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Joe,
An excellent write-up again. I came to know about all these details only through you, I am surprised how JeMo and Mani sir ignored these basic facts.

V_S wrote:Joe,
An excellent write-up again. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

+1 [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I am surprised how JeMo and Mani sir ignored these basic facts.

I guess they thought "it's after all cinema and who cares about facts, sensationalizing is what people want" or something like that. For e.g., in the case of nAyakan, most cine-goers in TN are not aware of the ground realities (or facts) of Bombay's Dharavi life. So, there could not be much reality-check / examination etc. Well, people simply embraced whatever MR / Balakumaran presented.

Likewise, MR/JeMo combo possibly reasoned that most TN cine-goers aren't closely aware of what's happening in the lives of meenava makkaL, so let's try similar tricks. Unfortunately for them, Aravindsamy / Arjun / Gautam etc are not Kamal / Rajini

BTW, I had a chance to listen to two songs from kadal. (moongil thOttam & adiyE). Pretty unimpressive. 'moongil thOttam' sounded like what some XYZ group in south TN composes for a reception after a church wedding. (Actually I've heard better compositions from such groups in Virudhunagar / Nellai / Tuticorin areas...one would expect something better from a composer who often gets compared with IR). 'adiyE' sounded like what gets dished out by some XYZ local group if one randomly picks an FM station in Detroit - that irritates you to quickly switch to another FM station.

I'll have to listen to the other numbers in this album before concluding whether he has any more creativity left. (Read he is going to direct a movie Possibly struggling to get his music act together...so, may be trying other tricks...)

app ji,
I don't know what to say, but amused by your analogies and you are right. To be honest, tunes are very juvenile nowadays.

app_engine wrote:who often gets compared with IR

this is the pain point for me.

To ARR's credit, however, I need to tell that these songs got "force-fed" to me by my almost-20-year old son

He loves 'moongil thOttam', plays it often on the van (from his iPhone)! What's more, I even saw him downloading some notes and teaching himself to sing & play chords on guitar etc.

So, ARR impacts his target audience - no question about it - but to me no excitement (as in the case of the brilliant ottakaththakkattikkO / nenjinilE of initial days or even the later ones such as munbE vA / ellAppugazhum oruvan oruvanukkE)...

app_engine wrote:To ARR's credit, however, I need to tell that these songs got "force-fed" to me by my almost-20-year old son

He loves 'moongil thOttam', plays it often on the van (from his iPhone)! What's more, I even saw him downloading some notes and teaching himself to sing & play chords on guitar etc.

So, ARR impacts his target audience - no question about it - but to me no excitement (as in the case of the brilliant ottakaththakkattikkO / nenjinilE of initial days or even the later ones such as munbE vA / ellAppugazhum oruvan oruvanukkE)...

kadEsila vechchaaryaa twistu Appji ungaLa purinjikkavE mudiyalai.

Nerd wrote: Appji ungaLa purinjikkavE mudiyalai.

கேட்ட உடனே ஒரு "அட!" உணர்வு வந்தது It's a well-packed song IMHO.

It's possible I'm positively tuned to the 'nenjam uNdu nErmai uNdu Odu rAjA' genre from childhood (which wasn't targeted as much by rAsA as his illustrious predecessors MSV / KVM)...In addition, ARR sings fantastic - especially towards the end, challenging the best in the biz!

thambikku endha ooru
I've seen this in theater(s) at the time of arrival & on Friday first time on internet.
Exactly same feel like how it was years back - scenes I liked then are enjoyable even now!
Likewise the scenes I disliked then are intolerable now too!
Rajini [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
(All songs except 'kAdhalin deepam onRu' FF-ed )

mouna rAgam
2nd time (both watches on the net only )
A sizeable part still holds good Not much "moving" biz in this movie, however
Songs other than 'nilAvE vA' & 'manRam vandha' got promptly FF-ed.

FF-ed for Risque Visuals (Risque by app_engine Family standards)?

plum wrote:FF-ed for Risque Visuals (Risque by app_engine Family standards)?

Not so much of risque in the case of TEO & MR...FF-ed mainly for two reasons :

1. Save time (night show time, ~10 PM is when I typically start)

2. On-screen things boring and often worse than that (irritating).

enga veettuppiLLai (masAlA of those days with twin MGR, piRappu ragasiyam etc)...tolerable with some FFs

Watched Kadal last night and I really liked it. May be after all the negative reviews, I went in with zero expectations, but the film turned out to be very good.

1. First thing I liked about the movie was the continuous flow of dialogues which has become a rarity with Mani films.
   
2. I liked the story, except all the time Mani explicitly stated Good-Evil-Angel which annoyed me. If it wasn't explicit, it would have been perfect.
   
3. The lighting was too good, especially the night shots and the climax. Climax was excellently shot. Another shot which puzzled me is, after Sam returns from jail he comes to meet Thomas. One shot where it seemed liked Thomas was in front of Sam, but actually Thomas was behind him. I was puzzled how he shot that one?
   
4. After reading Joe' post on some factual errors, I was thinking Mani failed in bringing up even the milieu, but I was wrong. He brought out the setting well, except the slang which was not natural and seems quite forced all the time (even in the chiththirai nela song).]
   
5. Acting-wise good comeback for Aravind Samy. Great debut for Gautam Karthik and Thulasi. Arjun and the supporting cast were also good, especially PonvaNNan and Laksmi Manchu.
   
6. Music (including the songs) was too western for me and for the kind of the film. I liked the visuals of ElE keechaan and nenjukuLLe (typical of Mani). Nothing new in background score; he has used themes of chiththirai nela and moongil thOttam many times. We can find the accordian touch in nenjukkuLe (which was not there in the original soundtrack) is in the film and it was nicely used. BGM was not loud which is definitely a plus.

Will watch again.

vetRikkodi kattu - as a compromise between me fighting for a B&W era movie v/s my 7 year old asking for Vijay's latest (She even insists "something 2010 or later year" )
Vadivelu factor made the kid agree to this Cheran movie. It was in the "Vikraman mode" for most of the time but occasionally also getting into Lalettan-Srinivasan territory.
If one doesn't care about logic (orE pAttil pAl paNNai mudhalALi within a few months etc), it's an OK movie sans songs All those kuppais duly FFed.
Some nice dialogs and terrific Parthiban-Vadivel comedy!

Yuddham sei - terrific thriller. This is how a police procedural flick needs to be done. Cheran, Selva, Lakshmi Ramakrishnan - all stand out performances.
Maanicca vinayagam - need guts to play that kinda villain role. The ending was not neat - could have been a little more clever (in line with the rest of the movie) - Camera angles - not simply sensationalistic - but nice narrative tools - well done. Music - pitch perfect. Some shots - the person speaking is showing his back - needs courage to have shots like that in Thamizh cinema which is so used to What u see is what u get.. more to come..

in the climax action block the closing shot of a cell phone ringing is a blooper.. did anyone notice?

payaNangaL mudivadhillai, after many years
My kind of movie
I still love it!

Choothu Kavvum- several notches below NKPK still watchable affair, Vijay Sethupathy is fast becoming Abhay Deol of TFI, never knew
VS enjoyed such fanfare, either that or he has invited all of his family does anyone know about the guy who plays Pagalavan, engeyo paartha nyaabagam, was he a child artist before?


Kai Po Che- too much hype, cliche/mostly V.Sekar stuff,they were missing a school teacher/Thiruvalluvar silai

Wizzy wrote:Choothu Kavvum- several notches below NKPK still watchable affair, Vijay Sethupathy is fast becoming Abhay Deol of TFI, never knew
VS enjoyed such fanfare, either that or he has invited all of his family   does anyone know about the guy who plays Pagalavan, engeyo paartha nyaabagam, was he a child artist before?


Kai Po Che- too much hype, cliche/mostly V.Sekar stuff,they were missing a school teacher/Thiruvalluvar silai

 idhu dhaan double (bilingual) meaning

I loved soodhu kavvum. Not a single second bored me. The story line itself captured my attention. Very crisp story and crisp story-telling, minus that song which was not at all needed and the BGM. The whole kidnapping episode was nicely written and done. Bloody serious and at the same time blood hilarious. The characters of Vijay Sethupathi, Nambikkai Kannan (MS Baskar), Brahmma, Arumai (son of MSB) well carved and etched. I even love his imaginary girl Shalu (who is she? she looks beautiful ). I was laughing out loud when CM calls Nambikkai Kannan and his son Arumai to this office for a surprise decision. Cleverly done. Oh that climax, wonderful again. 

These are the films which stand out from our neighboring states and bollywood. No big heroes. Laid-back approach, raw and rustic as well. Honest film, no gimmicks. No one can imagine to create a racy screenplay out of this story. Hats off to Nalan Kumarasamy. Only thing worries me is they normally stop giving their best after their first film. Hope the spark grow as a fire.

nEram, another movie which I like a lot. Again a first film for the director Alphonse Putharan. Unusual story line which I don't want to reveal. Nice casting, but heroine Nazriya was too soft and cool in her emotions even the moments demanded more. Again horrible background score. Apart from that, lot of substance in the story and screenplay. Right from Charlie, Thambi Ramaiah, Nivin Pauly, Simha (Vatti Raja) all nicely done. I really loved that chase. Again that hilarious climax similar to Soodhu Kavvum. Film is so naturally and casually shot that we don't feel like watching a film, more like we are among them. That's the biggest positive of the film. 

Overall a very encouraging trend in thamizh films starting with naduvula konjam pakkaththa kaaNOm. Hope this trend continues. At-least I am happy that not much violence in the movies recently. Excellent films to watch with the family and at the same time very new and fresh feel to our films.

Soodu Kavvum was very enjoyable!

Nice review about it: http://kalachuvadu.com/issue-162/page40.asp

Gokul

Thanks a lot Gokul for the link. Wow! Lot of niceties/subtleties noted by the reviewer. Makes me watch again.

Here is Nerd's review on the film. Excellent points. Thanks Nerd. Proud of such films.
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rl19mo

Thanks V_S saar. I was about to post it now

lEsA lEsA - javvu  

Photography is superb, however! (Thiru)...Madhavan's brief role is somewhat ok - but the original in Malayalam should have been tremendous by Lalettan (I haven't watched chilambu but can imagine it)...

NKPK - liked it!

Lot of smiles / laughs!

Many +ve aspects