotes, to Rascal etc). My favorite in the movie, simply because no one had given it publicity was the "I will beat his back and put Calicum"...too good! Just rocked!!

For the love of God!

Kanda - Dont see me! At least in that way.

Oh! My God!!! What a waste of money. Of time. Instead of making that movie if they had pumped the money into the economy, it would have revived again. I am talking about Kandasamy. And what an absolutely awful movie it was!

There was the hype and initial reviews (on hindsight, must have been paid reviews) on the movie that has taken so long to come out. And after all this, you see the movie and wonder why? It is as though the director did not want to use the editor's scalpel anywhere! The direction was non-existent, the acting pedestrian (Vikram was giving 'looks', Shriya was walking, bathing, hip-shaking, Vadivelu was an after thought for kamedi sentiment, Prabhu was irrelevant, Krishna was not necessary), editing was bad, music was pedestrian. Can you believe that the team that made this movie actually thought they have a winner on their hands! This was a bad movie and should be consigned to dust. There was nothing new in this movie at all!!!

What really hurts me is that we should be pushing for higher standards and after pushing we get this??? In the name of being cool, they produce this piece of crap! In my opinion, we have long ways to go before we see good Tamil Cinema if this the state of the art!

Future Perfect, A new voyage!

After a long gap, a movie that I wanted to say something about....actually 2 movies in a gap of 4 days.

Rarely do you enter a movie hall wanting the movie to be good and coming out feeling "Boy was it good!!" That was the feeling after watching Star Trek. What a movie! The story was neat, the script was terrific. It was an inclusive script that had all the star trek newbies engrossed. Enough for the vetrans (at least those who think they are) engrossed. It was all about how the first Enterprise team came together in a new future created by Nero, an old villain. So you really dont know whether that was the way they came together, but at least from this point on, it is the only way!!! Having the old Spock in the movie was a neat touch. The final voice over by Spock was a neat touch...I want more of this Trek...Hope it lives long and prospers!!!

One line on Angles and Demons....Much Much Much better than Da Vinci Code the movie.

Now I am dreading the Hindi Movie Release Overload...we are going to be held hostage again...sigh!!!

Dil e 6

For brief flashes, I felt like I was watching the old serial of the single channel DD days Nukkad. There was that kind of synthetic, real feel to the movie. It seemed that all of today's headlines were captured in a small microcosm and played out in the background of Delhi-6. The surprising thing was that I did not feel that Abhishek was the hero during the whole movie. He had a role to play but so did a whole bunch of others. And they did a great job. Every actor played the part to the T.

Songs were used well and in passing. Scenes did not seem to be made for the songs. I actually liked that. Though I did want to see a few songs in full :-(

The whole movie over all was interesting, but somehow and somewhere the Nukkad feel did not go away. While the intentions were noble, there was something synthetic about it!

Music Season 2008 - Micro Session

I was visiting Chennai for a conference and tried to squeeze a concert in this time. Managed to see one Aruna Sairam Concert in Parthsarathi Swami Sabha. And what a concert it was!

Aruna is one of my favorite performers. And she did not disappoint this time. With the aid of the web, a complete novice like me could identify songs by surfing the web. So the concert was more pleasurable. 

It was 3 hours of high energy performance. The highlights of the concert were the enjoyable Thani session where the Ganjira player decided to do Kunnakol instead. Made a huge difference and prevented the maamas and maamis going toward the cafeteria for some mammu!

Towards the end of the concert, Aruna rendered her favorite Maadu Meikkum Kaana and like in a rock concert she encouraged the crowd to sing along! And guess what the crowd did! I did not expect that from the staid Mama(i)s! 

Sensational end to a spectacular evening.

Rock on!

Rub All-Tear Egos!

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi! Or so we are told ever so often with a photo or representation of a suitable Rab.

I went in to the movie with very little expectations. When I came out I thanked the Rab above that he had given me very little expectations! The story is out now. Man marries woman she did not like (No it is not Mouna Ragam!). Man tries to get her what she wants (Again, it is not Mouna Ragam). He becomes someone else, another self who is hep and happening (No it is not Anniyan!). He captures his wife's heart as Rab shows her who she actually should love (by the 15th reel of the movie!). I would have liked it if Rab had done that at least a couple of reels earlier.

 

The highlights of the movie is clearly the opening sequence and Sharukh as Surinder, the common man! He was very good and I wish he really does movies where can indeed act more. Anushka Sharma, me liked. She seemed like a good dancer and some fresh air. I did not like Vinay Pathak's role/character. There was really no one else in the movie. One of the limited expectations I had was that this was a movie with lot of dance. But they kept the dances as simple as possible so that it is accessible to the common man! Good for me! Bad for my kids!

This movie lies on a very fragile story whose fragility would not have been exposed if they had kept it 30 min short. But since that would be against the laws of simple movie making, we have the same point being driven in again and again and again...what the hell...and again! 

When will Rab make good movies?