KO

The next instalment from director KV Anand. A subject that had all the potential to create as much impact as another Ayutha Ezhuthu chose not to travel that far. When a movie based on politics and elections is released a month after the state elections, something does not sound right. Was there political pressure to delay the release? Had it been released a couple of months prior, could it have made better revenue? All such irrelevant issues aside, what does the movie have to offer?

The first and biggest winner is KV Anand himself. For his cinematography and not for his direction. I don't know why this movie is not a run-of-the-mill stuff. Perhaps because of a dearth of movies in the past couple of months, thanks to the Cricket World Cup, the IPL and the State Elections. The story is layered enough to keep you guessing, but the college flashback could have been brought a bit earlier, for it only manages to bring the pace of the movie down a notch. Jiva and Karthika Nair do enough. Ajmal earns the extra points. Pia was a good casting for a queasy role that could have been done without. Harris Jayaraj gets marks for his songs, but loses them for the BGM. On the whole, KO is a clear entertainer and nothing more, but could have been. But then, it never pretended to be anything more either.

False Impression

The second worst work of Archer according to me. But what makes it worse is the fact that it is almost entirely based on his worst 'Honour Among Thieves'. If you had read enough of his works, you can predict almost every plot he has in that book. There is absolutely no reason I could think about to recommend that book. WAIT. There is one. He does something new in this book I can really appreciate him for. He gives a good narration about the 9/11 attacks. That span of 50 0odd pages is something that is really good. But then none of his thrilling, racing or twisting stuff we saw in books like 'Kane and Abel' or 'As The Crow Flies'.

A thoroughly uninteresting piece of art, that he would better choose to ignore.

Title : False Impression
Author : Jeffrey Archer

You've Got Mail

The cast sure did justice to the movie. Both Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan have done nothing great here but not a nonsense romace. They start corresponding with each other through mails with the agreement that they don't reveal any personal informations to each other. Soon it so happens(which is so often in movies) that they end up becoming potential business rivals. When Tom Hanks almost succeeds in throwing Meg Ryan out of business he gets to know that she has all along been his pen-pal.

Unrevealing himself and unrelenting, he succeeds in throwing her out of business. Then unfolds his attempts at wooing her. What follows is the climax where they join hands just like in any other romantic success. But isn't she actually supposed to doubt Tom Hanks in the park when he turns up and says he is NY152. Something fishy there. Still I would forgive the crew for the wonderful screenplay.

P. S. : Was this movie by any chance a merchandising effort for the God Father Trilogy or the Pride and the Prejudice?

Ed Wood Review

I saw this movie recently and was really awe-struck at how beautiful a script can be made when enough homework and hard work are behind it. I always had an aversion towards black and white movies. Only after recently seeing "Sin City" did I realize that you need to make them even in the twenty first century. This movie reveals the untold story of a film director Edward D Wood Jr. Released in 1994, this movie stands up in my mind as one of the best plays I have seen. Johnny Depp plays the part of the director Ed Wood. This movie travails through the ups and downs of the man who never lost his self belief through all the turmoils he had to face.

The movie starts out with a small narration that promises to tell us the truth behind Ed Wood and to judge the character based on those facts alone.The movie introduces Ed Wood acting in a small play in a theater. When the review in the papers next day call it a total fall-off, Ed is prompt in pointing out, that the same review claims the costumes of the soldiers close-to-perfection. That is Ed Wood for you.

When a production company puts out a story about a person, who is a man but who wants to turn a woman, Ed calls them and fixes an appointment. Seeing the producer, Ed explains that he is the best director in town for that sort of a story. Going on to explain that he indeed had been such a person, he says that he had always fancied wearing women's clothes and that he had been wearing his girl friend's dress unknown to her for long. This fact clinches the role for him. His girl friend on hearing this truth is aghast. Just before he begins to shoot, he meets an actor Bela Lugosi, well past his prime and believed dead in the current film industry. He befriends the man and makes him play a part for him in the movie. After the shooting the movie fails to hit the premier show in his city.

Unperturbed by this he embarks on another attempt and embarks on a science fiction this time. The movie travels through all the troubles he has to endure financially to get this film made. He even is foxed into giving the lead role to a girl who fools him that she will finance the movie. Axing his girl friend from the lead role increases the rift between them. This movie is an even bigger flop and his girl friend leaves him. But these failures just get him more closer to the aging legend Bela.

Bela now under drugs is slowly falling apart and dies soon after. A small footage that Ed had made of him becomes the inspiration of his next movie. He sells it off as Bella's last movie and gets a look alike of Bela to play the role(face covered). In the mean while he meets a new girl and gets married at the end of it.

The story ends here by pointing out that Ed Wood had been voted the worst director of all times. The story of a failure cannot be told more successfully than this one. Through his travails he gets to meet the great Orsen Welles himself(director of Citizen Kane). When Ed meets him he is all but given up having to make the movies as the producers want it rather than how he would like it. The great director says "Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else's dreams?" That sums up the movie. As the movie ends we realize that failures are not failures at all if you are ready to look at them in the face. Hats off Johnny Depp. A must watch.

P. S. : This post is from another blog of mine too.

Mozhi Review

I have learned from my recent projects the meaning of "you learn more from failing than from winning". But the primary ingredient essential in both winning and losing is the heart to transform your ideas into ideas and then experimenting with them. Of what use is it if you have a load of ideas that you are never going to implement? To conduct these experiments more than anything else you need to have the courage to lose. For a long time Tamil directors(sans Mani Sir) always lacked this courage to experiment.

That was up until recently. After seeing Veyyil and Mozhi I realize that times are indeed changing. These two movies have shunned any traces of commercialism and have gone on prove that you can make your movie a big hit even with quality. A hero no longer needs to fight 20 people or even better there need be no villain at all. A musician falls in love with a girl who is both deaf and dumb who had never wanted to feel the impairment of her muteness to come in the way of her life.

What follows from there is very soothing melody. Very well told. This subject was one that could very easily have been spoilt. I would give equal credit to the direction and the screenplay. More important than that I think the producers who were ready to finance such new experiments. It takes immense courage from them to field in a pool of talents whom they believe in. New actors, music directors, directors and add to that an unproven domain. Welcome to the elite group gentlemen.

P.S. : Sorry for not revealing more of the movie or the story. I strongly feel that anything more than this would be to spoil the good works of the gentlemen involved in that. See the movie ASAP.

A very good performance by Jothika. Worthy of a best actress award.

P. P. S. : This post and the next are to be copied from another blog of mine and other originals are to follow suit soon enough.