Waqt - Not a tamil film :-)

I saw this movie yesterday. I thought it was a well made one. Amitabh with his subtleties is AH-mazing! Boman Irani comes close too! There is wonderful chemistry between the 2 in the comedic scenes. Another worth mentioning is Rajpal Yadav! He is scary :-)
This movie, if for nothing else, is worth watching for these 3.
All the reviews said that Shefali matched Amitabh and that the age discrepancy was not too obvious. I am not sure about that. In spite of the touch of grey (it was in the braid too, good attention to details there) in her hair, she looked younger than Akshay who was her son. She has done a great job though. I wish they could have made her face look her character's age.
Priyanka Chopra was there for support, there was 1 scene where she did act good.
Akshay shouldn't have done that pseudo-classical piece for that contest. Supposed to be a tandav, it was too funny. But other than that, he did do a commendable job.
Songs ranged from barely passable to terrible. Hinglish songs are too ridiculous. I thought that was copyrighted to tamil movies ;-) (I mean tamlish not Hinglish)
Earnest acting by all involved.
Boman Irani with his 'yeh to kuch bhi nahin hai' was a laugh riot. Amitabh's face when he realizes that they are 'samdhis', gets this 1000watt look in his face, priceless. I don't want to mention any of their dialogs, it is best to watch their expressions too. Rajpal Yadav with his spanish inquisitor take off is scary ;-) I don't think I want to meet such a person in real life :-)

screen writer Aatish Kapadia and director Vipul Shah need to be congratulated on some good work here.

Bottom line, it is not the story line, but the presentation that makes the difference. Humor does take you a long way.

Watch it once.

Actors, Stars and Stereotypes

The current crop of actors are a promising lot. Bharat is the latest recruit in that group. I still haven't seen kathal, but the tv reviews and trailers are promising.

Vijay is still in college. What, for the last 15 years or so? :-) But one thing, he does look young compared to the other collegiate wannabe, Ajit. Back to Vijay, he gives new meaning to the phrase "being tongue-tied". I think it would be nice if he talked properly rather than mumbling like a voodoo priest. Or he must be really lazy :-) He doesn't like to change his looks at all, I guess he didn't like what he did in Friends towards the end, with the mottai thalai. But IMHO, that was his best movie.

Moving on to Ajit, he was very promising sometime back. Something happened on the way, or rather many things happened. His want of adventure makes him restless I guess. Well, if he would lose the paunch, tone up a bit and concentrate on good author backed roles, there is hope.

Talking about author backed roles, that is a joke in today's "Formula" movies. Most big actors follow a certain kind of stereotyping. Vijaykant with his oh-so-righteous-I-am-going-to-be-next-CM kind of roles, SharathKumar's double-dose-of-me-with-village-sentoos kinda roles, Rajini with his I-am-a-macho-muscle-less-super-hero kind of roles, Sathyaraj-I-am-still-young-and-can-dance, etc. Kamal wants to stand apart, trying to do different things, but honestly, I feel like he overwhelms everyone, including himself, in doing so. Panchatantram was a good movie, it would have been much better with someone other than Kamal. Why? Because he grew bigger than his role in that movie. And I used to be a die-hard Kamal fan. Still am, for that matter. I think the actor fails when he rises above the character in the same way as when he cannot rise up to the role. These oldies need to give up on such movies and concentrate on NOT playing an under 40 or God forbid an under 30 super hero.

A sema-ragalai song has become the norm in mainstream movies. The rules of that song should be - rhyming lyrics that make no sense, the more double-edged the better, fast music, dance that is more jumping about like monkeys, and an actress who has no compunctions about the lack of good clothes. Dhanush faithfully follows this. But it does help that the twit can dance. Ignore the fact that most heroines are more muscular than him. Vikram too, in his mainstream movies, has such a song, may be more than one. Now that is one talented actor. He was droolably good looking always, right from the tv series where he was a photographer and I think Srividya was in that. He built up his muscles and his acting and put them to good use. Let us hope it doesn't go to his head. He has that potential too :-)

Surya shows a lot of promise. His dedication shines through. Especially his recent movies have shown him in good light.

Ravi is another promising lad. looks, acting talent, dancing, fighting, his road seems smooth enough. Tamil cinema and her fans, always looking for suitable monikers for their screen idols, call him Remake Ravi. Nothing wrong in that, as long as we get to see good movies. None of those vaada poda types please :-)

Who else is left?
Prashant.
What is there to say? :-)
Siddharth.
Who?

more on Kannadasan - Nature

I was going thru some of his songs about nature. Fascinating way of looking at it.

Iyarkai enum ilaya kanni
engugiral thunaiyai enni
...
thalayai virithu thennai poradutho

In adisaya ragam...
vasantha kaalaththil mazhai tharum maegam
andha mazhai neerarundha manadhinil moagam

Then there is a bit of nature here -
kaatrukkenna vaeli kadalukkenna moodi
gangai vellam sangukkullae adangi vidaadhu


(to be continued ...)

Kannadasan kavithaigal

I came across a book of all his film compositions long back. I would love to have that book now. He was a genius when it came to threading words into rhyme and reason.

Consider one of my favorites - kodi asainthathum katru vanthatha. Wonderful lyrics, aptly tuned.

If you are looking for inspiration or motivation in life, you need to go no further than

vaazha ninaithal vaazhalam

vazhiya illai bhoomiyil

aazha kadalum solai aagum

aasai irunthaal neenthi vaa

You can get lost within those words. Simply magical.

Ingu nee oru paathi naan oru paathi

ithil yaar pirinthalum vethanai paathi

kaalangal maarum kaatchigal maarum

kaathalin munne neeyum naanum veralla

Even his last movie, moondram pirai had such wonderful lyrics.
Sivappu kallu mookuthi is one of my earliest-remembered songs. Nostalgia!
I am still trying to decipher the multitudes of meaning in athikai aalangai
Nature herself would bow her head to senthazam poovil vanthadum thenral.

(to be continued...)