Vanaja

Its a movie I could have easily missed – it has classic ingredients for cinematic ‘art-film’ repulsion. The DVD cover has a child star in a south Indian dance pose, from which we can easily construct the story… "a poor girl from a disadvantaged background (lower cast and/or no father 6 sisters) follows her dream…taking dance classes (against xyz odds) to win in a national dance contest (or becomes celebrity dancer) … like one of those crossover films pushing classical arts for international awards.

This one won many awards too. For 2007, it was nominated for ‘Best First Feature’ - I got the DVD in mail – with a polite note for my vote. I usually get turned off by pushy marketing (like FoxSearchLight’s Juno) – I reluctantly popped in the DVD…..

The title character, Vanaja (Mamata Bhukya) was brilliant – she carried the movie on her tiny shoulders. Vanaja’s eyes ‘sparkle’, she carries this bright aura around her – an aura of arrogance, brilliance & naughiness…. a complex little character, sometimes difficult to understand – but always interesting.

The movie is miles away from any typical garish Telugu film you’ve ever seen – this will shock your system if you thought ‘Hyderabad Blues’ was your typical indie movie. As you marvel at its raw portrayal of daily rural life, you just wonder if the village people knew if there is a camera around or if it  was shot candid camera style. Everyone not only played the part – but also looked their part. Its a casting miracle.

Vanaja is a film about caste/social barriers, adolescent sexual explorations/manipulations, and portrayal of the strong emotional bond between parent/child. There are some scenes which you never expect to see in an Indian movie (but which may regularly happen in real life) – particularly when a teenage adolescent actress is involved. But Vanaja will surprise you, again and again.

Every character, including our heroine, has flaws along with their good sides. Every character has an ulterior motive – which pushes the story forward. Many times we are unsure of the Heroine’s moral compass, but she works it to her advantage by pushing the story forward with those bearings. Thats the most I can say without giving the plot away.

Now to the negatives (particularly in the second half) - sometimes the characters’ behavior is unrealistic, and their motivation unclear. Plus it certainly doesn’t help when the screenplay glosses over crucial factors and fails to bridge some scene gaps. Also the classical arts conservation stood out a little – taking the focus away from the crux of the movie.

The movie was shot on a super16 on a minuscule budget ($20K?). It is slowly making rounds in Art Film circles for the last 2 years. It may come out on DVD this quarter. Kudos to director Rajnesh Domanpalli, and the entire indie crew, for putting together a gem unspoilt by Tollywood excesses. And yes, he gets my vote :)

Worth watching just for the performance of Mamata (who learnt Kuchipudi + acting just for the movie)

4.5/5

Taare Zameen Par

Aamir Khan must have a guts of steel to have made such a risky film for his debut as a director. Taare Zameen Par, a film about Children, but NOT a children’s film (from his blog). The subject matter is borderline documentary, but almost well woven into a film. Why almost? Read on…

In the first half is fantastic. The director’s attention to detail is amazing, be it interaction between characters (the way kid defies mom, dares his teacher, cajoles his bro, gets taunted by seniors/bullies) or the way the characters interact with their environment (kid swings away in iron gate, splashes every poodle, vandalizes neighbor’s potted plants) or the everyday scenes (punishment for shoe polish) – it faithfully recreates many of kids nightmares (signed leave letter, announcing marks in front of classmates, late school bus horn, nasty bus conductor, moms obsession with hygiene) and almost everything we (at least I) have done during our school days. Here a brat is shown unapologetically as a brat. No excuses. He is just a disobedient, lazy kid – almost like any one of us who got a rank from (25-50) in our class.

The second half is distinctively different – from natural it turns filmi. The Editor, Deepa Bhatia, should be send to Editor’s boarding school – she singlehandedly destroyed most of charm earned during first half and turned the climax into a bubblegum. By the end the movie drags on, adds unnecessary scenes (the kid is late to the Art Mela – why?!, and why make such a big hungama about his disappearance), unnecessary characters (Aamir’s lady friend, the old judge lady), filmi turnaround (zero->hero).  Looking back, they should have shaved off a good 30-45 mins off the movie, would have ended up with a crisp sharp movie, while still delivering their message. The music from ever dependable Shakar Ehasaan Roy is just ok, they could have done a lot better.

Despite the second half deficiencies, the movie does many things right – staring with fabulous performances (the kid, the father), a non condescending approach, world class animation (for an Indian film), true emotions, it even  manages to extract a tear or two and has many well done/clap-worthy scenes.

Aamir has effectively elevated himself from the rest of the Bollywood crowd with this film (which totally begs the question, with all his infinite wisdom, how did he agree to remake of the horrendous Tamil film – Ghajini)

Definitely worth a dekho… its a movie made with a lot of Dhill and Dil

4/5

Here comes Rishi…


Release Notes:

RAM UPGRADE v1.0, 2007:

Delivered on: September 06 2007

Accomplishments/Deliverables
  • The Project was delivered on-time and on-schedule.
  • Lightweight Client (7.4lbs/21in)
  • Strict compliance to StyleSheets.

Release Notes and Bugs:
  • Downloads random stuff at random intervals. (check for compiler errors)
  • 99.99% all-night uptime guaranteed.
  • If Scheduled Uploads fails, see above.
  • Incompatible extensions (socks/caps) can cause problems.
  • Upgraded UI from old legacy version (more cuter)
  • Disabling an EventRequest can cause uncontrollable ActiveX shrieks.
  • Will soon be reprogrammed in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and English.
  • Side effects include- parental OutofMemory Errors and cache leak.

Mottai Boss

sivaji_title.jpg 

Adiradikaaran song was e-x-p-l-o-s-i-v-e !! Great picturization which fits the Rhythm to the "r" – it was adiraadi!

Obviously Superhero movies don’t need logic – anything can be added/subtracted as the hero’s image warrants. Add that to Shankar’s coerced exaggerated logics – you get a movie which is pure fun and time pass. I missed 2 mins after interval – so the second half was even more logic-less (how in the world did he land up the villains black money loot – that is awfully supremely lucky).

I enjoyed:

  • Tongue in cheek dialogs/comedy (Mottai boss, M.G.R, Sivaji Mimicry)
  • Rajini’s undeniable star presence and smart style.
  • He doesn’t look like a 57 year old! Was it graphics?!
  • Rahman’s BGM and punch music was infectious.
  • Editor Anthony did a great job injecting dynamism whenever and wherever needed.
  • Vivek’s and Rajni’s one liners and comic timing was spot-on.
  • Stunts were well done. It had traces of Matrix, but still it was well shot.
  • Songs as usual with any Shankar movie, was well picturized (50% credit shd go to AR Rahman).

Things that didn’t sit well:

  • I hated the "getting to know the family" scenes and all the related "romantic" scenes.
  • Rajini’s English or lack thereof. Its funny when he used to say "Stupid of the nonsense of the idiot" and not when he says "Richh get richer, and Poor get poorer or I was cornered your honor…"
  • Hate the idea that a hero can literally bully his way into getting the heroine to love him (with a different BGM & hero – the same scene could be construed as ‘villain’s sidekicks’ threatening heroines family) 
  • The climax was superbly shot – but I hated its placement (that it became a 2nd/3rd climax, instead of the only climax)
  • Even simple logics were missing1
  • Poor Screenplay – that too from veteran Sujatha (But he made up for it in the dialog dept.)
  • Why was a "Ballelakka Ballelakka" song which is speaking about Tamil values, culture and LAND – shot abroad, where you can see yachts sailing in the background)
  • Sets – The was so much talk about it that I was underwhelmed – Sure, it was grand and all – but some sets screamed fake-fake-TRajendar-fake

It was 3 hours well spent, the fun – the energy – the rush was all there, along with a reborn Rajini – Cool!

[ 1 * Instead of electrocuting himself, hero could have just destroyed the laptop - how? shankar doesn't need any help in this - even if he put a mini keyboard bomb inside the laptop, no one would have objected
* A simple fingerprint could have given the hero (MGR) away.
* A free Medical/Engineering college + Free Hospital for Rs200c? What after this money runs out? However philanthropic hero is, its idiotic to build a system which cannot self sustain its existence - what will happen after 1-2 years after Rs200c runs out? Sell AdSense on blackboards and patient charts?
* Whatever happened to the poor alternate hero-look-alike body - and why was he placed in the first place? Shankar could have easily blown up the Jeep in 'Shankar-Style' - ie., Jeep traveling like a rocket up the sky, with no trace of anything;]


3/5

Vivah goes Bubble

Vivah Bubble

No No… Sooraj Barjatya didn’t copy Bubble :) so… what does the title mean?
—-
First let me explain what ‘Bubble’ is:
Bubble is a Steven Soderbergh movie which broke the standard industry release window. Release window is the time when the movie is shown in theaters to the time it gets released in home video market. It used to be around a year, but of late it has shrunk to around 4-6 months.

Theaters hate it, Hollywood studios love it.

Theaters hate it for 2 reasons, first if you know that “The Prestige” is coming to DVD on Jan 2007, you might be less inclined to see it on theater spending big bucks ($25-$30 for 2). Next, the way the theaters are paid, the studios get a higher percentage of the total gross in the first 2 weeks and that percentage gradually reduces after week number 2, so theaters make money if the movie runs longer. And an impending DVD release hurts their bottom line.

Why do the studios love it? They spend a huge amount of money to advertise the movie on TV, Radio and online, so they don’t want to spend another potload to advertise the movie again when the DVD is out. So working off the potential recall power of the ads, they’d like to capitalize and strike iron when its hot. Also, now a movie gets its International release almost at the same time it gets released in US – so they don’t need to delay the DVD release to protect their international eyeballs.

‘Bubble’ was the first movie to break that release window to zero days. The DVD for Bubble was release on the same day as the movie hit the theaters, and not only that, it was available for download and also available on Pay-per-view in Cable TV.

Now, Sooraj Barjatya, in a bold but shrewd move, he has made the whole movie available online for download. He has gambled big on the non-reliablity of broadband in India (that it wouldnt cannibalize on its local audience). 

On a side note, the movie is also available dubbed in Telugu. I wonder how it plays with the recent ban by Telugu producers on Dubbed movies. Dubbed movies it is really a golden goose for the original producer, so no wonder they are against this ban.

But the sadly, the movie is said to be a torture to watch, getting uniformly negative reviews.  For $0.99, maybe I would have given it a try – mostly for the historical significance of being the first person to buy an Indian PPV on the net :)

Madurai Meenakshi Online Pooja

Madurai Meenakshi Temple

Now my hometown temple, the famous grand Madurai Meenakshi Temple complex, is open to the worldwide web. Not just a website - but they are offering Online Poojas, and even sending prasadam’s to anywhere around the Globe.

Having grown up in Madurai, and the Meenakshi Temple was part of my early childhood. My Grandpa’s house have the greatest vantage view of the temple. From our dining room we can view the temple at its full glory at Sunrise and Sunset, thanks to the old city ordinance specifying that no building in Madurai can tower over the temples height. But my grandpas home was built before the 70s and was already 5 stories tall (almost a skyscraper by Madurai’s standards in 1964). So from our terrace we can enjoy the view uninterrupted.

Can’t wait to try out online pooja’s and tasting the prasadams.

Other temples offering Online Access:

(via Boing Boing)

Lara-Dhoni episode

Well, I saw the match live – and Lara has been unfairly portrayed in the media and elsewhere. They same Lara, who is one of the few guys who has a reputation of being a walker (without waiting for a verdict from the umpire, if he knows he is out – other being Adam Gilchrist). He has done so when he was 91*, and even when he was given not out for caught behind (Lara was 91* he was caught by c N.Mongia b V.Raju when Umpire Venkat ruled him NOT OUT – he walked!).

When the Umpire & Dhoni didn’t believe Daren Ganga’s version that the catch has been cleanly taken – he was pissed that there is no sportsmanship – and angrily snatched the ball from the umpire Asaf to give it to Dave Mohd to continue blowing to Dhoni. This after the fact that Dravid signaled from Pavilion that he had declared.

Update: ICC has now issued a clarification of the rules in its website: “Lara did not cross the line”

It is in India’s best interest that they declare as soon as possible. So the blame is squarely on the indecisiveness of the umpire’s. Why did they call for 3rd umpire when Dravid declared and Dhoni is walking off his grease?

In other words:
If Dhoni says, I hit a clean six – then Lara should believe him. But Dhoni cannot.
If Ganga says, I took a clean catch Dhoni should believe him. Thats sports. Even ICCI says, the umpire can tap into fielders version of what happened when a conclusion cannot be reached.

Now, only one of them can conclusively say what happened – and that is Ganga – so when the people in the middle call him a liar – the spirt of the game is lost!

Aaaha – Oooho!

[Review of Indian Film]

Watching SJ Surya’s “Aahaa”, though the story is fresh for Tamil audience (wait, before you pat him on the back, more on that in 3rd para), you wonder ‘what if’ scenarios – what if Vijay/Shaam had played lead in this movie? coz SJ Surya just sucks! His gimmicks, mimics and that horrible voice modulation – unbearable! Add to that his fake machismo, tight close-ups of his 40+ face – so pretentious! – whats next ? His Autobiography?!

Coming back to the fresh story – well, I just said it’s fresh for Tamil audience. For anyone who has seen Charlie Kaufman’s Oscar winning movie ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ would immediately recognize it.

  • Jim Carrey/ Kate Winslet are live-in couples (SJ Surya/Nila are live-in couples)
  • They fight have minor tiffs, eventually escalating into break-up. (ditto)
  • Their memories refuse to die; even tho they try to forget each other (ditto)
  • Eventually the realize that they can’t forget each other – get back (ditto)

It even has the famous beach scene, photo arranging scenes – SJ just stripped out complex memory erasing part of Kauffman’s wonderful script and simplified it for Indian audience by dressing up memories in blue attire.

Overused Ultra-WA lens, unnecessary tight close-ups, loud production design, tacky acting, empty characterization and indigestible hero – we had to endure all this coz his last movie ‘New’ was a hit – I sincerely hope that this movie doesn’t click; I just cannot digest another movie with him in the lead!

** (2/5)

Maniratnam’s Mahabaratha?

Has Maniratnam signed on to direct Rs 300 crore The Mahabharta in a trilogy format, ala The Lord of the Rings ?

Hard to believe this Times of India report

But harder to believe is that Badshah Khan (Shah Rukh) and Amir Khan has signed up to play the lead – hmm… some things don’t add up right – maybe this is another one of those “dream” projects which never see the light of the day. Or maybe producer Bobby Bedi (Fire, Saathiya) is smoking crack. Either way someone should take Mahabharat to the world, with its intricate plot, deep polar characters and intelligent stories it will go on to show what real epics are made of.

Ivory without a Merchant

Ismail Merchant the longstanding producer/director duo of classy independant films, died today in London. Indian born Merchant along with James Ivory, an American, made some 40 films together and won six Oscars spanning 4 decades. Infact, they are featured in The Guiness Book of records for longest standing partnership in films. Their movies were known for their high production values and low budget. Their movies usally spoke of class differences, aspirations and love. Most of their stories are adapations of novels, including their latest Mystic Masseur (2001) which was based on Nobel winning novelist V.S Naipaul’s novel of the same name. It was also one of the few movies he directed rather than just producing it.

Their Oscar winning dramas A Room with a View(1985), Howards End (1992) as well as India oriented movies such as Shashi Kapur’s Shakespeare-Wallah(1965) made quite an impact in on both sides of the woods (Holly and Bolly).

He was currently shooting a film based on an unique friendship between 2 Nobel Laureates Rabindranath Tagore (India’s first) and french writer Romain Rolland.

Parineeta music mesmerizing!

Vidhu Vinod Chopra‘s films are known for its music. 1942 A love Story (RD Burman), Kareeb (Anu Malik?), Mission Kashmir (Shakhar Ehsaan Roy) had extraordinary music. His latest film based on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyaya‘s classic bengali novel Parineeta, simply rocks! Listen to it at Raaga.com.

Sonu Nigam croons, lulls, mesmerizes and Shreya Ghosal transports you 2 feet off ground. Perfect rhythm and lullaby from first time composer Shantanu Moitra – as promising as Ismail Darbar on his debut Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam – future looks very bright for him as long as he keeps his higher standards. Listen to the song Kasisi Paheli Zindgani a titlating number where he takes AR Rehman’s Hello Mr.Edhirkatchi (Iruvar – Tamil) head on, and even manages to upstage it thanks to Sunidhi Chuahan’s sexy rendition.

Worth every kb in gold.

This is the second time in as many years that a Bimal Roy – Sarat Chandra film have been remade, the first was Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas, and now this -

 devdas.jpg Parineeta.jpg

500 week run!

05ddlj2.jpg

One of the evergreen Indian films of all time – Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (The one with pure heart will conquer the girl) released in 1995 completed its 500th week in Bombay’s Maratha Mandhir Cinema Hall. Apparently it is still running full houses on weekends and public holidays!

This is the film that started the trend to pander the NRI’s and tug their purse strings in the guise of nostalgic entertainment. This one did it the best – lush beautiful locales, catchy music, wonderful screen chemistry and high production values. This film worked at all levels, like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (Who am I to you?)

‘Lets Talk’ – review

Poster DSR-PD100

I came across an indie movie ‘Let’s Talk’ from India at my local Mercer Island Library. The premises sounded interesting, so I picked it up last week and watched it yesterday. It is a small budget movie, shot with 3 actors and 2 rooms. I have a fascination with movies shot with limited resources, locations and characters. I like to see how they pull it off. This movie was shot with a $2,500 Sony DSR-PD100 3-Chip DVCAM with anamorphic adapters. The movie was then reverse telecined to 35mm after being shot full digital. Apparently this is the first reverse telecined movie in India.

The story is simple: Radhika bears a child out of wedlock, and mentally conjures up different ways her husband Nikil (Boman Irani) would react when she tells him. I was immediately reminded of Harold Ramis’ excellent Groundhog Day (1993) – one of my fav all time movies. Lets see if it is an inspired effort or an original one.

Structure
Why am I talking about its Structure ? Coz it is so unique that it forms the backbone of this movie. It is a straightforward ‘non-linear’ format (pun intended). It is based on Indian Classical Musical form Tumri – where the same lyric is repeated over and over in different moods. So here the lead character imagines how her husband will react when she breaks him the news. So we go through a cycle of Depression, Denial, Disbelief, Anger, Understanding, Violence and Jealousy. Each non-linear transitional portions are musically overlapped with tumri music with “Do you know what is love?”. There is also an unnecessary sub-plot as jarring as bad rock music.

Review:
As a new-age movie, the dialogues were excellent – so natural and flows like a normal conversation between two people. It was almost impossible to believe the dialogues were simply rehearsed lines spoken by actors. It had overlaps, casual mannerisms, off track dialogues. Full marks to the dialogues team (which comprised of both lead actors and director) to have perfectly captured the lingo of upper middle class Mumbaiites.

Boman Irani (famous for Munnabhai MBBS) is excellent as Nikil – but sometimes his acting goes over the top or he looks uninterested. But to his credit many times I almost forgot he is an actor, he was just Nikil (the scene in which he demands Radhika to discuss the issue with him right now – he shows irritation which looks so real that it made me clench my fist uneasily – excellent). Miai as Radhika was very good – but very hollow – I don’t know if it is the character which she plays is hollow or her acting was.

Direction by Ram Madhavani was unfortunately very visible. He used a few gimmicks which took away the sophistication from the movie. Use of digital camera gave the director a good opportunity to extract spontaneous performances from his actors – as digital productions tend to have smaller crew and un-intimidating equipment which relaxes the actors. Lighting and cinematography was poor – and as usual the blame was shifted on Digital Medium. Poor composition, blown out highlights, and glaring lighting doesn’t give the film makers an excuse to blame the medium. But that is exactly what they did. You can easily spot the cinematographers shadow in the screen and lighting from odd places. Who would keep a bright light on the top shelf of a kitchen cabinet ? Only those who require sidelight to fall on actors face. So obvious mistakes like these distract the viewer and take us off track wondering about whose shadow was it on screen – like I was.

Sound design was very good, and so was sound mixing. They had a few blue screening – which also was a bit gimmicky but I guess it was a necessary gimmick to show overlap. Overall a good novel effort – pushed to big league due to extremely natural dialogues, and situational simplicity – but the overall movie didn’t impress me as I had a hard time trying to figure out who the real Nikil was, and what would have really happened in those 6 scenarios had the real character been present. Good to know indie films are getting decent distribution in India (Shringar Films), and how well they stand is up to the content of the movie. For a movie like this, once the novelty falls off the content should keep people glued. But due to the lack of any impending foreseeable resolution as audience we lose interest in the characters.

Credits:
Director: Ram Madhvani
Producer: Shift Focus (Ram Madhvani and Sumantra Ghosal)
Actors: Boman Irani, Maia Katrak, Anahita Uberoi
Scriptwriters: Maia Katrak, Boman Irani, Sanjay Sipahimalani, Ram Madhvani
Music: Ram Sampath
Cinematographer: Sumantra Ghosal

*** (3/5)

National Geographic Finalist!!

Woohoo!! to be read like Homer’s “woohoo”
I can’t hold my excitement any longer. As it is apparent from the not so subtle title – you might have guessed it… yes…the Holy Grail for Photographers…National Geographic, yes, the real one – the one with bright canary yellow borders, contacted me to inform me that my pics has been selected as the Grand finalist in the prestigious National Geographic Celebrate Photography issue!

I just faxed the model release form to their NewYork HQ. I donno if its National Geographic’s fascination with traditional Indian culture or her sweet smile or my photographic capabilities – I am glad to be a finalist.

My Hema

From : < ...@nationalgeographic.com>
Sent : Thursday, December 2, 2004 8:49 AM
To : ramganesh@hotmail.com
Subject : National Geographic Photo Contest

Hi Ram,

Your photo has made it to our last rounds. In order for us to fully consider your submission, we will need a copy of the signed model release form. Please fax your completed model release form for your “Indian Bride” photo (file name hema2.jpg) to 202-857-XXXX.

Thank you for your cooperation and good luck!

If you have further questions regarding the contest, do not hesitate to contact me.

Leigh XXXX
Production Assistant
NationalGeographic.com
1145 17th St. NW
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 857-XXXX