Musings

With five movies releasing in Tamil alone over the course of a couple of days, I was agonising over which movie to watch in the theater. I had finally narrowed it down to two movies: Kanaa and Seethakathi. And then I ended up going to Seethakathi. Notwithstanding a not-so-great theater experience, I had the satisfaction of having watched a good film. I, like many others, thought this movie was in someway related to the life of the 18th century philanthropist Seethakathi. I couldn't have been more wrong. Seethakathi tells the story of a veteran of the stage, Adhimoolam 'Ayya' (Vijay Sethupathi) who has lived through the golden age of theater and now lives in times when few people have the patience to appreciate plays. The first forty minutes of the movie highlights the stages of theater and also the acting expertise of Adhimoolam. While these scenes can be cherished by those who love drama, they can seem a bit slow to the young audience. But that's where the movi...

I planned to write this review as soon as I saw this film last month but due to various reasons I couldn't. But as I haven't done a review in quite some time and also because I feel this movie deserves one, here we are! The plot of this movie can easily be found by having a short conversation with a relative(preferably female) over the age of 65 or 70. I feel this is one of the serious issue that all biopics face: the story is already well known and can be easily accessed thanks to the internet. Still director Nag Ashwin has taken up the challenge and created a movie based on the life of the first Female Superstar of South Indian Cinema, Savitri.  While the surprise element is certainly lost, the story itself is quite interesting. The meteoric rise of a simple village girl into a star and finding the love of her life in the process is quite an interesting premise. But when dealing with the life of popular people, the success of the film almost entirely hinges on th...

After the Vivegam review, I just have to do one on Mersal. Also I badly need a comeback. So here goes!                 I don't want to go into the story because there is a small suspense tied to it. All I can say is that Atlee, the director, has been 'inspired' by a certain old Kamal Hassan film. But one has to admit that the story is quite engaging. Atlee seems to do things Shankar-size with elaborate sets for a simple song and a number of big names acting in small roles. In other words, Vijay got lucky for the umpteenth time. As far as the music is concerned, somebody seems to have done a lazy job. All the songs have two parts - the good part and the part where the lyrics is clear. The only song where these two parts coincide is Alaporan Tamilan. The other songs are pretty much 'just okay' apart from being vaguely catchy.             There are huge loopholes in the story that I would usually pick o...

General characteristics of Vijay and Ajith movies: Impossible Stunts A Heroine who's nothing more than Eye Candy A lot of foreigners A Non-Tamilian Villain Cheesy one-liners by and about the hero Insignificant story-line Tons of Hero Worship            Ajith's Vivegam checks all these points perfectly.         There is not much in the way of a plot, but I'll try to cobble something together. Ajay Kumar, aka AK(Ajith Kumar) is a conscientious officer of the Counter Terrorism Squad(i think) and he and his team of five solve.... well I am not sure what they solve, but in the case that's shown in the movie, they are searching for a hacker, Natasha. Things go sideways when Natasha is found and it's thought that AK is dead, but he isn't(duh!). He then sets out to clear his name.            If you notice the storyline, I didn't mention the heroine. Because that's ex...

           After seeing a lot of posts on Facebook about how awesome Friends is, my curiosity was piqued. I wanted to see exactly what this series had, that made it so great. It was 6th May 2017. The thirteenth anniversary of the very last time the world saw the six friends on TV. That was the day I watched the first episode. And for the next month, I was totally hooked to it.            The plot of the series is quite straightforward: Six friends - Phoebe Buffay, Chandler Bing, Monica Geller, Ross Geller(her brother), Rachel Green and Joey Tribbiani - hang out at the cafe called Central Perk. Their lives kind of revolve around that single place, because four of them live in the apartment above it for a few years. The show focuses on their lives for a span of roughly ten years.           The characters couldn't be more imperfect. The characters all complement each other perfectly. Some of them, yo...

             I heard that this movie was good, but as I had heard a very similar thing about Sangili Bungili Kadhava Thorae and as this is a movie of the horror-comedy genre, I had little more than zero expectations when I went to Maragadha Naanayam. I definitely was in for a surprising afternoon that day. This movie has single-handedly raised my respect for this genre and has proved that as long as the director is a good one, he/she can create wonders in any genre.               The plot of this movie is not what you would call original. The only difference between the plot of this movie and other movies of the same genre(horror comedy) is in the object used by the ghost. Usually, it's a house. In this case, it's an emerald coin as the name suggests. A 11th century king acquires an emerald coin and refuses to part from it even after death. Those who touch that coin of his are killed by a myst...