Coming Soon - April 14 Releases

No, I'm not putting together a gallery of the worst-looking guys in Tamil cinema. Those are just the heroes in 3 of the movies releasing this Tamil New Year's Day :-(

For a Tamil cinema fan, this April 14 has to be one of the least exciting festival days in a long time. With no film with a bonafide star (and I'm not talking about just Rajni or Kamal movies. The movies being released can't boast of second- or even third-rung heroes), it is going to be really slim pickings at the theaters come Saturday. And it is not just that the films haven't raised expectations. The scary part is that the release roster includes more than 1 film that causes genuine dread in the heart of a Tamil film lover.

Taking the top spot in the list of movies is Cheran's Maayakkannaadi. After a series of critically-praised but commercially-unsuccessful movies, Cheran finally tasted success with Autograph and Thavamaai Thavamirundhu and he will be hoping to make it a hat-trick with MK. For the first time, he is moving away from the village setting since the film is set in the city. Navya Nair, who seems unable to shake off the curse of the bad-looking hero, is paired with him and the two supposedly play makeup artists in a beauty salon. That said, MK is probably the Cheran film I've least looked forward to and that is solely because of the stills. Cheran looks pretty bad in the straight hairstyle and the glitzy costumes give the impression of a director who has come to love acting a lot and is now making movies around himself rather than acting in the movie because he fits the role. Ofcourse I'm hoping that my impression is wrong and Cheran gives us one more of his well-intentioned, clean films that touch us at some level, either through the message they convey or the emotions they explore. Cheran is pairing up with Ilaiyaraja after Desiya Geetham but the reviews of the soundtrack haven't been very inspiring.

Unnaale Unnaale has a couple of new faces in the lead but boasts of 2 impressive names behind the screen. Director Jeeva, who gave us 12B and Ullam Ketkume, has proved that he is adept at making youthful entertainers while Harris Jayaraj(who worked with Jeeva in both his earlier films) has delivered another hit album filled with youthful, instantly catchy tunes (my favorites - June Ponaa... and Unnaale Unnaale...). Jeeva has claimed that hero Vinay, a model from Bangalore, will be the next heartthrob of Tamil cinema and the young hero has to live up to those high claims. Heroine Tanushri, who paraded around in really skimpy outfits in Nean n Nikki, makes her Tamil debut as heroine while Sada is supposed to have an important role.

Tamil cinema's most wooden actor 'Jithan' Ramesh has Madurai Veeran to once again prove how bad an actor he is. Predictably, the movie is produced by his dad R.B.Chowdhary, who should probably rename his SuperGood Films to SuperDad Films. The film's supposed highlight is a hip-hop number sung by Vaazha Meenukkum... fame 'Gana' Ulaganathan and that, more than anything else, is an indicator of the low expectations for the movie.

When a director's first film is something as terrible as Unakkaaga Mattum(that was the film where a doctor, after seeing the hero vomit blood, diagnoses that he has "blood vomiting"!), how does he get a shot at directing a second film? That's the question that's been plaguing me ever since I sawthat Chinni Jayanth's Kaanal Neer will be released on April 14. A shining example of self-indulgent, bad filmmaking, Unakkaaga Mattum should have led to Chinni Jayanth being banned from ever touching the camera again. But he gets another chance thanks to Ritesh, who is producing Kaanal Neer in addition to casting himself as hero. Good idea since, based on the photo above, he has no chance of being the hero in a movie produced by someone sane!

puthaandu vaazhthukkaL!