Vishwaroopam

Kamal Hassan is a creative and intelligent artist with a large ego. I am a fan of his more humble counterpart and his friend, Rajinikanth. But Kamal Hassan is supposed to be this way. He is one of the very few artists that India has produced who has been keeping up with the recent trends in technologies and happenings around the world to make his movie appealing and of fine quality. He is one of those film makers who can test the limits of audience acceptance right from the science fiction spy action thriller Vikram, which was released at the wrong time to a bewildered audience  till Viswaroopam which merely portrays the story with a bit of recent history in the background.

After a completely dissatisfying experience from a 10 times egoistic Dasavatharam, I expected the least from Viswaroopam. The trailers showed a glimpse of what may be and the protests and ban fueled my curiosity to watch the movie. I would have watched it anyway but the drama that unfolded in the news over the movie’s concerns from a political group only increased my curiosity to watch.

Viswaroopam was unlike any of Kamal’s earlier movies but you can definitely see how Kamal blends the scenes as he has done before, with the right amount of thrill, story flow, dialogues, humor and continuity of the movie. The drama and intensity of the story is kept intact as you would follow the movie closely with every scene, trying to connect, a characteristic of any Hollywood action thriller. Thank god there are no dampening songs which may be why he chose Shankar Ehsaan Loy to just score the background soundtrack focussing only on the close knit screen play.

It is of no doubt that he has chosen the highest quality technicals in visuals and sound, which makes it a must to watch on big screen. It would be useless to watch it from a pirated copy or even DTH and cannot be enjoyed fully. If Kamal is any wise of a businessman which he has proved time and again, I would see him release the blu ray copy (perhaps the uncut version) right around the corner when he plans his Part 2 release. May be he can go further by releasing a HD digital copy of the movie in iTunes. But honestly I don’t know what this movie will keep after 7 cuts and a few mutes for the folks in Tamil nadu. It may also be a warning sign for other states folks to watch it before they may make these cuts spread to the other states as well.

As with all Kamal movies, in the objective of glorifying the character that Kamal plays the other characters become perceived a bit shallow, except the villain of course. I was left to feel in the end that this movie may not need a second part and may have been finished utilizing the space of certain draggy second half scenes. It could have helped the pace of the screenplay as well. But nevertheless I am now curious to see part 2 and hope he releases it within a couple of months.

Viswaroopam. Thrills.

Kadal

The story of Good conquering evil is perhaps the easiest and most traditional of the stories to tell. But portraying the depth and intensity of the Devil that arises out of deprivation and desperation is not something that is usually told. In fact the good is glorified only in the hands of a strong evil. It is probably the drama of realization of the good that the good subconsciously unveils the evil and lets it take over, while it fights its way back, but not by killing. Because it is supposed to be the way of the good that it is more forgiving than killing, that even the purest of the evil cannot fight the tiniest ray of light and that the evil begins to vanish and transform by trying to fight the tiny ray of light.

Kadal is a story of a wild swing into the deepest level of the devil and a transformation into good by a simple and significant ray of forgiving light.

The strength of the movie lies in cast and portrayal of the main protagonists. It gets more exciting to watch Arjun play the devil than it is to watch Arvindswamy play the divine. Kadal is the Manirathnam movie in which the characters are in their own strength and at no point it becomes aligned to being the movie of a particular star. This makes Kadal not only top class but keeps your focus on the simple yet dramatically portrayed storyline.

Kadal is a technical treat to the senses with beautifully composed scenes from Rajiv Menon and a sound recording that is absolutely class one. The visuals and the movement of the story board especially the climax, simply shows Manirathnam’s elegance and his thirst to differ from himself from his previous movies. The dialogues give a hint of the possible locality in Tamil Nadu but one keeps wondering how the art was set and where would this location be. It gives a hint that it could be artificially set for the movie and yet it looks normal and natural. Songs fall in place appropriately to remind us that it is a regional tamil movie but when it is AR Rahman, Rajiv Menon and Manirathnam, you enjoy it is a wholesome package.

Kadal. Depth.

 

Oh Veera!

Dan dan dan dan dan danakka!

There are five dan’s in Raavanan’s dandanakka chanting. Raavanan is a roller coaster ride of emotions, of the audience who are feverishly trying to find out who is the real Raavanan. Mani is a beautiful essayer of People’s emotions. When it comes to putting it together visually through the actors, the light, set and the music, he is a master. Raavanan is exactly that and much more and some less.

MUCH MORE:

It is a story revolving around 3 powerful characters. Dev the cop, who doesn’t give up and who wants to “encounter” everything related to Veera. Veera, the tribal leader who has 10 screaming heads in him, that of good and bad (and also one head chanting dandanakka). Ragini the ‘classy’cal dancer who becomes the target of Veera and who begins to see the two men from different perspectives.

It moves from what we would normally perceive as a fight between good and evil and associate them to people. Dev being good and Veera being bad. But very soon as the story unfolds in the background of beautiful forest landscape, the perspective of the story gets tilted in favor of Veera. Veera’s life, his people, his family, their sufferings and the justice that he seeks for them against oppression. As the story moves towards the end, the line blurs and you won’t know what is good and what is bad and who is good and who is bad. Everything merges and what you see is just events happening like a chain reaction.

The visuals and art work are stunning. Perhaps Mani’s best picturisation till date. Vikram rocks as Veera. It stopped me from even considering to watch the Hindi version, as I really doubted whether Abi could match his performance. (It seems to be so, as I am seeing bad reviews of the Hindi Raavan) Prithviraj’s Dev was quite a surprise. His portrayal of a cold blooded cop reaches its heights when he smiles as he shoots Veera and his brother. Aish was beautiful as a daring woman with growing softness for Veera and reaches her peak when she fights Veera in a slow background of “Kattusirukki”.

SOME LESS:

Beyond these three characters, Karthik as Hanuman and Prabhu as Kumbakarna seem to have been wasted a little bit, although they did their part well. In my opinion I feel Karthik needed a much more screen time to assert the role of Hanuman. There were some loose ends and abrupt moments in the screenplay when Karthik appears as a surprise where Aish is being Hidden by Veera and when Aish just stops the train and walks out in search of Veera, easily giving away the prize money to Dev. It was difficult to digest them in an otherwise tightly written script.

Raavanan is a treat to Mani’s fans. But I really wished Mani could have made just Raavanan and focused on it alone. We are missing “the Mani” ever since he started putting one foot in Bolly and one foot in Kolly. Perhaps this is the reason for the few minor discrepancies that I had described. I am not an expert to say this though.

Also, for god sakes, please begin putting OST like Hollywood. The background score is just awesome, too bad I can’t have them in my iPod. Is someone listening to this? Do you feel they should do this?

Alright that’s it, let me stop my buk buk buk buk buk!

Ghajini Review

- Ghajini is probably the most difficult movie review I have ever done (out of the 13.5 movie reviews that I have done.) I will tell the reason in the end.

- I saw Memento a few years back. The best part of that movie was it’s unique screenplay. It starts from the end and slowly unfolds backwards. After that I watched the Tamil movie Ghajini and found that there was no reason to like that version except for Surya’s acting.

- Aamir khan is a dedicated actor. He can easily forget that he is a normal human being when going to the extremes for the sake of the character of the movie. I mean normally everyone works for 6 pack abs, but Aamir forgot when to stop exercising and he ended up with a 8 pack abs.

- Polaroid instant cameras have been out of production for a couple of years now (almost). So the camera was probably bought a few years back in anticipation of the upcoming 15 minute short term memory loss. I am still wondering how he didn’t forget to buy the refill sheets for the camera.

- Flashbacks are pun in a movie where the central character cannot remember for more than 15 minutes. I mean the only flashback that Ghajini could remember is the flash from the last picture session with his camera, provided the session happened in the last 15 minute interval.

- Speaking of interval, by the time you are into the theatre hall to watch the second half after the interval, you might tend to forget the first half. Be sure to carry a polaroid camera to take picture of important scenes and write them down or just Tatoo it on your arms and legs.

- It is believed that, to keep the character real Aamir photographed himself with a polaroid camera by standing in front of the mirror so that he doesn’t forget to carry it wherever he goes.

- The idea is also found to be stolen by some of the local tea shop owners to capture instant pictures of college students who keep accounts in their shop and never pay back. You know, just to show a proof.

- College girls and boys have so many boy friends and girl friends these days that in order to keep track of who they go out with on which day, they carry a polaroid camera wherever they go. Cellphones are now out of fashion.

- Husbands are idiots. It is a self realisation from a long time. We don’t remember what we ate for lunch by dinner time. So in order to prevent left over fraud (Husbands being served left over food from lunch, during dinner) husbands now carry polaroid camera to take pictures of what they ate for lunch.

- You won’t believe the next thing. All of a sudden Polaroid has started producing the camera again, due to this social demand. I am not sure if they know, but it is very likely that the consumers will forget about the camera,as soon as the movie runs off from the theatre.

- If the movie becomes a flop, the only reason will be that people forgot to watch the movie.

- You know what, I almost forgot I had to write a review of this movie, but instead got sidetracked into writing some random “Forgettable” stuff.

- The previous point is probably ok in comparison to the fact that I forgot to watch the movie before I reviewed, which is why it was very difficult to review.

- Oh well, I forgot that I had to delete this post from the draft and instead ended up posting it.

- I also forgot I am not supposed to do a blog post until next year. Wait, what is this. I see a photograph of fireworks and something written on the bottom (Photograph’s bottom, not mine) – “Blog readers, Happy New Year, wish”. Ah! I have to wish you all a very Happy New Year, Let me tell that before I forget.

Wish you all a very Happy New Year.

I only hope that you don’t forget to comment on this post.

Happiness from iPod and a Water Fountain

It was a cloudy saturday evening and we decided to go off on a mission to get some groceries done for the week. After finishing the ordeal that is called Grocery shopping, we thought we might want to check out the new Apple store in our area. This store has been opened up recently and we never got the time or need to drop in, until now. Apple has released a new iPod Nano and iPod Touch and we thought we could test drive it at the store. We drove around looking for the store for a few minutes, our eyes lying on several different things trying to locate a big Apple logo. My 1.5 year old daughter saw the big Apple logo sign first and said “Apple!” and that’s how we found the store. The store was slightly bigger than the one at Country Club Plaza in Kansas city.

How thin can an iPod be?

Apple has put iPod Nano on a strict fat free diet. It has squeezed the jelly out of it using a sugarcane juice maker. Then using a Chappati rolling stick, normally used by wives to beat the crap out of husbands, they have rolled the iPod Nano sideways to give it a thin oval look. This thing was so thin and light that if someone stood upside down in the store on his index fingers, I would have said “huh! Big deal!”.

The screen was brilliant and bright and the interface response time was quick. The colors were fantastic and I loved the Orange, Yellow and Silver of the lot. The screen is too small for playing a video, so it is probably just for occasional peeking and wouldn’t be usable for full length TV Shows or Movies.

The new iPod Nano shuffles beautifully. You just shake the iPod and it plays the next song in the shuffle line. Remember the days when you used to beat the top of your radio to get a clear reception, well this is sorta like that. This is a cool new feature, I don’t have to look at the screen and just have to shake it to listen to a random next song.

Available in 8GB for $149 and 16GB for $199.

Me: “I love it. I want it one now, honey! Can I buy this 8GB one? It is just $149″                                                                     (Picture: http://www.apple.com)

Wife: “You already have a perfectly good iPod Nano!”

Me: “But this is new. Owning this will make me the happiest man, please, pretty please! See even the daughter is loving the iPod.”

My daughter was getting all curious and attempting her minority report stunt to grab hold of the iPods lying on the table. She was very curious looking at all the colorful ipods.

For Bargain Hunters, I saw the older iPod Nanos at 4GB- $99 and 8GB – $129. Just put a word to your relative in US heading to a vacation in India, but don’t point them to this blog!

iPods are also Touchy!

(Picture – http://www.apple.com)

When you get rid of the phone component in the iPhone, you get the iPod Touch. The new iPod Touch is even more thinner than it’s predecessor. Thin is becoming a feature now, a fashionable demand. Whenever you think how much thinner can it get, Apple shows it in the next version of the iPod. iPod touch has WiFi and can do email, Web browsing, Games, Applications and YouTube. In the first version of the iPod touch it was difficult for me to type on the touch screen, but this new version seems much more easier to type and I was quite surprised by that. I wonder what changed, perhaps the software.

YouTube is the key here. It can be very addicting especially due to the simple and cool YouTube user interface on the iPod Touch. So I searched and watched this song and it came out really well on the device.

I also played this song, one of my daughter’s favourite. She always laughs whenever she sees Rajinikanth on the screen. Perhaps, she thinks that he is a comedian and he is always funny, especially due to this song.

She smiled wide as she saw Rajinikanth dance for the Style number in Sivaji.

Me: “This is a cool iPod. I think we can buy this. I don’t want the iPod Nano, I will have this one. It is just $229 and it will make me very happy.”

Wife: “You keep changing your mind!”

My daugther concurred with me as she was now all stimulated to grab hold of the iPod touch playing Rajinikanth’s song on Youtube.

We finished our window shopping and then came out of the store. It was a cool dark evening and the fountain just by the store was glittering beautifully in the halogen light coming from inside the fountain. We stood there for a while to enjoy a calm moment, a gentle breeze, sound of the water flowing in the fountain. It was a happy moment to just look at the fountain in silence.

I didn’t want to buy it and have it for myself, but it made me happy. It wasn’t a cool iPod with cool features, but it made me happy. My daugther was agreeing with me as she smiled wide looking at the water and the light and making attempts to try and catch the flowing water.

I realized two things:

1. Happiness is a temporary feeling that shifts from one thing to another that you like.

2. Happiness is not just in buying cool things but Happiness is in the way you like something around you.

It is amazing to see the wisdom that a child brings to you.

Mini Review: Yaradi Nee Mohini

“Who are you Mohini?” is the literal translation of the title of the Dhanush starrer Yaradi Nee Mohini, herein referred to as YNM.

If you have watched an earlier movie of Dhanush – Polladhavan, you would have noticed that sometime in the second half of the movie he loses his job because he loses his bike. So obviously in his next movie YNM, he starts jobless, very logical indeed. He lands a job and Sure enough, sometime in the middle of YNM he loses his job again which means in his next movie he has to start his job hunt all over again. He did Marketing in Polladhavan and now in YNM he is a Software Engineer, what’s next? If you guess his next job right, you will get one Kadalai mittai packet as prize, during the interval of his next movie.

So he falls in love with Nayanthara (Mohini no. 1), earns a job inspired by her, works under her as a trainee and proposes his love for her finally. She refuses the love.

His father (played by Raghuvaran) dies and his Brahmin friend invites him to his village house for a change. There is a surprise element here and I won’t reveal it.

He then meets an annoying pesky little teenager at his friend’s house who immediately falls in love for his magnetic personality. She is Mohini no. 2.

In the same house there is an Acharamana Brahmana Patti (Idealogical Brahmin Granny), a Widow, Who absolutely hates Dhanush. She beats the hell out of him and scoffs at him whenever there is a chance. She is Mohini no. 3.

Which of these 3 Mohinis will get to go home with Dhanush is the essence of the movie and that is why the title – “Yaradi Nee Mohini”.

Pros:

1. Raghuvaran – A man who made his mark in the Tamil Film Industry with his unique style of acting is no more. This movie dedicates itself to one of the greatest actors of our times. May his soul RIP.

2. Dhanush – His success is based on the fact that he chooses his movies right. His character suits him for his personality and may be that’s how he chooses it. He knows his boundary and capabilities and focuses real hard on just that.

3. Yuvan’s Music – It doesn’t go wrong if Yuvan teams up with Dhanush. Yuvan brings his magical melodies in this movie with the songs “Engeyo partha mayakkam” and “Venmegam pennaga”. Background score is as usual brilliant. The only thing that Yuvan needs now is a chance with the big stars – Rajinikanth and Kamal Hassan. He is not far away.

Cons:

1. Someone please find a permanent job for Dhanush, before he is marked as a stereotypical Job searching Vetti Payan in every single movie of his. Time to freshen up his character sketch a bit.

2. If you are a software engineer, you will not be able to tolerate a monochrome monitor scrolling pages of Java code when the system crashes. Seriously, couldn’t they get a few computers with Windows XP and Eclipse loaded? and then Dhanush goes on to fix everything in one night. What the heck !@%#@^&%#&

3. Karthick and Karunas – Their characters were not utilized to the fullest extent, especially that of Karthick. There was room for using both of them in more situations than the way they were handled.

Overall Verdict: Watchable once for Yuvan’s Music and Nayanthara’s Magic (If you are a married man just pretend that the screen play is good, you won’t be lying anyway).

Mini Review: Santhosh Subramaniam

Dad loves Son. Son loves Dad, but Son hates Dad’s too much love. So Son is a good boy at home and displays his ferocious anger on his dad to the outside world. Son later falls in love with the girl. Son wants to marry the girl only with his family’s consent. Typical family melodrama. Ok, not exactly typical, atleast the Father son thing is a little bit different.

Without boring you much, here are the positives of the movie:

- Comedy: Santhanam cracks it. Hilarious as usual and does it with great timing. The good thing is the director has brought out some amount of comedy from everyone and not just Santhanam. There is no shortage of lighter moments in the movie.

- Prakash Raj/Jayam Ravi: They stroke it well in M.Kumaran and have done a great job in this movie too. They did look like a perfect silver screen Father – Son. Prakash Raj needs no review for his yet another gem of a show.

- Climax: I won’t spoil it. Go watch it, It is a hilarious finish.

And the Negatives:

- Songs: Definitely a negative for the movie. But I think they are a huge positive for the Tobacco industry. Smokers will turn chain smokers if they have to go out for a fag for every song in this movie, so beware. Try chewing gum.

- Sadagoppan Ramesh: Why God Why? I thought he was playing a Mute character, only later realized that he indeed had some dialogues, written on half a piece of paper napkin. Losing his streak in Cricket, I guess he wanted to attempt celluloid, but it shouldn’t have been this way.

- Gemilia: Did I get her name right? Ok whatever, I don’t know if it was the director or if it was her, but she must be the lady jumping jack. If the movie’s frame rate was 24 per second, she was doing 10 jumps per frame, I could hardly track her on the screen and look at her expression. She did stop doing that only in the last 10 minutes, she must have been tired. Also, there was 0 chemistry between her and Jayam Ravi. Not a good match.

Overall Verdict: Above Average. Watchable and Enjoyable once for the comedy and Prakash Raj.