De Monte Colony

There’s this school-mate of mine, who is currently in Gurgaon. During the course of a casual conversation yesterday evening, we suddenly decided to watch the Tamil movie, “De Monte Colony”, playing at a multiplex here. We reached the mall just in time, booked our tickets and just had enough time to gulp down our dinner. Whilst guzzling down mouthfuls of lassi after dinner, I fondly recalled the good times we had together when we were in school and subsequently college. It was common for us to cycle down to Mount Road, catch up with a movie, and have our favourite lassi (in the narrow lane behind Devi complex) before heading home. Reminiscently, I told him things have changed now. He argued that things were still the same except that we now drove cars instead of cycles and were having not-so-tasty food at more plush places! The jury is still out on this topic. But after watching “De Monte Colony”, I can say that Tamil cinema has indeed come a long way from the times I cycled down to Mount Road to catch up with the latest releases!

The movie directed by debutant Ajay Gnanamuthu, will provide you with thrills rarely seen in Tamil horror movies. Post-Chandramukhi, a lot of horror flicks have been made in Tamil. But almost all of them have had a comedy track and a love angle mixed into the scheme of things to keep a wide range of audience happy. Ajay Gnanamuthu, a former assistant of AR Murugadoss, steers clear of this established “masala” formula and comes up with a winner! The screenplay is a tad slow and could have been racier, especially the opening scenes. But once the movie gets into the main plot, a good 20-odd minutes after the start, it keeps you gripped, providing thrills that have never been seen before in Tamil cinema.

The wonderful background score of Keba Jeremiah, a guitarist working for AR Rahman, adds to the effect. Yes, the background score gets a bit shriller in the second half, but purely for the work he has put on in the first half, he deserves a special mention! It would indeed be worthwhile to say that his background score takes the movie to a different level!

Aravind Singh’s camera work too deserves a mention. This former assistant of Santosh Sivan adds to the feel of the movie with his lighting and wonderful angles.

Overall, “De Monte Colony” is worth a watch not only for horror movie aficionados, but also for people who love the “new age” Tamil cinema. It is definitely not for kids and the weak-hearted, though!

P.S: Such was the effect of this movie that when I was woken up by a power cut in the middle of the night yesterday (coincidentally it was exactly 12 in the midnight when I checked the time in my phone!), I had a few scenes from the movie playing up in my mind. It took a few minutes for me to “erase” them out and catch up with my sleep again!

36 Vayadhinile

Honestly, the only reason I booked tickets for Jyothika’s comeback film “36 Vayadhinile” was just to ensure that my free movie ticket vouchers (offered by American Express) weren’t wasted! I knew this was a heroine-centric movie and the remake of a Malayalam hit (I didn’t even know the name of the film it was based on). I didn’t have any expectations about the movie and in fact, as I walked into the multiplex, I was visualizing a very clichéd plot. How wrong I was!

Right from the initial scenes, when the director keeps you guessing about the purpose of the police department conducting background verification on Vasanthi Tamilselvan, played by Jyothika, to the end, when Vasanthi Tamilselvan meets the President of India, this film is refreshingly different. Director Roshan Andrews breaks all clichés of a heroine-centric movie and comes up with a winner. If there’s something he could have done differently, it’s the characterization of Tamilselvan, Vasanthi’s husband, played by Rahman. A husband-who-treats-his-wife-like-a-maid is the only cliché that the director ends up dishing out in an otherwise different movie. And yes, we are thankfully spared of scheming, villainous in-laws. We get to see folks who are very supportive of their daughter-in-law!

This performance is undoubtedly, Jyothika’s best! She has shed plenty of kilos, looks much younger and has come up with a performance of a lifetime! Be it as a simple middleclass working woman in the first half or as a woman who is out to prove herself in the second half, she is simply amazing!

Special mention to R.Diwakaran’s camera for capturing the small by-lanes of Triplicane beautifully! It surely did bring back fond memories of the place where I grew up! Surprisingly, nobody from Triplicane told me about the shooting of this film!

Lalitha Vijayakumar’s rendition of the title track “Rasathi”, a catchy tune composed by Santhosh Narayanan is also worth a mention.

Jyothika couldn’t have selected a better script for her comeback film! This film is not just about feminism, woman empowerment etc. It’s also about dealing with mid-career blues that everyone goes through! This film is definitely worth a watch with your entire family! Go for it!!

O Kaadhal Kanmani

A decade and a half ago, as a bachelor in mid-twenties, I was astonished when I heard my father say that he had booked tickets for Mani Ratnam’s “Alaipaayuthey”. Everyone knew it was Mani Ratnam’s comeback to the romance genre after a bit of “experimentation”. I was wondering how on earth I was going to watch a romantic (Mani Ratnam) movie along with my parents! “Alaipaayuthey” turned out to be a classy entertainer and was nowhere close to making you squirm in your seats as I feared!

Fifteen years later, Mani Ratnam again makes a comeback to the romance genre with “O Kaadhal Kanmani”. I am now married, blessed with two kids, with the elder being a preteen. As usual, I was one of the early birds to buy my tickets as soon the bookings opened! Just a minute or so after the online booking was completed, I pondered if this movie would be worth watching with my preteen elder son, considering that it’s about live-in relationships. And, just like “Alaipaayuthey”, Mani Ratnam again comes out with a wonderful movie, hardly putting me in a tough spot, throughout the duration of the 150-odd minutes movie!

“O Kaadhal Kanmani” has MANI RATNAM stamped all over it! Be it the story, screenplay, dialogues, picturization of songs or the lighting/camera, anyone with a little bit of knowledge on Tamil films will tell you it’s a Mani Ratnam movie. Though the story might sound kind of risqué to traditional audience, Mani Ratnam treads carefully and comes out with a winner!

Dulquer Salmaan, with his boy-next-door looks, rocks with his performance. Don’t be surprised if he ends up as the heartthrob of college girls, a la Karthik in the 1980’s/1990’s and Madhavan in the 2000’s. Nithya Menen too comes up trumps with her performance. With her Taapsee Pannu plus Preity Zinta looks and good histrionic skills, she is sure to capture the imagination of youngsters. Special mention to Prakash Raj, for his subtle portrayal of a husband taking special care of his Alzheimer affected wife.

PC Sreeram’s photography is just amazing. The very first scene of the movie shot at a railway station, with the hero and the heroine standing in two platforms facing each other, with one stationary train and one moving train, shows his mastery! Mumbai city, shown in a greyish tinge for a major portion of the movie, gives a fascinating feel to every frame!

AR Rahman’s background score again oscillates between pedestrian and work of genius, though it’s the latter for most of the movie!

Cricket commentators commonly use the parlance, “Form is temporary; class is permanent”. Watching O Kaadhal Kanmani, I guess this parlance surely fits Mani Ratnam! After a forgettable Kadal, he comes up with a winner, and how! But I am surprised he decided against a simultaneous remake of this film in Hindi. I am sure the Hindi audience would have lapped up this movie! Film critic Baradwaj Rangan, in his review in The Hindu, said you can watch this movie with your grandmother. He is absolutely right! Go, watch it! Its sure “paisa vasool”!

Shamitabh Audio Review

Illayaraja is my all-time favourite music director and Dhanush, one of my favourite contemporary heroes! Naturally, Shamitabh, the upcoming Hindi movie, they are working together in, is one of the movies I am eagerly awaiting. Meanwhile, thanks to Facebook, I came to know just today that the audio of Shamitabh was launched almost a week ago! Now, how can I stop myself from not listening to the album?

Grapevine has it that Shamitabh is about young man’s dreams of making it big in filmdom. It is natural that the album opens with the song, “Ishq E Phillum”, rendered well by Suraj Jagan. The lyrics are a clear indicator that the grapevine is indeed right! However, the song is brilliant in only patches! The Illayaraja touch is “visible” only at a few places. Otherwise, the lyrics make the song, describing a young man’s obsession with films, makes it interesting to listen to!

The next song, “Sha Sha Sha Mi Mi Mi”, crooned brilliantly by Caralisa Monteiro, is a chartbuster in the making! You can “see” the Illayaraja touch in this song, though it might slightly remind you of the famous (1980’s) Runa Laila albums!! The violin interludes, especially the second interlude, have the classic Illayaraja stamp on them!! To me, this song is my pick of the album!!

“Pidly Si Baatein”, rendered by Amitabh Bachchan, that follows is another interesting song of the album. A solo violin interlude, lasting 20-odd seconds, makes it worth listening! Only Illayaraja can come up with such brilliant stuff I guess!! And yes, hats off to Amitabh Bachchan for an amazing rendition!!

The next song, “Stereophonic Sannata”, is a remix of Illayaraja’s 1980’s chartbuster, “Aasaiya Kaathule Thoodhu Vittu” (Johnny). Shruti Hassan’s voice spices up this song that has sufficient doses of modern day percussion instruments to keep Gen Y busy on the dance floor!!  

“Thappad”, crooned by Suraj Jagan & Earl D’Souza, again sees an interesting mix of percussion instruments and sounds like a song tailor-made for the dance floor!!

The album signs off with “Lifebuoy”, an interesting song that remixes the original lyrics/tune of the Lifebuoy ad!!

Overall, Illayaraja seems to have attempted to please both his diehard fans as well as Gen Y, for whom a song is something that is meant to dance!! In the process, we only get to hear the classic Illayaraja only in patches!! Thankfully, diehard Illayaraja fans have a huge collection of his songs from the 1970’s to 1990’s to listen any time and this one certainly doesn’t fall into that category!!

I Movie Review

Put yourself in my shoes for a while. Imagine living far away from your hometown for a very longish period of time. Imagine missing your family and friends whenever you celebrate a festival. Imagine things falling in place suddenly and you are about to visit your hometown for Diwali! And then, it pours cats and dogs right from the time you land in your hometown (it’s anyway Northeast monsoon season in Chennai during Diwali)! Thanks to the rains, imagine being forced to stay indoors, not being able to meet all your friends and ending up celebrating Diwali minus the crackers!! This is exactly how I felt watching Shankar’s much awaited “I”!! It has everything you expect out of a Shankar film, wonderfully shot songs, a brisk screenplay, amazing performances, yet, fails to fulfill your craving!

Credit to director Shankar for his screenplay that keeps you engrossed, though the storyline is a simple true-love-always-triumphs. It is pretty easy to guess what’s going to happen next, but he maintains the tempo and manages to keep your attention focused on the screen. As you can expect in a Shankar film, the songs have been shot/choreographed too well. The action sequences have also been shot pretty well, especially the one involving bicycles, shot on a rooftop! This action sequence will be remembered for a long time.

No praise will be too high for the kind of stuff Vikram has come up with!! Be it as a body builder, be it as a star-struck fan of the heroine Amy Jackson or be it as a hunchback extracting revenge, he comes up aces with his performance. To come up with such a brilliant performance with so much of prosthetics (as a hunchback) is no mean achievement. Be ready to see his name being called out at most of the award ceremonies next year!!

Amy Jackson’s role in this film isn’t the routine sing-and-dance-with-the-hero kind of stuff. She fits into the role of a leading model to the T. After a brief period of sounding monotonous, Santhanam tickles the funny bone in this movie. Special mention to PC Sreeram, whose photography was a treat to the eyes, especially the song sequences shot in China. AR Rahman’s background score was a treat, especially in the bicycle action sequence, his re-recording added to the effect.

Coming back to where I started this post, though the plans to celebrate Diwali didn’t go exactly the way you wanted it to be, you’ll anyway be happy for having visited your hometown after a long time. Same is the feeling with “I” too! Though it lacks the all-important Shankar “punch”, it has the complete quota of the Shankar “touch”. It is definitely worth your time and money if you disagree with a famous film critic’s view that “Shankar’s niche is now a cliché”!!

PK

The first movie I saw, featuring an extra-terrestrial in an important role, was the Steven Spielberg classic, ET.  Though I was just 8 years old then, I vividly recall my imagination running wild, wondering what I would be doing if I came across an extra-terrestrial in real life. I almost had a similar feeling whilst walking out of the multiplex after watching Aamir Khan’s PK, which features him in the lead role as an extra-terrestrial. The difference this time was that I was nodding in agreement with the thoughts of the director Rajkumar Hirani, about how an extra-terrestrial will view our (religious) beliefs!

The line between holding up a mirror for you to reflect upon your beliefs and hurting your sentiments is rather thin. The director treads this thin line with exceptional craftsmanship, ensuring that you only end up reflecting on your beliefs and not being hurt! He comes up with some wonderful real life situations, infuses witty dialogues and aided by a wonderful performance from Aamir Khan, who speaks Bhojpuri in this film, dishes out a memorable film! For a change, the heroine is not restricted to running around trees and singing duets with the hero. Anushka Sharma, as Jaggu, working for a television news channel, comes up with an enchanting performance, almost matching Aamir Khan!

It’s not that the movie is entirely flawless. There are times when you feel a particular scene could have been shorter. There are times when you are reminded of another wonderful Hindi film “Oh My God”. Towards the end, you definitely feel that the director could have avoided some “masala” elements in the movie. However, as a package, you will end up loving this film and would generously forgive the director for these minor flaws!

Special mention to Aamir Khan’s performance as an extra-terrestrial, struggling to come to terms with the (religious) ways of us earthlings. His choice of Bhojpuri as the language the extra-terrestrial learns/speaks is interesting and his dialogue delivery with a pan in his mouth (most of the time) makes the viewing more enjoyable. This guy definitely has mastered the art of striking an emotional chord with his audience. The last Aamir Khan movie I saw in a multiplex was “Taare Zameen Par”. It definitely struck a chord with me. It was déjà vu with PK towards the end, knowing fully well that the emotional element was an unnecessary “masala” addition to the film!

Or, may be, I was carried away by the emotions of Jaggu’s father, who is elated at the launch/book reading of his daughter’s novel. May be I was reminded of my father who was as elated when one of my stories was published in “The Hindu” last year!

Whatever, there’s no doubt I liked this film. Go watch it and enjoy! It’s worth your time and money!

Lingaa - Movie Review

It was on the stroke of the tea break of the India vs Australia Adelaide test match today that I left home to watch Lingaa. The match was nicely setup and I thought there was no way India was going to lose this match. I was too excited about Lingaa and didn’t think too much about not being able to watch an exciting final session of the test match.

The first shock came when I entered auditorium of the multiplex. It was just half full (you can also say half empty, but being an eternal optimist, I prefer to call it half full)! Second day of a Rajnikanth film and a half full auditorium was too much to digest. Since Lingaa had 17 shows/day this weekend here in Gurgaon, I convinced myself assuming that the crowd must have been split between the shows. After all, 17 shows/day for a place like Gurgaon is way too much!

The next shock came when the name “Super Star” started to appear on the screen. Except for a couple of folks whistling and screaming on the top of their voice, there wasn’t much to say that I was watching a Rajnikanth film! With just around a hundred people in the auditorium, how can you expect a Chennai-like reception for the Super Star, I again convinced myself!

The movie started minus a brisk pace and the Rajnikanth-esque energy. I just couldn’t believe what I was watching. Suddenly I remembered Adelaide! I checked my phone. There was a text message from a schoolmate informing me that the match was interestingly poised. A colleague sent a message on WhatsApp asking me if I was watching the match! I rued missing the match!! But thanks to technology, I kept myself abreast of the happenings at Adelaide through my smartphone.

Meanwhile, after an agonizing 45-odd minutes, the movie started to become a bit interesting. Though there weren’t any unexpected twists and turns, the flashback was just beginning to make life a bit better. But then, I remembered John Pennycuick, the man who built Mullaperiyar dam! The flashback story was almost like watching a biopic of this great man, except that the protagonist here was an Indian. On the stroke of intermission, a message in one of my WhatsApp groups read, “India loses by 48 runs”. Was this movie also all but “lost”, I wondered!

After a longish flashback, the contemporary Rajnikanth comes back into the story for the climax part, does an unbelievable action sequence and walks away with the heroine. Nobody, I repeat, nobody has anything to do in this movie except Rajnikanth. But credit to him for carrying this movie on his shoulders, just like Virat Kohli played out of his skin at Adelaide! The comparison doesn’t end there. Just as Virat Kohli had nobody supporting him except Murali Vijay, Rajnikanth too doesn’t find support from anybody else except the art direction team and cameraman Rathnavelu! But all said and done, Rajnikanth still rocks with this style!!

As I started my car from the parking lot after watching the movie, the audio system started playing the song, “Nenje Ezhu” (wake up my heart) from “Maryan”. The theme of this song is captured by the words “Kaadhal Azhiyaadhe” (love is indestructible) that repeats many times. I thought, whatever it is, the love for Rajnikanth is definitely indestructible! Watch Lingaa for Rajnikanth and nothing else!!