Variety is the spice of life

Many a time after watching some movies, I’ve asked myself, how in the world anyone could make such a movie and how did they possibly managed to assemble their crew leave alone financed. #Home is one such movie which leaves one perplexed as to every aspect of its creation. To call it a movie in itself is a contradiction for it doesn’t stick to any formula or norms of a normal movie and is in fact a collection of life events, candidly canned. I would love to see some making portions included along with the movie DVD release, where in the story narration sequences between the director and lead actors can be shown. The way they’ve all performed, it is impossible to not believe it is their own life story. Again writing a review for such a simple yet complex movie is a task in itself. I actually wanted to glorify the movie, but the more I think about it, can only compare it with other duds and crib about how bad other movies are as compared to this one. At times, being simple and defining si...

Project Agni is the name of the short film made as part of the Navarasa Anthology season 1, depicting Adbhutha (Wonderment). Of the 9 stories, this one is the best fitment to the theme alongside Bhibatsa (Payasam - directed by Vasanth sai). True to its rasa, the story has sensational reveal and leaves you awestruck with the twist at the end. And the other noteworthy part being, true to OTT cult-ure, this deals with hard core sci-fi thriller genre and sticks to its gun when it comes to detailing and explaining. In fact 90% of the dialogues in the supposedly tamil story are in American English. For a change was wondering if the episode will have subtitles in tamil for the English dialogues!! That was the sore point which didn’t stick for it felt like a bad caricature of an American sci-fi in tanglish. That apart, the concept and execution where simply brilliant. It does share common inspiration with “Dark” web series in Netflix that deals with similar topic – where in people go back and ...

Ever since Netflix announced about this maniratnam production, the expectation around the 9 short films, each based on a human emotion has been sky high. With most of the top names of movie-wood already being signed along with top tech crew, the hype was justified a bit as well. Mani himself had written one of those stories and rest are directed by notable names of tamil cinema. Per me the best of the lot would be Payasam (bhibatsa – disgust) , Project Agni (Adbhuta - incredible) and to some extent can include Raudhram as well. Rest of the 6 are anywhere between passable to outright crap.  Ironically the one related to disgust was that of a sheer delight. It is based on a story by T.Janakiraman (Thi.Ja) a very famous tamil novelist. The reason why I picked this one, directed by Vasanth, as the best of the lot, owing simply to the thought process behind the story selection. Of all the 9, this is the best fit to the emotion being depicted and considering that its based on a novel, ku...

Ram and Anil edhukku artharathiri Sivaraman veetuku ponaanga? Sivaraman edhuku sethaa mathiri nadikanum? 4 episode aaidichu innum heroine entry kaanum? A flashback to connect the possible dots. Couple days before the events on episode 4 “Ram..innum ethana naaliki thaan ipdi bayanthu bayanthu love panrathu” chides Priya “Adipavi..yarachum America maapilla ushaar panitangala veetla. Cut panni vida pora pola pesara” exclaims Ram “Chee..buddhi poguthay. But still..thanks for the good idea. Seekrama unga veetla solli sammadham vaangitu ponnu kekka varala, namma next meetingla naan unakku invitation kuduka vendi irukalam” “Meeting invitation kuduka naama enna Outlook calendarlaya love panrom” “Wedding invitation sonnen” “Adipaavi…nee pannalum pannuva…unakenna..nee enna sonnalum mandaiya aatarathuku boom boom maadu kanakka oru Appa. Enakku apdiya? Enna sonnalum BOOM BOOM nu blast panra appa. Enakkunu vanthu Appava poranthurukaru” “En ipdi bayanthu saagara..ipidi oru bayanthaangolliya poi love...

As I near the end of the final season of the original series, lot of questions come to mind about the hype around the same. Especially the number of times Star Trek was referenced in “Big Bang theory”, the detailing about Klingon language, the characterization of Spock in particular, lead me to believe, this series was something of a cult classic. In a manner of speak, it is surely a cult classic. But it does have its share of controversy. I read somewhere about this series that it has imperialistic overtones and at times sound supportive of the same. Initially I thought people were reading too much into such a simple sci-fi series. But the more carefully you watch, the undertones come out clearly. Like the voyagers who roamed the oceans in search of newer lands and civilizations to trade/conquer, the space”ship” traverses the space in search for newer civilizations that requires “preservation” and probably “help” in survival. There is a prime directive of every star fleet that at no p...