I have a problem - It is really me that is the problem

I woke up, a bit like Rip van Winkle and decided that I must blend in with the elite to catch a play. I decided that it has to be a super hit play because everyone just loved the play. I went there with expectations reaching the sky ready eat whatever that was served. But....

It was an hour play, more of a monologue, with props worth Rs 450 max. It used intelligent theatre skills, gimmicks etc. It was against repression of free speech, and how they shut us up. And it was funny in the beginning and saddened out in the end. It was like when someone is all excited and asks you to come to see something wonderful and you go there to say, this is it! Such an anticlimax. However, I was in the minority of minorities. Everyone seemed to love it. That's when I realized that I was not blessed. I did not get it!

It has happened to me before. I went for a play and slept through it. It was the exchange of letters between two giants of the previous century India. They spoke, I snored! And it was a good sleep. Everyone loved it! I did not get it.

So there I am the problem with no solution!

Swami and His Friends - Not a fun group!

Last night, I woke up from hibernation to watch Swami and His Friends by the Madras Players doing its round in Bangalore as part of the Hindu Theatre Fest. It is amazing what publicity and 'build-up' can do to a play. People come walking to a production thinking that it is great and each play then has an opportunity to be greater! I walked in along with this group with all my expectations already met. RK Narayan, Madras Players and the lovable Swami...Tell me what can go wrong?

As it turned out quite a lot! One cannot fault the performance yesterday. It was good over all. There was one shoddy performance (a small role). Hence it did not matter. There was this thing about shouting vs throwing the voice which Swami forgot in a few scenes. He shouted his way is a few places. Not a big deal!

What could not be ignored was the writing and characterization. Swami as I remembered him is this endearing, innocent boy. What I got was a dork! Rajam was this show-off boy, and I got a smart rich kid! The time it took in between stories was too long and the Ganjira was irritating beyond a point. Layering and texture that was possible through story telling, set design and music was reduced to one single layer. There is always a time during performance when you know whether the audience is with you or not. Even with the hugely partisan (and what seemed like friends and family college type) audience, around 55 - 60 min in the play, the audience was getting edgy. To me that is always a measure of the tightness of the script and the story telling. Think about it, not one incident of Swami's young life remains in my mind after one night's sleep. That is not being fair to Malgudi, Swami or Mr. Narayan!

I hope the young director and script writer do take a look at the production and find ways of getting the innocence back in Swami.

Meena by Perch - Rocked

A hibernating bear like me is woken up once in a while after seeing an awesome show that you want to come out of the cave and make a point. One such experience was the performance by Perch in Rangashankara last night. Their performance was called Ms. Meena.

Forget the story. They could have done anything and I would have done the equivalent sound of sucking up the running rasam on a plantain leaf in a Kalayana pandhi with the cook maama coming in with the next round of carbo attack! The best thing about this was the even nature of the performance. There were no bad performers and the good performers covering up for them! For someone who thinks he is an occasional theatre geek, this was a lesson on total theatre. Be it the creative use of the body, highly enjoyable and creative use of everyday things as props, simple tunes to convey a point, highly effective montages to communicate everyday scenes....one word..Awesome!

Now coming to the plot, it is a tragedy sugar coated as a comedy. If you think about it, the behavior of the people in the story is absolutely despicable. How they dump friendship, relationship for instant gratification! How low will they stoop for money and fame...All this told as a doctor who is offering a toffee to a child as he is sliding a huge injection in!

Bottom line: Ms Meena is a show that you need to watch to laugh and enjoy and reflect on the way back. Don't miss it!!!

Sky Crosser

A tinge of sadness, a small lump in the throat and a general feeling of melancholy....Guess that is the formula for a successful love story.

Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya fits the bill perfectly. A movie for the die hard romantics who still keep the flag of hope flying. There is of course the story, the acting, but what made the movie for me was the music. I thought ARR had a ball doing this movie...he seems to have enjoyed it and in the process made sure we did.

All the players were near perfect. Simbu was watchable...I never thought I would ever say that. The only thing he should try is to see if he can get out of his characteristic dialog delivery. It felt like I was watching Airtel Jodi Number 1.

My heart went out to Trisha...Oh My! What a performance! Somehow I felt the lines that she spoke were all written by a man. I can never ever imagine a woman mouthing some amazing lines like that :-P. But to me she was the stand out performer. So subtle, so good! And she was just a treat to the eye and soothed the heart!

The reason I think the movie scores was because the climax was at the interval! One would imagine a walk into the sunset after that, especially since they were in Kerala. One often what happens after the climax. Guess one answer is VTV!

As we were leaving the hall, one person was commenting that the end was practical. Don't know whether the practical end is always the right end. Sometimes you do want a movie to be just that and give in to the romantics! I don't know whether this will be a all time great movie, but definitely one love story to talk about for this generation of movie goers!

I am just one in the crowd

Well I am back! After all the dithering of should I write or not, here I am. 'nuff 'bout me.

Coming back to the movie of the week...My Name is Khan.

Sometimes you just want to make a statement. You want to do that by living a very normal day. Get up. Go stand in a line, buy a First Class ticket, take the family, watch the movie, eat the puff, popcorn and chips. Come back home. By doing that, you are doing an 'Up yours!' to all those that want to change the way I live by inflicting their petty morals on me. I am happy to say, I did just that. So all you so called guardians of my country, guess what, I lived today as I had intended it to be and you could not mess it up for me.

Now coming back to the movie, this is classic Karan Johar stuff. Full of emotions...lot of coincidences, 'We shall overcome' at strategic places. Either you love it or you laugh about it. I have no snide comments at people who laugh about it. It is your choice and you are entitled to it. I was one of those who liked the movie. A little meandering, slightly disjointed, it ain't no Forrest Gump, but it was good nevertheless. Sharukh and Kajol were excellent. This movie belonged to the director as much as it did to his favorite actor(s). Thankfully no Kiron Kher and Zarina Wahab did an admirable job as the mom. Surprisingly, I did not feel the pangs and tears that I should have felt. Normally I do have tears at the drop of a hat. From that perspective, I don't know whether the story reaches out as much as it should have.

One often wonders whether these feel good stories actually do happen. They probably haven't, may be they should!

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?

Flights of Fantasy with Aruna Sairam as the pilot

There are some days when you know the luck is on your side. Today was definitely one of them for me. How often can you go to a ticketless concert without a pass and enter Chowdiah hall and find a seat right in the middle, 9 rows from the stage? The answer is once and for me it was today. 

Heard Aruna Sairam and like the other 1000 odd folks who were overflowing and filled the stage as well was mesmerised. Aruna Sairam has the potential to create a rock concert with all the ages (from the late 70's to the early 10's) participating with equal gusto. It was a spectacular concert. And the best thing this time was that I did not have to ask the maama or maami sitting next to me as to what raga was being sung. I just used my mobile and google instead. Guess they never thought of that when they made Google. With information at my finger tips, I actually understood the raagas being sung as they were sung!

She sang about 15 songs for a full 3 hours. The main piece was the RTP in Madhyamavathi with the Pallavi beckoning all the 8 Lakshmis. Each Lakshmi had her own Raga to welcome her, of course! The concert had everything...the Abhangs, the thillanas, the oothukaadu songs. Aruna had all of us eating out of her hands! Always a pleasure to be a part of such an event even if our role is to just listen and walk away.

PS: As in a Oothukaadu song that I heard Aruna Sairam render, there is a small note from the Adiyaarkku Adiyaarku Adiyaar! I felt that the usual smoothness was just a little lacking. Flights of Fantasy series by Ganjam was referred by her as Flight of Fancy about 3 times! And in one of the viruttams calling Thiruthani Muruga, she Thiruthini Muruga...slight jarring from an ever perfect performer.

Closet Matters

Since we are on a roll this weekend, I did the second movie of the weekend...Dostana. Hearing the hype engines work their magic, one would have imagined this is the next best thing to sliced bread. 

By now we all know how mainstream Bollywood has decided to include them as part of mainsteam cinema in this movie. So I left my mind in the car and went in to enjoy the movie.

My verdict So-So! There were some funny moments but overall it was not a 'wow what a movie!' experience. Abhishek is best with his timing, Kiron Kher is over the top, and poor Boman is reduced to a sterotype. This movie is just being funny for the sake of being funny. And so you enjoy some moments. But everything was very surface...no depth. I guess they did not plan it that way. It as a laugh and leave comedy...so I laughed in the theatre and left!

Elephant song

When one is on a cruise boat, you are expected to sit down and enjoy what you see. Some of what you see you may like and some you may not, but sit you must. If you like the trip, you can come back again. If not, the cruise boat does not give a damn and so wont you. That was what I thought when I watched Vaaranam Aayiram. Gautam Menon, one of the few directors, to whose cinematic language I can relate best these days has presented a photo album, or coffee table book that you can flip through. The only catch being you cannot turn the pages, only he can and at his speed. Hence I write these as observations and reflections as I really am not supposed to interpret anything.

You really go through the adult life of a young man whose father provided the right kind of support or direction at the right time. A good father can be the pillar that can make a child to a fine young adult. Coming to what we saw in the journey, there were three love stories. A lot of ups and some deep downs. And how the father is there for the son in the downs. In some sense, I would have liked to see more multidimensional aspects of the relationships. I enjoyed that in Cheran's Thavamaai Thavamirundu. My interest was held during most parts of the movie. I thought the end could have been done better because I felt that it would never end! The other aspects of the movie were standard Gautam Menon fare. There were some rough edges where it felt that the whole family is enacting its love story for us. The coolness quotient for me though was the fact that Surya lives through the same college period as I did. While I clearly did not have the romantic tracks and hence the music tracks he had, I could at least sing along (thamilla sonna othhu oootharathu!!)

In terms of performances, Surya was excellent and Krishnan was awesome! So glad to see Simran back! Sameera is sweet but she has an one dimensional smile...What a smile...sigh!. Ramya or Divya Spandana was cute. All the others were in the shadows. Music is excellent, Harris Jayraj at his best. Camera work was nice with lot of shots reiterating the 1st person narrative! 

This movie is a love story made by a director for a father and for an actor he adores. The actor really nails this one! I wish the father was just a tad crisper and not without the flab! Coming to the question, will I get on the ride again...I doubt it but would definitely look at excerpts if someone were to show it to me!

The Frame and the Painting - Beautiful Picture

Here are two guys who went to the same school who kept in touch and as their professional careers matured, thought they can take the best of their worlds and create something nice or nicer. I am referring to Anil Srinivasan and Sikkil Gurucharan after I listened to their concert (can you believe it was free!!!) called Madhirakshi today. 

Easily one of the best musical experiences that I have been to in a long time. 

The thing that gets to you is the voice of Gurucharan that was enhanced by the Piano of Anil and the Ganjira of Purushottam.  Suttum Vizhicudar thaan, then an ashtapadi followed by Ksheerasagara....It went on. One amazing song after an another. They covered Sanskrit, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi with ease. Language, obviously, did not matter. Music Did!

There was a piece where they allowed the Ganjira to have a solo play. It was the piece written by Kalki about a lady waiting for Muruga. She goes on to say that after she has seen her love, how she finds happiness in solitude. This was the portion of the song that they played. It did strike me odd that the thani piece was tagged to this song! A friend with whom I was discussing this suggested that may be the Kanjira was being played alone to reflect the solitude! I thought that it was an interesting take to the whole positioning of the thani piece in the concert.

After the vote of thanks they did an encore piece, Omana Thinkal. The audience was transfixed as if the lullaby was for them.

Amazing experience! Worth doing it again. Sikkil is part of my December must hear list!

PS: The Frame is what Anil referred to his Piano and the Painting is what he referred to Gurucharan's voice

Drum Beats!

I am writing this after 16 shows of Magic Drum, including a 3 show Sunday! There were those in the team that actually did all the 16 shows! Can you believe that? I managed to do 9 I think!

Here is an anwer to the question I had earlier...yes there is a GOD! Oh Yeah! What was a disaster of a rehearsal metamorphosised and grew into an amazing show. As the days went the performance levels went up and up. Towards the end we actually were confident that we could pull it off. 

There were several crowd favorite moments. But there were some total cast favorite moments which the whole cast was rooting for. My favorites were a few. One was the barber in Good Luck Gopal. It was one scene that always had me in splits. The other one that I loved were the Old Lady in the white crow. It was a guy doing the role of a Grand Ma and it was just too funny! I loved the Gujju accented postman in a village in Karnataka in the Last Laddoo! We had a blast with some wardrobe malfunctions where for a brief moment (pun uninteded) we saw what no audience ever wanted to see :-).

I think the coolest part is that an organization was able to generate funds for their noble cause and it was not inspite of us putting a bad show! People did walk away happy that they saw something worth their time and we were happy that the money that they paid went to something worth our time!

The Fear of God

After an absolutely nightmarish rehearsal yesterday, possibly the worst that I have had so far EVER in doing plays, I believe in GOD.

Seriously, this play has been one of the toughest. I started doing this play only to find out that I may not be able to do it. I had an important (?) wedding to attend right in the middle of the play dates. So I pulled out. Then as luck would have it they postponed the play performance dates. And yours truly was back in. And even then I had only a teeny role as I was doing back-up to another dude. His work got the better of him and he dropped out. There I was right in the thick of it without even realizing it. At about the same time, my work caught up with me with travels ever so often. If it was not work then there is always Bangalore traffic. What would have taken a crow 35 mins to travel, takes me 2 hours. Being in Bangalore traffic is akin to constipation. You want to go, but it is just not going!! I can literally let loose on the road for the last 30 sec of my travel to rehearsal.

After all this we found ourselves doing rehearsal yesterday with the knowledge sinking in that next week is the performance. We are doing it in partnership with Dream a Dream. There are 2 more days and our performance is no where near where it should be. I have begun my prayers...

Rock On - A Ballad?

You know the end of the movie in the beginning. So there is no edge of the seat suspense.
You know all the turns and twists...there were some interesting twists. But nothing out of the ordinary. So no shocks there
You have heard the music, nothing new there.
In some sense you do know the people! I guess that is what makes this work.

The movie was really unhurried in its pace. It kind of took its time to move towards the end. The end was naive but you really could not have had any other end. The strength of the movie was really the performance of all the actors and how they appeared believable! While I lack the depth to comment on the technicalities etc or argue with the story teller on how well he could have made it, I judge my liking of a movie by whether I had a good feeling when I left the theatre. The answer is I did!

Once in a while you do need these kind of movies. Something to take you back to those days, put up your feet and smile!!

What defines decent?

I was watching this program on Vijay TV. One of the many reality dance shows. The judges got carried away and asked the daughter of one of the participants to dance.

This was an enthusiastic 7 year old who danced her heart out for Mukabala song from Kadalan. The kid danced with a lot of gusto. But then in the middle she went into a lot of gyrating suggestive movements. Agreed it was just a dance. But is it okay for a 7 year old to go into a lot of these poses. I felt that I will be uncomfortable to see my kid do the same. Of course, no one in show really minded all these movements and this was a family show.

But there was this little niggle...Are these the new boundaries for decency? Has the age of innocence dropped from the teens to the single digit ages? Or am I being prude?