Vellathooval

Looks an early eighties movies with half-baked actors of the noughties. Not to pass the blame to two young actors in the main roles - Nitya Menon and Ranjith Menon, they were passable.

For two and half we were trapped in an eighties masala movie. We almost thought it was an I.V.Sasi movie of that time, then we look at the credits and realize it is indeed made by I.V.Sasi, but about thirty years past his prime. Not much of a story except it relies on brat of a girl(Nitya Menon) to carry it forward. Seema is good as the tortured mother of the brat. Lalu Alex in his current incarnation as a lovable rascal Dad figure which he has a copyright on these days, Vijayaraghavan is a no-good drunkard who can be trusted on to provide occasional bad-guy effects when the movie meanders to meaninglessness. The rest of the cast is forgettable.

Yeah almost forgot about it, there is a white feather(hence the title) which floats into the scenes at inopportune moments, probably meant to save the name of the movie, but it looks like photoshop gone bad.

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Salt of the Earth

It is the only black-listed American film ever. Produced by the people who were black-listed by the McCarthy era administration and whose names featured in 'Hollywood 50'(50 creative talents in Hollywood who were rumored to be communists and studios wanted nothing to do with them.)
Some of these 50 people started searching for good stories to be made into film thru' their independent production company when a strike by Local 890 of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union against the New Jersey Zinc Company in Bayard, New Mexico caught their attention. Salt of the Earth was born.

Shot on location with almost all non-actors, except for two, the film also addressed the growing concern of illegal immigration from south of the border, from Mexico. Although most of the real workers, most of them Chicano who were in the film where as much American as the 'anglos' or whites in the film, it is film that foresaw a lot of ground-breaking issues of American culture and politics like immigration, race and union issues.


To me it looked like a picture from my home state of Kerala, India. A state well-known for its communist leanings and hot-blooded workers who'd take up any cause to stage a march or a demonstration at the drop of a hat. Salt of the earth shows us that when it comes to the workers, the ones at the rock-bottom of social pyramid, issues are pretty much the same - whether it is in the US of the 1950s or India of 1970s. 

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The Lost Horizon

Shangri-La is a popular name for Chinese, Indian and Tibetan restaurants all across the world. Although we all know that the name has more to do than just being a gastronomical experience.

James Hilton's 1933 novel, Lost Horizon is where the fictional utopia, Shangri-la came to life. Nestled deep in the Himalayas this exotic ideal world is hard to reach, but a British foreign service man, Robert Conway reaches there when his plane crashes in the Himalayas.

In 1937 Frank Capra adopted the novel into a film. The film's story differs from the novel in very important aspects, although if you just see the film it has all the details preserved to transfer the crux of the story to the viewer. It is a technically superior movie for something that was produced more than 75 years ago. Although the Himalayan scenes involving the plane, especially the one where the plane lands in the middle of a huge field, filled with marauding villagers looks authentic, Shangri-La itsel is set in a dated(!920s) landscape framing the wide vistas of early 20th century architecture.

The current print of the film is missing some scenes which are redone by voice-overs with still pictures. It is an interesting film to watch for those interested in older films and film history and maybe it has a story idea which is ripe for remake sometime in the future considering its metaphysical message and oriental setting (we lives in the times of crounching tiger and kung-fu panda.)

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Take Care of My Cat

I love watching contemporary movies from different parts of the world. Many 'foreign' films that make it big in the western world are usually about themes that are done to dust already or about subjects that western audience can empathize with safely ensconced in their living room couches. In this context films about slums of the third world - like havelas of Rio or chawls of Mumbai and films about Japanese mobsters come to mind.

Sometimes some not-so-significant yet interesting movie will slip through the ranks of local film scene of a country and make it over to the West. Take Care of My Cat is one such film.

A coming of age film, centered around five new high-school grads, all girls living in South Korea. This 2001 film is the debut feature of Jeong Jae-eun. It is a peep into the world of modern Korean youth, from different strata of society trying to cope with their first brush with real life. An interesting film from the perspective of social scientist with a flair for movies.

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The Band's Visit

An Egyptian police band is stranded in an Israeli village. The different members of the band is put up at different homes by village people - it is the story of that one night and the interactions between these strangers.

I got the movie to learn about Israel, what does a village in Israel looks like and who are these so called villagers. I have a better idea about Egyptians, which the movie didn't change. Israeli villages look like suburbs of a desert town, not a village in the conventional sense - when you think of villages in say Iran or Pakistan or somewhere else in Asia.

You will enjoy the movie if you are prone to watching art-house movies.

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Neelathamara vs Neelathamara

Lal Jose is emerging as an undeniable promise from the wreck that goes by the name of Malayalam cinema. Neelathamara, is probably the first remake ever made in Malayalam movie industry. It is 'the' consummate Malayalam movie I've ever seen and I've seen some movies including the 1979 original which was actress Ambika's debut vehicle.

Considering the kind of flicks preferred by Malluwood audience these days it comes as a surprise that movies such as Neelathamara can be made, but what's more, it also became a success at the box-office! If only more film-makers will create such blue lotuses, they seem to be as rare as blue moons these days in Malayalam film industry.

Neelathamara, I read, was a dream project of Lal Jose. Here's a link to Lal Jose's own blog where the film-maker has noted down bits of creative process which went into the making of the movie.  The story is real simple, penned by M.T.Vasudevan Nair, one of the stalwarts of Malayalam literature, the script was adapted to fit the nuances of modern times although it is a period piece and the events take place in a pre-eighties period.

It has been a long time since a good female oriented film hit Kerala's screens, this movie puts an end to that drought. There is the maid servant, the mother, the newly-wed bride and the son - all these characters inhabit a flash-back which forms the core material.The movie begins in the present where all or some of these characters have matured / aged in life and are looking back at a past that was.

The flashback portion is the adaptation M.T and Lal Jose has interjected to make the movie fit for consumption for a newer audience. There is a character of a grand-daughter added, maybe to give some more depth to the story, to visualize the passage of time perhaps. It is also a nice touch that it is a grand-daughter, not a grand-son. Afterall, the story is all about women.

The 1979 version starring Ambika, Ravi Kumar and Sathar and directed by Yousef Ali Kacheri definitely lacked on the 'dream-project' front. M.T's stories being made into films was an everyday occurrence back then. The Eighties, characterized by movies with long takes, sparse dialogs and earthy characters was just a year away. Neelathamara(1979) was a typical sensible Malayalam movie of the age like Peruvazhiyambalam or Thakara, nothing much to write home about because movies like it was the norm in those days.

If you compare the new version and the original, although I do think it is a crime to compare because they were  products of different eras and different circumstances, you realize that except for the story and the characters the two movies are a world apart. So I'll just limit my comparison to the characters / actors.

Archana Jose Kavi plays the main role, played by Ambika, cannot tell who is better. Archana could've used less kajal, because kajal was not something a rural girl, esp. a maid servant puts on every day, it was a part of her make-up which she reserved for special occasions like while going to the temple festival. Kailash, the new hero vs Ravi Kumar. Kailash is such a natural, less filmy and the new script makes the character less of a feudal scion and more of a mischievous rich kid fooling around. Thank God Ravi Kumar is not acting. Sathar vs Suresh Nair, the script has toned down the villainy of this character, today's character is more suave and matter of factly which suits Suresh Nair's acting.

The mother Sreedevi Unni(2010) vs Kozhikode Santha Devi(1979), Santha Devi was/is a veteran actress who has excelled in mother roles whereas Sreedevi Unni doesn't have much in the experience column to write home about, still she holds the fort just fine. The one character that I thought was better in the old movie, not because of acting per se, but because of the director's choice in casting was that of Ammini. Rima Kallingal was good as Ammini in the new version, but somehow the older Ammini felt more like a real character. Samvruta Sunil, is getting better as an actress with every new film of hers that I see. She is not usually the main character, but she is morphing into a kind of character actress, some one the director feels okay to entrust strong characters with. She plays the new bride in the 2010 Neelathamara.

In the seventies, Kerala was coming out of a feudal set up. The lower class of society still felt exposed, was wronged often and more importantly mobile phones were not rampant. Cut to 2010, there is not a clear-cut section of society which  can be branded as lowerclass anymore, it has been replaced by the emerging middle class, sporting cellphones. The playing field is more level than it was thirty years ago. That explains the flash back element added by the writer and director. The maid servant is now placed in a better rung of society, the down-trodden hapless girl is not there any more. She is looking back from a comfortable present to a forgettable folly of the past.

The mood of the film(the new one) is therefore less stifling, the characters are less villainous, the emphasis is more on perfecting the locale, the camera(the camera work is brilliant, hats off to Vijay Ulaganath), the costume and the casting. A near-perfect Malayalam film after a long time. May the tribe of Lal Jose and directors like him prosper.

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Up in the Air

If you are a frequent flyer, you value your miles more than many things in your life.In Up in the Air, George Clooney is Ryan Bingham, who lives more than fifty percent of his life, mile high and loves it while going on with his everyday job of a down-sizer (down-sizers are hired by companies to lay-off people, because the companies themselves cannot bring themselves to do it, in other words he is their dirty laundry man.

It is a chick flick trying to capture it's ever elusive audience - men, flipping the gender of the main character. Nice movie if you are a chick or like George Clooney (or is that a tautological situation?) I liked it except in certain places where the new-preppie recruit breaks-down or when Clooney is let down by his mile-high fling.

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Idiocracy : Movie Review

Idiocracy is what future holds for the world, or more specifically for America. If you consider America as the harbinger of global societal changes, the place we can get a preview of the beginning and end of the world, then the message might hold true for the rest of the world too. 

With a precise observation of the current social fabric of the US of A the film-makers start thus, "As the 21st century began, human evolution was at a turning point. Natural selection, the process by which the strongest, the smartest, the fastest, reproduced in greater numbers than the rest, a process which had once favored the noblest traits of man, now began to favor different traits. Most science fiction of the day predicted a future that was more civilized and more intelligent. But as time went on, things seemed to be heading in the opposite direction. A dumbing down. How did this happen? Evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence. With no natural predators to thin the herd, it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most, and left the intelligent to become an endangered species."

It might be said that Idiocracy is more of a documentary than a movie, the chocolaty presence of Luke Wilson notwithstanding. I consider it as a commentary, a warning of sorts, the way the script and the director captures the cultural nuances of the current age and extrapolates it to a dumbed down universe, five hundred years into the future, scores a bull's eye in my book. Let's go to 2505 where Costco is like a city state, in terms of geographical coverage. There is no water, even plants are irrigated by something like Gatorade called Brawndo which employs half the human race, that is if they ever get off their butts.  Terry Crews as President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho is kicking butt - all is fine.

This is a movie about quotes, perceptions and ideological visualizations of the future, I cannot say it any better than the script, I leave you with another quote from the Idiocracy, "Unaware of what year it was, Joe wandered the streets desperate for help. But the English language had deteriorated into a hybrid of hillbilly, valley girl, inner-city slang and various grunts. Joe was able to understand them, but when he spoke in an ordinary voice he sounded pompous and faggy to them."

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Inglorious Basterds

Tarantino never disappoints. With Christoph Waltz in tow, it makes watching the movie all the more worthwhile.I read an interview with Tarantino where he says that if he was not able to find an actor fluent in German, English and Italian he'd have scrapped this project all together, which seems pretty plausible considering the fact that the whole movie kind of rides on the shoulders of Christoph Waltz. I came to know that he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar 2010 for this role, so much for my current affair awareness.

Brad Pitt is Lieutenant Aldo Raine, leader of a secret squad of Jewish American soldiers deep in the enemy territory with a mission to scalp all the German soldiers they come across, with their ultimate aim as Der Fuhrer. I loved Pitt's impersonation of an Italian, a la Corleone with a forward protruding jaw and a grating voice to match, comically entertaining. 


As always Tarantino's pick of music is highly commendable, it looks as if the movie is made around the sound track. He has also used some of Ennio Morricone's(one of the greatest living composers in my opinion)tracks. Tarantino's Hitler is a funny guy, not funny in the usual funny sort of way, but subtly funny. There are tributes to older movies(not his) hidden in frames, try fishing them out if you can or google. 

Tarantino is one of the best directors to come out of Hollywood in the recent times, every one knows that. Every movie of his is a consummate product - script is articulate and unpretentious and beyond words, frames flawless and sound track an extraordinary compilation of tracks which otherwise would've looked odd together but perfectly suits his film. Take a bow, quirky Quinten, you've done it again!





 

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Twenty Twenty

This movie is a buffet lunch for Malayali - all the various dishes for the price of one dinner. Although how much of a dish each Malluwood actor is, is a question of debate. You get to see M & Ms , Dileep, Suresh Gopi, Mukesh - all in one movie. Of course there are female actors included for the sake of inclusion - like Bhavana, Kavya Madhavan, Gopika and a bone in the form of an item number thrown to the Generation Y of Malayalam cinema viz Prithviraj, Jayasurya, Kunchako Bobban and Nayantara. There, that took care of them, most of the movie belong to the mighty M & Ms - Mohanlal and Mammootty, the Generation A or B or something which has not exited Malayalam cinema even when they have completed half a century on the screen of life.

A mega hit in Kerala, all the actors play the part they are now assigned to in Malayalam cinema, not the one assigned to by the script, not that the script was very different. It was written with the signature elements of each actor and their place in Malayalam filmdom. In that way you can say the actors were not really acting, just living their real life roles in film industry.

20-20 was produced as fund raiser for AMMA by Dileep and directed by Joshi.Mohanlal is Devaraja Pratapa Varma, a character he should by now play in his sleep after doing a slew of such roles in the nineties and noughties. Mammootty is the astute lawyer with a conscience and a sister, Bhavana. Siddique and Sai Kumar are their devious villian selves, again playable in their sleep. There is the usual coterie of comedy characters composing of Kalpana, Salim Kumar, Innocent etc.Suresh Gopi gets to do his cop act, peppered with his usual cache of English swear words. Dileep's natural comic sense is the only thing I could tolerate in the movie.Again, if the box office is any indication the average Malayali movie-goer is at the other end of the spectrum compared to me.

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Ritu (Rithu) :

If you ask me (a big mistake, because I don't stop speaking in the blogging medium), Ore Kadal was good, Ritu is better. Not a popular opinion shared by many in this virtual world of no-name movie reviewers. The reason may be because I could associate myself to Ritu or Rithu, coming from a similar academic and professional background, and could not find many personal parallels in Ore Kadal.

Shyamaprasad has beautifully captured the beautiful friendship of the three characters during their college days in some flash-backs and a song. The three musketeers - Sarath Varma(Nishan), Sunny(Asif Ali) and Varsha(Reema Kallingal) have done work comparable to many of erstwhile acting powerhouses, despite this being their debut film.

The atmosphere of an IT company has been realistically captured, after having worked in a few in India and in the US, I can vouch for that. The trials and victories of  ITstartups, the pragmatic idealists that the new generation of information technology workers are and the presence of an older leftist leaning society have all been truthfully captured in Joshua Newton's original script. Shyam Dutt's music provides a fittingly melodic framework to this contemporary film. The art work and the photography is above par, rising above the flotsam of present day Malayalam cinema.

It was indeed a welcome change from Shyamaprasad's part to go with an original script rather than adapting a famous novel or play which itself might have undergone numerous adaptations in different media before it reached Shyamaprasad. Ritu proves that he is definitely getting better at his art.

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Sunset Boulevard

There were a lot of others like Sunset Boulevard - the premise of an aging star, a struggling new comer, both at different corners of the ring and the beast they've to fight is the same - the movie industry, but they all came later this is the grand original of all those scripts.

For all the lovers of movies about movies, Sunset Boulevard should be a staple. You get to see the Hollywood right after WW2, those b-w streets of LA with little or no traffic, the grand mansions of the yester-year's stars with Sullivenisque architecture and those struggling to make big it in the movie industry (same then as now.) William Holden and Gloria Swanson are the two pillars which hold this movie named after the most famous road in Hollywood, thereby the iconic of tinsel town dreams of many a man and woman, together and they do a fine job at it. A fine movie to take trip down the memory lane to 1950s with distinguished director Billy Wilder.

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Kerala Cafe

Kerala Cafe falls into the category of anthology films or portmanteau films - films consisting of multiple short films, often with a common theme or framing device.I think this is the first time directors in Malayalam cinema has teamed together for such a venture. I can think of an anthology film from recent past, Adoor's Nalu Pennungal, but all stories were directed by one director. Bollywood came out with a nice package of a portmanteau film a couple of years ago called Dus Kahaniyaan. Similar anthology films that I can remember are Anlat Istanbul, Paris, je t'aime, New York I love you, Toronto Stories etc.

The good thing about an anthology film is that there is something for every one, like a movie buffet of hors d'œuvres.The bad thing about this movie in general is that it has the Shelley syndrome, ie "Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thoughts" , 9 out of 10 stories(or maybe 8) embrace the sure-fire recipe for success with Malayali audience aka the language of sorrow.

The first movie directed by M.Padmakumar is called Nostalgia has the familiar theme of Gulf Malayalees starring Dileep and Navya Nair, not much of a story, more like a condensed episode of one day in the life of a 'pravasi' Malayali which is better because there is no unnecessary fluff. 

Then comes Shankar Ramakrishnan's Island Express starring Prithviraj,Rehman and a host of others. It is good film, but gets a little too poetic with a hint of Malayali's inner budhijeevi surfacing at times. It is about one of the biggest train tragedies that happened in Kerala, the Perumon disaster.

Shaji Kailas directs Lalitham Hiranmayam, a tale of marital infidelity starring Jyothirmayi and Suresh Gopi. The film shows a different side of Shaji Kailas, sans the smart-talking English dialogs and the guns.

Uday Ananthan's Mrityunjayam is one of the entrancing ghost stories to come out of Malayalam in the recent past, I wish it was a full length movie, but then who knows, there might not be enough mystery and paranormal to last two long hours, part of the charm of it was its super short length like a thick strong brew. Thilakan and Reema Kallingal stars in Mrithyunjayam.

Next in line is Anjali Menon's Happy Journey, an incident during a bus journey starring Jagathy Sreekumar. An interesting piece. After that comes B.Unnikrishnan's Aviraamam, a contemporary story, good story and the choice of actors -Siddique and Shweta Menon makes it all the more watchable. Shyamaprasad disappoints with Off Season, I for one had high expectations of him.. It has good camera works, is set in a scenic locale - Kovalam, but that is all it has going for it. I have to give to it  that it is the only story which is not a sob story, other than Mrityunjayam(the ghost story.)  

Anwar Rashid's Bridge is one of the better movies in this set of 10. It takes place in Cochin, with Salim Kumar, Kalpana and Kozhikode Shanta Devi. Cinematography, story and the actors are above par and it really wrenches tears out of your eyes.

Revathy's Makal addresses a social issue of child trafficking, a woman oriented subjected as expected of the director. It stars a convincing Sona Nair, Sreenath and others along with a peacock feather - one would think Revathy as a director should be past filming cliches by now, maybe not?

Last, but not the least and probably the best is Lal Jose's Puram Kaazchakal starring Sreenivasan and Mammootty. Kudos to Lal Jose for selecting such a brilliant story, C.V.Sreeraman's story of the same name,  for a short film. With such a story, only precaution the director has to take is that he doesn't mess it up with the script or camera, Lal Jose does neither and what we have is winner.

In my opinion, PuramKazchakal is the best film of the whole bunch, closely followed by Mrityunjayam and Bridge. Island Express is like a poem in a short story anthology, a little mis-matched from the rest. All in all, Kerala Cafe is a commendable effort, a world away from the current masala Malayalam movies and shows that inherent problem of Malayalam cinema is with its viewers because directors if given half a chance can make good movies it is the audience who wouldn't let them.  

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Calendar

Malayalam movie makers have a penchant for movie titles totally unrelated to the story or the theme. As audience used to these antics, we the faithful viewers of Malluwood never question their intentions, just do our duty and watch each movie and offer our scathingly critical reviews of each one.

Calendar is one such gem of a title. I have no clue what a calendar has to do with this movie 'specially that it didn't have to do with gazillion Malayalam movies released so far. Ok, let us not get riled up about the title, I was just bringing to your attention an interesting fact about Malayalam cinema.

Calendar brings back some old faces from the eighties - Zarina Wahab and Prathap Pothen, with youngsters Navya Nair and Prithviraj and the forever young Mukesh. I had no clue where the movie was going till the very end. Even then I had to read a review to understand what it had been trying to say all along. I wonder why Zarina Wahab said yes to the role, probably she was told she was the central character and they were telling the truth. Only after they made the entire film did they realize they had veered so far off course that it was now impossible to get back.

The story could've been told straight-forward, but emphasis on certain characters where it was not needed, getting caught up in trivial issues, blowing up events totally unrelated to the development of the theme saw to it that the movie lost its way from the very beginning. Mahesh the actor turned director has created a veritable avial of a movie from which it is hard to save him.

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Ditto (Donggam)

Romance fails to capture my heart most of the time, it sinks like Titanic down the abyss of my logical brain, except some edgy SF romance like Happy Accidents. Ditto is not Happy Accidents, but it is different from the usual run-of-the-mill romances. The added charm is, it takes place in Korea in 1979 and 2000 and stars two HAM radios.

Ditto has HAM radio as the instrument of connection and happens in a college campus in Korea. HAM radios - that niche elitist technology(at least for us growing up in the third world in the eighties) when cell phones(or satellite phones) were more than a decade into the future, was something  I had yearned for, but I knew I would never get. Rajiv Gandhi, our erstwhile PM was a ham, the guy with impeccable English who did countdown for ISRO's rocket launches was a HAM - these were the kind of people who becamse HAMS, not scrawny little girls.

In addition to 'HAM'ming, the historical events that played out in Korea, the issues that concern the national psyche are also subtly portrayed in the film. One part of the film happens in Oct, 1979 an eventful month in South Korean history and other is set in 2000 - a time of modernism and relative stability.  Also to be noted is the stark contrast of Asian cultures with Western materialistic culture, which has also intruded into Korea of the present.

I liked the movie immensely, I am a sucker for time travel, chatting across time, conducting exchanges with parallel universes all that kind of will-never-happen phenomena. This movie gives me a peek into it, worth spending my time.

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The Uninvited

A good ghost story is hard to find, especially a good b-w movie. It sets a nice ambiance when I am folding laundry away on a Saturday night. The Uninvited is good old fashioned ghost story that takes place in England.

The movie was made in 1944, stars Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey and Gail Russell. It is about a city bred brother and sister who falls in love with a vacant house by the sea and buys it on a whim. They not only inherit the property but also a couple of ghosts thrown in for some haunting fun.

All the actors who were in this movie are dead and gone by now, the last to go was Ruth Hussey in 2005. Like the Sue Thompson song of the sixties, which goes like "Sad movies always make me cry,", black and white movies from yesteryears always make sad, even the happy ones. All those actors, young and radiant once, gone dust to dust, ashes to ashes, no ghosts haunt us, it is all just recycling of carbon.

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Twin Sisters

Nominated for Foreign Film Oscar in 2003, Twin Sisters is typical Oscar fare. I consider these kind of films too polished, presenting the grim face of holocaust reality for 21st century living rooms. Some heart-wrenching tale in dark brown and sepia, usually rewarded with an Oscar nod at the end. To me all of them kind of look the same and I call these type of movies 'Oprafication of the Holocaust'. Twin Sisters,The Boy in Striped Pajamas are one of the recent ones I saw which fall into this category.

I hope Elie Weisel's Night won't be made into a film like this. It needs to be more raw, a bit different from the rest like Schindler's List was. But that doesn't mean I don't enjoy these movies, they are eminently watchable, reminds the humanity once more of the horrible crimes committed during the reign of Hitler.

Twin Sisters as the title says is about twins sisters Anna and Lotte, separated and brought up in two countries during WW2. They find themselves aligned with opposing countries which affects their decisions and loyalties to each other as well.If you haven't watched many movies about the holocaust, this is a good starter. There is not many graphic scenes at all, pretty tame compared to many other WW2 movies.

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Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year

One thing I am certain, I have a liking for films made by Shimit Amin-Jaideep Sahni combo. They are like films that should be shown in film schools about how films should be made, IMHO. Though I don't think my opinion is shared by many Indian film goers because Rocket Singh tanked at the box office. If I could swish my fairy wand at the cash register, this movie would've put the Las Vegas slot machines to shame.

Ranbir Raj Kapoor is a natural at acting and even more natural when it comes to playing a Sardar (well mother's genes, what else, right?) He reminds me so much of Neetu Singh with a mustache and a beard.

Character development and choice of actors to play the roles is one of the most interesting and innovative approaches of Shimit Amin. He brings in people from God-knows-where, but all of them fit into their roles perfectly and I've not seen any of them in a significant role in any other film before. That was the case with his earlier venture, Chak De India and it is the same with this film. Both had a big name actor in the lead role and all the rest of the people are virtual unknowns although they have real meaty roles.

Rocket Singh is a portrait of the new urban India, entrepreneurial, bursting with ideas and gutsy. The characters are so original that you might have met them in Mumbai's suburban trains. Unlike formulaic Hindi films it doesn't veer from it course and end up being the run-of-the-mill running-around-trees-romance at any point of time, even the romantic sub plot is very subtle and not overly stressed. Good script, good direction, good movie. 4.5/5 stars.

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Up

Finally finished watching Up. I had never gotten around to watching it in full, always catching glimpses of it while wandering around the house. An interesting story and nice execution (what else do you expect from Pixar?) It seemed to me more like a grown-ups' movie than kids', but kids in our house don't seem to think so.

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Nammal Thammil

Nammal Thammil is youthful eye candy movie with the reigning youth icon of Kerala, Prithviraj in the lead with Geetu Mohandas and his real life brother Indrajith in a supporting role. The film is a campus flick, set in Govt. Engineering College, Thiruvananthapuram (my alma mater) The main building and the entrance area are  featured in the scenes, but nothing much else.

It is a film geared for commercial success, I wonder how it fared at the box-office. In addition to the three young stars, there is also veteran actors Balachandra Menon, Revathy and Suhasini in prominent roles.

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Jafar Panahi's Offside is a documentary-ish feature film centered around the events that take place in Tehran on the day Iran defeats Bahrain in a World Cup qualifier. Panahi's own idea for this film was born after his daughter was refused to enter a stadium to watch a soccer match. In Iran, women are not permitted to watch men's sports events. Like most of the Iranian films I've watched including Mr.Panahi's , the film is very simplistic, almost minimal without any embellishments, that's why I felt it was like a documentary.

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My Wife's Murder

A movie that has been lying in the to-be-watched pile for years finally gets moksha. My Wife's Murder has been there for around half a decade, waiting to be viewed, somehow I never picked it up. I knew it'd be a decent film, the cast and the unusual name guarenteed that. It didn't disappoint.

I've always wondered why Anil Kapoor doesn't do so much posturing like Aamir Khan claiming how great an actor he is. Infact I found Anil Kapoor's acting exceptional in this movie, as a middle-class family man, video-editor trapped in a murder case, of his own wife. Everyone, from Suchitra Krishnamoorty who has the title role albeit a miniscule one to Nandana Sen, Boman Irani and the rest of the supporting cast, has done well. As a debut director Jijy Philip also does a good job, kudos to RGV Film Company supporting upcoming young directors.

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This time around we are supporting a traitor, a betrayer of the entire human race and we(most of us) will do/did it whole-heartedly. Welcome Jake Sully and thank you James Cameron. Lets get that Titanic out of the living room, I never liked it much to start with.

Personally Avatar is a milestone for me. It is the first film I have watched in the theater *twice* without much persuasion from anyone. Movie halls all across the world must have heaved a collective sigh of relief the day Avatar hit the theaters because this is one movie you cannot watch from your couch, not on your 70 inch HDTV, nothing but a Real 3D or Cinemark XD movie hall can do justice to the magnificence of the real movie. I heard 3d TVs are coming or they are already at your door or something, but it’ll be quite sometime before they will invade all our homes.

 It is an impressive visual treat, a technological vision about our future and a scathingly precise allusion to America’s territorial ambitions. It is 2154, human race has advanced beyond the confines of solar system and find themselves at the gates of a verdant green planet, Pandora, in search of a precious metal aptly named 'Unobtanium'. All the names are allegorical to the point of being slightly comical. (Na'vi = Native - E.T (?))

It is a feel good thing for me if the highest grossing movie in the history of movies has an Indian name. Avatar, like guru, its predecessor is one of the few words borrowed from Sanskrit (and thereby Hindi) by the insatiable verbal needs of Information Technology era. The movie in a way pays tribute to its etymological roots by depicting Na'vi people(the natives of Pandora) with blue skin color and black hair akin to Krishna, the most famous of Hindu avatars. Although I think a lot of what went into Na'vi culture is an amalgamation of Indian(as in native-American) and African-American customs and rituals.

There is not much of a story that you haven’t seen before. Story, dialog and characters are re-hashed typical Hollywood fare. This interesting link shows how aliens are really related to native Americans and thereby to Pocohontas. But then you don’t go to watch a movie like Avatar for its story or its script. It blows you away by the mere fact that such a technically brilliant movie has been made and you had actually seen it. You can explore the digital muscle that made Avatar possible here.

For a CGI sci-fi movie which never usually beeps in the radar screens of non-geeky non-nerdy audience, James Cameron’s multi-million dollar 3D extravaganza has ruffled a few feathers. People or groups pissed off by Avatar include but is not limited to Chinese government(now that is not a hard crowd to piss off), conservatives, people of the Pope, anti-smokers, anti-environmentalists, true blue capitalists etc. If you throw a stone in a crowded theater screening this movie, you have half-a-chance of hitting a pissed-off person or someone sitting next to a pissed-off person. For a ‘typical’ Hollywood movie with stereotypical characters and situations that is indeed a plus in my book.

One thing is certain, Avatar is a landmark in the movie-making business. At a time when it is hard to lure the audience to movie halls, this movie will change the way successful movies will be made from here onwards. James Cameron has netted a winner, yet again.

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Sandesham

 I do not know how many times I have seen this movie. One of the best scripts in Malayalam cinema, Sandesham has Sreenivasan and Sathyan Anthikkad at their brilliant best. If Malayalam had memes(of course it has, but lack of content on the internet in Malayalam could be the reason why many malayalam memes are not identified as such) this film would be the source of more than half of those.




The movie is such an exceptional caricature of politics permeating ordinary Malayali lives that to this date I haven't seen another film or a script that is better than this. All credit to the intellectual awareness and language skills of script writer Sreenivasan who also plays a major role in the movie.

It is a story of a family, with two sons, each belonging to the main opposing political parties that have ruled Kerala since independence. The party names are jumbled as if to hide their identities but as was intended it does nothing but reveal. Jayaram and Sreenivasan play the sons of retired Indian Railway employee, Thilakan. It is a laugh riot that makes you think and is complemented by natural acting by all the performers.

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Bruno

Bruno was as expected - outrageous, thick-skinned and probably not safe for family viewing. It is a mindless entertainer in the lines of Borat. If you have watched Sacha Baron Cohen as Ali G or Borat you know what to expect. There are a lot more sexual jokes this time around thanks to the subject.

This time Cohen aka Bruno takes shot at red-necks, celebrities who adopt black or babies from developing world, formerly-gay currently straight pastors who converts gays to straightdom and ofcourse male models.

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Tell No One (Ner Le Dis A Personne)

Tell No One is a film French imported from America. Adapted from US mystery/thriller writer Harlan Coban's 2001 novel of the same name, Tell No One won four Cesar awards in 2007. It is an interesting thriller where Dr.David Beck, a dermatalogist is wrongly accused of murder and is on the run. The similarity with Fugitive ends there. Tell No One has more layers of intrigue than straight as an arrow Harrison Ford starrer.

My gripe with French movies is their emotional eloquence that makes most of them a dissective study of human relationships. This movie thankfully doesn't  fall into that trap, although it does have the standard nude swimming scene which is prerequisite for French movies. It is an interesting movie to watch, humane yet suspenseful. One thing I noticed about movies in any language is that to make the movie more beguiling, its sound track has music in some foreign language at key scenes. If the film is in English, it is usually the seductive Spanish salsa or the throaty whisper of a French tune. Since this is a French film, English songs get to do the honors. A good movie from director Guillaume Canet.

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New York

New York is a sauve film, just like its actors. Editing and photography befits the fast pace of the city it is named after. Technically it is more in league with Hollywood movies than with its Bollywood counterparts, all credit to Kabir Khan, its director.

I had watched Kabir Khan's previous venture Kabul Express. Like New York the story deals with the a situation which is the aftermath of 9/11. What doesn't really click for me with Khan's movies is that somehow they fail to keep me glued to story. I am not able to point out anything obviously lacking with the script or the story. But despite the gorgeous heroes, breath-taking locales, slick editing and fabulous photography, something is incomplete?!


Anyway New York shows me that when John Abraham grieves or sheds one or more tears, he looks like a man who had a stroke run over by a train. Katrina Kaif is a good-fit for the American desi, with an accent to match. But the discovery of the movie is Neil Nitin Mukesh - that guy can really act! He doesn't have many films in his resume and despite his caucasian good looks(fair n lovely crazed indians will lap him up like no tomorrow) he might be Bollywood's character actor of the future.

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Sagar Alias Jackie

Eighties was the golden era of Malayalam cinema for me. It was a time when I was old enough to watch movies and coincidentally it was also the time they produced good movies in Malayalam. After being through the nineties and noughties I can vouch for that. Many movies that came out during the time was subjected to mutilation by sequels later on because the first one was so successful. This is a point of note when you consider that unlike in Hollywood making sequels is not an oft-engaged past time in regional Indian movies.

Sagar alias Jacky, one of Malayalam super star Mohanlal's latest outings owes its existence to an eighties Malayalam movie, Irupathaam Noottandu. Sagar alias Jacky was the name of Mohanlal's higly successful role in that movie and now we have a movie cashing on that character.

It is another of Mohanlal's "boot-series" of movies. This is my personal classification for Mohanlal movies in which the superstar's boots (usually heavy workman type) boots make an appearance before the hero himself appears on screen. But this is is one of the better ones. It is a slickly made film, comparable to new Hindi movies in its technical brilliance - fast editing, cutting edge cinematography, costume and art direction sets it apart from the run-of-the-mill boot series crap.Story, no surprises there, it is the usual gangsta image Mohanlal portrays these days with painless ease.

Shobana, Nedumudi Venu, Manoj K.Jayan and a host of other actors play important roles in this Amal Neerad film. If this film stands out in the crowd, the credit goes to the director, Mr.Neerad.

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Velutha Katrina (Velutha Kathreena)

Velutha Katrina is a heroine centric movie from 1968 starring Sheela in the title role, directed by Sasi Kumar. Katrina's character is an odd-woman out in her untouchable caste(Pulaya) and the film depicts the atrocities she had to endure due to her skin color. An exceptionally beautiful and fair lady belonging to a down-trodden caste. Velutha Katrina was made into an award-winning mega serial telecast by Kairali channel in 2006, where Sheela returned to play the title character of Katrina. The serial is not a spin-off of the movie. It just utilized name of Sheela's memorable character in the movie and was also the veteran actress's debut vehicle into Malayalam soaps.

Prem Nazir and Satyan are the male leads in the movie. Adoor Bhasi, Bahadur, a very young Kaviyoor Ponnamma playing the character of the mother probably four times her age, Muthaiyya and Meena forms the supporting cast.

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Minnaminnikkoottam

Minnaminnikkoottam is director Kamal's 2008 offering to Malayalam cinema. Having seen a few of his previous works like Goal, Perumazhakkaalam, Gramaphone, Nammal, Niram etc I don't expect cinematic gems from Kamal but bearable movies that click well at the box-office. Most of his movies have a young theme, which means struggling youngsters(struggling against the titans of Malluwood - Mohanlal and Mammootty, who thanks to their physical and 'political' clout wouldn't budge an inch) will get some much needed screen time.

Whenever Kamal strayed from the 'new-blood' subject, he invariably landed with Mammootty or Mohanlal like all the other Malayalam directors. Karuthapakshikal and Ayal Katha Aezhuthukayaanu comes to mind. What impresses me about Minnaminnikkoottam is that Malayalam finally seems to have gotten a grasp of modernity and stylistic sophistication, that Tamil movies display with effortless ease. The film opens in Singapore, with the lead actress Meera Jasmine playing the role of Charulatha, a software employee ruminating about her past friendships. Meera's Singapore wardrobe and the picturization of the scenes are elegant.

 I am totally bowled over by the browser Charulatha uses - Firefox! Agreed the subjects of the film are some 'just-arrived-in-the-scenes' IT workers - hot, hep and in tune with the times. But even in situations like these since the movies are produced and directed by people twice the age of their subjects and therefore totally out of tune with the current times, there is always some pretty serious botch-ups. Not with this one. They use Firefox, IMs, order take-out fastfood and live in stylistically furnished apartments in Cochin - which thankfully are not furnished with polychromatic curtains whisked away from a Priyadarshan set. Set, art direction and costumes of Minnaminnikkoottam justify the money spent on this film.

The story and the actors are not path breakers in any sense, but I can live with that for it is not over the top chocolatey like Lollipop (West Side Story gone bad.) It is filled with young faces to my heart's content - Indrajith, Samvruta Sunil, Jayasurya, Roma, Meera Jasmine, Naren, Radhika and Anoop, in addition to tried and tested old-timers like Sai Kumar, T.G.Ravi, Mammukkoya, Janardhanan etc. Review - ***/5

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In the Heat of the Night

Before Barack there was Sidney - America's most eligible and tolerable black men representing two generations. The kid from Bahamas who spent his teens in Miami, slept in New York city bus stations, became fluent in Russian(!) acts like a force of nature in one of his finest Hollywood performances in this film. Virgil Tibbs, the character Poitier plays in 'In the Heat of the Night' is ranked as one of the top 50 greatest performances by any actor.

It is an engrossing movie. There is the racial tension that flare up when a colored cop from a more liberal Northern state ventures into Sparta, Mississippi - a conservative white dominated Southern town in the fifties and sixties. Then there is the whole thriller part about who is the real murderer which the smart black cop, Virgil Tibbs tries to solve racing against time and luck. A must watch classic.

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The Good Earth

Cinematic recreation of Pearl S.Buck's classic novel set in China before and after the Revolution, which made China a Republic. Only actors who are not Chinese in this Hollywood reproduction are the main characters Wang Lu(played by Paul Muni)and O-Lan(Luise Rainer.)This ambitious venture hit Hollywood gold by winning Academy Award for Best Actress and Best Cinematography (Karl Freund.) It was also nominated for Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Picture.

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Dark Matter

If you are a grad student in a US university or any university for that matter, this is a must-watch. Dark Matter is an adaptation of a real life incident that took place at the University of Iowa in the early nineties. It deviates from the real incident in some aspects, but the crux of the story, the message it conveys is the same.(In 1991, Gang Lu, a Chinese physics student, disappointed by failure to win a prestigious prize, shot and killed his guide, the award winning student and some other members of the faculty and then shot himself.)

A powerful debut from Chinese opera director Chen Shi-Zheng and written by Billy Shebar, the movie tells the story a brilliant grad student from China whose intellectual flame was quashed by an egotistic academic set-up. Winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, an award given to films featuring scientific themes, Dark Matter follows Liu Xing (Liu Ye) as he gets the opportunity to do research at an American university under the patronage of his scientific idol, Prof Reiser(a convincing Aidan Quinn.) Meryl Streep has a superfluous part. It does give her decent screen time. But it'd not have made much difference to the film if her character was deleted out of the film except that, it adds a big name screen persona on the film's posters.

I have always held the opinion(opinions don't cost a thing) that those who can't do, teach. Like in any case there are exceptions. We are not dealing with those here. Professors in universities reminds me of exiled kings singing their past glories and sitting on an imaginary throne in their own virtual worlds where they still remain kings. The rarefied realm of academics provide endless fodder of willing subjects in the form of grad students that these kings torture to no end to nurture their fragile egos which in the world outside their academia wouldn't stand the test of reality. As the film has correctly depicted Asian students make the best 'subjects' for these 'kings' of academic world. They are servile, dutiful and will go on working hard without raising unnecessary questions.

As a member of an Asian community which supplies the largest number of students to US universities I think the portrayal of university life, esp. of a student aiming for a PhD in science, this film has hit the spot. When it came out there were some accusations of the film being racial. Come on, take off your yellow glasses, you are missing the real color.

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The Boy in Striped Pajamas

Mark Herman's "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" is based on John Boyne's novel of the same name. It is a good film about the Holocaust, although some parts of it made me doubt whether it was a made for TV movie. Maybe the fact that it was an indie I should not have expected the grandeur of Hollywood as in The Schindler's List.

Literature has had notable contributions from the children of the Holocaust - like Diaries of Anne Frank and Night by Elie Wiesel. This is a similar fictional account from the other side of the fence - by a German kid named Bruno played by Asa Butterfield who happens to be the son of a high ranking Nazi military officer. He strikes up a friendship with a boy in striped pajamas(Shmuel played by Jack Scanlon) who sits behind an electric fence.

It is a wonderful story about the loss of innocence, although the loss strikes at the last minute and is deadly for all those involved. The actors have all given this movie their best shot. A memorable movie about the Holocaust.

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The Life Before Her Eyes

A psychological thriller or a metaphysical journey triggered by a school shooting - The Life Before Her Eyes is whatever you make it out to be. An adaptation of Laura Kasischke’s novel, the heroine Diana is played in two stages of her life by Uma Thurman(adult) and Evan Rachael Wood (as teenager.) Eva Amurri as Maureen, Diana's high school best friend and confidante is a discovery.

It is a delicately taken film, the treatment of the scenes by director Vadim Perelman reminds me of the director creating it like a tender blossom. The almost poetic movie leaves the viewer to derive meaning out of the story. Interesting - 3.5 stars.

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A Wednesday

A powerful understatement of a movie just like its main character played by Naseeruddin Shah, A Wednesday is one of the new crop of intelligent movies to come out of Bollywood. Repeated terrorist attacks in Mumbai have provided sufficient fodder to new-age films of late. Mumbai Meri Jaan and Black Friday comes to mind. A Wednesday is another film that joins the ranks, yet it is unique and different from the other two.

A common man's take on terrorism, film has two stalwarts of current Indian filmdom - Shah and Anupam Kher in compelling roles. It is a restrained film, which tries not to get on to the blood, bomb and gore bandwagon which usually accompanies films with a plot related to terrorism, although the possibility of all three hangs heavily through out the movie. A good one from Neeraj Pandey. Review: ***/5

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Krishna Gopalakrishna

2002 offering from all-in-one Menon aka Balachandra Menon, Krishna Gopalakrishna tells the story of Gopalakrishnan(played by Balachandra Menon) as narrated to Gayathri(Geetu Mohandas.) Gopalakrishnan is confined to bed thanks to a terminal illness. As in most Balachandra Menon films this film also deals with dilemmas and tribulations of married life. I am not much of a Menon fan. Except for his exception performance in Samantharangal, none of his directorial ventures held any charm for me, including this one. He is talented in his own right, but not my cup of tea.

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The Memory Keeper's Daughter

A made for TV movie based on Kim Edwards book of the same name, The Memory Keeper's Daughter is slightly better than the book because it gets over in two hours. I tried listening to the audio book sometime back, but quit after reaching maybe 1/4 the way through because of the way it was dragging on.

A passable movie. Dermot Mulroney and Emily Watson play the main characters. There is not much to act for either of these actors because character development is not a strong point of this movie.

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Books Read: July 2009

A new series of entries with which I intend to catalog the books I read. No reviews, for starters it'll be just cut n paste one line description of each book.


A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah :-A former Sierra Leonean child soldier, Ishmael Beah writes about his lost teenage, when he was forced to flee his home. His family killed and village destroyed, Beah was captured by the army and turned into a child soldier. From the burning jungles of Africa running scared and later seeking revenge to the skyscraper city of New York, this is the first-hand account from the front line thru' the eyes of a child who got involved in a grown-up's war, like thousands of other kids like him.

It is in the same lines as another book I read a while back, which was translated from French called Allah is not Obliged by Ahmadou Kourouma which didn't garner much international fame as Beah's book but is as much descriptive. While Beah fought on the side of the Sierra Leonian army, the protagonist in Kourouma's book Birahima fought on RUF side.


The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell:- From Publisher's Weekly, "The premise of this facile piece of pop sociology has built-in appeal: little changes can have big effects; when small numbers of people start behaving differently, that behavior can ripple outward until a critical mass or "tipping point" is reached, changing the world. Gladwell's thesis that ideas, products, messages and behaviors "spread just like viruses do" remains a metaphor as he follows the growth of "word-of-mouth epidemics" triggered with the help of three pivotal types. These are Connectors, sociable personalities who bring people together; Mavens, who like to pass along knowledge; and Salesmen, adept at persuading the unenlightened." A very interesting book on pop sociology.


Tokyo Cancelled by Rana Dasgupta :- A baker's dozen of 'organic' tales set in different parts of the world. Contemporary fantasy?

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Working Girl

These days I am getting re-educated watching old movies from eighties counting back to the sixties. Working Girl came as part of the 'essential eighties' package. What did I come back with, after watching this film? BIG HAIR! Eighties was all about big hair. Melanie Griffith, Joan Cusack and all the working girls in New York city flaunt it.

The movie has Harrison Ford(the irresistible cutie of the era) juggling with two career women. There is the brunette Sigourney Weaver who shows her dark side as the movie progresses and the blond Melanie Griffith who supposedly has all the brains but is relegated to a secretary job. Griffith's voice, a stereo-typical blond voice makes me want to question her intelligence, but she is the good girl who is wronged by the bad dark haired mean character played by Ms.Weaver.

The movie also has a very eighties sound track. It won the Oscar for the Best Original Song for Carly Simon(how much more 'eightier' can you get than that)'s song, "Let the River Run." Another time pass entertainer.

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