And just one more note on Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara...for guys on vacation in a foreign country, they sure had a wide selection of sleeping apparel packed for the trip.

On second thought, maybe given my earlier "rock chick" confession, perhaps I shouldn't criticize.

haha, will keep all that in mind, I'm holding off watching it as there's rumours it may be out on BD soon.

Speaking of crime flicks, I've heard that Dum Maaro Dum is decent, have you seen that?

Most certainly saw DUM MAARO DUM...in theaters when it came out...was looking forward to it...too long ago for me to recollect specifics...but I do clearly recall a reaction of rather significant "disappointment"...maybe even a comment along the lines of "dumb maaro dumb". Jr. Bachchan isn't cut out for roles like he played in the movie...especially in comparison to the solid character actor-types (Nana Patekar, Om Puri, etc., etc.) who usually play such roles in lower-budgeted crime films. One thing I do recall...here we get into the "dumb" comment...a key scene towards the end after a guy has been killed and cops have been all over the crime scene, Jr. Bachchan comes along when everyone has left and he is looking things over and right there basically next to where the body had been (and I recall it even had that outlining of the body that police do) he sees a postcard which of course is a big clue towards something. Now this dead body isn't found in a Hallmark greeting card shop but in a wooded area, so you'd think with all the personnel who went over the crime scene someone would have picked up this postcard right there in plain sight but no. Too long ago to remember much more but I enjoyed pretty much all the other Indian crime films I've seen more than DUM MAARO DUM...I greatly prefer tier-2 type Hindi crime films (some listed in my previous post) versus high-profile A-list Bollywood crime flicks, if not the B-grade crime movies then opt for something like SHAITAN first. One problem is that some of the non-anamorphic complaints I've mentioned are from the DVDs for these second-rate crime films...one even had subs that went totally out of synch in the second half...though that wouldn't be an issue for you.

thanks for that, might skip it then. Although I've liked some crime flicks you havent (Kaminey, Ishqiya) thats mostly because of the dialogue which I'm pretty sure wont come into play in DMD.

Caught RA.ONE...allow me to channel my inner Hrithik Roshan:





I'll drop back in in a few hours and vent some.

Three thumbs down - that's funny!

The movie did look liked it sucked from the trailers. There's only so much of that damn Spiderman stance that one can take.

Okay, now that I've mellowed some. So I caught Ra.One (2011 - Hindi) today...against my better judgment. I went in with rather modest expectations aka at least I was fairly confident that it would be better than ENDHIRAN. I really didn't know much about the movie except of course that it was the big Bollywood movie of the year. I of course knew it was of the superhero genre...something about a father and son who saw things differently...it starred Shah Rukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal and some kid. The kid had me worried, but I like Kareena Kapoor and Arjun Rampal, and I'm hit or miss with Shah Rukh Khan. But that's about all I knew as I didn't even check a second of any trailers.

Anyway, I think I've now had my fill of Indian superhero flicks; they just aren't any good...any future viewings would risk branding myself as insane...aka doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result. RA.ONE was a loser from the get-go. First off, the pre-credits thank you acknowledgements are just too cheesy...Shahenshah (aka Emperor) Amitabh Bachchan...really...I must've missed the memo!!! Of course Superstar Rajnikanth...way to give away one of the small surprises in the film. "Big Hug" (really!!) to Priyanka Chopra and Sanjay Dutt...both featured only in the totally unnecessary second scene of the film. And of course an anti-Darwinist warning to morons of the world...something to the effect..."the action in this film is done with CGI and stuntmen, do not attempt this out in the real world, parents please convey this to your children".

So, after all that we get the opening scene with credits over it. It is a business technology conference and the speaker is explaining how modern technology works by transmitting information in waves all around us and everyone in the audience seems amazed by this information and some even put there hands up in the air to feel for something, and of course when she explains some other unsurprising stuff everyone in the audience - like synchronized swimmers - all together lean forward in there seats. Again this is a business technology conference for business people not an audience plucked from some new found lost civilization. And pretty much every scene that follows for at least a half hour or more just gets worse and worse up until the first song by Akon (so now India won't even do there own music...though this first song was the best part of the whole movie...almost had me popping my booty in my seat...which helped to wake me up after a half-hour or more of idiocy).

Basically, as I guess most might know, the story is Shah Rukh Khan as a dorky, nice-guy video game designer with an annoying (to me) son (who actually looks like a girl...to me at least). Of course the son doesn't like his annoying dad, and the son thinks bad-guy/villain types are where it's at (as exemplified by a Michael Jackson "Bad" poster on his bedroom wall). So as a nice-guy type Shah Rukh Khan designs a video game based around a super villain Ra.One (a play on the Hindu mythology villain Raavan...also RA being short for Random Access). And the counterpart good-guy in the video game is G.One (a play on the Indian name Jivan/Jeevan/Jeewan which I think they said means life or something positive like that...G also standing for "good").

So after that first song, some sort of plot actually starts to kick in. Naturally, there is an issue with the video game which sets into motion some action scenes as the video game creations Ra.One and G.One (also played by Shah Rukh Khan) enter the real world. So the first half ends on an extended action note which at least had me hoping for an improvement in the second half...even if we are talking TERMINATOR 2 for the Nickelodeon channel crowd (which is sort of where the movie ended entering intermission). Though for a mass-market Bollywood film, I really think they should have trimmed a couple of bits of graphic violence and also done away with a lot of cheap sex humor (condom and gay jokes and pelvic thrusting and such in the second half mostly). Which tells you that the second half didn't exactly build on anything.

So in the second half we leave London (where the first half was set...for no real reason except to show a bunch of non-Indians as the most unrealistic video game designers ever committed to film) and move to India. And instead of building on anything, the film basically reboots and becomes the first half all over again. Now we get a half hour or more of fish-out-of-water comedy as our G.One good guy superhero must learn the ways of the real world...we get sex jokes...we get a South Indian-type action scene and a "surprise" appearance by a character from another film (which isn't a surprise if you were paying attention to the opening credits)...we get a too long song montage to "Stand By Me"...then we get another song (again Akon I believe)...and all this leads to two extended - and underwhelming - action scenes which close the film. There is a nice looking two-minute scene in the second half where Ra.One (Arjun Rampal) appears at an Indian festival and he walks atop a hill where some kids are sitting and behind him is a nice CGI recreation of the mythological Raavan (the nicest shot in the film this with Rampal standing on the hilltop with the huge Raavan creation behind him).

The action scenes were dull and really quite mediocre...seen it all before...a superhero film devoid of thrills....don't expect anything anywhere near the climax from ENDHIRAN. In general, the film was really flat and didn't touch my emotions at any moment. Shah Rukh Khan was curious for me...he wasn't good, he wasn't annoying, it might've been the first time I've seen him where he didn't register much of a screen presence at all. Kareena Kapoor (as his wife) and Arjun Rampal really don't add much. And I didn't like the kid at all (and this is an area - kid actors - in which India has been getting better...but not here).

So that's about it really, just a really empty film for a 150-plus-minute runtime. Horribly under-written for such a big-budget event film...and I don't even think the budget shows on-screen. RA.ONE is just regurgitated superhero/video-game nonsense that is well past its expiration point. It certainly doesn't offer the spectacle one might expect from such a touted release. Avoid.

Hey toddly...thanks...humor not being my strong suit...I'm actually rather pleased with myself that I thought of something reasonably witty for a change...glad I wasn't the only one who found it so.

toddly, have you subjected yourself to Stylish Star's BADRINATH (2011 - Telugu) yet? I barely survived the experience of A-1 Star's SHAKTI (2011 - Telugu). I like ALLU Arjun so I'll of course give BADRINATH a go...I'm not expecting MAGADHEERA...but I sure hope it is better than SHAKTI...otherwise it will be time for me to pull the plug on all these Telugu films attempting to ride the box-office coattails of MAGADHEERA.

Random thought...I kindly request a moratorium on the use of the word "dude" in Hindi movies. Way too much "dude" in ZINDAGI NA MILEGI DOBARA, RA.ONE, and some others I've watched.

After I finish up the 1986 Hindi miniseries TAMAS, I think I'm going to do some catching up on Tamil cinema. There's maybe ten Tamil films I've been meaning to watch so I think I'll slot a bunch of them in sometime this month.

And lastly, from the category of British Knighthood Is Over-rated - and before the Indian film industry takes all the titles - nitin, toddly, in recognition of your regular companionship to me in this thread all these years, I hereby dub thee:

DOWN UNDER RAJAH nitin-STAR
KING OF NEW YORK toddly-STAR

Yeah, okay fine, I should have quit while I was ahead with the Hrithik Roshan three thumbs down bit...which in hindsight might have been even more amusing if I had written it:

----

Or maybe not...doing it one, two, three, sort of built the suspense till the punchline kicked in with number three.

If you guys don't like the titles, heck, pick whatever you want, I think N.T.R. Jr. is probably going to drop the A-1 Star moniker since that movie SHAKTI was a bust, so if they can change with the wind, so can you.

I'm trying to not buy medieocre to bad Indian films on blu-ray for a while in protest of Indian companies putting bad movies on blu-ray! I'll wait for the next Magadheera or Robot before I buy another Indian blu, or classic of course.

Indian movies have always done this I thought - using Western slang in an awkward way that just makes the character saying it seem like an uncool dork.

Ha, thanks, and I dub you FLIXTIME VERY COOL DUDE SUPERSTAR.


Not as bad as Ashkay Kumar, but I'm going to try to avoid this chubby dork NTR Jr.

Finished watching the TV-miniseries Tamas (Hindi - 1986). It's a story of religious/political/human tensions between Hindus/Muslims/Sikhs in pre-Partition Northwestern India (current day Pakistan if I recall correctly). Picked it up because the subject matter and cast interested me, and I seem to recall holding a positive opinion on some of Director Govind Nihalani's earlier films.

The miniseries is spread over 4 DVDs with a total runtime of 5 hours (disc 1 and 2 are about 80 minutes each, disc 3 is 83 minutes, and disc 4 is 55 minutes). One issue with the set - of course it is an Indian DVD so there must be an issue - is that the picture is cropped. Alarms started going off for me when text popped up indicating the picture was 16:9, and I started wondering why that would be when I was expecting 4:3 given it is a mid-80's TV series. Well, I gather they zoomed the picture to fill the 16:9 frame, thus shaving off part of the top and bottom of the picture...looks like they might've shaved off a little more from the bottom than the top. All that being said, the 16:9 framing was reasonably okay...I suppose. Why India does this I don't know...I seem to recall they did the same with 1957's NAYA DAUR when they colorized it...there too they chopped the 1.33 ratio to fill a 16.9 frame.

Anyway, other than the aspect ratio issue, I'm pleased with the experience of watching TAMAS. The cast led by Om Puri was marvelous. The first two parts of the miniseries focus on giving you a feel for rising street-level tensions in different neighborhoods of a small city...you jump around to different vignettes of characters ranging from the common man to religious leaders/politicians. Basically, these first two parts can be described as slow-paced, stageplay-like, and talky...a succession of long 5-10 minute dialogue-driven scenes...I certainly found them interesting but some might find the experience a little dry.

There's a change-up in style starting with part 3 and continuing into the first half of part 4. Most of the earlier characters are set aside as the story moves - along with the main character Om Puri - to tensions in a rural village area. I thought this section was the clear highlight of the miniseries; it is filled with some breathtaking scenes/set-pieces and introduces some excellent new characters. Also, this section felt significantly more cinematic than the first two parts (though the structure of lengthy, dialogue-based scenes still holds). For the second half of part 4 the story moves back to the earlier city setting and reacquaints you with some of the key characters (primarily religious/political leaders) from the first two parts.

Ultimately, the mini-series is about giving you a feel for what it must have been like at the time, while also examining the never-ending and universal issue of political/religious/extremist gamesmanship at the expense of suffering to the (easily manipulated?, simple-minded?) masses...aka the tail not only wagging the dog but knocking its head against the ground as well.

As to viewing the miniseries, I'd recommend two options. One being that you watch the first two discs one night and the second two discs the following night or even a couple days later if you need a change of pace in between. The second option being that if you find disc 1 interesting but slow, maybe watch disc 2 the following night instead of the same night as disc 1....then you can follow-up with both discs 3 and 4 the night after that (as I mentioned disc 3 contains the strongest material (and feels a little quicker paced) so you can easily carry through the same night to disc 4 which spends 25-minutes wrapping up the subplots from disc 3).

I still get to keep my superhero name - Patience Man - too I hope.

thanks flixtime although my contributions to this thread are minimal.

Btw, would like to see if you agree with me (for once) on Delhi Belly.

nitin, for what it's worth, I assess your participation in this thread at a value significantly higher than "minimal". Besides, having another windbag like myself around here might upset the balance of things.

I haven't watched DELHI BELLY yet. I've slotted ten Tamil films for this month so I probably won't get to any Hindi viewings until late December, but I'll be sure to lead off with DELHI BELLY when the time comes (and chime in here). Also curious to check out BOL, SAHEB BIWI AUR GANGSTER, SOUNDTRACK, THAT GIRL IN YELLOW BOOTS, SHABRI, and AARAKSHAN, among others.

Yutham Sei (2011 - Tamil) - I just checked back on my comments - from a couple of years ago - regarding Director Mysskin's earlier crime film ANJATHEY, and while I don't recall anything about that film besides what I wrote about it here, I'd say my reaction to his latest crime film - YUTHAM SEI - is about in the same ballpark as my thoughts on ANJATHEY. YUTHAM SEI is a fairly dark and graphic film by South Indian standards...thus no comedy, no romance, and only one song which was nicely placed in terms of pacing but maybe needed to be grittier in tone to better fit the very downbeat storyline. Cheran - who is also a director/writer (terrific work in THAVAMAI THAVAMIRUNTU) - is the lead actor in this detective suspense film. I thought he turned in somewhat of a non-performance for the most part, basically just hangs his head and plays low-key the entire movie. In general, the performances didn't do much for me in the film. Even the storyline was entirely so-so, at least it seemed that way for much of the movie...just another detective investigation plotline. Still, while these factors came up short, the camerawork was really terrific and the film is worth a watch for the camerawork alone. There is one really nice fight scene that was a pleasure to watch because it wasn't hyper-edited, physics-defying, unrealistic nonsense like pretty much all other South Indian fight scenes. Also entirely refreshing for a South Indian film was that the director wasn't afraid of visual storytelling, usually South Indian films are fearful of quiet moments, someone always has to be saying something. But here there are many passages where you simply get to sit back and watch the visual storytelling unfold...the aforementioned fight scene being a good example in how they did the build-up to the scene and such. And while I didn't think much of the story early on, it really does become quite gripping in the latter third when the real darkness settles in as you the viewer get clued in as to what the whole thing is about...and too you realize the relevancy of the title which translates as "Wage War" if I remember right. I certainly wish I had better connected with Cheran as an actor but I just don't think he was the right guy for this role. That being said, I'm still rather enthusiastic about the experience...the graceful and gliding camerawork was a pleasure...it felt like a "real movie" to me, and I ended up appreciating where things went in the rather vicious story. Since this - Tamil viewing number one for the month - went well, I'll probably go with another Tamil movie tonight.

Some of the Tamil movies on tap for this month: AVAN IVAN, KO, MYNAA, ANGADI THERU, AADUKALAM, PARUTHI VEERAN, and AAYIRATHIL ORUVAN.

And "yes", the spelling variants on Tamil films drive me nuts after a while aka YUTHAM SEI is also YUDHAM SEI and too YUDDHAM SEI.

Peraanmai (2009 - Tamil) - toddly, you had actually asked me, nitin, anyone about this movie a couple years back. As I write this I am actually tired from laughing so hard for ninety minutes...and I'm not a funny guy. So I suppose - as much as I'd like to - I can't actually label this as the worst movie I've seen this year, instead I'll call it the funniest movie I've seen this year (not that I watch comedies very much at all). Seriously, this movie is absolutely begging for MST3K treatment...definitely "so bad, it's good". For those not familiar with it, I was expecting sort of a throwback B-action movie set in the wilderness...a tale about a jungle/army guide and five army trainee-type girls going up against foreign mercenaries who are seeking to prevent an Indian rocket lauch. After a nice opening song, the film goes downhill immediately and stays there until the 58-minute mark. Basically, this opening section is devoted to showing these five girls as totally annoying and immature nitwits (who if this were the real world would never be allowed anywhere near any sort of army training). Now these girls are supposed to be the good guys (umm, gals), so why you make them so unlikeable to the audience I don't know. At the 58-minute mark, the bad guy foreign mercenaries come into the picture and the following 90 minutes is so entirely inept in terms of storytelling, action, strategy, and tactics that I found myself laughing out loud. And it isn't just the odd section here and there, it is almost throughout the final 90 minutes. The foreign mercenaries just might be the most inept professional soldiers ever put on-screen, and the protagonists fare no better...and yet everything is played straight serious. The whole thing is just so braindead senseless and inept. There was one scene involving a land mine that resulted in launching me into a fit of uncontrollable laughter, I kid you not, I lost control and had tears running from eyes I was laughing so hard for so long...and remember this is me we are talking about - the unfunny guy. So I guess PERAANMAI was "unexpectedly entertaining"...like some Bizarro-world unintended TROPIC THUNDER perhaps...given the laughs it provided I suppose I'm somewhat obliged to not tag it with "worst movie I've seen this year". But yeah, it was enough to get me to give my Tamil movie watching a break for a couple of days.

Aayirathil Oruvan (2010 - Tamil) - Watched this big-budget adventure movie the other night...a three-hour runtime (which puts it at a half-hour longer than the previous two films I've written about). The prologue is set in ancient India and shows the defeat (and disappearance) of a ruling Indian dynasty by a rival Indian community (apparently there is a historical foundation for this story as these two groups did actually exist and rule in South India). After the set-up we jump to the present-day and what we get for the first half-hour is basically patterned after KING KONG. An expeditionary force is set up to find a missing archaeologist who disappeared while trying to find traces of the lost dynasty. Basically three protagonists are introduced - the daughter of the missing archaeologist and in more primary roles another male and female character. The expeditionary force sets sail for a remote island off the coast of Vietnam where the archaeologist went missing. Landing on the mysterious island, they encounter some difficulties (in an action scene) and later have to negotiate with the local tribals to proceed further on their journey. Basically this takes us a half-hour into the story and, as mentioned, plays like KING KONG. Naturally, there is no giant ape or any other giant creatures, so the second half-hour is patterned more like a safari picture as our group heads inland and in two action scenes run into assorted issues. Again, the movie changes pace to kick of the second hour where the focus comes down to our group of three protagonists...and a song which is forced into the movie but doesn't fit at all. This section actually turns into a desert adventure flick with even more obstacles in the way of our group of three. Thus we hit intermission at ninety minutes. The second half again switches tone and becomes somewhat like a more tribal version of SHE as our protagonists come across the lost colony for which they have been searching. The second half does also feature two more action scenes...so the movie does have a solid amount of action positioned nicely throughout the entire film.

And here I thought I was going to be less longwinded than usual because the movie wasn't too fresh in my mind...anyway.

I quite liked this movie. It has some issues...I forgot how many songs were included but they were only so-so. I didn't much care for the two female leads, though to be fair they were much better in the second half where they seemed more comfortable with that aspect of the story. The male lead was okay. Though I found the entire tale undeniably interesting, I might say that the general story arc in terms of becoming attached to the characters was somewhat lacking. To be fair though, this type of story was more about adventure and unraveling the mystery than about the characters so that is why I won't be too critical of the character aspect. Some might be critical of the special effects/CGI but I found them effective/enjoyable enough because I was invested in the story. On that related note, the movie did rise higher in my ranking because it delivered a rather poignant climax...so I felt my time was rewarded and was able to dismiss most of my earlier concerns regarding a weak story arc and/or characters. I enjoyed AAYIRATHIL ORUVAN significantly more than some of the other Tamil event pics such as SIVAJI and ENDHIRAN. And I'd grade it out higher than the Telugu film MAGADHEERA in the sense that the first half of MAGADHEERA was rather cookie-cutter Telugu cinema before a strong second half. AAYIRATHIL ORUVAN was a significantly better balanced and more interesting movie in that regard...it might not play to the emotions as clearly but in its own way it does ultimately reach for some emotional impact. While it might be a little rough around the edges in terms of production values in comparison to something as sleak and polished as MAGADHEERA, the production values of AAYIRATHIL ORUVAN were also strong and well-suited to the type of film it was. Unlike the recent Hindi clunker RA. ONE, the big-budget expenditure inarguably shows on-screen in AAYIRATHIL ORUVAN. If I had to choose one to rewatch, AAYIRATHIL ORUVAN (though not nearly the measure of something as special as ANNIYAN) would be my comfortable choice over other South Indian films such as SIVAJI, ENDHIRAN, MAGADHEERA, ARUNDHATI, etc.

Tamil movie number four of the month is lined up for tonight.

Flixtime,
Aayirathil Oruvan looks like my kind of film. When is the official dvd or bluray available?

toddly, the official Ayngaran DVD actually came out quite a while back. They haven't released a Blu-ray yet...which might not be a good sign since the DVD has been out a long while now. I thought the DVD was a bit rough...a pretty beat-up print for a movie from 2010...why it was sourced from such a used-looking print I don't know...even the audio didn't seem the equal of the previous two Tamil DVDs I've watched. Not sure what I'd advise you to do...you might be familiar that I'm not too finicky when it comes to A/V...but given that I enjoyed the movie, I think it deserved a much better presentation on DVD. I was actually curious to hear if you had watched the movie yet as I thought it'd be something that might be of interest to you.

P.S. - I can't believe they put out that godawful PERAANMAI on Blu-ray but not AAYIRATHIL ORUVAN!!!

Mynaa (2010 - Tamil) - For those who enjoyed something like KAADHAL from 2004 (a film which rated quite well with me), then MYNAA should prove a worthwhile viewing. It - at least for the pre-intermission portion - is a dark rural romantic drama. The entire film takes place over the course of only two-three days (though there is an extensive flashback to childhood section at the opening of the film). This flashback fills us in on what ultimately becomes our romantic couple in the movie. As you come back to the present day setting, the romance between the two does show danger signs of obsessive love...thus my terming it a "dark" romance. A couple of other significant characters are introduced in the form of two policemen; the male in our romantic couple is shown as being in jail to open the film. The first half (a total film runtime of 2:26) was very good...very interesting characters and an interesting story with a dark cloud seemingly hanging over everyone. Adding to that is that the film has a number of well done and well-placed songs throughout and I enjoyed every one of them. The final piece to this movie was some beautiful cinematography of the lush, hilly terrain of rural Tamil Nadu. Now things change entirely post-intermission in the sense of story and tone. The post-intermission half becomes a road movie featuring four main characters. This section ups the comedic content of the film a great deal, along with continuing with romance and feel good moments...of course the fine music and beautiful countryside continue. Unlike most South Indian comedy, this was relatively restrained and I found it quite amusing...the main comic character seemed like an Indian Reginald VelJohnson (the good cop from DIE HARD and the Dad from the TV series FAMILY MATTERS). I got a good laugh out of one of his lines "human sir"...very funny as delivered in the movie. There's also an extended action scene lifted I believe from one of the JURASSIC PARK films. A side note, it really bugs me when I see a scene in these Indian movies that I know is a direct lift from some famous Hollywood movie and yet I can't recall exactly which movie it is...happens all the time and it eats at me that I can't remember which movie the scene is taken from. All this being said, although the tone of the second half goes in a completely different direction than the first half, it really is an entirely successful change of pace with the added benefit that you start to bond with the characters on their journey (even though the romantic pair are a bit psychotic in their obsession with each other). But things still aren't all peaches and cream, because with all this going on, there is still (carried over from the first half) an underlying sense of dread and menace to what we are watching as the characters while very likeable each seem a little on the brink of becoming unhinged. A strong climax wraps up the tale...and if you feel you might be interested in watching this movie, I'd recommend you exercise caution in reading other reviews as many of them seem to contain significant spoilers. I found MYNAA to be a thoroughly entertaining experience...strong story, strong characters, solid music, and very pleasing visuals. So far I'd rank it the best of the four Tamil films I've written about this month. I likely won't get another Tamil viewing in until the middle of next week, but so far so good with three movies out of four making me happy.



As an aside, I really wish India would figure out something better in terms of how they choose to censor out language and such...the bleeping out the words gets annoying to hear. In AAYIRATHIL ORUVAN there is an extended bit where the two female leads are cursing at each other with F-bombs and such and you get a bunch of that electronic bleeping out, and yet you still clearly know what words they are using. Or the filmmakers should realize that the censor board isn't going to let some words slide, so they should just leave the bad language out entirely...better than that awful bleep, bleep noise. And too it is funny every so often when curse words slip through, especially English ones, because the censors don't seem to have heard clearly the word being said.

Avan Ivan (2011 - Tamil) - Director Bala is back in action after his 2009 effort NAAN KADAVUL (a film which rated highly with me). This latest effort is a slightly different beast when compared to his previous four films. Regrettably, it is also a misfire, and is the most flawed (from what I can recall) of all his five films. There is just too much going on...too many characters (that ultimately don't figure into things at the end) and too many different ideas. At the same time, there is too little going on...at some point you have to give your audience a feel for what your movie is about...and unfortunately that really doesn't happen at all with AVAN IVAN. I mentioned previously that the change of tone in a movie such as MYNAA was entirely successful, but the drift here from a predominantly comic tone to something more serious (as one would expect from Bala) doesn't work, and instead the movie feels like it is meandering and all over the map...a collection of different ideas dropped unsuccessfully into a single film. The movie does have some high caliber filmmaking in certain instances and there are no doubt individual quality scenes and a few very interesting characters. At the same time, the two lead actors are often more grating than anything else. It's a shame that some interesting storytelling and ideas got diluted by unnecessary characters, and too much unfocused and overlong material...even at a relatively short 130-minute runtime it felt in need of trimming (at least a couple of the supporting characters really weren't required in the story). The music was solid, as were the assorted technical aspects. I suppose it's nice Director Bala tried something a little different...for his own growth as a director if nothing else...but AVAN IVAN ultimately doesn't work as a whole (even more disappointing because the strong opening scene/song had me believing this film would be a winner).



Some random thoughts...Tamil filmmakers are a heck of a lot better than Telugu filmmakers. For the life of me, I can't get a handle of what they choose to censor in Indian movies and what they don't...some of the stuff left uncensored in AVAN IVAN certainly left me scratching my head. I think the post-dubbing of dialogue often hurts Indian films...I wish there were more synch-sound. AVAN IVAN had some scenes of high emotion...but the post-dubbing really takes away from the on-screen performance and sometimes pushes a scene into more overly melodramatic or schlocky territory (when the dubbing is poorly matched to the on-screen action most notably during crying scenes and the like).

Hey Flixtime,

Can you email me from your email account? I have something to ask you. My email is [email protected]. Thanks!

Aadukalam (2011 - Tamil) - An interesting angle - the sport of cockfighting - is used for what is otherwise a standard gangster plotline of gang rivalry and gang in-fighting set in that world. The movie started off well enough in setting up the characters and introducing you to the sort of underground sport, but then it really loses track in the second half of the first hour with an extended section of - to borrow toddly's phrase - "stalker romance". This really hurt the film, plus I didn't buy into the romantic pairing at all...they were far too mismatched a couple and I never believed for a second that the female lead would ever go for a lowly street-type guy that was our protagonist. There were other issues I had as well. While they do provide an interesting look at the sport of cockfighting, they fumbled the actual depiction of the cockfights. I suppose they couldn't actually show real cockfights, so they opted for CGI-type fights (which they do have a note about prior to the opening credits). The technique didn't work at all, and was at odds with the otherwise more authentic presentation of the sport. I didn't like the use of slo-mo in showing the fights. Also, with the pairing of slo-mo and CGI, in instances the fights felt like something that would have been better-suited to a KUNG-FU PANDA movie (they even use a bit of Oriental-style music during a small section). Given the otherwise gritty look at the sport, the fights truly did not capture the actual ferocity of what a cockfight must be like. The runtime was 160-minutes and the music was sort of take-it-or-leave-it. Also, to continue some comments on censorship and the electronic bleeping out of bad language, this film was overloaded with that annoying beeping...it must have happened three dozen times or so (especially in the first half (and yet some English curse words slide in uncensored near the climax)). So the movie was a decided thumbs down for at least the first two-thirds because of these issues (primarily the very weak romantic track and to a lesser degree the ineffectual depiction of the cockfights). Actually, come to think of it, another significant issue I had was that the film was just too talky...after about the first twelve minutes I started hoping for a dance number (or fight scene) so I could get a breather from reading the subtitles...there is just so much talking all the time that it didn't really allow for you to comfortably take in the visual presentation (since your eyes are always diverted to reading the subtitles)...and it is generally a too-talky film throughout. That being said, the final third was much, much stronger as all the scheming and in-fighting in the gang started to snowball, and you at least started to feel for the plight of our young protagonist (who basically handles the cockfighting for his gang boss). Given that the film ended strongly, I feel more positive about the experience...at the same time thinking back the mismatched romantic pairing is unquestionably a major flaw with the movie, as is the too talky script...combined they are enough to prevent a positive rating. A final comment regarding something a little unusual near the top of the scroll during the closing credits...it says "filmography" and "bibliography"...under filmography they listed a few movies such as CACHE, AMORES PERROS, BABEL and maybe three others (along with the director names), and under bibliography they listed ROOTS and one other book (along with the author names). Can't really say that AADUKALAM reminded me of any of those three movies I mentioned or anything from ROOTS...so just wanted to mention it because I found it a little unusual...a nice touch I suppose...but still out of the ordinary.