The process of creating a successful potboiler lies in the art of creating an interesting storyline. While a successful film stops there, a super hit goes into unraveling the interesting story with lots of twists thereby doping the audience. Though how much ever Perarasu sounds completely crass and cliched when they display a title, Story Sceenplay Dialogue Lyrics Direction – Perarasu, has managed to create an acceptable masala that is certain to end up as a Super HIT.

Sivakasi is coming together of a divided family and this ain’t new for kollywood for we have been witnessing this since Kudiyirundha Koil. As a change, the movie starts in the Ranganathan Street of T.Nagar and travels to the village for a climax. Offlate, the stories from villages come speeding towards a city, this story actually is a relief as the second half is set in a village. The speedy second half would actually cover-up for the comedy drag in the first half and when the people come out of theatres, they would certainly look at Sun TV cameras and repeat, “Sir, Padam Super”. The winner is actually AM Ratnam. While a successful movie always reward nearly everyone, AM Ratnam manages to get a super hit from every alternate movie.

Exactly on the fifth minute, an iron door is cut with a gas burner and an image walks out. The camera pans in wide angle from the shoe to show the face. The camera wantedly shakes and a loud harmony of Oh !! Oh !! continues in the background. Few minutes later, the mechanic kid says, “Anney!! Oru anju thadava turn pannunganney”, our hero actually turns five times with a ready-made music of vishk vishk vishk. Irrespective of your movie philosphies, you tend to enjoy just these supremely exaggerated shots and willing to watch this angry young man in action. By the time, our hero reaches for the kumkum plate and make a thilak on his forehead, you are sucked into an idiosyncratic world of Super Stars. With Vijay, An HEIR to the Super Star arrives.

Heroism in kollywood terms, comes easy to Vijay. He is graceful, cool and is on his best when the story requires him to display heroism. This is the third of Vijay’s good movie in the last 3 years. After Thirumalai it was Gilli and now its Sivakasi. Vijay has nearly perfected the rajini pattern and infact I should say he says that loud in few scenes like when he is throwed onto the throne as in Rajini Muthu. Also when he pronounces, Unmaiya Sonnen while vishking his finger. With the boy-next-door looks and a typical dravidian face, Vijay will be celebrated like Rajini. Vijay who is 30 has an advantage of starting early. Vijay is here to stay provided if he doesn’t get carried away in doing ‘different’ movies. I only wish those crappy dialgoues on ‘how to be a girl’ are most avoided.

Prakash Raj actually increased the value of the film. With his role similar to Gilli if not the same, he out performs most of others in the movie. As they say, only when you have a Nambiyaar, MGR can become a hero, Prakash Raj is a must have for such movies. Asin is the heroine. Asin is the heroine. Asin is the heroine. Nothing much about this girl who even laughs in malaylam. The comedy gang spear-headed by the ‘hari-giri’ Chittibabu does a neat job. Prakash Raj’s sidekick, the guy with the beard is actually funny. And as many believe, the director just ensembled the hit characters of the recent commercial hits and brought them together in one movie. The songs and dances are certainly cool and reminding me of Dhill, Gilli, Dhool and Thirumalai.

If you are all out for the movie, you will enjoy, clap hands and whistle along with the crowd and I did miss watching this movie in Kamala among numerous Vijay fans. Have a mighty timepass !!

While the puritans, journos and some industry elites are upset that anyone today can write movie reviews on the internet, I was worried about those who say that. When anyone can walk into a theatre to watch a movie, anyone can comment on it. Whether the comment withstands applauds or succumbs to criticism depends on the smartness of the reviewer. When someone could get angered on all the reviewers of the mainstream media and kick start his own reviews online, it is his way of expression. Just like how the technology enables sharing of the knowledge which was once reachable only by the haves, it also enables expression of a common audience.

With blogging becoming an enabling device for reviewers of all sorts, movie reviewers were also born. A few years later after blogging kick started, you could spot only a few gems here and there. Many of them are just re-telling of the story, sub-standard and completely clueless about the grammar of reviews. They are silly, sloppy and irritating. But these are bound to happen. I am going to support them. Call me biased. With a heap of crap coming from the mainstream media, who are regarded as the people who define standards for writings, these mushrooming blog reviewers will also get consolidated and only the fit will survive. If someone was to write a review of Kurudhippunal and has no idea about the motifs and the philosophy behind a movie, it will glaringly show-up in the review. Either it will end up as 5 paragraph review with every para directed towards a component of a movie thereby encompassing all the elements of a movie or the other way. The other way is to just take a small theme of the movie and magnify it to exorbitant proportions and finally ends up as just a piece-of-the-pie.

I believe a perfect review lies somewhere in-between these two extremes. Any one who can balance between these two will emerge with a successful review that’s laudable. If you take either of these approaches, you fall short at the end. Stop. Before you start posting that comment here asking me how I can claim a say on this issue of reviews, I am not the authority of reviews, so is everyone. None of the so-called-reviews that I have written here have followed these rules. Its just now, I am getting the see the grammar of reviews clearly. I haven’t followed these at but I believe that this is what will work.

First off, writing a review shouldn’t be just to create a controversy or to add one to the count of your reviews or to brag about the knowledge of films that one possess. Writing in-depth about a movie can become boring to the readers and in the same way shirking the other aspects that contributed to the movie. A good review, again, I believe, can only come out of watching a good/bad movie. Whoever wants to write a movie should be moved by the movie, for good or bad. For an armchair critic, everything will appear faulty or shiny. Someone who watches a movie open-minded, given the skill of expressing what he witnessed, would be the best reviewer. Hence the critic ceases to be correct after a dozen times. For him, alcohol has no effect. But for the fresh reviewer who writes reviews just for the joy of it, even a bottle of beer can be intoxicating. The idea of constantly doing the same joyous job again and again, even for a porn actor, would become mundane. Hence the blogging community taking up reviewing as their second profession is a welcoming move. Even if it is not welcomed, it will happen. But as said before, the best will remain. Others will be discarded or will not be noticed.

I was triggered to write this whole blogpost only because of the review of Anniyan that I finished reading just now on Kumudam’s Theeranadhi. Written by Ramaswamy, the review made me laugh for nuts. It is such narrow minded review that I was mentioning before as blowing up a small motif to a godzilla. Starting from the Aryan invasion, the brahminical violence and few other unheard theologies, the review completely misleads the reader into a different track. One specific instance where the reviewer points out, that a link exists between Charlie’s killing by Anniyan and the Dravidian abuse on Brahmins during the early 70′s. He goes on to say that Anniyan is a movie to role-model brahmins to oppose that abuse. In the concluding paragraph, the reviewer tries to balance the review and then goes back to his own arguments again.

While I’m positive that some amount of Sujatha’s inputs would have influenced in the characterisation of Ambi, I don’t think Shankar to be such a fool to allow his movie to be hijacked for some unknown historical cause. A 70 year old Sujatha needn’t write a movie to infuse brahminical thoughts in the people’s mind. He could might as well tell them straight through a column. Even if these could be theoritically true, Shankar wouldn’t want to risk a high budget movie for such a small cause. Also by infusing these unheard thoughts, Anniyan seems to be a better movie that it really is. Anniyan is such a badly executed commercial movie without any such under-currents. Such reviews are only written to boast on the intellectualism the ‘Siru Pathirikaigal’ seem to be advocate of. While I don’t blame the reviewer for it, because he has a his own limitations of what the editor wants to be published. Probably the entire review would have been re-written in his name.

A similar mi-leading thing happened with a wonderfully shot movie named ‘Kathal’. Balaji Shakthivel’s movie could be called a classic in the coming years except for it’s abrupt ending. While many of us call it abrupt ending, the intellectuals of these small magazines call it as a rebellious and infectious climax. During the final scenes as the protagonist, a backward caste teenager, roams in the road as an insane dude, the heroine comes running to him and falls in his feet to request a apology for marrying someone else. All this happening and the climax being complete here, two reviewers of small magazines (I think, Dheemtarikida and Uyirmmai, though I’m not sure here) wrote that the movie has anti-periyaar sentiments being adviced in the movie. Reason, while the climax happens, a periyaar statue stands in the middle of the road. And hence they call ‘Kadhal’ to be a movie with intentions well hidden. Even Periyaar himself wouldn’t spare these folks.

Not only these folks but there are bunch of mainstream media folks who also write bad reviewers and hence the coming up of a new genre of blog reviewers should be a welcoming move. We have tried everything and now we need to give bloggers a chance. If only bloggers can be level-headed and not write such horrendous reviews, atleast the main-stream media folks would start understanding that just being in main-stream media alone doesn’t help, you got to write right stuff. Bloggers Arise !!

Read a recent post on a blog elsewhere and am LMAO since then. Its a blatant copy (ofcourse with necessary changes after a dictionary consult)of a post that I had written few months back.

Dudes, I’m not a someone to imitate from. Don’t make me feel lofty !!

[Pic - gonemovies.com]

Every time I want to write on film released long back, I fall short. To think about it, I realize that it’s the hesitation that one goes through in re-hashing stuff that has been already said and analysed. So when I wanted to write on Anjali, Unnal Mudhiyum Thambi or even Sridhar’s Kathalikka Neramillai, I was unable to. Either I compulsorily procrastinate or I consciously forget to write about it. The same isn’t true with The Shining. This is the 25th year of The Shining’s release. Watching it even now on a 27″ inch screen, which is nothing close to a movie screen, I was awestruck. I was stunned and floored. A stream of thoughts and emotions ran across as I watched the film and it is still disturbing me after two days. Not many films have disturbed me as Kubrick’s movies. First it was Mahanadhi, second it was Hey Ram and ofcourse Schindler’s List.

Based on Stephen King‘s third published novel, The Shining is regarded as an epic of modern horror films. While in school, I had stayed awake to read the scariest of Stephen King’s stories. My favorite of them being IT. The Shining isn’t even close to ‘IT’ in terms of the storyline. Its just the way how Stanley Kubrick has fancied it, has made it into a prodigious flick.

The premise of shining comprises of three primary characters and a grand hotel. Jack Nicholson, a man suffering from mid-age crisis takes up a job as the winter caretaker in far-flung hotel near Denver. When he, his wife and his kid Danny re-locate to the hotel for pursuing his job, the hotel gets closed for the winter season. The family gets stuck in an improbable situation that makes them undergo sheer terror, hardship and loss. With just these characters Kubrick terrifies the audience thoroughly.

I watched The Clockwork Orange and was amazed by Kubrick’s flamboyant manner of film-making. He is probably the first director to understand the grammar of the big screen. His sense of imagery and colors are thought provoking beyond doubt. Having watched few other older films, I had my expectations set for haunting images and mesmerizing music in this one. My assumptions were blown-away, for good. The images and the background music are nothing close to description. You have to watch it to believe it. Even as the logo of Warner Bros fades away in the first shot, the movie opens into a huge land of wilderness. The water and a strip of mountains around stay still as the camera, from the helicopter, locates a volkswagen travelling on the mountain road. The camera[from the helicopter] starts to zoom in on the car and also starts to descend, it cuts through the road and flies back in air over the water. With a movie like Shining, one would expect a dark start but this one is just out-of-the-world experience. I could easily vote that this is one of the best opening shot of any film ever made.

Through out the movie, there are all types of horror. We see the ‘ghosts’ briefly, we await the unknown, we listen to some outrageous background noises that scares your spirits, we go on a horror-and-seek in a maze of snow. This is probably one of the success formula for the movie. Kubrick has used all types of horror to make this a pilot for horror films. As Shelley Duvall, the wife of Jack Nicholson, in the movie, scans the bundles of paper types by Jack throughout the day time. She sees nothing but All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. The BGM and the slow camera pan during this scene affrights even the unscared. The hotel with it’s grandeur and technicolor restrooms plays it’s own part in increasing heartbeat. The use of mirror in the movie enormous. Kubrick surprises with the mirror shots and also scares you at the same time.

Jack Nicholson with his eyebrows lifted gives peculiar stare and shouts, Here’s Johnny. It’s been written and written again that Jack is one of the finest actors of previous generation. Proves it with ease even from the first scene. Danny Lloyd as the kid is brilliant. It’s been said that Kubrick scanned through 5000 kids for the casting of Danny’s character. The effort didn’t go for a toss. Danny delivers and even as the camera is stuck very closely in his face, his expressions show the mature actor in him. As we watch The Making of Shining we know how Kubrick, with his loud shouts during filming made acting a cake walk for Danny. A performance to remember for ever and ever and ever(watch the movie to see the significance of this line). Shelley Duvall starts out unassumingly and as her character grows, tries to vanquish Jack himself.

Though the motifs and the ending of The Shining has in debate over the years by Kubrick’s fans but for a normal unassuming viewer its nothing more than a top-class horror flick. No one is complaining. For each of the audience gets what he is upto. The Shining isn’t one of those b-grade Hollywood horror flicks made in shoestring budget. Kubrick stresses on the fact that a movie needs the grandeur it demands. His lavish spending on the sets and the art hasn’t gone waste. Even when you are making a horror movie, make it as the best of the genre. It’s Kubrick’s philosophy on film-making, as he quotes, “One man writes a novel. One man writes a Symphony. It’s essential for one man to make a movie”. For he is undoubtedly, THE ONE.

tribute
noun
1. An expression of admiration or congratulation: commendation, compliment, congratulation (often used in plural), praise. See praise/blame.
2. A formal token of appreciation and admiration for a person’s high achievements: salute, salvo, testimonial.

screw up
verb
To harm irreparably through inept handling; make a mess: ball up, blunder, boggle, botch, bungle, foul up, fumble, gum up, mess up, mishandle, mismanage, muddle, muff, spoil. Informal bollix up, muck up. Slang blow1, goof up, louse up, snafu. Idioms: make a muck of.

Sometimes tributes end up as screw-ups. Though being inspired and inspired again by his movies, Shankar fails poorly to display his tact in handling social subjects with proficient ease. Anniyan ends up being a bad exercise in execution and is undoubtedly a defective tribute to his own classics. I was sold even during the first 15 minutes of the movie. After that, just like a bad one day cricket match, the movie treads into an unrealistic path with a face mask of realism, only to bore you and me to the core.

Coming from the S A Chandrasekhar factory, Shankar has always stuck chord with problems dodging the society and has delivered escapist fantasy flicks with earnestness in story-telling. Boys was his first full-length realistic movie with little exaggerations sprinkled throughout. With the entire Tamil Nadu taking a holy dip to remain virgins by making Boys a super-dooper flop, this is what they did to a human called Shankar, whose directing career graph, until then, knew no south-pole bends. I can perfectly sympathize Shankar for being hurt with the hungama made with Boys at the box-office. At the same time, one would also expect a mature director to rebound from the fall, make a movie that would be applauded by the same crowd which made his previous gem a failure. Instead, Shankar goes on a remix mode and loses the artistic credibility, what kollywood had on him.

Anniyan had a much better message storyline than Indian or Muthalvan. It calls for a root cause analysis of social issues and not harvesting weeds in the bureaucracy. This probably should have been the first of Shankar’s movies as it shouts for a bigger attention than the reformation to education department, like in Gentleman. While I strongly believe in the philosophy of watching a movie as presented instead of suggesting changes to someone who conceived it, Anniyan made me cross the rule. If made appropriate changes to the basic story-line, Anniyan would become a classic. It ends a sore interlude in a beautiful symphony. If only…If only the MPD wasn’t used and misused, Anniyan would emerge as a winner of sorts.

There are logically unanswered questions, poor characterization, terribly bad screenplay and of course some hyped acting in abundance, throughout the movie. While the protagonist, Ambi has a truly admirable character his alter egos are preferred to be forgotten as nightmares. Contrary to popular belief, in my opinion, Ambi aka ‘Rules’ Ramanujam isn’t a loser. He is one of the stalwarts of this society. As we see hundreds of social blunders happening within our vicinity, most of us escape from the scenario. Ambi at least has this innocent confidence to fight out the blunders right at that spot. Though being dishonored by others, Ambi is a true citizen of this society. If we were take a poll, as to how many of us would engage in questioning a dada molesting a girl in the pallavan bus, Ambi would win hands-down. Ambi is an Anniyan in this country for that matter. With a country full of escapists and hypocrites of various degrees, who can just make passing comments on social issues while traveling bus or writing about what should happen to the politics in blogs, like us, Ambis are rare breed of brave heroes. Aayitha Ezhuthu‘s Michael Vasant and Anniyan Ambi have similar milestones, only that they choose different ways to reach there.

Vikram was a huge let-down. While his body language was nearly perfect to the ‘timid’ Ambi character, his intonation as Remo and Anniyan were unbearable. Vikram portrays Anniyan’s killing-of-the-bad with only a revengeful attitude and not with a fierceness of achieving a goal. By just rolling the eyes and blowing air like Arjun, I don’t think the characterization of Anniyan was complete. I only wished Vikram to have understood the subtle fierceness, Kamalhassan displayed as Indian Thatha. Even the thatha had fire in him to cleanse the society and it was brought out in a manner, with a devastatingly underplayed role. While I’m not comparing Kamal Hassan to Vikram, Vikram might need good directors to help him with true-to-life characters.

Prakashraj’s character not only ends up a bad joke but also helps in bringing down the interest in the movie. While Vivek provides some good escape from the boredom, Sada disappoints as the heroine. Acknowledged artists like Nasser, Prakash Raj, Nedumudi Venu, Cochin Haniffa, Kalabavan Mani are wasted with tiny unimportant characters. The Thiruvayaaru festival ends up as a hyped up marketing effort.

It’s a little annoying to sit through a movie with bad continuation and screenplay. The minute you have Anniyan executing Garuda Puranam type punishments, you know you are heading in the wrong direction. Garuda Puranam has a good mythology behind it. And I think it wasn’t presented well on screen. The loosely hanging strands of hair in-front of the camera, made me hate the man called Anniyan. It’s so amateurish to have shots like that. I only doubt if Shankar and Sujatha ever saw the movie before it released to public. While I believe they have a good eye for detail, how could they ever compromise on such bad shots and characterization of Anniyan? Yet again, childish graphics end up as villains for Shankar movies. With so much talked about technology involved in making movies, I can’t believe shots of Anniyan website having such poor quality graphics which any local graphic artistic can make.

Harris Jayaraj disappoints even more than Shankar and Vikram. And one is forced to think the impact of having Rahman for a movie like this. The BGMs are nearly missing while songs are a mediocre effort by Harris who has some good numbers before. I loved the Kaadhal Yaanai song but bad picturisation made me avoid it. Even the similar Muthalvan’s Shakalaka Baby had some nice picturisation. I’m unable to distinguish between Mani Kandan and Ravi Varman’s splendid cinematography. It’s lovely to have two good cameramen for the same movie. Camera ramping has become a sort of Shankar trademark and I just love the way he uses it at right place of the movie to speed it up without having to edit them.

Sujatha’s dialogues not only help in setting up the movie, it helps to ground the movie and make it relatable to the audience. It’s a potent combination to have such realistic dialogues with a fantasy story. Only that Anniyan had overdone the fantasy part. But I wasn’t for comparing Singapore to India. It wasn’t comparing apples and apples.

Anniyan isn’t certainly a movie; Shankar could be proud making it. I would only expect a sensible director like Shankar to bounce back and raise his own bar, instead of getting crippled to the joint discouraging effort of the media and public for his Boys. He probably should be making small budget flicks of his own taste instead of such big budget movies like this, to escape out of the image he has created amidst the public. Not only would we get a classy director Shankar who can make movie watching a thorough experience, it would also allow him to pursue his endeavors. Whatsoever, Anniyan would remain as a biggest blooper of recent times.