Mini reviews
Just wanted to jot down some mini-reviews of some of the movies that I watched during the break when I was not posting anything here regularly.
Anjaathey - Though this is easily the best out of all the movies that have been released this year, I really do not want the year to end that way. That, I guess, should say everything as to what I felt about the movie. The movie was pretty good, though I still could not stand Naren's body language. His acting in the form of facial expressions has definitely improved vastly from his Chithiram Pesuthadi days. But his body language still stands out like a sore thumb. About the movie - Like I read somewhere, movies can have one or two scenes with directorial touches but Anjaathey is a movie that is one long directorial touch marathon. The camera angles, the endless list of characters who all seemed to have a role to play in the proceedings are couple of reasons why this movie stands out. The scene when Naren & the old lady sandwich the dead body while riding the bike is the one that I could remember right off the top of my head. The only thing that could have been better is the way the climax was shot. It was a pretty long & tedious climax. I am a big fan of these catchy kuthu songs and so I loved both the songs - Kannadsasan Karaikudi and KathaaLa kannaala and the simple but addictive choreography. This guy is so good at filming these kind of songs that his way of picturization of regular duets (the Manasukkul number) was such a sore to watch. Mysshkin's next movie that has the Maestro at the helm, is what he is calling his most ambitious movie. Here is already looking forward to a classic.
Taare Zameen Par - Was completely blown away by the movie. Had been wanting to watch this movie ever since many called this movie as the best movie of last year. I was kind of not very receptive to the movie (you might even call that feeling skeptical) when I started watching this, mainly bcos I did not expect anybody to do a better job than what Mani Rathnam did in Anjali. But then Aamir Khan just proved that he is an altogether different league. We often praise Kamal as the only actor who can also make good movies but Aamir Khan is just amazing here. I can't think of one single Kamal movie (that he made) which can stand against this one. Shankar Ehsaan Loy's music was such a big plus to the movie. Gelled so perfectly with the movie. Aamir underplayed his character so well and the kid was unbelievable. No unnecessary melodrama, no cliched scenes. Everyone of us who watched the movie were clearly overwhelmed as the movie ended, with many of us in tears. This is cinema as an educative medium at its very best. Can't remember the last Hindi movie that moved me as much as this one did.
Kalloori - They say, climax makes or breaks a movie and the latter is true in this case, as the ridiculous climax ended up being fatal to the movie's fate at the box office. The feeling that one gets at the end of this movie is not disappointment or tragedy, which is what I imagine the director would have wanted/ expected of the audience, but instead, one feels cheated at the end of the movie. I mean, the movie was so beautiful until that point when you get this ridiculous climax after which we all were nodding our heads in disbelief and then sank in the feeling of having been cheated. May be, he was trying to recreate his Kaadhal magic by going in for a tragic climax or may be, he wanted to show his anger against that real life incident that killed 6 girls in Dharmapuri, but it just did not work, atleast for me. Though Joshua Sridhar could not quite recreate his Kaadhal magic, the Unnarugaiyil varugaiyil song is as good as he has ever composed. Bottomline - even given how bad this movie ended, Balaji Shakthivel will be one director whose next movie I will be looking forward to very eagerly, bcos Kalloori is a pretty good movie except for the climax.
Pirivom Sandhippom - Well, we all have heard about feel good movies. This is one movie that takes the whole concept to an altogether new level, even making some of Vikraman's movies pale in comparison. It definitely takes guts to make a movie like this with no villain and where every character in the movie can be classified under 2 broad categories - nallavanga and romba nallavanga. I am no big fan of Cheran's histrionic abilities and his performance here was no different, though I should say that this is one character that might suit him the most. If there is one thing that might make folks like me (who just cannot stand him, as an actor) look at his performance in a kinder way, it should be that he should keep his romantic antics to a minimum or even better, just get rid of them. Watching Cheran romance is not a very good experience. Sneha, as always, does her role adequately. Jayaram's character is different but he looks jaded and this is not the Jayaram that we have seen in mvoies like Priyanka and Thenali. The real hero of the movie is Vidhyasagar's music. He is probably the only music director in Tamil who keeps on churning out melodies after melodies in every single movie of his. The cute little everyday things (as to why we should not have frightening wall hangings in the front of our homes) and the anecdotes that you see throughout the movie remind you of Mozhi director Radhamohan. Karu Pazhaniappan is not a director to whom you can associate subtlety with (even his best & only good work till date, Parthiban Kanavu is no exception) and he only continues that trend here. A movie that definitely cannot be termed as bad but at the same time, cannot sing praises for it, either.
Anjaathey - Though this is easily the best out of all the movies that have been released this year, I really do not want the year to end that way. That, I guess, should say everything as to what I felt about the movie. The movie was pretty good, though I still could not stand Naren's body language. His acting in the form of facial expressions has definitely improved vastly from his Chithiram Pesuthadi days. But his body language still stands out like a sore thumb. About the movie - Like I read somewhere, movies can have one or two scenes with directorial touches but Anjaathey is a movie that is one long directorial touch marathon. The camera angles, the endless list of characters who all seemed to have a role to play in the proceedings are couple of reasons why this movie stands out. The scene when Naren & the old lady sandwich the dead body while riding the bike is the one that I could remember right off the top of my head. The only thing that could have been better is the way the climax was shot. It was a pretty long & tedious climax. I am a big fan of these catchy kuthu songs and so I loved both the songs - Kannadsasan Karaikudi and KathaaLa kannaala and the simple but addictive choreography. This guy is so good at filming these kind of songs that his way of picturization of regular duets (the Manasukkul number) was such a sore to watch. Mysshkin's next movie that has the Maestro at the helm, is what he is calling his most ambitious movie. Here is already looking forward to a classic.
Taare Zameen Par - Was completely blown away by the movie. Had been wanting to watch this movie ever since many called this movie as the best movie of last year. I was kind of not very receptive to the movie (you might even call that feeling skeptical) when I started watching this, mainly bcos I did not expect anybody to do a better job than what Mani Rathnam did in Anjali. But then Aamir Khan just proved that he is an altogether different league. We often praise Kamal as the only actor who can also make good movies but Aamir Khan is just amazing here. I can't think of one single Kamal movie (that he made) which can stand against this one. Shankar Ehsaan Loy's music was such a big plus to the movie. Gelled so perfectly with the movie. Aamir underplayed his character so well and the kid was unbelievable. No unnecessary melodrama, no cliched scenes. Everyone of us who watched the movie were clearly overwhelmed as the movie ended, with many of us in tears. This is cinema as an educative medium at its very best. Can't remember the last Hindi movie that moved me as much as this one did.
Kalloori - They say, climax makes or breaks a movie and the latter is true in this case, as the ridiculous climax ended up being fatal to the movie's fate at the box office. The feeling that one gets at the end of this movie is not disappointment or tragedy, which is what I imagine the director would have wanted/ expected of the audience, but instead, one feels cheated at the end of the movie. I mean, the movie was so beautiful until that point when you get this ridiculous climax after which we all were nodding our heads in disbelief and then sank in the feeling of having been cheated. May be, he was trying to recreate his Kaadhal magic by going in for a tragic climax or may be, he wanted to show his anger against that real life incident that killed 6 girls in Dharmapuri, but it just did not work, atleast for me. Though Joshua Sridhar could not quite recreate his Kaadhal magic, the Unnarugaiyil varugaiyil song is as good as he has ever composed. Bottomline - even given how bad this movie ended, Balaji Shakthivel will be one director whose next movie I will be looking forward to very eagerly, bcos Kalloori is a pretty good movie except for the climax.
Pirivom Sandhippom - Well, we all have heard about feel good movies. This is one movie that takes the whole concept to an altogether new level, even making some of Vikraman's movies pale in comparison. It definitely takes guts to make a movie like this with no villain and where every character in the movie can be classified under 2 broad categories - nallavanga and romba nallavanga. I am no big fan of Cheran's histrionic abilities and his performance here was no different, though I should say that this is one character that might suit him the most. If there is one thing that might make folks like me (who just cannot stand him, as an actor) look at his performance in a kinder way, it should be that he should keep his romantic antics to a minimum or even better, just get rid of them. Watching Cheran romance is not a very good experience. Sneha, as always, does her role adequately. Jayaram's character is different but he looks jaded and this is not the Jayaram that we have seen in mvoies like Priyanka and Thenali. The real hero of the movie is Vidhyasagar's music. He is probably the only music director in Tamil who keeps on churning out melodies after melodies in every single movie of his. The cute little everyday things (as to why we should not have frightening wall hangings in the front of our homes) and the anecdotes that you see throughout the movie remind you of Mozhi director Radhamohan. Karu Pazhaniappan is not a director to whom you can associate subtlety with (even his best & only good work till date, Parthiban Kanavu is no exception) and he only continues that trend here. A movie that definitely cannot be termed as bad but at the same time, cannot sing praises for it, either.
Labels: Movie Reviews, Weekend Movies
posted by Filbert at 10:54 AM
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