Enthiran - the north south divide

Why is there such a north south thing going on with the comment boxes w.r.t. enthiran on any forum? what does this movie have anything to do with Dabaang or Anjaani?

It is a Rajni movie. It is not trying to prove anything to Bollywood. It is a good movie. Just enjoy it and let it be. They are not the same genre. There seems to be no connection between the two movies other than they were released same day. Now that is silly, no?

on a side note to the Maarans and the "nidhis" karunai or otherwise : What goes around comes around folks. this is what you get for alienating other languages for no good reason. Tamizh as a language is not going to die anytime soon. Hindi speakers are not aliens!

Some idiot goes and posts a comparison of Robot with Anjaani and then the entire message board goes to dogs. Same theme everywhere in every news article I have read in the last couple of days.

In a world where Rajni = Mob = paal abishegam = frenzy ------> hysteria, it is not a good idea to keep doing this.

It is a question of time before this rage jumps over from the message boards to bill boards and before you know it people are hitting each other with boards!

The other weird thing is that there are media reports which go out of their way to say the movie did extremely well outside the four southern states and some that go the extreme opposite and say "this movie did not do well at all.." and the frame of comparison is always Anjaana Anjaani.

Guess two big production houses are going at it big time in showing they are doing good and a lot of simpleton fans might have consequences for this!

One has to be happy with the fact that Ranbir Kapoor doesn't have fans who are as fanatical as Rajni fans.

Thank god for small favors.



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Enthiran - The festival

That was just one of the many videos of the crowd and celebration at a small Theater in San Jose. There are only 200 or so seats in the theater where we watched the movie tonight. (we= me, MIL, San's aunt). San watched the preview show because she could not wait for the 24 hours and I was still sick last night.

Rajni movies are a treat, especially because the audience is so alive! This movie was by far the best Tamizh movie I have seen in a long long time.

Everything about this movie was a notch above my expectations! This team went all out and made a fantastic effort to make a Sci-fi Tamizh movie.

Recently there was a Tamizh Western (comedy). That trailer alone made me squirm. Apparently the movie got okay reviews. Was wondering what a Tamizh Sci-fi would be like. Very happy to realize that this Tamizh Sci-fi absolutely rocked!

All of us got a free poster at the ticket counter. That one goes into the souvenir box for sure. Tonight was a very memorable night.

Thank you Superstar!

If only they had released it on one of the local AMC theaters on the biggest screens with louder sound....

Who knows, maybe they will see how good this movie is and do that ?!




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Edible Hero Worship

San came home after watching the new Rajni movie Kuselan (on opening night) and gave the kids a little treat!




You got that right!

M and M's with Rajni uncle's picture on them! Jr. was giggling away as she ate them. She thought it was hilarious. Considering that she has not seen any pictures printed on an M and M to date, she was surprised that Rajni uncle beat Dora the Explorer when it came to being on the candy.

The little one didn't quite understand what the big deal was, giggled away as well to copy her sister, and ate the candy.

The movie got a "okay movie" remark from San, but the M&M's got rave reviews from Jr.


ps. San corrected to "okay movie".. my original translation to "nice" was not accurate!


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Kamal, Rajni and the proverbial Mango!

There is a mythological story that kids in south India are told, about Lord Ganesha and Lord Muruga aka Karthikeya.

The story starts with Lord Shiva and Paarvathi in possesion of a mango. They call both their sons and being typical south Indian parents, they decide that there is no fun in just cutting the mango into two halves and giving it to their two sons. So as is customary, they tell their kids that only one of them can have the whole mango and make it into a little test. Whichever kid cracks 800/800 in the Math section of the SAT will get the mango. No, I am kidding. What they really said was something more simple. Simple for little god kids that is!

Whichever one of you, goes around the world three times gets the mango!! they declared.

Muruga, the hot headed athletic dude, decided to hop on his pet peacock and started flying around the world three times. He was clocking Mach 8 on the mythical peacock and looked like a sure winner, but....

The nerdy Ganesha scratched his head with his trunk and said "Hmm.. I cannot compete with my brother and his flying peacock. All they gave me was this pet mouse which is no good for such contests!". Just as that thought had flashed in Ganesh's head, the mouse, worried that he might get a kick in the butt from his master for his physical inabilities, scurried behind Lord Shiva and Parvathi!

The fact that the mouse chose to run around them clockwise, gave Lord Ganesha a brilliant idea. He jumped up with joy and said "a^2 +b^2 = c^2! the hypotenuese.. the hypotenuse.. why didn't I think of that before!" The celestial crows heard this and started course correcting to their destinations along the shortest route! The greek gods promptly took note.

Ganesha folded his hands in prayer, winked at his parents and walked around them three times. Shiva and Parvathi looked at him and said "Duh. So?"

"Don't you get it mom? Don't you get it Dad?" cried Ganesha. "I am trying to say that my parents are my world at this age and walking around you three times is the same as walking around the world! Now, cough up that mango!"

Shiva and Parvathi were stumped. They knew that the precocious kid was not easy to deal with. He had come up with things like Boolean Logic, Fuzzy logic and Eigenvectors all at the tender age of three and the humans were already building temples for him in every street corner!

They asked young Ganesha to go wait outside while they had a parent conference.

Shiva: What can we do now?

Parvathi: We could wait till Muruga comes back and declare him the winner for genuinely circling the globe three times!

Shiva: But what kind of message do we send to the rest of creation?

Parvathi: What do you mean? Hard work always triumphs! That is the message you send.

Shiva: Come on now girl! When was the last time you or me did any hard work around here. We delegate. That is what we do. We work smarter, not harder!

Parvathi: You have a point there. I forgot that I am now in Universal management! We have to send the right message here. Smart Ganesh knows how to get the mango! He is a role model for the earthlings on how to get things done.

Shiva: I only have one problem with giving him the mango. The earthlings might suck up to him more than they suck up to us. After all, he is going to be their role model for taking the short cut!

Parvathi: Overall, it might be a better move to give it to Ganesha. We never know what he will come up with next!

So it happened! Ganesha got the mango. When poor Muruga returned, with his hair all messed up in flight, only to realize that his parents were tricked into giving up the mango, he got real mad, tonsured his head and sat on top of the Pazhani mountain to meditate.

Ganesa, who had still not had a chance to "echchai" the mango, was worried! He knew all too well from Tamizh movie stars and American rock stars that when they threw a temper tantrum, they usually got what they wanted! Muruga, a celestial heartthrob, could still sway people his way.

Yet again, Ganesha scratched his head with his trunk and went to Cafe Kailash, a popular tea joint, where the gods were busy spreading the latest gossip about the Mango incident! Making it look like pure coincidence, he went and sat next to Narada, who had a controlling stake in Narbook, Narspace, Nartube and MyNarad, not to mention Narkut!

"Did you know the real reason why he tonsured his head?" he asked Narada.

"He was angry and wanted to call attention to himself. Isn't that the reason?" said Narada, as he instant messaged a dozen gossipmongers on SameNarad.

"It is such a pity that only 6.25% of celestial beings understand Aerodynamics! All this free floating in free space has spoilt us. We are worse than American kids who cannot point to "I"raq on the world map!" Ganesha retorted.

"Aero what ?" !!! said the small crowd of gods who had gathered around in response to Narada's message.

"Aerodynamics!! Muruga did not win because his hair kept flailing around and created a drag effect and slowed him down. His peacock's feathers didn't help with the flying either. That is why he tonsured his head, so he can do better next time. He is meditating on the hill, because he is contemplating defeathering his peacock!"

The crowd pondered for a second and said "Ganesha is soooo smart! No wonder he won the race, with his aerodynamic trunk and his clean shaved mouse!" and walked away.

That is the untold version of the Mango story. The official pictorial version is here.

"Now, what has this got to do with Kamal and Rajni?!" you ask?

K.Balachander told them both that, when they have the Tamizh movie audience eating out of their hands, they will get the "box office" mango.

While Kamal went on to play ten roles in the same movie, and took two three years to make the movie, where he acts as a thin, tall, short, bald, old, young, fat, black, brown, white, Iyer, Iyengar, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, athesit, scientist, beggar, doctor, priest, fisherman, dentist, terrorist, secret agent, police, cab driver, etc. etc....., Rajni quickly thought to himself, looked inside his pockets, found some cigarettes, cooling glass, toothpicks, coins, paperweights etc., oozed some style, did some clever antics with the stuff from his pockets and won the box office mango!

In all sincerity, do hope Kamal gets the mango this time with Dasavatharam!


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:) :) :) :) :) and then some...

The local movie distributors for Sivaji finally decided to drop the ticket price to 11 bucks (close enough to the normal 10$) and I had instantly booked two tickets. The added bonus was watching the movie with Balaji, who managed to recreate the original first show ambience for me!

Now this post is not a movie review. I do not think I qualify as a reviewer. Also, I am not sure if a review by default has to be unbiased. I am a Rajni fan (but not a fanatic. I strictly turn off the fan in the attic when I watch Rajni movies) and I am very biased!

In retrospect, my wow (sabatham) to watch the movie only after ticket prices dropped to the regular levels was stupid. I should have just gone three weeks ago, just to take in the audience factor. What the hell was I thinking ? I slept on the pavement at Chestnut and 38th(?)in Philadelphia 15 years ago, outside a ticketmaster window, when there was a foot of snow on the ground, just to get Pink Floyd tickets for a third show that was added last minute. The first two shows had sold out in 8 minutes with people buying tickets over the phone, and did I forget to mention that I was 15th or 16th in line and the queue of people in the pavement was more than 100 ? Stupid, stupid stupid me!

Still, the San Jose crowd doesnt fail to disappoint. Half an hour before opening time, there was a line of around 200 people. The non-desi onlookers were giving the line the amused look. They have probably not seen a desi line that long in downtown san Jose at 7:30 in the evening. We did get nice seats and there was no dearth of whistles and catcalls once the movie started. If the audience was slow to react to some stylish manouvers by Thalaivar, there was always the BB's in the audience who would start the whisling! More than once I pinched myself, just to check if I had died and gone to Rajni heaven.

Rajni cannot top this performance when it comes to style. He has simply outdone himself. The only question a Rajni fan can ask after coming out of the movie is, what next?

If you go to a Shiva temple, you are supposed to sit down for a second before you come out. It has almost become customary for people who write Sivaji reviews or movie experiences to say at least one thing that bothered them during the movie.

The one and only thing that bothered me during the entire 3 hours ?

Well, picture the height of style, the height of glamour, the most amazing set design, art direction and the music starts for a song.. and then the voice and pronunciation just kills it for you! Aaaaaaagggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.. Simply stated in BHU lingo from two decades ago, it was KLPD! You guys probably know exactly what I am talking about!

In spite of that, the movie was worth every penny. I am not talking about my 11 bucks here. I am talking about the millions of dollars spent in making this movie!

Rajni rocks !!


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Sivaji - Reviewview

Preface : This is about the Tamizh Movie "Sivaji" staring Super Star Rajni!

So what is different about this Re-view-view ?

Well, you have to see a movie to review it! I am going to violate all known ethical codes by writing a review for a movie that I have not yet seen. But I am not the first one. I have actually seen a lot of posts which say review, but talk about the hype and what to expect and promise to write the real review after watching the movie. I will join that bandwagon.

Who is who ? What is What ?

I will now proceed to set minds to rest over the various questions that people might have with respect to this post. Why should it be even relevant ? Well, people are asked a few questions in the United States and binned accordingly ! Are you a republican or democrat, are you pro-life or pro-choice, are you okay with homosexuals or are you a homophobe, etc. etc. But in Tamizhnadu they also ask you, do you like Super Star or not, do you like Sivaji or not, etc. Plus any post with Sivaji in the title is immediately judged. The author is judged on his % Pro Rajni-ness! and is promptly lauded or flamed. Considering I am sarcastic by default, I better answer these questions..

So lets proceed :

Do I like Rajni ? Yes
Do I like movies ? Yes
Do I like Rajni movies ? Mostly!
Do I still like him after he is old and tries to act young ? Yes (except the romance part).
Did I like Baba ? No
Did I like Chandramukhi ? Yes
Did I watch FDFS (first day first show) for Baba ? No
same for Chandramukhi ? Yes
When did I really watch Baba ? After it came out on DVD.
Will I wait for Sivaji to come out on DVD ? probably not!
Then why the $*%& am I waiting ? For tickets to drop to 10$
Have I made up my opinion on this movie yet ? No (seriously!)
Will my wife throw me out if I watch the movie and say it sucks ? No
Will my wife make me vadai, payaasam, etc. if I watch the movie and say I loved it ? No
Do the above two answers prove that I will express my honest opinion when I do see the movie ? Yes!
Do I expect this to be a good movie ? No.
Do I expect this to be a good Rajni movie ? Yes.
Will I watch it only for Rajni and ARR ? Yes.
Will I actually come back and write a real review later ? Hell NO! That would become an insignificant post. "Bay area man writes the 646,259,946745'th Sivaji Review" would be the headline. No Sir, not me.

Now here is my Re?View based on all the gazillion reviews I have read in the one week since this movie has been released to the general public! Practically everyone and their dog has a review of Sivaji!

Ahem...

Sivaji is a mass entertainer, where Super Star still shows that Style always rules over substance when it comes to this genre of movies. If Tom Cruise had half the style of Rajnikant, MI-III would have been a real blockbuster. It had the same hype and the money thrown in, with Cruise Star power, possibly the biggest hollywood could boast at the time, but the results were not even close. .(Well I havent seen Sivaji, but everyone else has and ergo, style has ruled over substance. As for lack of substance, that seems to be in unanimous agreement as well!).

That said, there are still a lot of gripes over the lack of a proper storyline, coherence, poor chemistry between the hero and heroine, songs that come up suddenly, length of the movie, etc. etc. The blogosphere seems to be polarized between two extremes on this one.

Some reviews say that these things while considered flaws for an average movie, do not really matter in a Rajni movie where the audience pays, just to see the man strutt his style on the big screen and utter punch dialogues. As a guy who stood 764'th in line at AMC Mercado to watch first day first show of "End of Days" or the dude who stood 1234'th in line to watch "The 6th Day" at the same theater, just to watch Arnold utter punch dialogues and throw people in the air, I can totally understand this type of review.

The next type of review goes on to pay its respects to "Thalaivar" (Rajni's nick name), his style etc., and bashes everyone else involved in making this movie with the exception of ARR. Shankar and Sujatha are prime targets with the producer being the secondary target, for wasting his money and not keeping an eye on the quality of the film! Now, how many of you can claim that you have watched two free movies in the same year, by just using your AMC movie watcher card? San and me can. That means, in the year we got married, we watched "at least" a movie a week, in theaters!! One day, we went to the 21 theater complex and found to our dismay that there was only one movie that was playing in all 21 rooms that we hadn't watched. So we watched it as well. As irony would have it, the movie was "Superstar", a film that left us speechless! We considered it an all time low in our movie watching life. As someone who has seen enough and more movies which lack substance or logic, my guess is that these guys are probably right. But a Rajni movie has to have all the Rajni elements or it would cease to be a Rajni movie. It is a self fulfiling prophecy! After Muthu was released, the Japanese have discovered the "Rajniberg Uncertainity principle", which states that it is impossible to have Rajni and Logic in the same movie and any attempt to precisely fix logic in the movie will make the Rajni part questionable!

Finally, we come to the hardcore "nay" sayers, who write, "Rajni is obligated to give his fans a decent movie", "A movie should not insult the audience's intelligence", "who will bell this commercial cat" (okay, okay, I came up with that last one), etc. etc. These are reviewers, who have either tried to judge this movie by the average movie standards or have reviewed it with an underdog mentality or trying to reason with mass hysteria, with an aim of being the sane voice. These are the ones who are promptly lauded for their guts and honesty for daring to say the truth and are also flamed in the comment box. I offer my deep condolences to this type of reviewer. India, or the USA for that matter is not free country. The internet does not have freedom of speech. If you do speak against mass hysteria you WILL be flamed! I can write a book about this! Once again, this is like saying bad things about WWF (and fear getting beaten up by some big dude next to you who is a fan), or saying bad things about Harry Potter (and fear getting beaten up by an angry teenager) or saying bad things about George W Bush (and fear getting beaten up by the government)! Apparently there are consequences if you dont agree with the general public. I would also point out to these reviewers that "Rajni is not obligated to do diddly squat!". He has made his money, and made his die hard fans happy, which were about the only things he was obligated to do, and even that obligation is questionable!

As for fans demanding more from their star and fans making or breaking a star, Rajni would have ceased to be a star a long time ago if his movies are judged by the average movie reviewer standards. The average Rajni fan is more of a fanatic. (Er, what I mean to say respectable Sir's and Madam's, is that you tend to watch Ranji movies with your FAN on in the AtTIC). That means box office logic does not apply to Rajni movies either!

Neenga ellam review than ezhduveenga. Naan reviewvukke review ezhudhuven! Idhu eppidi irukku ?

Translation (without Rajni style): You guys only write reviews. I write reviews of your reviews. How is that ?

:)


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