DragOn – Righteously Entertaining!!

In 90s and 2000s decade, there were many actors who rose up the ranks to become stars in Tamil movie industry. Unfortunately, the last decade and half, we only have a couple who have made it through. But this decade has seen the rise of a new star, Pradeep Ranganathan, who with ‘Comali’ as a director and ‘Love Today’ and this movie ‘Dragon’ (as an actor) has made a mark with entertaining movies which also leaves you with a non-preachy message that is very relevant to the current society and the times we live in.

Highlights

• Leading ladies, Anupama Parameswaran and Kayadu Lohar have done quite a good job in their respective roles and add value to their onscreen persona.

• Supporting director-actors GVM and Mysskin add depth to their roles while Youtubers VJ Siddhu and Harshath Khan provide us with necessary laughs and light-hearted moments.

• Editing by Pradeep E. Ragav is crisp and to the point. Niketh Bommireddy lenses convey the story with the highlight being ‘Vazhithunaiye’ song shot across Europe.

• Music Director Leon James gives us a beautiful melody ‘Vazhithunaiye’ in eternal Sid Sriram’s voice.

• Story and screenplay is precise and on-point and all kudos to director Ashwath Marimuthu. His cameo in the movie moves the story forward.

• But the star of the show is undoubtedly, Pradeep Ranganathan. Showcasing amazingly versatility in voice and body modulation, he single handedly carries the movie on his brittle shoulders. 

 
     
 
 
After ‘Oh My Kadavule’, director Ashwath Marimuthu has hit the jackpot with a unique but relevant story with a very appropriate message. Expecting another collaboration with this actor-director combination. If you have a couple of hours for a breezy movie, Dragon is the one for you. Lookout for the surprise in the movie’s climax.

Sookshmadarshini– Intriguing!!

Just when you feel that you have seen/heard as many crime thriller stories as you can, you come across a movie recommendation that makes your day/week after watching it. Nazriya starrer ‘Sookshmadarshini’, directed by M. C. Jithin falls in that league.

Spoilers Ahead!!

Highlights

• The cinematography by ‘Sharan Velayudhan Nair’ crisply captures the essence of a community of close-nit families beautifully and then moves up the pace using sharp angles towards the climax.

• Music by Christo Xavier keeps you on the edge as the movie picks up pace in the second half.

• Direction by M. C. Jithin is top-notch with a meticulously crafted storyline and tightly knit suspense.

• Amazing performances by all the supporting characters including Nazriya’s friends played by Akhila Bhargavan (Sulu)and Pooja Mohanraj (Asma).

• Basil Joseph as the antagonist plays his character to the hilt, transitioning seamlessly from the next-door neighbor to the scheming villain.

• However, the icing on the cake is Nazriya, who portrays each and every emotion effortlessly including a heart-racing climax and does not look a day older than Raja Rani movie, which was released nearly a decade ago. 

 

Malayalam movies take some time to get started. This movie falls within that category and if you are ready to spend some time soaking in the canvas that the director brilliantly sets up, you are in for an amazing ride. Do look out the twist in the climax, aptly helmed by Manohari Joy, who plays antagonist’smother. Kudos to the entire team and sincerely hope to see moresuch off-beat thrillers in Tamil as well.

Cruise Diaries!!

When the winters are dark and deep, it is perhaps pertinent to look at our joyous events/adventures of our past to light the glimmer of hope: a Harry Potterisque trip down the memory lane. Movies like ‘Cast Away’ and ‘Life of PI’ have ingrained a deep sense fear of the ocean, but I was pleasantly surprised to experience quite the opposite in our family vacation on our MSC cruise which carousel ’ed us from New York to Bahamas and back in a week over the Thanks Giving week.

 

 

The Journey!!

Day 1: Adventure Begins

We woke up quite early to drive down to Brooklyn for our 9:30 AM check-in even though the ship was set to leave at 3 PM. After quite a smooth check-in process and lengthy walk, we settled in on the best food that our ship had to offer, a multiplecuisine (all you can eat at anytime) type of buffet on Deck 15, which we frequented countless times. The ship made a memorable pass under the Brooklyn bridge as we spent the rest of the day exploring the various activities the ship had to offer.

 

Day 2: Adventure Continues

The made-to-order omlette station (courtesy ever-smiling Mohit) greeted us with sumptuous breakfast to wake us up coupled with amazing cappuccino/ hot chocolate. The day meandered through exploring the various activities, indoor swimming pool, hot sauna, kids play area, lounge area to hang out, all quipped gym and a late night dance party as the weather mellowed during the later part of the day as we crossed the maritime waters over North/South Carolina.

 

Day 3: LandFall

After nearly 2 days at sea, the ship made landfall at the beautiful port of Cape Canaveral, the hometown of erstwhile NASA space launches. As much as we want to explore the amazing NASA center, due to lack of time we head out to a nearby beautiful beach and the balmy waters welcomed us warmly. However, we missed watching the test flight of one of Space X rocket flights as it got postponed.

 

Day 4: Nassau Bahamas

As our ship docked precisely in the shallow waters of the port of Bahamas along with other massive cruises, it reminded of our own Central Train Station, which housed the trains in the various platforms. Some of our families grouped into a memorable outing to the places below.

Waterfall at Queen’s staircase

Rum cake factory

Chocolate factory with Rainbow umbrellas.

Bahamar hotel

Atlantis hotel (housing with a humongous basement aquarium) and fire on water show.

 

Day 5: Ocean Cay

On our last day to land, we visited the most beautiful private island of Ocean Cay, specifically designed for MSC cruise passengers, with the ship rotating nearly 360 degrees to land up most accurately on the port. We head out to the most popular Bimini beach, with most of the day either floating and/or swimming in the shallow waters of the beach including a short canoe ride. With our hearts still firmly planted on the beach, we were ordered to return to the ship earlier than usual due to a medical emergency, missing out a lighting show at the light house.

 

Day 6 & 7: Back to Home

We set sail back to our homeland, en route Miami, dropping off the injured passenger. Explored more activities in the ship including the ‘Himalayan Bridge’ which was a rope course across the windy back side of the ship. Consuming countless Mojitos, early morning health drinks, Deck 15 buffet and amazing Deck 6 dinners, we landed a week later, safe and sound.

This trip would not half as enjoyable without all our ten friends and family. Looking forward to many such adventures and experiences in future.

SPIN WIZARD: Ashwin!!

As I watched Shane Warne and Muttaih Muralitharan weave their magic around bamboozled batsman in cricket matches, I wondered if I would witness anyone would bowl off-spin, leg-spin, flippers, carrom balls with drift, under/over spin on pitches conducive or not, I finally found my answer in our very own namba ooru payan (hometown boy): spin wizard Ashwin

Career Highlights

• As Ashwin dismissed the universe boss, Chris Gayle (in the form of his life) in all the important IPL final of 2011, it cemented his arrival onto the big stage.
• Ashwin bowled the final over of the famous win in Champions Trophy to bring India to a full circle of world cup wins of 2008, 2011 and 2013.
• Ashwin was at his absolute peak when he bamboozled batsman in the 2014 Aussie tour of India which India thrashed the visitors 4-0, courtesy a ‘home-work’ gate scandal.
• Ashwin stood strong when he ran out Jos Butler, as the batsman backed up too far in a crucial IPL match, creating a media/social media uproar. Thanks to his actions, MCC/ICC have officially changed rules to deem run-outs official if batsman back-up too far.

 

But my absolute favorite, was a simple play that occurred 2 years ago in Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). As Virat Kohli played a magical innings it was left to Ashwin to face the last ball of the T20 innings with 2 runs to get. Any normal batsman would have tried to hit it out of the park. However, our scientist-batsman Ashwin just side-stepped a ball going down his pads to get a wide, level the scores and reduce the blood pressure of 1.5 billion people while calmy lifting the next ball over mid-off to secure one of the memorable wins over Pakistan in that T20 match.
 
 
With 537 test wicket, over 700 international wickets to his name and 11 man of the series awards, Ashwin’s place is right up there with the best who have played this beautiful game. Coming from my own school in Chennai, Ashwin is now a legend in his own way. We wish Ashwin a great innings off the field and as many of his kutty stories go on his youtube channel go: it is never an end, always a beginning.

Meiyazhagan – Endearing!!

Just when you thought Tamil movies have been so rigid and robotic that we need an opening song, twists and turns every other 5 minutes (post KGF trend) or look to Malayalam movies for realistic content, Meiyazhagan (from famed ’96 movie director C.Prem Kumar) comes as a breath of fresh air capturing a heartwarming, emotional family drama woven beautifully with a realistic but inquisitive screenplay.

Spoilers ahead.

Highlights

• Arvind Swami and Karthi, two fabulous actors by themselves, bond seamlessly and take us on a pleasant unexpected journey. While Arvind Swami uses his eyes to effectively convey his emotions, it is Karthi with his body language and quirky come-backs that steals the show.

• Devadharshini, very much under-rated, but an amazing actor, has portrayed the character of a nuanced, balanced spouse of Arvind Swami with quite a grace and hope she gets her due. All other supporting actors including RajKiran have performed their roles well.

• The realistic locations along with the charm of Thanjavur and Needamangalam (some of my actual childhood spent there) were portrayed beautifully through the lens of cinematographer, Mahendiran Jayaraju.

• Last but not least, full credit to the director C.Prem Kumar to come up with a simple yet effective story of family and relationships with a slow, yet effective screenplay. Credit to 2D productions (Suriya and Jyothika) for boot-strapping this beautiful narrative with many more stories waiting to be unearthed.

 

 
 
Alternate Ending
As much as I loved the climax, it perhaps fell a little short of the high note that I had expected. A alternative ending could have been Karthi’s character coming over suddenly to Arvind Swami’s house (by getting his address through his means) and them having the emotional climax scene in person and as Arvind Swami’s playfully shares that he knows his dear potato’sactual name, the scene could have cut to Karthi handing over his new born child to Arvind Swami and Arvind Swami whispering the kid’s father’s name as Meiyazhagan (the movie’s title) to the new born child.

Nevertheless, the movie explores themes of nostalgia, self-discovery and takes us down to our memory-lanes of our beautiful childhood and amazing memories with all our cousins and extended families. Hoping to see many more decent, family based movies in times to come.

G.O.A.T

The “Greatest of All time” (GOAT) movie of ‘Thalapathy’ Vijay, hosting a galaxy of stars, was much-awaited as it is his second last movie before he switches on to his political career. The movie directed by Venkat Prabhu is a generic mass masala movie catering to the actor’s fan base and then perhaps a few more. 

Spoilers ahead.

Pros

• Casting for a such a large-canvas movie could be arduous. With Prasanth (reviving his career), Prabhu Deva, Sneha, Laila and with other starry cameos, the movie has placed a safe bet with each actor performing their role precisely.
• The action sequences of the movie are top-notch and keep us entertained for the most part.
• Last, but least, the man himself ‘Thalapathy Vijay’ has given his all in terms of performance and dance capabilities and will be sorely missed when he hangs his acting boots.

Cons

• Venkat Prabhu and Yuvan Shankar Raja have given us multiple songs and BGMs to rave about, but this movie unfortunately drew a blank. The songs and the BGM (literally blaring) was well below par. 
• LOGIC. Logic has no place in Indian’s mass masala movies, but this was taken to the extreme in this movie. An intelligence officer’s son is kidnapped (actually Vijay’s charatcer could have very well taken his son along to fill up the form) and there are no repercussions for it. Strange and hard to believe.
• STORY. Hollywood scripts are to be copied and/or inspired from. But this movie’s inspiration from Gemini Men/Departed/Sniper-Train is taken too far and requires course correction at least in the next part. I believe the director first script for this movie revolved around a time travel wherein Vijay’s character uses time travel to revisit the crime scene again and again to find out what happened to his missing son and eventually retrieve him, but was modified as another father-son time travel movie stole the show recently.
• VFX. Fell short of expectations, could have been better.

 

Coming on the back of a critically and commercially movie like ‘Manadu’, director Venkat Prabhu’s effort seemed not to be that GOAT. Hopefully it will be course corrected in the sequel and hope the entire movie crew put in more effort the next time around to send-off Vijay’s acting career on a happy note.

KALKI – 2898 AD!!

Yada yada hi dharmasya glanirbhavati bharata

Abhythanamadharmasya tadatmanam srijamyaham

 

"Whenever there is a decline in righteousness and an increase in unrighteousness, at that time I manifest myself."

 

Lord Krishna’s words in the midst of a searing battle between the Pandavas and Kauravas forms the core story of Nag Ashwin’s most ambitious movie of this year. Starring a host of stars – Amitabh Bachan, Kamal Hasan, Prabhas, Deepika, Disha Patani and others, this epic saga offers a great start to the ‘Kalki’ universe. Spoilers ahead.

 

 

 

 

Cons

 

• A lagging first half with nearly a work-from-home Prabhas fail to pull us through the initial boredom. However, it is adequately compensated by a visually compelling second half with a great pre-interval and a fantastic climax.
• Usage of all the sci-fi Hollywood movies in post-apocalyptic and chase sequences might be borderline plagiarism, but fit decently into the storyline.
• Kamal Hasan’s character was obnoxiously different, and an extended role-play in second set of the movie series would provide justice to his great talent.

 

Pros

 

• Fantastically believable VFX seamlessly fit into the cinematic marvel with re-created scenes from the Mahabharata war and the detailed fight sequence between Amitabh and Prabhas quite the highlight.
• Amitabh Bachan as the legendary Ashwatthama is the new version of ‘angry’ old man and exudes absolute brilliance in each and every frame.
• Deepika emerging from the fireball (like Kunti) and with several vulnerable portions has given us an underdog to root for.
• Surprising Santosh Narayanan’s BGMs create the most memorable goosebumps as the shrill pitch reverberated around us, even defying the poorly constructed audio in the theatre.

 

Last but not least, the fantastic direction of Nag Ashwin, who has transcended the boundaries of conventional story-telling, defying odds to deliver a good start to this cinematic universe. If you are interested in mythical Indian tales and its futuristic extensions or want a visual treat on the big screen, then this is definitely a must watch movie.