After Mahabharatha here comes Ramayana....

I dont know exactly why but I have never really understood the so-called hidden meaning behind the subtlety of Mani Rathnam's movies.Now I have no doubts about his movie making skills.He is a fine film maker.Point duly noted.Its just that I dont get the point behind few things he religiously sticks to.

*Like the themes he used to adopt in most of his movies-Love,Terrorism or Love and Terrorism(Dadagiri is a subcategory) .

*On why he insists that the movie be shot in minimal light so that half the time you have to squinch your eyes to see who is in the frame.

*The usss--bhusss sounds that periodically arise indicating that some dialogue is being delivered that makes you strain your eyes to get the drift of what is being spoken.

*On why he still thinks Abhishek Bacchan can deliver in rustic roles that demand a lot of performance and gamut of emotions to be expressed effortlessly.

I really feel sad for AB jr.I do.The gargantuan nature of stardom of his father and his wife weighing upon him,and always being used as a reference scale to judge him has eclipsed his skills.But still he does maintain his cool.I do admire him for that.But this movie gave him a new standard to be compared to : Vikram.

I have always admired Vikram.His career graph has had the worst start but he patiently held on till he had his start and once it took off he never looked back.He is not the one to sit around and complain about how no one took notice of him.Rather he gets into the arena and performs.And how!Commercial cinema or parallel cinema,he gets noticed.

Hardly two months and the movie is already on TV !

Dhalapathy worked Mr.Rathnam.Our thalaivar Rajnikanth and the script did the magic.

Hold on to Vikram and shake off AB Jr.Let him go prance around beaches with John and his insured-derriere while you can watch your scripts come alive with the magic they were intended to.

P.S-We wouldnt say no to another mushy Alaypayuthe with Maddy :)

What a Bollywood addicted soap fan would do when she comes across a hindi song in an english sitcom...

To those not very familiar with Bollywood cinema-

Dancing away are Shah Rukh Khan , Juhi Chawla and Sonali Bendre.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVrwxKao74s

P.S-Why am I sharing this video?Very simple...I heard this song play in the background of one episode in the 3rd Season of The Big Bang theory(The one with the kite-flying and all..Do watch closely the scene where Howard enters with the patang..Before Raj answers the door this song can be heard playing on the TV)It took me some time and some hits to get the song right and well managed a few laughs after watching this :) ...

P.P.S-I fell in love with SRK after watching DDLJ and managed to fall out love (!) watching this.

A time when you could not even trust the air you breathe

Thanks to Shyam who inspired me to write this...It is a wonderful break from the cheesy romantic stories I have been writing so far..I owe you one da :)

All right this is not another post about some futuristic or far fetched world(V for Vendetta, Equilibrium and countless other Hollywood flick typos) and where the world is under an imminent threat and one hero rises among the masses to save the people.This,in fact is a story of the past...A deadly past which people even shudder to think about. The night of december 2nd 1984 when the deadly tragedy struck taking with it almost 3000 of central India's population.To be killed for some fault of yours or maybe as a turn of events is different.But dying in your sleep agitatedly without having no clue as to what is going on,when the new hope of a tomorrow remains a dream crushed by some crude corporate giant is unacceptably.Have we reached a particular realm of capitalistic society where currency notes can been exchanged for few hundreds and thousands of lives?If honestly you answer in affirmative to the above question then long gone is the time when life was for living.It has become existance.It has passed beyong coining it "Survival of the fittest".Rather it has become "survival of those who can kill and get away with it".

Mr.Warren Anderson,Union Carbide.I am not going argue on the perspective of letting him away was a big mistake.It was,yes.But even if we punish him there is no way that we can ressurect the dead or abate the suffering of those still undergoing the agony for the past 25 years.All I ask is do consider what compensation was given.Was it justified to bribe hundreds and thousands of politicians who were totally did not require the money and pay so little to those who actually needed it?

All these poiliticians raising this issue now,with all the finger pointing and commisions going on "to probe" into the issue,how much probing did you all actually do to make sure the issued compensation actually reached the masses?

BJP blames Rajiv Gandhi for the escape of Anderson.So be it.But there was BJP govt after all this.If they wanted to,they could have helped these people.May be they did to a small extent.Truth this at the very heart of a abundant with wealth,weeps an entire state for almost quarter of a century.We have not yet extended our hands to wipe away the drops.Will there come a day when we look beyond all national,cultural and monetory barriers and view people as people,the way it was meant to be?

I leave it to time to answer this question.

P.S-Thanks to Swathi who gave me valuble viewpoints on this.

Until the next one,

Gaya :)

Kulir-100 -Freezes you to Death

I am not generally very interested in writing movie reviews .Why?I dont consider myself a good critic.

Therefore,most of the time my opinions on movies are restricted to ok,good,attu padam or oru-dadava paakalam. Not that I dont watch a lot of movies.I do.I catch almost every boring flick in town just because I have a lot of free time,vetti friends and the smell of butter-popcorn beckons me(!) from Satyam.

But there was one particular movie which surpassed all the boundaries of obnoxiousness that any movie at that time had not.(Sura was released much later and I havent seen it yet and so I havent been affected by the usual nauseating feeling or randomly wanting to stop the car in the middle of the road and advice a police-maama on the evils of maamul or go about kissing pallu-vizhuntha paatis for apparently no reason,bursting into a dappan-kuttu right in the middle of anna-saalai , bashing up a wannabe cool-doood (Signs to identify this category-the high lights which look like he had some seth-ji spit paan all over his head , the skull keychain on the chest bouncing away,one group of vethu-vettus ,a cellphone without a battery or balance purchased at pondy bajaar and the vetti engeeelees) or pretty much any other feeling that you get when you watch a Vijay flick.)

June '09

I was attending an in-plant training at Southern Railways when suddenly one day was declared off due to the arrival of a minister.Thrilled ,we started making plans and soon we took hold of the faithful 7F to Abirami theatre..I was trying to show off when I got on the foot board while the bus was still moving which earned a few well chosen swear words from the conductor.Brushing them off with a smile (read gloat) I alighted ,which agitated the conductor to the extent of making rude hand gestures.Feeling triumphant for apparently no reason other than setting a very bad example I stood there ,as my friends got down at the stop and walked towards me with one look that said-"Wow!Bad ass behaviour man"(edukkelam?Kadavulle)..If I were my guruji Vadivelu the first words that would have sprung to my lips would have been "Ippdi ussupethi ussupethiye odamba ranagalam aakidradhu".But I was not Vadivelu and I did enjoy that attention back then.

Yeah we checked the list of movies playing and there was Pasanga and this Kulir 100..Pasanga looked quite rural and this Kulir... looked pretty urban and stylish so we chose the latter(And what a mistake it was!I saw Pasanga later and loved it..)..So as we entered the multiplex(!) and were directed towards the screen we stumbled on until we reached our seats.The theatre smelled pleasantly of one that hasn't been cleaned in atleast two days and chairs with broken arm-rests.It rather looked like a cross between the dingy theatre that screens colour-padams(If you get my drift) at Parangimalai and the newly renovated Raaki(Swear ! it is way better)at Ambattur.

So yeah , post advertisements when we were comfortable seated,complete with the stale popcorn that we were mercilessly charged Rs.50 something for ,we heard an ear-piercing scream which went like,

Nallavan evan ?

Kettavan evan?

Kodum vishatukku porandhavan ivann...

(Crudely translated to)

Who is the good guy?

Who is the bad guy?

This guy is born to deadly poison(The kind you would want to take after watching this flick!)

This crap went on for around 3 minutes and we successfully missed the titles as we frantically looked around for a place to safeguard the popcorn and cover our ears to save the eardrums.

Finally the noise subsided and as everyone went WTF was that? we were soon treated to our hero waiting atop a building waiting for someone.Well,the someone arrived and was kozhi-amukkified (covered in a sack akin to what someone would do while trying to steal a hen) and beat up.You have no clue in the confusion that prevails and the hero runs away.Next day surprise surprise(!) police lands on his door step since they found his ID in the crime(!) scene.He is whisked away to the station and one MLA like katta-panchayat guy arrives and demands his son let go.Now from where did this son character arise you might think.Anga dhan director twishttuu.Namma hero's appa is a rowdy.Appa and amma Lovvu marriage.Amma does not like appa's ways.They separate.But they are all paasams over their son who as expected grows up like a Thadu-thala(dunder-head).

Appa is all proud(!) that son is a budding-dhaadha(don).(Enna appan da?).So cut to Koyambedu market where our hero dances amidst vegetables and colourful lights with a skimpily clad Item-girl imported from Mumbai to celebrated the release from jail.(shabbha!)

Enter amma who thinks that the thadu thala is out of control and interfering with her bank exam.So he is carted off to Ooty to continue his studies.Now with the hero's face so bloated up and the rowdism depicted you might think he is probably joining his final year or something.Anga dhaan Second twishttu.Namma hero is joining 11th.

He is made to share a room with a sidekick who looks like one yaanai without its thumbikkai (Elephant without trunk) and goes "Broooooooo"(Dey!Adha yenda Bru kaapi maari solre?)

The first day and already namma hero invites the "wrath" of seniors.There are three of them in all.And as per formula they all look like settu paiyans placed in the middle of mariyamman thiruvizha , all vetti peter thamizh(Hey!I am getting pasi ya.Lets go to nair kadai and drink tea and eat porai typos) and they go about controlling the school and everyone quivers under the looks they shoot.

Our hero has given word(read traditional amma-mela satyam-The highest word-bound ever produced by Tamil cinema) that he wont be involved in any fights any more and hence satisfies himself by throwing the villains looks of utmost disgust and contempt(yeah the kind we kept throwing at the hero).Or I think that is what he was going for.He finally looked like a constipated dog torn between the desire to make and nibble at a bone.

Now if the hero was frolicking about in the hills Ooty our heroine can't be far away,can she?For some strange reason she keeps jumping from trees , speaking stuff that has no coherence and even people realized that coz they kept calling her loosu(local word for touched in the head)throughout the movie.And yeah the clueless Bombay-import type only.

Hero and heroine ore lovvus in parties and tree-houses where yaanai has managed to hide copious amounts of food.Heroine tries to etthi vittufy hero's gethu by keeping up the constant stream of encouragement and plans..

And now third twishttu...Heroine's anna is one among the villians.Now you might think of a 3.a.twist where anna is using his thangacchi(No offense to TR fans) to sabotage the hero.But no.Heroine hates her anna who keeps offering advice to his dad that she should be in a facility for the mentally challenged (Thambi inda advice ah nee directorkum,producerkum kudutrukalam)

Now hero stands against one of the gooja-jalras in the villians for some Vice-President(apdiye Indian national election maari oru build up vera) and our yaanai tirelessly works to make him win.Hero wins.Seniors fight.Oreeyyy nail-biting tensaaan.

When all this circus was going on ,suddenly a break was declared for 15 mins. Interval.We all rushed out akin to how students rush out of classes on Friday after the dismissal bell.We seriously considered not going back inside.But it was never in my book to leave a movie unfinished.I comforted myself saying "Vandachu,pathutrukom,mudichudalam".I kept saying this throughout the second half of the movie.

If the first half of the movie was like Mummy-3 then the second half was nothing lesser than Thiruppachi.And the director takes her revenge against the audience and how!Ummm..Ukkare mudile..

Seri second half begins with some treasure hunt like thing which I dont remember who won.(By this point I had stopped paying attention!The popcorn was over and I was massaging my head and checking my watch).I think it was the hero.

Something called "the Ring" was mentioned when I looked up hoping to see some Frodo like character holding the one ring which would add some dimension to the story I was yet again disappointed to see that it was a piece of land(very much in the shape of a sotta-maama's head)

where they amicable settled(read fought like street dogs) their differences.Sad;y I returned back to the massaging.

Suddenly,I heard some screams and looked up.The yaanai was forced into a toilet by the villians and he dies.And as per rule,someone had to remove their specs when the news was delivered.It is generally the doctor.(but inga lightcha twist )It was the school princi informing amma-yaanai and appa yaanai that their son had died due to cardiac-arrest.

Hero is crestfallen at the loss of his pet..Chi..Friend..Simbu's rendering of Manasellam starts playing in the background.Hero runs to heroine for some quality romance .But namma heroine is finally declared loosu and sent to Delhi for therapy.Hero is all Bhusss when one day, he hears from the seniors in the same bathroom(The circle!) that they killed the yaanai. Hero turns all red and time for revenge baby!

I was all happy that it would be over in a few seconds and so I decided to watch patiently.Suddenly the ear piercing scream was back on...

Nallavan evan ?

Kettavan evan?

Roshathukku porandhavan ivann...

which yanked the couple who were indulging in some quality romance behind us, apart.(enna power)

Hero makes a super plan.He lures the villians towards a forest.He burns one alive,beats one to death and engages in a fist fight with the third before pushing him into a pit finishing his chapter.Finally he gives us that look that we have very often seen in a lot of amman-movies .I heaved a sigh of relief and proceeded to get up when my friend pulled me back indicating that there was still some of the movie left.Grudgingly I sat back.Strangely nobody seemed to protest that I got up(If I were at a Rajini movie I am sure that few Bata shoes would have been flying at me for momentarily blocking the view of Thalaivar) .

There were two voices in my head now.

Voice1:Please polame..Mudile..Indha 2 mins le Oscar award performance aa kuduka poran avan?

Voice2:Ivlo neram irundachu wait panallame.Innum edavdu "Twist" varalam

Voice1:Thu.

As it turned out Voice 2 was right.There was a fourth twisshtu.

When the hero returns ,surprise(!) he finds his mommy dearest dead.

Hero runs towards an electric pole and bangs himself against it hoping to die(Uff!),when daddy dearest takes him away. The implied moral is Karma.Newton's 3rd law.

Atlast it being over we rushed out to hear someone commenting

"Macchan anda Director ellarayum potu thalirkaangle..Inorru 10 rs.ticket ku extra vaangitu hero vayum pottrunda santosha patrupenne"

(Friend,the director almost killed everyone.For one extra 10 Rs. which I would have gladly paid she could have killed that hero too).

He had reviewed the movie in just a sentence.

P.S-Thanks to Hari,Sangeetha,Madhu and Aishu who patiently endured this crap with me.

P.P.S-Ms/Mrs.Udeep-Naa Padam edukka vendam nu sollale , please edukare padatha ollunga edunga nu dhan solren.

I pity the producer.May his soul RIP ..Amen!

Until the next one,

Gaya :)

Few Reasons why I would not make a good movie critic

1.I go to Satyam for the popcorn.

2.My all time favorite movie is Jeans.

3.I did not like Avatar.

4.I'd prefer It's a wonderful life to The GodFather any day.

5.I am still smitten by James Stewart and not only managed to sit through but also liked(!) The man who knew too much.

And finally the top reason-Once upon a time,long long ago, I was a fan of Vijay,Action king Arjun and Jayam Ravi....

Until the next one,

Gaya:)