Shankar’s “Enthiran”: You better watch “Matrix Reloaded”

This is what film makers who cast Rajni fail to understand. Rajni is a ‘son of the soil’ and he does his best in such roles (remember Padayappa or Muthu?). I loved Basha and it is after watching it that I made sure not to miss any Rajni movie. Sivaji was perhaps the maximum he could do but when you stretch him far you get “Enthiran“. A boring, exhaustive, three hours long film with graphics and songs fit in here and there. Luckily, I had the company of Hiran, or else I would have bored myself to death.

I’d say you should go watch “Matrix Reloaded” again than spending your time and money for Shankar’s “Enthiran“. It is not only because “Enthiran” copies some of the cloning ideas or the road chase scenes from Matrix, but the makers of Matrix made a convincing movie out of a very fictitious story. This is what Shankar & co has to understand. Paying up huge sums of money to some big-wig Hollywood animation studio can only get you some amazing graphics but never a convincing script. You need talent to do that.

Director Shankar has played a bit of Congress party in the Common Wealth Games for this film. Almost all the people you see in the movie are fair and beautiful except for some who faces a fire tragedy. The hospitals, research centers are all huge and beautiful buildings like you see in the Hollywood movies. Still you would know it happens in India. 😉

Rajni, the supernatural, is so boring in so many scenes. There is no punch line, not even his trademark gestures but some weird actions of the villain Rajni. I enjoyed the train fight scene though. About the director, I wonder how people call Shankar a perfectionist. The scenes where the animation is plugged into outdoor scenes are far less convincing because the animation bumps out from the scenes. Or look at the tiny things. Like the lab where it is written “Restricted Area”. A red tape kind of thing that you have seen in many old movies to read “ICU”, “No Entry” etc. It is so amateurish for an otherwise gaudy set. It is small things like this that make all the difference in “convinving” people.

The songs are boring but the visuals are stunning. The first song sequence in the desert is the most beautiful of it all. But when the songs keep coming in and out, you get bored. A R Rahman’s score is not captivating too.

The movie is not without it’s positives. It starts well and you would blindly believe the robot story in the beginning before it started falling off. The animations are perfect and though it copies many Hollywood movies that we are familiar with, it also has some nice animation towards the climax scene (the snake, the giant robot – all made up of robots etc). The climax scene of the robot dismantling himself was good. The editing of the song sequences is good. Aishwarya Rai does her job well too – of looking beautiful. The most believable character of the movie is neither the hero Rajni, nor the villain Rajni. It is Dr. Bora, played by Danny Denzongpa. He was amazing and we realize how artificial and made-up the other characters are when he comes on screen.

To conclude, I want Rajni of Baasha back. Or Rajni of Padayappa. These folks have now made him a robot that  painfully tries to move us but terribly fails at it.

Go, Keshava!

Here is an amazing child prodigy on Tabla. I just learned from Hiran that he had performed for the inaugural ceremony of the Common Wealth Games in Delhi. What really caught my attention and what really made me smile and appreciate is how much he enjoys playing music. Look how happy he is!!

Will the real Dick-Shit please stand up?

Don’t take me wrong. I enjoy humour and I did laugh a bit when I first heard him saying “dick-shit” but then this real Dick-Shit fellow took the news time to ridicule an Indian chief minister in the most demeaning manner. The Ministry of External Affairs has registered the protest with New Zealand authorities against the show’s host Paul Henry.

Review: Elsamma Enna Aankutty

I thought I should spare this for the last line, but I gotta tell you this now. Lal Jose does a Sathyan Anthikkad with his latest movie “Elsamma Enna Aankutty”. You have seen the story of this movie in many Sathyan Anthikkad movies where Sathyan Anthikkad would usually jam so many issues into one pack and gives it to audience. You have seen it all before. The eldest child taking care of the entire family by even giving up on her own studies (in which she had been doing well), the lone parents with children living abroad, the city folks coming to the village and taking advantage of the young girls there, environmental issues, anti-liquor campaign and so on.

Elsamma is supposed to be, as the title says, “Elsamma, the boy”. But it is not Elsamma who makes her seem being stubborn, but the characters around her. Ann Augustine (who played the title role) has to thank her experienced co-actors for that. And I think it is not her problem that she couldn’t fully convince us of Elsamma’s character. For a first timer, she did really well (she has the most beautiful smile I have seen in Malayalam cinema recently as well). So I think it is upon the director who chose to cast a new comer for such a big role.

Almost all the actors have done their job well in this movie. Kunchako Boban as Unni and Indrajith as Eby have done total justice to their roles. One good thing I felt about the movie is that Jagathy Sreekumar seems to have come back to his old spirits. He did the humor exceptionally well and with much ease like in the old days. And another thing that you have to thank for is that Suraj Venjaramoodu is not puke-prompting as he is in other movies of the recent times.

There is one song that has the signature Lal Jose touches to the song sequence, but even there there was a terrible tribal costume with lousy make up which would make you puke right up there in the theater. The cinematography is good and it captures the beauty of a hill side village. What lacks in this movie however is a good script. One of the box office bombs of Lal Jose happened when he teamed up with Sindhuraj (for Mulla) and here you have it again. Not that this one is a boxoffice bomb, but it packs the popular elements of the successful movies and feeds us again. But you will keep seated to the end because of the scenic beauty of the village and the wonderful performances of this movie’s supporting stars.

‘Your Moment is Waiting’

The new Kerala Tourism advt is the talk of the web now. The new video, created for an international tourism campaign, is exotic and sensuous. The whole presentation is different from the traditional ads about Kerala. The overused and cliched imagery of Kathakali is presented in a different way. And that same scene highlights the new strategy of Kerala Tousism of promoting rural tourism. Theyyam is featured and that scene is just amazing! The backwater scene sends out a message of finding oneself within the beauty of Kerala. The well-being element of Ayurveda is promptly highlighted. The grove scene is yet another breath-taking shot. Then it concludes beautifully with the final scene of wildlife with an Asian elephant.

I am not sure what is Kerala Tourism targeting with this advt though. If they are after the people in the west who have a mystical passion about Africa and want to get them here, I think they will succeed. This advertisement video, being as sensual and exotic it is, establishes itself as an alternative destination to Africa (is that why there are too many African elements in this movie including the music?). One thing I don’t understand is why they had to bring in a Senagalese singer to lend voice to this video that markets Kerala. They should have included some Kerala elements in the music. And the first scene doesn’t convey anything about the movie (Is that eerily looking human figure a ghost, an old man with a walking stick or a fisherman?). Okay, we know the place is Thekkady but since this is an international ad, I don’t think anybody would understand what this is about in the beginning scene of the video. Except for these couple of points, I loved this fresh new approach.

Shot at Thekkady, Munnar, Thalassery and Kannur in 11 days, this video is directed by Prakash Varma (of Vodafone Zoo-Zoo fame) and is produced by Stark Communications.

Mohanlal as a typical Malayali

The only thing you need to do to understand how Mohan Lal represents a typical Malayali is to simply look at the brands or industries he endorse through advertisements. Here is a reference. Have a look. 🙂

1) At first, Mohan Lal asks us to buy gold from Malabar Gold, saying that we need an ‘eternal golden touch‘ to our precious moments in life. This represents the common Malayali obsession for gold.

2) Then he goes on to ask “why keep gold in your house when you can cash it?” and advises to take gold loans from Manappuram Gold Loan. That’s what a typical ordinary Malayali does. Spend so much on luxuries and when he goes out of cash, get his wife’s/kid’s gold ornaments to take gold loan to spend it for further luxuries.

3) When gold and money go away, Mohan Lal asks us “what’s up this evening?” and gets us to drink Original Choice to forget everything. A typical Malayali finds solace (or gives that as a reason or his drinking habit) in liquor.

There is only one more advt that Mohan Lal needs to do to complete this Malayali representation. An agarbathi ad. He could just show the ‘son’ in the Manappuram Gold Loan ad being not able to take his gold back and runs out of cash by paying interest and decides to hang himself. When the ‘son’s’ dead body is laid down the agarbathi could be shown next to the deadbody with a tagline “everybody has got a reason to pray“!

Review: Sound Box magazine

Sound Box magazine

Though touted as a music trade magazine, I think Sound Box will be interesting to all kinds of people who love music. Their initial package looks very promising. They had a buzz section that covered latest Indie, digital, TV, radio, gadget news. The main feature was about the amendments to the copyright act and the responses of various personalities to the issue. It has an interesting interview with singer Sonu Nigam on the issue. The guide section gives it a more elaborate look on the music charts, local events calendar (which will need to expanded to southern Indian cities like Bangalore, Chennai etc).

One hopeful thing though is a section called “Watchtower” where they have featured a state and this time a north-eastern state – Mizoram. Sound Box has given an overview of the state’s music scene, covering everything about it – music culture, music channels, popular local talents, venues, music labels, studios etc. It also has an interview with Boomerang – the Junk Rock band from Mizoram. I hope this would eventually lead the mag to cover or explore all regional music scenes, including the southern states. Another interesting story from the inaugural issue is about a Tamil rap band from Dharavi.

I see a couple of drawbacks to the mag though. The price being the first one. Though the good people at Sound Box sent me a free copy, the magazine is priced at Rs. 150. I think that price is a bit high for an ordinary music lover. I don’t think I will spend anything more than Rs. 50 on a magazine and that could be achieved by making the poster sized pages thinner and by reducing the huge size of the mag. Size is the second thing – I wish they had a lesser size for the mag so that it would be easy to carry it along on journeys and would make a comfortable reading in public places.

Other than these two, I totally loved the mag and wouldn’t mind subscribing to it.

You are covered!


Title: You’re Hired! How to get that job and keep it too!
Author: Nasha Fitter
Publisher: Penguin
Price: 199

To begin with, my English is self-taught. I learned how to read, write and speak English through various media. TV, books, blogs (when it became popular), and movies to start with. I owe so much of it to movies, sub-titled DVDs in particular, for helping me get used to some phrases, different dialects and a bit of a pop-culture from the West. I had my dictionary (and later Internet) in hand to learn more. But I always lacked an authentic book or person to refer to whenever I had doubts about the language or it’s usage. Many people whom I thought would be helpful were not so. Main reason is the basic human ego. Not everyone knows everything but people most of the times are not ready to admit their mistakes. And worse, they would pass on their mistakes to others pretending that they were right even when they were unsure. So it was high time that I found one useful reference.

Then came Pai, my ex-colleague and friend. He knew where I came from because we had some parallels between us. One fine day, Pai told me about a book he had read. He said it would help even people who thought they spoke/wrote good English. Written by Nasha Fitter, the book is titled “You’re Hired! How to get that job and keep it too” and I must say for a guy like me, it was the most useful book I read in the recent times.

The book in one word is – amazing! It is specifically written for people of India, particularly for youngsters who are looking for jobs (I would say the target includes people who are already working their jobs) in the IT and ITES field who make a lot of common (in India) errors when they speak or write English. Nasha Fitter’s several years of experience in training people in India lead to this book. It has several excercises at the end of every chapter (with an answer key section) which makes it fun to learn. And thankfully, the grammar is explained very simply and there is no shakespear quotes. Examples included only the daily conversations. I wish our school textbooks on English had the same simple format; it would have made grammar lessons look less scary.

I have to shamefully admit that before I read this book, I thought the plural of mouse is “mouses” instead of mice. I never understood why there are two words like “foot” and “feet”, or “tooth” and “teeth”. I never knew “do the needful”, “concerned person”, “will intimate you” are all wrong usages and “living” and “staying” have different meaning. The book even has a chapter that explains “Indianisms” which includes common errors we make. It also has tips to help you prepare for interviews.

I found this book extremely useful and I’m sure everybody like me would feel the same when they read this book. I’m going to re-read this in regular intervals to keep me learning. Priced at Rs. 199, this is a perfect buy.  The target audience of this book  is not people who don’t speak/write English but people who think they know enough English to speak or write and that includes me. 🙂

Lend me a silicon mask, please!

When Mammootty and Kamal Hassan, two actors from the South have got 3 national awards each, how could Hindi cinema, the so-called Bollywood, afford not to be on par with them? Especially when they are marketing themselves as Indian cinema? (I mentioned the “southern” factor specifically because the media always highlights it to distinguish them from the rest of India, like this IBNLive article says “southern music mastero Ilaiyaraja“. A R Rahman is lucky to have been adopted by Bollywood, so he doesn’t have to bear that “Southern” label when he is mentioned in the reports).

So this time when the National Film Awards were announced, we learned that the Best Actor award went to Amitabh Bachan for “Paa” and the close competitor for the title was Mammootty for his performances in Kutty Srank, Palerimanikyam and Pazhassi Raja. And many people believe that this time, again, the award jury made an unjust decision. They say that the award should have gone to Mammootty and not to Amitabh Bachan.

If I was in the jury, I would rule out Mammootty’s role in Pazhassi Raja, because the actor did not have much to do in that film as an actor. It was the film as a whole that stole the show entirely. The film was a blend of so many amazing talents on many fronts and Mammootty was just one of them. I believe he did not have much to do in that film as an actor. I haven’t seen Kutty Sraank, so I would not comment on that. But various reviews have praised Mammootty’s acting in that film to the core. I have seen Paleri Manikyam and the way Mammootty mastered the role of Kunjahammed Haji was just amazing.

I have seen Paa too. Comparing to himself, Amitabh Bachan was awesome. Auro was perhaps the best character he has ever got in his acting career. So I would rate him coming to a close second in the competition but not above Mammootty’s Haji in the race for the best actor.

For one thing, like most of the sentimental, teary-eyed Indian movies, Paa lacked the cinematic maturity of treating a subject like this. It purely banked upon the melodramatic overtones and it’s father-son “star” cast. Bachan’s make-up did not even let you see his face, leave alone the facial expression. Many people argue that his body language was perfect for the character, and I would agree with that, but the body mannerisms alone should not have brought him that award. Mammooty had different mannerisms in Paleri Manikyam too. He had to put on different facial expressions, body mannerisms and even different dialects to work with in that film and he had succeeded in all that. I hear that in Kutty Sraank also he had the same or bigger challenges.

This is not the first time that the national award jury snubbed the Malayali actors for Amitabh Bachan. When Bachan got an award for playing typical Bachan in Agneepath, the person who left out was one of the best actors ever happened to Malayalam cinema – Thilakan – for an unforgettable role he portrayed in the script of MT – Perumthachan. And now, Mammootty.

I don’t understand the criteria put forward by the jury. Is this a sign that such award juries have not come of age? If an actor does a sympathetic character with lots of scope for raining tear drops and an imported make-up man, would that be enough to actually get him an award?