Just Jo

Version 1: A father whose wife left him has to raise his kid by himself
Version 2: A mother whose husband was killed has to raise her kid by herself

Version 1: The father and son live in a rented apartment
Version 2: The mother and daughter live in a rented house

Version 1: Father is broke, without money and a job
Version 2: Mother is broke, without money and a job

Version 1: The dad skips paying rent each month and tries to escape the landlord
Version 2: Mom does the same.

Version 1: On returning one day, they find that their house has a new door-lock put by the landlord
Version 2: Same as above

Version 1: With the small luggage they have, the dad and son spend a day in the park and the night in a railway station.
Version 2: The mom and daughter do the same.

Version 1: When they try to spend a night in the railway station toilet, people knock on the door outside and the dad struggles to not let his son  know what is happening.
Version 2: When they try to take a bathe in the railway station toilet, people knock on the door outside and the mom struggles to not let the daughter know what is happening.

Version 1: The dad tries the best to make it seem like they are playing a game.
Version 2: Mom does the same.

Version 1: The dad’s last hope for money, a medical device, is being stolen.
Version 2: Mom’s last bills of money that she gets after selling the gold ornaments, is being stolen.

Version 1: Dad donates blood in a hospital for money.
Version 2: Mom does the same.

Version 1: The dad takes a cab drive, but has no money to pay, so asks the driver to drive even more, finally when the cab stops the parent runs away as he has no money to pay.
Version 2: Mom does the same, except that here it is an auto rickshaw, not a cab.

Version 1: The dad applies for an internship at a big-wig stock broking company and finally gets it which puts the end to their financial mysery.
Version 2: The mom completes her MBBS and gets a job in Kuwait which will put an end to their financial mysery.

By now, you all would have guessed it right that with version 1, I was referring to the 2006 movie “Pursuit of Happyness” which has an amazing performance by Will Smith that brought him an academy award nomination for the best performance in a lead role. Version 2 is a Malayalam movie that runs in packed houses across Kerala now. The movie name is “Kadha Thudarunnu” and is directed by the much celebrated director Sathyan Anthikkad.

Sathyan is talking to the media, in the TV etc, as if he’s just re-invented the Malayalam cinema whereas it seems to be just a copy of a beautiful Hollywood movie. He even lifted some of the story events scene-by-scene from the original movie, added a bit of his usual “social message” thingy, some Kerala touch here and there and made his movie. I think the writers of the Hollywood movie should sue Sathyan for millions of dollars so that it will teach a lesson to the copy-cats in our movie industry.

This is not a first time that pioneers (?) like Sreenivasan and Sathyan Anthikkad have been accused of plagiarism. But we have always ignored it, thinking how it is possible that the people of their stature and ‘calibre’ can do such a shameful thing. Only when the director combo Siddique Lal became massively popular and accused Sathyan Anthikkad for not giving them credits for the storyline of the movie “Naadodikkaattu” that we seriously gave it a thought. When numerous other people came out in open against Sathyan and Sreenivasan we did not give it a damn as those people were not known names. Siddique Lal was lucky that their talent got the deserving recognition so their words became credible to the public. What about the other unlucky souls?

When a good friend of mine emailed me about the parallel story line of both the movies, I brushed it away. I thought it is a generic response and kind of a popular trend these days to ‘investigate’ the original versions of a movie. But then I watched Kadha Thudarunnu on last Sunday and I was totally stunned. I don’t know what Sathyan was thinking. In the old days, this trick would have worked because very few people watched or had access to Hollywood movies but to do it in these days Sathyam Anthikkad must have had some guts. Or he is seriously insulting the Malayalees as a society that it doesn’t have exposure to cinema outside India. Whichever way it is, it is a crime and I wonder why nobody in the media is talking about it except for one or two TV channels.

PS: Another movie which is “written” by actor-writer Sreenivasan, has Mohan Lal in the lead and marks the entry of singer M G Sreekumar as a music director, has been ordered to stay its release by a court order. The movie was scheduled to release in the second week of May.

The stay was given, following a complaint from K Vijayan from Mukkam, accusing senior actor and scriptwriter Sreenivasan to have lifted his story and used the same for ‘Oru Naal Varum’. Vijayan says that he has met Sreeni once with this story who dismissed it as a naive one with no big comedies. Later Vijayan published the same in the title ‘Ee Kaliveedil Ninnu’ in a popular magazine. Sreenivasan was not available to respond of this new accusation. [via]

As usual, the tactic of both Sathyan Anthikkad and Sreenivasan to face these allegations is to say that “this doesn’t deserve a response” or “these people do it just for fame“(?). So much to our great, ‘creative‘ souls.

You know what? I like Shahrukh Khan. I think he has an amazing screen presence and on-screen energy which makes even his dumbest movies watchable at least for the first half. His on-screen chemistry with the leading ladies is always awesome. Yet, regardless of those screen names – Rahul, Raj or whatever – Shahrukh is always Shahrukh.

What I said about can be applied to George Clooney also. The man has a killer charm, wonderful on-screen presence and energy, yet remains to be Clooney for most of the times (perhaps except in the movie “Syrianna“). Be it Danny Ocean (Ocean’s series), Michael Clayton (Michael Clayton), Miles Massey (Intolerable Cruelty), Harry Pfarrer (Burn After Reading) or Ryan Bingham in “Up in the Air“. Clooney, with all his admirable charm and acting skills, hardly turns to become the character. He, like Shahrukh, gives the Clooney identity to most of the characters he played.

Which is why it turns out that the most notable performance of the movie “Up in the Air” is by Vera Farmiga with her portrayal of Alex. Alex is a frequently flying “air-companion” of Bingham and they have a casual sex relationship. Even an emotionally strong man like Bingham (his job is to fire people for corporate companies) who doesn’t spare enough time for family or friends (his friends are not even mentioned) gets the hang of boredom and falls for Alex. There you see Alex who asks “what are you doing here?” when Bingham knocks on the door of her house, where she lives with her family about which she never mentioned to Bingham. She goes ahead and tells him that her family is her real life and Ryan is simply an escape. Yet she does not bother to tell him later that they can meet up again. Vera simply handles the role of Alex who leads two parallel lives and compared to Clooney, she totally immerse herself into the character than Clooney making a Clooney out of Ryan.

The movie looks into the brutal realities of the corporate culture and it handles the theme so well without too much drama. Another actor who stands out in the movie is Anna Kendrick as Natalie Keener, an ambitious young woman who works with Ryan. Her performance is very honest and convincing.

The movie is subtle, convincing and comes with wonderful performances by the lead actors, but Clooney’s nomination for Best Actor in the Oscar? I think it’s not worth it.

2009 is perhaps an year in which we have seen more Malayalam movies with English titles. Early 2010 movie titles also are not much different. Look at some of these titles below. Going by this, it will be too difficult to figure out the language of a movie by its name.

Senior Mandrake
Happy Husbands
Bodyguard
Decent Parties
My Big Father
Chemistry
Kerala Cafe
Angel John
Robin Hood
Loud Speaker
Duplicate
Daddy Cool
Dr Patient
Passenger
Moss N Cat
Sagar Alias Jacky
Love in Singapore
Colours

What goes on in the Malayalam movie industry these days make the movie lovers quite sad. The current state of the Malayalam movies is quite pathetic. We have only a couple of hits each year and rest of them bombs in the box office. The state of the cinema theaters is also pathetic that one wouldn’t take the pain of going to a theater to watch a movie and would rather watch it at his own home. With the arrival of big LCD screens, Dolby home theater sound systems and DVD/Blue-Ray discs, watching a movie at home is much much more comfortable than watching it in a theater. As a result, many theaters are closing down rapidly.

But who cares? There is absolutely no effective discussions going on about a rescue plan. The people in the industry are busy making crappy movies and the competition is so high in this field that we get crappy, crappier and crappiest movies – one after one. Then there are these organizations (AMMA, MACTA, FEFKA and all those funny names) which functions like gangs and we see their gang wars quite often. And it is cinema that dies in this war.

The whole incident of Thilakan being an outcast from Malayalam cinema has proved that there is no hope for any improvement in the near future. Thilakan had accused AMMA (Association of Malayalam Movie Artists) of not allowing him to work in the movies and he pointed fingers at the superstars (Mammootty and Mohan Lal) in particular. What followed was a series of cheap stunts.

Director B Unnikrishnan, general secretary of Film Employees Federation of Kerala (FEFKA), said that the actor in Thilakan has died. But Thilakan has some great performing moments of Malayalam cinema (or rather Indian or world cinema) to his credit and we all know what kind of movies B Unnikrishnan has directed. Unnikrishnan also said that he would resign from his general secretary position if Thilakan could prove that FEFKA banned Thilakan from acting in films. Incidentally, the same FEFKA has threatened to pull out all technicians from the movie “Dam 999″ if Thilakan was cast and the producers threw Thilakan out of the project. And as far as we know B Unnikrishnan still holds on to his position.

The above incident proves that there is some truth in what Thilakan says. He also lashed out at the Super Star fans and I whole heartedly agree with him on the fan-hood. The fan associations work like thugs, threatening people if they boo in cinema halls (and they themselves send booing teams when their enemy star’s cinema is released) and they also threaten people who leave after intervals when they are fed up of watching crap movies, and now the fans of Mohan Lal and Mammootty have united against Thilakan. Kerala now see that the rivals joining hands to fight a lone, old man.

Thilakan undeniably is a great actor. The truth is that if there is Thilakan acting in a super-star movie, he outshines the super stars with his acting prowess; however small his role is in the movie. So there are good reasons to believe what Thilakan says about the popularity-hungry, fan-fed Superstars working on denying him chances. Take a couple of superstar movies for example. “Kireedam“, an award winning movie where Mohan Lal and Thilakan played father and son, had both Mohan Lal and Thilakan in an equal performance and for the movie lovers, it was a treat (remember the scene where Thilakan says “kathi thaazheyideraa…“?). Or take Mohan Lal’s commercial hit “Sphadikam“. Thilakan’s Chacko maash was the most powerful character in that movie than Mohan Lal’s Aadu Thoma. Or take Mammootty’s “Kauravar“. It was an outright Thilakan movie, though Mammootty was in the lead role. Or take movies like “Perumthachan“, “Moonnaam Pakkam” etc. I can draw a lot more examples.

But he had very little support from industry, probably because nobody wants to question the “kings” and destroy their own career. Sukumar Azheekode came in support of Thilakan but he only added more garbage to the already stinking mess. Thilakan had claimed that he is a staunch Communist, but the party kept mum on the whole matter. It is understandable particularly when Mammootty is the chairman of party-owned Kairali TV. So the party did not back the ‘lesser Communist’ when they have ‘elite Communists’ in their fold. But renowned director Shaji N Karun came in support of Thilakan. He said, “The organizations have nothing to lose if they ban Thilakan. But the it is the cinema viewers who are going to lose.” He is so right. It is not AMMA, FEFKA or any other organization who is going to lose, but us, the Malayalam movie viewers. And the members of these organizations are busy looting our money and give us crappy movies.

Those of you who frequent to this blog have heard the song “Iniyethra Naal” in this blog before. To those who are new here, I composed this song for a short film directed by a friend. You can read more about the song by clicking this link.

The short film, titled “Aa Kathukal Parayaathirunnathu“, was previewed on February 12th at St Thomas College, Thrissur, in the presence of national award winning director Priyanandanan. You can see the song video below, which will hit the Malayalam TV channels hopefully soon. You can also download the MP3 file of this song by clicking here.

Credits:

Lyrics: Ratheesh
Music: Joseph Thomas (Jo)
Singer: Divya S Menon
Orchestration: Rajith George
Cinematography & Direction: Pavithran
Short film: Aa Kathukal Parayaathirunnuathu

Do not ever go to watch a movie by public opinion. That is what I learned after watching two Malayalam movies recently. I heard Jayaram-Indrajith-Jayasurya starrer “Happy Husbands” is a laugh riot and a good watch, but I was left bored. With a stupid script and dialogues, it would easily top at the list of Razzies, if there was one for Malayalam films. Checkout the scene where psychologist girl chasing Jayasurya or Indrajith playing innocent before his wife etc – this movie is a so damn waste of money. It is not even worth of the air condition inside the theatre, because it is just another torture than the heat outside the cinema hall. Plus, I have one thing to tell Suraj Venjaramoodu. You are fast becoming the most irritating comedian ever in Malayalam cinema. Jagathy Sreekumar did not rule with his Trivandrum slang, but with his talent. You also have to find some other ground than trying to bank upon the Trivandrum slang. Get a life!

Then there was Dileep-Nayantara starrer Bodyguard. I never thought that director Siddique would disappoint people at this level. Considering his previous comedy hits, I went to watch this movie with much hope. Disappointment again. The movie goes on well but as the first half comes to an end, the story takes a pathetic turn. And then it is an utter waste of time and money. Siddique even takes a Kuch Kuch Hota Hai line in his story and by the time you figure out what is happening in the stupid story and script, the movie ends and you leave the cinema hall wondering, “what was it that I just saw?” The only saving grace of the movie was Nayantara with her beautiful looks and the way she moves in the dance scenes is a treat to your eyes. You can see a professional playing there. Except for Nayan, the only other good thing about the movie is the song “arikathaayaaro”, composed by Ouseppachan. All other songs are just passable.

(Image courtesy: Samvruthasunil.com and Bharatstudent.com)

I had the fortune of meeting Gireesh Puthenchery at East Coast Studios in Trivandrum. I was there to sing a track song for M G Radhakrishnan sir and Pappechi introduced me to him. I still can’t forget the smile on his face. He turned to me while chewing the betel leaves and when the talk of beginners started, he recalled his initial days as a song writer and about the beginning of his friendship with M G Radhakrishnan sir whom he called Rajettan.

Dear poet, Thank You for all the beautiful songs you penned. Thank you for the movie Vadakkumnathan, which I loved so much because it reminded me about my friend who took his own life a couple of years back. From today, everyone in Kerala will miss you so much whenever we hear your songs…

(Image source)

What is common between Mohan Lal and Kamala Hassan? Both of them are amazing actors but fans and stardom destroy them quite often. You may agree or disagree, but they don’t want to discard the Macho Man image even for non-commercial flicks. They need fights (even in films which don’t need fight scenes) and want the younger women to love and want them (remember that scene from “Anbe Sivam” where Kiran licks in the water drop that drops off Kamal’s mouth?).

The reason I am mentioning this here is how the stardom effect has ruined the otherwise perfect character delivery of Mohan Lal as Sivan Kutty in the movie Bhramaram. The movie is okay, the script is not as crisp as Blessy’s first and it has too much melodrama towards the end. It is gripping in the first few minutes, then you can easily predict the story line. But still you would sit back on your seats for just one man’s performance – Mohan Lal. He immerses fully into the character of Sivan Kutty and delivers one of the best performances in his career. You would forget that you are watching a Mohan Lal movie.

But – then comes a fight scene at a roadside dhaba which reminds you that you are actually watching a Mohan Lal movie. For those who say that this fight scene was needed to project the complexity of the character, I would beg to differ. Sivan Kutty was a complex character for me until this fight scene happened. But that is not all – a lorry driver glances at Sivan Kutty’s penis and appreciatively comments on the size of his thing! Fans must have become happy by then, Mohan Lal must be glad that he kept the Macho Man image but those who love cinema get disappointed right there.

Mohan Lal used to be a director’s actor in his non-commercial, parallel cinemas and had not turned out to be a Kamal Hassan yet. The very recent example could be Paradesi, directed by P T Kunjumuhammed. So I would blame director Blessy for not having the balls to discard such scenes. Suresh Menon gives an aptly supporting role as Unni and Lakshmi Gopalaswami as Unni’s wife is also good. Cinematography by Ajayan Vincent is wonderful. The song “Annaarakkannaa” is an easily hummable tune with simple lyrics. But the background music is disappointing. I think people should learn something about how to do background score. Not all scenes need a melodramic tune to feel the scene. Sometimes you could just leave the background silent as the emptiness itself would speak to the audience.

My friend Sandeep asked me to do a post like I did in the last year to list out my favorite Malayalam songs of the year 2009. Like in the last year, choosing a list of top songs was not at all a difficult job this year too. I must recall a comment now, that I received from blogger Ajith Edassery to my last year’s post which explains the pathetic trend of Malayalam film music in the recent times:

Personally, I was disappointed at the following trend in the past two years:
- Digital overkill in music industry
- The surge of Telugu dubbed movies in Malayalam and their pathetic songs
- Those ‘mone, kuttaa, edaa…’ kind of so-called love songs in the past two or three years… A blind immitation of Hindi and Tamil that doesn’t naturally fit to Malayalam

Most of the songs of 2009 were run-off-the-mill or the old-wine-in-new-bottle kinda. But there were some good works too. So here is my list of best Malayalam songs from the year 2009. There were 8 songs to pick in the last year, but I have only 7 this time.

7

Song: Anuraaga Vilochananaayi
Movie: Neelathaamara
Singer: Sreekumar, Shreya Ghoshal
Music: Vidyasagar
Lyrics:  Vayalar Sarathchandra Varma

This song is a massive popular hit and you would instantly love it. But as much as I would like to hum/sing this song, I cannot ignore the fact that it is a refined old wine. This song has clear shades of Vidyasagar’s old Malayalam works like “Karimizhiye Kandeela” from Meesa Madhavan and there are people who say that the percussion reminds them of the remixed version of Kaliyon Ka Chaman. There are several pronunciation errors at both singer’s parts and though Shreya Ghoshal is my favorite singer, I can’t take this song to the top 5. I liked the expressiveness in the male vocals (he brings in the right Sringaara bhaavam to the song) and that is the only reason I’m taking this song to my list.

6

Song: Pularumo
Movie: Ritu
Singer: Gayathri, Sujith
Music: Rahul Raj
Lyrics: Rafeeq Ahmed

The reason I chose this song is purely because of singer Gayathri. She has made this song beautiful with her wonderful voice and gave the right expressions which suits the song perfectly well. The male vocals starts at off notes, but Gayathri takes this song so well to make it worthy to listen. Rahul Raj also has done a neat job in composing.

5

Song: Alliyaambal
Movie: Loudspeaker
Singer: Vijay Yesudas
Music arrangement: Bijibal

Many attempts that we had at remixing old Malayalam songs have been pathetic. The people who did remixes of old songs seem to have thought that adding a bit of rap with some random English words would make a good remix (somebody should also explain to them what Rap music is) or adding some techno beats would spice it up. The result is the kind of songs like “Chetti, chetti, chettikulangara” (from Chotta Mumbai) which is quite an insult to the original (I wish such music directors learn something from Leslie Lewis on how he remixes some old Hindi songs). It is in this context that I appreciate the remix of a song that Malayali holds so dear to his heart – Alliyambal. It is a very nostalgic song for every Malayali and any lame attempt to kill the song would definitely be suicidal. But music director Bijibal has done a wonderful job at rearranging the orchestration for this song while keeping the melodic soul of the original. And he roped in Yesudas’s (the original singer) son Vijay Yesudas to sing it (to add market value?). Anyways, the result is a beautiful song and it is definitely a feather in the cap of Vijay Yesudas. I would give the credit to Bijibal. I had written last year that he is a promising music director. Here is a music director with some music sense to watch for.

4

Song: Swapnangal Kannezhuthiya
Movie: Bhagya Devatha
Singer(s): Chithra K S, Rahul Nambiar
Music: Ilaiyaraja
Lyrics: Vayalar Sarathchandra Varma

This is a classic Ilaiyaraja song. There is nothing in this song that surprises you if you are an Ilaiyaraja fan, but it is this melodic treat that you love Ilaiyaraja for and the maestro does not disappoint you on that with this song. The music, orchestration, singers – everything about this is as you wanted to hear. Goes straight to my favs from 2009.

3

Song: Picha vacha naal (my version here)
Movie: Puthiya Mugham
Singer: Shankar Mahadevan
Music: Deepak Dev
Lyrics: Kaithapram

Another massive popular hit from the year 2009 and quite obviously so. Simple but romantic lyrics from Kaithapram and Deepak Dev’s music make this song hummable for everyone. I also like the way the orchestration is done so that there is no heavy instrumental noises in the background where the vocals go. It’s just a simple percussion to support the vocals and that adds so much to the beauty of this song. Kudos to Deepak Dev!

2

Song: Saayam Sandhye
Movie: Sufi Paranja Katha
Singer: Latha Krishnan
Music: Mohan Sitara
Lyrics: Rafeeq Ahammed

Another melodious gem from Mohan Sitara and a soulful rendition by Latha Krishnan (I definitely would like to try an unplugged version of this song). I could just close my eyes by listening to this song and immerse fully into the pleasure that only music can give.

1

Song: Chaanthu Thottille (my version here)
Movie: Banaras
Singer: Shreya Ghoshal
Music: M Jayachandran
Lyrics: Gireesh Puthenchery

This song tops my list for various reasons. There has not been any Dhandiya song (May I add – not that I know of, if there are any others, please do let me know) in Malayalam and M Jayachandran has done a wonderful job with this song. Shreya Ghoshal’s singing is so heavenly. You would forget the fact that she comes from Bengal when you hear her singing this song as her pronunciation in this song is perfect that not even any south Indian singer, other than a Malayali, could deliver it to this perfection. The best part that I enjoyed in this song is when she sings “pRiyanoraaL innu vannuvO” where only guitars support the background and then percussion slowly comes up. Two thumbs up!

Post script: One thing that I have noticed is that the top picks of this year’s songs are mostly written by two (comparatively new) lyricists – Rafeeq Ahmed and Vayalar Sharathchandra Varma. While Rafeeq Ahmed adds a beautiful touch of poetry to his songs, Vayalar Sharath follows the path of his father that contains simple but beautiful words which go straight to your heart. Those two lyricists are here to stay and going to give us more gems, am sure. Also outside Kerala singers like Shreya Ghoshal are singing more often in Malayalam movies. Another interesting thing to notice is that many new singers are coming up and they are being noticed much more than the popular singers like Yesudas, M G Sreekumar etc. In the early days, a singer’s ability to deliver a good song was measured by how well he could sing a semi-classical song, but the singers of these days have very good expressive vocals and a refreshing tone in their voices.

Dr. Gaurva Chhabra had shared a link to his 2 minutes long short film through FB. The short film is titled The Mudcake. Watching the video has brought a smile (as most of us can relate to the childhood memories of playing with mud – I don’t think that kids these days do it though) and it certainly left something to think about towards the end of the video. Garurav has submitted this video in a U.S. Govt, Video contest @ Exchanges Connect and he needs around 150 more votes before 28th Dec (10 AM, 29th Dec, IST) to go to next stage. Voting happens when you ‘Rate’ the film. It requires a ‘Sign up’, ‘email confirmation’ by clicking on the sent link and then ‘Rating’ by clicking on ‘Stars’. Go ahead and do it if you like the film. I just did.