'Heights of stupidity'

When John M. Mathan announced his second film, I immediately categorized it into the “eagerly anticipating release” list. I was very happy about it and in a way relieved too. Why relief? This guy made Sarfarosh a zillion years ago ( umm…. 8 actually) and never did another movie. Sarfarosh was a very good movie even though it followed a traditional screenplay pattern with songs and fights. His interviews after the success of Sarfarosh were indicative of his honest approach to film-making. When asked much later as to why we haven’t yet seen his second movie, he said something to the effect of “I am finding it very difficult to write something when I am forced to break into a song and dance every 30 minutes”. I felt very sad for him after reading that one.

After watching “Shikhar”, I felt that someone had put a gun to John’s head and forced himself to do something that he admittedly hates. The movie’s fault does not lie just in its classical song n dance break pattern, but in its story that is bereft of new ideas making it an ordeal to watch. To give you an idea, how do you think you would feel about watching a movie in which a guy slowly places firecrackers in a field and lights them one by one and they burst which is followed by “The End”. Don’t we know that the cracker was meant to burst after it was lit? In Shikhar, every plot detail, character or story turn, we know what exactly is going to happen and watch haplessly as it unfolds in the most unconvincing fashion possible.

Ajay Devgan is GG, a millionaire who wants to become a zillionaire by building a city. You read that right. He wants to build a complete city with “Five Star facilities” some three hours from Mumbai, where a millionaire turned “Baba” runs the “Rishi-van”. The Ashram is a stumbling block for GG’s plans and he wants it out of the way. It is very clear to the Baba that the construction of GG City will relocate Adivasis from their serene surrounds to the filth of Mumbai and in general will only make things worse. He does everything in his power to stop the construction and gets an injunction to the effect. GG is in no mood to let a Baba ruin his plans for what he calls his “Las Vegas”. Give me a break!! One look at Las Vegas history will let anyone know that it owes its existence to all the surplus electricity from the Hoover Dam project. There is no such explanation here as to why GG wants his city in these hills, when the only advantage you can think of is naturally available water.

To further his cause, GG befriends the Baba’s son Jai, who is a copy book version of his father. He has the same ideals, the same demeanor, and greets everyone with a “Shubam” (that one really gets on your nerves), but without the experience that you need in order to be wise. GG exploits that part of Jai and befriends him. He slowly exposes him to all the vices and soon, Jai is dancing to every one of his tunes. He even goes to his father on behalf of GG to ask for the land that GG so badly wants.

Things slowly come to a boil when Jai understands GG’s real intentions. In a climax that includes corrupt politicians, a fire, some firefighting, a judge who delivers instant verdicts and a wise chief minister among other improbable plot elements, things come to an end with “good prevailing over evil”. Whew! There is not a single turn the movie makes that you can’t predict with a certainty of 100%.

The movie’s leading ladies have such miniscule roles, that it wouldn’t make an iota of difference to the movie if they weren’t there at all. Even a reasonably good actor like Sushant Singh is unbearable in his dhoti clad ‘shudh hindi’ speaking avatar. Oh! What stupidity?!

By the way, shikhar means peak or heights. Nice name for a movie that scrapes the bottom of the barrel. Stay away from it.

'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.

Yeppa, Yeppa, Yeppappa

I remember a few months ago, I came across this photo on the June R 'Inru Isai Veliyidu' poster. I was so enchated that I stopped my bike to admire it for a minute.

Since the soundtrack was appealing, I added the movie to my list of movies to see. And naturally, when the movie finally came out, I dutifully downloaded it.

What a load of crap it turned out to be!! Put all the tearjerkers of the B&W era together and June R will still put them to shame. So much melodrama and artificiality!!

The characters in this movie exist in a parallel universe, where it is ok for someone to admit an injured stranger on the road to a hospital and start calling that person 'amma' from the next moment onwards. My parallel universe theory is validated by the injured person who immediately accepts her rescuer as a 'ponnu'. When I say immediate, I mean it. Literally!!!

Jyothika and Sarita play the characters in such unconvincing fashion that makes you wonder if they really cared at all. The mother and daughter start having a fun life together, and tragedy strikes in the form of Biju Menon's character who is Sarita's real son. He now wants his mother back and starts behaving 'decently'.

To explain the motive behind this new found affection, we have more unbeliavable characters introduced to us and they do even more unreasonable things. The only performance that deserves a mention comes from Khushbu who plays a lawyer friend of Jo's and intervenes to sort the matter out so that mother and daughter can live without any trouble from the evil son.

It is as if Revathi Varma (the director), made a list of cliches and checked it off a list. For example,

Orphan who grew up to be successful, but yearns for a family - check

Selfish son, who only wants his mother's inheritance - check

Daughter-in-law who prefers modern dresses and frequents a disco - check

Naturally she calls her husband 'Darling' (evil written all over it!) - check

Son's sudden change of heart turning to be more drama - check


I could go on like this, but what for?

Also there is a guest appearance by Surya (5 secs. at the most), which is an affront to the audience. (we have a pathetic story here, but we do have a glimpse of Surya for you.. come see it!!!)

Verdict: Avoid it like the plague!

I can't get enough of this!

Came across another infuriated 'Aadhi' viewer. Where are we heading with all these movies. By now, I am sure all my friends are tired of hearing me trash this movie, but this link surely deserves a reading.

At least the good thing was that the public seems to have rejected the movie outright. There were no comments on the lines of "It was a hit in the X, Y and Z centers."

As a bonus, you also get to read a pictorial review of "Paramasivan" aka "Vasuvin Kodumai part XXI" on the same page.

Paint it Yellow!

Its been a while (3 weeks or so..) since I watched "Rang De Basanti". I sat down to review it the very next day and something or the other kept happening. Not that I would have gotten very far with the exercise. Not that this movie needs recommendation either. If you need to be recommended an Aamir Khan movie, I know you probably wouldn't be here in the first place.

If you get goosebumps watching a movie, what more can you possibly say about it?

I watched it on a friday and followed it up with "Aadhi", "Paramasivam" & "Saravanaa" and I've never felt more wretched about the tamil industry ever.

But I digress. Just watch it. My friend Shiva, in his words, 'never reviews stuff'. But he found this movie worthy of one. You can check his bold 'third eye' on my links section and read about it.

Kushi

My roommate decided to fulfill his burning desire to watch this movie yesterday after he found out that a common friend had a DVD copy. Apparently he had missed (half of) this movie during his college days.

I believe that missing half of a movie is something that shouldn't happen to anyone. So, I gave up my laptop for the noble cause and with nothing better to do on a Friday evening, decided to participate.

Surprisingly, I found a lot wrong with it. This was a movie that I had enjoyed thoroughly with my friends. We had just finished our final year exams and were awaiting our visa dates. We couldn't have aksed for better then. Replete with witty one liners, interesting situations with an equal measure of double entendres and vulgar gyrations from Mumtaj had made sure that it would put S.J. Surya on the list of sure shot directors.

Some movies are just not meant to watched again. Its an honor that can only be bestowed on movies like The Godfather, Micheal Madana Kama Rajan and a few others like Pulp Fiction. Anyway, I made some observations.

Vijay can't act for nuts. Not then, not now and not ever. His dancing is another matter though.

I just love Jyothika on screen, but this time, all I could think of was how heavy her make up (esp her eyelashes) was. The one thing that had caught everyone's attention for good for bad was her body-language and squeaky irritating voice (blame the dubbing artiste). After watching SJ Suryah act in three movies, I am now clear about where the blame should lie.

The songs were very enjoyable to watch (with the exception of 'Kattipudi') reaffirming that it was one of Raju Sundaram's better works.

Also, SJ has a cameo in the movie (he causes Vijay's 'life changing' accident). He definitely looked better then. Just imagining him in 'Kalvanin Kaathali' delivering those romantic lines with a forlorn face, gives me the jitters now. So, I guess I'll stop.

Kalaba Kaadhalan

Call it the effect of watching Aadhi, Paramasivan, Saravanaa & Kalvanin Kaathali back to back, but Kalaba Kaadhalan did come as a whiff of fresh air.

The plot is not entirely new. People are going to call it an inspiration from 'Vaali' and its poor cousin ‘Sheesha’ (hindi), which reversed genders in the Vaali storyline and had Neha Dhupia in the lead. It also ultimately failed at the box office because of the fact that her breasts, however attractive, couldn’t do the acting.

There is a state of mind when we contemplate doing something that we know for sure is taboo. When we are done contemplating about all the consequences and have let the heart rule the mind, we come to a stage where we are done thinking and we start doing it. The protagonist of ‘Kalaba Kaadhalan’, Kanmani is in such a state of mind.

Kanmani’s elder sister Anbarasi has recently married Akilan, who is as perfect as a groom can be in Kanmani’s eyes. She has convinced herself that the best option for her is to marry Akilan. She comes to town to stay with the newly weds on the pretext of ‘attending a computer course’ and after doting on him for several days, bizarrely, approaches him with the idea. What is novel about the whole thing is that, Kanmani is not an evil woman. She has no interest in stealing him from her sister. In her mind, she cannot see what she is doing wrong by asking her sister or Akilan to consent to the arrangement. Akilan is taken aback. He tries to talk her out of it at first but she doesn’t budge one bit. Akilan’s surprise turns later to sympathy and then to outright anger, which is understandable from our point of view, but leaves Kanmani unfazed. These events provide for some interesting scenes and some cliched ones.

The movie then meanders towards an ending, which I have no intention of giving away. Suffice to say that there’s a good chance that you’ll guess wrong.

Arya (or is it ‘Aarya’) plays Akilan, the sophisticated alpha male from the big city with an air of simplicity around him. Arya is still stuck in the ‘chin down, eyeballs up’ mode that he was using effectively in ‘Arinthum Ariyaamalum’. It doesn’t quite work in this movie. He has a few moments but there is nothing earth shattering about his acting. At least, in my humble opinion, this is right kind of material for him. In his last outing in ‘Oru Kallooriyin kadhai’, he was abysmal.

Renuka Menon as Anbarasi has very little to do apart from appearing in a couple of songs. There is not much to talk about her, but surely, the dubbing artiste could have been a little easy on our ears. The squeaking voice is just as irritating as it was in ‘Aa .. Aah’ where, I think the same person had dubbed for Nila.

But the pick of the pack is surely Akshaya who plays Kanmani. We get her character established very early in the movie in a totally unnecessary scene. It’s a dead giveaway of the plot. Her expressive eyes help her a long way in registering a convincing performance and I hope we get to see more of her.

My best wishes go to the directory ‘Igor’ (what a name! and the I is pronounced as in idli) for choosing not to make another ‘Aadhi’, ‘Paramasivan’ or ‘Saravanaa’.

Thanks for coming to the Poojai!

Hi,

Welcome to my blog. Here you will find my opinions on movies. I've been wanting to do this for a long time now, but being the lazy person that I am, its taken all this while to convert my thought into action. I watch a lot of movies and whenever I feel there is something to say about a particular movie, I plan to jot it down here.

I hope this can be a place to objectively discuss movies, not only from India and the US, but the rest of the world (Thanks to DVDs and subtitles).

Once again thanks for visiting.