Raavan Extended Preview

Contemporary Logic

1. This physics teacher teaches physics badly so physics must be wrong.

2. I am neither a physics student nor trained in it but I have a degree in basket weaving. Since I have good logical skills in that subject, I think I know everything that is there to know about physics so I will say that both this physics teacher and physics are completely meaningless.

3. Don't ask me to go and read a good physics book or meet experts in that field. Its a bunch of nonsense. I have made up my mind already. I will pick only bad teachers as examples to reconfirm my belief.

Meenkodi Theril: Karumbu Vil

'Mottai' has put some amazing tunes over the years. Many of them for good movies that gave the songs much needed attention. And quite a few of them for sucky movies featuring actors with dumbass looks (look at the hero's expression at 1:15 to see what is referred to in maama circles as "poittu alambikaama vandha look" from the water scarcity days).

This song is from a rather unknown movie and is a particular favorite of mine. It found a place in most IR collections I had. The director of this movie must've realized at some point that IR handed him a fantastic tune. He puts in the 'marriage reception' type special effects on the extremely hot Jayasudha as she dances with oomph and mesmerises the lungi-clad teenagers in Thanjavur Kamala theater.

But I digress from the real point of the post. What a song and what a tune. 'mottai' seems to casually (as they say 'anaayasama') throw out a song that magically mixes a sensational voice and orchestration with a folk variant of 'omaha zeeeya' koluvai sound. 30 years later this song is still awesome.

Raavan Trailer

புத்தாண்டு

இனிய தமிழ் புத்தாண்டு (விக்ருதி வருடம்) நல் வாழ்த்துக்கள்

Chillin' Out

In a typical domestic war most -> all women accuse their husbands of being stuck to the laptop and not paying attention to proceedings. The common charge is "there you go again.. with that laptop, doing that useless browsing with that stupid empty smile on your face. I don't know what you see in that laptop everyday".

Firstly, if so many men are doing it there must be something very important in the laptop that warrants our attention. Therefore women should recognize the importance of us having to pay attention to non-trivial matters of the laptop. Secondly, the opportunity cost of being on the laptop is negligible. There is no guarantee that we won't get yelled at while doing the thing we devote our attention to after we close the laptop. Thirdly, I don't think men are reading what they are browsing. I am assuming net surfing is like TV channel surfing. You do it for pretense but are actually lost in some parallel world. Teenagers call it 'chillin out'.

Lastly, that empty smile - thats the light indicator telling you that the 'chillin out' process is still cooking.

Paiyya

Good that they celebrated 'Success of Paiyya' barely 1 day after the movie got released. There would have been no need for this had they waited.

I am not sure what was going on in Karthi's head when he chose a bad director such as Lingusami for his 'I want to breakaway from C Center stereotype' movie. Lingusami has consistently made bad movies. He has also shown that he has zero tolerance for creativity or entertainment in his movies. I can see how this movie tries to portray Karthi as an urban (it gives Karthi A center costumes but C center dialogs) person and gives his career arc some diversity. But is this the best one can do in this genre? What this movie goes on to demonstrate is that there are no (a) good masala movie directors in Tamil Cinema and (b) good comedians who can accompany new generation actors or carry their own comedy track.

'Paiyya' looks like 'ngoiyya' because (a) it misses a comedy element that is key for success of any masala movie , (b) Lingusami does the moronic formula of While (1) {fight, drive, fight, drive, fight, drive} and (c) its ridden with cliches and lacks pace. Any movie that begins (kandasamy is an example) with fast paced cuts of a city landscape has got a screwed up definition of what "fast paced" narration means. Its not the quick cuts but the tempo of the storyline. And please lets stop with the one guys beats up 60000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 people in 3 milli seconds segment. You could have a million people thrice the size of Karthi show up and he still beats them, flies in the air and beats them, jumps in the car and beats them. Bheema indulged in such nonsense. Tamil cinema has seen enough clenched fists and knuckle crunching sounds. Is this the best 'action' Lingusami can do? Can't there be more creativity in the genre?

The songs in Paiyya are fantastic. Almost every single song was really good. Strangely this movie has more male-voice centric songs (female voice ranged from completely absent to 2 stanzas). My favorite song was "en kaadhal solla neram illai". However, there was simply no class shown in picturizing the songs. Karthi carries himself well in choreographed songs and does well inspite of the poor environment given to him. There is some charm he exudes that even Surya does not have. If Karthi wants to break away from the stereotype and be a good 'experimental movie actor' + 'masala movie hero' he should breakaway from the hordes of Tamil cinema heros who show up on screen unshaven (whats with everybody having a 3 days beard) and beating up a million baddies with bare hands. There is no need to be shy about mouthing dialogs in a non-cheri way. Sophistication is not a bad thing. C Center audience may like it. Look at Kaakhi Sattai or Kadhal Parisu. They are classic masala movies with a good storyline. Those are good examples masala movies. Paiyya is a prisoner of the 'Kollywood' formula. Karthi could have done a much better masala movie than this.

Holy Moley

I heard an over-enthu desi say "holy moley" in the the middle of the conversation with white people. Maybe he was trying to be a dude, or he saw too many Captain Marvel cartoons and thought it sounded right inside his head. But when he said it in a desi accent - it came out very funny. Couldn't suppress a giggle. Its not that hermes root will not protect the desi god. But there is a good reason why desis don't say things like "holy moly" "great Scott!" "holy smoke" or for that matter "ten thousand thundering typhoons" or "blistering blue barnacles". The only exclamation that seems to fit a desi accent, ironically, is "holy cow".

Thillu Mullu BGM

The famous BGM that comes in the first 7-8 seconds of this clip is actually taken from an English song. Not trying to diss MSV here. I still love his music. Does anyone know which song it is "adapted" from? I have gone completely nuts trying to remember the song (i think it has words "Alice" "something" "alone" but not very sure). Help!



Update: Thanks to Sreekrishnan. Found it.