Satham Podathey -- Movie Review

Vasanth is one director who has directed some really great movies like “Keladi Kanmani” and “Rhythm” while also directing some utterly hopeless movies like “Hey, Nee Romba Azhaga Irukae”. The trailer of “Satham Podathey” that I saw during the ill-fated “Urchagam” movie piqued my interest. The trailer showed the movie to be a thriller movie. With an unfathomable scarcity of thriller movies in Tamil, I was eagerly expecting for this movie. Did “Satham Podathey” fulfill the expectations? Did Vasanth come up with another quality entertainer?

Story: When Bhanu (Padmapriya), a person who has a lot of dreams about marriage & children, marries Rathnavelu (Nithin Sathya) life takes her through routes that she has not even thought about in her wildest dreams. Rathnavelu is an impotent due to his past drinking habits. He hides this fact from Bhanu and gets married to her. Bhanu soon comes to know if this & also the fact that Rathnavelu is a psychologically disturbed person. She applies for a divorce on these grounds & gets it. A few months pass and a new spring season seems to bloom in her life when she meets with Ravichandran (Prithviraj) who is willing to marry her. She also slowly falls in love with Ravichandran. Whether they marry each other inspite of the problems caused by Rathnavelu and whether they live happily after that forms the rest of the plot.

Making a movie out of a complicated & emotional story such as this one requires the portrayal of solid characters that can enhance the story. Vasanth has done a pathetic job in this and hence fails miserably in evoking the required emotions out of the viewers. Movie goers generally tend to identify themselves with one of the characters that is shown and when this does not happen because of weak characterizations, the movie seldom creates an impact in the hearts of the viewer. There was a sense of emptiness that engulfed me after watching this movie as it failed to leave any visible impact. This could be considered as the downfall of this otherwise ordinary movie.

The other thing that I couldn’t let pass is the insertion of the 2 songs after the interval. The two songs are forced and they only hamper the flow of the movie. Added to this is the fact that these songs are downright cheap and make you cringe does not augur well for a director like Vasanth who has always been churning out movies which the entire family can watch without getting uncomfortable in their seats. “You too, Vasanth?”

Performances: The top prize would surely go to Padma Priya for her brilliant portrayal of the girl who interminably suffers in the hands of a psychopathic husband. She emotes very beautifully and it is really surprising to see very less of her in the tamil filmdom. May be it is her mature look that acts as a deterrent for the film directors to not cast her in their movies. Nithin Sathya as the mentally disturbed husband would come in as a close second in terms of acting honors. It is very commendable of him to come up with a highly individualistic performance and not to be ‘Inspired’ from movies that have the same kind of characterizations (Prakash Raj in Aasai readily comes to my mind). PrithviRaj sadly looks good only in the romantic & comedy scenes and fails miserably in highly charged scenes. It is really surprising that Vasanth has not meted out a much meatier role for PrithviRaj.

Other aspects: Vasanth has this uncanny ability to get the best from his music directors and his streak continues in this as well with Yuvan churning out some really great songs. The “Pesugiren” and “Azhagu Kutti Chellam” would surely do the rounds in the TV channels for sometime atleast. Yuvan seems to grow with each movie in terms of his ability to give amazing BGM’s and this is no exception for he creates the perfect ambience for a dark thriller.

The camera work was horrible to say the least. Whoever taught the cameraman that swinging the camera from one end of the screen to the other when the characters are talking to be a modern technique seems to have taught him the wrong things about handling a camera. It becomes highly irritating very soon and I wanted to shout out (Oops, pun unintended) to stop prancing around with the camera. The only saving grace is the picturization of the songs. The lush green forts of Kerala act as a treat to the eyes.

Last Cut: With its unique theme and sensitive & sensible handling of the script notwithstanding, the lack of depth in characters bring down this movie. A movie that should have gone out loud & clear instead goes out with a whimper. Wait for the DVD release to watch this movie.

Rating: 6.5/10

Kannamoochi Enada -- Music Review

Music by: Yuvan Shankar Raja

Andru Vandathum Athe Nila (Shankar Mahadevan, Haricharan, Swetha) -- It is no secret that I hate the re-mix versions of the old popular numbers. All that the music directors end up doing to these songs is add a track containing heavy jarring beats which incidentally makes me crave for the original version more than ever. One exception to this rule was the song 'Thottal Poo Malarum' from the movie 'New'. Rahman had actually 'Retuned' the song and it was refreshing to hear it. Yuvan does the same thing here for this yesteryear classic by adding a jazzy mix and a funky tune while keeping the starting lyrics the same.Special mention to Shankar Mahadevan who breezes through this to make this an extremely catchy song. What transpires here is a beautiful reinvention that makes you yearn for more of these kind of retunes. The best song of this album. Once the song is over, go for the 'Repeat' button.

Kannamoochi Aatam Aadithaan (Palghat Sriram, Sainthavi, Prasanna, Dr. Narayanan) -- This song starts with a small beautiful rendition of a song that is normally sung during marriages. The interludes are tastefully peppered with small english lyrics. This one appears to be more a situational song and is not instantly catchy. Nevertheless, surely worth a listen. Allow this song to 'Play'.

Sanjaram (Shankar Mahadevan, Madhushree) -- A beautiful duet and a perfect melody that has Yuvan's stamp all over it. This is the Yuvan that I have come to love and he proves all the way why he is considered as the most promising music director in Tamil industry. This song also features Shankar Mahadevan at his best with his nonchalant yet pleasing to the ear kind of singing. The sore point of this song is the pronounciation of Madhushree. Can someone ask her to spit out the lollipop that she has in her mouth atleast while singing? Once the song is over, go for the 'Repeat' button.

Megam Megam (Haricharan, Swetha) -- I have not heard about this Haricharan (Is he the one who sung the "Unnakena Iruppen" in Kaadhal movie?) but he does a great job of singing this song. And I am even more unaware of this Swetha but she sings the song as though she has doing this for years together. A simple but excellent rhythm runs all through the song. And then there is the beautiful lyrics that are uncomplicated conveying the meaning in such a crystal clear way. The lines that particularly caught my attention is "Muthal muthal vaazhvil thondrum vanna kuzhapam vaanavil thaana". Too good!! Allow this song to 'Play'.

Putham Puthu (Shankar Mahadevan, Vijay Yesudas) -- If Sanjaram featured Shankar Mahadevan's singing that I have always yearned for, this song features the Shankar Mahadevan I have come to despise. Loud & uninspiring singing for a pretty mediocre tune. A tune set in the lines of "Kuyilukku Koo Koo" song from "Friends" and the "Ohh Nanbane" song from "Mounam Pesiyathe", this is the weakest link in an otherwise wonderful album. Go for the 'Skip' button.

Last Shout: Buy this album and add it to your music collection.

As Bad As It Gets

What crime did the bowlers commit for them to suffer such torture? Is there a role that the bowlers have in the Twenty20 form of cricket other than being made scape goats to be mercilessly slaughtered by the batsmen? If the idea of the tournament is to allow the public to enjoy watching some brutal batting displays, why not replace the bowlers with a bowling machine?

I feel that the bowlers in a team can be replaced by batsmen and then a bowling machine can be introduced to throw balls at the batsman. The captain of the team can be allowed to choose the speed, the type of delivery and may be some other finer variations regarding the delivery. He can control all this from the field using a wireless controller or some other highly sophisticated device. This approach has the benefit that it allows a team to be fully loaded with batsmen (which I am sure the public would not complain about) and also spares the bowlers of mindless brutality they are put through (And I am sure the bowlers would not complain about this). What you guys say???

Urchagam -- Movie Review

Why do I make such stupid mistakes? How did I believe that a movie starring a hero who has only a couple of movies to his name and a heroine whose only credit till date has been her 'bare all' first movie would be of any good? Why did I think that good songs would automatically get converted to great visuals and a decent story? Why? Why? Why? Like everything else in life, I am searching for the answers to all these above questions.

Even writing a review for movies like this is an atrocious waste of time but I feel that I have a 'Social' responsibility (Look at my generosity here!!!) in making sure that other people out there do not make the same mistake as me and end up watching this hopeless parody of errors compiled in the name of a movie. There is no shard piece of evidence to show that this movie has anything original in terms of its screenplay. The term cliche would start appearing cliched if I start to list out the cliched sequences that appear in this movie. It would be better if I just said that it is so FULL of them.

There used to be a time in tamil movies when the heroine would take up a small bottle & the camera would zoom in to show the words poison (With the tamil translation below it) to explicitly show to the viewer that she is about to commit suicide. Then directors like Bhagyaraj came in and they just showed the heroine drinking something from a small bottle and in the next scene people would seen crying and the viewers understood what it meant. The latest line of directors like Bala show just the corpse of the heroine & let the viewer understand the sequence. The underlying pretence here in all this is that the movie watching public is assumed to have a certain amount of gray matter in their heads and that they can understand things without the need for an elaborated explanation. The director of this movie (I have no clue who it is.....) questioned my intelliegence by explaining even the simplest of things and made me look even more stupid than I am actually is. Then, towards the end, there were sequences where the villain would have made the FBI team go green with envy with his detective & deductive capabilities. And when I was expecting some answers from the directors on how the villain was doing all this, he provides me with none!!!

There is nothing to write about performances or technical aspects and I would directly go to a sour point that irritated me the most. There is this beautiful song 'Naram Pookal Thedum' that I was eagerly waiting for and when it finally showed up in screen, I immediately knew why I was not able to catch this song in the regular song programs that comes in every other channel these days. I was, afterall, looking for this song in the wrong program. I should have been checking 'Hot, Hotter, Hottest' or 'Midnight Masala' instead....... What a complete waste of such a brilliant song.

Final Cut: When movies like 'Paruthi Veeran' and 'Kireedom' try to take the tamil movie industry forward, these movies end up pushing them back by a solid 30 years. Avoid this at all cost.

Rating: 2/10 (The only reason I gave this movie 2 points is for the songs. If you have not listened to it yet, you are surely missing something)

Succeeding -- The Jordan way

Couldn't resist myself from posting this. Truly inspiring lines from Michael Jordan. This is a very famous phrase from the Nike ad in which Jordan appeared.

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career; I’ve lost almost 300 games; 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot, and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Photos for Fun -- Part II

Till now, I never realized the importance of having a good optical zoom camera. I have been pretty satisified with my Canon A95 camera and the photos that it has been giving me. The various scene selections that are possible in this camera is amazing and is more than sufficient for an amateur photographer like me. I had a chance to use my friend's cameras and that is when I realized the need for an optical zoom in the camera. I used the Canon S2 IS and also the Olympus SP500UZ cameras and these cameras left me amazed by the kind of photographs that I can get with these. Below I have given some of the photos that I took with the Olympus camera.

Photo #1

Photo #1: I have taken so many snaps of this flower using my camera and it has never come this well. The color reproduction and the way in which each and every strand of the stamen of the flower is visible is just amazing.

Photo #2

Photo #2: Cats are never my favorite animals and so I did not take photos of the cat when my friends were clicking away photos of this one during out trip to Udupi. Finally, I took up the camera from my friend and my friends had let go the cat by this time. The cat started chasing something in the nearby wood pile and I couldnt resist myself from clicking this photo. The blurred out background and the various shades in the picture make it a decent one.

Photo #3

Photo #3: A water drop on a big leaf!!! Every photographer's dream snap. The crystal like water drop & the light green shade of the leaves makes this near perfect. (It would have been perfect if only I had the patience to cover the entire leaf. A small portion of the leaf is now missing in the left hand side of the photo)

Photo #4

Photo #4: A fluttering butterfly in an open space is one of the toughest to capture in a camera. This one kept flying from one plant to another so fast that it was almost impossible to get a proper snap. I got lucky and I ended up with this decent shot. It would have been a lot better if I had zoomed in a bit further but with the amount of time that I had to shoot this snap, this is all that I could ask for!!!