Prometheus - movie review

Why on earth (or the other galaxies) didn't somebody warn me about Prometheus? A simple hint that Ridley is trying to re-claim as the original creator of Alien would have prepared me for (or made me avoid) this nasty experience in 3D. But no, none of the reviews or the social noise did. You will have to wait (if you manage to avoid throwing up) till the very last few frames...literally the flashes after the FADE-OUT to yawn "Ohhhh.....okay, so thats what you were trying to convey".

Goes without saying, every act was more gruesome than the previous. Now, I'm not a great fan of 'creature' movies (PREDATOR is an exception). So if you are, then you might not agree with my views. The very very thin line of story or plot gets completely darkened with the gore you see on screen. Halfway through the movie I decided to feast my eyes only on the size zero Charlize and ignore the rest. No whats the point of getting Guy Pearce if you are gonna hide his whole face with prosthetic ?? I rest my case.

Thadayra thaakka - review

You could say I was waiting for this one. I wanted to see how Magizh Thirumeni graduates in his second venture after Mundhinam Paartheney. And kudos to him for choosing to try his hand at a different genre rather than another romantic comedy. It takes guts to shred one's own feathers and emerge new. Having said that, he's still not able to shred off his mentor's influences on him - a lot of muted words in the dialogues even after a "A" certification by the censor.

Thadaiyara thaakka is not your everyday action flick. What makes it different from the average hero/heroine caught in the wrong place at wrong time with villain movie is the "treatment". Though there were some hits and misses with the narration and screenplay, the treatment of the story is very fresh to Tamil cinema. For instance, my friend felt the movie is very violent whereas there is not a single instance of drop of blood splatting on the screen. That is the "impact" that leaves in your mind letting you fill the gaps rather than showing things explicitly. There are many puzzles for us to solve even in the hero's characterisation...sometimes we even wonder if he is actually in love with the heroine.

Every actor barring Rakul Preet Singh, the newcomer leaves an impact. Arun vijay has waited quite along time for this one and let us hop his underplay works. Vamsi Krishna, for sure, is gonna make some rounds in the coming years. Mamta couldn't have done more justice to a story like this. The Gayathri character would have worked if played by some veteran known face in Tamil....you just can't shove in a new face after 3/4th of the film is over and expect miracles.

Thaman's background has filled in whatever is needed to scare and thrill you. Kelaamale is good but badly shot, I wonder what happend to the melody Kaalangal ? And I won't complain for a needless Poondamalli song at the beginning of the movie - there are many non-creative reasons in Tamil film making that makes this mandatory. Action by Anal Arasu and Cinematorgraphy by  N. Sukumar are "effective" (pun intended). I don't know if it is editing or the dialogues, once the plot is set and the goose chase begins the movie reduces itself to a average goonda film. The too many twists and turns in the second half don't actually work because the screenplay lacks a rhythm for you to follow.

There is a thaakkam (impact) for sure but not thadaiyara (hurdle free) !

Vazhakku Enn 18/9 - review

A lot has been said and written about this movie. It is touted as a major milestone in Tamil cinema history like a Sethu or Subramaniyapuram. Unfortunately, I was not very impressed ! No doubt, it is a neat presentation without any cliches or skin-show for the chosen issue, but it was not a very gripping narration for the genre chosen. The two legs of the narrative does overlap each other but for no reason or impact. For instance, why should the protagonist help the rich boy by pushing his car to start ? What difference would it make if it was some other passerby who pushed the car there ? Nothing. How does showing the guy's past in North-India help this investigation which is the crux of the story ? No way ! The plot is also not completely devoid of holes. There are movies in the same investigative movies (with a dash of romance) in the recent past (read RAAM) which managed to hold the attention of the audience throughout.

Balaji Sakthivel shocked me as an audience with the final quarter of his previous movies whereas the surprise element in this climax is not very effective. There were many incomplete characters which might represent various elements in the society but they do not help the story in any way. Excellent cinematography for sure with a digital still camera. An Ok background score by Prasanna. The "Vaanathaiye" song was good but got annoying when it was repeated so many times ! Karthik's Solo Oru kural was soothing. Very good performances by all the new comers, they did what was told and fit their characters. Editing and art department have done a good job. Not a great case made, but made with a good heart.

Ko- movie review

This was one film I was following during the making itself and was waiting for a long time, because I have to admit I really liked Ayan and Kana Kandein. K.V. Anand, (the ace cinematographer turned director) has the guts to really get to the bottom of any theme around which he winds his projects. Ko is no exception, he has dared to bare some of the well kept secrets of politics and media ( he was a media photographer erstwhile). So it was home ground and he looks like has really sent the balls to box office boundaries. I wasn't able to get tickets till today !

Okay, first things first - the story is NOT a rip from The State of Play. This is much localized political and media drama. The narration bears much similarities to Ayan. I hope the much deserving Jeeva gets into the big league for his portrayal of Ashwin. Ajmal has yet again proved that second roles are nothing second. Pia needs much meaty characters than just 'meat'. Karthika seriously needs to learn Tamil, I can imagine how tough it must've been for Chinmayi to do the dubbing. Kota and Prakash raj are at their usual best. Camera is good (duh !) Harris has to improve a lot both in songs and RR. Songs are shot in Norway and around the world but the chemistry between the leading pair is missing !

Now, the issue with a racy screenplay or fast paced editing or both is not the potholes it leaves on the way, but the absence of beats and pauses. You feel the momentum of an action sequence only when there is a rather slow dull moment before that. If you keep running right from frame 1 you get tired midway. There is a  great main story line which has beautifully woven suspense and knots to untie, but the supporting cast (the editor in chief, Jeeva's parents, friends of Ajmal) do not make an impact. These characters are not etched completely and they utter boring "supporting" dialogues. This in turn makes the main characters look either too noble and unbelievable. So at some point of time in the first half you just start watching the film feel no connection, the way we watch election news !

Kudos to K.V. Anand for saying out loud that media can make or break personalities.

Payanam - Movie review

I consider Radhamohan as Rajkumar Hirani of the south. As Prakashraj describes very often, Radha looks at the world through a different lens. He has a very subtle and simple way of dealing even emotional and sensitive subjects. Who could forget Mozhi ? He takes the same approach to this hijack subject. But the re is a bit of overdose of humor in payanam that you wonder whats happened to the main story.

As usual the dialogues make you roll on the floor laughing. The passengers are seated as pairs of opposite poles - an atheist and an astrologer, an upcoming movie star and his fan and so on. These present situations for a laugh riot and Radha doesn't miss a beat. The director - actor combo that appear post interval takes the cake off the others for sure. The film also has some emotional points thrown here and there, which makes you feel sorry even for the terrorists. Kudos to Prakashraj for producing a neat and decent movie yet again !

Nagarjuna's underplay and heroism would be the crowd puller for the Telugu version. Prakashraj, M.S. Baskar, Manobala, Brahmanandham, Thalaivaasal Vijay and the other support cast fit like T to their roles.  The special effects department and the set direction could have been better. You could spot  pathetic glitches in these in some frames. A Frontech headphones for the cockpit?? This movies has no songs, but the background score is good. Lighting and camera must have been easy since there were only a few locations.

The film takes off with a great promise and sails the smooth skies till the hijackers take over the plane. (Don't worry about spoilers in this review, there aren't any, because there is no suspense in the movie anyway) Radha has told in his interviews that he wanted to present hijack through the eyes of the passengers, news reporters, terrorists and the commandos. But I'm afraid the  different views shown  here are far from anything real. There was a huge lack of background research. The single emotion  - fear - that  must dominate  the  victims and hence the audience was missing. You have bits and pieces of all emotions.

We are a nation who are "used" to so many forms of terrorist acts and so would expect something more gripping than a laugh riot in a subject like this.

Yuththam Sei - movie review

Mysskin, always insists that he is only a writer and is yet to graduate to a movie director. Well, you do  get a feeling of reading a tamil crime novel (read Rajeshkumar, Subha etc )when you watch his latest flick Yuththam sei. A couple of departments that lift the drama from that level to a celluloid movie are the camera and background score. Only problem here is what works at a crime novel level may not work as a movie. There are more loose ends to tighten in the latter. 

Mysskin joins the now growing bunch of directors ( Gautam Menon, Sasikumar) whose latest offerings depict the horrible crimes against young women. (I'm scared of this becoming the next trend in Tamil cinema after movies based on Madurai, 3m). But I'm sure this would be the one that has tried to limit obscenity as less as possible (Nadunisi naigal is yet to release). As in any typical Mysskin movie there are many strange angled shots, legs of the actors get more importance than their faces, slow panned shots to reveal carton boxes etc. I have to admit these techniques have worked well for this genre than a Nandhalaala. The first thing that hits you about the movie is the background score for sure. Kudos to the new kid around the block K

The reason this movie did not work for me is the fact that there are too many clues and characters that I gave up trying to solve the mystery in an hour. Also, the string connecting these clues - the protagonist CBI officer - is too confused and weak to concentrate on solving the plot for us to follow. The truth that unfolds later in the second half is neither believable or interesting enough. Finally, there are too many unanswered questions which end up as loop holes in the plot when you regurgitate the movie in your mind on the way back home. 

Cheran has done his best to underplay as the disturbed CBI officer. I have no idea why he needs the 2 assistants ( Dipa Shah and the other guy) Chelva has comeback to mainstream cinema with this movie. Jayaprakash, YG Mahendra steal the show. Again, I don't know what would difference it would make to the movie if Yugendran and a couple of guys in his gang are not there. Mysskin has to seriously change the way he visualises action scenes in his movies. Even though dramatic at the moment, the fights are repetitive, boring and not practically believable. Needless to say, Kannitheevu ponna is already a chart buster, but this is exactly where he looses his grip on the audience and everything that follows becomes predictable.

I did like the director's satire in a couple of scenes like - a cop stealing a watermelon. There was little emphasize on the explanation for the title Yuththam sei- which means 'wage a war'. A very few of the audience might wait till the last scene in the beach where Cheran talks to the boy over the phone about purpose of his parent's and his war.

Yeah, for once I do agree with Mysskin's on his ability as a director - this might have worked for me as a novel than a movie

Eesan - movie review

Eesan is your typical M Sasikumar movie. It starts on a slow and steady pace and you come to know what the movie is about only a few minutes before interval ! Then the movie picks up pace and ends in a gory, blood shedding climax. Only in the case of Eesan, everything turns out to be a cliche and little is left to our imagination. Once you watch a couple of scenes post interval, you know how things are going to turn out.

If Subramaniapuram - M.Sasikumar's directorial debut which made him an overnight star - brought out the dangerous shades of south Indian village in which the rural youth is misled, Eesan talks about perils of GenY city dwelling youth. It doesn't spare anything from night life to Internet to mobile phones to fashion to drugs and more. I liked the way the director has made some subtle but bold observations about the health care and law and order situations in the city.

Other than the few pivotal characters who appear only during the later half of the movie, others have not been sketched properly, so leave little scope for performance. The dialogues could have been more interesting rather than making the villain cry out loud repeatedly that nothing will happen in the state without his will. Also, it is a big screenplay blunder that such a powerful man could come up with plot changing actions in couple of scenes only after being advised by his side kick. The scenes were also not powerful and looked liked ripped from Sarkar Raj made by the master of underworld movies RGV. Can't Sasi think of some better lead than a suicide attempt to make a father agree to marry his daughter to her lover? And why on earth is the Karnataka guy cast like Mr.Mallaya look alike?? Samuthirakkani and Abhinaya have given their best. Vaibhav and others have no scope for acting. The new kid on the block who plays Eesan has come up with a good performance. A couple of songs by James Vasanthan were good but don't expect anything like Kangal Irandaal. MS Baskar makes a mark with his voice over. There are many loose ends in the plot which show enough research has not been done. For instance, why would a typical mute village girl want to join Fashion designing? How would geek clever enough to a hacker a mail server get caught by just IP trace? 

This is a rape - revenge story which you might not want to watch with your kids.

Manmadhan Ambu - movie review

I kept wondering what ever happened to the Kamal-Mysskin movie that was planned to go on floors after Unnaippol Oruvan. Kamal started Manmadhan Ambu and Mysskin, Yuththam Sei. Looks like Kamal needed a well deserved vacation in a cruise in Europe and thats exactly what he got !

MA is a typical Kamal movie. Kamalism overshadows in every bit of the movie so much that you even forget the character he is supposed to play - Major Mannar. Agreed, that is partly because he has taken the responsibility of story, screenplay, dialogue (with who else? crazy mohan) and even lyrics. But, the problem is I had to put up with so much of Kamal's own life in every aspect of the movie. Look at the characters for instance - a movie actress who is suspected to have an affair with a co-star, a cancer patient and a divorcee with two kids. Agreed, that in any movie, the protagonist usually voices the opinion of the writer who creates the character. In this case, Major mannar expresses Kamal's ideas of non-violence, ahimsa and political views but only at the wrong time when he is expected to feel sad and angry over the culprits who killed his beloved wife. His idea about "Veeram" has also been heard before in Virumandi ( Manninkka therinjavan....)

Even though the screenplay is just above average and characters had no graph, the performances should be applauded. Very natural and neat acting from Maddy and Trisha. Sangeeetha, Ramesh Arvind and Urvashi were good too. The surprise packages were Usha uthup and the kids. Camera and editing were excellent, felt like a nice Eurotrip. I liked the rendering of poems. It also proves to be a neat entertainer without skin shows, bloodsport and dappanguththu songs.

The best of the movie was of course Neelavanam and the way it has been shot and edited. Kudos to the team for that.

Uh...yeah BTW the director is KS Ravikumar, one of my favorite directors. But since I was not able to give him credit to anything about this movie, I added his picture in this review at least.

Journalism - reality and fictions about it

A lot has been said, written and watched about Bharka Dutt, Vir Sanghvi and Niira Radia.  This made me go think about ethical journalism and check my memory of movies that describe a similar struggle.

The first one that comes to my mind is timeless classic All the President's men in which Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford wonderfully bring out the struggle journalist undergo to collect information and the extent to which they risk their lives to gather evidence before they publish a story. The next one is of course Wag the Dog in which Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman tell us how a manipulated promo and marketing can make or break a country's top leadership positions.

In Tamil, we had Oomai vizhigal an with Jayshankar, the newspaper editor struggles to uncover the mystery behind beach resort murders of chennai. Page3 is another excellent effort from Madhur Bhandakar in the same lines. Then we have the latest offering from Aamir Khan, Peepli live which showcases the brutal realities of today's Media. This list would not be complete without mentioning about Alaigal a TV serial which I watched in my childhood days. Sivakumar is at his best as the publisher of a newspaper in it.

My own post in this blog talks about yet another fictional movie about the same topic. In the edited versions in front of the camera, we see the shows where journos and anchors grill the opponents and we even feel that they go overboard to sensitize the issues. But in reality (and as all the above movies depict) it looks like the politicians, corporates and nay their lobbyists are the ones actually in control of the media !

Paparaazi

Seriously, how crazy and absurd can the paparaazi get? Why should I watch the video and photographs of MS Dhoni and his wife having a good time in Goa? I can ignore if this news is about showbiz icons or if it appears in Page3, but WHY in the sports column of a national newspaper ! A south Indian male actor recently tweeted - " It is easy to become journalist today, just follow somebody's tweets and yo! you have a 100 words writeup."

How unique is our Unique ID Aadhaar ?

The ambitious UID project was launched yesterday in India. But how different or useful it is from the numerous numbers we already have. 

UID claims to solve the problem of each person having 10 different numbers for 10 different departments. But the registration process itself takes the very same documents as proof of Identification and Address ! Also, not to leave out the poor who might not have a ration card of any of these 'proof documents' UIDAI has come up with the introductory system which is similar to the bank account opening introductory system. Now, knowing how power can be misused in this country, the harassment and fake registrations some "introducer" can accomplish is any body's guess. The next fact I'm confused about is the number itself. Contrary to the popular expectations, the 12 digit number is just unique, and means nothing more than that. Unlike similar efforts worldwide it is not made up of any codes or numbers of any significance to easily identify the location or date of birth or any information about the individual. One of the documents available to the public explains this logic behind not having any intelligence in the number as follows - The approach of storing intelligence in identification numbers was developed to make filing, manual search and book-keeping easier prior to the advent of computers. This is no longer necessary, since centralized database management systems can index the records for rapid search and access without having to section data by location or date of birth. Well...well ! The last bullet is always the killer - UID registration is NOT mandatory !! Now that certainly makes me wonder WHY do we need this number at all ???

Are we trying to stop another 26/11 ? Are we using GPS / GIS so that our police and soldiers don't have to end up lost or massacred in jungles while fighting ? Are we trying to ensure basic healthcare and education is available to every citizen ? We have so many other issues in the country where the time and effort of somebody like Mr. Nandan Nilekani could be useful. No the UID does not attempt to solve any of these but hey, it never claimed so !

Day labourer Bhiru Mali, who was among the first few who got the card said "They say the card would improve our lives and support (Aadhaar) us, but nobody explained how"

Why Tier II Indian cities struggle to become IT hubs ?

Yesterday, my friend with 3+ years of IT experience went for a job interview in an IT company in Coimbatore. The company whose parent group is into many industries from hospitality to entertainment has ventured into IT also almost a decade ago and has managed to get hold of a bunch of clients all over the world. Yet, the HR first wanted to know if my friend would be willing to "come down to local standards" in her salary expectation. Also, if she would be ready to get into an agreement with the company that she would stick on for 2 years at least. The work culture once you are inside an IT company in tier II cities is also not up to standards. You face a huge hierarchy, not the usual flat IT office.

The attitude of new entrants and biggies from traditional industries who want to venture into IT MUST change. The HR policies need to be overhauled in these organisations. This recent article could be a starting point for learning. Improving infrastructure and building IT parks do not solve the puzzle completely for any city that tries to become the next Bangalore.

My friend asked the HR if the company is willing to "come down to local standards" in her deliverables at work?

Innovation

A recent news about India's Smart Grid Task Force pushed my interest in further probing about Innovation in India.

Taking or Bringing technology to the grass roots to solve problems is a great way to innovate. Business today explains how Indian companies have managed to innovate. Their recent issue also talks about a handful of independent Indians have managed to do it at their level. One hot startup ideas (next to only to social media strategising) is Innovation consulting - helping other startups and companies to innovate. Quoting BT, a few myths about innovation are

1. Innovation is expensive, demanding lots of resources... Failure to innovate is what is costly.
2. Create hundreds of ideas because of high failure rates... Fewer, bolder ideas based on your company's capabilities and unmet customer needs you discover work best.
3. Early financial analysis is key to approving concepts... Nearly always wrong—build prototypes instead.

Surprisingly, it looks like the National Knowledge Commission's (NKC) very definition and viewpoint on the topic is in contrastingly different. According to its report on innovation,

The Innovation ecosystem is a complex environment that requires the coordinated functioning of a number of diverse factors in order to function effectively. Innovation also needs to become as wide spread as possible, spreading across the entire economy, from the grassroots to the large firm level. It is felt that a comprehensive effort to address these issues would act as a critical enabling factor for India to be amongst the global leaders in Innovation.

We will have to wait and see how fast the NKC manages to do the above, considering the fact that the smart grid initiative which was launched recently was suggested years ago by a Stanford University student here

A piece of you everywhere, for everybody

The other day my wife made a strange observation that she gets promotional messages to her mobile based on what she spoke about in her conversations. For example, in one of her phone calls, if she spoke about having a clean drinking water for us, the next day she got Ads about water purifiers. To say that I was shocked would be an understatement. Being in the contact center industry for many years, I knew this was technically possible using Speech recognizers and caller segmentation. But would TRAI, the regulator in India allow the provider to do anything of that sort?

Much has been written and talked about Facebook's recent changes, the perils of it and how to safeguard yourself against it. Welcome to the next evolution of www, this is where we are heading - what Facebook or any online company wants to know and track is what you are doing everywhere online and offline , not just in their website ! Thanks to social media, wherever online we go, we can Digg it or delicious it, tweet it. Look at this company Blippy, which wants to know what you are buying and suggests it would be easy if you just give them your credit card numbers and they would track the information for you ! Do you know that instead of having various login IDs in various sites, you can be just one unified online avatar with an open ID.

So what happens with all these information about you and why is everybody after it? Well, a whole bunch of data mining companies exist doing things like social monitoring, social media discovery and much more. Considering the fact that every company (online or in general) wants has Social Media Management as a bulk part of their IT budget you realize how this information could be used to sell you anything. I guess the day we sent our first email, we all fell into the trap and trusted a stranger with information about us. And I don't think we are ready to go switch back to postal departments.

Digging further, we figured out my wife's claim was not correct, at least for now. I  and a couple of my friends also got the same SMS Ad the next day in my phone and we had not spoken about water over the phone.

Are you content with the content you consume?

I've always had some questions in my mind about the media. Media exists to question, publicize, expose or opine on the happenings as this recent article claims. And so confirms our Supreme Court in its judgment. But does the responsibility of the media stops there? or should it take some positive actions beyond just bringing the issue to notice of us the consumers ?

I happened to be in an event where Mr. Vinay Tiwari, CNN IBN's head of operations was one of the speakers. He sure had the audience delighted with his one liners like "The difference between erotic and porn is just lighting", "Two things nobody in India understands completely are Duckworth-Lewis method of resetting target in cricket and TRP ratings of media". In response to one of the questions from the audience on how they decide to prioritize the content shown in news television media, he said it would be impossible to satisfy the whole nation's audience in terms of what is exclusive and breaking and important news. As long as the news it correct and accurate his channel runs it. "When we say it is breaking or exclusive, we mean it is breaking and exclusive for us the channel". Now, how much do you concede with that as a consumer of news media content ?

Also, who questions the media which questions the happenings? Social media wins the race in this case. For instance, I write a review thrashing or praising a movie but who rates and reviews my review? the comments to my posts is the solution in case of blogs. We see less and less of "Letters to editor" and "Edhiroli" in case of print and television media. I wish the channels ask the viewers to SMS them answers to "How well did we cover IPL controversy?" instead of "Should Modi be removed ?" The viewers don't have the final say in the second question anyway.

Mr.Vinay Tiwari concluded by saying "Remember, the TV comes with a remote, using it is the only way you can punish the channel"