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”!!