Srinivasa is the tall guy that sits with her in the Data Structures class. He hails from Nellore and has only a vague idea of how big Amitabh Bachchan is up north, but he gets Data Structures really well. He used to look down upon Harpreet because she sucked at Computer Science, but every time he did , he ended up staring at the prettiest pair of boobs in the world. And so, he fell in love with her.

Harpreet, on the other hand, liked the guy — especially on days he did her homework for her — but she wasn’t in love with him or anything. It didn’t help that he kept mixing up Lata and M.S.Subbulakhmi all the time. “I always have trouble differentiating between old women singing in alien tongues,” he told her when confronted. She wasn’t impressed at all by that answer…

Harpreet didn’t know it then, but change was in the air.

A few days later, Harpreet came down with a nasty flu that brought the meanest headache along. She took a Tylenol, and asked her roommate Aparna Shah if she could bring her a bowl of Campbell soup, but Aparna refused because the Campbell soup in the refrigerator was purchased from her share of the grocery fund.

Unable to counter her roomate’s sound logic, Harpreet went hungry that afternoon, and was delirious by the time Srinivasa came to visit her. He had stopped by to find out if she had really bunked classes to “be with her boyfriend,” like his friend Ravikiran had speculated.

Moved by her plight (and by the sight a pretty girl coiled vulnerably on a used Sealy Mattress), he made her some soup, and then sat by her bed and said comforting things to her until she fell asleep. He then watched the Tonight Show and spent the night on the couch in her apartment. He could’ve walked to his place, but it was his turn to cook today.

The next day, he woke up, used Aparna’s Listerine, made some coffee and drank it together with Harpreet. He experienced bliss, or something like it.

This pattern continued for a few days, and Harpreet no longer had the flu, though she was still not attending classes because she felt weak. Sri wasn’t going to classes either, “to provide her some company.” He was now a regular in Harpreet’s apartment, regular enough that his toothbrush was in her bathroom, and regular enough for Aparna Shah to demand that he pay 14% of the rent that month. Things were going very well indeed…

“What do you like? ” he asked her that afternoon, acting on advice from Ravikiran “to find out her likes and dislikes.”

“My favorite thing in the world is Amitabh Bachchan”

“My favorite thing would be my iPod. But I do like Amitabh Bachchan. He is a great actor.”

“Really? Thats so sweet. What’s your favorite movie of his? ”

“Err…I thought Shahenshah was great. So was Giraftar ”

“Shahenshah? Even I couldn’t stand that one. Tell me the truth now — how many Bachchan movies have you watched?”

“Only those two on the video coach bus from Madras to Bangalore. Nellore theaters only play Telugu and Tamil movies. But there was a lot of potential in his angry eyes.. I could see it very clearly.”

“Oh you poor thing. That’s such a sad story… I need to show you how much you are missing.”

So she said, and put in a copy of Black into their Apex DVD player. A few minutes into the movie, and Sri hits the pause button.

“So you say Amitabh Bachchan is a big star in Bollywood, right? ”

“Of course, he is a superstar. ”

“If that is so, how come the title card doesn’t say SuperStar Amitabh Bachchan. If I call him a Megastar, would that be ok?”

“Yes, he is a megastar, a superstar, a huge star. The biggest there is.”

“He can only be one star. Tell me which one. ”

“I don’t think I understand where this is going. ”

Sri takes her hand, and holds it against his chest.

“Baby, before you explain Amitabh Bachchan to me, let me explain the Southern movie industry to you. ”

“I am all ears. ”

And thus the lesson begins.

“Down south, we tell people exactly what kind of star every actor is right in the title card. ”

“How so? ”

SuperStar!

“Like Rajinikanth is the Superstar. Every movie of his, right at the beginning, will have a powerpoint animation that shows the letters SUPER STAR flying into the screen, with an awful cover version of the James Bond Theme playing in the background. He owns the title, it belongs to him. If someone else uses it, his fans will enforce copyright laws by doing nasty things to him. ”

“I see. ”

“But the domicile of the copyright only extends to the state. ”

“Is domicile a Telugu word? ”

SuperStar, Mark Two

“No.. err, whatever. I meant to say that Rajinikanth is the SuperStar only in TamilNadu. In Andhra Pradesh, Krishna is the SuperStar.”

“How sweet. I love Krishna … my whole family worships him. ”

“I worship Krishna too. No one looks better in an orange jumpsuit.”

“Yes, yes. Go on though — let’s not talk about Gods now.”

“Gods? Oh I see now. For a second I thought SuperStar Krishna was famous in Punjab.”

“You know, I like Kamalhassan a lot. What type of star is he? ”

“You like Kamalhassan? Wait till you watch Hey Ram. And just for the record, he used to call himself the Universal Hero, but now he prefers PadmaShree. ”

“Oh! ”

“Yeah, one of the reasons he is not as popular as Rajinikanth is that he doesn’t have a fixed name for himself. How will people know if the Universal Hero is acting in this movie or if it is the Padmashree. ”

“Quite true. This is so interesting. Let’s munch on a paratha while you tell me more.”

Merely a revolutionary Actor.

“The Tamils are obsessed with revolutions. And stars. MGR started off calling himself the Revolutionary Leader, and then Vijaykanth became the Captain formerly known as the Revolutionary Artist and Sathyaraj became the Revolutionary Tamil.

“Great. I can’t say I’ve heard of all these people. I never knew that people named their kids Merely.”

“Merely? No, he is actually…”

“Before you move on, I have a question. Is Ultimate bigger than Super? Is Multiple greater than Revolution? Is Supreme better than Multiple?”

Multiple.

“The hierarchical rules are very complex. Lets just say there is Super, and then there is the rest. Let me also add that Multiple is less than everything else.”

“By the way, who gives them these names?”

“Give? What do you mean give?”

“Well.. someone has to name you, right?”

“Usually, they just wait for a movie or two. If someone doesn’t call them by an epithet, they just pick one they like.”

“This is so fascinating. Another paratha?”

“Sure. Now if Tamil fascinates, Telugu megafascinates.”

“You got a great vocabulary.”

“Thank you. You got a great… never mind.. so, the Telugu field is replete with star-sons. To account for this phenomenon, they pass epithets down from one generation to another with slight modifications.”

“Theory flies over my head. Give me examples.”

“I should’ve known that my honeybun. Chiranjeevi, the most popular star in Telugu, is the Mega Star. So when his brother made his acting debut, he chose to call himself the Power Star. Chiranjeevi’s father-in-law is the Ace Producer. He has another brother, and naturally enough, this brother is the Mega Brother.”

“Ok…”

“When Chiranjeevi’s nephew made his debut, he became the Mega Power Star. And when his son does make his debut, he will be the Yuva Mega Star”

Mega, Power, MegaPower. All Stars.

“Oh, what a simple algorithm. So if the another nephew debuts, he could be the Power Mega Star. Yet another could be the Mega Brother Power Star. And then Ace Power Brother Star Mega Yuva. This could go on for several generations.”

Real Star. Real Scary.

“Exactly! Ok, let me ask you something. There is a scary dude called Srihari — the Real Star. His wife is Disco Shanti, the ex-vamp. Now … ”

“Their son could be the Ex Star. Their daughter the Ex Vamp. Or VampEx. Finally an algorithm I get. ”

“Eh, maybe. I shouldn’t forget Tarun — who sounds like a girl and claims that his proudest achievement is his shoe collection — he calls himself the Lover Boy. Positive Reinforcement, sort of.”

One of these is the Lover Boy.

“Hmm… ”

“No such worries in the case of the Crazy Star: Ravi Teja. Prabhas is the Young Rebel Star, coz someone else took Rebel Star by the time he came on board.”

“Umm…”

“Anyways, moving on…”

“Can we stop here? I’ve been bored now for the last twenty lines. You don’t know where to stop”

“Ok, whatever you say, my Princess.”

“Princess? Aww. You are my Tera Star.”

“Our kid would be the PrinTer Star. Ha Ha Ha.”

“Eww. Pathetic. I am hungry now.”

“I am always hungry. For your love.”

“Stop it.”

And we will.

Someone meeting Manoj for the first time is usually struck by two things: How much he loves movies, and how much he loves music. Ok, maybe they’ll also be struck by how smart he is. Whatever. That’s not the point.

So anyways, Manoj and I spend the better part of our days IMing each other. In normal English, capitalized first words and all. (The only allowance for IMspeak is the ubiquitous brb, which I thought was a misspelt female undergarment when someone first used it on me. Now I know, and love to use it coz it sounds so, um, kinky.)

Illeana is hot, man.

BRB.

Damn, Bluffmaster is a copy of Criminal.

BRB.

Nayantara sucks, dude.

I am sleepy now.

BRB.

Please bear with me, this is going somewhere.

To cut a long story short, we thought it would be fun if we could start a movie blog focusing on Indian movies. As an added incentive for me, I get to hang out with great writers at both my blogs.

Although the ostensible purpose of the blog is to share bits of movie wisdom we find interesting, to review movies we like and to share the occasional photo we like (*slurp*), the real purpose is to bash Nayantara. She sucks.

We’re tired of writing long posts (at least I am) and we’ll try to keep the entries short, snarky and sweet. (What’s wrong with lofty goals?). In other words, it’ll be like an IM conversation with the whole world. Damn, thats almost patentable.

And before I forget, here’s the URL: http://www.silverscreen.in (aren’t you jealous we got such a cool name?).

To give credit where it is due, the idea originally came from Lavanya. Now she’s someone that loves movies. Enough to watch even the worst movie in the world with patient indulgence to the very end, and then stoically comment on how bad it was before changing DVDs. Enough to watch at least a movie a day — language no bar — for several years now. Enough to accumulate a database in her head of all the obscure movie trivia that’s fit to print.

I tried to recruit her to write, but it didn’t go too well.

Will you write for the movie blog you wanted us to start?

No, I’d rather watch a movie in that time.

Why don’t you try?

Can you not talk during the movie?

PS: Thanks to DoZ for looking over the template, to Kuzhali for looking over the template a million times (and asking me to remove shady banners), to Prash for help with (what else?) the template.

We watched four horrid Tamil movies. While that in itself is not remarkable, what is remarkable is that we have refrained from reviewing any of them. Even this post is not a review per se. It is about celebrating the movies in question and rewarding them for the things they did.

And so, without further ado, Ladies, Pharmaceutical Industry Representatives and other Gentlemen, here we go.

The Freakist Bird Flu-ke Award:

Kamna Jethmalani, the lead girl in Idhaya Thirudan wants to send an anonymous email to her mom. She types up the email — whose contents are the proud recipients of another award — but she can’t figure out how to sign the email.

Unable to pick a random name, she picks up a pigeon hovering nearby and lays it gently on top of the keyboard. The pigeon walks back, then forth. Then forth again, and back once more. And then flies away, to leave the half dressed girl staring at the screen.

The pigeon had just keyed in T. Mahesh, which happens to be the name of.. you guessed it, the hero of the movie. What an incredibly clever way to move a story forward. Anyone out there who still thinks our moviemakers are unimaginative?

The Best Case Against Intelligent Design Award:

A no brainer here. Kamna Jethmalani, the lead girl in Idhaya Thirudan wants to piss her mom off. She thinks for an instant about her modul operandi, and then promptly takes her clothes off — at least all the clothes the censors would let her take off. She then takes lewd pictures of herself using a mobile phone, attaches the pictures to an email, uses a pigeon to sign the email and hits send.

Honorary mention: The two people who paid hard earned ringgits to go watch Kalvanin Kadhali.

The Inspired Acting Award:

Madhavan, long haired lead man in Thambi puts in an inspired performance as the (translated) Che Guevera quoting leftist rebel who beats people up to teach them the value of non violence.

Unfortunately, he chooses the wrong person to draw inspiration from — Jyothika in Chandramukhi. He rolls his eyes and shakes his head and thrusts his face and yells his dialogues and dances like a guy. Thankfully, there was no Telugu song playing in the background or we wouldn’t have known the difference.

The “Gratuitous Mention of Better Half in a Very Cool Context” Award:

To Renuka Menon, village belle in Kalaba Kadhalan, for going to an ice cream parlor and asking for Lavanya ice cream. Turns out she meant Vanilla, but couldn’t remember the right name because she happened to be a village belle. But still.

The Tom Cruise Award for Dumb Psychatrists:

To the Psychiatrist lady in Kalaba Kadhalan. The plot revolves around a girl falling for her sister’s husband. The husband tries his best to shoo her away, but she keeps singing steamy songs with him in her dreams. And finally, the exasperated husband goes seeks help from the psychiatrist. Her suggestion?

“Such girls like forceful men, so go talk to the moron who used to harass her in public in her native village. From what you say, I get the feeling he is madly in love with her. Ask him to come woo her. And ask him to be forceful. That will fix her up good.”

The moron arrives, and then goes on to rape the girl.

The Blank Noise Awards for Bringing Harrassment Out Into the Open:

S.J. Surya, for trying to look down an unsuspecting Nayanthara’s dress in Kalvanin Kadhali.

S.J.Surya, for going up to a guy who had just pinched his unsuspecting girlfriend in public(the hapless Nayanthara again) and advising him to use his “mouth” instead. A pregnant pause later, he clarifies that he meant for the guy to talk his way into a woman’s heart. Yeah right. To paraphrase Seinfeld (thanks Manoj), we are offended by how lame the joke was.

The motley crew of actors in Kalaba Kadhalan, who ask a raped girl to “stop being dumb” and “not act like a stuck up bitch” and marry the guy who raped her. Extra special mention of the girl’s mom, who strikes the girl really hard and then cries for a long time, probably because her hands hurt.

Honorary Award for the Sudden Use of Shudh Tamil to Startle Someone:

To hep, modern Pooja, long haired Madhavan’s girl in Thambi.

She wins an award of some sort in the movie (not from a blog) and a friend congratulates her:

“Congratulations!“

Pooja startles the poor girl with her response: A perfectly articulated “Nandri.” The friend’s expression was priceless.

One would do well to remember that the movie was directed by a dude called Seeman, who is a Tamil lover.

Another Honorary Award for the Consistent Use of Crude Tamil to Startle Everyone:

To Arya, Kalaba Kadhalan’s lead man, suave software engineer, for switching over to a dreadful variation of Madras Bashai whenever he gets excited.

To Arya, Kalaba Kadhalan’s lead man, for remaining excited throughout the movie.

The “I will give it to myself if you don’t” award:

To Jayam Ravi, pigeonpicked boyfriend of Kamna in Idhaya Thirudan. For stealing a trophy meant for the winners of a shooting contest, and then taking the trouble to attach the trophy — all two feet of it — to his motorcycle and not taking it off till the very end of the movie.

The Most Ostentatious Display of Bibliophilia Award:

To Manivannan in Thambi. For walking around with a collection of translated leftie literature in a dirty old bag. The books will later save his life.

The (Faithfully Following a Fad) or (Boldly Inventing a Trend) Award:

To Igore, director of Kalaba Kadhalan for giving himself a Russian name, and then adding an e to the end in a nod to numerology. We believe this was inspired by Myshkin, director of Chithiram Pesudhadi who named himself after a Russian literary character.

Unless Igore arrived at his name by removing an N from Ignore, in which case, he gets the Boldly Inventing a Trend award. When you watch the next movie directed by Mron or Idot, you will know who their inspiration was.

The Scene With the Most Educational Value Award:

Idhaya Thirudan (which would’ve swept the awards if not for a little category tweaking we did) takes this one by a mile.

So a guy and a girl find themselves locked in a themepark called Snow World. True to its name, the theme park starts blowing in a lot of cold air to keep the snow from melting. It gets colder and colder. The girl runs to the guy, hugs him real tight. Cut to song.

The next day, the girl tells the guy that her hugging him was purely to take advantage of the principles of Heat Transfer as stated in reference books on Thermodynamics. Yes, that is exactly what she said.

We can go on in this vein, but we are bored. Not as bored as we were when we watched three of these movies over a single weekend, but that’s a mark that will likely not be beat any time soon.

Bhavna clutching an umbrella, Sunil clutching an underarm.

The boy: toughie, hired goon, bearded brute, all rough edges and bad acting, tall and dark and not so handsome.

The girl: heart that bleeds for all, assists helpless people cross roads, smooth and pretty and voluptuous and rich and pretty and smooth. Sigh. I mean, scratch the sigh.

How could they not fall in love? And how could he not turn over a new leaf, bringing a few oddball leaves along with him to keep him entertained at newdom? And how could their wedding plans not be rudely interrupted by her seeing him visit someplace not nice? And how could they not… well, no spoilers on this blog folks. By the way, for the record, this post is about a movie called Chithiram Pesudhadi.

“Ordinary plot,” you want to say, “hackneyed and trite, tried and tested (and failed).” True, we say, the movie is all that, but it has a little bit more going for it — it is disarmingly unpretentious and heartwarmingly earnest. The earnestness of a first time director striving hard — very hard — within his contraints to salvage something out of a mediocre script shines through every frame, drawing empathy from his viewers, and Chithiram manages to get off with sympathetic winces where another movie would’ve gotten a groan or two.

Kathir, Myshkin

The outlandishly named director of the movie — Myshkin — used to be called Raja before he decided to downgrade his name to something slightly less exalted and took on the name of the prince in Dostoevsky’s Idiot. Myshkin had possibly the worst start to his career one can imagine, when he had a chance meeting with director Kadhir at a bookstore. One thing led to another and Myshkin soon was assisting Kathir in some of his movies.

We are glad to report however, that Kadhir — the maker of such innovatively named masterpieces as Kadhal Virus (Love Bug) Kadhalar Dhinam (A Day for Love) and Kadhal Desam (The Country of, what else, Love) — seems to have influenced Myshkin very little. The only obvious influence we could discern was in the way they wear their hair, but even here Myshkin wins hairily handily.

Like most debutants, Myshkin has a lot of ideas. And like most debutants, he wants to use them all in his first movie. Chithiram Pesudhadi is crammed with a large array of fringe characters, each with a prequel, an odd quirk or two and plenty of screentime.

Most of that screentime is irrelevant to the central plot, but taken together the scenes add an element of whimsy to the proceedings, breaking up the monotony and lending an air of belivability. Like the friend of the former toughie, who angrily demands to know why the girl picked his friend over him and walks out of the restaurant in a huff, leaving his food untouched. And the other friend, who demands to know if he could eat the food thus left behind. Dry, mean, deadpan humor — just the way we like it. And while we are talking about good things, I loved the rather convincing backstory behind why the toughie was where he was when the marriage broke up. Old men have needs too.

When snotty people write book reviews, they usually enhance their review with a quote or two from the book. My ‘umble self, unable to diss the movie because it is all empathy for the earnestness of the director, will now “quote” scenes. And of course, it’ll put it all in blockquotes, so you can feel like you’re reading a book review.

Goons surround the toughie. Toughie’s expression changes from morose comtemplation to contemplative morosion. (He is quite versatile). He then walks to the farthest corner of the set, turns around and assumes the checking-if-my-shoelaces-are-off position.

Rowdy #1 is thoroughly confused by the sight of some same-sex ass. He runs forward to confront the offender and turn him around. He gets knocked out by a couple of lame ass blows that no self-respecting goon would fall for. In his defence though, this guy had just been blinded by a backside. I groan at my own alliteration, saving you the trouble.

Goon number 2 follows suit.

And so on till the scene ends.

If you are the sort of computer programmer who get a kick out of poor jokes, I would ask you to put the scene into a for loop that runs six times, but we don’t cater to that segment. So forget I said that and let’s move on to the next blockquoted scene(s).

There is this dude in the movie who sidekicks for the bad guy. He wears yellow all the time, and sings folk songs in return for cash. No pay, no song, never.

The yellow man is at a bar.

Two other people are at the bar as well. One of them heads to Mr. Yellow, and gives him money. “Sing!” he commands. Yellow demurs.

“But why Mr. Yellow? Aren’t you a sucker for some good old fashioned green?”

“I am normally. But today is a special day. My girlfriend died this day that age.”

“Oh!”

“And she died of jaundice, which is why I wear yellow all the time.”

Half the audience awws, the other half laughs. It was either an outstanding example of deadpan humor, or an incredibly corny flashback. The jury is still out on this one, as it is on the rest of the movie — while the press has been overwhelmingly positive, the box office hasn’t been very kind. Yet. And in that same vein, this reviewer’ll give it a lukewarm thumbs up, because:

1) He wath ambiguous about the movie.

2) He hath Ebertian delusions.

Chithiram Pesuthadi is written and directed by Myshkin and stars Sunil and Bhavna.

Scientists at the Universities of London, Birmingham and Warwick “loaded Christie’s novels onto a computer and analyzed her words, phrases and sentences.” The results of the study show that

[S]he peppered her prose with phrases that act as a trigger to raise levels of serotonin and endorphins, the chemical messengers in the brain that induce pleasure and satisfaction.

[Another] finding was that she used a very limited vocabulary. “It means that readers aren’t distracted and so they concentrate more on the clues and the plots,” said Dr Pernilla Danielsson from the school of humanities at Birmingham University. [Link]

Here’s Mark Lieberman’s take at the Language Log.

Christie used a limited vocabulary, “pleasing and gentle” language even though the plots were macabre, and repeated certain “mesmerizing” phrases over and over again to stimulate serotonin and other chemicals in the body.

Favourite words or phrases, repeatedly used in a “mesmerising” way, help to stimulate the pleasure-inducing side of the brain. They include she, yes, girl, kind, smiled and suddenly. Common phrases include “can you keep an eye on this”, “more or less”, “a day or two” and “something like that”. [Link]

Let’s summarize the recipe for bestsellers: Repeating the same things over and over again, gentle presentation, familiar phrases, sixth grade vocabulary. And let’s also state our opinion of the whole stylometric study: Duh! Just read any three books by Robert Ludlum, and you’ll know. Familiarity sells. Familiarity and simplicity, we are convinced, are the key ingredients that make popular art so… popular. Actually, duh again. There is a whole industry in India, um.. I mean, South Asia that has been using the formula successfully for ages — Indian movies are all about familiar settings, dumbed down plotting and an insistence on making audiences feel good. The next time someone asks Ram Gopal Varma why he keeps remaking his own movies (and those of others), he should quote Professor Danielsson, stylometry, serotonin, Agatha Christie and Antara Mali. And Anu Malik — what can I say? I respect him a lot more now. Something like that.

The repetitive nature of Bollywood means titling movies is a hard, hard task. How many ways can you headline the same article? Guy beats up Bad Guys, falls in Love with Girl. Girl Falls in Love with Guy who beat up Bad Guys. Bad Guys beaten up by Guy that Fell in Love with Girl. Love fallen into by Girl and Guy who beat up Bad Guys. And so on. Which, by the way, is a great segue into the next Agatha Christie finding.

According to a statistical study commissioned by Lulu.com, Agatha Christie’s Sleeping Murder is the “perfect title” for a bestselling novel and John Le Carre is the most consistent producer of “good” titles. [Link]

Figurative or abstract titles, such as “Sleeping Murder,” or “Presumed Innocent,” produce more top-sellers than literal ones, such as “The Da Vinci Code.”

A title’s length does not affect sales — contrary to publishingindustry wisdom, which decrees that bestseller titles be short. Another increased respect moment here. Remember all those Hindi movie titles: DDLJ. HAHK. K3G. Damn. These guys knew.

Through the Language Log a link to the statistical analysis tool used for the study. The Lulu Book Title Analyzer. Please don’t forget to leave comments complimenting the intriguing figurative title I chose for this post.

[Previous Post on why Bollywood is high literary art.]

PS: Agatha Christie picture courtesy The Free Library.

Last night, Smith wanted me to go to The Myth. It is a Jackie Chan movie starring Mallika Sherawat and Smith had read somewhere that Ms. Sherawat contrives to lose a strategic piece of her clothing in the movie for a split second. I wanted to go to Thavamai Thavamirunthu instead, because it is my strong opinion that movies like The Myth are best left to DVD players with pause buttons.

So I won, and we ended up going to Thavamai Thavamirunthu, directed by Cheran - the guy that made Autograph - and starring himself and a new girl called Padmapriya. After the movie, I had a pretty long conversation with Smith about what I was going to write in my review of the movie, and as we were wrapping up, he begged me to publish the conversation on this blog to provide people a window into his soul. He also wanted me to tell people that Xaviera Hollander is so much better than Raymond Carver.

Me: In fiction — both written and on film — details can mean the difference between good and great; between corny sentimentalism and touching poignancy. Descriptive details — she was beautiful, wide forhead, strong chin, pretty clothes, unsightly mole — are much easier on film than paper, a good director can reduce ten pages of Tolkien to a single shot. Narrative detail, on the other hand…

Mr. Smith: There you go again. Descriptive detail, Narrative detail. You bore me to death.

Me: Please, I hate being interrupted. Let me continue here. Narrative detail, on the other hand, is different. The reading audience has more patience than moviegoers, and will tolerate even digressive, detailed narratives better. The moviegoer has a limited attention span, and too much detail — man waking up, stretching, brushing, showering — usually does not go down well.

Mr. Smith: That’s coz people that read are fools. And yes, too much detail stinks unless it is a girl bathing. There is this movie in Malayalam where they show a girl taking a shower, and man it was very detailed and I liked it. Therefore, it is not like all details are bad. So,there you go.

Me: What’s your point?

Mr. Smith: My point is, the movie sucked. It was long, and the dude that acted in it kept crying. The girl was fully clothed throughout, and she was crying whenever he didn’t. So why don’t you just tell people that instead of going on and on about details?

Me: Aw, come on. A twenty word review on this blog? Scandalous.

Mr. Smith: Whatever. Go on and wake me up when you are done talking.

Me: Cheran’s Thavamai Thavamirunthu is a son’s tribute to his father. Rajkiran does an outstanding job as his dad that puts the welfare of his kids above his needs, and Cheran is the kid that never forgets how much his dad did for him. Once Cheran decided that this was going to be his premise, he look no further than Autograph: he took the movie and retooled it, using the same technique of a guy reminiscing about the past intercut with sequences from the present. The problem with the movie here is that it lacked the freshness of Autograph…

Mr. Smith: Wait, you mean you liked Autograph? Freshness? You are a mushy piece of…

Me:: Will you let me finish my sentences? I was going to say Autograph was corny, but it was the first attempt in Tamil cinema to move away from the traditional premise based format to something more informal.

Mr. Smith: Funny how you always use thirty words when all you needed was two. It was a Bad Movie.

Me: The problem with the movie was the length. It is obvious that Cheran wanted to make something that was deliberately paced, but deliberate pacing does not mean showing every single event in a sequence. When his wife delivers a baby in a hospital, the viewers know that the hero is broke. Yet Cheran has scenes of him not being able to pay the hospital, not having money to buy medicines, a scene of him riding a bicycle to try and borrow money and a scene of him coming back on the same bicycle without money.

Mr. Smith: That was terrible! How can someone watch a guy riding a bike for five minutes? Although I am pleased he didn’t wear Spandex. In fact, the movie was so boring, I’d rather have read your blog for three hours. Ha Ha!

Me: What else, smartass?

Mr. Smith: Why don’t you tell them how the dude managed to make his classmate pregnant? Or how she cries and cries for half the movie because of this? About how he tells his dad he could not face him after “defiling” a girl? Now, what the heck is that supposed to mean?

Me: Yeah, true. That was bad. Now please, get off the girl, and say something else.

Mr. Smith: Oh, I see. Let’s talk music.

Me: Sure. The music was pretty average…

Mr. Smith: Shut up, let me take over. The music was hideous, horrid and unpalatable. Some people cannot do slow songs ever. It was like reading Joyce while watching Will and Grace. Torture.

Me: Yeah, I think I’ll agree with you there.

Mr. Smith: Cool. So there you have it folks, Sucky movie. Too long. Too much crying. Bad music.

Me: In the interest of balance, I should say that the good things about the movie were, Rajkiran’s performance and well… At least I tried.

Mr. Smith: And when the critics try to tell you the movie was well-made and touching, please laugh.

I’d like to go on record that this review is not totally mine, and please don’t accuse me of snobbery. I love you all.

Cross-posted at teakada.

Blogging seems to be an activity with a very limited lifetime, and quite a few people are retiring rather early. Burnt out, bored, tired, whatever. As I toss and turn, I know that some day in the future, I will have to call it a day. And when I do, what would I leave behind? What will I be remembered for?

You see, dear reader, I am worried about my legacy. I am also slightly concerned about dozing off at work tomorrow, but let’s set that aside for a minute and talk about my legacy.

After giving it a lot of thought (three nights, no sleep) I think I have figured out what I need to do — I need to transfer my considerable knowledge of almost everything under the sun (except Konkani classical music) to people. After some more thought (one night, no sleep) I have decided that the best place for me to start this process would be movies.

As I write this, visions of numerologically correct movie titles that say “Thanks to Stochhasticcca” or “A Klassic Koncieved at Karthik’s Blag” cloud my mind. Maybe someone from Hollywood’ll pick up these lessons, and when she wins an Oscar she’ll say “I owe it all to Karthik”, as tear drops roll down her cheeks, fall on her neck and continue on downwards. Nice. Why did I not think of this earlier?

I will sleep a little and then come back and start off with the first lesson in the Stochastica Sinema School Series.

__________________________________________________

I am up now, and visions of that lonely tear drop still linger. Tempting as it is to start off with the acting school for women, I will selflessly start off the first lesson with tips on writing good punch lines for Indian movies.

But the truth is, if you don’t know how to write good punch lines, you will never make it big as a screenwriter in any language but Hindi. To be successful in Hindi, screenwriters need to make it big in Hollywood first. And oh, before I forget, the acting school for women will meet next week, soon after I get my haircut.

Let’s start with a question.

A fat man is beating up fit people. Unable to bear the overpowering strength of his flab, the fit guys have no option but to try and electrocute the fat man. But he is stronger than that, so the moment the wires touch him, the power station that generated the electricity that dared approach the fat man explodes. Spectacularly.

The fat man turns to the fit guys, and tells them, “Don’t be shocked! I can shock electricity!” He then swishes his hands, turns around and walks away in slow motion — the camera focusing on his fat ass. [Navin, you know now.]

What did he just do?

Answer, students, is that he just mouthed a punch line.

A punch line, to start off with a formal definition is:

1. A pithy piece of gibberish.
2. Spoken by mostly fat men in lead roles, but there are exceptions.
3. The point of which is to (appear to) highlight the virtues of the speaker.
4. The speaker of the line is the subject. (In other words, fat man on himself).

Another example of a punch line would be:

“If you try to touch a woman when George is around, George will turn into a man and turn you into a woman.”

Notice that George is the speaker, and the subtext of the sentence is that George would castrate the toucher. This technique of referring to oneself by one’s first name is quite popular and is employed in every other punch line. It is something you should file away for future use.

We will close this part of the lesson with a few more examples. Please try writing some more at home, and test them out by saying them out loud in crowded places. If you get into trouble, sue me, please.

Whenever people are in need, I help them. I can’t help doing this.

God might forgive you for this sin, but I will never forgive you. May God forgive me.

A type of punch line that is less frequently used is the pithy sentence about nothing. These are mostly spoken by the hero to a skimpily clad girl. After this sentence is spoken, the girl usually falls in love with the hero.

For a woman, not wearing mini-skirts is the only way to skirt trouble.

If you wear a dress with a plunging neckline
On you bad men will want to recline.
On them lies no blame,
for you have no shame.

.

The amount of trouble you invite is inversely proportional to the amount of clothes you wear.

This is only for classy movies, I think. Will work in A centers.

If your blouse is always cut high
and you act shy (by lowering your eye)
no man will open his fly
this is not a lie.

This one is poetic, so please email me before using this in your movie.

After the girl falls in love, she will proceed to dance with the hero on the alps, clad in a bikini. It is quite important to not have your leading man speak any punch lines now.

We are almost at the end of our lesson, folks. The last type of punch line is similar to the first type, except that some leading men don’t feel comfortable talking about themselves all the time. In such cases, we have a comedian mouth the line and this gives us the latitude to make it even more outrageous.

Lo and Behold!
Brother will turn sand into gold;
the young into old;
He will never be sold.

If you make women cry,
Brother will take a pan
put you in there and fry
you until you turn tan.

Nice observation, student number 1. Yes, indeed, a comedian should always call the hero brother.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the end of Stochastica Sinema School Lesson #1.

__________________________________________________

Before you leave, remember this: I am an electrical fire. Even water cannot touch me. Let me go back to sleep now.

So anyways, in deference to my secret (but not very strong) admirer, I will restrict myself to a strictly objective, factual reportage about this movie called Sivakasi. It is in Tamil, and it stars an actor called Vijay. What? Ok, sure. I will defer to the spirit of this report (objective, factual) and revise the last sentence. It is in Tamil, and it stars a person called Vijay.

Close Shaves:

A group of people headed by a guy called Palanquin Pandi surround another group of people. After a series of scuffles, Palanquin Pandi’s group reveals their motive — they want to know who heads the other group of people. “Fairly easy question,” I thought to myself. Regular movie watchers know what would happen next: The hero will come up to Palanquin and punch him a few times, and then look at the cameraman and inform him that he heads the group, and owns their hearts. Cue a song.

Now imagine my horror when the scene unfolded differently — someone that did not look like Vijay at all duly stepped forward, applied generous amounts of ash on his head and moved his hands up and down. “This guy, hero?”, “Oh no!”, “What the ..” were the thoughts that ran through my mind. The guy then used several long sentences and clever placement of a title card to inform the cameraman that the hero was wise and strong and that he was the director of the movie. I am not sure Palanquin got the point, but I heaved a sigh of relief. Phew.

What happens to the losers on Jeopardy?

Dad A complains to Dad B that Dad B’s son tried to rape his daughter. Dad B is very angry, and tries to beat up his son with a stout object. After a couple of blows that didn’t land that well, Dad B asks his son if he is indeed his son. The bemused son asks the dad to check with his mom. Unable to stand this question, dad promptly dies. Hard questions can kill.

What a total waist?

Music Director Srikanth Deva in a cameo appearance shakes his enormous waist to the beats of Maama Un Ponnai Kodu, an old Illayaraja number.

Actress Nayanthara in a cameo appearance shakes her enormous waist to the beats of a song I can’t remember. Coming to think of it, I am not even sure it was a song, but the waist was enormous. She is now a cabalite.

Best Song in the Movie:

Music Director Srikanth Deva in a cameo appearance shakes his enormous waist to the beats of Maama Un Ponnai Kodu, an old Illayaraja number.

The rap-like song (wanna, shake it, s to the i to the blah) that plays in the background. Music can be mirthful too.

Movies can educate too:

A male human being is defined as someone that:

a. Falls in Love with a girl.
b. Marries the girl.
c. Sleeps with the girl.

Any change in the order of events is not acceptable. What will happen to such people though? I want to ask someone, but I am afraid it might be a hard question.

Chicks will dig this:

Several (male) actors show off their thighs during fight sequences. I even detected a glimpse (or three) of undergarments. Sorry, no thongs though.

Biggest expense item:

The amount of ash purchased for the movie. The good guys show their goodness by applying generous amounts of it on their foreheads.

Second biggest expense item:

The amount of kum-kum purchased for the movie. The good guys show their goodness by applying generous amounts of it on their foreheads.

Dialogues heard the most:

“Start the car!”

“Beat that guy!”

Decrease most noticeable:

Quantity of clothes worn by Asin over the last few movies.

Increase most noticeable:

The number of times Vijay speaks to the cameraman. They must be close friends.

Optimism:

Majaa will be better. Surely.

Impossible:

The opinion of my dad — reliable critic, born, brought up and living in India still. Both movies are bad, Majaa is a tad worse. Such depths exist?

Cross-posted on teakada.

On second thoughts, do stay: Losing sixty percent of my two person strong regular readership is bad, so I will explain. Now here is how it works. After a plot is decided upon, a screenwriter sits down and writes the entire screenplay but wherever the screenplay has characters talking, he leaves the page blank. Like so:

Shriya enters the room from the left.

Sanjay is sitting on the bed.

Shriya:

Sanjay:

Shriya:

Sanjay:

Now Sanjay hugs Shriya. Takes off her red saree to reveal a black saree inside. Sanjay now brings his lips closer to Shriya’s lips. Giant rose covers lips. Shriya wipes off her lips sensuouly; camera focuses on her waist. Music begins. Cut to song.

Shriya:

Sanjay:

Shriya:

Sanjay:

Now Ms. Fancy-Schmancy, if you are still there, the person that fills the first set of blanks is the Dialogue Writer. And, yes, the person that fills the second set of blanks is the Lyricist.

In the real world, a conversation between Sanjay and Shriya would probably go,

Shriya: Hi, you are late.

Sanjay: Hello, you are hot.

Shriya: Thats so sweet, thank you.

Sanjay: Let me take off your clothes now.

Shriya: Ok.

Ok, I will stop here. My mind wandereth.

Once upon a time, the person that filled the first set of blanks had a clear-cut job description: he was to write exchanges that were completely different from any real world exchange ever. So he would write something like

Shriya: Sweetheart, why art thou cometh late. I waited long, took a shower, and have withered like yonder flower.

Sanjay: Huh? I had to go to the loo. But now that I’m here, let me stick to you like glue.

The more unrealistic it was, the more people would clap and whistle. Easy enough. Today though, things are murkier. The Dialogue Writer is expected to be a little bit more realistic, but if he writes something like “Um, you smell good, let’s have a go at it,” the censor board will immediately intervene and do a couple of things:

1. Misspell the dialogue as “Um, you small goon, let’s have a go at it.“
2. Mark the dialogue as offensive, and ask that it be removed.

So now the dialogue writer has to go back and write something that fits the lip movement but is not offensive anymore. Like, “Um, your mail came. Let’s take a look at it.” Imagine doing this constantly for every line. Very hard work. There is some hope though: A new technique that consists of Sanjay making violent speaking motions with his mouth, with sound muted is doing the rounds. But that will be for a later post.

Fancy-Schmancy? Please don’t go away now. I will grovel. Will buy you coffee when we next run into each other. Maybe a Mocha Latte from Starbucks.

Now a lyricist has no such worries. All that is required to be a successful lyricist is is a certain set of easily available tools — the metaphor, the simile and the names of ancient works of Tamil literature. There is minimal interference from the censors, and whatever interference there is can be circumvented with ease. Say you are asked to write a steamy song to describe the courtship betwen the lead couple, you just reach into your toolkit and pick the tool of choice. For example, in this song, the lyricist uses a metaphor (from the movie Mazhai, starring someone called Ravi and the real Shriya, who is not in any way related to the Shriya in our screenplay).

Let your kisses be the hammer
that drives a nail into my brain

It should be obvious by now that metaphors in songs don’t really need to make sense. You just say Y is like X, where X and Y can be quite random. And there is plenty of latitude. Imagine Ravi saying “Let me put my sword into your scabbard” to Shriya. That would drive the censors into apoplexy (and create a new record for bad spelling). But on the other hand, a lyricist can effortlessly slip in stuff like that in a song and no one will blink.

Let out bodies unite
like a sword and a scabbard

Or you could say,

Let me be the Thriukkural
to your Kurunthokai

where Thirukkural and Kurunthokai are the names of literary works. Naturally, the names chosen here are random. You could put Silappadhikaram instead of Thirukkural and no one would care. In this case, people will call this gibberish literature and even try to slip a few awards to you. Yes, that’s how easy it is.

Occasionally though, some lyricists go overboard and the censors notice.

In your hand a pile of books
And you, a pile of sex.

And when they gently chide you for using the word seks, you just pick a random word from the dictionary that rhymes. In this case the song became,

In your hand a pile of books
And you, a pile of Vicks.

Yes, that’s how easy it is. We got our favorite lyricist to comment on this, and he said:

This is easy, I sound the horn
as easy as eating a cob of corn
you can even slip in some p*rn
and the dialog writers will go darn.

Fancy-Schmancy, please wake up and smell the corn. If you are wondering about the releavance of the title to the post, I’ll put you out of your misery by confessing that I am not too sure either. But it seemed very cool, and the words simile and camera appear in the post.

Also posted at teakada

Update: Manoj manages to find a few (non-blogging) people who translate verses much better. Go here. I hope Venky listened to Shriya and let her stay in his cute smile during one of his watery orgies.

a) currently very miserable.
b) centered around dreams of making it big some day.

One day, Krishna says, he got to meet the head of a large production house. After complimenting the head of the large production house on his magnificent pecs (you can be a hero saar!), Krishna went on to narrate the screenplay of his dream movie to the guy. The narration went well, Krishna says, and the head thanked him and told him he would keep him in mind for his next movie.

A few months on, the large production house announces a big budget movie. And wonder of wonders, Krishna says, it is based on his screenplay. So he approaches an arbitration body. The hearing went like this:

“Mr. Krishna, you claim that this movie is based on your screenplay.”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

“Can you prove it?”

“Of course sir. I will narrate the screenplay line by line right here.”

Proceeds to narrate it.

“That’s pretty good. But you could’ve just sneaked a peek at it when it was lying around somewhere. Got more proof?”

“Sir, yes sir. I will now tell you exactly when and where I narrated the screenplay to the head of the large production house.”

Proceeds to tell them exactly when and where he narrated the screenplay to the head of the large production house.

“And that’s proof? Give us something more concrete man.”

“I will go to the temple of your choice, light some camphor and swear in front of the deity of your choice that it is my story. I dare you to ask the head of the large production house to do the same thing sir.”

“Holy cow, that is irrefutable proof. Let me call the head of the large production house and set up the showdown.”

Other members of the arbitration committee nod sagely.

No not 55-word story that ran over, though I wish it was. This came straight out of this story from an online newsmagazine. Link (in Tamil). The only part I made up was the line about the arbitration committee members nodding sagely.

I believe this legal strategy has a lot of potential. For starters, I sent an email to Mr. Banville today claiming that The Sea was my work. I’ll even go to a church if he wants me to.

Viewed from a lens thus recalibrated, Ghajini is an eminently enjoyable movie. Murugadoss borrows the rudimentary plot from Memento — revenge of the amnesiac — and manages to Indianise it without too many holes. The scriptwork and screenplay are tidy, and the dialogues refreshingly down to earth. Even the two heroines don’t seem too out of place in the script and that in itself is an achievement.

Surya and Asin act reasonably well and Nayanthara has a role that is peripheral enough that her performance doesn’t matter too much. Although, I must admit I was a little traumatized when I saw her dance to an item number — every part of her literally shook, and in a startling reminder of Newton’s first law, certain parts kept shaking even after she had stopped dancing.

*Digression* If you are a college professor who came to this page through Google looking for “Nayanthara, shaking, Newton,” feel free to ignore my Creative Commons license and use this example to teach Newton to your students. You can even take them on a field trip to the nearest movie theater playing Ghajini. *End Digression*

Surprisingly enough, the best part of the movie is the flashback — the mandatory sequence to explain how Surya lost his memory and hair. Murugadoss is very comfortable handling the romantic scenes between his lead pair, and the casual humor that pervades the romance between Surya and Asin is a treat.

The songs are atrocious, and the stunt sequences are a little too long, but overall Ghajini is one of the better masala movies out of Tamil this year.

The Fly On The Wall:

Regular readers of this blog (can you laugh a little less loudly, please?) are probably aware that we have sources all over the place. A couple of them were willing to talk to us (off the record of course, what do you think?) for this review.

A conversation between Harris Jayaraj, the music composer and Murugadoss, the director:

“So Harris, what do you think about the movie?”

Harris mumbles, then stops, grins, scratches his hair, picks his nose and mumbles again.

“So Harris, what do you think about the movie?”

Harris mumbles again. “Do you think my hair is long enough?”

“Let us get this straight man — you do a pathetic Rahman imitation. Now answer my frickin’ question.”

“Hmm, it is good. Grunt. Umm. The flashback is funny. But the rest of it is very serious. Need more comedy.”

“You think so? I asked the producer for more money to shoot some funny scenes, but he said no. Now I am worried.”

“Hmm. Umm. Hmm. Umm. I will take care of it with my background music.”

“Huh?”

“Wait and watch.”

Watch we did. And we are glad to report that Harris was very, very successful in his endeavour.

Whenever Surya shows up on screen, a voice screams in the background:

“Bo Zo.…. Bo Zo. Booooo.… Zooooo.” The speed of the chant varies according to the need of the scene (naturally). To ensure that the same joke doesn’t get repeated too often the next time Surya shows up, the same voice chants:

“Zo Lo.. Zo Lo…Zo Lo”.

I have to admit, it had me in splits. Great job, dude.

A conversation between Surya and his Dad:

“Dad, I have this role in this new movie and I am supposed to be an amnesiac for good two hours. Any advice?”

“Drink coconut water, don’t smoke, don’t drink, do Yoga and get out of your relationship with Jothika.”

“Dad, I asked for acting tips, not this crap.”

“Oh, ok. Have you seen me act angry in movies?”

“You mean where you keep your body erect, roll your eyes and shake your head robotically back and forth?”

“Yes. Exactly. Do that.”

For once, Surya listened to his dad.

PS: Hemant has a more conventional review up on Instant Kaapi, and I agree with most of what he says.

As we started walking towards the theater, we noticed a crowd of very wet people walking towards us. The relationship between the wetness of their clothes and the magnitude of the rain was puzzling (I thought it was exponential, Manoj thought it was strange), more so when you consider that the wetness was unevenly distributed across the length of their bodies. We walked over to someone, and politely enquired, “Umm.. how come you wet your pants?”

The guy didn’t get the joke — he told us earnestly that a storm sewer had broken, and that there was knee-deep water on the roads leading to where we were going.

Without hesitation, we took our shoes off, folded up our jeans and started walking. (towards, of course). In a couple of minutes, we were wading through murky water (“It doesn’t look like a storm water sewer, man”), that got higher and higher. People kept squealing, as unknown objects whose specific gravity was just right floated below the surface of the water and kept striking them at inconvenient places.

By the time we reached the theater, shoes in one hand, wallet in the other, our shirts were wet, and it was not from the rain. Around the same time, realization dawned on us: the guy that didn’t get the joke meant ass when he said knee.

I headed straight to the bathroom, which was filled with a few hundred people in various states of undress, pouring water over themselves from a communal bucket. It was quite entertaining, and I would have stayed there for some more time if not for the clanging of the bell that announced the start of the movie.

The movie was horrible; and the audience filled with squirming wet bodies (heh!) hated it. It was the same old overweight-hero-rescues-a-callgirl-who-is-still-a-virgin plot with a twist: the girl was overweight too. I thanked the storm sewer guys for the distraction of wondering if the water would do bad things to me as I squirmed — it saved me from losing my mind completely. In case you want to know, the movie was called Kolangal. All said and done, Kolangal was the worst movie I’ve watched in my life.

Last week, I had been to a movie called Oru Naal Oru Kanavu (A Dream A Day). In hindsight, the parallels were obvious — rainy day, directed by an acclaimed movie maker from Kerala, music by Illayaraja. After the movie, I couldn’t help telling myself, ” You know what, Kolangal wasn’t all that bad.”

Ponniyin Selvan is filmmaker Radhamohan’s second movie, coming on the heels of his successful debut venture Azhagiye Theeye. The movie stars Ravi Krishna — the no can emote son of the biggest producer in Tamil, with Gopika, PrakashRaj and Revathy playing supporting roles.

Radhamohan has an affinity for feel-good tales about young men from middle class backgrounds — Azhagiya Theeye was an oddball romance between an aspiring actor and a girl who wants to shake off her arranged marriage. It was simple and honest, funny and touching — the kind of substance over style movie that Bollywood will never make. The movie wasn’t flawless: it emphasised words over visuals, an unfortunate throwback to the Balachander days and the old fashioned direction did nothing to dispel the stage drama feel that parts of the movie had. But, a neat script and some good performances glossed over the shortcomings, and the movie was eminently watchable.

Ponniyin Selvan though, has no such luck. Whatever chances the movie had of success, are ruined by insipid performances.

It’s the story of a disfigured young man living with his widowed mom. He has learnt to live with his disfigurement and the accompanying disadvantages, and seems fairly content with life until someone suggests to him that maybe he should try fixing his face surgically. Turns out that the surgery costs a fortune. End happiness, begin obsession. He works hard to make money, forgetting the simple joys of life in the process. It’s not a bad premise at all, and with better performances and less mush, the movie could have worked.

Ravi Krishna sports the same blank expression throughout the movie, and his monotonal, droning dialogue delivery makes him unbearable. Prakash Raj tries his darndest to act enough for everyone else in the movie, while Revathy, surprisingly, delivers a controlled, effective performance as Ravi Krishna’s mom. Gopika is competent as the goodie –goodie girl that doesn’t care much for looks, and there is another girl that doesn’t care much for the way the hero looks.

The other big drawback is an overdose of pithy one liners in the dialogues. The occasional smart repartee livens up things, but to have every exchange between every character end in some type of witticism is disconcerting. (Also the fact that some of the lines are quite inane.. “It’s ok to live in a complex, but don’t let a complex live in you”). Radhamohan doesn’t seem to get the “cinema is a visual medium” thing still — there are a few people in the movie that seem to exist to just sit on benches and exchange “There was a Sardar once.. ” type of jokes.

Throughout the movie, the struggle between the director that prefers realism and the director that is obliged to make a star out of his producer’s son is evident. There are pointless dances (Ravikrishna can add leaden footed just below wooden faced on his resume), and given the lack of suitable situations for the hero to beat up a few people, there is a ridiculous dream stunt sequence. Surely, that’s a first.

And so, one more filmmaker with potential promises to deceive.

I am apalled. Look at her gorgeous, beautiful, pretty, um… face and tell me how someone could be mean enough to make fun of her.

The plotting was intricate, and the characterization and prose were as smooth as ever but the thinly veiled preachiness that lay just beneath the surface was too easily discernible. Le Carre had moved away from the nuanced gray’s of his old works and created a white and black world: The bad guys were a little too bad (and white), and the good guys were a little too, well, little.

Ironically enough, The Constant Gardener might just provide Le Carre with something that has eluded his books since The Spy Who Came In From The Cold: A good movie adaptation.

The New York Times has a story about how Fernando Meirelles, director of the City of God was roped in to do the movie.

Right away he started tinkering with Jeffrey Caine’s screenplay. “When John le Carré wrote the story, the story’s seen through a British point of view,” Mr. Meirelles said in an interview in New York in June. “And I think when I read the story, I put myself on the Kenyan side because, really, I come from Brazil.” Among other things, Mr. Meirelles wrote several new African characters into the story, not all of whom survived the cutting process.

What does remain is a remarkable sense of place: a vivid evocation of the Kenyan landscape and cityscape in one of Nairobi’s most down-and-out neighborhoods, through which sewage flows in open, rag-cluttered trenches; and tracking shots of Kibera, Nairobi’s sprawling, tin-roofed shantytown, which are as enthralling as they are disturbing.

Madhavan, Sada engaged in romantic banter. Sada playfully punches Maddy on his (recently)well developed, corpulent chest.

Him: “Hit me anywhere but there.”

Her: “But why?”

Him: “Coz you live in my heart.”

Inane Music. End the most strained courtship ever.

Hero, pregnant heroine seek divorce. Judge invokes one year separation requirement. But grants request from boy to be allowed to stay in girl’s house until their baby is delivered.

Him: Kisses her on the waist.

Her: “What are you doing? Take your hands off me”

Him: “I’m not touching you. I’m actually kissing the baby inside you.”

Her: “Oh! Ok.”

’nuff said.

Ok, so Page 3 was adjudged the best movie of the year. Disappointed? You shouldn’t be. I am quite contented that it was Page 3 and not “Charas — A Joint Effort”. I heard it was the runner up. I have to admit though — I am a little disappointed that my personal favorites won nothing. Not GirlFriend. Not Julie. Not even Murder. However, I heard that there may or may not be another movie of Ms.Sherawat that might be a contender for some awards next year.

Saif Ali Khan, apparently was the best actor this year. Bad choice, you think? Hah. Just wait till next year, when Amitabh wins for Black. This decision will look like a masterstroke.

On a side note, if these transcripts had been released in 2004, Salman would’ve walked away with awards in the comic villian category. Hands down.

The best lyricist is Pa. Vijay for his song in Autograph. For a song that starts off so:

Each flowers (sic!) will tell you…

Naturally. How can you not reward someone that daringly breaks number agreement rules in the first line of a song.

All said and done, it wasn’t all that bad, right? About par for the course.

PS: I heard Vidyasagar (best music director) called Chitra (best playback singer), and asked her “What did we do wrong?” After a long discussion, they concluded that it was just rotten luck.

Setting that aside for a moment, let me talk about a certain scene in the movie. But first, to set things up, here is the premise: Multiple personalities come out of the docile hero, and do multiple things. Since I hate spoilers, I will just say that the multiple things he does may or may not include creating artificial stampedes with buffaloes, frying people alive, eating live monkeys, talking in a hoarse whisper and copulating with snakes. And yes, I must add that it was all done in a grandiose manner, so if there were buffaloes they were pretty big.

One of the personalities that emerges out of the weak kneed lead character is a wannabe cool dude, decked up with all the accoutrements that go into making someone a wannabe cool dude. These include, but are not restricted to the following:

1. Colored Hair.
2. Transparent clothing.
3. Gaudy Sun Glasses.
4. Terrible Fake Accent.
5. This Name: Ramp Walk Remo

The girl that refused to fall for the docile hero, falls for the wannabe. Naturally. For how can you not fall when wooed with roses? Rampwalk sends roses to the girl. (Sorry if the sentence construction sounds funny, but that’s his name. Also notice how I took the liberty of assuming Rampwalk is his first name, unless RampWalk is actually two words, in which case he should be called Ramp W Remo…). So where was I?

Yeah, Rampwalk sending roses to the girl. Rose bushes, if you care for detail. An obscene number of them in pots. Along with an audio tape. (a Compact Disc maybe? The director disdains cheap stuff) As the girl stares at the roses, looking suitably surprised, fake accent plays out of the tape and asks girl to smile. She obliges, and behold: amateurish special effects make all the roses bend down in unison. Fake accent explains to a bewildered audience: The roses were ashamed. Duh. Something a good editor would have chopped, and flushed down a toilet. (If you ever do that, make sure you have some Drano handy).

Why is this scene special, you ask? Because I happened to see an interview of Shankar, and he talks about this scene in particular: Apparently, the first time they brought the roses in for the shoot, the roses sucked for whatever reason. And so, Shankar chose to wait four months for the roses to bloom. Four months the producer spent making inflated interest payments. Perfectionism, a la James Cameron.. Or callous disregard for the realities of a reeling industry.

You think Shankar knows what the title of my post means?

So anyways, the movie had music by Srikanth Deva, son of the legendary music composer Deva (snicker); and I was inspired to write a detailed, analytical review of the soundtrack. So, here goes.

Excrement.

More reviews of the soundtrack from around the web.