'List'less

Once in a while, in tamil cinema, you will get a movie that has the director shouting aloud “I am a non-conformist. Come watch this! You haven’t seen this before.” ‘Pattiyal’ is a reminder that such movies, even if they are unconventional, do not necessarily have to be good.

Coming from the team that made ‘Arinthum Ariyaamalum’, the movie goes out of the way to break the mould of conventional tamil cinema. It does not have a set of ‘right’ people fighting the ‘wrong’ ones. Its protagonists are killers. Hired guns do not care about their targets and that’s the way life goes for ‘Kosi’ (Arya) and Selva (Bharath). They kill for money and see it as the means of their livelihood. By the movie’s standards, either it isn’t such a lucrative business or the middleman who gives them the jobs leaves them with just enough dough for their booze and cigarettes.

But that’s where all the ‘different’ things come to an end. From intro songs to item numbers, fleeting glances to damsels in distress, the movie has its fair share of clichés. It also has two unnecessary girlfriend characters that simply don’t belong in the movie other than to provide excuses for the ‘love’ songs and ‘light’ moments. Had this been a simple story about killers, it would have been a lot more effective.

The acting is not all that effective. The four leads have a combined experience of about ten movies. The only one to make any impression is Padmapriya as ‘Saro’ who pines for Kosi, which she has been doing for a while, much to his irritation. Bharath plays the mute and has to do all the acting with his eyes. It is not too convincing for him to be able to read and write while being mute. The lip reading thing is a little too much and the guy should be blessed with ESP to be doing some of the things he does. Arya’s dialogue delivery is like Parthiban’s ; irritating and monotonous.

Amongst other things , ‘Pattiyal’ is also a sign of Indian directors’ exposure to niche cinema, especially reminding us that they do see movies like ‘Boondock Saints’ and want to think and create on those lines. Maybe the industry is being killed by producers who do not want to take risks. Nevertheless, the movie is a small attempt at breaking the classical mould and searching for stories in unusual places. We have been witnessing these false starts for a while now. Hope the real thing is round the corner.

By the way, why was this movie named 'Pattiyal'? No clue!!

Long time, no write

What a week!

I’ve finally settled into a rhythm at Salt Lake City. Had a very busy week working and settling down. Got a TV and Comcast digital connection and it gave me a sense of being born again watching all my favorite shows including the Daily show with Jon Stewart.

Comcast’s on-demand service rocks!! They have bunch of free shows and movies that I can watch at any time. I can even pause them and rewind and FF like it’s a VCR. I’m loving it.

I’ll tell you about 2 letdowns but let me begin with a pleasant surprise.

Sudesi

Vijaykanth movies are pure escapist entertainers. The more serious he tries to get about making a movie, the more comical it turns out and the happier I am about it.

Sudesi is Vijaykanth’s attempt at making a movie that will serve as his election manifesto. It’s been done before and successfully so by MGR when he cracked the whip with 'Naan Aanai Ittaal' and a whole state voted for him later.

I was expecting Sudesi to be another one in a line of gems like Narasimma (India’s top most secret agent), Gajendra (Why are they calling our Gajendra as ‘Gaja Anna’)? But it turned to be something else.

Sudesi is a young (?) college graduate with a lot of inheritance that basically makes it unnecessary for him to go to work. He keeps himself busy by updating himself on the state of affairs of the country using a computer and some powerpoint presentations (as usual). This time they never really zoom into the screen to show where from he gets all the information or what he does. As usual, there is the girl (‘mora ponnu’) who pines over him. He won’t give her a second look, except when he is dancing with her in her dream sequence (so that doesn’t count).

Now to the plot: A ‘good’ CM is killed on his hospital bed by Narayanan, who is next in line. This is recorded by a hidden camera by Narisimachari, the brains behind Narayanan. He calls himself the Chanakya and Narayanan is supposed to be the Kshatriya, which is a gigantic insult to both titles. The video lands in captain’s lap. Instead of doing an expose, he uses it to blackmail the CM into doing good things for the people.

This ‘different’ story is punctuated with the usual routine of needless song 'n' dance sequences and fights (but not with 'theeviravaadhees')

What spoils the complete Vijayakanth experience is a genuinely different climax from the ones we are used to. This of course, does not indicate that you will be satisfied. I just said different, not good.

Now to the 2 disappointments.

I watched Sex, Lies and Videotape, the movie that launched Steven Soderbergh and couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about. True, the characters were well written and the dialogue very interesting at places, but I didn’t feel for any of the characters in particular and certainly didn’t care at all about what would happen to them.

The other disappointment was watching ‘Born on the fourth of July’. This was actually a decent movie about war veterans and what the experience of Vietnam has done to the country, especially to the minds of the youth at that time. Tom Cruise was brilliant as Ron Kovic, the disabled veteran from the Vietnam War. Willem Defoe hardly had anything to do. But to think that Oliver Stone got an academy award for it was something I could not agree with. There have been far more brilliant movies on war and Vietnam in particular that have gone unnoticed by the academy. The most notable of them would be ‘Full Metal Jacket’. Sometimes the academy’s choices are very hard to understand.

Aaaarrrrgh!!

I was in Atlanta this weekend at my sister's and thought I would catch the oscars there with the rest of the family. Come Oscar night and I did what I do best. I forgot to watch it. I had been looking forward to it what with Jon Stewart hosting it for the first time. Many personal favorites were nominated.

I had to make do with Roger Ebert’s write up and quotations from winning speeches. I am still googling to find when ABC will re-air it, if at all they do.

I was also reading related news articles when the following link about ‘Syriana’ caught my fancy. What an entirely different POV!!

SPOILER WARNING: The following write-up will reveal plot details from ‘Syriana’
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002846556_krauthammer06.html

And we have a movie

“And Starring Panchovilla as himself” did not seem to be much of a title, since I didn’t know who Panchovilla was in the first place. A low angle shot of Antonio Banderas brandishing old type rifles was the only recognizable feature on the cover.

But the movie was recommended to me by a good source, so I thought I should give it a go. I didn’t know the director Bruce Beresford, but upon googling, my jaw dropped when academy award nominations for his movies over the years were enough to turn a list into an ‘angavastram’.

Panchovilla was a revolutionary in turn of the century Mexico where a group of people had had enough of the government kissing American asses and turning over all the oil to the US. (I know this is a common thing for the US to do, but in 1914?? Old habits die hard!) When times were tough to run the revolutionary army with the arms embargo by US President Wilson making things impossible, Panchovilla announces that he will let any film company shoot his war for a small price of 20%.

The mutual film company, who at that time had in their rolls great names including that of Chaplin, sends a newbie named Frank Thayer to discuss and finalize terms with General Panchovilla. Pancho smirks at Frank “I wasn’t good enough for Chaplin eh?”.

But he needs the gold and agrees to the deal. This marks the start of a friendship between Frank and Pancho (the nickname for Franco in Spanish or Mexican as Pancho would say).

The cast is amazing. This is Antonio Banderas’ first serious acting assignment where he has to actually perform rather than let his ‘sex symbol’ image do it. And he does it with aplomb. His witty lines will leave you in peals of laughter or serious thought. His portrayal of Pancho as a man who is burdened by the weight of the expectations from his people is sure to surprise the audience.

The movie is a HBO production, but looks gorgeous enough to pass off as any major studio production.

Apart from telling a great story, the movie also gives interesting insights into cinema production in the early 1900s. What a long way we’ve come!!

On another note, because of the HBO tag maybe, I noticed that his movie has been completely missed by Roger Ebert and Filmcritic.com which was very surprising. Mysterious lack of publicity!

A Mature romance

Sometimes, simple stories can have a lasting effect, romantic ones especially. Romance movies, when they succeed, do so, mainly because the audience roots for the characters to get together in the end. And if the roles are played wonderfully by stars who are several times bigger than the simple characters they play, it becomes a treat to watch.

Iris (Jane Fonda) is a recently widowed line worker at the local bakery. In her words, "the line never ends". The loss of her husband and the burden of supporting two kids and her sister's family is a big source of her anxiety but she doesn't show it too much. Stanley Cox (De Niro) works in the bakery's canteen as a cook. He befriends Iris one day when she loses her purse to a robber. To her, Stanley comes across as an enigma initially. He is very withdrawn and doesn't talk a lot to her, but does give out signs that he wants to be friends. He has a very old father whom he lives with, rides a bicycle to work and does things that other men wouldn't.

Iris soon discovers the reason for Stanley's introverted personality. He can't read or write and is too ashamed to admit. Subsequently, he loses his job as a cook, when the manager decides he can't hire someone who will not be able to distinguish between sugar and rat poison.

Iris is the not the kind of woman who'd stand and watch while someone suffers. So she decides to intervene and offers to teach him to read and write. They start meeting more often which gives them the chance to understand each other's expectation from the relationship.

I do not wish to tell you much more than this, although the ending is no suspense in a movie like this. It was a treat to watch some scenes. Both performances were fantastic and just right for the story. A younger De Niro, playing a soft character is not something we see often. I can only remember him for all his "Come on"s and hand gestures when he usually plays the tough guy.
Not that I mind watching him in those roles, but this was a genuine surprise.