Inception - a thoroughly thought thought about thought

Okay. So there are hundreds of reviews about this movie written by well known and renowned critics, but I feel it is right on my part to write on the movie that I felt was one among the best that I've seen in the last few years. I have been criticising movies one too many and my readers have at times found it disconcerting that I should consistently have a negative take on reviewing the movies. And it is now time to change that perception.

Despite being in a very quiet part of New Jersey, I have had a lot of opportunities (I'm still not sure I've capitalized as much as I should have) for travel and entertainment respites. Theatres in these parts of the country usually run empty and I have an unbeatable record of being the only person to watch a movie thanks to the friend who ditched me and "happened" to miss the train. But that is a different story, and so was the story the day I went to watch the 'Inception'. The theatre ran almost a full house on the opening Friday and the hall did have a huge capacity of about 600. If it were 'Sura' there would have been ample time and patience for the audience to express their emotions and whistle. But, this one was different.

The thing that impressed me the most is the plot. Unlike most other movies that are being produced all around the world left, right and center, the ones that trade off the plot for the cast and action, Inception is woven into the plot as tight as a cocoon's nest. After a long time, I have truly enjoyed a movie because of its ability to derive its strength from the plot. I'm sure it has taken Nolan quite a while to come up with the plot (despite it's obvious ancestral properties from Matrix) and with great care and intricacy. Any less and the movie would not have probably had the same integrity of thought and feature. The concept of lucid dreams and sharing dreams has been out in the world for centuries (I personally know of its existence in one of the ancient Indian scripts - Bhagavat Purana and the oldest surviving text of this script is at least a thousand years old), but it still takes an amazing amount of effort and thought to capture it a 2 hour celluloid. For instance, the fact that your dreams are woven into reality is amazingly casted in form of people losing gravity in the dream when the previous level has people suspended in the air.

With a story of this kind, it is quite easy for people to get carried away with making the movie infinitely complex, but Nolan's effort in making it simple to the viewer yet not lose the value of the concept just amazed me. With the right measure of terminology (limbo, kick, inception) to give it a sci-fi bent, the story has been carved into shape by equally brilliant screenplay. The pace of the movie is just right and keeps the audience always interested in what is happening on screen. If one were to pardon my sense of drawing parallelisms, I'd say Sekhar Kammula comes the closest to this calibre when it comes to screenplay and integrity of thought. I'm sure this movie would go a long way in making Hollywood (and Bollywood, Tollywood, Kollywood, ??llywoods ) appreciate the importance of thought in the inception of a movie. And yes, I still cannot believe how DiCaprio has managed to make such splendid choice of movies. Either, he is really worthy of these, or he should go buy lottery tickets. In either case, he is going to be a billionaire.

There isn't much of a suspense in the plot and leaving the end wide open to audience hardly qualifies as a suspense in my perception. Yet, I shall not be delving into the details of the plot or the storyline, like I usually do. For now, I remain happy and immersed in the ecstasy of seeing a movie that is well scripted and amazing thought out. Unless you are addicted to watching movies like Sura which are perfect antonyms of Inception, I'm sure it will be love at first sight.

Whats your Avatar?

"The thing that I can't tolerate is, there's soon going to be this next dumb quiz on facebook -  What's your avatar? " said my friend, after the movie ended, and while we were walking down the dark alleys on a silent and cold night, on our way back home. That summed up our feelings for the night, after a movie that sure excited us by its awesome graphics and pure innovation. Truly, we were all taken to the Pandora's for a little over couple of hours. Summed up by James Cameron as one of his life achievements even before the movie released, this baby of his is definitely worth a watch. Its truly creditable that the entire movie, right from its conception until its execution was in its own realm of unbridled imagination and ecstasy.

With very little story value, the movie, Avatar, has the freedom to explore the hidden depths of one's imaginative mind. And it definitely has taken advantage of this freedom of imagination resulting in a stupendous visual feast - the colours throughout the movie are simply amazing. The fluorescent flowers, the huge leaves, the multi-legged creatures, the winged mounts that soar the skies - all these form the core of the movie that charms the audience and binds them by its sheer magic.

The movie is a must watch, if you would allow yourself to be guiled by the lack of logic and science. And when you are given a date that far out in the future, you are entitled the rights to throw in gadgets and concepts as you like. Avatar is short of neither, and you have everything right from machines that transmit brain signals across to a different biological entity to a civilization that makes use of neural networks of the orders of 10^12 that enables them communicate with trees and animals alike. After dealing with Asymptotics for half the year, these numbers seemed to be more than realistic to me though. The screenplay, if there was any, was simple and clean with no major hiccups or aberrations. The entire movie was apparently taken with the help of human motion sensors to capture the motions of actors in the set and transmit them to the natives that makes it amazingly realistic.

Just so that the review remains fair enough and covers all aspects of the movie and to bring back the admirers from the sheer awesomeness of the visual treat, I would probably have to bring out things that struck me rather ordinary in the movie. The story would instantly remind you of any tamil/telugu movie flick with its standard package of romance and heroism. And, my international friends, if you have liked those aspects of the movie in particular, I'd recommend that you watch a few Indian movies with/without sub-titles which I am sure are full of these. And if you make sense of just one of these movies, its just a contextual switch that you need to flip and language isn't a barrier any more. The indicator random variable would invariably point to 1 up, then on.. :-)

Length of the movie was another thing that I have always wanted directors to be aware of, perhaps with the rare exception of a few movies that have a very strong story line to back up the length. While not withstanding the fact that Avatar is a visual treat (esp in 3D which I've heard is simply awesome), the 165 min runtime seemed to be an overkill for the movie. It's my firm belief that no matter how good or beautiful a particular feature is- an overdose is definitely a killer.

As a final note, I would definitely recommend the movie- its truly a next step forward as far as the technology and innovation is concerned. However, I'd definitely not rate it at par with the Lord of the rings, Troy, or A Beautiful Mind. It wasn't designed to compete with movies of this genre, but to create a new class of its own!

Can't Oh Saamy !

It might come as a pleasant surprise to my readers that I am finally writing a movie review (despite movie reviews being the most enjoyed part of my blog posts by far). I would venture to say that it might be the evil design of Mr.Fate that I feel compelled to watch this tamil movie after a long time. Before I begin, dear readers who belong to the non-tamil faction, please apologize if you don't make sense out of the whole post - neither did I from the movie.

It came as an indigestible bitter pill (can it become any worse ?) that I opted to watch Kandasaamy as a stress buster after my exams. Worse still, that I watched it soon after 'Unnaipol Oruvan'. While I was bedazzled by the performance of Naseeruddin Shah in 'A Wednesday' (I had watched the movie long time ago)- especially the way he made Kamal Hassan look not-out-of-the-world in the tamil version, the mercury was shot down by Kandasaamy given the fact that the film was shot for over two years (irrespective of the reason for the delay).

Starting with a flimsy story line which I am sure one might not have seen worser in a long time, the screenplay matched it's quality to the core. The screenplay of the movie has thrown a serious challenge to concepts of time dimensions and makes time move geometrically slower (and perhaps stand still at some point). The theme, despite being directly picked up from 'Ramana' (I'm surprised how there hasn't been a plagiarism law suit yet!) has been so effectively screwed up that it appears as flawed as it could be. The cinematic characterization of CBI officers has been consistently ripped apart in Tollywood since the beginning of time, but I'm sure Kandasamy and Billa would definitely be there among the hot competitors for the top spot. The screenplay and plot has definitely reached the pinnacle of mediocrity. Perhaps the lack of surprises was indeed the surprise the movie had hoped to achieve!

There couldn't have been a job worse done with the dialogues department too. The dialogues between the lead pair and the investigators amazes me with its derisiveness, especially when they 'appear' outsmart each other (though I'm sure even a 3 year old would be able see through the fatuous plots that apparently fazed even the CBI). Even the 'vaigai puyal', whom I usually admire for his antics and on screen hilarity, seems to be terribly off key in the entire movie. Perhaps the effects of induction are not limited to electricity and magnetism alone. Lyrics for the songs adds yet another icing to the already molten (not just melted) ice cream of a dialogue. I even have a suspicion that the lyrics might have been accidental recording of the on-the-high babble of techie youth after three rounds of Russian Vodka. The english and tamil (oh! you do hear a couple of words scattered now and then if you are sharp enough) has been so ostentatiously mixed that it just throws up on the instrumental music that runs on the background. Just to give you an idea of how messed up it could look like, I have even ventured to paste some portions of the lyrics that I could find from the internet at the end of the post.

Usually actions speak louder than words, but in this case - I would any day have pledged my preference to the words. The garments do deserve a special mention in the movie. If dressing up as a 'cock' for depicting phantasms was as brilliant an idea that one can come up with in two years time, it makes me wonder about the sort of imbecilic plague has struck Kollywood. The flying sequences are no more a novelty to the tamil/telugu movie buffs, but I'd rather that the stunt sequences better be unexplained on-screen. The dress-up of the lead character as a woman in one of the fight sequence just shows the level of nervousness and depravity with which the spice of novelty has been tried to be brought in the movie.

The screenplay of the movie is wayward, but its the characterization that sets the trajectory towards definite annihilation. The manner in which the lead pair fall in love with each other is as stale as a bottle of buttermilk from the ages of Egyptian Pharoahs. Why the choice of PPP as a representation of villainous identity was made puzzles me more than Shrodinger's equation. What has truly appalled me, is how veteran actors could have donned these roles knowing how weak their on-screen characterization would be.

Apart from spending crores on the shores of Italy and the basins of Africa, I fail to see anything the movie has significantly achieved. Perhaps, in future, if evading taxes were my sole purpose in life, I might actually venture to mimic this Kollywood bravado!

Movie Bottom Line: Can't oh Saamy.

Disclaimers: Movie highly recommended if revenge is your motive and losing 50 bucks is your favourite pastime.

Random Lyric pieces from songs:
En Peru Meenakumari
Yen ooru kanyakumaari

Kaaikari thottahthila naan kathiri
Aangila madhathila naan january

Ohdura andhiyinile naan kaaviri
Asaiva saapaatula naan maan kari

Hey Kandhasamy yen lifela puyala vandha samy..
yen alagu paathu manasula nondha samu che vendha samy,
un azhagunaala illa un imsaiyila nondha samy,
un kaiyila sikka maatan indha samy..

Dasavatharam.. An intricately carved design

It's time I donned the garbs of a critique yet again. Thankfully, in the recent past, not many movies had moved past benchmark required to make me think about writing a note on it. If you had been a regular follower of my reviews, you would even suspect me to be a very captious critic. But then, so is the nature of the job and I am but a faithful follower of the decalogue pertinent to this fraternity. No suprises, this time around friends, this is going to be another abstract set of observations from Kamal's latest flick, Dashavatharam. The first feel that you get immediately after the movie is that of vacuum, not awe, just the general feeling of discomfiture at the hanging pieces of screenplay that you had just witnessed.

The crux of the movie revolves around the well known Chaos theory, in particular the Butterfly effect (Chaos theory ). With such a dicey concept as the baseline, it has to be agreed that Kamal has done a remarkable job of constituting a story out of it. The entire movie is based on the conceptual premises of the cause-effect system. Kamal has done a excellent job in the characterisation of all the ten different roles that he dons. However, it should also be mentioned that some of the roles could have been a mere fabrication to increase the count to 10. If you think it is just a ploy to justify the title, then I'd ask you to read further through the post, just in case your thought needed a revision.

The actor in Kamal has done a resplendent job with regards to the acting, appearace, demanour and dialogue delivery. The job is more than merely well done, it is a class act. Each of the character is distinct, beautifully accented, cleverly masked and well placed. Among the flurry of characters, Nambi, Fletcher, Naidu, Shingen Narahashi and Poovaraghan deserves special mention. The character of Naidu which combines intelligence with wit, accentuates the comical flavour in the movie. Nambi is the epitome of "Bhakthi" with all the characteristics of a blindly devout man. Fletcher dons the most important role for any movie, the villain. Action and comedy are given their due respect and are magnificiently executed. Of course, there are a couple of places where you would still find the hero flying the air and doing somersaults, which are so much an integral part of South Indian movies. All things said and done, you would still feel a couple of characters to be a mere count incrementors. For Non-Kamal fans, the number might be a tad Kamal-Overkill.

The movie is extremely fast paced with Fletcher giving Govid the chase until the end. Thankfully, there are no redundant comedy track that runs between the story line. Neither do we have any dream sequences or songs that seem out of place with plot of the story. The BGM are neat and cleanly done. However the songs are quite unlike the traditional South Indian ones that you would expect from such movies, they definitely show traces of Modern North Indian touch that one cna hear blaring across the street. The most common comment that I have heard from people who watched id was "Disconnects". Yes, the movie definitely doesn't provide you with the connects but leaves it to open interpretation. Which brings me to tell you what I had interpreted (there were some perceptions that aren't mine, the ones that I couldn't connect to).

As I had initially mentioned, the key to perceive the connection in the story is the chaos theory. A set of seemingly insignificant events contributing to a much larger phenomenon. Similarly, a set of distinct, insignigicant characters contributing to a greater cause of saving the world from a bio-chemical infection. The scientist, Govind comes across so many characters and forms a part of the intricate pattern which conspires to bring the plot into effect. To follow a simple chain, Govind got knocked off the railings to fall into the package that went to India. He meets the mentally unstable lady, Krishnaveni paati, who drops the infectious vial into the idol. Comes Shingen, who, for the sake of revenge protects Govind. Similarly, all the characters in one way or the other, knowingly or unknowingly helps Govind's cause. It fairly conforms to the chaos theory that we have seen earlier. Kamal has also touched the concept of re-incarnation in the form of Govind and Nambi, if you had noticed the similarities among the two characters including a scar in the forehead :). Asin's dual portrayal is just another allusion to the same fact. The concept of Karma has also been dealt with deftly. In the previous life, Asin was ready to give up God for the sake of her husband's life whereas Nambi was too attached to let go off. In the later life, they swap places where Kamal says, "It would have been great if God were there". Also they re-unite in the same place where they were separated, another implication of the chaos theory and circular pattern of events. The idol that was immersed ignobly into the ocean wedged itself between the tectonic plates triggering the Tsumani at the easiest provocation of the phenomenon. Another instance of the chaos theory.

The ten characters in the story can be roughly mapped to the mythological dasavatharams by Lord Vishnu. Some of the most obviously visible juxtapositions are

* Kalki - Govind, the humanitarian out to save the world.
* Balarama - the name is indicative enough, Balaram Naidu.
* Matsya - Nambi, who went into the ocean with his Lord's idol.
* varaha - Krishnaveni paati who hides the vial inside the idol.
* Rama - Avtar singh who is ever devoted to his wife, ready to sacrifice his voice for his wife.
* Krishna - The dark complexioned, compassionate Poovaraghan says it all. Like Lord Krishna, he dies due to a foot injury!
* Parasurama - Fletcher, who else ?? :). A killing machine, just like Parasurama whose purpose was to eliminate the Kshatriyas.
* Narasimha - The name Shingen Narahashi, does it ring a bell ?
* vamana- Kalifulla who is as gigantic as the Vamana ?

Well, these are just some interpretations that I managed to secure from various sources and the choice is upto you to reject them. As you can see, there is a lot more than mere screenplay and fast paced action that you can see obviously in the movie. I would really not know if these facts were introduced into the movie consciously, but if it were, Kudos to Kamal !! If not, perhaps, yet another example of chaos theory ! ;-)

Remake rules !!

"என்ன கொடுமை சரவனன்ன்..."("What a disaster, Mr.Saravanann..") was all that I could say when we decided to watch the latest flick "Billa". Despite my earlier resolve not to venture into filmdom, I know that I have to commit this cardinal crime at least this once. Quite lamentably, it is once in ages that a tamil movie gets released in hyderabad, thanks to the remakes. Speaking of remakes, let me educate my non-tamil readers that Billa is the remake of the remake of the original, the original being the Big B's "Don". Oh yeah, it also happens that the first Billa was screen-presented by our "SuperStar" Rajinikanth.



As an all time fan, I knew what to expect from our dear "Thala" ("Head") a.k.a "Ultimate Star", as he is known to his dearest fans. There are certain things that has ever been beyond the horizon for our Thala,

* Expression
* Dialogue delivery
* Dance (There are more importnat things in acting, for Gods' sake !!)

But then there are several important traits that our Thala possesses,

* The trademark expression that never ceases to amaze us, his hardcore fans !
* The physique for donning any filmy attire
* Punch (both verbal and physical)
* Three day old stubble

Billa was a fluent portrayal of an anti-hero, with the usual glamor and grandeur that can attributed to the villains of today. The heriones were at their flashy best througout the movie. And dude ! You aren't supposed to expect expressions from the bad guys. They should be STONE COLD !! True to this fact, every character in the movie was at his/her expressionless best. Oh yeah, exceptions are that there can be comedy and song sequences at all inconceivable situations. But then they serve their purposes, they always take you by surprise :). Added to the hilarious chow was the DSP, main character in the plot being subjected to all sort of ludicrousness. Right from the hero to the comedian and a non-absolute kid have a go at the DSP. To be frank, Santhanam screen presence was the only time when the comedy was palatable.

A couple of songs flicked from the old billa were quite nicely remade much to the taste of the audience. Our thala looks ultimately fit throughout the movie. Obviously, he has literally ramp-walked umpteen kilometers in every song in the movie. The action sequences are the highlight of the movie where we have our heroine as a Ninja-girl jumping from the top of the Petronas towers :). Our thala can drive a car in such a splendid fashion that even NFS specialists would bow down in odium. The best part of the movie is the surprise element..you'll be surprised with the lack of surprises in the movie. This would be an eulogy to the old Billa as the director has not tampered with the plot maintaining its sanctity. All things said and done the movie is definitely going to be a box office burner, thanks to us, hardcore thala fans who would devotedly cheer every move made by him. This movie might not make it into the awards ceremony, heck ! who cares.. remake still rules !!

Movie Bottomline : Beware - Thala all the way !

The Godfather

This is going to be a unique post, quite different from any of my earlier ones. For once this is dedicated to one of my non-regular readers, who surprised me with the fact that he hasn't come across this masterpiece. It's come as a surprise even to me, a lazy bone like mine, undergoing all the trouble to draft a post at the most innocuous of times. This is going to be a combo review, a book -movie combo that I chanced upon to read-view within the span of the past week. I am pretty sure that each of my readers must have either read the book or watched the movie "The Godfather" by Mario Puzo. I happened to read it for the third time a couple of weeks ago when the inspiration to watch the movie was aroused within me. For the book lovers, nothing can equal the vivid description provided in the book. The smell of print and paper provides the icing for the wonderful delicacy wrought by the author.

Thankfully,for once, the movie provides ample justice to the book by taking into account the most innate details depicted in the book. For those who haven't watched the movie, please do so. Believe me, it is definitely worth it ! Marlon Brando and Al Pacino are simply amazing in their roles as Don Vito Corleone and Michael Corleone. Though the movie had some variation from the book, it recapitulates the charm of the story with its screenplay and music scores.Some of the differences that I could notice were;

* The history of Don Vito Corleone is not shown in the movie.
* Johnny Fontane isn't a very prominent character in the movie.
* The character of Dr.Jules is not even mentioned in the movie.
* The plot in the movie ends with the murder of the heads of the five families whereas the book is more benevolent, killing just the Tattaglia and Barzini.

The movie does score over the book in certain areas; the pace is quite pleasant in the movie whereas the book seems to be a bit too descriptive in certain places like Michael's stay in Corleone. The movie shows the cold-blooded politeness of the underworld in a scintillating fashion which seems extremely realistic. The music scores are so wonderful that it makes an impact on you without diverting the attention from the screenplay. Brando's presence is the magical mix that makes the movie a marvel. The scene where he says "Look, how they have massacared my boy!" to the undertaker Bonasera is one of the masterpiece of acting that has ever come up on the silver screen. The dialogues spoken in Italian have actually added the realistic flavor to the movie, despite this being not being a bi-lingual flick. No wonder the movie has been rated, the third best movie of the century ! Irrespective of the cause, the result is the same..Be it the movie or the book, both issue out an offer which you can't refuse !!

Happy Happy days !!

Back to a movie review says the Titan, No, not just because my readers prefer it, but because the Titan feels like writing one today. Its been aeons since I felt any movie was good enough to be even reviewed. Let me bang in no surprises, my dear readers, I was already a Sekhar Kammula fan and just couldnt miss out his latest flick, "Happy Days". The only telugu movies that I relish watching inevitably turn out to be kammula's and thats how I found myself being converted into a fan of his. Typical of his movies, the story is neither brilliant nor unearthly. "Happy Days" is a very commonplace movie that even one of can contrive. But that's what makes Kammula stand apart, the way he transforms these seemingly trivial stuff into the magical movies is simply amazing.

Happy days spans over the four years of a bunch of college going students. Thats all the story is about !! Reminded of Godavari ?? :-)... Well, thats Kammula for you. Coming back to 'happy days', the story begins with the most intimate description of the life of freshers stepping into the engineering colleges. The way each of the lead characters is defined is simply amazing which every you can easily identify yourself with. A studious and all serious guy, a simpleton coming up the hard way, a sincere and devoted guy who does all things with utmost patience, an easy-go rich brat, an all rounder with not-so-bad marksheets, a tom-boyish girl, a college beauty... just name any kinda character you want, you get it in the movie. Among these, two characters deserve a definite mention here and are provided a bit stronger outline than the others. First, Rajesh the typical big shot's son who has entered with one eternal goal, somehow spend four years at college and get a certificate. The second would be Tyson, the straight-forward, ultra patient and steadfast student who perseveres to achieve his end.

The first half exhibits the typical samples of college life,
> Ragging
> Nagging
> Engineering drawing :P
> canteen restrictions
> English lecturer
> Fresher's party (Ahem..)
> x-year vs z-year tussles
> Assignments and night-outs before exams
> Tours (industrial visits ?? )
> 'extraaa'- curricular activities (Okay .. here I would let the readers guess the rest :D)

Typical to the Indian movies, there is the usual college-romance between a couple of the lead pairs. The movie touches almost all the pleasurable aspects of engineering education. (Well, what else could the director afford to show ..even a fleeting glimpse of electrical lab could have put me off !!) But we have to give due credit to the screenplay, it simply zips you back to your college days. The rest of the movie is a mixture of break-ups, patch ups, and mix-ups. What makes the movie magical is the detail of on-screen depiction, minor facts like hostel mess, club-rooms, same-pinche's and anniversary-trees are shown so casually that it literally transports the audience into the college-campus. For example, the scene where one of the guys borrows money and bike from his gang shows the level of attention given to each section of the screenplay and direction. The movie is strewn with an amazing array of songs which are again typical of Kammula's movies. Kudos to Mickey for his absolutely stunning music scores ! Also the entire movie is shot within the same college premises (CBIT, Hyd) which again shows that low-budget movies can also be money-makers.

As with other Kammula movies, the comedy is subtle and adds gaiety to the story. With such a weak story line it simply amazes me how the movie manages to hold your attention for the entire duration of the movie. Well, who cares.. as long as I don't have to comprehend human-impossible feats and out-of-place characters, I am a happy audience. But identifying yourself with the characters of the movie is quite a different recipe that leaves a lingering aroma and tinge of joy in your heart !