Variety is the spice of life

Of all the titles he had kept for his books, this one felt like asking for a feedback right from the name itself!! Having been touted as a christmas release like last time, probably he is coming up with such setup of releasing a smaller novel every year, towards the end and a bigger one midway. The story like many of his recent ones, has numerous references to several other famous crime thriller stories by famous authors, as if Swanson is giving us some tips as to what to read if we are not liking this book or as a side benefit of reading his books!! The story is split into three chapters with all of them being narrated by the same person but from different context. It all begins with an invite to a beach house of a famous author to the narrator, the purpose being to ghost write or correct the latest novel of the famous author for the agent, who is the common connect between the two, feels it is not upto the mark and needs some rejig before it is released to market. The narrator meets ...

Already sila pala topics la post poda pendinga irunthalum, oru sila sambradhayams take precedence. Like asking "ganga snaanam aacha" during diwali, rajini padam paathacha is a near equivalent whenever his movie releases. The opinion is divided as an equal split about whether it is worth it or not. But if there ever was a classic case of mob mentality, rajini movie releases would be a perfect case study. Irrespective of the movie, even for his worst duds, the first day first show madness is something nonpareil. Jailer one was an industry defining hit and obviously the anticipation to its sequel was very high. But considering his last few movies didn't do that well at the BO, the production house decided to go low key this time. Low key by the levels of promotion that usually comes with Rajini movie. The first review notes were immensly favorable and it seems as if everyone is willing it towards the 1000 crore club, a "proud" marker that no tamil movie has reached...

I recently saw a movie on Prime, which i felt had an interesting premise. Something that used to be staple theme in fairy tales and mandhiravaadhi stories of the past. Only difference being that, those tales were meant for kids and never went into the kind of detailing that these one presented with or explored!! For instance, the movie "Double occupancy", dealt with the case of a baby being girl in the mornings and becoming boy after 6PM in the evening. In fact they are presented as 2 different individuals who never knew what happens in the other form of their life!! The story heads into a situation where in the boyfriend of the girl form first discovers this duo-limbo situation and slowly the girl friend of the boy form gets to know about it as well. The movie has so much adult content that beyond a point, it felt as if the point of making the same person boy and girl was for exploiting those specific situations and what a waste it was of a potential gold mine of situations....

When i first read this book, years back, i felt it was a decent thriller at best and was quite different from the usual science related thriller genre of Crichton, having read Andromeda strain and Terminal man prior. When i re-read it recently, i was amazed at the level of detail he has captured about the japanese culture, mostly the negative aspect or his critical view of their persona and how they deal with business. In fact, till a few years back, most of his caricatuirsh..err..characterisation of Japanese could've been attributed to how US was viewing China. And now with the focu shifting sharply on India, the pattern seems to be consistent, the more a country or its culture is vilified in novels and movies it becomes as much obvious as to the competitive/threat level perceived by the then government. There used to be a punny saying that, whatever Americans invented, Japs sold it better and made money out of it. And automobile industry was one that would've witnessed severa...

If at all there ever was a generation that is more known for being a generation of its own, that would be this zee group i guess!! At times it feels as if they are not our own kith and kin, but as if they landed from an alien planet and needs to be revered!!! Across spectrum of all human kind all over the globe, if there is one group who seems to be on the spotlight for a variety of reasons, its the zee kind! People bend over backwards to accomodate their lingo, their culture, their attitude, their sensibilities and when i say it ranges across all walks of life, it literally is the case. When dyed in lie politicos start noticing and begins to follow them, it can seem like any ambivalent attitude of an opportunist lot. When movies begin to pander to them, it again can be attributed to the gallery playing to the audience. But in the age of mob stream media and goat herd culture, the power of repetition rules roost and when one keep hearing the term gen z, it feels as if we are dealing wi...

Grief can take care of itself. But to get the full value of joy, you need someone to share it with - Mark Twain. For those like me who dwell in negativity and who crave for atleast small victories (self defined), wallowing in the muddy murkiness of sadness is something that we excel and thrive. We often forget that there is other side of the coin called happiness. Even before Mr. Twain, someone simply quoted sadness and happiness as - something which halves on sharing and one which doubles on sharing respectively. I am quite sure, most of us are masters of handling sadness and some even might've doctorates in self pity. We are so awestruck in grieving our sadness that we almost always miss out on the small joys and happiness, which how much ever small or miniscule in size, like a candle in the wind, is quite capable of shooing away densest of darkness. Celebrating happiness is as important if not all the more and is a trait, like greatness, that inherently comes for some wihle some...

Recently junior narrated an incident that happened in his class. A kid was playing pen fight during class hours and the teacher had confiscated them. While she was taking them to her table, the kid had been shouting "you have no right to take my pen"!! Junior and the whole class had apparantly found that rant funny and had been laughing. In fact, the kid might've shouted that in jest possibly too! But the fact of the matter is, was that right behaviour in any sense? it reminded me of an incident during my school days. My tamil teacher used to divide the class into the columns we are seated as A,B,C and D. She will ask spot quiz kind of questions from the subject and any one who answers correctly will earn ten points for their team. She will throw the chalk to the one who answered correct and that person has to write the point on the board. The chalk shouldn't break while catching or during writing. Once, one of the kid, broke the chalk while catching and instead of wa...

Ever since MGR became the CM of this state, every actor with a 3 word initial or name aspires to covet the seat. Make some hit movies with good songs and entertainment, the moment it becomes a repeat or near repeat at the box office, start an organization and slowly branch it out into politics converting it into a political outfit, seems to be the straight forward and somewhat tried and trusted approach when it comes to TN politics, with movie and politics being 2 sides of the same coin. Either the politicians approach movie people for their support or the movie guys themselves start their own bandwagon!! The main issue with this setup being, the very purpose and intent behind such organizations and how blatantly misguided they are and how openly greedy and corrupt they are, right from their moment of formation. Even while being just a fan club, their intention is to promote their hero, boost their salary by boasting/hyping unreal numbers and above all tarnishing other actors and fight...

 It is no longer global warming but global hotting or more precisely global burning like hell!!! If there is one topic which finds place year after year in this space that would be on how hot it is becoming with every passing year and how unbearable it is becoming with every summer that seems to be on an ever increasing trend. During my school days it used to be 4 months of summer from around April till june-july end and then it would relatively become cooler with rainy season starting. Or bare minimal when it used t blaze away during day time, evening will be filled with rain. This year, from March onwards, AC has been running non-stop everynight and we are already in the 9th month with forecast of every day having increased temperature by atleast a couple of centigrades. This year may be exceptional with el nino, la nina and all combinations of those vowels and consonants playing havoc across the globe. But it seems to be increasing severely despite the peak summer being supposed...

After completing Prodigal daughter, a book which always gives a sense of fulfillment and happiness, i thought of posting about it. But if there is one book that has found numerous reference in this space, that would be it. In fact, i was reminded of how i had a thought of becoming President myself, when i read the book for the first time and how it invited ridicule and embarrassing comments when i shared the same with couple of collleagues from my first company. The fact that i am not even qualified to become president of an apartment association leave alone a country is an altogether different matter. But whenever i read that book, it invokes a sense that if you are determined you can become one. Of course, Archer doesn't dwell into the details of every single day of the life of the characters and obviously the novel deals with key things from their lives. But whenever i read the section where she is first nominated for Senate and the quote that "Kennedy said he had the best ...

I first came across this series maybe almost a decade back. Even within first few episodes it felt very content heavy and that too quite serious about itself. The reason why i even went about this one is because of the name "Nolan" being associated with it. It is created by the brother of Christopher Nolan, the madsensical director, who is hell bent on making movie watching as serious and interesting as reading quantum physics for public exam. He is one guy who has an increasing set of niche followers with every movie of his!! Not understanding his movies in first watch is an "in" thing to say and no one would believe if you said anything else to the contrary. Person of Interest, stands heads and shoulders above any other data series that has ever been made and possibly will be made as well in its genre for the simple reason that it takes itself seriously from episode one and every single episode then onwards, which form a straight line towards the season finale epi...

This is not a typical book review post, but more of an emotion. I can't tag this book as yet another favorite of mine. It carries lots of happy and positive memories for me and if at all i've to tag someone for a teacher's day post, that would Jeffrey Archer for improving my english and in fact for having taught me most of the words i use and familiar with at present. His books were my distance learning course which gave me confidence about the language that Rapidex couldn't. My dad was anxious and at times more worried at my language skills, especially English and his insistence and the efforts he took to improve it only made me more scared and insecure about the language. So much so that while my school mates played shuttle on the day before tenth public exam for English, i was slogging till late in the night mugging up lessons as if it was science. Archer's books made me relax and enjoy the language and his easy use of sentences made me understand and realize wha...

An interesting premise which sounds illogical not just on paper but on every sense, despite which the series managed to survive seven seasons means, it sheerly on the strength of casting.  The story is about a 40 year old woman, who fakes her profile as a 26 year old to get a job. What starts as a genuine attempt to make ends meet, by getting into a job, spirals into several situations, each of which almost results in her secret getting revealed, but manages to save herself just in the nick of time. By the final season, almost every one in her circle, one after another, gets to know about her secret and real age, but not surprisingly, keeps her secret and even supports her. Idha first seasonlaye panniruntha renday episodela kadha mudinjirukum is a different story. The casting, as i mentioned saves the story and makes it watchable. The lady who fakes herself as a millenial despite being couple of decades older, was actually in her 40's when the show began, so goes for rest of the ca...

One last book in the Blake Crouch series of novels :) Ithoda stopping it for now. Too much of dystopia and even normal mirror looks like "Black mirror" after reading all these books. Now, to the story. I am not sure of the sequence or the order in which his books were written, leave alone getting published. But Recursion seems to be an extended version of Dark matter. In both the books, love and the quest to re-unite with your loved one across multiple timelines or universes seems to be the theme.  In Recursion, the heroine invents a chair, which takes back people in time. She wants to help her mother suffering from Alzheimer, to restore her memories. As expected, the chair falls into other peoples hands and what happens forms the rest of the story. As an one liner, this may sound more sci-fi than emotional. But the way the chair transforms her life and the lives of everyone else in the world, forms the whole of the story. The hero happens to be an alcoholic (surprise! surpri...

At some stage, every one of us would have, will be, using this phrase - "andha kaalathula". That is your graduation ceremony into geriatry , password for being labelled perusu , valedictory speech of being vayasaaidchu, kinder way towards being/becoming kezham. Ardha raathrila edhuku indha post? What was the trigger?? Well.  I saw a speech by late Mr.Nellai kannan about Kannadasan. He was speaking about the depth of philosophy on his thathuva songs and how his command over his language helped him churn out so many immortal creations. One such song, he just mentioned a para that stayed with me.. haunted me to be precise. "Iravin kanneer panithuli enbaar Mugilin kanner mazhaiyena solvaar Iyarkkai azhudhaal ulagam sirikkum Manidhan azhudhaal iyarkkai sirikkum" Even while reading the lines you can't resist hearing Chandrababu's voice and the immense sadness it leaves in your heart from the movie "kavalai illaadha manidhan". I've never seen the movi...

Intha padatha disturb pannama release panna vitruntha, result automatically maari irukkum. Idea illatha arasiyalvaathis!!

As the final part of the trilogy, Last town answers many questions that arise after and while reading the previous two parts. Gathering the remaining population of the town, how Ethan manages to save them from the marauding abbies forms the crux of this story. He breaches the lab where Pilcher, the person responsible for creating the town and all the mess associated with it, resides along with his team. He wins over the support team of Pilcher by showing his evil side where he goes to the extent of murdering his own daughter just to ensure his way of getting things done succeeds. Eventually, Ethan manages to re-electrify the fence, keeping the rest of the remaining population bit safer. In between, there is a K.Balachander movie like love triangle involving his wife and his ex-boss from 2000 years back. After a minor scuffle and some soap opera moments, the ex-boss unites with Ethan's ex-lover while Ethan wins back his family. Not having enough food or rations to sustain them beyon...

 If "Pines" set the tempo for a blockbuster opening, "Wayward" lives up to the name.  In the first book of the trilogy, "Pines" Crouch introduce us to Ethan who finds himself in a creepy hospital where he is not sure if they are treating him to make him better or messing his medication to actually kill him. He is confused as to where he is and why his belongings are missing. The sheriff of the town is not much helpful and even ends up roughing him. He recollects that he was a secret service agent who was sent to that creepy little town in search of his fellow agents who were visiting the town before him and have been missing. While trying to escape from that town he notices an electrified fence and hears weird noises which makes him wonder if the fence was to keep the town people inside or to keep something away. The entire town tries to beat him to death as a punishment for trying to escape the town. Despite getting beaten to his last breath, he somehow m...

There was a time when people used to make fun of those who mentioned him as their favorite director for his kind of movies were more known for their adult content than anything else. More than Rajini or any one else who claims to be the hero who resembled the guy next door, it was Bagyaraj who could stake claim for that role and was well and truly justified for that moniker by the kind of roles he wrote and played. Often praised as the king of screenplay writing, what many miss out is the witty and intelligent brain behind such scripts and scenes. Considering his battalion of assistant directors who later went on to shine in their own way, how much of those were team effort and how much were his own is open for debate. But the fact that he was able to identify such content and justify them on screen, at least makes him worthy of all the praises he receives. This is one clever man who knows how to twist a scene or a story just enough to tie into a knot and untie the same using clever si...

Like tax and death, if there is one another thing that is unavoidable that would be ads!! Even if you opt for ad free subscription, they will always find a way to seep into your eyeline!! I always used to wonder how they decide on the duration of the ads for some of them would go on for almost half a minute will some may be just 5 seconds! But even for a 5 second ad, the amount of effort that might go behind in making wouldn't be any less than a movie shoot i guess, for you need to pick the right crew, cast, script, artwork, camera and above all music, which i believe plays an all important role in ads, even more than how it used to be for movies. Airtel became a household brand as much as by its product as much as by ARR's theme song. Same goes for Titan, Washing powder Nirma, Green clad glam gal bathing under a waterfall fame Liril soap, and the simplest yet cutest Pug dog fame Hutch - which launched the dog as much as the service provider and several other ads which have the...

I remember a comment by S.Ve Sekar as a response to a critic who claimed that Sekar's plays are nothing but a collection of kadi jokes, for which he had responded back saying, he will provide that critic with couple of hundred jokes, let that guy try to make a successful drama out of it. To be honest, that critic was quite right in his comment as most of the jokes on Sekar's drama, especially the later ones, used to feel like they are separate comedy track in themselves. But adhukum Dhurandharukum enna sambandhamnu kekareengala. Avlooo peria padathuku intro epdi oru linela adikarathu athaan konjam neria digressing and deviating to arrive at the point. Illati mattum sollin selvan thaan nu ivlo sathama thitapdaathu. While watching the movie, i remembered the comments on the high degree of violence and how the movie is filled with fight sequences more than the dialogues. It made me think of Sekar's comment. Can anyone, in fact some people like Vidyut Jamwal have tried before, ...

Being smitten by the first book wanted to check out his other works and ended up with "Pines". The start was somewhat similar to how "Dark matter" began with Edmund Burke, stumbling into a hospital from a car accident, without any ID or his personal belongings. The nurse and doctor at the remote village of Wayward Pines, seems to be aware of his situation and not at the same time. They give him some medicine but somehow Burke gets a creepy feeling about the whole setup and manages to escape the facility, same as how it happened in Dark Matter. Feels like Crouch has something against hospitals!! And his heroes are all haunted by creepy ones at that!! Burke manages to visit a hotel and convinces the receptionist to give him a room with the promise of paying back once he gets his wallet from the Sheriff's office. He visits a diner where a lady patronizes him with food, with a promise of being paid back later from him. She gives him her address to contact and the ne...

Certain books have a knack of finding its own readers. The universe conspires a plot worthy of a novel of its own to link the readers with their books. I am not able to recollect how i ended up with Dark Matter, but it had been in my unread list of a while. After giving up reading "A state of fear" by Crichton for the umpteenth time, i noticed this one in the pending list. Either it must've come as a recommendation by some algorithm or by some friend. The last book that i read as a recommended one was bit dry and too technical. Probably it might've been right up the domain of the person who suggested the book for it felt way too technical and the language used was more of tech jargons from that industry and was bit difficult to follow. Dark matter for all i know is a stuff that even scientists at CERN are unable to wrap their head around with and considering the reviews were mentioning quantum mechanics liberally thought it was an advanced physics book. But, boy was i...

Title a thappa padichitu Mallu series pola nu was thinking. Couldn't blame me for Malluwood is giving Hollywood a tough run for their genre jumping trend and churning blockbusters - be it our own home grown super hero Minnal Murali or our own Van helsing (helsingi rather) in Lokah and so on. But apparently Noir is much different in concept and theme than Nair which becamse evident the moment Nicholas cage popped on screen. And interestingly the series was shot in black and white. And considering Cage, probably it was a hat tip to his age!!! I've seen a fair bit of spidey's courtesy Junior, but never in my life i thought Cage would play one!!! He was old in National treasure series and that movie came two decades back!! May be due to the actor or may be by design, there is not much the usual swing and jump that one usually associates with Spidey movies. In fact, there are hardly couple of occasions where he even shoots web. The entire series is dialogue heavy and witty like ...

RCB pona varusham cup win panapo saw a meme that said, innum paaru adutha varusham Vijay CM aagi TVK ruling party aagi oru shock kudupaanga paarunu. This day that memory nu Facebook reminded of that post. Oru one month gap la ennalaam nadanthu poachu!! Weekend was watching Pokiri on some channel and then only the realization struck that the guy on screen is the current CM!! Probably something similar my dad and his generation would've went through watching MGR becoming the CM 5 decades back. Nothing wrong or right in anyone from movie industry or any industry becoming a democractically elected ruling party and the CM, but TN some how has this penchant for picking its leader only from the entertainment space!! For a state that has shunned national parties continuously since last 6 decades, picking a new party outside of the 1 A 2D 2M and 2 K combination is in itself quite something. But the way in which they've went about electing their representatives is a case study in itself ...

Happened to see two movies - Youth and Happy Raj - over the weekend. Both were widely reviewed and supposedly box office hits. Especially Youth seems to be a bigger hit of all tamil movies released this year. It is directed by Ken, the son of actor Karunas and is based on the school life of a guy, whose only aim is to fall in love before finishing twelth!!! And he manages to fall in love not once or twice but thrice with the third one being the final one before he takes a different decision in the end. Even by the one liner about the story, you could've easily made out the kind of scenes or about the character of that boy and the school environment. It has become a norm nowadays that, rouges and ruffians who have mastered indiscipline and excel in it, are the defacto heroes in movies and they've started pushing the limit within school. Anyone who is shown as a studious person will almost always have something shady are caricaturist about that character. The head master or the p...

Michael Crichton along with Arthur Hailey is my favorite author. It gives immense thrill to read their books and their storylines are full of insights on the industry or genre or the institution about which the premise may be based, almost like reading a subject matter book but interestingly written in simple language which can be followed by laymen. I remember reading this book sometime around my college first year or may be bit earlier around that time. It was obviously a hard copy and was shared with me by a school mate of mine, who was also the one who introduced me to Asimov. He gave me "Prelude to Foundation" that i read for almost an year. "Timeline" was intriguing and kept me interested sheerly by its concept of time travel and i was smitten by the thought process when i read it first. This time, co-incidentally, i was also watching the movie based on the same story in parallel and somehow both the book and the adaptation were disappointing! I can understand...

Despite this coming up on the "Next to watch" timeline, i kept skipping it for no reason. When i felt really bored last week, started watching it and after a slight binge watch, i am into season 4 in no time!!! Not that it is that interesting or racy for that matter. But there is something earthy and grounded about the whole premise which keeps you entertained!! The story is about a real time oldie who joins the LAPD as a Rookie cop, having only a decade or so for his retirement. How he comes up in grade and his team's exploits form the storyline so far. The way they've set the storyline, it makes Los Angeles seems to be the bed rock of criminals and illegal activity!! Every episode has at least one gun fight or a drug bust or a kidnapping or murder!! Of course, with the premise being based on police activities, you can't show anything else. It is like having a drama series on doctors and complaining that all episodes deals with diseases and death!! I agree! But c...

Kudos to Malluwood for having owned the sci-fi and other fantasy genres from Hollywood. They've managed to create hits on the most difficult genres to succeed in India. Be it Minnal Murali or Lokah chapter 1 and several other horror/thriller genres as well, Malayalam story writers have aced the art of coming up with mind boggling scripts rivalling their Hollywood counterparts. Even for those that are lift offs from Japanese Korean movies, when the same is available for every other director, the best work comes from their industry and credit should be given where its due. I am not sure if this movie is an inspiration from any other European/Asian or American version, but the presentation, picturisation everything keeps you spell bound and is quite engaging as well. Storywise, it is about time loop concept, possibly the most interesting yet potentially confusing of plot lines. A police officer gets transferred from city to a remote village. He sees an accident on his way to the stati...

What makes a drama series tick, in OTT, that too in Tamil? The question should've been pretty straight forward and not as difficult as it is for making a successful movie, for drama series are dime a dozen across scores of TV channels and none of them are found wanting for audience. The more the cry the merrier the TRP. In that context, the only challenge that OTT platforms might've had while streaming tamil series must've been to choose the path - either the well trodden and worn out cryathons aligning with Satellite channels or try for something genre specific like how they do across English and other foreign languages. This is where Heartbeat series in Hotstar finds the fine balance between being a soap oppaari (no pun intended) in tv and carving a niche OTT audience.  While the setup might've been familiar one for Hindi audience with so many series happening on hospital based storyline, i guess this is a first for tamil. The first season was more on establishing the...

With Junior entering the next stage of his schooling life, it is all the more emotionally tumultuous period for over enthu pattani parent like me, who often compare their own childhood for reference in handling their kid, either to follow or digress from what they went through. It made me realize, how much of a "Santhosh Subramaniam" Prakash Raj i am turning into when it comes to dealing with Junior. On one hand, i want to make sure his path is devoid of any trouble and has a smooth take off, i contradict myself at every step of the way, not realizing that take off means, spreading wings to fly and not remain on the palms of your hand! The other side being not knowing when to let go! When it comes to junior, even slight things that deviate from expected results tend to throw me off handle for it induces the kind of panic reaction and response solely out of guilt of not doing the right job as a parent. I often look back at what my dad would've done and it makes me wonder, ...

This book by Rollins is not part of the famous Sigma series and is a standalone one. It has all ingredients of a typical Rollins novel in a lighter dose. More of Rollins latte i would say. The book begins in the usual template format of Rollins, with a situation involving a famous historical figure and a real one at that, with a slight dose of fiction in such a way that, you wouldn't be able to differentiate between fact and fictitious account of that incident. Count Saint Germaine, a supposedly controversial figure, capable of performing magical things and always had a mysterious aura about him, leaves behind a book with one lady, who was the assistant to the famous queen who was executed during French revolution, something that was predicted by Germaine several years before. She doesn't seems to be a big fan of him but still keeps up her word in securing the book, which becomes the bone of contention between two groups, one of whom are followers of the cult or Germaine himsel...