Variety is the spice of life

Restarting the movie musical series with this one, pending since I saw Gulabo Sitapo. It is a repent in a way to get over that movie!!! I don’t remember the first time I saw the movie, but it sure must be on doordarshan. First time when I saw the “Meet na mila de man ka” song it made me immediately realized one of my childhood photos with dad, where I had similar checked shirt/suit over a round neck. The song being a nice drawl was an addition to my thoughts on vanity. “tere mere milan ki” was an immediate favorite and the sadness on kishore’s voice coupled with the anguish on lata’s voice was mesmerizing. It has always remained as the favorite across many a playlist of mine. Wonder how that Mangeshkar lady makes magic just with her voice alone to suit to the situation and lyrics. But to me the best of the lot was, “tere bindiya re”. Rafi in all his mellifluous best coupled with shy yet clear quality on lata’s voice was magic. When I saw the picturized version recently, was amazed at a...

Off late thriller movies, stories based on murder mysteries or serial killers have gone rampant across all the woods, be it kolly, tolly or mallu. Happen to saw 2 thriller Malayalam movies back to back and thought will do a mixed review for both in a single post. Forensic – as the name mentions, the hero happens to be a forensic expert and is solely responsible for all the major twists and break throughs in the movie. Compared to him, the entire police force is totally dummy as they are there in the scene just to do his beck and call. That includes his ex-sister-in-law (so many hashes!!really distant relation) who happens to be the police chief heading that serial killer investigation. Considering the timing of the release, probably the makers of Penguin (tamil movie) suttufied some scenes from related to the kid being serial killer. Yes. You read it right. 2 movies, in the span of a week dealing with under aged kids as serial killers and that too their kills are in the most gruesome a...

Usually Dan Brown’s book fall into the below set of process – when you are reading it you will feel the thrill of a roller coaster ride with adrenaline rush, as it reaches climax you would feel the excitement of a kid opening birthday present, after the initial few minutes of completing the book the mind would be reeling with all those information trying to process and after few hours you would be left wondering was the climax worth all those events that transpired in the course of the book. Also his novels will double up as travelogue for the respective city/country of the premise and would definitely send in flocks of tourists, curious to visit those places so beautifully crafted into his stories. In fact, locations have almost played the role of a key character in his books. Origin is no less different. And the guts of the guy to portray the king of Spain as gay!!! If you need any reference in stirring a hornets nest, Dan Brown should be on your speed dial. Like all his novels, th...

Waterboarding – the second of the many to come published books by Brags. The title might have come into prominence, post the war on terror initiated by the Americans and more specifically on the torture “treatment” meted out to the Guantanamo bay prisoners. The title is an allegory to the mental trauma of the hero, Ved. The story is told through diary entries of the three main characters, Ved, Sara and Maya. The story opens with Ved, who meets with an accident and suffers amnesia. The missing pieces of his life are filled in by Sara and Ramesh, who hide the details about his girlfriend (ex) Maya. Maya texts Ved enquiring about his condition and seeing a text from an unknown number induces curiosity in Ved, who goes about figuring, who is Maya and why is she not in his life anymore. He also finds out the reason why Sara was not revealing the details and as he comes to terms with the reality and realizes what he wants from his relationships, his health condition has other plans. His i...

Last weekend we saw Maragatha Nanayam movie. With almost every single review going ga-ga over the movie, I was tempted to believe that not all of that could’ve been paid review. But movie wasn’t worth the hype is what I felt. It wasn’t a bad movie at all. With the USP of the movie, weighing on mimicry (Yes. You read that right) of the heroine being dubbed with a male voice and same characters speaking in multiple voices, it “sounds” novel. But wish the screenplay could’ve been more engaging. Felt like, the director would’ve selected the last few hits of horror comedy genre and removed all the common elements to add this USP and created a movie out of it. There is no romantic track or duet songs. Tick one. No special effects or CG driven ghosts. Tick two. But he has retained the comic portions to a greater extent, which works in parts with major chunk of the credit going to Nikki Kalrani (heroine) for the spunk with which she has donned the role and her body language of that of a row...

This series is growing at an intriguing pace!! Vera topic edhuvum kedaikala reason apart, thought this was one movie, Kabhi na Kabhi, which didn’t had its due from songs perspective. The movie starred Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff and Pooja Bhatt. Story wise it was one of the mokkaiest. But songs by ARR were pretty good to say the least. My personal favorite and probably the best of the album is the “Shukriya” song. I first saw the video in MTV(??) with a somber Jackie mouthing lines belted out by SPB. Probably that was even the reason which caught my attention as the picturisation was nothing fancy. SPB voicing out for Jackie!! Couldn’t think of a odder combination. But the simplicity of the lyrics and the tune was pretty catchy and till date I couldn’t get a better version of the song in mp3 version. But this song has forever been there on my special songs playlist. The lyrics, technically being a birthday situation song, thanks the lady for being there for the guy in his times of tro...

Wow!!! To even think of writing a review for so many songs looks a Herculean task. Imagine picturising them, writing, sequencing and acting for all of them!!! A movie, which adorns grandeur, right from its title to every single second of its running time, across all aspects of movie making. A movie, which can stand in its own right for its story (much borrowed theme) and lead stars performances and as much for its songs. Probably one movie of Salman that I can say for sure, would be many people’s favorite for saner reasons, unlike the mad craze and hype at present. In fact, he was voted the second or third most desirable person on the planet during its release I guess. And now to the man of the post – Ismail Darbar. I hated this guy the most for a really long while, for he denied ARR of a trophy for Taal, by winning it for this movie. But if at all there was a worthy winner, it was never in doubt that it would be him. Wonder why he never composed much, considering the blockbuster hit...

To be honest, this is one book that is impossible to review without spoilers!! Anything you say about the story would give it away and with a running commentary kind of a post, alongside reading would only invite more spoilers. So be at your own alert. Have tried to space out the previous post on this book to avoid any further spoilers on the plot. The beginning of the book has all the ingredients of a ghost story, only to be looped into a murder mystery. There is a murder, alright and more and more and a little more of them. Till almost half a dozen chapters way into the book, there is no description of the introductory murder scene or on how the victim died. People just keep talking and in the course of conversation, so many motives and back stories on the victim turn up that, it’s almost like you overhearing some gossip about the incident yourself. Such is the casual way with which the murder incident is handled and it slowly builds on the tension with a variety of caricature kind...

Looks like this would be a running series for me as well J Next in line is Anbe sivam - A movie, which is a classic of its own for its memorable storyline and amazingly witty dialogues between the lead characters, but the songs from this movie are a show stealer in their own right. I vividly remember the comment made by my friend when we first heard the “Naatukoru sedhi” song. With Kamal going hyper, read (normal for him), with the beginning portions of the song, as if a horse has gone wild and neighing, he was pretty sure the movie would bomb. Though the prediction on movie did come true, the song was a master class nevertheless. It brought a new term to tamil lingo, “Vyabaara Kaantham”, which is explained during the course of the song itself. To call it a song alone would be robbing it of its multi-faceted nature as much of its beauty lie in its free flow format. It starts as a typical song and has dramatic interludes and the lyrics are top of the rack stuff by Vairamuthu. The way ...

I saw one series of post titled “oru pada paadal” – “All songs review from a single movie”. Thought it sounded like a program script from any local music channel. But was wondering are there any movies that I’ve seen where I like the entire album. Surprisingly, quite a few turned up and thought why not a post on them. So here goes the first one – Taal. Symbolically, setting context wise, quality and aesthetics perspective, whichever angle one can consider, I find this master piece by Allah Rakha Rahman to fit the bill. The very first song I heard from the movie was “Ishq Bina” from the trailer. Guess Windows 95 OS was the rage then and I couldn’t recollect any desktop not having Aish’s pic from the movie as the wall paper. In fact collecting Aish’s pics for wallpapers was a raging hobby for many of my friends, who even visited browsing centers to download the pics. NetCafe’s where pretty expensive then and still the craze over Aish trumped the cash. With her world famous eyes, she ma...