Agi Music’s blunder in Raaja’s Album
When you make an album out of original scores of Maestro Ilayaraja, you should also be careful about making any mistakes . Ardent followers of Ilayaraja like me can identify even the smallest of the mistakes record labels make. Agi Music recently released an album of 20 interesting original scores of Ilayaraja from different movies titled “Colours of Raaja”. Although I have most of them, I downloaded the album for the sheer quality of sound it gave me.
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Movie Review: Vettai – Old Wine in an Old Bottle
Avasara Police 100 is a 1990 movie directed by Bhagyaraj with Gautami and Silk Smitha as heroines. It had Nambiar and used a footage of unfinished MGR film. It’s the story of one identical twin impersonating the wimpy other, who is a policeman. The younger makes all heroics while the elder takes the fame. I can see you asking why such a description in a review of Vettai. Lingusamy’s Vettai takes some heavy inspiration from Avasara Police 100 and provides a terribly cliched masala caper.
Movie Review: Nanban – Xerox Machine Pola Yaaru Machan!
What would have happened, if MGR in Engal Veetu Pillai had the same expressions of NTR from Ramadu Bheemadu or how would it have been, if Rajinikanth in Billa had the same gait and dialogue delivery of Amitabh’s Don?
Remakes are not new to Tamil Cinema. We had some wonderful remakes that outperformed the originals. There is a simple difference between a remake and a photocopy. Remake takes the screenplay of the original and matches it to the on-screen personality of the actors, who decide to act in the remake, whereas a photocopy, as the name suggests is exact replica of the original, sometimes even replicating the costumes of the original. Photocopies work when the on-screen personalities of the two actors match or if the actor in the ‘photocopy’ doesn’t have a on-screen personality.The best instances are Gilli (Okkadu) and Pokkiri of Mahesh Babu/Vijay and ‘Jayam’ Ravi’s movies, respectively. The best example of successful remakes are the Hindi – Tamil remakes that made Rajinikanth, a superstar in the south. Rajinikanth, never aped his predecssor rather he chose to create his own style and brand of comedy that helped him.
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2011 Tamil Movies and Music Round Up – The best and the worst
The Best Movies of 2011
The annual round up of Tamil movies and music. I have been blogging about Tamil movies since the inception of this blog. The love for the movies never goes out of me. So let’s see what was 2011 all about in the world of Tamil movies.
9th Chennai International Film Festival Round Up – Day 6,7 & 8
Day 6
Who on earth has a good Monday? Nobody. It was true for me whether its work or the 9th Chennai International Film Festival. Can you believe that I didn’t see a single movie on Monday? The only good thing I did was to attend the Chennai Film Forum on Critics. The discussion was moderated by Alphonse Roy with Suhasini, Madan and Baradwaj Rangan on panel. I will write about the panel discussion later
Day 7
The Tuesday was better with 2 different genre of movies and the wonderful panel discussion chaired by Anurag Kashyap, Thiagarajan Kumaraja, Vetrimaran, Dharani and a guest appearance from Balaji Sakthivel. We will have a look at the movies first
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9th Chennai International Film Festival Round Up – Day 5
It was a Sunday but that didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the movie buffs of the 9th Chennai International Film Festival. I got a tingle in my brain at 8 to get ready for the day and after the ever favourite mini tiffin in Saravana Bhavan I made it to Woodlands for the morning movie at 10 AM
1. Love like Poison (France)
Directed by Katell Quillevere, Love Like Poison is a story of a teenager Anne who is torn between her love and faith towards God. The story takes the confirmation moment that comes in every roman catholic’s life. She also needs to battle the separation of her parents, ailing grand father and her mother’s inclination towards the priest of the church.
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9th Chennai International Film Festival Round Up – Day 3 & 4
Day 3
Technically, I saw 4 movies today but all the 4 are not from the International Film Festival. I sneaked in to watch MI 4 Ghost Protocol in between. Somehow, I made it to the morning show of the day in Studio 5 and it was totally worth it.
The Whistleblower (USA/Germany/Canada)
The Whistleblower is the story of Kathy Bolkovac, an United Nations peace keeper from US who exposed the girl trafficking scandal that happened in the war torn Bosnia-Herzegovina. The scandal was one of the biggest black marks in the UN history with many international soldiers, diplomats and higher officials involved in girl trafficking, rape and torture of young women.
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9th Chennai International Film Festival Round Up – Day 2
I skipped the 10 AM show for the day. It was tough to wake up in the morning. After a sumptuous lunch in Saravama Bhavan, I made it on time for the second show of the day.King of Devil’s Island (Norway)
The movie is based on a true story that happened in Christian correction service in Bastoy Island, Norway during the start of the century. A group of young teenagers revolt against the bad administration led by the new boy in the centre. The movie deals with bad practices in such correction facilities and how the boys try to fight against the system. The movie is directed by Marius Holst with Stellan Skarsgard and Benjamin Helstad in the lead
9th Chennai Film Festival Round Up – Day 1
December is festival season in Chennai. Be it the carnival of music or the international film festival, Chennai never fails to impress. The 9th Chennai International film festival started yesterday with 153 selected movies from 50 different countries. As usual the festival is extremely populated with French and Italian movies, but they have made some wonderful selections from other countries too.
The Tamil movie selections for the competition are idiotic and I hope the directors from other countries don’t see our copy cats. It would be a shame rather than a pride. So I will be bringing you short reviews of movies that I see daily. The first day started as usual with registrations and I was smart enough to take my photo for the delegate card because I had 0% confidence in the online upload and registration. The queue was longer than last year. Lots of students and even few normal movie buffs like me have joined the bandwagon. I also saw the usuals from movie world – Santhanabharathi, Ramesh Kanna, CR Saraswathi and Sivaji are a few I see in the festival every year.
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