Say it With Love, soup Dude chronicles suck

After a long hiatus from Tamil movie watching, I recently watched a few Tamil movies. A couple of them I even tried to watch back to back the same day - With Love , followed by Dude. One of them left me scratching my head wondering what Tamilians see in perpetually melancholic/sacrificial-lamb type of male leads, while the other reminded me even though all the love stories have already been told, we can still find a unique untold angle that makes a story engrossing.

With Love (2026)

Let's start with the disappointment that is Dude. Here's my gripe: why is Pradeep Ranganathan being packaged as yet another soup boy in the Dhanush mold? I don't understand Tamil cinema's obsession with heroes who look like they've been personally victimized by the universe since birth. What's worse is watching Mamitha Baiju's spunky, electric screen presence get absolutely wasted in service of this melancholic male fantasy. The woman has talent that crackles off the screen, but instead of letting her shine, she's relegated to propping up our brooding protagonist. It's like buying a Ferrari and using it only to go grocery shopping, technically functional, but criminally underutilized.

Now, With Love is a different beast altogether, and I mean that as the highest compliment. This is new-age filmmaking done right. Anaswara Rajan is basically playing herself here, and yet there's an authenticity to her performance that feels refreshing in an industry often drowning in artifice. My only complaint? Abhishan Jeevinth, in his 'lead'-acting debut lets his older version hide behind that beard. Come on, man, you have a jawline. Flaunt it! Youth is fleeting, beards are optional. Director Madhan, kudos for a simple yet entertaining debut movie.

What makes With Love work is that it doesn't pander or apologize. It's unapologetically a GenZ movie – the pacing, the emotional beats, the relationship dynamics all feel contemporary without trying too hard to be cool. There's a easy-going naturalness to it that Dude desperately lacks. While Dude is busy manufacturing angst and positioning its hero as some tortured, self-effacing type, With Love just lets its characters breathe and let them exist in their messy, relatable reality.

The contrast between these two films is stark. One treats its female lead like an accessory to male suffering, while the other gives its actress room to be a fully realized person. One feels calculated to hit tried-n-tested emotional notes and fails (IMHO,) while the other trusts its young audience to appreciate something genuine. I tried to give Dude the benefit of doubt and tried even watching it by fast forwarding, but I could not even get past the half way mark.

If you're picking between the two, skip the soup boy dude chronicles and go straight for With Love. Your time is precious, and Mamitha Baiju's wasted potential in Dude will only make you sad about what could have been.

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25 Best Indian Films on Amazon Prime : Summer 2019 List

Amazon Prime has stepped up its game to woo the global Indian audience. Prime is pushing out many Indian movies (all languages) at the same time as their DVD releases and is also beefing up its collection of older Indian movies. This could be a real blow to the pirates.

Indian movie industry - Bollwood together with the regional movie hubs is the largest producer of movies in the world. With the world's largest movie going public, third largest in terms of ticket sales revenue (blame/thank the lowest movie ticket prices in the world) and a huge diaspora spread across the globe, no wonder Amazon is focusing on tapping the Indian audience market.

I have made a list of post-2000s Indian movies which I consider are some of the best Indian movies available on Amazon Prime as of July 2019. I watch movies in four languages mainly as these are the ones I can understand without subtitles, so the movies in these four languages - Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu make up the bulk of my list. I have watched every one of films in the list below and deem them immensely watchable.

Virus, Malayalam film by Aashiq Abu (2019) is a fictionalized account based on true events about the outbreak of Nipah virus epidemic in the southern Indian state of Kerala. (Language: Malayalam)

Kumbalangi Nights (2019) a story about a dysfunctional family of four brothers in a small island hamlet of Kumbalangi, Kerala.(Language: Malayalam)

Premam by Alphonse Puthren (2016)is a film exploring the phases of love in the life of a young man, one of the highest grossing Malayalam movies of all time. (Language: Malayalam)

Bangalore Days (2014) : The original Malayalam hit about the lives of three cousins in the city of Bangalore, directed by Anjali Menon. It went on to be remade in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi (under production.) (Language: Malayalam)

Sapthamashree Thaskara (2014) : A Malayalam heist movie about seven thieves directed by Anil Radhakrishna Menon. (Language : Malayalam)

Dil Chahta Hai : A bro movie, a Bollywood comedy about 4 young men, could be seen as the part one of the next movie in the list, Dil Dhadkane Do (Language: Hindi)

Dil Dhadkane Do (2015): A Bollywood road trip movie by Zoya Akhtar. A good intro to contemporary Bollywood. (Language: Hindi)

Gully Boy : India's version of Eminem's 8 Mile. (Language: Hindi)

3 Idiots (2009): A Bollywood comedy. (Language: Hindi)

Chak De India (2007): A well directed and scripted Bollywood sports movie. The only big name in this movie is Bollywood super star, Shahrukh Khan in a very different-than-his-usual avatar. (Language: Hindi)

Kapoor and Sons (2016): Family drama directed by Shakun Batra (Language: Hindi)

Newton (2017) : A little peak into the working of how elections are run in the world's largest democracy through the eyes of Newton Kumar, a feature film directed by Amit Masurkar. (Language: Hindi)

Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year (2009) : India's Office Space? Directed by Shimit Amin, starring Ranbir Kapoor. (Language: Hindi)

Karthik Calling Karthik (2009) : Psychological drama set in the world of young urban Indian professionals. Not your usual Bollywood movie, infinitely entertaining nevertheless. (Language: Hindi)

A Death in Gunj (2018) : A haunting coming of age story directed by Konkona Sen Sharma. (Language: Hindi)

Talaash (2016) : An excellent Bollywood psychological thriller with top name actors, directed by Reema Kagti. (Language: Hindi)

October (2018): A beautifully melancholic movie about young love, life, loss and acceptance. (Language: Hindi)

Alaipayuthey (2000) : A Tamil romantic drama directed by Maniratnam (Language: Tamil)

Dhruvangal Pathinaru (2016): An offbeat suspense thriller directed by Karthick Naren.(Language: Tamil)

Peranbu (2019): A brilliant film exploring the relationship between a father and his grown-up, disabled daughter. (Language: Tamil)

Pariyeram Perumal B.A B.L (2018): A young man's life in rural TamilNadu as he navigates a caste-stratified society.(Language: Tamil)

Arjun Reddy (2017):Self titled movie about a sexist alpha male character. Was a huge hit in Telugu, remade in Bollywood, a landslide blockbuster there as well. Such movies make you realize that entertainment  has to cater to all types of audience. (Language: Telugu)

Fida (2017): A simple love story, if you want to see a typical South Indian entertainer, this is a good one. (Language: Telugu)

Mahanati (2018) : A biopic about the first South Indian female super star - Savitri. (Language: Telugu)

The Japanese Wife (2018) : Directed by the acclaimed directed Aparna Sen, a beautiful cross-cultural love story.(Language : Bengali)

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Super Deluxe: Tamil Movie Review

Blue and ocher. Blue walls and blue outfits contrasting with rust, mud and bronzed faces. As a visual person it was the color scheme of Super Deluxe which caught my eye first. The urban grime becomes sell-able with swishes of blue and bronze.

The vibrant color palette is just a start. Super Deluxe is all about quirkiness. I have noticed that all off-center movies have signature color schemes. In Thiagarajan Kumararaja, the director of Super Deluxe, Kollywood has the beginnings of their own version of Wes Anderson or Coen Brothers.

You do not see many such successful idiosyncratic attempts in Indian regional language movies. A recent one I remember is Lijo Jose Pellissery's Double Barrel. Despite being a visual treat it couldn't impress the box office with its colorful eccentricities. Hollywood and Asian movies excel in this genre like Little Miss Sunshine, Everything is Illuminated, any Wes Anderson or Coen Brothers' movies or Takeshi Kitano movies.

Super Deluxe is a multi-narrative film. If done right, it will keep the audience hooked to the very end till it leads them to a confluence of all the threads. Super Deluxe mixes the multi story threads with a fair dose of hyper-reality and delivers a winner.

The cast is impressive. Vijay Sethupathi as the trans-gender woman is probably a first for Tamil movies. He crushes it. Fahadh Fazil, Samantha Akkineni, Bhagavathi Perumal, Mysskin, Ramya Krishnan and all the kid actors excel in their roles.

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'96 - a tamil movie review

96 is a very topical movie. The only question was who would make the topic (more on the topic right after this) into a watch-able movie. Like many ground breaking moves they make (discovery of A.R.Rahman for one), Tollywood claims the story and victory.


Chat apps like Whatsapp, WeChat, Line or Telegram didn’t make any significant inroads in the U.S because the U.S already had free SMS and free calls with most cell phone bundle plans. But for the rest of the world and emerging markets like BRIC, these chatting apps are huge players with about 70-80% market penetration. This gave rise to school and university alumni Whatsapp groups, a la  Snapchat for adults with privacy and secure territoriality packed into an instant message environment.


There was only a matter of time before someone made a movie out of this ubiquitous social networking phenomenon. High school and college Whatasapp groups provide ample material for sentimental, nostalgic stories. There is always ‘the one that got away’ and the ‘could-have-beens’, but ’96 directed by C.Prem Kumar, starring Vijay Sethupathi and Trisha Krishnan does not dissolve into a syrupy emotional mess, it could have become with a different script and a different director.


Tamil movies rarely operate at the pace of real life, but ’96 takes the slow lane. Although it was dragging at places, it can be excused for keepin’ it real.

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Ezra (Malayalam) & Dora (Tamil)

It has been a week of paranormal movies for me. I watched Malayalam movie Ezra followed by Tamil's contribution to the week - Dora. First let's see how Ezra fared.

Ezra is a well-put together movie. Is it a great horror film? It is not a horror film; it is a ghost story, you earth bound being. It did not work for me as a horror movie at all because horror means I am looking for something that would bring on the chills like The Shining or The Silence of the Lambs or The Vanishing.

I could easily watch Ezra in the dead of the night without any one around. Even with the menacingly dark shapes of trees moving outside the window it miserably failed to create even a flinch in my ghost film meter needle. Movies with paranormal perpetrators do not make much of an impression on me, so that is not a huge minus. I could even predict who the ghost was trying to take a shot at. *SPOILER* Even ghosts cannot resist the handsome and intelligent Prithviraj, just like us girls. You cannot blame the ghost for choosing wisely 😉

For a first time director, directing experienced actors like Prithviraj is a commendable achievement. Good job, Jay K. Now do not ask the question whether Prithviraj swapped seats with the director anytime during the shooting of this film. When Prithviraj is acting in a new director’s movie I have a feeling that he gets possessed by the director persona quite often – ghost flick or not.

Prithviraj has controlled and contained himself, maturing further as an actor. I can see he had nursed a secret wish to play a 'nukular' scientist and he got to do it in this film. Soon as he donned the 'nukular' outfit it was obvious who would be irresistible (more irresistible than usual I mean) to the paranormal (and normal folks.) Priya Anand - good to see the Fukrey actress after a long time, although she has nothing much to do as a stand-in temp.

The Jewish backstory is the real hidden gem in this whole movie. Don’t go looking for other gems, there aren’t any. Beautifully filmed with great cast and production design it is almost like a self-contained short film within the main movie.

My general impression about Ezra is it is an effort in the right direction to introduce exotic spirits to Malayalis who are all round ‘spiritual’ people. But there is nothing really scary in there. If you want a real scary movie I just remembered a better one from our next door neighbors from not too long ago - Yavarum Nalam or 13B.

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Madrasapattinam

As a topophiliac I am partial toward movies with place name titles. Changes in geography shaped and reshaped under the wheels of time interest me to no end.  Madrasapattinam made me look at the origins of the so-called authentic Tamil name, Chennai which became Madras’s official name in 1996. Wikipedia says Madrasapatinam and Chennapatinam were two different but nearby places. Madrasapattinam was a fishing hamlet near Portuguese fort St. George and Chennapattinam was the settlement which sprang up near the fort. Both their histories go back to 15^th century. Between the two how did the administration decide which one was more original? 

Madrasapattinam, the movie, favors Madrasapattinam over Chennapattanam. It is sort of like Tamilian’s Titanic cleverly adapted for pre-independence era Madras. There are telltale signs of Titanic strewn through out the movie starting with an old lady, a necklace, the old lady’s grand daughter, flash back to a doomed and fleeting love story and a handsome self sacrificing hero who never gets old. Unlike Titanic – the movie, Madrasapatinam was created to ride the box-office waves, not to sink without a trace. It has romance of the most forbidden kind – gori mem falling for a dark skinned dhobi, in the backdrop of the simmering Indian freedom struggle almost nearing its date of fruition.

Arya and Amy Jackson play the roles of lovers separated by class, race and political tensions. One of the positives about this movie is we do not have Indians in crusty pancake makeup and blond wigs playing the role of the British. Although 19th century British dialogs sound Dickensian, viewers’ misery due to this strait-jacketed language is restricted to a few opening scenes.

The city of Madras plays itself. The director had me in his pocket when he showed the transformation of Coovum river from a scenic serene waterway to a narrow channel between trash heaps in the present day Chennai. CGI, though not seamless as historic Hollywood movies, is definitely better than Salman Khan’s Veer a period piece from Bollywood from the same year, with more money and CGI.

Madrasapattinam has a lot of flaws in the script and story department if you go at it with a magnifying glass. Most of the public who spend money to watch this movie in Chennai’s cinema halls won’t be having such a glass in their possession. This is a dreamy movie for the underdog, about someone who attained the unattainable, with a strong thread of love and related emotions binding it together. The movie's success at the box office is a proof that Indian audience always fall for that time tested trick.

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Boss Engira Bhaskaran

Jamshad Cethirakath aka Arya – a Malayali from Trikkaripur(Kerala) brought up in Chennai with Diana Kurian aka Nayantara – a Malayali from Kottayam(Kerala) brought up in Gujarat and Kerala, both find stardom in Tollywood and join hands as hero and heroine in the 2010 super hit Boss Engira Bhaskaran. 

It was touted as Nayantara’s comeback hit and breakthrough commercial hit for Arya. With all this Mallu pride overflowing in the first paragraph it should be self evident that this review is written by a Malayali whose distinction is that I have not watched many Tamil movies. But I have been trying to correct this drawback this last week by multi-threading a few Arya and Dhanush movies.

Bhaskaran otherwise known as Boss(Arya) amongst his friends and family is a happy go lucky unemployed youth living in Kumbhakonam. A lot of middle class Tamil film-goers will be able to identify with his story and the surroundings. Arya’s natural comic timing and strong support on the comedy front from Santhanam makes the movie a laughter-fest from start to finish. In this they are aided by a humurous and unexpectedly sound script. Even the supporting characters have engaging dialogs, except for Nayantara’s ‘pardon’, which was a tad irritating but it was afterall intended to annoy Boss.

Boss Engira Bhaskaran is funny romcom perfect for lazy afternoons. Even the villians are cast in a witty mold. There are not many lessons to take home except to take life light-heartedly like Boss.

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Inspirational Songs : Tamil, Malayalam & Hindi

Almost a year ago, I compiled a list of inspirational /motivational songs in this blog. Though all of these were in English that post shows up as one of the top results in Google if you search for Tamil inspirational songs and a lot of people seem to be searching for inspiration in Tamil.

If you are seeking uplifting Tamil songs I am not the best person to provide an answer. But one Tamil song has been making rounds in our house(and probably every South Indian household with an internet connection) for the past week. It is one of the most viewed songs in YouTube this past month, with 15 million views and counting, you know what I am talking about – Why this Kolaveri Kolaveri Di. Way to go Dhanush, Aishwarya and Anirudh Ravichander. It is from the movie 3 starring Dhanush and Shruti Hassan.

From Tamil onto Malayalam - one of the most difficult languages to write rock songs and my native language. When I saw Vineet Sreenivasan’s Malarvadi Arts Club, the closing scenes of the movie feature ‘supposedly’ a rock song. At that time I had wonderedand wished out loud that Vineet should’ve let Avial – the first real rock band to come out of Mallu land to compose and perform that song instead of the insipid piece that was in the movie. It looks like some film maker had the same idea as me (and a million others, I am sure.) Salt N Pepper one of the really watchable movies of 2011 hands the screen over to Avial and their musical extravaganza to provide a rocking end to the film. Performed by Avial for Salt n Pepper, here’s Aanakallan. Rock on, Malayalis!

With Tamil and Malayalam covered, how can I ignore Bollywood? Everyone might have an opinion about Ra-One and I have an opinion about his Chammak Challo. With music by Vishal Shekhar and sung by Akon, aimed to rope in a global audience, Chammak Challo is guarenteed to sizzle you. For added entertainment watch the video instead of just the audio, Bollywood as you know is all about color, emotions and music, it has to be enjoyed as a combo package and Chammak Challo will not disappoint.

That's inspiration X 3, in three Indian languages - Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi, take your pick.

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Kaavalan

Dileep and Nayantara vs Vijay and Asin – which combo is better? I have not seen a full length Vijay movie before, only bits and pieces or songs from his movies made up my fleeting impressions of Vijay. Now after watching him with Asin in Kaavalan I can see how he is an actor at home in Tamil movie industry and having a producer-director father definitely helps. What really surprises me is this guy trumps Shahrukh Khan at not looking his age. He is playing a dude in early twenties in this movie and he doesn’t look a day older, definitely not 37 - his real age


Kaavalan is a remake of Malayalam movie Bodyguard starring Dileep and Nayantara, directed by Malayalam’s ace director Siddique – formerly of the famous Siddique Lal duo. The success of Bodyguard spawned a slew of remakes in Hindi, Telugu and Tamil. I am glad I watched the Tamil version for Dileep could’ve caused a Repetitive Stress Syndrome to my eye muscles. Though he is overwhelmingly funny, if you have seen one Dileep movie you’ve seen them all.

Asin and Vijay are supported by Vadivelu, RajKiran, Roja, Mithra Kurian and a journal. Kaavalan’s story and execution smells of a movie dressed for success. It is the tried and tested to death formula of Indian movie-dom : guy meets girl in the backdrop of a college or university where they can party their days away wearing outrageously colorful clothes, sing around trees, make room for some villains to create a much needed climax and then guy and girl goes off forever-happy land. Same old comfort movie food in a shiny new package – we starry-eyed Indians always fall for this kind of emotional atyachar.

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Angadi Theru

Angadi Theru is one of those no holds barred movies which wants to do a show-n-tell how unfair life really is. It grabs you and thrusts your face on that gritty reality and lets you go after two and a half hours. It is like a good cry you needed to let all the emotional burdens flow away, it is melancholic yet it releases your mind. In those two hours you’ll live with those characters, identify with them and fight their losing battles.

Angadi Theru is the Salaam Bombay of Chennai. The hopeless, helpless lives of Ranganthan street might not capture a foreign award committee’s attention as easily as a festering red-light district in a third world metropolis, but a discerning audience can find parallels. I have heard that more than half of the movie was shot with hidden camera in actual locations. From the cinematography and the choice of lead actors, who were either making a debut or were only a couple of films old at the making of this movie, that seems totally plausible and it is one of its strengths.

Mahesh, Anjali and Pandi who plays the main characters steal the show. Even others who had small roles are very non-filmish and natural. The film maker has also inserted some documentary-like scenes into the story line which although doesn’t relate to the main story, adds to the knowledge base of the viewer. Now I’d like to see all the previous films of director/writer Vasanthabalan. The best lesson I took away from this movie. Respect. Treat every fellow human being with respect, they deserve it.

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Alaipayuthey

It is a wonder to me that I missed this movie all this while. I had seen Saathiya - the Hindi remake around the time it came out and thought it was ok. It never crossed my mind Alaipayuthey might put a different spin on the same story.

The credit for this beautiful movie should go to the script, its lead actors - Shalini and Madhavan and the director, Mani Ratnam. There is nothing new with the story, it is an ordinary everyday love story that happens at every railway station / bus stop in urban India. That is also its selling point, that it could talk to the average Indian viewer and the language - the script of the film reaches out to the audience in a simple unhurried fashion. Shalini and Madhavan, the lead couple in Alaipayuthey are definitely better choices and have better chemistry than Rani Mukherjee and Vivek Oberoi in Saathiya.

The songs are incredible, we have hummed them for the last 10 years ever since the movie hit the screen in 2000, some of the very best of A.R.Rehman. Growing up in urban India of the late nineties I love this movie because I can relate to it, I know those characters. Shalini is the girl next door, Madhavan is the representative of motor bike Romeos, an ever present species in all Indian cities.

And just in case, I am not bowled over, Mani Ratnam has included Kannur(my ancestral town) and the laterite cliffs of Payyambalam beach which buys my loyalty every time. If there is a love story/movie I'd be asked to pick, Alaipayuthey will be it.

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Raavanan

Raavanan is good. I have always believed Raavanan, the real one in the real epic, suffered misportraiture at the hands of victors. The inescapable short end of the stick that favor the vanquished might have distorted the real Raavanan character as well. Mani Ratnam in AD 2010 tries to bring some justice to the man and he recruits actor Vikram(real name John Kennedy, no Fitzgerald) to the task.

Vikram is magnificient in his portrayal of twenty first century Raavan. I saw the tamil version. Prithviraj is the anti-hero, aka Ram aka the bringer of justice. If you had any doubts, you can lay them to rest after watching this movie, it is indeed Kaliyug, where else can you find Lord Rama as the anti-hero?

The same Kaliyug is also responsible for Aishwarya Rai (aka Sita Maiyya) pancake make-up. She is gorgeous at 37, but Prithviraj who plays her husband is a good ten years younger and it shows despite the make-up. Indian movie industry is hard on women, Aishwarya is going as far as it'd let any woman to go without becoming another Rekha.

Cinematography(Manikandan and Santosh Sivan) and locales are brilliant. Maybe this film will win the best movie award for national integration based on just the shooting locations. Raavanan's village is set amidst the picturesque sarson ka khet (or mustard fields) of Punjab, they go to temple to perform pujas and weddings at the architecturally quaint Lakshmi Narayan temple at Orchha, Madhya Pradesh, they hide out in the scenic surroundings of Athirappally waterfalls in the forests of Kerala, sometimes hiking over to Malshej Ghats near Pune or Saheb Kuthi in Agarpara(WB) for a neighborly chat. The whole of India is Raavan's one village, ""Yatra Viswam Bhavathyeka Needam"" as they say in the Vedas.

Raavanan is a brilliantly executed film. It should have been a hell of a task shooting simultaneously in two languages with slightly differing set of actors. Definitely worth a watch.

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Sarvam

An interesting Tamil movie. I haven't seen Arya before, but there were other familiar faces like Trisha, Indrajith(yeah strange to find him here) and Chakravarthy. It is a love story/thriller. 

The best thing I liked about this movie is the way the songs have been shot. Great camera, unusual choice of locales not very exotic but looks good on camera, neat props, angles, costumes and digital manipulations. This means no money spent on a thousand extras or a bevy of Russian beauties(both same cost, I guess), their costumes and no expenses to travel to distant locations. Easy on producer's pocket at the same time looks good on screen to attract the audience. 

The movie is a good looking one, story is ok, Trisha provides eye candy and disappears after a while. Chakravarthy has tried hard to look menacing, partially succeeds, all credit to his omnipresent beard. A movie for time-pass, if you care to bear some 'horror'. 

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Vinnaithandi Varuvaaya

Will You Cross The Skies For Me?

After having seen three Gautham Menon movies so far, I can boil them down to three statements or formulas.

Hero + Heroine1 = First part of the movie

Hero-Heroine1 = Middle portion of the movie

Hero + Heroine2(w/ Heroine1 optional) = Second/final part of the movie.

Proportion of Heroine1: Heroine2 will depend on which part the more box-office worthy heroine plays.

The above formula will be juiced up with music from Harris Jayaraj or A.R.Rehman. The hero, although his story will start in Chennai and thereabouts, will take a B1/B2 visa  to the United States at some point in the movie and will invariably find himself in a major American city with a prominent bridge (which takes all US cities except San Francisco and New York out of contention.)

By now you might have deduced which of Mr.Menon's movies I had the privy of watching. Yes, Vaaranam Aayiram, Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu and Vinnaithandi Varuvaaya.

Vinnaithandi Varuvaaya is the least 'filmy' of the three. The positive aspects of the movie for me:

1. Cinematography

All I carry back from the movie is the cool blues and greens, fluid likes of water and traffic, instead of the dusty grimy India that one is used to, here we have a vibrant refreshing country and what is more, it has one of the best shot movie scenes in Kerala's landscape. Shame on you Malayalis, a Tamil film had to cross the ghats and come to Alleppey to do that. Beautiful. 

2.Script

Natural, off the cuff dialogs go with the age and subject of the movie, so does the snippets of technology like texting. I also like the way they have interspersed dialogs in Malayalam when it is an internal dialog in the girl's family(whose character is that of a Malayali Christian settled in Chennai.)

3. Art direction

Set design, locales - thought of and brilliantly woven together into the fabric of the story

4. Actors

Simbu and Trisha look very much the part and seem to have a good chemistry between them which they don't spoil by their 'acting'. Neat.
What I didn't like was the that the movie started losing its pace in the second half, dragging along at parts. I wanted to fast forward but didn't do it so as not to miss the amazing camera work. A.R.Rehman's music, didn't really click for me this time, maybe it'll grow on me like Yuvvraj(another A.R.R musical I didn't appreciate much in the first place but ended up doing rounds on my music charts.) Overall a good entertainer.

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Sivaji : The Boss

My first Rajnikanth movie ever. I have seen half an hour or stray bits of Rajni movies before. A song here, a song there or a youtube clip of Rajni's superhuman antics which he employs even to light a measly cigarette. That is what I call respect. It is the first message I get from the movie messiah of the Tamil masses. Respect.

He respects even a lowly cigarette, that he gives his time and his skills to perfect the art of putting it into his mouth. This one movie has revealed to me the reason for Rajni's godly status - he respects you, you could be the lowly of the lowly and he is the filmstar who makes millions but he will show you respect where you deserve it and he doesn't mind being the butt of jokes himself. Something Malayalam superstar Mohanlal could do in the eighties before he ascended the superstar throne, not anymore.

Rajni movie requires a different set of standards to analyze. You cannot compare a Scorsese film with a Rajni film. For that matter you cannot even compare it with an RGV film(much closer home.). It'd be a classic case of mulaku bhaji vs caviar(Caviar makes me gag, so much for sophistication!)

Shivaji is entertainment for the masses. The spectrum of viewers could be varied as a farmer from Kumbhakonam to a South Indian NRI in Boston. The one thread that binds them all is their love for Rajni movies. These movies have only one aim - to showcase Rajni. There would be a namesake story, a fair doe-eyed heroine (definitely of non-Tamil origin, preferably North Indian), plenty of stylish songs featuring Tamilians' penchant for neon colors and numerous fights to showcase Rajni's pre-Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon era stunts which probably CTHD copied.

I am not going to venture into the story, because there is not much of it and the story is besides the point anyway. Shivaji was the most expensive Indian film at the time of its release, in April 2007. It was an unprecedented hit, not only in India but in all of the overseas markets it was featured. The director is S.Shankar and the music is composed by A.R.Rehman. Comedian Vivek's lines in the script have more humor than the most humorous Malayalam of the current times.

There is nothing to analyze nor is there any haloed message to bring home. This movie upholds the first principle of movie-making - to offer an escape from reality. You have the guarantee that there is no hard-biting reality, only fantasies - loud and colorful with a predictable good ending and a Superman who can do almost anything you ever wanted to.

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AIFF 2005: Kaadhal(India)

The film opens with a Tamil folk song providing background to the moving images of everyday life in the South Indian temple city of Madurai. The theme of the film has been the lifeline of Indian film makers since the dawn of the industry - love. The difference here is, the story is based on a true story and is shot in a true-to-life manner. The camera as well as the script(although if you are dependent on subtitles some of the essence of the script is lost.) is above par. I think the movie is a commercial release but the finesse of the film makes it a class apart.

Score - 4.3/5

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Tamil: Nala Damayanti

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Boys

A.R.Rahman is the best thing that happened to Indian movies in last 20-30 years or so. Oh God, what was it like in those days without the maestro, Rahman, can't believe I lived through them! And Tamil movie industry, is the massive juggernaut that rolls through the ancient relics which dictates the like of the rest of Indian movie industry and clears a path for things new, contemporary and exciting. Hats off to them.

Boys, is the latest offering from Tamil movie industry which takes on contemporary issues like dating, MTV, the youth culture and doesn't try to gloss it over with an overdose of 'Indian cultural values'. Ofcourse, the selling point of Boys is its music, composed by A.R.Rahman. I liked all the songs and they are very contextual, unlike most Hindi movies which takes off on a song and dance routine which usually will have no connection with main story line. Man, I am totally sold out on Boys, go watch and rate it yourself.

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Anbe Sivam

Kamal Hasan's latest venture. If you know about Indian sub continent and its movie industry, bigger than Hollywood, if you take the number of releases per year or the number of people employed or the number of tickets sold, you should have atleast an inkling who Kamal Hasan is. Well for the unintiated, he is one of the superstars of Tamil(a widely spoken Indian language, although its spoken in countries like Singapore,Malaysia etc etc) movies, who insists in film after film that he is a modern day Renaissance Man a.k.a the jack of all trades. He is a good actor, makes some very 'different' movies which are really good and watcheable, ghost directs most of them, a versatile make-up man and has many others feathers in his cap, which I am not mentioning right now.

Anbe Sivam (translates as 'Love is God') is Kamal Hasan's latest offering, in which he stars with another young superstar of Tamil, R.Madhavan. The movie is different from the usual run-of-the-mill 'boy meets girl' stories, a breath of fresh air, both the actors have given good performances, all in all in my filmometer I'd give it a B+. It could have made it to an A, had Mr.Hasan not insisted on doing the courting and running around trees with his heroine, who is atleast a good twenty years younger than him. The joke is Mr.Hasan himself is portraying a person who is a twenty years younger than his real self, and he really s***ks at it, inspite of his extraordinary make-up skills. But he is extremely good as the disfigured older man and the his cynical, wise-crack dialogues keep up with the character.

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