Manmadan Ambu

Finally they changed the posters for this Kamal starer from "80's Malayalam bit-padam poster look" to a decent one. Short of budget? Has anyone seen the movie, yet?

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Angels and Demons

If you have not read the book, then you will enjoy the movie more! Having read the book, the unexpected quantum of change in the screenplay was very unsettling for me. However, that's where it stops! The movie in its own rights is worth watching.

The book is about the continuance of the age-old war between church and science. There are moderators amongst scientists and church, who believe science and religion go in parallel and in fact they both support the cause of the other. Of course, both sides are not without hardcore elements that despise and suspect that the other camp is undermining their fundamental belief. The storey is about a fanatic that uses science to establish the righteous place of the church. He was pursued by an academic who would stop at nothing but to stop him.

Some good themes in the book are lost in the movie. In the book, it was Vittoria's father that was killed by the assassin. That by itself was a strong motive for her to seek revenge along with Langdon. In the movie she is a mere prop. In book, the assassin was in fact lured into saving the very establishment, church, which he thinks is destroying. The version of the camerlengo from the book was a highly motivated fanatic, in the movie he turns out to be a bit lame!

However, the screenplay has pleasantly surprising changes compared to the book. The movie is matured in that sense. Where the book slips into a stereotype of a middle-east terrorist with little respect for women, the movie portrays him as a hired assassin. The assassin leaves Langdon and Vittoria unarmed, though he could have easily killed them - 'because I was not asked to kill you!'

While the book goes overboard with church-bashing, the movie is gentle and subtle about church's controversial past.

In spite of the shortcomings, the movie is a better version than the book. From start to finish, the movie goes without any moments of slackening.

But why the heck did they over simplify the fifth symbol, the mythical diamond, of Illuminati!

Sarvam

It is not that everyday you get to see talent and hardwork wasted mindlessly. Amazing art direction, wonderful costumes and clever blend of graphics with choreography; none of this had a chance against an absurd storyline and screenplay.

In spite of their general inability to emote varied expressions, you expect to see the leads Arya and Trisha in better movies. Their experience in the industry must have taught them something when it comes to choosing the right movies to act!

Rupa says this movie is from the same director who did Pattial. Hard to believe!

Anyway, I walked out of the theatre with few unanswered questions, though. Was Trisha's death before the intermission as per the original storyline or she requested to be killed off the movie! Was Arya's poisoning his attempt to commit suicide for accepting to act in this movie or part of the original screenplay! I will never know!

Slumdog Millionaire

I have seen the movie the week before the Oscar night, last week it has won eight Oscars. It is an ok movie. Now I know why Nayagan, Hey Ram, Devar Magan, Lagan or a score of other deserving Indian movies did not win Oscar.

The India that was seen as a 'land of snake charmers' is a thing of the past. The western tourists who had been hoodwinked by the age-old documentaries and no-brainer Hollywood movies that projected an India that was steaming with snake charmers and elephants had been disillusioned by their visits. How often do you see a snake charmer at the road side or an elephant rubbing your back?

The Hollywood needs a new identity for India. A land of ancient structures? No! They have got Egypt for that! A land of IT (Information Technology) engineers? May be! But they have got their own IT engineers. A fast growing economy? Yeah! But China, though they don’t like them much, is a more compelling option! A land of dark miseries and slums? Bang on! That would be appealing. At one side we have IT and BPO companies thriving and you step out of the office, you have slums and people living on the pavements! A country of many such contrasts! It is not only the Oscar that has fallen in love with the Indian slums. So are Booker Prize, BAFTA and Golden Globe.

So Mr. Kamal, Mr. Amir, want an Oscar? Go to the slums and whip up the sentiments and make the Pinkies smile. Jai ho!

Related: http://mottaimaadi.blogspot.com/2009/01/white-tiger-by-aravind-adiga.html

Slumdog Rehman

It was 1992, I just finished my bachelors. I was back home waiting for the results and contemplating higher studies. A friend of mine from college called me - Hey! He is very good da! There was a lot of pain in his voice. He was talking about Rehman and his debut movie Roja!

In college, we were a bunch of crazy Ilayaraja fans. Even if we heard a good song from some other music director, we would only half-heartedly accept the truth. We would try to find some Ilayaraja song that resembled the new song so that we could say it was influenced by Ilayaraja's song! We were fanatics!

Unfortunately for us, it was around this time, Ilayaraja's scores were becoming more and more clicheed! Some times, the copycats were more innovative and creative in copying Ilayaraja's songs than Ilayaraja himself! And Ilayaraja's most favorite female singer Janaki's deteriorating voice was adding to the woes! Obviously, the maestro was bored with cinema music and was concentrating on bigger things; his project with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was happening.

That's exactly when Rehman entered Tamil cinema by storm. I was told, that was how Ilayaraja took Tamil cinema by storm with his all new scores some thirty years ago! History repeated itself. Rehman's Roja was new and refreshingly fresh!

Now back to my friend's call and why he was so pained! He was the most fanatic of the Ilayaraja's fans in our group. We, at last, realized that Ilayaraja was not going to be mainstream anymore. A replacement is here and he is very young. We knowingly fooled ourselves by calling
Rehman a one time hit; he is just a sound engineer; he can only work with digitized computer music. He proved us wrong again and again with his successive movies. Of course Ilayaraja gave us wonderful scores after that too but then he was not mainstream anymore as we suspected.

What we did not foresee then was, what a tremendous force Rehman would become in Hindi cinema field. A lot of things that changed around the world and India had helped Rehman further. To name a few: Tamil directors such as Manirathnam and Shankar had become popular and highly respected figures at the national level; they had given the much needed entry for Rehman to Hindi cinema; Indian economy opened up; foreign interest in India and anything that is Indian had increased; gen-next listened to western music and expected similar scores locally; Hindi and Tamil movies were released worldwide. Many things that were not available to Ilayaraja were available to Rehman. Things have changed forever. Since then there was no looking back for Rehman. It has today culminated in the Golden Globe award for Rehman for Original score in the movie Slumdog Millionaire.

What an achievement! Wish you all the best and 'Oscar' Rehman!

Paruthi Veeran

Have you seen Paruthi Veeran? This Tamil movie was released more than a year ago. It won some awards, national, state or something like that! It was praised for its offbeat storyline and realistic picturization of its characters. The hero, Karthik (his debut) and the heroine, Priya Mani, were congratulated for their stellar performances.

Well! it may be a great movie, but was it a great experience watching the movie? Let me express myself without using any expletives! Why on earth anyone would want to take a movie such as this one? In the name of being realistic, showing the murky miseries of human life does not make a movie great. I'm not exaggerating when I say, halfway through the movie I felt nauseous. Unfortunately, I did not realize, it was the movie that was sickening me until the movie reached its climax! It was too late by then; I could not shake off the depression. I stayed
sick for the rest of the weekend!

As if playing the movie once was not enough, one of the creatively retarded TV channels of Tamil Nadu has chosen this movie for special screening on this New Year day. Probably, they could not think of any other better and brighter ways of starting the New Year!

Anyway, I wish you a Happy and Prosperous New Year folks!

Achilles and Hector of Troy - legends killed by their own blood!

Yesterday I was watching Troy. That was not the first time and I believe that will not be the last time either. I'm one of those people that believe there is a lot to learn from our past, be it the mistakes or the best decisions that had changed the course of human history.

I have not read the book but the director, Wolfgang Petersen, had done an awesome job with Troy. The opulence and magnificence of yesteryears was vividly captured in the movie.

Everytime I watched the movie, there was always something new that hit my eyes. This time was no different. The legendary Achilles and the prince of Troy, Hector, I realised, were killed by their own blood! Achilles was single handedly killed by his own mother while Hector's killing was a collective achievement of his father, wife, brother, commander and the least you expect, Hector himself!

I know! If you had read the book or watched the movie, you would say, 'No! Achilles killed Hector and Paris killed Achilles. Wait! Hear me out!

When Achilles was invited for the war, he goes to his mom for advice and this is what she had to tell him; if you stay back, you will have a happy family and a loving wife; you will have children and they will love you; they will have children and they will praise you; they will have children and in turn they will have children of their own; you will be forgotten slowly. On the other hand, if you leave, you will never come back, but the world will sing your praise; you will be remembered forever! Going by the almost-gayish intimacy shown between Achilles and his cousin, the 'marrying-a-girl' part must have had beaten the s--t out of Achilles! So he decides to leave for the war and his mom kisses him goodbye. What a mom! And what a lousy way to start a lifetime mission! In the end, he does not seem to participate in the war happily. He dies a sad man. Of all the people, the mighty Achilles had to be killed by the weakling, Paris.

The other sad story was that of Hector. When Achilles calls Hector for the ill-fated fight, none of Hector's relatives believe or at least pretend that he will come back alive, including his wife! As if that is not enough, Hector himself strongly believes that he will not survive. I would have been surprised, if he came back alive after all these ill preparations. What a far cry from today's Stephen Covey, Robin Sharma, Robert Kiyosaki and a host of other authors and their money-minting books on positive thinking and self-hypnotism for success!

Having said that, it was no surprise that the weakling, Paris, kills the mighty Achilles, because Hector tells him, you are the prince of Troy now, my brother, I know you will make me proud! Helen, with a face that launched a thousand ships, tells him, I love you for what you are! You are more man than my ex-husband.

It is a wonder what positive words can do and negative words can undo!

Why 'Heroes' popular?

I have not seen all the episodes of Heroes and I don't think I will see all the episodes either. It was the almost-fanatic following of this series by my wife and sis-in-law that has made me watch a few episodes.

Though I have not seen all, I have seen sufficient enough to notice the similarities between Heroes and the x-men. Be it the the power of self healing or the agility to read minds or the ability to fly or walk through the walls and many not so direct similarities, we have seen them all!

In spite of being a follow-on, how come Heroes is so popular? I believe it is the inclusive nature of the cast. My wife and sis-in-law started watching this series because it has an Indian, Tamilian, character as one of the lead characters. There are characters from many other countries too.

In essence, it is a story of the world. Whereas, x-men seemed like the story of the United States. At times, in the movie, it sounded more like the story of Newyork and its suburbs! Is this the reason why Heroes popular across the world? Having said this, the simple reason could be, we all like magical, larger than life characters, don't we?

Kannamoochi Enada

It’s been long since I have a seen Tamil movie in a theatre. If it wasn't for Rupa, I would not have gone for Kannamoochi Yenada (KE). It took us 25 mins on a Saturday late night to go from Valasaravakkam to Kilpauk; and 45 mins from outside the Abhirami mall to the parking lot.

It is a horrible horrible theatre; more about this sub-standard theatre later; anyways this blog isn't about the theatre but about KE.

It was a hilarious movie. If you like Crazy-Mohan-plots and dialogs, then this movie is for you. Though the plot is from Meet the Parents, Priya (the director) has given it a wonderful treatment to localize it. I wouldn't do justice unless otherwise I mention that the similarity between the two stops at a boy meeting his would-be-in-laws. While in KE it is a brahmin boy wanting to convince his egotistic non-brahmin would-be-FiL, in the Hollywood version it is a Jewish boy wanting to convince his suspicious would-be-FiL. Priya has taken the pains to inject life and "indi-a-viduality" to each character in the movie. She hasn't disappointed us. This movie is better than her first "Kanda Naal Mudhal".

This movie isn't about story; so I wouldn’t attempt to tell you one. It is all about a chain of stupid and funny events. However there are few things worth mentioning. Satyaraj and Sripriya's characters could not have been done by anybody else. They just fit in and live it. Prithviraj is doing great (is this his 3rd Tamil movie?) Sandya has the knack for finding roles that suits her.

Take it light on the dig at thayir/paruppu sadham, you'll enjoy the movie.