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November 14, 2005

Sivakasi – Okkamakka Kalakks !!

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 !!
November 13, 2005

Kudiyon Ka Hai Zamaana…

Oh !! yeah. I just completed watching Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. Certainly this is not the first time. It was probably nth time but its been atleast 5 years ever since I watched it. When it was released, it was Superhit Muqabla that announced the arrival of HAHK to me. And all I saw was Salman trying to hit Madhuri’s back with a catapult while chewing something very exaggeratedly. Cut. The guy in the audio store told me, “Sir, super paatu ellam. totally 14 songs sir.All top class”. Cut. My philips recorder repeatedly plays HAHK casette which I bought for 20 bucks. I still have it. Madhuri and Salman in a black dress on yellow background, the costume they wear during the song, Dhiktana Dhiktana. Salman’s leg raised upward and Madhuri to his left in a similar pose. Whoof !! What memory you should think. There are several movies, I couldn’t forget. Hum Aapke Hain Kaun is one of the topper in that list. Ask my sister and she would nod YES, alongwith me.

Noone could possibly write a review on HAHK. It isn’t a movie. It’s a musical and has all the ideal items to be packed in a commercial movie. It never pretended to be a movie elevating the artistry of cinema. It was just an hyperbolic version of a North Indian family. I had an ideal mom, ideal dad, ideal uncle, just a little not-so-ideal aunty and idealistic etcetras. The movie was idealistic to India. Indian films for many years have been hypocritical and idealistic to a large extent. We don’t like to have an incest uncle or a gol-maal daddy. Everyone are just as expected. Sooraj Bharjatya just ensembled those idealistic characters in one movie and presented it. We loved it. There was no villain except the stairs and the bad aunty. The stairs make Renuka Shahaney slip and she eventually dies. The aunty keeps jumping to sky in ego until our maama gives her/us a surprise slap. She is silenced after that like a bharathiya naari. Not just ideal human, even Krishna(our lord krishna) makes a cameo. Except for the magical ray from Krishna’s idol to the dog tuffy, they ring the bells and play a devotional BGM when the dog runs to collect courier from Madhuri which serves as the twist for the climax. These miraculous event knocks off the word kaun from Hum Aapke Hain Kaun and plesantly completes the movie as Hum Aapke Hain !!

Well, if you are thinking, I’m subtly mocking at the movie, I am. But I love it. I am pretty sure of my liking. Some people don’t like to accept they like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. Its like reading Sidney Sheldon all along and concluding him to be a trashy writer within friends. Infact, I have no idea to write anything more about the movie. I have enough to boast of about my HAHK experiences than talking about what size of banian Salman was wearing in the song, Pehla Pehla Pyar Hi, when he was effortlessly lifting Madhuri from the billiards board.

Infact, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun wasn’t released in parallel at Chennai. It came after 7 or 8 weeks and you know what, it saw more than 2 Diwalis in Chennai, meaning nearly 2 years. I was just completing my schooling and I went the first time to watch HAHK. All I know then about Surat Bharjaathiya was that he was the director. With violence occupying the bollywood scene at that season, HAHK was a breath of fresh air. It was like heaven to many. Pay 10 bucks, go inside watch a peaceful family. No big fights, no big aderanline pumping suspense, no gyrating manmatha raasa hips and ofcourse no big tearjerker story. Before I saw the movie the first time, I heard all the 14 songs, more than atleast 100 times, saw enough clips on TV and so I was expecting a treat. I got it. Though I felt, which bloody family has a swimming pool and a fountain inside the house, SPB and Madhuri took me by a storm. I couldn’t resist watching it again and again. In the 2+ years it ran, me and my friends used to go for a movie theatre to watch a new flick. Luckily we had some cousin’s friend or some landlord’s brother-in-law’s sister working in every theatre. So we got tickets we wanted. If not, NO PROBLEM. We came back to watch Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. I think it was more than 10 times in 2 years that I watched the movie just in theatre. Its more than 10 times, I’m positive because we counted. On my thoughts, I’ve seen Thalapathi more than 14-15 times in theatre. The last time, me and my friend couldn’t sit through Thalapathi. We knew every single shot, every single syllable uttered, every camera movement and the Mani Ratnam flick had nothing more to offer us. So we came out even before the intermission and handed over the tickets to two rag-picker boys and sent them inside the theatre for free. I saw Roja 8 times, Bombay 6-7 times, Alai Payuthey 6 times, Thiruda Thiruda 10 times[10 weeks; 10 times] and Gentleman 12 times. Why all that, I even saw Evanaairundhaa Enakenna 3 days in a row, in the same Sangam theatre and worse, same seat. I ain’t bragging. I’m positive. I was such a movie freak. Even before friends, I went to movies with noone. I went alone even during my 8th grade. 5 rupees in my pocket and I’m waiting first in the queue from 9:30 am in Shakthi Abirami to watch Anjali. Next day, same 5 rupees, Kizhakku Vaasal. Anjali again the very next day. Thanks to my mom who shed 5 bucks a day and cursed herself for unable to make me stop watching films. Neverthless, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun was something that I could never forget.

Sitting for a matinee inside a hot chennai movie theatre, with atleast 500-600 people, it was only in Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, I think I understood the essence of movie making. There are no technical lessons to learn. But I think I consciously started to loose myself for cinema with HAHK. It absorbed me. Transported me to the dreamy world. Threw me out of the teenage worries of school and college. And I owe Sooraj Bharjatya for that. The last few times, we started when Renuka was still rolling down from the stairs. If you always why do people start after the final song is over, they are the repeat audience and I was one with HAHK. HAHK was the talk of the day. Salman and Madhuri were teenage icons and if couldn’t sound the perfect ‘huh huh !!’ to a girl, you are a loser. I never could. But after the 5th time, when every single line of the song lyrics was on my mind, I started watching the other actors in a scene. Lets say in a scene, Madhuri is getting dressed and is the focus of the shot, I would be watching the girl sitting next to her. Because I knew what Madhuri was doing and wanted to know what the rest of the cast was upto in this largely over-populated movie that was a succes in a over-populated country.

My friend used to say, nearly everyone in Delhi saw Hum Aapke Hain Kaun twice. And I think it could be true. Even today when comparing to DDLJ which was another commercial potpourri with the legendary Shahrukh and Kajol, I think the songs and the entire spirit of Hum Aapke Hain Kaun is simply unbeatable. A movie, a classic, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun is.

Selected Reading –

Official Website of Hum Aapke Hain Kaun

IMDB entry for HAHK

Memoirs on HAHK – Sooraj Bharjatya

HAHK Box Office – Did 2,341 shows in 847 days of its run at Mumbai’s Liberty cinema. It ran 105 weeks in regular shows and 16 weeks in noon shows.

Hum Aapke Hain Kaun Soundtrack –
Maye Ni Maye – Lata Mangeshkar
Didi Tera Devar Deewana – Lata Mangeshkar, SP Balasubramaniam
Mausam Ka Jaadu – Lata Mangeshkar, SP Balasubramaniam
Chocolate Lime Juice – Lata Mangeshkar
Joote Dedo Paise Lelo – Lata Mangeshkar, SP Balasubramaniam
Pehla Pehla Pyar – SP Balasubramaniam
Dhiktana – 1 – SP Balasubramaniam
Mujhse Juda Hokar – Lata Mangeshkar, SP Balasubramaniam
Samdhi Samdhan – Lata Mangeshkar, Kumar Sanu
Hum Aapke Hain Koun – Lata Mangeshkar, SP Balasubramaniam
Wah Wah Ramji – Lata Mangeshkar, SP Balasubramania
Lo Chali Main – Lata Mangeshkar

Cast (in credits order) –
Madhuri Dixit as Nisha Choudhury
Salman Khan as Prem
Mohnish Bahl as Rajesh
Renuka Shahane as Pooja Choudhury
Anupam Kher as Prof. Siddharth Choudhury
Reema Lagoo as Mrs. Choudhury (as Rima)
Alok Nath as Kailashnath (as Aloknath)
Bindu as Aunt
Ajit Vachani as Aunt’s Husband (as Ajit Vachhani)
Satish Shah as Doctor
Himani Shivpuri as Razia (Doc’s wife)
Sahila Chaddha as Rita
Dilip Joshi as Bhola Prasad
Laxmikant Berde as Lalloo Prasad
Priya Arun as Chanda’
and
Tuffy as Tuffy (The Dog)
November 13, 2005

Pretentious Parineeta !!

Parineeta isn’t what one would think it would be. Its worser than what you could imagine. Not only it reminds of many period flicks you have seen before but also makes you feel a copycatwill unleash itself without others needing to point out. Parineeta fails to evoke any emotions with the adapted version of the Bengali novel by Sarat Chandra.

Parineeta has loosely tied characters, a chewing-gum screenplay, fantastic BGMs, superb songs and of course real classy cinematography. It’s probably the cinematography and the art direction that makes people think it’s ‘classy’. Except both camera and theart, it sucks. Just production values and picture postcard shots cannot elevate a film if it fails to invoke any emotion at all. Just because there is an element of love triangle, Parineeta doesn’t become a Saajan. Infact it doesn’t even come close to Minsara Kanavu or KB’s Duet(which was a copycat stuff of Saajan).

The suspense starts right from the beginning when the audience start to figure out what kind of relationship the ‘married woman’ a.ka. Parineeta has on the just-to-be-married Saif. We are confused if parineeta hugs our hero with just lust as the motive or is there an ulterior intention for that. As the suspense unleashes, it’s starts to feel like Sense and Sensibility and reminds us of Kandukondain Kandukondain. The only difference is that the savior Sanjay Dutt is stinking rich whereas Mamooty of KK was just a limping war veteran. While the story takes an interesting turn, if you were to watch it till the end, nothing much happens. It all ends up in a loud ‘n’ lousy climax thats crowns the entire movie, its actual worth. The oldie Rekha is still a vamp and that song clearly was sounding like Hello Mr.Ethirkatchi of Iruvar.

The biggest crib is on the backdrop of the movie. The city Calcutta has got nothing to with this female Parineeta except that the original novel had Calcutta as the city. Just because you can shoot a wide angle focus and blurred shot on the hooghly bridge and just because you show random shots from Calcutta, the movie in no way is concerned with Calcutta’s people. Its just a way of extrapolating a simple girl love story to the city for which there is no relationship. Once you do that, at the end one can give a voiceover, As Parineeta gets married, the city of Calcutta was in a joyous mood. What nonsense !! Now that the director just made the backdrop of the story as 1960’s and Calcutta, what else could he do. Get all DVDs of 1960s and Calcutta relatedflicks and flick the shots. From Hey Ram to Devdas to even our Iruvar, there are tributes to many movies.

Even if you are as objective as possible, Parineeta is a pretentious film and let the Chopras try and make more Munnabhais than these stuff.
November 12, 2005

Here and There

As the year, nears an end, its time for Indibloggies. Indibloggies 2005 is just getting ready. Their new site, Indibloggies.org has a pretty design. Debashish as Indi Blogger is doing a great job in organising the whole effort. This could be talk of the Indian Blogosphere for the next few weeks, so take a sneak peek.

Manoj of StudentConcepts is arranging for an Himalayan Trek, Heat 2006, to beat the heat of next summer. The email brochure he sent out gives the schedule for this 10 Days / 9 Nights trek will start from Delhi. Seems like a pretty planned one. Check out Student Concepts for more.

Seattle Tamil Sangam is hosting the first ever Carrom Tournament in Seattle area and it happens right next to my house. Its been hosted by the youth board and the president is good friend of mine. Worthy news is that they are arranging some good masala vadais, samosas and ofcourse tea. If you are around, do come along. NO MLM desis allowed !!

Just in case, you missed the first staging of the uproarious Python Hyss…teria by EVAM, its time you get a chance to hurt your bellies. This weekend, they are staging it again, in Chennai. If you are around, you might not want to miss it. Read The Hindu review.

With the rain receding in Chennai, Chennaites are getting ready for the musical rain. Usually it’s December but this time, the early bird is The Hindu sponsored November Fest. From U Srinivas to Shuvha Mudgal, there are a bunch of ‘not-to-miss’ musicians performing this month. Check the schedule as I take a deep breath.

From now you would see too many crib postings here as I miss the Chennai Marghazhi Kutcheri. Get Ready !!
November 9, 2005

Spielberg’s Munich – Trailer

After the tripods attacking mother earth, Steven Spielberg is all set with his next offering for Christmas. This time it’s an historical thriller based on dramatization of a real story. I only wish Mani Ratnam could bounce back as fast as Spielberg, after a movie.

Munich, starring ‘Troy’ fame Eric Bana, is named after the 1972 Olympics at Munich, which forms the crux of the story. As the Munich site explains, it is a gripping suspense thriller set in the aftermath of the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The whole movie production and the news about the movie were kept under covers , until the official trailer was released, few days back.

Don’t miss to watch the trailer. The trailer sets high expectations for the movie especially John William’s background score stands out. Can’t actually wait to see the movie. For now all eyes and ears set to Dec 23rd.