Superstar daa!

Yesterday, we got to watch the latest Rajni movie, Kabali. All I knew was that :

it had Rajni as a Don...  Nothing new there

Rajni plays an old man .. okay but there were scenes in the trailer where he is in flashback young Rajni mode

No typical Rajni movie soundtrack : okay.. that was a red flag but still..

Went to watch it and came out shaking my head. 

If you don't know what going to a Rajni movie is like..

Imagine you go to a James Bond movie. There is some hint of action for 30 seconds and then Bond comes and shoots once.. the camera iris closes.. blood drop flows down the screen and the Bond movie theme music soars!  

Then the scene moves to a monastery.. Daniel Craig is now a non-violent priest who is training students on tai-chi.. and they don't even show his face.. they show the side and back of his face.. you are to infer that this Bond is not the usual Bond you are used to seeing. Maybe that is a hint for us to get ready for more surprises.. 

The movie keeps going. You are waiting for some hot bombshell pin up girl to join the action... instead you see that Judy Dench is now mother superior and they are taking about starting an orphanage. You scratch your stubble and go "hmm.. ticket says Bond movie... are we sure this is the right theater. these two have acted in other roles in other movies and they are good.. and that tonsured dude does look like Daniel Craig!"  You give it the benefit of doubt and sit down quietly.

Another thirty minutes passes with Bond(if you can still call him that) going into details of Tai-Chi moves in slow motion with a few kids and there is a loud noise.. You are expecting some typical Bond movie style train to run through the monastery and are expecting Craig to remove that head piece to reveal his executive style hair underneath that fake tonsure, to pull off his robe to reveal a charcoal black tux and  to jump on the train to put the brakes on.. but the scene moves to Dench who has just dropped her box full of prayer beads. At this point you have had it.. 

Then Bond smiles at Dench from the corner of his lips and says some quirky one liner and you go "okay.. I think I saw a slight hint of Bond there.. should I jump up and clap because this is where it all begins? or am I going to be the only idiot clapping?". You look to the left and you look to the right and you see other folks in the dimly lit theater doing the same thing.. everyone is looking at everyone with that "what are we do make of this?" look.  You realize that most of the movie is done and your typical hero is nowhere to be seen. Your typical experience for this franchise is not coming.. 

and it dawns on you.. you have been had! After Rumble in the Bronx, this is the worst experience for tralier excitement : Movie reality that you have witnessed. Given you have never forgiven Jackie for tricking you by putting the best stunts in the two minute trailer and filling the rest of the runtime with crap, your blood pressure goes up. 

Right then, there is a scene. Bond does his usual wink and blink and there is a brief scuffle, but it is too little too late.  You come out a litlte confused. If it weren't for the Bond theme music and the single shot fired and the iris closing at the begining of the movie, there was nothing Bond about it! It could have as well been a Tai-Chi documentary. 

As a die hard Bond fan, you convince yourself that you saw glimpses of Bond in a few fleeting moments, but you get very very angry. You wanted the entire movie to be that!

That people was my way of explaining to the world what Kabali was as a Rajni movie. If we didnt have the opening credits showing SUPERSTAR RAJNI in StarWars font capital letters, this had nothing of the typical Superstar in it. It was a violent documentary of the Malaysian Tamil community and its struggle to gain equal rights with respect to opportunities, pay and representation in the government. 

I am not trying to diss that movement or the fact that it gets much needed attention in this movie. Would I go to watch a movie on that topic if it actually had some activists or soap opera actors playing lead roles? Maybe not. Then again they could have made a documentary and have Rajni do the voice like Morgan Freeman does to Penguin movies.. or they could have had him show his support to this movement or set the record straight with a few clips. There was no need to trick me into thinking it was a "Rajni movie" when it clearly was not.

Yes, Ranji was in it.. but that was it! 

Now I have to go watch some old Rajni movies to try and reset my head and expectations on what a superstar movie watching experience is really like!

ps. Used to write  funny posts on Rajni movies or even Kamal movies (by dragging Rajni into it).  Tried to put some frivolity into this post, but deep down I am pissed.

Someone has made it big?

It looks like our wedding Videographer has finally made it big in the movie industry!

Watched the latest Ajith movie yesterday and it did not impress me. Yes, it is impressive that Ajith (who is a mainstream hero with probably 3 hits out of 50 films that you can name off the top of your head) decided to play an anti hero role in his 50th movie! That still doesn't make the movie good or different.

There are lot many movies today that are more experimental than this one which are not getting the same hype! Most of the scenes that got claps are copies from other movies, even the song in the background score with the movie title sounds like a rip from Kaminey!

Anyways, it is very difficult for someone like me who has seen way too many movies and remembers things to appreciate "imported" scenes in Tamil movies. If you have seen Angelina Jolie pull James McAvoy into a car as she spins it towards him, it is difficult to appreciate Arjun doing the same thing and clap.

Folks who have not seen "Wanted" will jump up and clap. Again, this post meanders into a movie critique. That was not the intent..

There is one song in this movie, which is a take off from a beer commercial where everything except the people builds itself (the walls, furniture , etc. ) in some kind of self assembly format. The focus is so much on the special effects that you miss the song, the actors and everything else.

Classic case of overdoing a special effect.. kind of like our wedding video!

Ajith multiples in much the same fashion I did in our wedding video! That leaves us to the inescapable conclusion...

Wedding videographers, keep practicing your special effects and one day you too can make it big in the movies!

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A new genre?

After a long time, wife insisted I get out of the house and watch a movie on Friday night.

Guess the gray hair and visually obvious stress was a concern to everyone at home. So off they sent me to watch a new release Tamizh movie called "Sarvam". Did not understand even the title or the context, didn't know who was acting etc. etc.

Went to watch with the cousin and MIL. Before the movie started asked the cousin "so what is this movie about?" and the answer was "romantic thriller".

I was stumped. Romantic thriller? Did not know that there was a genre of movies like that.

In any case, the movie had a romance section in the front half and a disjoint supposed thriller section in the second half. It was a crying shame that the songs were done so well, with fantastic picturization and special effects, although in one or two places the locales and backdrops were so good that all the hero and heroine had to do was walk gracefully to carry the song and they screwed it up with some real bad dance moves. If you have seen the movie, you know exactly what I am talking about.

Sometimes you can give an architect the greatest of Italian Marble, Venetian stained glass, ocean floor sandstone, Burmese teak wood, etc. etc. but he could completely blotch it and make a freaking random heap of rubble out of the whole thing!

Sarvam brings to mind an old grandma adage "kurangu kayil poo maalai" (give a flower garland in the hands of a monkey). The monkey does not know how to appreciate the flower garland and will eventualy rip it to shreads. Someone gave this director a lot of beautiful elements to piece together or he did create a lot of beautiful pieces himself and he eventually......

made Sarvam out of it!

It was good that we went with no expectations. The first half of the movie was entertaining enough to compensate for the second half.

This movie is not just a romantic thriller, it also belongs to another genre, a nonthrilling thriller.

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Goosebumpology

Maybe the study of goosebumps will not be called the obvious Goosebumpology, but will go by something more etymological?! like Piloerectology or Horripilatology?

We are talking of goosebumps because, Balaji and me came out of the theater after watching "Slumdog Millionaire" earlier today and were discussing the movie highlights.

We both told the other person that we got goosebumps at the exact same time when the music hit a crescendo during the scene where a cop chases a bunch of kids in a Mumbai slum.

That got me thinking! Goosebumps are actually a sign of fear or defense, much like when a porcupine gets its quills working. When a guy creates music that is neither scary or intimidating but is able to create a feeling of elation that creates goosebumps across people in the audience (okay 2 is not a big multiple, but this has happened in the past with me and San also) it is to be hailed as something more than an accomplishment.

Slumdog Millionaire is by far the best movie I have seen this year. It will stay on my mind for a long time.

Knowing that it sounds cliched, ARR rocks!

Seriously, how does this guy create goosebumps with that kind of consistancy?

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Rocking on with life

Yeah, the title is a giveaway!

Saw the Hindi movie "Rock On" last night with the cousins. A movie with a difference about four guys from a college rock band, going their separate ways, then reuniting after a decade for a concert. There seem to be more and more of these beat movies coming out from Bollywood recently. Kudos to these guys!

This movie will probably strike a "chord" with guys/gals in the mid thirties, who went to colleges 10-15 years ago, with college cultural festivals, where there would be a rock concert competition of sorts!

This post is not a review of the movie. It is more about the nuances of the film and a possible "genre" and its appeal.

If you are not a rock music fan and the subtle or open references to Metallica, Enter Sandman, Beatles, Lennon, McCartney, Ono, Green day, Deep purple etc., do not ring any bells, do not be alarmed. You will experience the movie, as a window to a "world" that is mesmerizing! Music, at the end of the day is a really, really powerful medium, that cuts across boundaries, rather large boundaries.

If you grew up listenting to rock music, this movie provides more than a refreshing look at music, rock, concerts, group dynamics, the experience of attending a rock concert! To top things off, if you happened to dedicate your Ph.D. thesis to Bob Dylan, the way "Rock On" has songs that fit hindi words into hard rock, at places, with a folk ballad style, will just bring tears to your eyes.

The nostalgia alone, will be worth this movie. You have to hand it to the director, music directors and the actors. They are able to hit long dormant neurons, and revive them, just by touching your subconsious in one too many places. Take for example the focus on the tattoo in the back of one of the groups lead singer's neck, or the Bille Joe Armstrong look alike, who strums his guitar in similar fashion from one of the competing groups in the final contest!

Farhan Aktar was fantastic. Arjun Rampal was even better. Have never seen such a controlled acting performance from him. They even mimic Freddie and May in some shots where they both share the microphone on stage. You can hear "smoke on the water", slowed down to a barely recognizable tempo in the background! They have condensed, and fed rock music to the masses, within the space of a movie. Very nicely done!

The thing I liked most was how they picturized the audience in a rock concert. At the end of the day, the question from a non rock fan would be "why go to a concert and hear the same thing that you heard over and over again in the music CD?". The answer lies, in the audience. To this day, I cannot forget the tens of thousands of people, with lighters and candles moving their hands across, in a Pink Floyd concert in Philadelphia, in 1994. To sum up that experience:

I was there!!!

After watching the movie, we came home and are now revisiting my 200 strong CD collection from my college days, which have been moved from one apartment to another, one home to the next for the last 15 years! We have not really played anything from that collection, at least after our first daughter was born. Finally feel vindicated for refusing to sell that collection over all these years.

Every one of those CD's has a history and it makes me remember places, people, crowds, songs, and more importantly myself!

Rock on, woke up a dormant part of me, much like it did for the protogonist in the movie.

ps. Spent an hour searching for the Pink Floyd concert ticket stub in my old shoebox. Could not find it! Way too many memorabilia in that box....dangerous memorabilia! The location of the shoe box within the house, was classified information in itself, now it is out in the open. Much fun will be had, over the coming days with the contents of the shoe box.

pps. San's rock music education has begun!

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