Variety is the spice of life

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...