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Reviews for Ghajini, Aayul Regai and Andha Naal Nyaabagam are online at bbreviews.
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Balaji's Thots
On movies, books, music, technology, family, humor, travel and everything in between
Friday, October 14, 2005
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Balaji Balasubramaniam, a California-resident Tamil Indian with a few, mostly unimportant, things on his mind.bbalaji [at] sbcglobal [dot] net
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thinkers since May 11, 2005
14 Comments:
bb, think i've told u this-- u should think of reviving the "rewind" section or maybe do a weekly or fortnightly feature like u do for the jumble...
ram, yes u have. lack of time is whats preventing me from doing that. seeing as many movies as i do, writing reviews for many of them, reading books, doing daily blog posts - my days r packed. i havent seen an 'old' tamil movie in a long time now. i have been thinking of cutting down on posts(maybe 1 every other day). that may gimme some time for what u say. let me see...
skanda, there was a time in 2002 when things just became a bit overwhelming. my daughter was less than a yr old, i as doing my mba and my days at my job at that time were numbered cos of an acquisition. so stopped writing reviews for a while. the movies u mention(and a few others like, i think 'engal anna', 'thendral', etc.) were released around that time i think.
as for 'mahanadhi' and santhanabharathi, i havent come across any other big movies by him. i'm guessing he was just a ghost-director for 'mahanadhi' just like sundar.C for 'anbe sivam', etc.
If I am not mistaken, Santhanabharathi is also the director of 'Guna'. If it is the same guy I am thinking of, he was one half of a director duo with P. Vasu early in their careers. Don't know what movies they made though.
He has also acted in a lot of movies. Nazar's right hand man in 'Anbe Sivam' (the one who spares Kamal in the end). Also played the good hearted founder of the college in 'Nammavar'.
This guy's been around the block a few times.
Santhanabarathi is indeed the director of 'Guna'.
And I confirmed this by looking in the ... Rewind section :-D
Santhana Bharathi was the Bharathi in the "Bharathi-Vasu" who directed "Paneer Pushpangal". This was much before P. Vasu became P*** Vasu.
prakash, looks like u're a bit more knowledgeable about tamil movies than i'd thot. yeah, santhanabharathi has acted in a bunch of movies. he was the only face i recognized in the recent 'aayul regai' too...
anon, very interesting tidbit of info there... defly didnt know that! vasu sure has come a long way. can't believe he was associated with a sensitive flick like 'panneer pushpangal'.
hi bb
just curious
what made you give ghajini 2.5 stars eventhough it was as slick as alavanthan
and most importantly, it was way better than CM and Onion anniyan
what would you do the top 10 movies of 2005??
navindran, ghajini's rating is a reflection of it taking up a good story but not exploiting it at all. granted it was slick but that alone didn't do it for me. and it can't be compared with 'aalavandhaan'. 2 different genres and different objectives.
and i know i differ from most(if not all) bloggers but i loved 'anniyan'. i was entertained more than i was by 'ghajini'(or even CM, if u take out the 'rajni factor') and thot shankar did what he set out to do. at this point, it will probably even make it to my top 10 of 2005. btw, coming soon - a complete post on why i liked 'anniyan' :)
>> prakash, looks like u're a bit more knowledgeable about tamil movies than i'd thot
... and a bit more knowledgeable than I want to be! :-)
I didn't dig Anniyan at all. As a matter of fact, I could barely sit through that movie after the first 1/2 hour. I am a terribly subjective person. When it comes to Tamil movies, I naturally look forward more to the melodrama (minus over-the-top sentiment) factor than special effects. I think that the mix of "traditional" emotion or melodrama (with songs) and special effects (with songs & fights) in some Tamil movies is what I find most disconcerting. I don't know how you guys can bring yourself to appreciate movies like Anniyan after, y'know, watching movies like Minority Report. My father was totally upset when he heard about the budget for Anniyan. When we talk purely about the film-making process, I suppose all movies can be reviewed from a technical point of view in which case Anniyan seems to have done a decent job. Anyway, I am really looking forward to the next Cheran movie and, of course, Kamal's Maruthanayagam.
gopi, ofcourse opinions differ and i can understand u not liking 'anniyan'. the strange thing is that i agreed with most of the things the -ve reviews(and probably u) talk about but just placed a lot less importance on them for various reasons. more in a separate post...
but is it fair comparing 'minority report' to it? or any tamil movie? lemme use the stock reply that i use with people i know who ask why tamil cinema has songs, fights, sentiments, etc. in every movie.
tamil cinema directors have a really small audience to work with. there's probably a niche audience that will go for a 'genre movie'(a 'pure' thriller, a sci-fi, etc.) but are the numbers enuf to make the movie profitable? so the directors try to pack in things from as many different genres as possible to satisfy as many segments of the moviegoing public as possible. there's the occasional 'autograph' or 'kaadhal'(which r also not 'genre movies' but atleast have less masala) but if u c the big picture the hits r the ones like 'dhool', 'dhill', 'gilli', etc. so as long as the constraints exist, the mix is gonna exist.
Nah, I wasn't comparing Minority Report to Anniyan. I mean, with its romance and comedy, Anniyan has a lot more going for it (its like vegetarian soup) and MR has a much more focussed plot (its like a steak). Well, looks like I am comparing, after all :) Just saying that after having watched movies like MR and Sin City, Anniyan's "non-formulaic" portions were laborious to sit through at best. I own the Muthalvan and Indian DVDs and put them on now and then. So clearly action, romance and comedy in a movie work for me too. I just feel Shankar decided to up the FX in this movie...for the sake of creating a movie of large-scale grandeur and it didn't work for me. I normally don't feel about a movie this way but the money that went into its production is probably what set me off. But you are right about mixing things up in Indian movies to satisfy certain expectations of an intended audience. From your review of Ghajini, it looks like the Director may have restrained himself too much when he could have done more with the short-term amnesia factor. Perhaps the opposite of Shankar's grand scheme of things? Certainly hope I find Surya's movie interesting...
Similar explanation Ajith's father gives in 'Mugavari'. Points to the people eating at the wedding. Says that Westerners can eat one dish and be happy. Indians need rasam, sambar, karam, sweet etc.
I don't have a problem with songs, fights, sentiments etc, as long as they aren't overdone. The problem is that very few people get the mix right. And in addition, pudhumaiyum pannanumna, ... What can I say? Not everyone can be a Kamal! (Konjam naala ore Rajini puranama irukku, adhan konjam counter balance :>)
gopi, agree with u there. shankar had a story similar to his previous movies and was coming off a flop. so he had to do something to make viewers get over those things. so he went the 'bigger is better' route.
i felt shankar did all he could with the mpd theme. but murugadoss just didnt do anything with a theme that offered so many possibilities.
prakash, there r people in the US too who like romance, action, spl. effects all in 1 package. thats why 'titanic' or 'spiderman 2' were such big hits. but there r enuf numbers who r happy with just 1 dish. that number in TN is just too small to make the single-dish movies profitable.
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