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Rabble Rousing Random Ramblings by S Jagadish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
Re-viewing Apoorva Sahodarargal
I just finished watching Apoorva Sahodarargal on TV. Twenty years have passed, but it remains such an entertaining movie, although some of the stunts do look tacky now. Hackneyed plot, but superbly executed thanks to the director (Singeetham Srinivasa Rao), writer ('Crazy' Mohan), the actors (Kamal, Srividya, Manorama, Gautami, Janakaraj, Nasser, Nagesh, 'Delhi' Ganesh, Jaishankar etc.) and great music (Ilayaraja).
I guess it was one of the earliest movies featuring the Mohan-Kamal-Rao combination which also gave us other brilliant stuff like MMKR and Magalir Mattum (maybe I left out some other movies). I've seen this movie so many times, and but as it happens with the Kamal-Mohan combination, I still found a new wisecrack/pun to laugh at. A few months ago, I'd bought the MMKR VCD and I discovered new things to laugh at - this when I thought I knew every dialogue!
As for Apoorva Sahodarargal, it was the first time I realized that the one commonality to the deaths of 'Delhi' Ganesh, Nasser, Jaishankar & Nagesh is that there was no evidence in the form of finger-prints.
Labels: kamal haasan, movies, review, tamil
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We saw Cheran's "Thavamai Thavamirundhu" a few months after its release. It took us three sittings at night to watch the entire movie, because of its length and since we could only have watched it peacefully after Jaagruthi had slept, close to midnight typically!
Ganesh briefly reviewed it a couple of weeks ago. My attempt here is not to review the movie per se.
Cheran's earlier movie 'Autograph', reviewed here two years ago certainly has a massive influence on the movie making style he chooses for this one. His earlier movies like Bharathi Kannamma, Vettri Kodikattu, Porkaalam and Paandavar Bhoomi didn't rely as heavily on flashbacks as Autograph and Thavamai Thavamirundhu have.
Raj Kiran is best known for prompting the question "Raj Kiran-ukku veshti thevaya?" thanks to his numerous thigh exposures in the 1980s and 1990s. I had never seen a shred of evidence that he could actually act and emote. For Cheran to make him act the way did is, in my opinion, even superior to Mani Ratnam getting Rajinikanth to emote in Dalapathi.
I always felt that Rajini had, in his early movies, shown a potential to act capably. Unfortunately superstardom meant that he started belting out masala movies by the half-dozen every year and his acting ability was completely overshadowed by the theatrics of popping the cigarette into his mouth, catching live grenades while diving through the air, mouthing meaningless punch dialogues etc.
If Cheran made Raj Kiran's acting memorable in the movie, it is full credit to both of them. Perhaps Raj Kiran is a director's actor after all.
While it was plainly obvious that Raj Kiran would eventually die in hospital, the timing was wonderful. All he wanted from his son was a confirmation that he hadn't erred in bringing them up the way he did and his sacrifices had not been in vain.
What did puzzle Krithi and me was why Cheran chose this theme. We had three answers. Take your pick:
- His father is/was very similar to the one portrayed in the movie.
- His father is/was the total antithesis of the one in the movie.
- He possibly missed out on having the canopy of a father-figure in his childhood, for various reasons. So he tried to fantasize about how he'd have loved his father to have been.
As an aside, is there any site which replicates IMDB for Indian movies exclusively?
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Chandramukhi: A review from someone who isn't a Rajini 'rasigan'
Statutory warning: If you are a Rajini rasigan, you may not like what follows.
Ok here's the first disclaimer: I am not, by any stretch of imagination, a fan of Rajinikanth. Well at least not the Rajinikanth we've been seeing in the movies for the last fifteen-twenty years. I admit that I liked his characters and his portrayal of those characters when he was new into the industry.
The second disclaimer is that I've watched neither Manichitrathaazhu or Apta Mitra. Chandramukhi is based on both these movies, apparently.
In case you have no clue about what this movies is about, I suggest you search around. I wont go too much into the gory details. Rajini (Saravanan) and Prabhu (Senthilnathan) are childhood friends. We get to understand sometime during the movie, thankfully sans a flashback, that Rajini was brought up and sent to the US by Prabhu's parents. Rajini is a psychiatrist, apparently one of the leading ones of his ilk worldwide. Prabhu has purchased a huge palace to please his wife Jyothika (Ganga). He has however heard stories of some spirits (not of the bottled kind) associated with that mansion. So he gives Rajini a buzz to see if he could help out. Rajini comes and checks out the place and is convinced that something is wrong.
Meanwhile Jyothika becomes too curious when she hears about the ghost of 'Chandramukhi' haunting the place. A local priest tells them all about Chandramukhi, a dancer from what is now Andhra Pradesh, and how she was abducted by the local king. She had already been in love with a dancer and she manages to get that dancer to move into a plot right next to the king's palace so that they could enjoy each other's company. Very convenient, that. The king comes to know of this and kills both of them. Her ghost haunts the palace, determined to seek revenge. Jyothika's curiousity gets the better of her and she provides rent-free accomodation for Chandramukhi's spirit. Strange things start happening and Prabhu is concerned. A long-moustached ghost buster wearing regal robes also tries to drive away the ghost but fails. Rajini steps in and applies his superior intellect and figures out that Jyothika is suffering from schizophrenia. He devises a plan to rescue Jyothika and to ensure that Chandramukhi's spirit is killed forever.
There're two redeeming factors in this movie: the comedy and the climax. Rajini and Vadivelu have a few nice scenes. The least they could have done was to not directly copy the famous horror story-telling scene between Nagesh and Balayya in Kadhalikka Neramillai. While the combination does raise a few laughs, it does have its fair share of unnecessary double-entendre. The climax is quite interesting and gripping.
The first three-quarters of the movie is pretty much junk. There're a few totally needless songs where Nayantara flits in and flits out, as Rajini's lover. Of course, there is the mandatory "thatthuvam" song where Rajini extolls the virtues of how no occupation is undignified etc. The other songs shamelessly praise Rajini, one of them even has kites formed to say "SUPERSTAR"! Thankfully he spares us of his sermonizing dialogues he has given us over the last few years where he often talks about how a woman should be modest, be true to her culture, not become too greedy and general sh!t like that. Rajini's young look in the movie is credited to his make-up. However the enormous number of white patches makes the make-up look so bloody obvious.
I have no idea why Rajini is playing such a role. It does not suit him at all. He certainly appears like a fish out of water. I would rather see him wear glasses without frames and slug it out with Raghuvaran, even if that was 10 years ago. At least he would look more comfortable doing that kind of role. You could have picked any one of around 300 actors in Tamil cinema and they could have played the role. The movie is bound to be a hit, after all Rajini's fans will ensure it. But that does not mean the movie is good. I think the best performance in the movie came from the chap who stands next to Akilandeswari and shows off his six-pack abs. The second best performance came from the huge snake which makes its appearance ever so often.
Including this one, Rajini's last two or three movies have all had a sort of sequence in them. They have either been based on the occult (Baba) or they have involved him controlling and overpowering a female character with a name bearing a lot of mystique, such as umm ... Neelambari and Chandramukhi. Besides, the names of female characters in his movies are also really strange: Chamundeswari (Manisha Koirala) and Akilandeswari (some relative of Prabhu in 'Chandramukhi').
Perhaps there's a pattern in there. Perhaps Rajini movies only do well when there's a strong female character in them and he shows his manhood in overpowering it ...
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I went on a company sponsored movie outing today to watch the movie Troy starring Brad Pitt, Julian Glover & Peter O'Toole among others & directed by Wolfgang Petersen. In case you didnt know, Petersen has quite a few nice/hit movies to his credit: Never Ending Story in the mid 80s, In the Line of Fire, Outbreak, Perfect Storm etc.
The movie is only loosely based on the Trojan war as described by Homer & Aeschylus which forms part of the wonderful epic, Iliad, which I must confess I have hardly read properly. I remember reading an abridged version nearly 10-15 years ago. Clearly there's no way justice will be done in a scenario where a 10 year war is abridged into a couple of hours. The movie goes far away from the original story on a number of occasions.
Menelaus is shown as being killed by Hector when he tries to kill Paris in a one-on-one battle while the truth is that Menelaus survived the war and let Helen live, smitten by her beauty.
Achilles is shown as being in the Trojan horse which was sent as a 'gift' to Troy by the Greeks who were withdrawing the siege. The reality is that Achilles wasn't there. Why? Because he was already dead. Paris does kill Achilles, but it is before Troy is destroyed, not after.
Samanth condescendingly writes that Petersen's Helen isn't even beautiful enough to launch a dinghy, let alone a thousand ships. I wondered about that too! Surely they could have found someone really stunning to play that role. It doesnt involve any acting anyway!
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We saw the new Mani Ratnam movie Aayitha Ezhuthu last weekend. For various reasons, we ended up watching it on a pirated CD rather than in the theatre, which is where we'd ideally have preferred watching it.
The movie is about the lives of Inba (Madhavan), Michael (Surya) & Arjun (Siddarth) and how their lives change after an event on Napier Bridge. [correct me if I'm wrong, arent Hamilton bridge and Napier bridge the same?]
Inba is a rowdy and he frequently gets to count the bars on account of his various misdeeds. His brother works for the local MLA as a henchman. Inba wants to have a lot of power, like an MLA or any other politician. He beats his wife (Meera Jasmine) and yet she flies home the moment he asks her to come back after any quarrel.
Michael is a sort of genius, a born leader and revolutionary. Even though he has an opportunity to go to the US for higher studies, he refuses the offer. Instead, he wants to clean up the political system by ensuring that the youth get into it. He is prepared to fight well entrenched politicians and their goondas to achieve his goal. Esha Deol plays his love angle and has little to do.
Arjun is a yuppie and has a couple of ambitions - have lots of girlfriends and study & settle in the USA. He is perfectly happy chasing these two dreams. Trisha is the girl he really falls in love with.
When Michael meddles around with things like local elections by visiting a nearby locality and getting one of the women in the area to nominate herself, he makes himself a target of the political establishment. He is firmly a marked man when the woman wins. Movie director Bharathiraja plays the local MLA (or well, some elected representative!). He even tries to meddle around with the college elections but is thwarted by Michael and his supporters. Bharathiraja then gets his henchman's brother Inba to eliminate Michael.
The movie goes into flashback from the moment Inba shoots Michael, describing the events which culminated in the shooting.
Where does Arjun fit into this? What happens to Michael? What about Inba? Does Michael achieve his goal of winning a few seats in the election?
Overall the movie is quite good. The timing of the release could make an impact, with elections just over and quite a few 20-30 somethings having entered Parliament. The basic theme of the movie is to instigate the youth (which is why the movie has also been made in Hindi as Yuva) to enter the political system to clean it up from inside rather than adopt a policy of laissez faire. Surya and Madhavan have done a very good job. Surya has, of late, been doing different types of roles so this movie will be a good addition to his resume. Madhavan's last couple of movies have seen him as a ruffian, so maybe he's getting stereotyped? Siddarth really has nothing to do. Bharathiraja as the villain is reasonably adequate. Watch out for him getting more such roles in future.
You could get confused when the first flashback gets over. We wondered about if the CD had got stuck and it had started playing the movie all over again. Then a few seconds later, having watched so many movies, we figured out that this was the end of the flashback.
Unfortunately, since we saw it on a pirated CD, there were quite a few cuts, including two songs. So remember to watch it on the big screen!
Mani Ratnam is possibly experimenting with a new genre of film making now and could be picking more such themes. In the 1990s he made Roja and Bombay and Kannathil Mutthamitaal a couple of years ago. Obviously he has exhausted conflict & terror related themes.
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Movies
We saw the Tamil movie Autograph yesterday. The movie is a recollection of past incidents in the hero (played by the director Cheran himself) Senthil's life, about the women he met and fell in love with and the pain he experiences after seeing them a few years later. The incidents are woven together beautifully. Cheran flips nonchalantly from each phase of Senthil's life to the present. Senthil's relationships with his two loves and with his friend are handled with a lot of sensitivity and maturity, something you don't really expect from movie makers in this day and age. So many movies I've seen in the recent past tended to start off with characterizing the relationship between the hero and the heroine as being platonic in nature but in the end, due to force of circumstances (or of their own making), they fall in love and everyone lives happily ever after. Cheran has thankfully avoided the oft-beaten path.
The movie starts off with Senthil inviting everyone who has made a difference to his life, friends as well as his two lady loves. As he steps into the village where he grew up, he gets nostalgic about his childhood, his friends, the great times he had with them etc. The focus gradually shifts to Kamala, his first love. The situations involving the two are really nicely done and evoke quite a few guffaws at the goofups. Unfortunately, their love cannot proceed beyond class X because her education is being aborted. Senthil locates an old friend and with his help, he locates Kamala, who is now a mother of 3. Senthil is pained at her state but nevertheless invites Kamala and her husband to his wedding. He then leaves for Kerala where he did his college and fell in love with a Malayali girl, Lathika, crossing several linguistic barriers in the process. That affair doesn't last too long either and he gets beaten up by Lathika's father's henchmen and he last sees her in a boat, married to her relative, who was also their classmate. When he tries to locate Lathika with the help of a Tamil classmate, he tells him about the new woman in his life, Divya (played excellently by Sneha). Divya helps Senthil get his current job, in an advertising agency. She gives him the confidence to look to the future rather than brood over the past, conveying the theme of the movie that time is a great healer, but you must want to be healed. Sneha's character was a little predictable, in that while outwardly she is extremely self-confident and a go-getter, she flits from crisis to crisis, whether it is an attempted suicide for a failed love affair or her mother being critically ill.
Senthil then finds out that Lathika got widowed shortly after her marriage and soon ended up being alone with no-one to support her. Senthil begins to blame himself for her plight and decides to call off his marriage. Divya counsels him against doing this and convinces him that Lathika's pitiful existence wasn't his fault. Their love was sincere but external factors decided that they couldn't marry. The ending is quite predictable, Kamala and Lathika make it to the wedding and cast one longing glance at Senthil just as they exit stage right. The fight scenes were quite unnecessary, so producer Cheran could have saved some money by not using Super Subbarayan. The songs are quite ok and Bharadwaj has done a good job. The lyrics to most of the songs are also quite good.
The movie does make you think back to Azhagi a few times, perhaps because it touches on school love, village school life etc. But I suppose the subjects are different, so it isn't worth comparing. Overall it is a top effort from Cheran. A movie of this nature really does make you feel glad that meaningful cinema is possible, even today.
I did notice something anachronistic in the movie and if you feel I'm wrong, please let me know. Senthil's classmates in the village school kid their teacher/headmaster on the way he breaks wind (farts, for those who care to know) when they pose for a Class X group photograph by telling him "Sir, neenga matter-a potta dhaane sirippu varum". Well it was funny, but given that these were events in flashback and assuming Senthil, having done an undergraduation course and worked for a while, must be at least 21 years old, it means boys in village schools around 8 years ago were using words like "matter". I did find that hard to believe, because I think "matter" is much more likely to be used by high-school/college chaps in Madras nowadays and its difficult to think of high school boys in a village near Dindigal using that vocabulary.
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General
I hate John Dunlop. I hate him for getting the bright idea of the pneumatic tyre sometime in the late 1880s. Dunlop was a veterinarian whose son was prescribed cycling as a cure for a heavy cold. In those days, wheels were treaded with metal and so the ride wasn't comfortable. The story also goes that his son destroyed his garden by cycling in it. So Dunlop tried to smoothen the ride by making a tube using glued strips of rubber, wrapped the tube around the wheel and wrapped the tube in linen tape to make a tread. Then he inflated the tube with compressed air using a pump for filling footballs. Lo behold, the first pneumatic tyre, making rides smoother for millions of vehicles!!
However Dunlop's bright idea meant that if you had a punctured tube/tyre, your ride was stalled because you couldn't take the vehicle anywhere without fixing the puncture. Thats exactly what happened to us yesterday when we went to watch Ab tak chappan at a nearby movie complex. Read on for a brief review.
Movies
Ab Tak Chappan features Nana Patekar as Sadhu Agashe, the encounter specialist and his life. The movie is produced by Ram Gopal Varma and is directed by yet-another-new-director-introduced-by-RGV. Of late, most of Ram Gopal Varma's productions have tended to border on the dark side, such as Bhoot, Jungle, Darna Mana Hai. In Ab tak Chappan, he goes back to his favourite gang/underworld/cop theme. Nana Patekar's bosses have full faith in him, but one of his subordinates (Imtiaz, played by the chap who played the dissident Lakha in Lagaan - isn't he getting stereotyped in these roles?) thinks he's a publicity monger. The new police commissioner isn't too impressed with Sadhu Agashe's encounters and tries to bring him down to earth. Sadhu is in regular touch with a most wanted underworld don called Zameer (who seems to be living in Malaysia) and Zameer has an enmity with the 'company' of Feroze and Rajashekar. Zameer constantly tries to bring Nana over to his side, but keeps failing. Feroze is captured by the cops but escapes from jail. Revathi (who plays Nana's wife) is murdered at a party. Zameer tells Nana that he suspects Feroze has killed her. Nana's life takes a turn for the worse when he is held responsible for a corporator's death (who he'd met the day before he resigned) and he has to flee Bombay. Imtiaz now heads the team Nana was in charge of and they manage to snare Nana. Nana's juniors, who support him and are against Imtiaz, kill Imtiaz and free Nana. Nana Patekar, with Zameer's help, flees India and lands up in Zameer's place.
Does Sadhu Agashe manage to find out who his wife's killer was? Will he team up with an underworld don to finish off another? Is there a twist in the tale? Well, don't bother to go and see this movie. There is a twist, for sure. But its not worth 3 hours of your time and nearly 100 Rs of tickets/eatables etc. It is not a patch on the most recent cop movie I saw,
Kaaka Kaaka by Gautham, starring Surya & Jyothika.
We certainly expected more violence than was eventually shown, which is odd for a gangster-police movie. Ab tak chappan, is what the producer RGV, will be saying the day after he says ab tak pachpan, which is what he'll say the day after he says ab tak chauvvan ... it'd be a miracle if this movie ran for 56 days. RGV should be counting down from Ab tak bees.
Cricket
An interview with the real McCoy, the real master blaster, Viv Richards on his birthday.
Link of the day
Spam is nothing new, it goes as far back as March 1994. An even earlier message is found through the Internet Archive. Find out what the Monty Python group's contribution to this is.
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Movies
We watched the Aparna Sen movie 'Mr. & Mrs. Iyer' yesterday on the idiot box. It was quite a nice movie, with a very good storyline, some brilliant performances from the cast, great camera work and obviously a well made one. However there were quite a few occasions when I had to wonder if there was a sudden low voltage/fluctuation because the screen went so dark, we had to really peer to see the actors. Some scenes were shot with almost no light, so that was kind of unnerving. Even though Mani Ratnam's movie "Bombay" handled a similar subject, the two movies are quite in contrast. Bombay was large scale and dealt with the riots of a city and how a family, and their dependents are caught in the madness. Mr. & Mrs. Iyer is smaller in scale and it deals with the lives of two people and how a single sentence by Meenakshi changes things, including her attitude towards Raja (or Jahangir). Mani Ratnam wasn't averse to gory scenes of violence and hatred. Aparna Sen focusses instead on the protagonists and this means the audience has to form its own imagery of the violence and emotions flying around, in the way we don't actually see the the old Muslim couple being killed. Instead the next day Raja finds the old man's false teeth and broken spectacles.
I think of late, very few filmmakers in India, care to make movies about things which happen around us or make statements, political or social, about various issues bothering Indians. We saw quite a few movies in the 1980s which were termed as "art" movies and were typically either watched by a crowd of 50-60 people in a 500 seater theatre or on Doordarshan at home. But the 1980s also saw sensitive, well-made mainstream movies like Masoom, Saagar as well as a plethora of social-comedies from Sai Paranjpe and Kundan Shah. Add in the mid-to-late 1970s comedies from Basu Chatterji and Hrishikesh Mukherjee and it's not difficult to see that it is possible to make good cinema and make a statement and make a reasonable amount of money as well! While cinema is meant to entertain, movie makers should be alive to a responsibility to put forth their views on various happenings as well, without overdramatizing things for the sake of cinema. Yes, profits would be difficult to make, but how many movies do make profits or run for even 75 days nowadays? Might as well make a sensitive, courageous movie about a topic close to heart, get plaudits and get the same returns as you would if you made a spectacular, big budget re-re-re-re-re-remake.
Even as Peter Jackson and his crew lorded over the rings and the Oscar awards, compere Billy Crystal had the audience in splits with his satire and comedy. I wonder if we're really as much of a democracy as we claim. I can't visualize an awards ceremony in India where the host launches a diatribe (or says it satirically) on say the government's policy against Pakistan or the Gujarat riots or the IIM fee cut by the HRD minister. I'm sure the pre-censoring would ensure that. The reason given would typically be that saying such things presented India in a bad light. Unfortunately this means the government is deluded into thinking that statements about the government translate into statements against India. Not quite, the government represents India, it is NOT India.
Cricket
Noted writer (sociology & cricket, amongst others) Ramachandra Guha dabbles in mathematics by using transitivity to make a case for Rahul Dravid being amongst India's finest batsmen ever.
Labels: movies, oscars, review
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Movies
We watched the new JP Dutta release 'LoC Kargil' yesterday. It was quite an ok movie, except for the fact that it portrayed Indian soldiers as continuously abusing the enemy and dream about their wives/girlfriends when they weren't fighting the enemy. Dutta, the producer too, clearly tries to rely too much on his awesome starcast (Abhishek Bachchan, Ajay Devgan, Akshay Khanna, Sanjay Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Saif Ali Khan, Sunil Shetty, Nagarjuna, Manjoj Bajpai, Kareena Kapoor, Rani Mukherjee, Raveena Tandon) to carry the film. The ladies are more or less a waste of time. In fact I can't recall someone like Raveena Tandon having a single dialogue in the movie (unless of course she did have some, but they were snipped off so that the need for a second intermission was avoided!). The songs were a total waste of time. Why did such a serious war movie have songs?
The few positives were the acting by Manoj Bajpai and to some extent by Ajay Devgan and Sanjay Dutt. The other good aspect was the way the officers etc. questioned the need for moving so many regiments and artillery if, as the superiors claimed, the task was to drive out just a handful of mujahideens. Subtly, Dutta hints that there was a collossal intelligence failure. The cream of India's young officers and commanders was wiped out over the span of a couple of months and the defence minister still claims there was no intelligence failure!
Cricket
So the cricketing bandwagon moves to Sydney for Act IV of the Test series (and also the last act for Stephen Rodger Waugh). The momentum and the force currently seem to be with Australia, a far cry from how it was on 26th December when India were 270/1 with about an hour to go before stumps. More than Sehwag's slog down long-on's throat, I think it was Dravid's dismissal to Steve Waugh which gave Australia the belief that they had managed to put a foot in the door which was rapidly shutting them from the game (and the series). Another interesting point is that India seemed to be playing the game in the Australian way while Australia was aping India. In the 2nd Test, Ponting scored his double century at a strike-rate of 68 while at Sydney, he scored at 56 runs every 100 balls faced. Sehwag made his 195 at a strike-rate of 84 while Dravid's double century at Adelaide was made at 52 runs every 100 balls faced. India scored at 3.6 at Sydney but at 3.2 in Adelaide. In contrast, Australia scored at 3.7 at Melbourne compared to 4.4 at Adelaide. There seems to have been a deliberate attempt by Australia (and Ponting in particular) to defeat India at their own game. India had forgotten one cardinal rule. Instead of playing by their plan, they seemed to be eager to take on Australia at their own game. That came a cropper.
There're enough selection worries for the last Test. Kumble has now taken two 5fers and 12 wickets in the 2 Tests that he has played. Sydney may not necessarily be the raging turner that it used to be. Then again, this would be the second Test at Sydney this season, so the pitch would be more settled than it was when Australia whipped Zimbabwe earlier (spinners taking nearly 50% of the wickets - 6fers for Price and Katich and 3 for Hogg. Notice that they're all left-arm spinners. HINT HINT!). Should India play Murali Kartik? Now that Zaheer is ruled out, would we just revert to the winning combination of Adelaide? Should Nehra be dropped because he has just not looked penetrative at any point of time at all? Will the tail contribute again? Lots of questions, too few answers.
Labels: ind v aus 2003, kargil, movies, review
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Movies
We saw the Deepavali release Tamil movie 'Pithamagan' over the weekend. The movie stars Vikram, Surya, Laila & Sangeetha, is directed by Bala (of Sethu & Nanda fame) and has some amazing music by Ilayaraja. One of the first things I wondered about was the title. If you expect to see Vikram or Surya do a Mukesh Khanna (Bheeshma in BR Chopra's Mahabharat) so he can be called 'Pithaamah' everytime, that's far from the truth. If someone knows why the movie is called so, please inform me. On a related note, the new Ajit starrer titled 'Anjaneya' also has no correlation whatsoever between the title & the contents/cast/characters etc. (or so I heard)
Pithamagan is about Chitthan (Vikram, an undertaker - I think thats the right term) and his friendship with Sakthi (Surya playing a first degree conman). Vikram has nearly no dialogues until the climax while Surya is totally garrulous. Vikram is depicted having never really interacted with people/civilization etc. and having superhuman strength. They become friends after landing up in jail for different reasons. Laila and Sangeetha play Surya & Vikram's lovers, even though there is thankfully no prancing around trees in duets.
The movie is quite gripping and fascinating. Unfortunately, Bala's preoccupation with making movies bordering on the macabre, does tend to affect the viewing. With Sethu first and then with Nanda, there was an undercurrent of death in the movies. (Even though these were quite good movies, it'd be an awful pun to call them 'deadly' movies *grin*) With Pithamagan, death is virtually the protagonist, well very close to it given Vikram's occupation. If Bala's next movie is also as grim as his others have been, then he risks losing his audience. Serious cinema is good to have, but at the same time the director shouldn't make himself hopelessly repetitive.
I did notice a couple of points about the movie which readers could clarify.
Cricket
Big game coming up tomorrow, the final of the tri-series at Calcutta. India v Australia at Calcutta yet again. With India overwhelming the Kiwis at Hyderabad, the Kiwi coach's comments on how his boys would be making history by going through the entire tour undefeated by India went straight back into his mouth. I really do wonder why coaches and captains go to two extremes: either patronize hopelessly weak opposition (such as Steve Waugh when Australia played Bangladesh) or shoot their mouth off when it's a winner-takes-all game.
Spot the odd man out: Jayasuriya, Afridi, O'Donnell, Boucher, Marillier, Lance Cairns, Agarkar, Kapil, Sehwag & Dravid. Two days ago you'd have picked Marillier and had very long odds on Dravid being in that list. Now you'd certainly pick Dravid. As recently as a year ago, there were lots of folks (and possibly still are!) who felt that Dravid was able to find a place in the oneday setup just because he volunteered to keep wickets. If he hadn't, then the youth brigade of Yuvraj, Badani, Kaif, Sehwag etc. would have forced him out. Far from it. He has blossomed in the last couple of years into an exceptional one-day batsman. Lest people forget, it was he (in the company of Yuvraj & Kaif respectively) who guided India home on a couple of occasions in the Natwest Series in 2002 and against Pakistan & New Zealand at the World Cup. Anyone who saw his innings at Hyderabad would have oooh-ed and aaah-ed at the quality of the strokeplay. It was the kind of innings you expect from him, the classy player that he is. None of the ugly slogs over midwicket or nicks flying through thirdman for four or over fineleg for six etc. It was pure classical batting. The six over extra-cover he started off with (off Styris?) was an awesome hit as was the pull off Oram's fulltoss which went for six. Go Rahul go! Australia beckons.
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Movies
Once again, a long delay in updating the blog. This one is about some movies we've seen over the last few weeks.
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Movies
One on movies after a while. I decided not to sit through a 5 hr ordeal yesterday when Devdas was screened. As it is the movie was hopeless enough (and nearly 4 hrs long too!), SET Max would have screened it with innumerable ads and 'making-of-Devdas' tripe and made it a 5 hr long extravaganza (shades of the World Cup?).
I saw a Tamil movie Arasu starring Sarat Kumar Sr, Sarat Kumar Jr, Simran etc. This must be around the dozenth movie where Sarat Kumar plays father and son, and the half-dozenth where the father is a zamindar with a huge moustache and everyone thinks he is a lion re-incarnate (Vijaykanth, where art thou?). I hope George Bush Jr sees these movies so he can realise the striking similarities with his father. More importantly, it'll make him feel worried. What if there're (illegitimate) junior Saddams and Osamas all around the place all with an attitude and looks similar to their dads? How many more revenges will he take? Yeh aag kab bujhegi?
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