Geo's Talkies - Ghajini

It's nice to see the menacing villian return to the screen in a hindi potboiler. Ghajini for one could be the first movie that's named after the antagonist which is not only what's not seen normally but also unique when you have a superstar playing the role of the protagonist. Ghajini should have been called Sanjay or Sanju (Bah, I'm kidding !!!!).

Sanjay Singhaniya (Aamir Khan) is a foreign educated industrialist who is at the helm of affairs of AirVoice a mobile service provider. Kalpana (Asin Mary Thottumkal) is a small time model doing ad shoots for Tinnu Anand. Kalpana is bubbly, ready to help and full of joy. In a classic case of mistaken identity during the course of an interview with a journalist from a yellow magazine Kalpana blurts out that she's Sanjay Singhaniya's love interest. Sanjay is furious at all the press he's been getting and sets out to meet Kalpana only to be floored by the lady in red tops and white pants. They become friends with Sanjay choosing not to reveal his true identity to Kalpana not knowing how she'd react to it.

Sanjay proposes to Kalpana who accepts his love after some introspection not knowing that this was the real Sanjay indeed. A chance encounter with some child trafficers on a train get's Kalpana right into the eye of a huge organ harvesting and human trafficing storm which eventually get's her killed right in front of Sanjay's eyes in a gruesome manner. An attack on Sanjay during this episode removes his power to remember leaving him just the capacity to remember anything for 15 minutes at a stretch. This is not the real short term memory loss but it's okay, it's not meant to be a documentary.

Director AR Murugadoss has acknowledged the inspiration from Memento directed by Christoper Nolan. I wouldn't see why he'd have to do that, Memento had a non-linear narrative, Ghajini is pretty linear with flashbacks intercut into the narrative. Memento demanded some serious viewing and worked the brain while Ghajini is a movie that demands your logic to be left at home and good it's so. Ghajini has everything packed into an almost 3 hr theater experience, there's action, romance, thrills. Weren't these what were part of a good hindi fare? As an entertainer Ghajini does entertain, it's not a serious movie, it's a sandwich which is pepperred with everything for everyone.

Aamir the 'superstar' shines in Ghajini especially in the scenes where he shows rage and animalistic behaviour when he recollects his past. This is the Aamir Khan that set's the cash registers ringing. Asin is okay as Kalpana, she does go over the top and in atleast two instances sounded like a (cliched) Madrasi (despite hailing from Ernakulam). I'm sure everyone would love the bubbly person she's portrayed on screen. How far can she go in an industry that is never in short of bikini clad cleavage exposed hip gyrating actresses remains to be seen. I did not see an iota of romantic chemistry between Aamir and Asin on screen which didn't augur well for the experience as I'm supposed to weep with the hero. Jiah Khan is adequate in the role of Sunita, a medical student who get's interested in Sanjay's case. Pradeep Rawat plays Ghajini is menacing and outright scary, you don't ever want to see him in real life.

Ravi K Chandran's superlative camera work takes Ghajini to another level. The songs are exquisitely shot and the color palette always fits the mood of a scene. The very last frame of the movie is a DOP showing off what he can do with nature and photoshop (not really !!!). Anthony (from the South) has edited the movie, I thought some of the cuts were annoying, especially the fast one's. Anthony probably saw only the action part of this movie and forgot that at it's core was a sweet romance, decent job though. Sound design has been credited to Resul Pookutty and H Sridhar was also working on this movie till he passed away in Dec 2008. The sound at times was too loud which is typically how our theaters set up the volumes but the sound design part of it sounded spot on, given the fact that this movie was shot in sync-sound. Peter Hein's (and Stun Siva who took over when Peter left) action is well choreographed.

Ghajini is surely worth a watch with it's heady mix of romance, thrills, suspense, music and action.

Trivia

# AirVoice headquarters shown in the movie appears to be Ascendas Tech Park, ITPL, Bangalore. Since AOL, Bangalore was credited in the beginning of the movie the office shown in the movie is probably AOL's support floor.

# Aamir uses Samsung cell phones throughout the movie.

# The closing action scenes have been shot in Hyderabad.

# In Asin's introductory scene where she's shown helping physically challenged school children leaves keep falling which look like 'maple', has anyone seen maple leaves in India?

Geo's Talkies - Bommalattam

"Yen iniya Thamizh makkalay, ungal paasathirkuriya Bharathiraaja pesugiraen". When Bharathiraaja addressed the audiences in his movies at it's opening with his characteristic line it was a promise of good cinema, one could be sure that here was a fare that was going to be earthy and entertaining. Kizhakku Cheemaiyilae, Karuthamma, Kadal Pookkal, Anthimantharai, Muthal Mariyathai, Kadalora Kavithaigal were good examples, I've deliberately left out movies that were made and released before 1985.

This movie tells the story of Rana played by Nana Patekar, a fiercely passionate movie director, almost a reel life version of the real Bharathiraaja. He's shown to be prone to temper tantrums, has a wife who is not giving any respite. Inside the man is a person who loves cinema completely. Minutes before the preview of his newest movie 'Cinema' the heroine of the movie is killed in a car accident with Rana escaping, the audience is made to believe that this was a murder? Why? What's the motive? Why would a skilled director like Rana commit a murder without an alibi? The mystery unfolds in the closing moments of the movie attempting to keep the suspense alive until then.

I won't even tell about Arjun who plays Vikram, a "CBI officer". It's good to know that the CBI does the investigation of accident deaths in Chennai city. The Chennai City Police is probably too busy with the traffic arrangements that they've outsourced this task to the CBI. How else could you explain Vikram showing up on the accident spot minutes after the accident? Or maybe CBI stands for Chennai Bureau of Investigation, you'll never know with names mind you. It was Madras before, it's Chennai now. Coimbatore was Kovai always, so was Tiruchy (Trichy), Thanjavur (Tanjore), Puduchery (Pondicherry), it's very likely that the C in CBI was Chennai and not Central.

If this was a movie written and directed by a debutant one could give him a chance for goofing up the car numbers when Rana is chased by the press before the launch of his movie, the front of the car's plate shows a TN-06 registration while the rear shows a MH-06 registration. During flashback the numbers are back to MH-06 on both sides, wow, this is a mystery which the producer could take up in a sequel. Lot is expected from a person of Bharathiraaja's calibre, he's carved a niche for himself and I still believe no one can narrate a story set in a rural town like him. No one can bring out emotions of a brother & sister like him, all these require melodrama in varying amounts. A slick thriller needs action, it's needs a racy screenplay which is not jerky or full of holes, it needs suspense and a good finale. This movie has none of the above, it's fast, but it's fast like a town bus doing 90 kmph on village roads, you keep getting pushed around, your head bangs the sealing, you get a bum ache.

There are tiny surprises, probably to compensate for the 50 bucks one pays to get to see it. The heroine Rukmini is a revelation, Nana Patekar does what he's known for which is 'act'. Nizhalgal Ravi's dubbing for him was a little over done. Himesh's music is a damp squib, Monty's background score had a couple of nice tunes. It was nice to see "Audiography - H Shridhar" on screen despite the fact that the sound effects were overdone. Give us another earthy fare Mr.Bharathiraaja, we deserve better for being your fans over the years.

Hunter or Farmer?

Do you want to be a hunter or a farmer? Coming soon !!!!!

Requiescat in pace - H Sridhar

The demise of H Sridhar has come as a rude shock to all fans of Indian music, South Indian in particular. Winner of 4 national awards for Mahanadhi, Dil Se, Lagaan & Kannathil Muththamittal, H Sridhar was one of those rare breed of sound engineers who were trained in music too. Born on 31st Mar 1960, HS was just 48 yrs old when his end came. I read on the internet that he returned back home at 2 AM after working on the soundtrack of 'Ghajini' and didn't wake up from his sleep. The doctors declared him dead around 1000 AM and the reason was attributed as a cardiac arrest.

South Indians in particular are known to look out for names of technicians and the name of H Sridhar as Sound Designer / Sound Engineer / DTS mix was a sure fire indication of top notch sound mix on multichannel soundtracks. Media Artists, an organisation which pioneered the use of DTS as movie soundtrack formats, was H Sridhar's main umbrella. H Sridhar has also mixed / engineered almost all of AR Rahman's soundtracks. It's simply no surprise that out of the 4 national awards he has won, the music for 3 were scored by AR Rahman.

We have all the technology one would need to create a near perfect sound for CD / DVD, HS belonged to an era that had to work hard at achieving that. It's probably from there that the sense of achieving higher things would have imbibed into his system, every movie mixed by him had his stamp on it. His presence will surely be missed by the industry, DTS technologies owes it's success in India majorly to Real Image and H Sridhar who worked to create some of the best software in DTS in our times.

# All pics used in this post are from KJ Singh's collection and permission is awaited for using this here. Content will be removed if objection is raised by the owner.

Geo's Talkies - Vaarnam Aayiram

Vaaranam Aayiram is about the relationship between a father and a son, the whole movie is shown from the son's perspective. All the other relationships blend well into the whole theme and lend their own color to the story. The father is Krishnan and the son is Surya, both characters are played by Surya. Simran is Malini, Surya's mother and Krishnan's wife and Shreya is Surya's sister. The movie opens on a rather sombre note with the death of Krishnan and the news is broken to Surya who is on his way with a team of commandos for some sort of a rescue operation. Surya recollects some incidents in his father's life and his which moulded their respective personalities.

Krishnan's college romance with Simran is shown in a beautiful song, the production work at this time is perfect and one get's to see Datsun, Standard, Herald, Plymouth cars from an era bygone. We then move into Surya's life and see him grow up, as a school kid, as a college student who is not good at studies, as a guitarist, as an entrepreneur, his first love and the loss he faces, as an addicct to alcohol and drugs, as a fighter who regains his life, various shades of a person's life which unfold in a rather nice way on screen. Sameera Reddy plays Meghna, Surya's first love. Although I didn't find her very pretty in the introduction scene in the train, Meghna in the US was stunning and outright beautiful. Divya Spandana plays Ramya, Surya's sister Shreya's best friend who becomes Surya's wife later on in the movie. There's hardly any suspense and hence I don't mind revealing the complete plot in this blog.

The story is very warm and melodramatic, a little too nice for a father and son relationship I should say. Nevertheless the effort is laudable and this is by no means an inferior movie, it's actually a good movie and with a little more effort during writing and editing this could have been an excellent movie. The second half of the movie was rather tedious and gave a bum ache (borrowed this phrase from Ridley Scott who says you know the audience is feeling the pain when you see them shifting in their seat). Gautam Vasudev Menon needs commendation for attempting a movie of this scale and getting it right with the casting and production. Simran always was an underutilized actress and very rarely does she get a role to play, this is one such role where she performs like the one she got in Kannathil Muththamittal.

Surya who plays both the father and son is perfect in the father's role and apt in the son's role. Watching Surya as Krishnan is a revelation on screen, I consciously had to remind myself that was Surya indeed. He has given the father's character a lot of subtle movements and a slightly different body language which gels well. Surya plays the son's character pretty much like he's done before sans the theatrics. Nothing ground breaking in this, mind you Surya is still one of the better actors in the newer lot. Sameera will remain in the minds of the audience longer because of the nature of her screen character. She's pretty, aptly cast and has some acting to do which she tries. Divya's role is short, not too much is written for her and she's always been someone who can emote reasonably.

Harris Jayaraj delivers melodic tunes for this movie some of which linger on in the mind even after you've left the movie hall. The background score was comsi comsa. It was apt in some situations but absolutely out of bounds in some, case in point - the rescue done by Surya in Delhi had shoddy background music. Action scenes are jerky which seems to be a problem with the use of steadicam. Rathavelu's camera is majorly superb, I particularly liked the clever use of the camera in double act scenes, the camera becomes one character in those. Anthony who usually is a deft editor seems to have allowed Gautam to dictate terms to him with the final print which probably is why the movie is a little over 3 hrs long. Thankfully since I saw the movie outside Tamilnadu I was able to see the full version, the one running in Tamilnadu is only 2hrs30mins long.

On the whole this is a good movie and definitely worth a watch, I'm sure many father's and son's will be able to similarities in their life and this movie. I'm looking forward to watching this movie this weekend with my Dad, should be worth the while.

Trivia

# I'm reasonably sure the college shown in the 'Munthinam' song with Krishnan (father's role) is Tamilnadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore as I remember seeing this film crew in 2007 there.

# Gautam's attention to detail in a shot is always top notch, I've written about this in a previous review too. When Krishnan is shown as living in Calicut (Kozhikode) there's is a Mathrubhumi calendar (most read newspaper in Kerala) hung on the wall. A song showing Surya (son's role) in Chennai also has a billboard showing Solidaire TV and Arnold's Commando. A cut out of Kamal Hasan's Sathya (directed by Suresh Krishna) is shown outside a cinema hall in a song sequence.

# Recreating the Madras Central railway station and the buckingham canal bridge was a a little sloppy, as was Spencers (not Spencer Plaza Mall).

# Binny mills, Chennai which was featured in previous Gautam movies is present in this one too.

# All Gautam movies have had a strong anti-eve-teasing stance, Surya beats up an eve-teaser which seems to occurs at the same location where Kakha kakha had a similar scene, both movies had the heroine in the frame too.

# Meghna (Sameera's character) is shown as getting injured and subsequently killed in Oklahoma, this incident happened in April 1995 and there are original file shots of the gutted building.

# I just couldn't see calling 'kiddo' as normal for the time this movie is set in, this is a very american phrase. There's a higher amount of English in the script which could turn off non English speaking audiences because there are no subtitles, this is not a mass movie either!

Geo's talkies - Quantum of Solace

'Bond, James Bond' - That was the phrase that usually one saw on screen minutes after the movie opened. Then the audience is taken on a whirlwind tour of a situation setting the stage for Bond to intervene. Before taking off on his journey there's the mandatory meeting Bond has with M which is usually witty. Then Bond meets Q who introduces Bond to one sophisticated gadget or another. Before Casino Royale happened all these were part of the rules for making a James Bond movie. With Casino Royale director Martin Campbell took a completely radical take at the Bond franchisee, the result was refreshing. Here you got to see the evolution of a normal man into a fighting machine. Here was a man who could fall in love.

Quantum of Solace's story starts from where Casino Royale left off. Bond is in hot pursuit of Mr.White possible to take revenge for the death of Vesper. Mr.White is the head of a global organization called Quantum and Bond takes him into custody. From here Bond take off on a journey across the globe chasing Mathieu who is part of Quantum and is setting the stage for a coup in Bolivia to take control of the water in the country and profit from it. Bond meets Camille and though there's a hint of some romance between them nothing comes up on screen which is refreshing. There's nothing new or radical in the story or the theme so nothing much to talk about it. The action which the movie begins with is staged well but the editing was jerky, the transitions are faster than a second which makes the action seem fuzzy. I was not able to understand what was going on in the first action scene and the boat chase scene till it ended.

I was disappointed with this movie, I expect some more drama and character development which didn't happen at all. The humor was wry and funny, that's the high point. The music was top notch. The proverbial Bond title song that usher in the movie was a dissappointment, Alicia Keys & Jack White (Another way to die). I think they should have simply let David Arnold collaborate with someone like he did on Casino Royale. Marc Foster directs this movie and somehow lacks to bring in the vibrancy associated with Bond movies. Marc Foster is a brilliant director (remember Finding Neverland) no doubts, but is he upto the task of doing a Bond movie which needs not just high art but also elements which would appeal to a large section of the movie going crowd and not just the arthouse types.

The action that takes place during the Opera in Austria is top class well shot stuff. There are high points in this movie no two minds on that. The movie has an open ending so that the next part can being from where this ends. This movie is certainly worth one watch, not too sure if anyone would want to own a DVD of it.

Formula ONE - End of Season 2008

The Formula ONE season has finally drawn to a close (cliche). It's that time of the year where I sit down (cliche) and look at the whole season and try to write my usual junk (cliche). Though I promised myself that I'd post an entry to my blog before and after the race, knowing fully well that I was asking for the moon, the slob in me did nothing about it. I was more interested in keeping track of fuel levels, engine, weather and a multitude of thing that normally screws up McLaren's strategy (fan alert - I watch Formula ONE only for McLaren). This year has been disappointing for McLaren as a team (I got to be kidding right!!, they won the driver's championship this year then why?). I would prefer a performance like last year minus the controversy about stolen Ferrari data (Stepneygate in case you are squeezing your brains). Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, despite their intensely competitive nature of driving which at times worked against the interests of the team, kept adding points to the Constructor's tally of McLaren which saw them zoom ahead of the pack to establish early lead in the points table and consistently kept it going. McLaren finished the season with 218 points as opposed to Ferrari's 204 points but were denied the Constructor's championship due to the spy scandal, that was the hardest blow to any team in the history of Formula ONE. The $100 million fine they had to pay should have dented their P&L sheet badly.

The last season saw only two big teams competing for first and second places: McLaren & Ferrari. The other's didn't have the horsepower to dream of finishing ahead. This year has been a refreshing change on that front. The two engine rule and the various other technical regulations introduced like the lack of traction control all have played into the hands of an avid racing fan. How else could one have ever seen Sebastian Vettel drive his Ferrari powered Redbull designed car to first place for Torro Rosso in the Italian Grand Prix? Robert Kubica won his first race ever in Canada, last year it was Lewis'. BMW Sauber reaped huge returns by competing fiercely for qualifying positions and race results. In effect, Sauber's stole more constructor's points from McLaren this year than Ferrari. Heiki Kovalainen is without doubt a great driver and has performed reasonably well in his first year with McLaren. I did expect a lot more from him but am prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt because he's young and is probably surrounded by similar folks. He doesn't have the support which Lewis Hamilton enjoyed last year. Remember last year, Lewis Hamilton was the rookie and Fernando Alonso was the champion roped in by McLaren to turn it's sagging fortunes. Fernando surely brought in immense experience into McLaren working hard with his team to extract 1/10th of a second in every move. After Adrian Newey's departure from McLaren in 2005 Simon Lacey was entrusted the aerodynamics department and in Fernando it looked like the team had found it's perfect sounding board, the one person who can rip test all the aero stuff they were designing, after testing those in the wind tunnel, and give them exact feedback. It worked well for McLaren until Lewis sneaked from behind showed he was no rookie but was there to win as well. A lot of water has flown under the Thames (for that matter any river in the world) since then and Fernando's exit at the end of the last season ushered in the entry of Heiki Kovalainen. McLaren won 8 races compared to Ferrari's 9 last season and this season McLaren won 6 compared to Ferrari's 8, Renault won 2 while Torro Rosso and BMW Sauber won 1 race each.

The last time McLaren won the Constructor's crown was in 1998 when Mika Hakkinen was world champion. Lewis is no Mika, he's a star already, a stud at that. Who else could have had 3 girlfriends in 2 years, one of them being billionaire boss' (clue:TAG) daughter all their good times splashed across tabloids and the internet. Lewis sometimes is too humble to be believable, he's never shown disgust or rage on the track or off it (nothing in the media as yet) and wins with panache and loses with equal spirit. He's any team owner's dream. I strongly believed his driver (Anthony Hamilton) would strongly try to pitch the superstardom hard in the F1 market and get a move to the red folks stationed in Maranello, Italy (Bah, I should have simply said Ferrari!!!). I don't see that happenning though, Lewis is comfortably signed up till 2012 and from the statements he's been giving out to the media he's pretty happy with McLaren and hopes to drive all his career for the team. The next season is going to be even more challenging with the introduction of KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System), slick tyres and a 3 race engine rule.

How can I write a year end post and not talk about how the championship was won by Lewis? They were the most intensely thrilling 30 seconds in my life. Massa won the race and almost celebrated the victory and the championship as Lewis was running 6th one place lesser than the requirement to win the Driver's championship. At the very last moment he passes 4th place runner Timo Glock who slowed down due to dry tyres on a wet track and regained 5th position to steal the championship. The sheer tension of seeing all these unfold in front of one's eyes was a little hard to bear, tempers were running high as was the heart whose beat would have sounded like a rumbling train at 140kmph. That was it, Lewis Hamilton became the 2008 Driver's World Champion and brought the title back to McLaren after 9 years, the last time they had it was in 1999 with Mika Hakkinen.

Force India meanwhile has severed their deal with Ferrari for engines and has signed up with Mercedes Benz High Performance Engines (Illmer) for engine and McLaren Automotive Racing for hydraulic systems, KERS and support. So the VJM02 cars next year will be very competitive and I'd expect them to be in the top 8 at any time. Initially it was rumoured that McLaren would also supply Force India the chassis but that was not to be the case. With this deal, Force India also get's exclusive access to the whole list of McLaren's official suppliers which will certainly work well for them. Getting Collin Kolles & Mike Gascoyne out of the way will be the sad thing to happen and don't be surprised if Dr.Vijay Mallya becomes Team Prinicipal to reap the benefits of all the hard work these folks put in the past year resurrecting the team. Clever guy this man is, when it come to having the cake and eating it nobody can ever come close to him. (cake!!! clue: calendar)

Coming of age

He was always the 'little one', perceived as irresponsible, indisciplined and always at loggerheads with the norm. Being younger comes with a price tag, on one hand one get's pampered and mollycoddled for being the last one and on the other there's a huge baggage of being compared to the one that is elder. He wasn't bogged down by this baggage too much but I do know instances where he'd have lost his nerve every once in a while for being compared to the elder and expected to do things like the elder did, not the the elder was a paradigm of 'how to be'.

Last Saturday over dinner he spoke from heart about what he wanted to do with his life. He conjured up and painted this vision of a successful business and how he wanted to go about executing it. There was a serious dialogue about how to motivate the staff, what the ambience should be and where the core market was. I sat in amazement listening to all this talk because he's always been my sweetheart, the one I always could bank on and despite the disagreements we seem to have from time to time, as we grow older it's tends to get a little more, I saw the man in him maybe the first time. He wasn't my kid brother anymore, here was a fountain bursting with ideas ready to challenge and conquer the world.

I hope he has the strength, perseverance, determination and grit to pursue his dreams with passion and I hope to be around as a partner, wellwisher and above all 'his brother' to share or bask in the limelight.

Should POTA be brought back?

Everytime there's a terror attack in one of the Indian cities one can hear a cacaphony of voices asking for stringent anti-terror laws. This is particularly true about members from the BJP that keep arguing that POTA should be brought back. How serious is this allegation? Does our country need a draconian law like POTA to maintain law and order? Here's some more information.

POTA which stands for Prevention of Terrorism Act was passed in 2002 prior to which there was POTO which stood for Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance. This act was brought into force after the attacks on our Parliament in Dec 2001. It defined terrorism and many human rights advocates would argue that the definition infringed on the freedom of speech at times. Anybody arrested under this act could be kept in police custody for a period of 180 days without having been produced in front of a judge/magistrate for a remand. The confession extracted from an accused can also be used a evidence in a court of law. POTA by it's very nature assumed that anyone arrested under it was 'guilty' and had to be proved 'innocent' by way of evidence when the case came up for hearing.

As per the Indian constitution and other criminal laws a person is 'innocent' unless proven 'guilty', this was a vital new change in POTA. Most states in India implemented this law except Lalu's Bihar and some other states. The states that used this act to the maximum were Jharkhand, Gujarat and Tamilnadu. The irony in Gujarat was that the muslims who were arrested under allegations of torching the railway coach at Godhra were charged under POTA. The riots that followed saw large scale massacres of Muslims by Hindu hardliners and the folks arrested during these riots were charged under normal criminal laws, the CM of the state said POTA was not necessary. This selective imposition of the law was seen as partial and used as per the convenience in a particular case.

POTA also was a potent weapon in the hands of zealous law enforcement agencies. A law which was meant to handle the globally witnessed phenemenon of terrorism was being used to harrass and heckle innocent citizens many at times. In Tamilnadu V.Gopalaswamy (Vaiko) was arrested by the then CM J.Jayalalitha for making speeches in support of the LTTE. He languished in jail for about 4+ months before being formally charged by the police. Such was the vigorous nature of the act and it's ramifications when used by politicians to settle political scores. The UPA government repealed this act in 2004 and rightly so, it should have followed up with modifications to the CRPC with the definitions of terrorism, terrorist to accomodate the changing global scenario but that is still in the offing.

TADA (Terrorist and Disruptive Activities prevention act) was in force between 1985 and 1995 and was brought primarily to tackle terrorism in Punjab. This act didn't have clear definitions for terrorism and hence was misused widely because of which it was repealed in 1995.

The answer to a terror strike is not in getting draconian laws. It's in more efficient intelligence gathering, it's in sifting through volumes of gathered data and extracting meaningful information out of it. It's more about states taking complete responsibility for law and order and effective policing, it's not about blaming the central government for everything. Law and Order has always been a state subject and not a federal subject. For the sake of all the lives lost till now someone has to drive the point pretty clearly in our leaders today that the last thing they should play politics with is a human tragedy like a terror strike!

Requiem for a dream

A requiem is a grand musical composition performed in honor of a deceased person, with a title like this you sort of guess which direction this movie will head. This movie introduces us to Sara whose onlyhobby is watching TV to obsessive limits. Harry is Sara's son who is a drug addict. Harry frequently mortgages the TV to get his dose of dope. Tyron is Harry's friend and accomplice and both of them start making money in drugs. Marion is Harry's girl friend and also a junkie.

I don't want to spell out the story, some characters get lucky and redeem themselves in the end. Harry's character almost makes it to the other side but he's stuck so deep in his own doing. Sara's obsession with TV makes her want to loose weight to appear on TV and end up loosing her mind too. Marion's drug obsession makes her sell herself at times and in the closing moments of the move we see her get involved in an orgy. Requiem for a dream is a startling motion picture that shows the damage drugs can cause in such a shocking, stark and bare manner that it wrenches one's gut and churns the stomach.

I haven't been affect by any movie as much as this one till now, this is shocking cinema.

The Kalam effect

The Kalam Effect is an insider's account of the presidency of Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam. PM Nair was the prinicipal secretary to the President and gives us some insight into the persona of Dr.Kalam. Don't expect startling political revelations. Don't expect controversy, this book is worth reading if one wants to know a little more about the genius we've all knows as our President.

Kuruvi

On Saturday Dharani's magnum opus Kuruvi released in Balaji theater and given the large Thamizh population in this part of Bangalore I doubted if I could manage a first day first show. That attempt failed but a first day second show was set up. Kuruvi is typical Vijay masala pot boiler sans Dharani's usual (pseudo) intelligent elements.

I'd like to draw the reader's attention to the scene in Gilli where Vijay is surrounded by Prakash Raj and his goons and the escape he makes with a knife held to Trisha's neck, that was (pseudo) intelligent. None of that is in Kuruvi. If this movie makes it to the 100 day mark and races to a silver jubilee then there can be only one reason for it - Vijay. Vijay has a huge mass following, he's the superhero who cares a damn about wanting to be different or meaningful.

Thamizh movies are increasingly becoming more Telugu in the way screenplay unfolds and given the fact that most directors in Thamizh work in Telugu it's no surprise either. Music by Vidyasagar is a let down, except for one song nothing else was hum worthy and most importantly are not mass songs either.

Santhosh Subramaniam

Editor Mohan's sons Raja and Ravi have always been associated with entertainers be it Jayam or M.Kumaran s/o Mahalakshmi. Given this background I went to watch Santhosh Subramanian in Balaji Theater, Bangalore last week. Work was getting monotonous and I was lost in different things and the movie was meant to be an ice-breaker, was it?

Balaji theater screens Thamizh movies regularly and has a decent screen and pretty good multi-channel sound which is too loud most of the time. The theater was empty, there were only two other people in the balcony. So this almost became a solo movie experience, I should add here that this was my first solo movie outing, I always have someone to accompany me to a movie. Santhosh Subramanian can be called a Jayam Company formula movie, there's this sweet and decent guy who falls for a simple and pretty girl. Where is the problem you'd ask? The problem is his Father who controls the life of his son by making choices for him. What's so wrong about it some might ask?

How does the guy win his dame? How does he face up to his Father and speak his mind out? That's the story line in two sentences. It's a clean movie, no skin show, no item number nor is there a 'double-meaning' (as it's come to be known) one liners. This is one of those movies you can watch with the whole family (a typical Indian term for a movie that has no references to sex, seduction, lust, skin show and the like). Ravi plays the role of the burdened son pretty well, Prakash Raj enacts the Father's characters aptly. Genelia d'Souza (over)plays the innocent college girl.

F1 season start - Melbourne

The season has begun and the absence of driver aids has made it thrilling and full of suspense. A driver could be leading the pack and could loose it all out by getting onto the gravel in the last turn or a little too much speed and the attempt to control it could end the race. This year's season is going to be dependent on the driver more than the technology as we've seen in the past 5 years. Being a McLaren fan it was disappointing to see McLaren car bear numbers 23 & 24, I've never seen the car go below 10 in the last 11 yrs that I've been following F1. But, if this was a fight between the Big Daddy of FIA (read Max 'the rat' Mosley) and Ron Dennis the first round has gone to the latter. Kimi had engine problems at the end of Q3 and was barred from taking part in Q2. Massa did a splendid drive to get a position in the second row for tomorrow. Lewis Hamilton continued his top run and took pole, Kubica did an awesome drive by taking P2 despite the huge oversteer and subsequent run out of the kerbs into the last corner.

The new qualifying format allows all cars to run in Q3 (20 minutes), six slowest cars drop out at the end of Q3. The remaining 16 cars will then run in 15 minutes at the end of which the six slowest cars will drop out at the end of this session. The final session Q1 will run 1o cars and lasts for 10 minutes which will determing the positiong of the cars from 1 to 1o on the race the next day. The fuel burn in lap has been done with and cars can have as much runs as possible in any qualifying window the most important being how well a car does in Q1 if it get's through the other two sessions. The year has begun well, over to the race tomorrow. If one has to go by McLaren's form last year and the look this morning the race is theirs.

Happy New Year

I wish you all a happy, prosperous, blessed and productive New Year filled with God's blessings