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I don't see the point of reviewing this movie. Am utterly gob-smacked after watching it in IMAX 3D! For the record, I think there are only two IMAX 3D theatres in all of India - in Mumbai and Hyderabad. I can't say if IMAX 3D was better or not, but if this is the ultimate in movie-watching experience, this movie was worth the Rs.350 I paid for the ticket.

Wonderful metaphor for how we humans are plundering Mother Earth.  Do parents even know that their kids are getting a superb subliminal message?

I have only one opinion to express. For a long time, people drew the distinction between Indian Computer Graphics and International Computer Graphics on the basis of fantasy vs. realism. For a long time, CG in Indian movies was used to bring alive fantasies - think My Dear Kuttichathan, Jagan Mohini, even Maya Bazaar. In international movies, sure, we've had the Star Wars of the world and Jurassic Park. But also think Cameron's own Titanic, where CG was probably used to make something look realistic. Suddenly, we have a role reversal of sorts. Kamal Haasan's Dashavataram used CG to recreate the very real Tsunami.

But Avatar has basically thrown CG and its definitions out of the window. In the 3 hours, you will wonder what was CG and what was really shot. Were the colours brought alive by CG or were they shot realistically and only enhanced? What about those cloud-like mountains suspended high up in the air?

Ok, I really must stop now. Am having a flashback of a sensory overload.

Go catch it. Preferably in IMAX 3D.

And as my friend said, "Don't focus on the story, enjoy the ride."

Pics are wallpapers from official website.

Yenna Samayalo

Click this for song

'Yenna Samayalo...' from Unnal Mudiyum Thambi has got to be one of my favourite songs of all time, for the sheer delight of watching how the music, the lyrics and the performances come together. It's like eavesdropping on a the gadget-less traditional kitchen of a very normal but music-crazed household. The video is comical, yes, a little bizarre with brinjals dancing etc. but do notice the play of phonetics in the lyrics. Directed by K. Balachander and Music by Ilayaraja. I wonder who wrote the lyrics - the titles credit it to Pulamaipitthan, Muthulingam and Ilayaraja himself.

Background story:

In Unnal Mudiyam Thambi (Rudraveena in Telugu) the patriarch goes by the intimidating title of Bilahari Marthandam Pillai, an established Carnatic Music Vocalist. Gemini Ganeshan brings this character alive in a way nobody else could. His elder son  (Is this Prasad Babu?) is mute, but takes up the Nadhaswaram. Hence, the father has his hopes pinned on the younger son, Udayamoorthi. This character played by Kamal Haasan , rebels against the stringent casteism and status-consciousness in the Carnatic Music world. He is more interested in upliftment of the downtrodden, which expectedly causes conflict with the father. There is also a daughter, but she is brought up to be married off., playing the tanpura, always in the background. However, the entire family is passionate about music in their own individual way and this is evoked in this song, where the father is away and the rest of the family has a field day teasing the elder brother's wife (played by Manorama) for her cooking skills.

Click here for movie

I rest my case on Tamil films being underrated North of the Vindhyas. It's frustrating to convey the sensibility of this song to someone who neither knows the language, nor understands the music but believes South Indian is only about the dancing brinjals of this song. Sigh.

Dhan te Nan - Kaminey

Is it just me or are other people also reminded of Black Eyed Peas' 'Pump It' when one listens to 'Dhan te Nan' from Vishal Bharadwaj's Kaminey?

Is it just the prominence of the bass guitar in the background?


Same raag?

Ninja Assassin

My idea of a good action movie is The Transporter. You have a great looking (albeit bald) hero who is dead-pan, fights stupendously well and has a very toned physique.

My idea of a martial art film is Forbidden Kingdom. You have two of the greatest martial arts heroes, Jet Li and Jackie Chan in the same movie, there's some fantastic fighting and a large dose of make-believe.

My idea of an action hero is Tony Jaa of Ong Bak fame. He does his own stunts and I'm still recovering from seeing that scene from Ong Bak 2 where he deftly leaps from elephant to elephant in a running herd.

My idea of a good time at an action movie is this - let's hit a few people, inflict internal injury and let the blood stay inside the body - it's more efficient this way and cleaner. I'm a woman - can you blame me for worrying about the clean-up after? Who wants to wipe off blood stains and clear dismembered body parts?

Which is why, Ninja Assassin is exactly the kind of movie I would NOT watch. Firstly, I don't know who the Wachowski Brothers are and why every man I know is using them as a ruse to watch what's clearly a boys' violence fest. If they had anything to do with the Matrix series, I'm still trying to figure out what those movies were about.

Sure, in Ninja Assassin, Korean actor Rain is dead-pan, fights stupendously well and has a very toned physique. But I don't much care for damage brought on by the shlick-shlick of katanas, hira-shurikens and Raizo's kyoketsu shoge.

We see Raizo (Rain), a deadly Ninja dismembering some people. The gore is just a prelude to the blood-splattered title card. The scenes with Raizo in the present, at Berlin, protecting himself, preparing his body, is intercut with scenes from his childhood training to be an assassin with the Ozunu clan. In the midst of this, Mika (Naomie Harris), a forensic researcher stumbles upon the the fact that Ninja clans are very real and doing brisk business in today's world. When Raizo sets out to find Mika, we learn that he doesn't want to kill her, but wants to protect her from the Ozunu clan. And that's because he had left the clan years ago to follow his heart. The rest of the movie is about Mika getting into more and more life-treatening situations despite or perhaps because of Raizo and the Ozunu clan. It all turns out okay in the end, though.

What I loved: the action, the computer graphics and the cinematography. Clearly the best I have seen as an occasional action movie watcher. Totally tripped on the bed of nails scene. The background score builds to a memorable crescendo in the climax.

There's also a tender love story in Raizo's past with a fellow orphan and Ninja-in-training like him. Just when I was beginning to warm up to the excerpted love story, a violent slash interrupts the reverie and it's back to the colour red.

What I hated: The gore of course, especially the decapitated head in the beginning and the buckets of blood that splashed around. There's just too much of it. But hey, I learnt something about myself - after a point I could stomach it!

In the last scene, Raizo stands in daylight in the orphanage, the site of all the carnage. He is then seen snipping the constricting wire that holds down the branch of a Bonsai. Then he symbolically scales the wall to see life outside and takes his first breath as a free man. My question to my hapless husband as we were leaving the theatre was, "Who cleaned up after him?"

Pics courtesy allmoviephoto.com and moviewallpaper.net

Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani

This was a movie I may have enjoyed about ten - nay twenty - years ago when I was less of an adult and more forgiving of cinema. In fact, at many points, it reminded me of 'Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa', but unlike that one, APKGK doesn't have its moments.

I may have enjoyed it if it was the director's debut. No matter what the box office says about this one, I personally believe, Raj Kumar Santoshi (he of the 'Damini', 'Ghayal', 'Legend of Bhagat Singh', 'Lajja' and importantly, 'Andaz Apna Apna' fame), could have done much, much better.

This is a 'comic book-candy floss-cute couple-baloons and bubbles' sort of movie and the promos are spot-on in capturing the flavour. Even the climax seems inspired by Scooby Doo, shot in an old factory with many levels, stairs and also slides going into what looks like a giant tank of detergent - the source of a million multi-coloured bubbles.

It begins well enough with 'Jahan Prem, wahan problem, Jahan problem, wahan Prem'. Ranbir Kapoor is the eponymous 9th-standard failed President of a motley bunch of like-minded youth calling themselves Happy Club, a self-professed instigator of happiness in the hill station where the story is set. Prem's mother (Smita Jayakar) dotes on him and his father (Darshan Zariwala) wishes he would do something with his life. 

Prem falls in love with Jenny (Katrina Kaif) an orphan being brought up by a not-so-doting family. He wants to confess his love, but 'ain waqt pe', he finds out that she is being forced to marry a Tony from Goa. He goes to Goa to rescue her, the only hitch being she's already in love with a Rahul (Upen Patel), who is the son of a super-rich politician. The movie is about how he goes to great lengths to help her and it ends predictably enough with them hitching up.

Ranbir Kapoor is sheer energy on screen, and that also works against the pace when he slows down in the sequences where he is dejected. He's also doing a fine job of wearing the leading lady's clothes. Katrina Kaif is, well, vivacious and cute. Upen Patel does what he does best, flex his body and speak with an accent. To be fair to all of them, they do comedy well enough. It's a little disappointing to see someone like Viju Khote being relegated to playing a henchman.

The laughs are there, some very good ones, at that. But they're too few, already reviewed. Many cliches. The songs are not bad, but they slow down the story.

Iwould say, it's like bubble gum. The bubble in the bubble gum - that's all the hype surrounding the movie. It's cloyingly sweet where 'Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa' wasn't and stretches to an additional hour, what should have been an hour and a half long movie. With this piece of bubble gum, I wish I had that moment when you think there's bubble gum between your jaws and bite down hard on your tongue.

APKGK provides a new dimension to the phrase, 'leaving one's brains behind before entering the theatre'.

Sigh. Maybe I should simply buy the Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa DVD and refresh my cinema-tired spirits.

Pic courtesy glamsham.com