Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaya

BottomLine : Great music, neat performances , good dialogues , nice cinematography and a mature love story makes VTV a must watch!

On my first viewing, i thought it was a good movie, which could have been a lot better - certain scenes could have been handled better,that more time should have been spent on building up certain scenes to release the dopamine from the audiences. But after my second viewing , i feel its an awesome movie.

A.R.Rahman - what can i say! The 10-15 mins of the movie were extremely enjoyable for me,with the maestro's score in the background. The songs - sheer brilliance! Gautam Menon has been meticulous in capturing the songs,it works wonders. The timing of Aoromale - one of my favorite scenes in the movie. Speaking of favorite scenes ,there are several - the NewYork park scene, the scene outside Jessi's house when he returns from Goa(the conviction in the voice and the face of Trisha), the calls n text messages to him when he is in Goa, Trisha after going back to her room saying ,"oh what have i done" , Karthik's emotions on hearing 'its over' , karthik locking horns with jessy's brother on the rooftop :) - and how can i not mention the songs,hosanna,anbil avan, mannipaya, kannukul kannai -makes me want to watch the movie again!

For once, Simbhu and Trisha have acted,yes actually acted (thanks to Gautam Menon). Hope Simbhu dons roles with some substance in them in the future. Ganesh has done a nice job :) ('jessy jessy solludha?' is also one of my favorite scenes!). Their characters, Karthik and Jessy, are real life,and the part that i liked most is that Jessi has her flaws,who goes back on her words,who doesnt know what she has to do,who is caught in the middle between her love for Karthik,and the respect for her dad's wishes.

Vinnai Thaani Varuvaya - in a long time, i've come out of a theatre feeling satisfied. Waiting to go for it a third time!

Tamil cinema at its nadir

The last 10 visits to the theatres to watch tamil flicks have been,to say the least,extremely disappointing - the sorry state of tamil cinema lacking quality and merit,the brand of films being released now is absolutely pathetic - cannot even think of rivalling those yester year classics or anywhere near the horizon of being labelled a modern classic. Huh...let being called a modern classic alone,they should strive to be called as watchable first up!

These films include :

Kuruvi (started with this,setting new lows for tamil cinema,challenging others to beat this low line mark!)

Silambattam (God Forbid! Unbearble.)

Kadhalil vizlunthaen ( No,thank you.)

Padikathavan( Cant believe they still make films like these in 21st century)

Maasilamani ( sunaina was the reason i saw..better should have stuck to seeing still camera pics)

Muthirai ( the only muthirai that this movie leaves on you is the mark of stunningly bad cinema)

We can take a little heart though-there were a few that were watchable,and infact was good in parts , n even better in certain parts : Pollathavan , Vaaranam Aayiram , Abiyum Naanum , Yaavarum Nalam - easily watchable,worth one visit to the theatre.

On the whole , Hopeless.

I watched Cinema Paradiso this afternoon,and what a movie that was!! Simple,elegant,very moving piece of cinem - the name says it all. Hoping for the day that such movies are made in Tamil.

A lost cause? Lets see.

Movie Comments : Muthirai

Directed by : Srinath

Music : Yuvan Shankar Raja

Starring : Nitin Satya , Daniel Balaji , Lakshmi Rai , Manjari Padnis .

BottomLine : A movie you will never regret missing,or rather will definitely regret that you went to the theatres.

Suspend reason, forget that you know there is something called 'fluidity' between scenes, forgive the poor acting , for your own sake ignore the fact that all characters lack intelligence , ignore the poor sets,and most importantly, know that this is a very cliched script that you can guess the plot well before it actually unfolds - then perhaps you might think this movie is not so bad.

Background score is average overall,and at times tries hard to lift the movie with the suspense-music , but fails to evoke any thrills because the acting and the direction lets it down awfully.

But the camera work and the stills are good,so helps the film be more bearable , atleast the visual aspect. Cinematography saves some face for the team.

So here s the story,for those who are still interested (on paper its sorta good,but the execution,a pretty sloppy affair).

(Two separate stories join together jus before the intermission)

The movie starts with the political murder of the Chief Minister who s in a meeting with a senior party member and with the CM's brother. Discussion turns into an argument and on the shake of the camera the CM,his brother,the aid and a security guard all lie in a pool of blood- we later know that CM dies,his brother s in coma,the aid is shot in the arm.The brother is blamed for the shoot out. The senior leader says he doesnt care for political power and wants to serve the people as a simple party worker - having watched tamil cinema for so long , you are almost sure that he is the bad guy.Then it shifts to the second line of events.

Daniel Balaji is a tough (!) and smart(!!please) city-dwelling con who deals with high level crime,passports for instance,as is shown.Atleast this is what was expected to reach audience i'm sure - the tatoos across his upper body and his curt manner are attributes that are meant to point in that direction i guess. He has his own private apartment where he doesnt let anyone enter , and is furnished apparently of expensive items . The sets let you down-not as impressive as you would expect of a rich con with taste (or no taste! this would make better sense).

Nitin Satya is a petty thief , who introduction scene is : women with broomsticks in hand (lead by his mother )and men with sticks chase him down the streets , and several scenes to depict that he is a street smart thief (several characters appear to tell you what his crimes are). Since his cover in his village is blown, he migrates to the city. He also talks too much on screen,and if the director thought that it was in good humour,sorry it wasnt. It gets annoying after a point -only a couple of phrases in the entire length of the movie manages to bring a smile.

As expected they come across each other - in a pub (again poor sets) - here s a song starring Rakhi sawant with her crass glamour - The passports Daniel has spills out from his pocket,and there you go you have a pub-shattering fight with the security guards there,and Nitin saves him from a guard who comes to stab Daniel - they become bestu friends - Daniel takes him to his apartment and you would almost say they are romancing seeing the doting scenes that follow - Nitin coming from village doesnt know to use the gadgets and Daniel hittin his head evertime for his silly errands (for instance he doesnt know the difference between body spray and room spray).

Next are the love interests - Lakshmi Rai for Daniel and Manjari Padnis (Meghna Character from Jaane tu ya jaane na) paired with Nitin Satya. Manjari plays the pretty-girl-with-absolutely-no-brains character(her dream guy is someone from the CBI or the military), i mean who believes a guy who says he s from the CBI when he s caught sneaking in a womens college (he says he s come to catch a guy who plans to plant a bomb in the campus) and she believes him , and voila , love bug has bit both of them - and there you have a duet.

The movie has several such incidents,and even i'm bored of typing for so long- so i ll cut it short - the songs slam the breaks on the flow of the movie - the 2 couples are caught up in the murder trail of the CM - they come into possession of a laptop which has video evidence of the murder- (the hidden cam can zoom and turn and focus on faces from all angles..the starting scene is played frame by frame in the video ( dei...yosikave maatingalada??)) - police chase them - they run away - bad guys catch up with them - fight - duet after fight sequence (come on,hero wud like hot romance after every bad guy gang they beat up right) - they blackmail bad guy - bad guy tries to double cross - but clever hero double crosses the double crosser - police catches the bad guy - justice is done -...phew.

I went to this movie,because i had nothing to do that evening.

Could have slept at home.