Definitely, Maybe

An urban love story. New york and the interesting political climate of the 90s form the backdrop of an otherwise ordinary story. The creators have tried to inject a sense of mystery by hiding the identity of her mother from a child so that the whole movie could be passed of as a child's cryptic bedtime story. Somehow unlike the child the viewers never get drawn into the mystery. Fail.Then again love stories are always a fail with me. Meh.

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Gaddama (Khaddama)

Women in flight (no, not Amelia Earhart), escaping their wretched existence make good movie material. If they are fleeing Middle-East, the place already has a shady reputation when it comes to women’s rights, it is even more convincing. Or ask Betty Mahmoody. Hollywood took a stab at this subject with Mahmoody’s real life escape from Iran with her little daughter in the film "Not Without My Daughter" adapted from her book of the same name.

Kerala, the Indian state which sends the largest number of workers to the Gulf countries in the Middle East should definitely have some stories, right? But who cares about the stories of maids and ayahs, drivers and construction workers unless there was a Cinderella factor at the end.

Looks like Malayalam director Kamal does. He knows a sellable story when he sees one.  He chanced upon the harrowing real life story of a maid named Subaida from a Malayali journalist in the Middle East, K.U.Iqbal . It had the makings of a best-seller, no doubt. If it was in the US a paperback would have been out first. To Kamal’s credit he put Subaida’s story on fast track, skipping the book stores and direct to the big screen.

Kavya Madhavan gets to play the role of Aswathy, the Khaddama(Gaddama or the house maid), the lead character. Since it is a story of escape, the captors(or the employers) are not shown in a flattering light. Suck it up, one family does not make a country, the director is not here to make generalization he is presenting a story, of which he does a commendable job. He is aided by a set of talented actors including Kavya, Sreenivasan, Suraj Venjaramood and Murali Gopi. Kavya as always, has acted well, she is such a seasoned actress. Then again this is like "the" default role for a Malayalam actress – defenseless, teary eyed, at the mercy of man- her protector, speaking volumes with huge helpless eyes rather than using real dialogue.

It was interesting to get a peek into the social fabric of Middle East composed of two distinct layers (maybe more if you count the Western expats, but I am not going there)– one, of the rich natives and a nether world of their coterie of servants and aids, two streams running parallel but never polluting each other by crossing. Khaddama is a window in to this sub strata of Middle Eastern society, made up of foreigners, whose survival in the desert is at the mercy of their rich Arab employers. Definitely worth a watch.

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My Top Ten Hollywood Movie Recommendations of 2000s or A Movie 101 for N00bs

If someone who is new to this whole Hollywood business(any takers? aliens, you guys listening, maybe they are already watching our movies before they have their earthly releases, anyway), wants to know what are the best movies to watch to get an intro about the 'stuff' that goes on in Beverly Hills, then this list will be useful. And oh yes, the requester has also put in a conditional clause - only the movies made in the last decade or so. This eliminates some movies I desperately want to include like Office Space, Happy Accidents, The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption, American History X etc, but I can always have a list for each decade, right?

Unlike me, I hope all the readers (if there are any) will be more considerate and won't blame me if this list includes more English movies made outside Hollywood than the native-born and bred ones. So here is my list of top 10 Hollywood / English movies of the noughties which defies any sort of sorting.

In Bruges: Con men in Belgium. Comedy dunked in powerful script.

Hot Fuzz: Action + Comedy, no one does comedy better than the Brits, they are learning to do low-cost action that looks good.

Inception: Brain crackling entertainment, a mega movie Hollywood style.


Kick-ass: Comic book lovers and those waiting for second comings and super heroes, this one's for you.


Idiocracy: The closest you can get to time travel in the US, brilliant low budget caper.

Babel: Multiple narratives racing against time, Inarritu directs for a global audience.

Avatar: If you missed Dances with the Wolves, this one's even better, it is set in a different planet!

Blood Diamond: Ladies, this is the one about your engagement / wedding rings.


Source Code: Included because I watched it recently and it is fresh in my mind.

White Chicks: I love black(oops, politically incorrect, shame on me) comedy with white titles.

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Paul

Paul, the movie is more English than American. Paul, the alien, is well…an alien who wears shorts and talks street-smart English in the voice of Seth Rogen.  This is going to be a biased review because I am awed by the creative aura of Simon Pegg – Nick Frost duo. Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People are all nerdy movies I recommend to other people.

Greg Mottola – the director of Paul has a very different take on films, his movies Superbad and Adventureland were as American as it gets, but nerdy nevertheless. Paul therefore had to be an interesting product, a fusion of British humor and American nerdiness.

Paul does not disappoint. The British lads (Simon Pegg & Nick Frost) land at Comic Con in San Diego and take off on a road-trip through the sci-fi ridden landscape of America’s Areas 51 through 100 and all that comes after that. On the way they give lifts to a friendly alien and a bible quoting All American Girl (Kirsten Wiig.) Their interesting social encounters provide insights into differences between things American and non-American. Paul is not Hot Fuzz, but it is definitely a good entertainer.

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Source Code

In another world this movie might be called 8 Minutes. Somehow that reminds me of Eminem and 8 Mile which is totally irrelevant to this movie because in this world it is called Source Code. Computer geeks amongst us might think the story may have something to do with hacking, computer programs or how the mighty can be brought down to its knees by changing a few lines of code here and there. Others might have visions of neon green 1s, 0s and other related jumble scrolling down their giant flat screens. This movie is not about that either.

Although the core of Source Code is a scientific break-through which facilitates a short rewind of time in the minds of those involved, the story asserts again and again through its characters that it is not dealing with time travel. What it is about is, the human longing to outlast beyond our times, to poke a finger into the great beyond and feel what it is like, even if it is for a tiny fraction of time. Jake Gylenhall gets to push the envelope on life as Captain Colter Stevens in Source Code where he is supported by Vera Farmiga, Michelle Monaghan and Jeffrey Wright.

This must be what a romantic sci-fi story should be like, we are not talking about the boy-meets-girl kind of romance, though shades of that is there in this film. It is romantic as in the yearning for life, being so overwhelmed by the beauty of it that brainy scientists develop source code for life (in terms incomprehensible to most viewers including myself but that’s beside the point.) It is a starry eyed what-if of alternate worlds and thwarted disasters thrown on the face of the audience by director Duncan Jones and screenwriter Ben Ripley. It is the soothed ache of soldiers who get to say their last words to the people they intended to deliver it to. In short Source Code is pure desire for life and all that is beyond, a sci-fi romance at its best.

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Traffic - Malayalam Movie Review

Is this the first multi-narrative movie in Malayalam? I do not remember watching any other good one. (Good being the operative word – I am thinking of The Metro which was released a month before Traffic and was a letdown on all fronts.) It is an easy formula for success, provided you have a fast-paced story to back it up. Alejandro Inarritu's Death Trilogy - Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel employ this narrative style to keep audience at the edge of their seats while raking in awards and box office bucks. Even the Hollywood namesake of this movie, Traffic(2000) is also a multi-narrative movie. It looks like Malayalam Traffic also fared predictably as its illustrious predecessors and gave back the producer - Listin Stephen, his dues and more.

Bobby and Sanjay, the writers of Traffic get the credit of bringing a new wave of stories and narration to Malayalam cinema. Remember Notebook, a boarding school drama with a touch of seriousness, just like a Malayali would like to have his movie with his parippu vada and chaya and a topical issue with some gravitas – a teen pregnancy in Notebook. Unlike Notebook, Traffic does not really allow the viewer to relax before introducing a somber twist. Traffic is intense in the story department with a frantic build up within a fixed time frame which is a pre-requisite for multi-narrative story lines.

One of the benefits of having intertwining plots is the variety of acting talent viewers will get to see representing equally important characters. Traffic has Vineeth Sreenivasan, Asif Ali, Rehman, Sreenivasan, Sai Kumar, Kunchako Boban, Sandhya, Lena, Anoop Menon and others sharing screen time. Except for the Namitha Prasad, the actress who played Rehman’s 13 year old daughter, who looks too old for 13(and we know the movie is not about 13 going on 30) everyone fits well into their roles.

Traffic is interesting because it is the first successful movie of its kind in Malayalam. The inevitable fate of this kind of success is a deluge of movies made in the same mold for a foreseeable future. In such a case, Bobby, Sanjay and director Rajesh Pillai can be held responsible, in the mean time - enjoy the movie while the theme is still fresh.

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Gandhinagar 2nd Street

Old people are notorious for perpetuating a dreamy dewy eyed view of the past – a bygone better age. A golden era when teens listened to mellow music and respected their elders, milk came in glass bottles, mail was delivered by mail man instead of Google and NASA was still capable of putting a man on the moon. Yeah, the good old days!

For Malayalam cinema, old is gold is a truthiness a Malayali cannot deny. Things were really better for Malayalam movie industry back then and don't doubt for a moment that it is my age doing the talking. For if you ask me the same question about Hindi movies I’d say Bollywood never was half as good as it is now, their eighties were trash or travails. 

If one decade has to be chosen to represent the entire Malayalam movie industry, it has to be the period from 1985 to 1995. Or maybe we can restrict it to include, just the late eighties (85 - 90). And if there is one combo you are going to order again and again from that time period – it has to be – Sreenivasan(script writer + actor), Sathyan Anthikkad(director), Mohanlal(actor) combo.  Gandhinagar 2^nd Street is one of the best productions from this team of three at their prime.

Mohanlal living a double life to make ends meet plays one of the most unforgettable roles in Malayalam cinema as Gurkha  Bheem Singh ka beta Ram Singh (..hoom hain hoom..) at a housing colony, Gandhi Nagar in Anywhere-City, Kerala circa 1980s. Like all Sreenivasan scripts of those days, Gandhi Nagar 2^nd street is a brilliant social commentary of the times. Each character however small or big, is a well thought-out, developed and executed. Its simple but succinctly humorous dialogs have stayed on in Malayalis’ shared memories ever since. 

The movie is so powerful (without flexing any visible muscles) that sometimes I wish there was a housing colony called Gandhinagar Second Street, for real. I wish, if we walk down that street we will accidently run into Ram Singh or Nirmala Teacher(Seema) or Maya(Karthika.) We can chat up how they are doing after all these years, who got married to whom and who moved away to where.

If wishes were horses there’d be a sequel, but the first major obstacle would be the man who was the life breath of Gandinagar, Ram Singh aka Mohanlal, the actor. Today’s Mohanlal would be a Godzilla to Gandhinagar’s little Tokyo – uncontainable, alien and ultimately a nightmare.  The second problem will be Harihar Nagar, the other famous housing colony from the world of Malayalam movies which has spawned a few sequels. If Harihar Nagar sequels are any indication to what lies in store for Gandhi nagar(I cannot imagine it being any different), then one Gandhinagar 2^nd Street is enough – let it remain a beautiful memory in our collective consciousness.

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Guzaarish

Sanjay Leela Bhansali School of Cinema is where you should enroll in if you are interested in perfecting set and costume design and the visual art of cinema as a whole, with emphasis on 'visual'. Every frame in a Bhansali movie is a consummate painting, to the last detail of a withered plant, out of focus in the right shade of yellowish green tucked away in a hazy corner. Like one of those Dutch masters’ works done in the medium of motion picture, four hundred years later with richer colors and crores at his disposal. If there was a court painter for Bollywood, Sanjay Leela Bhansali will hold that title for life. From Khamoshi and Hum Dil de Chuke Sanam to Guzaarish, his films have taken the meaning of visual extravaganza to new heights.

But personally I’d rather watch his movies with my fingers in full control of the fast forward button. Well, that’s me, spoiled by the fast and the furious flicks. Somewhere along the way my slow movie appreciation gene mutated, succumbing to the pressures of reality real time media. Guzaarish, despite the art appreciation class I tried to view it as, was painfully slow for me.

The magic of the story was bed-ridden along with the magician in the story – Ethan Mascarenas, played by a wide-eyed crazy Hrithik Roshan. Aishwarya Rai as home nurse Sophia, in gorgeous foreign costumes shed by the Portuguese when they first arrived on the shores of Konkan and Malabar half a millennium ago, makes an a-muse-ing distraction. Aditya Roy Kapoor was brought into add some youthful energy – a bold swash of color in a house of impending death and grays. Some Indians, who look European, like Nafisa Ali and Shernaz Patel, in spite of their six yard of saris, also made the cut.

Most of Bhansali’s movies give me the impression of a baby switched at birth. Actually it has to be more specific than a simple switch of similar looking babies, it always look like a gora or gringo baby mistakenly given to a dark-skinned couple. Everything about his movies is so nobly European – the costumes, the characters and their interactions, most of the times the core story itself. This finds Bhansali running back, time and again to the most “European” of India’s states – Goa.

In Bollywood anything goes, if it is dressed in a frock and speaks pidgin, provided it is from Goa. So in Guzaarish we have a paralyzed magician and his coterie of mismatched assistants grappling with the very un-magical concept of mercy killing in a crumbling old mansion located where else, in Goa. You watch the rest, if you’ve time to kill.

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Tournament

Lal is one of the underestimated directors in Malayalam. His pairing with his childhood friend Siddique gave us some of the game changers of the 1990s. Majority of Malayalam movies made today for the commercial market still follow the formula perfected by Siddique-Lal duo twenty years ago.

Lal’s real name is Paul Michael? Wow! That’s a revelation to me. I did watch the Harihar Nagar sequels he directed on his second coming as a director – To Harihar Nagar and In Ghost House Inn , both were commercial successes. Although aging dudes (Mukesh and co.) in garish garbs, decorative facial hair (purported to be representative of present day youth culture) and fake hair-pieces failed to elicit any laughter or interest in me

Tournament, Lal’s latest offering evoked a different response. It was in fact interesting despite heavily borrowing cinematic techniques from world over. Malayalis were never too big on road trips, which will explain the lack of Malayalam road trip movies till now. As residents of Kerala forced to use Kerala highways to get out of the state we used to heave a sigh of relief when we finally left the pot-hole ridden Kerala section of National Highway behind and entered the smooth tarmac favored by Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Does a road movie like Tournament mean our highways are getting better or our railways are getting worse?

Replay or rewinding the movie to explain the story for the viewers, borrowed from Run Lola Run is used in abandon. Using cricket as the binding theme also serves the purpose of using replays to unravel the inner workings of characters. I don’t mind, we live a TiVo world, after all.  Then there is a bit of Gods Must Be Crazy with Indrans and a runaway jeep. There might be other cinematic ‘tributes’ included that I am not aware of.  What pleases me is there are no tributes to mega-serials or there is no pancake –laden Revlon lipped Malayali penkodi traipsing across green fields with a  thulasi kathir in her blow-dried and straightened hair, fluttering her false eyelashes.

In Tournament we have 3 main players and a female lead. Replacing Kunchako Boban, Sudheesh and company(who have interminable no-bid contracts for playing college students in Malluwood), with fresh new actors is a bold move from Lal. That and the script which stays true to the characters are the strength of the movie. I love the way the guy from Thrissur sounds exactly like a guy from Thrissur and the Malayali cricketer brought up in Mysore sounds exactly like my cousins in Bangalore.  Details, God is in the details, usually an area Malayali film makers stay out of. Bravo, Lal!

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Two Weeks

If you are ready to watch a serious film, a family drama which is not a concocted fake 'Hollywood-sy' version, Two Weeks is a good pick. Oh, and it is about death, if you are not in the mood for dying today, skip it.

If you do, you'll miss Sally Field - yes Forrest Gump's mother, of course. I think there is something instantly likable, motherly yet the same time peppy about Ms.Field. The dying character(Anita Bergman) she portrays deals with death like a good sport, at no point asking for audience's mercy or tears. As the mother lies dying, her four children descend upon her home she shares with her second husband, to be with her in the final part of her journey.

Steve Stockman who wrote and directed Two Weeks takes his material from his own life and his mother's death for this semi-autobiographical work. There are minor flaws in the characterization of the four children, Ben Chaplin as the eldest son Keith gets most of screen time. I didn't really get the funny parts, maybe it was my upbringing in a different culture. Despite all these the film gets many things right, like the finer aspects of care, the final farewells, the hospice situation, sibling rivalries and the life-like portrayal of a dying person (no pun intended) by Sally Field. Watch it for her.

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Patterns

Patterns is more relevant today than it was in 1956 when it was written by Rod Serling, he of The Twilight Zone fame. This is the age of corporations, we are at that stage in the circle of economic evolution where the small and the meek gets taken over and are merged into big corporations. The corporate ruthlessness of the character Walter Ramsey(Everette Sloane) can be easily identified by majority of world’s urban population who have at some point in time worked for a conglomerate or a company.

It is a short and perspicacious film, directed by Fielder Cook and starring Van Heflin, Everette Sloane, Beatrice Straight, Ed Begeley and Elizabeth Wilson in main roles. If you want to know how it was like working in corporate America after WW2, this could be a good choice especially because it is reality and not Ayn Rand.

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Nizhal

Nizhal probably was a low budget movie considering its choice of actors. Directed by Venu B.Nair, it is a movie that’d not make its presence known unless you accidently find yourself watching it, lacking anything better to do. It turned out to be a not-so-bad one at that.

The best thing about Nizhal is its script and dialog – which seemed natural. My peeve with it is, its lead character played by Jagan. There is nothing unbearable about his acting. But who are you trying to fool here with a man who looks old enough to have children who can enroll in engineering colleges and calling him a first year engineering student? Well, may be that’s a bit of a strectch, but still Jagan and his foot wide moustache does not look 17-18 years old from any angle, the current normal age of a freshman engineering student. Other than that it is a watchable movie, one of the few recent ones which feels less like a mega-serial and more like what is meant to be.

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Lovely Bones

Lovely Bones was devastating when I read it long time ago. It made reserve every book written (or about to be published) by Alice Sebold at the library. Not many favorable reviews for the movie though. For one thing, it is more Peter-Jackson than Alice Sebold which I don't mind much. It is like a different take on a same dish even if it came of the same recipe. Those slight differences are exciting to me.

Peter Jackson's Lovely Bones is awash in a perpetual CGI autumn. It is heart wrenching as the book was but somehow the depiction of heaven or the whole concept of it becomes lame when presented visually. In the book it had seemed okay.  But I'd feel the same for any movie that shows the non-existent universe that goes by the name 'heaven', it is not the movie maker's fault. He had to show it in someway without being over the top, for the whole story rides on the premise of main character's musings on earthly going-ons from the celestial beyond.

Actors including Saoirse Ronan, Rose McIver, Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Susan Sarandon and Rachel Weisz did justice to their parts - big and small. I can turn a bit judgmental of Weisz's mother character but that'd be unbecoming of this blog, so I will stop here. If you need a tear-jerker for a Saturday night without the unnecessary romance thrown-in, Lovely Bones is it.

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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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Payyans

Payyans is Malayalam version of dude or chap or lad, depending on your location in the English speaking world. The informal nature of the movie title means that I should go easy on it, for it is not pretending to be His Highness Abdullah or Pazhassi Raja, it is a story of an everyday youth not pretending to be anyone else but himself.

Jayasurya is the Payyans or Josey John - that is the name Payyans go by. As expected of his fashion sense (a weird Mallu mullet?) and carefree ways, his character is another brick in the Great Wall of Engineers of India. Everyone who is literate and is under twenty-five is an engineer or an engineering drop-out in our little sliver of a state of Kerala. Engineering being the gateway degree for any kind of job ranging from vegetable vendors to the President of India and everything in between, it comes as no surprise to the viewers when Payyans finds a cosy spot somewhere in the middle as a radio jockey.

The story is oh-so predictable. **SPOILERS** The moment we see Lal's garlanded high resolution photo on the wall (as Payyan's posthumous father) we are guaranteed a back-from-the-dead twist. Rohini's overly loving and naive mother is similarly assured an early demise for the requisite sentimental edge. Jayasurya is funny and convincing in his acting but he looks older for the purported 23 years Payyans is supposed to have spent on this planet. Anjali, a Tamil-Telugu actress gets to be Payyans' girl friend. As all good Malayali girls are supposed to behave, her character is first intent on murdering Payyans for his eve-teasing, then makes a 180 degree turn, falls for the eve-teaser and afterwards is seen pestering him to marry her.

Suraj Venjaramoodu, the salt of current-day Malayalam cinema curry turns into an Anglo-Indian from Kochi for this movie. Accessorized with subtly colored locks and a cap-wearing Anglo-Indian Dad(Janardhanan), the Nedumangad (Trivandrum) accent he continues to spout could  only be blamed on the geographical proximity of Kochi and Nedumangad, a mere 200 kms.

The movie is a romp, it definitely won't make the 2010-2011 merit list. If you like the actors who play the main characters it is worth a watch.

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Karayilekoru Kadal Dooram

An Ocean to traverse before reaching shore - is the most literal translation of this movie's title. I cannot be more poetic than that because I am still at sea after watching the movie. By the way the official English title is 'A Sea Away to the Shore.' It has one of those Kafka-esque themes that Malayalam movie intelligentsia is obsessed with, where a thoroughly perplexed audience is taken as the sign of movie's complexity and therefore its superior art quotient. BS.

The actors have performed their parts the best they can. Indrajith, Mamta Mohandas, Sarayu, Dhanya Mary, Lakshmi Sharma all try to guide you through the maze, but to no avail. Will Vinod Mankara pleae stand up and own this? Yes, that is our director right there, a national and state award winner for numerous documentaries he directed, he also won the the best directorial debut award with this feature film. Well, in a way you cannot blame the award committee, it is a world better than what is offered by commercial Malayalam cinema these days.

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Tanu Weds Manu

Tanu weds Manu is a new-age Hindi rom-com starring R.Madhavan(Manu) and Kangana Ranaut(Tanu) in leading roles. It is an interesting movie at many levels at the same time there is something missing from its core. To me that something missing was the lack of believability of Tanuja Trivedi aka Tanu's character. She is a small town girl exposed and transformed by big city glitz thanks to a stint at Delhi University. Her boyfriends are temporal as Julian Assange's looks. She smokes, drinks and swears in abandon. In short she is Billy Joel's woman. Now what is guy like Manu(Madhavan) - docile and homely, doing with The Piano Man's rambunctious lady is anybody's guess.

Tanu is overly made-up all the time, that seems to be a Kangana Ranaut trademark. Madhavan is older, chubbier, but his understated acting keeps it in tune with his character. There is nothing that keeps you at the edge about the story, it has all been said and done in the title itself. In the absence of excitement in the big picture, it is the small stuff that help us stay in our seats,the little goodies in the film in no particular order are,

• Deepak Dobriyal's earthy and natural right-hand man act as Pappi.
• Jimmy Shergill, in a small but crucial role with a heart-rending closing dialog which all the toughies should learn by heart for their own good.
• Kanpur and Kapurthala and the life and sights in small-town North India have been captured beautifully.
• Most of the supporting actors have done their parts well, whether it is K.K.Raina or Rajendra Gupta, Eijaz Khan or Swara Bhaskar.

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Saat Khoon Maaf

Priyanka Chopra must have a very good manager or the girl has got brains. Her last few outings as a leading heroine could be considered as paranormal phenomena in a male-centric Bollywood. I go by the Merriam Webster definition of ‘paranormal’ – something that’s not scientifically explainable. Or how else could you explain Fashion, What’s your Rashee or this one I am attempting to review – 7 Khoon Maaf.

Fashion won her the national award for best actress, maybe she didn’t have to do much acting in that role being a fashion model herself, it was a strong performance nevertheless. Then comes What’s your Rashee and 7 Khoon Maaf – two movies in which the strong female character had to carry the bulk of the film and to my surprise Priyanka shouldered the burden competently.

I am not a big fan of Miss India being a platform for launching future Bollywood leading ladies, much like using the Kalathilakam award as a short-cut to becoming a Malayalam movie heroine. Whether I like it or not, both these have served as vehicles of entry to filmdom for many of our heroines.

When Priyanka Chopra launched her Bollywood career courtesy of  her Miss India title, there were several others attempting the same route – Yukta Mookhey, Lara Dutta and Celina Jeitley to name a few. I had thought Priyanka was not the typical Bollywood beauty and therefore will be ousted in no time. But time and Priyanka’s career management has proven me wrong and here we are at 7 Khoon Maaf.Adapted from a Ruskin Bond story. Susanna’s Seven Husbands and directed by Vishal Bharadwaj, 7 Khoon Maaf produces a slew of adjectives in my mind – in no particular order they are - odd, sensual, imaginative, remarkable, different, dark, comical and interesting.

With Vishal Bharadwaj you can always expect a movie a little off the beaten path, usually adapted from a literary work. It is nice to see Ruskin Bond’s work in Bollywood. But the one who really hit the jackpot is definitely the lady who has occupied most real estate in this review – Ms.Chopra. She gets to act with six different leading men – ranging from Neil Nitin Mukesh to Naseeruddin Shah.

Much of the charm of the movie is its story, the anticipation of who and what will the background of Susanna’s next husband and the next husband and the next.Like other Vishal Bharadwaj films, it is not what the mainstream Hindi audience expects and therefore I believe there will be more who won’t like this movie and than those who will. It didn’t do well at the box-office, had Mr.Bharadwaj been more money-conscious he’d have cast ShahRukh Khan as one of the seven, but then again would he agree to be 1 in 7 when he is really number 1 and only?

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Four Friends

Four Friends is Aashayein, Malayalam style. Both are based on the same theme - friendships at the end of life. It is even more unbearable than its Hindi cousin.Jayaram, Kunchako Boban, Jayasurya and Meera Jasmin play the title characters. The film exploits every cliche associated with a terrible disease which does the villain's role, thus saving production cost and saving us viewers from fake stunts and related audio visual effects. It reaches a point when we'd realize that a real human villain would have been more bearable. Lots of sacrifices and money flow through the story line, which finally comes to a screeching halt a top a bridge in Malaysia (brought to you by budget airlines and cheap international air fares.) This movie forgot to include this statutory warning, "Friends don't let friends watch Four Friends, if they really care about their friends."

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Let Me In

I am no sucker for vampires (pun intended.) Nor do I understand the identity crisis that afflicts New World people which is cured by them joining clubs like Trekkies, Pagans, Goths or the Twilight Series fan club. If I knew "Let Me In" was a story about a blood-sucking being I'd have stayed clear of it and I'd have missed something truly excellent.

From the director of Cloverfield, Matt Reeves, comes Let Me In, a Swedish vampire story/movie adapted for an American visual palette. It is supposedly a scene by scene remake of the Swedish movie, 'Let the Right One In', which kind of lives up to its original in most aspects, as per the reviews I've read.

It gives an interesting new perspective at vampires, young, refreshing and smaller than the classic Count Dracula original.If it was not so gory it could have been a kids' movie since both protagonists are tweens. An interesting movie, definitely worth a watch after midnight (timing is to set the mood.)

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Udaan

Udaan must be Vikrmaditya Motwane’s brilliant debut as a director, Rajat Barmecha’s dream comes true as leading actor in a Hindi movie propelled by a strong script by Anurag Kashyap, but to me the revelation of the movie was Ronit Roy!

The last time I saw him was when I was a teenager and he was prancing around singing “First time dekha tumhe hum kho gaya second time mein love ho gaya, ye akkha india jaanta hai hum tum pe marta hai , dil kya cheez hai jaanam apni  jaan tere naam karta hai” –in Jaan Tere Naam. It was a peppy song, but very dated, the one that’ll definitely find a place in the ‘I am ashamed to admit I used to like this song’ list. Ronit Roy was a one movie wonder. In the almost two decades in between Jaan Tere Naam and Udaan Google has informed me that Mr.Roy had gone from being a jobless one hit wonder to small screen’s Amitabh Bachchan and an owner of an renowned private security firm. Lack of Indian TV signals in my part of the globe kept me blissfully unaware of all that, till Udaan.

Udaan is a neatly made coming of age movie from an industry that doesn’t make many coming of age movies. I wonder whether there are any autobiographical aspects to it. Gorakhpur, UP where Anurag Kashyap grew up and Jamshedpur, Jharkhand where Udaan is set, can claim geographic proximity in the greater order of things. Besides, like Rajat Barmecha’s character in the movie, Mr.Kashyap is also a product of boarding schools. Rajat Barmecha, got a role of a lifetime as a small town kid, Rohan, trying to find his own identity from under the shadow of his despotic father, Bhairav Singh(Ronit Roy.) 

There a few other small but significant characters played by Ram Kapoor, Anand Tiwari and Manjot Singh. A natural narrative, characters that audience can relate to and a great script contribute to the quality of the film. It does remind me of 80s art-house movies.

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Aashayein

Nagesh Kukunoor is losing his touch. You mean there are still educated people who believe that one can become an unfortunate victim of AIDS  being in the same room as an AIDS patient?!!?! Agreed Kukunoor star hasn't really been shining after Hyderabad Blues 2, Dor was good but it was a lift-off the original Malayalam Perumazhakkaalam, still Aashayein imparts a sense of director-fatigue. Has he run out of good stories?

John Abraham has acted better than he usually does, he even lost weight to keep with his character, but we all know he is not a Naseeruddin Shah or Abhay Deol in the acting department. Anaitha Nair is good, although she doesn't look as young as movie purports her to be. Other notable actors who make appearance in this movie are Farida Jalal, and Girish Karnad. Well, if you have no other DVD in the house and the internet is down, then maybe Aashayein.

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Old Boy

Oldboy slices your head with its cold psychological edge. It starts of like a home video footage, at least the lighting made me think so. A bumbling comical drunkard in a police station, everyday event, right? It is pretty sane Saturday-'nighitsh' start for a psychological thriller. Then it puts you in prison with the main character for 15 years!

You don't know why this sh#t happened. More importantly the main character, Dae-Su is totally in the dark about it as well. He used to be a happy go lucky guy with a wife, a little daughter, a job and a few friends who you might find at a downtown bar on a Friday after work. Who would want to put him in prison for 15 years, feed him, clothe him, shave him - all this costs money. The film doesn't let the protagonist languish in prison for long, it quickly pans over the decade and a half in half hour and the rest is tightly gripping drama that you wouldn't see coming.

Very interesting story and an interesting movie. The fight scenes, the comedic aspect of those, reminds of Takeshi Kitano's movies. Definitely worth a watch.

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Dances with the Wolves

It is like reading a book backwards. I saw the 1990 movie Dances with the Wolves two years after I had seen the 2009 movie Avatar. Both are based on a similar theme, a soldier going native amongst the natives, in wild country. In 2009 space is the final frontier, in 1990 they were doing a period piece set in the 1800s when the unconquered West was the edge of the known civil world.

It is an impressive directorial debut by Kevin Costener, though it is sad to note that none of his later outings as a director lived up to the promise this first one held. It is Hollywood, yet Costener has shown self-control, letting the Indians speak in their own native language instead of tribal-accented English. I do not, but it could very well be that this was the first mass market movie which portrayed Indians in a favorable light.

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Mr.Smith Goes to Washington

Mr.Smith Goes to Washington is part of the Hollywood 101 curriculum, 101 Hollywood films you should watch to learn about Hollywood, well, that’s according to me. Directed by Frank Capra, this whistle blower of a movie established Mr.Smith aka James Stewart as one of the leading actors of the time. It is essentially the 1939 version of taking on the system from inside the system, the triumph of the small man against the gargantuan machinery of politics and money.

James Stewart fits the bill as the young naive Senator and carries the film through with Jean Arthur as his secretary.  This was also the time I saw a ‘filibuster-in-action’ which brings to mind the apparent increase of filibusters in the U.S.Senate in the recent past. Blame it on Mr.Smith, he started the trend.

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Best of Luck

Best of Luck is a dare, a provocation in the name of film to make you watch the insufferable movie. To add insult to the injury they throw in a taunt as the title which could only be translated as a meaningless good luck wish to anyone who’ll attempt to watch it.

The only person who has acted halfway decent in this movie is Prabhu, mostly because he is kind of playing himself – a vast, jovial, big-hearted Tamilian big brother.  The most unbearable actor Razzie award of the year goes to Urvashi.  She is attempting to do a Suraj in a movie that already has an overload of Suraj, that too in ill-fitting, incredulous costumes and a Nedumangad dialect which has seen much wear.  

The main actors also do their fair share of over-acting. Kailash, Asif Ali, Archana Kavi and Rima Kallingal perform like there is no tomorrow. After this movie, I for one, am doubtful about their tomorrows in this field.  I cannot believe these were the same actors we saw in films like Rithu and Neelathamara, which makes me want to point my finger of blame at the director, M.A.Nishad. Is this his first attempt at comedy? If so, it’ll be better for all concerned if he sticks to more serious subjects like his first film, Pakal which was in fact bearable, even good for a first-timer.  Less said the better, let me not waste any more of my precious web page real estate on this movie.

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Malarvadi Arts Club

Einstein once famously said, the secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. Only creative people know how messed up it has been ever since Google made its appearance. I read some reviews comparing Malarvadi Arts Club (MAC) with Subramaniapuram and Rock On. Why stop running the similarity-checker after coming up with just a handful of films, that too in “foreign” languages. If you feed in the same variables - friendship, unemployed youth and music – a truckload of movies will come up. Throw in a filter for Malayalam and we have a manageable quantity. “Ganamela”,  “In Harihar Nagar”,  “Friends”  etc come to mind.  

This is to say the theme of Malarvadi Arts Club is not anything new.  There have been innumerable movies which showcase a bunch of jobless youth (the species was more rampant in the eighties, now call centers have become their calling) extolling their fathomless friendship set in a particular geographic location which brings with it, its own quirks. There will be a singer in the group belting out Ekantha Chandrike …while others provided the chorus. These days the one guy who can hold a tune inevitably finds himself as a participant in a music game show (Malarvadi Arts Club, Katha Thudarunnu.)  

What is an Indian movie without its trademark romance angle, right?  For this we will employ heavily made-up ladies who have escaped from teary-kajal-laden-soaps for their chance on the celluloid. The whole package of drama, mellowed drama and over-the-top drama will be propelled towards the inevitable climax (or climaxes) to bring in the money and keep people guessing.  One would think all the guessing should be done by now, after a generation of such movies.

No, Malarvadi invites us to play the same old guessing game. In MAC Vineeth Sreenivasan returns to his roots  - North Kerala. Gibran is good guide for those of us who make the mistake of thinking Vineeth as a clone of his father, Sreenivasan.  I don’t think I can imagine Sreenivasan singing without a seriously raised eyebrow(mine), while Vineeth is a fairly decent singer. In the same vein, Sreenivasan in his heyday wrote several noteworthy scripts keeping his funny pen moving in tune with the pulse of society. If Malayalam had an urban dictionary, the dialogs from Sreenivasan scripts would own half of it. But MAC is no world changer when it comes to scripts, it has an average script, tolerable by current standards, nothing compared to the witty eighties spearheaded by the director’s own Dad.

Despite all such flaws I liked Malarvadi Arts Club, the reason is personal. I am from Malabar. Manassery, the fictional village in which it is set, could be my village. I feel kinship with the carom board in the Arts Club, the red flags, the slogans, the framed portraits of European and Latin American comrades in the party office and the revolution simmering in young heads. The five guys, the lead characters, whom Vineeth had the good sense to cast all new comers, could’ve been my brothers growin’ up.  He has captured the essence of a North Malabar village/small town and the lives of youth (male) in a way no one has ever done before. He has done it so well that I felt the characters of Jagathy Sreekumar, Kottayam Naseer and Suraj Venjaramoodu were misfits in a perfect Malabari small town.

The new kids on the block are good, although I don’t think any of them has the guts to take a stab at the superstar crown Prithviraj has his eyes on.  Dileep proves he has good business sense and luck on his side investing in a movie that was guaranteed to bring him profit and trusting a new director based on just his genes.

The songs are hummable from my tin-eared receiver. The last song which signed off the movie should have been more of a power ballad with uplifting, foot thumping rhythms. Instead what it felt like was actors were trying to lip and body sync to a rock song in their heads while an insipid Malayalam song played in the background. The kind of language that Malayalam is, it is hard to come up with something that will sit pretty with a rock tune, but Vineeth Sreenivasan was/is a singer before he became a director or he could’ve let Avial compose that one song ;-)

p.s: Young directors, and old ones too, who is going to do a Malayalam padam just like that Thamizh Padam?

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Tees Maar Khan

Tees Maar Khan has Bollywood's most reliable profit-guarenteed star in the lead - Akshay Kumar as Tarbez Mirza Khan, the super thief. There is nothing cerebral about the movie, does Akshay Kumar make the mistake of acting in anything cerebral? He knows what he can do - he can be the earthy Punjabi munda who will laugh showing his gums through his mistakes, silly to comical and everything in between. That is what Teez Mar Khan tries to bank on, I hope the producers got some money back banking on Akshay.

The husband-wife team of Shirish Kunder-Farah Khan and  Akshay Kumar-Twinkle Khanna are behind this movie, keeping it all in the family. Shirish did the editing, story(inspired by Hollywood's After the Fox), little bit of music whatever Vishal-Shekhar let him do and a bit of production. Farah directed and Akshay played the lead role, while Hari Om Producations, Akshay and Twinkle's production company footed the bill.

Tees Maar Khan is a spoof built of spoofs, I don't think they were concerned about quality more than saleability, looks like it achieved those ends. As far as the viewer is concerned if you are in need for mindless comedy, doesn't mind Akshay Kumar, Akshaye Khanna and Katrina Kaif(the gori mem wearing Indian dresses), the last two, both have self-depracating comical roles, go for it.Better watch it at home where you have the remote handy and you have the power. The power to fast forward !

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Oru Naal Varum

It felt too good to be true, as if the unbelievable chemistry of Mohanlal and Sreenivasan that once lighted up the screen twenty plus years ago had finally succeeded in making a comeback. Not like the botched up attempt in Udayanaanu Tharam, this was almost like the real second coming.  Then the tape got stuck. Ouch!

In Oru Naal Varum, for a brief span of time, poetically akin to a single wing flap of a humming bird we could catch a glimpse of that old Mohanlal, before the weight of superstardom and wig was added to his persona. Mohanlal – Malayalam’s original bumbling, likeable, mischievous dude-next door. His old pal Sreenivasan was there to keep him company, in another of his self-deprecating, slightly dark roles. Then the story took a turn for the worse and the Superstar emerged. 

After that, the fall was quick, the illusion of a second coming of the legendary pair shattered mercilessly by a weakening plot and a superstar gaining power by the minute. Have you ever felt like rooting for the enemy, wishing corruption had gotten the upper hand and signing a pact with the Devil ? I get that feeling once in a while, especially when watching self-righteous characters, which Mohanlal seems to do in abundance lately, including the one in this movie as vigilance officer Nandakumar.

Devayani and Sameera Reddy are odd choices for the film’s two female roles. It was good to see Devayani after a long while, though who ever did the dubbing made it sound as if I had heard this female a zillion times in a zillion Malayalam movies. Why, Sameera Reddy, I have no clue, we will have to ask Maniyan Pillai Raju, the producer. The kids in this move are normal, it was refreshing to see a change after the hyper-active 'smart' kids infesting present day Malluwood. 

The lesson learned again today, if it is too good to be true, it is not true.

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Phas Gaya Re Obama

Yes, we can! Possibly this is the first mass market commercial movie in the world with President Obama's name in the title. Yes, Bollywood, you can and you did too! The movie is what is part of the thriving Bollywood indie movie genre, the one which replaced the award-hauling parallel cinema of the eighties, which were made under an altruistic sky with little or no profit motive. The new indies are funny, contemporary and bring in the bucks, good for them!

Looks to me it was a low budget film which trusted on its strong actors and tight script to see it through. Rajat Kapoor, Manu Rishi, Sanjay Mishra, Neha Dhupia reigning and rising stalwarts of the new Indian parallel cinema shoulder the film as it takes dig after dig at the contemporary politics and policing in bhaiyyaland. Obama's inclusion as an invisible but driving force and the pervading ambience of recession reflects on the trickle of globalization that has reached even the remotest corners of India's heartland.

It is an interesting movie for someone who loves current politics and comedy(one and the same), intelligent caricatures of everyday people and is interested in the way India is developing in the global scene as echoed back from its villages.
                                  

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Alexander the Great

Alexander, the original Greek version must have belonged to the prestigious royal lineage of Mediterranean Varmas because his Malayali namesake definitely does. Varma, a surname attributed to the ruling Kshatriya clan(back in the days when royals were still in fashion) in Cochin and Travancore is  a favorite class of Malayalam film makers. Anyone with the name Varma is attributed the extremes of everything - money, power, greed, beauty, intelligence, good nature, evil. You say it Varmas have it.

Alexander Varma is the out-of-wedlock son of a major Varma in a major Varma family, who is now spreading their wealth all over Middle East, as if the sheikhs haven't gotten it right. Mohanlal, not to be left behind Shah Rukh Khan(My Name is Khan), Hrithik Roshan(Koi Mil Gaya), Anil Kapoor(Yuvvraj) and Dustin Hoffman(Rainman, which is supposedly the inspiration for this movie, looks like even inspiration is affected by recession, nothing much can be seen) takes on the role of an autistic genius. His acting reminds me of early 80s kids' dubbing in Malayalam movies where you know the words spoken by the kid on screen is actually mouthed by someone middle-aged who think they are doing a pretty good job of impersonating a child's voice, when in reality they sucked, big time. If only they had let the kids use their original voices.

There is Sudha Chandran, surprised to see her here, did Ekta Kapoor let her go? Then there is Bala, Jagadeesh, Nedumudi Venu providing the necessary moral support for the autistic genius and also a host of others like Siddique, Ganesan etc who are waiting for the genius to bite the dust, as if that'll ever happen. But I've to appreciate the film-maker for showing restraint in one thing - not conjuring up a nubile 19 year old heroine for our wig-clad hero. Bravo! Keep it up.

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Action Replayy

The outer package is India's version of That '70s show, inside you'll have the familiar flashbacks from Back to the Future(1-3) , all this packed and released under the 'numerologically'-deemed-safe title with an extra y at the end - Action Replayy. Akshay Kumar and Aishwarya Rai are at the helm of this retro Hindi movie, playing the same characters in two scenarios(in their youth and middle-age) twenty years apart.

Akshay Kumar and his bucktooth, ages well, whereas Aishwarya just does a dress change from polka dot bell bottoms to silk saris to age twenty years. Curiously enough she doesn't look a day older than when she was twenty, maybe the makeup wasn't right. Former Channel-V DJ Aditya Roy Kapur stars as the couple's son who is into time travel. Om Puri and Kiran Kher has the roles of feuding in-laws, which they'd do in their sleep if needed.

Action Replayy is essentially what you watch when you have run out of watching re-runs and replayed your entire dvd collection. I cannot even bring myself to conjure a closing sentence for this review.

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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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The Social Network

You are not on Facebook? You are kidding, right? No? Of course, you live in Brazil then. No? You mean to say you are not a flickering dot on the virtual social network that wraps around the planet million times over and can stretch all the way across to Alpha Centauri and back? Then this movie is not for you. If you believe in parallel universes and login into one called Facebook multiple times a day then you must have already watched this movie by now and must be singing praises of it, then you shouldn't read further. Stop, go back to your facebook page, check if anybody made any updates during the time you wasted reading this post so far. Others read on.

Social Network is a well-made movie. The actors are good, they fit into the movie like parts of a Swiss watch. My bouquet stops here. It is very documentary-ish, but the word on the street it is far-removed from reality of the real Facebook story although the characters and the general flow of events are similar. If you are not in the US of A, this movie might not mean sh#@#t  to you, it is a very American movie, very Silicon-valley, start-up saga.The people who will like, identify with this movie will be in the 20-35 age group, preferably tech savy, Gen Y or the Millenials. My gripe with the movie, there are no tech-savy girls, it looks as if boys do all the coding and the cool stuff, when girls are shown as mindless idiots who light up fires with silk scarves or take off their shirts so that others can snort coke off their belly button.

I still believe it is a good movie for a very specific group of audience. If you belong to that group, you'll think this movie is the best thing to come out in 2010, otherwise....whatevah.

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The Age of Dreaming (Book review)

When you watch old black and white movies from the twenties and thirties, do you ever wonder what happened to all those people? It is much easier nowadays because we have IMDb and the Wikipedia. I sometimes wonder how many of these people might be still alive. Those who have the highest chance of being alive are the children who appear in crowd scenes. Did they know they were caught in a moving image and where are they now? Random thoughts on a random day by a random being, totally inconsequential in the giant scheme of things, but what can stop of us from wondering and dreaming, right?

The Age of Dreaming by Nina Revoyr is a book about a silent movie star looking back into the 1910s and 1920s, the beginning of Hollywood from the 1960s. It is a book for the serious reader, it is also a page-turner if you are interested in the past. The book has just enough 'masala' to keep the reader hooked without going overboard. It definitely won't come out as a paperback nor will it grace the counters of the airport bookshop, but if you could land a copy it won't disappoint you during your flight.

I found this book browsing thru' the library stacks, the same way I usually find most of my reading material. I liked the cover and the excerpt and I watch a lot of old timer movies, I love the art-deco architecture of the twenties, I love the reading about the history of places before they became places of repute(Hollywood in this case.) The Age of Dreaming fulfilled my quest in these aspects. There might be some short comings for the books, the main character being a tad shallow(?), I really don't care for I can fathom how hard it is to write a book. If you are a serious reader, not the one who falls for the cheap thrills of paperbacks, this might be an interesting read for you.

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How to Train Your Dragon

Avatar for kids? Dragons are having a commercially successful run from 2009 onwards and this "training" movie cashes in on the trend. That said it is an interesting movie to watch, kids will love it for sure. It's about Vikings and dragons and everyone speaks English with a Viking accent(if there such a thing) except for the main character, a tween(or a budding teen?) called Hiccup. He sounds American as Dreamworks Animation Studio.

Even back then it was written in Vikingese that geek shall inherit the earth, so the movie is pretty predictable. The best actor in a comic role Oscar should go to Toothless, the lead dragon in this movie. So if it is a bring-on-em-dragons day at your village, this is the movie to choose. Haven't everyone watched Avatar already?

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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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Hot Fuzz

Action and comedy (of the British kind, non-slapstick) in an exhilarating package - that's Hot Fuzz. My needs are simple, I like movies that provide entertainment value while keeping me hooked , Hot Fuzz fulfills those needs.

A super cop from London is transferred (demoted?) to a placid village where there has been no crime for the last twenty(? not sure) years. Look at the picture on the right, if that doesn't say 'bad-ass', what would?  Simon Pegg(the guy on the right) and Nick Frost(the chubby guy) rock the sleepy village of Sandford in the climax of this movie. It is the second one in the series of  Blood and Icecream Trilogy also known as the Three Flavors of Cornetto trilogy.

The team of three, Edgar Wright - the director, Simon Pegg(actor and writer) and Nick Frost are the perpetrators of the ice cream trilogy. The first movie in the series was the super hit zombie thriller comedy Shaun of the Dead. After watching the first two, I cannot wait for the third one - The World's End.

If you haven't watched Hot Fuzz, it is a good buddy movie, to be enjoyed with your friends on a Saturday night maybe. It is like that upbeat song you'd sing aloud in the car at the top of you voice and maybe if you have a crazy buddy to join you in your private concert, it'll be all the more fun.

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Kutty Srank

Watched Kutty Srank after trying to stay clear it for long. The reason for my hesitation was, as I have grown older I have become much wary of the "award-winner" type movies which is typically what you expect from a director like Shaji N.Karun. His 'Vanaprastham' only served to increase my skepticism. It is the same reason I do not want to watch his 'Piravi' again, it might feel too slow for me and ruin the good opinion I had for the film when I first watched it way back when I was a kid.

Maybe because I didn't have expectations and was geared up to thrash it, to my own surprise, I liked Kutty Srank. Kutty Srank is like a chapter from the text book of movie making. The director himself wrote the story of a mariner(Kutty Srank means boat captain in Malayalam) who moors at different ports and as we all know a sailor cannot escape being a sailor, there is indeed a woman at every port. Three ports, three women. Now don't get your hopes high expecting sleaze and rein in those wayward thoughts - can't it be that these three women could be an embodiment of three main female roles one comes across in life? I think maybe that is what the director-story writer intended them to be.

There is Revamma, the local aristocrat's daughter, her part of the story is set in Malabar("Yeah yeah yeah, I am a believer" in the director, that definitely bought the Malabari in me off.) Padmapriya plays her, a Ceylon returnee, newly converted Buddhist doctor turned nun. Padmapriya is becoming the Smita Patil of the South, if there is strong female character role, directors choose her by default. The film is also set in three seasons. Kutty Srank(played by Mammootty) arrives in Malabar in the middle of summer. He is the boat captain and the right hand of the local Mooppan who takes care of all Mooppan's dirty tasks.

The one time the movie turns slightly artsy is when there is an allegory of a wounded swan depicting Revamma's state. But that's ok in my books, because the director doesn't repeat it. Kutty Srank see the shades of his mother in Revamma. The other two women are in the other two principalities which merged to form the current Kerala state - Kochi and Travancore.

We meet Pemmana(Kamalinee Mukharjee) in Kochi during the monsoons, i.e  winter in Travancore. I didn't know there was winter in Travancore. After living in Arctic for almost a decade I could snub at a Kerala winter but the people of Travancore(or Kerala) I know would kick me off the planet if I denied them winter. So monsoon = winter it is.

The story and the script are rich in the ways of the land, as it was 70-100 years ago. For me Anjuli Shukla's cinematography is the highlight of the movie, of course I cannot comment enough on the talents of the director and the actors. The movie pays tribute to the verdant landscape of Kerala, himself a whiz behind the camera I can understand the director's foresight while creating his scenes and characters, making maximum use of the the visual bonanza provided by nature herself.

One thing I found jarring was the location and the set of the police station. It looked like a set, erected on the beach, flouting CRZ(I know there was no CRZ back then, that's just an additional jab), looking and smelling of cardboard and new paint(made to look old of course.) I don't care much about music in a movie like this, I vaguely remember there were songs, native folk song type. Other than that I draw blank when it comes to the sound track treats.

The film won the National award for the best film and best cinematography and 3 other awards(see, my expectations were not far off the mark.) I wonder about the etymology of the word Kutty Srank in Malayalam. Did it come from Cutty Sark - the British clipper chip, from Scotland? As I have become acquainted with different English accents, I am amazed how much of Indian English accent is shaped by Scottish and Welsh influences.

My final verdict: Give Kutty Srank a try, it might surprise you.

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Mummy and Me

Kunchako is almost ready to taken on Shivaji Ganesan. Used to be a time in Tamil cinema when a 60 year old Mr.Ganesan will wear shorts and show up nonchalantly at the neighborhood primary school reciting Thiruvalluvar verses and no one will even bat an eyelid. At that time a 60 year old playing his 6 year old self was perfectly normal, even if he had a mustache that might have taken 50 years to reach its full bloom.

Kunchako Boban is not Mr.Ganeshan's competition yet, but with every passing year he is getting closer to that goal. His time machine is stuck at Aniyathipravu and Guinness book of Records is about to award him the MBA student of the century, which is given to people who take 100 or more years to complete an MBA.

All said Kunchako is the most bearable of the characters in this film. Urvashi needs a shoot-at-sight restraint issued against her, she is just plain unmanageable. Archana Jose Kavi had chosen a movie that had the spotlight on her, can't blame her for the director or the audience who made this movie a roaring success at the box-office. Malayalam movie goers, you deserve this and nothing better, you are the culprits. Suffer biatches!

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