3 New Reviews
Reviews for Dasaavathaaram, Kaathavaraayan and Silandhi are now online @ bbreviews.
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Balaji's Thots
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Wednesday, July 09, 2008
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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
19 Comments:
Your two star rating for Dasavatharam is extremely biased to say the least. Until now, I had the opinion that your reviews were one of the most unbiased. But sorry Balaji, this one surely isnt and a lot of people will agree with me.
Just for the sheer effort it deserves a three star at least. If you have ever done a rethink on your ratings then this one deserves it.
Muthu
bb, two stars for 10-avataram? am a little surprised...i thought u would give it a 2.5 because from ur review, i thot u defn. recommended it albeit with reservations...
i remember u used to say (back in the old bbreviews days) that 2 stars meant, ok to watch on video...was that really ur take on 10-avataram? that u couldnt watch it even once in the theatre?
Ram, Balaji had already said in the comments section of the Dasavatharam review post that he is going to give a 2 star for the movie.
Balaji, have you caught up with Subramaniyapuram? Raving (or atleast positive) reviews all around and the general consensus seems to be that it is the second best movie of the year, after Anjaaathey. Looking forward to your take on the movie.
filbert, i missed that comment...if i had seen it at the time, i would've asked him pretty much the same thing i've asked here!
muthu/ram, as far as star ratings go, a simple rule of thumb for me for a 2-star movie is that it shouldn't bore me(I'm willing to excuse songs and fights :). But I was bored during a rather long time in the 2nd half of 'dasavathaaram'. i can overlook the mask-like makeup and poor graphics and asin but i just can't overlook that. so it was purely due to kamal and his effort and ambition that the film earned 2 stars :)
ram, that big screen/video divide was way too long ago. but dropped it since it didn't work. so many movies that I really enjoyed but didn't find any difference between watching on the small or big screen, a recent example being 'santosh subramaniam'.
filbert, not yet. lets hope that consensus is true :)
bb, will see if u are this objective about kuselan!
well.. sorta expected..
I feel it is biased..10Avatharam for me was just a notch below MMKR. Even when MMKR was released ppl criticized it for the confusing climax and now after all these years it is considered a classic.
The man can't get a break...
BB,
It really pains to see Dasa along the lines of crap like Silandhi :) prb 2 stars for kamal movie since Vasool Raja? (that atleast we know was a remake and i did not expect much).
What puzzles me is Aalavandhan was total crap, you had given 3 to that movie. My feeling was Dasa was better than Aalavandhan (as for Kamal's indulgence and elements for an average cinema fan) :-P
Quite interesting.
Looking at the 2008 list so far, there are five 2.5 star movies and nine 2 star movies. Movies like Anjathey and Santosh subramaniam have got 2.5 stars whom I enjoyed better than Dasa for sure. Pirivom, Pudichirukku are good efforts and probably would fall inbetween the 2 star and 2.5 star but being new attempts, they've been raised above to 2.5. Vellithirai should've been in 2 star category as I had mentioned earlier then.
Dasa again falls inbetween 2 and 2.5 star ratings but since it is coming from Kamal and considering the effort and time spent into consideration, I think bringing down to 2 star is an appropriate thing to do (lesser pay off). I support Balaji :)
Anyhow, its earned its bucks back and much more which compensates more than enough for the rating.
Bart,
It's coming from Kamal, thats the whole point!.
I hope he'll never strike a balance between his so called awesome movies like Hey Ram or Mahanadhi (most of which were BO failures or had a mediocre run) and his masala movies. So when he finally gives a movie to please the producer, it's dismissed that was not intellectually good :)
i didint find "dasavathram" boring but it didint have the repeat value.But i never dismissed it as an average movie. It is a whole lot better that all the rubbish released this year. i would have thought u would have given it a 3 rating just for the whole effort, experiment, hard work that went for the movie. After all, u appreciated crap movies like "suyamvaram" and gave it a 3 star rating just for that effort. the same thing you did for "alavandhaan". But i dont know why u were so anti over "dasavatharam". come on lets be supportive bout Kamal and his efforts.
This is interesting :) If I look into the yr 2002 in bbreviews, Panchanthanthiram and Pammal K are 2.5 star movies. In the same year, even "Youth" is a 2.5 star movie. "Run" is a 3 star movie. If the same movies were released now, I am sure they would get a different rating. What it shows probably is that there is a shift upwards in the standards of Bb ratings with changing times :) Maybe, a 2 star Dasa now is worth a 2.5 star or even a 3 star in 2002. Ofcourse, Balaji is the right person to probably come forward with his view on this. Probably yet another post on the ratings (and the controversy it creates) :))
bart, to answer your q from the prev post- director nagaraj recently gave an interview in a tamil weekly where he looked back at how booze destroyed his life post thinandhorum...he's looking to bounce back now...
yep, me 2 - remember the sharp dialogues in that movie...murali and suvalakshmi ille? remember renuka had a nice role as murali's friend...
Guys, don't compare star reviews from different movies saying that this two-star movie was worse than that two-star film. Star ratings and reviews apply only within the context of the film being reviewed and how far it succeeds in being the kind of film it sets out to be.
well, everybody is entitled to their views! For me - Being a Kamal fan- every movie has to work on its own and that's why the "pazhagalam vaanga" sequence in Sivaji was unbearable, amateurish and left me cold but for Balaji that worked because it's a Rajini film - it's kind of expected! (dont ask questions about why Jo's character in chandramuhi sees Rajini as "vettayan" not her husband as the logic would demand - btw I am glad I did not see Prabu as vettayan!- but it's a Rajini film, it,s OK - right Balaji?)
same way, does not matter how badly peepee vasu rapes the original malayalam film of Kuselan, Balaji would find something to like about just like me loving DASA! because all of us are biased and judgemental! so why bothered about his 2 stars for DASA so much? It's marching towards $100 million and that's all that counts!!
Let's see how Robo does after 4 years!!!!
Yes, the same movie.. I remember the very casual, fast dialect and delivery of Nagaraj himself was a highlight of that movie. Good to know he is bouncing back :)
I value your film judgment and I think you are one of the few good tamil film critics around. But still I can't help but think there is something broken about a system that places 10avtaram on par with Arasangam
here is one more comment expressing disbelief at the poor review for 10avataram...this film is no less preposterous or cheesy or cliched than Sivaji, yet Rajni garnered a hugely positive review. Inference: We cannot attribute the poor review to systematic cinematic flaws in one which is absent in the other. Ergo Kamal's film simply is not as appealing as Rajni's. if this is the case why not say it instead of trying to anchor the review to weaknesses in the movie of the type that one can also easily identify with Sivaji??
ram, i don't think i've ever said i'm objective :)
sozzler, i still don't like the MMKR climax :)
srivatsan, i definitely liked 'aalavandhaan' more than 'dasa'. as i mentioned, i don't mind kamal's overindulgence or chest-thumping. even enjoy them since he tries so hard. so that defly wasn't the problem i had here :)
skanda, the key difference is that the efforts in both those movies kept me entertained. but as i said, 'dasa' failed to engage me for its full running time :)
bart, whew! thanx :)
ravi k, thats just perfect! i couldn't have said it better myself :)
anon, yep :)
anon, just refer back to what ravi k said. in other words, 'arasaangam' was way better than what i expected while 'dasa' was quite a disappointment. so the same star rating doesn't mean they r comparable :)
anon, "no less preposterous or cheesy or cliched than Sivaji" - true. the difference is that i walked into 'sivaji' expecting those things while i didn't expect those in 'dasa'. maybe that was my mistake but thats what the rating reflects :)
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