Dasavatharam - Views

Its sad to see Kamal Haasan being reduced to this by the audience of Tamizh Cinema. The 10 roles are a gimmick and nothing more. In the roles of Shingen, Fletcher and the old woman, the make up is so heavy that any acting, whatsoever, is ruled out. And Flectcher, aptly (as he cannot 'act') wears shades and keeps running as if there is no tomorrow. Asin repeating "Perumalae" is a definite contender for the most irritating character in tamizh cinema award. The last 10 minutes - the Ulaganaayagane song, where they show Kamal 'undergoing' extensive make-up sessions seems to be an anti-thesis to what Kamal keeps saying on tv - that doing movies is not his work, but holiday. The screenplay is good till the interval and after that it is much like KrishnaVeni - senile and pointless. Music - is puke-able. And recently I heard that the only decent song, Kallai Mattum Kandaal song is also a rip-off!!! Its pathetic that Rajni and Kamal, the two pillars which has made Tamizh cinema survive in terms of money and quality, have given us cardboardish movies in Sivaji and Dasavadharam. I hope both of them decide to hang up their boots. Kamal Haasan's looks (as Govind) easily matches his worst so far - Vasool Raja and Vettaiaadu Vilayadu! After seeing people like Surya having six pack abs, its no longer to pleasure to see Kamal and Ajit having a paunch and Vijay looking like an AIDS stricken patient.

Cast:

Its Kamal Haasan in all the important roles. Out of these, the pick is Balaram Naidu whose wit and one liners keep you interested in the movie. The character of Rangarajan Nambi is good as well. Asin is downright irritating. If I were Govind in the movie, I'd be trying to be as far away from Asin, as possible - but as they say Vidhi Valiyadhu and Govind ends up being in love with Asin.

Tech Crew:
KSR - 25/100
Cameraman (Ravi Varman, I guess) - 80/100
Music - 0/100
BGM - 30/100
Make up - Biggest letdown - no marks!

History/facts Distorted:
Kamal Haasan (or the director KSR) is confused between Shavities and Smaarthas. People who are called Iyers of today (except the Ashtasastram sub-sect) are Smaarthas and have neither ill-will towards Maha Vishnu nor particular attachment to Parameswaran. In fact, in the Sandyavandhana ritual, we do say, Asavadityo Brahma / Brahmaivaasmi// meaning, Light/Sun is the only God and I myself am a manifestion of Sun. I make an educated guess that Vadakalai Iyengars, who I think have their scriptures in Sanskrit, follow Yajur Upakarma which means they might have the same Aikyanusandhaanam. I have been to Chidambaram, but failed to notice if the Perumaal there is vadakalai or then-kalai. But going by logic, with the Nataraja being non-lingam form, which is a classical Chozha/Aadheenam/pre- 'rise of thenkalai' trait, I'm tempted to believe that the perumal has to be vadakalai too - which makes the whole 12th century epsiode shaky and iffy as Kamal Haasan says, "Adiyen Ramanuja Daasan" - meaning he is a then-kalai Iyengar. I'm not a pro on the history of Smaarthas and Iyengars, but someone who is more knowledgable, please enlighten me on this. And in fact, when I say Smaarthas are not anti-Vishnu, there can be no greater proof than Maha Periyava Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswathi of Kanchi Sankara Math (I'm not calling on jayendra Saraswathi because of various reasons - the prime being, I myself am not convinced that the Math is as sacred it was when Maha Periyava was the Mata-athipathi) who signs (they cannot ink their name as they have renounced the world ) as "Naarayana-Smriti" (meaning, a Tool of Sri Naarayana). Well, people can ask me why the heck I dissect a masala movie thus far - its just to show how the concept of Brahmism has been raped and interpreted in totally erroneous ways, thanks to the Dravida Movement.


P.S: I'm trying to come up with a post as to the origin of the Vedas, which I came to know by attending some arbit discourse in April 2007 in Chennai (when I had actually gone there for Arusuvai Arasu's Canteen's Badam Alwa and some vadais. :D). Any help with regard to that is welcome!

Anjaadhey - First good movie of 2008

Saw Anjaadhey today - albeit online streaming video.

Well, I thought of Kakha Kakha and Kurudhi Punal as defining movies for the cop genre. But I think Anjaadhey, minus a performer like Surya, story-wise has definitely scored over Kakha Kakha. Instead of going in for a usual review let me list the features which appealed (and which didn't) to me.

Good Aspects:

1. No glamorization of villain or hero - in fact, IMO Ajmal was given almost as much importance and scope as Narain, the protagonist.

2. No gross visuals (Gautam Menon, are you listening?) and no justification for Prasanna's obsession - it is shown that Prasanna is, naturally, a person with a psychological disorder.

3. The screenplay was taut and gripping. No unwanted Amma, Thangachi sentiment scenes which tend to put me off. On the same vein, thank god, Narain and Uttara were not shown to be doing "lauvs" in usual tamizh cinema paani.

4. Stunts, whatever little there was were natural and no rope oriented flyings... And the fights were shown to be short and swift.. Much like what Vishnu varadan told in his Tv interviews before the release of Billa. That lent more credence to the encouters/fights.

5. Awesome characteriastions - Ponvannan was very good. Livingston and MS Bhaskar were correctly underplayed. Pandiarajan was very efficient too. And I don't know whether it was for that reason - but Narain identifying the voice of Pandiarajan was believable. Pandiarajan's voice is not ur usual voice. Touche, Myskin.

6. BGM was not a cacophony - I found the BGM in Kakha Kakha whenever Jeevan came, to be outright "the rejected" . The Music director has lost the plot in the songs (will talk about it later) but has scored in the BGM dept.

7. I liked the way Mysskin had avoided to show anybody as good or bad. Everybody was portrayed as normal human beings, having shades of grey - nothing more or nothing less. There is often a tendency to portray people as caricatures (either too good or too bad).


8. The way Ponvannan investigates the case is superb. It seems much more closer to reality than stuff like "Raghavan Instinct" kinds. For this alone, Mysskin deserves praise, if not for the other reasons.


9. This movie, once again reiterates that you don't need 'kuthu' paatu and a comedy track to make the audience like the movie. And thankfully, there are no punch dialogs like "Nee adicha piece, Naan adicha maasu", "Naan onnu ninaichenna, Ennalaye Kaaya vaikka mudiyadhu" kinds. I still maintain that apart from Rajni Kanth, anybody else mouthing punch dialogs looks funny.


10. Amongst cop movies in tamizh cinema, I liked KurudhipPunal and Kakha Kakha. But after Anjadhey, I would say, in order of merit, it is KurudhupPunal, Anjaadhey and Kakha Kakha.



Aspects which I didn't like.

1. Except for the Kathaala song, others were downright horrible. Mysskin, who goes on record saying he doesn't like having songs could have avoided those songs - the movie would also been shorter, adding to the already good screenplay.

2. Some scenes were too dark for my liking. But that could also be because I saw it on my comp and not on the big screen.

3. I felt Narain was very limited in his acting skills. I think Mysskin should try to convince bigger stars (I Know he will say that the big stars are afraid to experiment....). But this movie is not experimental. The protagonist wins at the end, which is what those big stars want and so, I think Mysskin should be more convincing when narrating scripts to those stars.

Overall, the first good film of 2008.

I would give it 4 Starts out of a possible 5.

Charlie Wilson's War - A review

If you don't like Tom Hanks - Avoid this film.

If you like Tom Hanks - Don't go near this movie.



Pathetic. A 2 line story stretched over 2 hours, stretching your patience as well.

Polladhavan Review

In continuum with my previous post, this movie really impressed me - in spite of having Dhanush in it and also the fact that I saw it in a crappy streamed format online.

The story is pretty similar to bicycle thief and deals about Dhanush's irresponsible life, his quest to get a Pulsar and the happenings thereon. Dhanush pretty much manages to be convincing as the wastrel guy - I think he has played this role once too often and even then, manages to make you take notice. His acting notwithstanding, there are certain aspects to his dialog delivery and facial expressions which Dhanush needs to avoid. His performance really stands out in the scene he revolts against his father. The comedy sequences work almost most of the times - except for some mokkais from Karunas. Dhanush has also made an effort to improve his physique and in the climax fight, his physique adds some credence to the fight (I generally believe fights shouldn't be more than 2 or 3 punches long). I really like Dhanush for trying to choose stories intelligently (thiruvilayadal arambam, Polladhavan kinds). Its definitely good that he has come out of the Sullan - Parattai engira azhagu kinda nonsensical scripts. Not everyone can fit all roles. So if Dhanush can make himself a niche hero, good for him.

The love track is a total spoiler and the movie could have been much tauter without it - and the heroine's only capability seems to be able to do some on-edge-of-vulgarity dance steps in the songs - zilch emoting and non-existent good looks - it seems to be a good decision by Gautam to drop her from Varanam Ayiram.

Amongst other performances, Daniel Balaji (this guy always comes as a drug addict on screen and plays it pretty convincingly too) and Murali (Dhanush's dad) are good. Bhanupriya comes in a role tailor made for Saranya (roles whose only selavu is 25 litres of glyrcerine). The other small characters like Santhanam, Dhanush's sister are easy and are not the usually over-the-top characters that we are used to. A bow to the director for sticking to believable characterizations.

What's this new trend of Tamizh movie villains talking tamizh in a contorted accent? His tamizh pronounciation itself warrants the horrible death he dies in the movie.

Songs from G.V. Prakash Kumar, who had superb outings in Kireedam and Veyyil has dissappointed and generally, the songs itself are speed-breakers in this movie - the most irritating being the item number - I seriously don't know why this item number was placed there - the song, dance and the "item" girl sucked big time.

On the whole, this movie is good enough to be seen once - and perhaps is Tamizh Cinema's answer to the Six Pack Khan.

Rating - 3/5

0 - Horrible/Pathetic
1 - Bad
2 - Okay
3 - Good
4 - Excellent
5 - Amazing


LKS

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