Marudhayanayagam - Trailer

Came across this video recently... This is the first one I've seen a video on this movie . Hopefully Kamal's efforts don't go waste and he can finish the movie..

Sakkara katti - Not so sweet

Here's another Rahman album after a long time.. His last release in tamil was ATM and that was just an ok album with a couple of decent songs.. So after listening to a youthful and different Jaane Tu, I listened to this album.. K.Bhagyaraj's son Santhanu is making his debut in kollywood with this movie. I think he came as a child artiste in one of Bhagyaraj's old movies.. With Santhanu acting its now a complete kalai kudumbam..

Marudhaani - I will start with this song because this is one of the songs that stays with you after listening to the whole album. The song reminds us of 'Unnai thaan kuyilum theduthu (Thaalam)/
Jungle mein (Taal)' song with the constant rythm beat in the background.. Madhushree struggles with her pronounciation at times and some unwanted lyrics seems to have been inserted to comply with the tune.. Overall a hummable decent songs.

Naan Eppodhu - This like the marudhaani song has a north indian flavor to it.. I'm not sure why ARR prefers hindi singers which gives it a higher dose of north indian flavor.. Its a melodious song but certainly not top of the list material..

Taxi Taxi - A youthful song with a good rythm.. The lyrics doesnt make sense at times and it has a mixture of rap and some french bit... This might appeal to the youth and might appear on the top 10 list..

I Miss you da - Nothing special about this song.. I've tried to listen to this song a couple of times and I just can't bear this song.. I keep skipping to the next song.. Chinmayee seems to be a one trick pony and sings all the songs in the same manner..

Elay - Another masala song.. Sounds like a hindi dubbed song from Rang De Basanti... skip to the next one

Chinamma chinamma - This starts out with a chorus singing 'chinamma chinamma' which sounds very pedestrian..The Benny dayal joins in with 'Jal jalakku jalakku' in a folk tune.. That certainly saved the song and ends up as a decent song..

Overall, two or may be three of the songs are decent.. Others are not even worth mentioning.. I expect better things from ARR and though his Hindi albums are getting better, his tamizh albums are not up to this standards anymore..

Paattai mattum kettal copy theriyaadhu -

Came across this song on Youtube.. To compose such a mediocre song, Himesh could have picked a better original

Kamal's Interview after Dasavatharam Release

On the criticism levelled by some regarding the film’s “confusing narrative”:

“Criticism will always be there. In fact, I myself am the biggest critic of all my films. ‘Dasavatharam’ is based on the ‘chaos theory’ and we have established it very well. I don’t know where critics found it confusing. All the 10 characters are established within 20 minutes of the film’s run. You must be very attentive. That’s all.

Did I miss something in the movie or did they play the movie in the reverse in East Windsor, NJ??? The 10 characters are established within 20 minutes of the movie?? Is he talking about the Tsunami flashback where different ppl like Rekha, Nagesh, the Doctor etc are shown in snippets as establishing his characters?? As far as I know, Vincent Bhoovaraghan or Kalif ullah don't come until the second half of the movie and Krishnaveni paati appears almost towards the end of the first half... What's this comment about being attentive?? These kinds of comments indirectly mean that 'a common man can't understand my movie.. only intellectuals can..'..

Switch Pitcher

Here's an Interesting watch.. Pat vendetti, a switch pitcher who was recently picked up in the MLB draft by the Newyork Yankees was pitching for their Minor league team Staten Island Yankees.. If you don't know what switch pitching is, in simple terms the guy is ambidextrous. He can pitch (throw) with both his hands... Well, the problem here is that the batter is also a switch hitter (hit with both hands).. Therefore he wants to switch to the side opposite to what the pitcher is using.. The batter keeps changing from right side to left side and pitcher keeps changing from left side to right side and this goes on for a few minutes.. Finally the umps converge and ask the batter to make a choice following which the pitcher makes a choice as well..This will be interesting to watch in the majors..

Dasavatharam - A Disaster

I watched Dasavatharam on Friday and didn't want to immediately write a review but rather wanted to wait for the dust to settle, think about the movie as well as listen to other's reactions before writing mine. This was one movie from Kamal I was waiting for after Anbe sivam...My worst fear because of the hype that was given to the movie prior to the release came true... When the movie has substance, there is no need to market anything.. The movie was marketed as if the 10 roles was a unique attempt which no one in the world could do.. Well to me its like Mansoor ali khan marketing his movie 'rajathi raja raja marthanda........... kamarajan' as the movie with the longest title in the world.. I was hoping that Kamal would do justice to these 10 roles and certainly will not spoil it... Heck if he had repeated some of his earlier roles like 'appu', 'kameshwaran', 'chappani' in a malarum ninaivugal kinda movie, it would have been better than this...

If you want to know about the movie, read on.. If not, skip to 'MY OPINION'

Well, the movie starts of with kamal addressing a huge crowd in a stadium...The movie shifts to 12th century where Kamal #1 (Rangarajan Nambi) is shown as a Staunch Vaishnavite in the middle of Saivism-Vaishnavism clashes. He eventually loses his life after thrown into the water along with lord ranganatha by not reciting 'om nama sivaya' as per the king kulothoonga chozhan's (napoleon) orders... The movie shifts to the present day where Kamal #2 (Govind ramaswamy) works as a scientist involved in developing a biological weapon.. Kamal #3 is shown on TV as George Bush and he looks like Frankenstein.. There are a few scenes just to show that Kamal works in a hi-tech lab.. Kamal's boss (dr. Sethu) tries to sell the biological weapon to terrorists which Kamal finds out and he steals it and is on the run.. The chase starts right there and goes on till the end of the movie....Anyway, Kamal #4 (Fletcher) comes as an ex-CIA agent to hunt Govind and get the bio-weapon (its really a small vial with some green jello something similar to what Nicolas Cage saves in the Rock)... Dr. Suresh and his tamil speaking Japanese wife gets killed.. The japanese girl was shown for two reasons.. A fight scene with Fletcher (and according to some chaos theory folks to divert Fletcher from Govind) and to bring her dad Narasumo or something Kamal #5 into picture... Govind gets away with the vial and it ends up in a fedex store to be shipped to india.... Govind ends up in the cargo flight to India meanwhile Fletcher goes to Vegas and gets a hooker translator Malika Sherawat to go to India..

Balram Naidu (Kamal #6) gets introduced as a RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) agent who is incharge of getting the vial from Govind... He provides some lighter moments in the movie which is a welcome relief.. .. Fletcher meanwhile is already in India along with Malika and they sneak out of the airport with Govind as Avatar Singh (Kamal #7) gets introduced in the airport as a pop singer with cancer.... Govind manages to escape from Fletcher and goes to Chidambaram (where the vial was mailed to by mistake).... Krishnaveni Paatti(Kamal #8) gets introduced along with Andal(Asin) in chidambaram in a orthodox iyengar community... The vial gets in the hands of Krishnaveni patti (who's not mentally sound) and she puts the vial into a Perumal idol (Govindaraja perumal utsavar)... From then on its Govind chasing the vial in the Idol, Andal chasing the idol and Fletcher chasing Govind...Mallika dies in the process of the chase... As Govind and Andal escape from Fletcher, they try to dig the idol under the earth and some local thugs try to molest Andal.. Enter Vincent Bhoovaraghan(Kamal #9) who is a dalit NGO activist trying to stop illegal sand quarrying... As Govind and Kamal escape from that place with the idol, then comes Kalif Ullah (Kamal #10) a 228 cm muslim guy with a large family.. They get into an accident and kalif's mom k.r. vijaya gets hurt and govind tries to help them... Fletcher and Balram naidu meanwhile are still in the lookout for Govind... The story loses more track here and we are left to wonder we are in chennai or pondicherry or chidambaram.... Kalif ullah and govind go to the same hospital where Avatar singh is admitted and their cases get interchanged and the usual confusion... Fletcher comes there as well and he shoots Avatar singh... Fletcher gets hold of Andal and Kamal has to give the idol to Fletcher but he takes the vial from it... Japanese Kamal (Narasumo or whatever) comes in search of his daughter's killer and he joins the fracas.. Fletcher, Govind and Japanese Kamal end up near the sea... Japanese Kamal with all his kung fu skills kicks Fletcher's butt when finally Balram Naidu shows up in a helicopter and asks Fletcher to surrender.. Fletcher eats the vial and while everyone is helpless watching him die, the Tsunami arrives and the sea water saves the virus from spreading even though it kills a ton of people... Japanese Kamal having been used to Tsunami's in Japan hides in a boat along with Govind and Andal.. Vincent bhoovaraghan dies trying to save a boy from the Tsunami... All ends well with Andal falling in love with Govind, Avatar getting cured from Cancer etc.. The perumal moolavar which was thrown into the see also comes out because of the Tsunami... And finally Kamal we come back to present day where Kamal ends the story.. Karunanidhi, Manmohan singh and Bush address the crowd and then there's a tharperumai ulaganayagan song...

My Opinion:

I understand the fact that doing 10 roles in a movie is difficult and to excel in each and every role is equally difficult.. That said, if you don't need the 10 roles why unnecessarily insert it? Just to prove a point ?? Kamal talks about Chaos theory and the Butterfly effect in the beginning of the movie but that doesn't mean that he can take the fans for a ride and say whatever is irrelevant in the movie is because of the above mentioned chaos theory.. Its also interesting to see some hardcore kamal fans backing him about the same...

Here's what went wrong with the movie.

1) Make-up ... Horrible make-up almost to every character... Kamal in Bush makeup looks like Frankenstein.. krishnaveni patti looks awful and looks like Yoda. Fletchers looks like Chapathi maavu makeup and Kalif ullah with the makeup and CG looks like an animated character... Vincent Bhoovaraghan looks ok but to make him look dark, the makeup was made a bit too much.. Japanese kamal was pretty good at times, but in some shots it clearly showed... Nothing great in Avatar singh, Balram naidu.. Everyone for some reason has a bonda nose..

2) Story and screenplay: This is the department where kamal has failed miserably.. There is no real continuity in the story.. It keeps moving from one kamal to another kamal without any obvious reason... In between a serious chase, there will be a silly scene... Though there are some meticulously planned scenes, there are some scenes which make you scratch your head... Govind on the run with the vial, goes to his Colleague/friend (Dr. Suresh's) house.. (like its difficult to trace him there)... and his friend calls the boss Dr. Sethu the minute Kamal moves away from the room (scene) and gets caught... These scenes look plainly silly and is this is the best they could come up with? Like any other movie, whenever Fletcher is close to Govind, there's some kind of distraction and Govind keeps escaping till the end...

3) Overdose of Characters : There's an overdose of characters.. There was really no need for many of them... Like the police inspector... There are useless characters like chitti babu, vayapuri, delhi kumar who come and go for no reason.. Some of them even die for no apparent reason...

4) Dialogues: There were some very good dialogues in the movie, but some of it made no sense at times.. There was some silly humor (like the shoe-socks joke or in the train ) in very serious scenes when Govind and Andal are on the run.. Then there was the usual Athiest dialogues as well.. Just to prove his Kavith-thiran, kamal has a character accompanying vincent bhoovaraghan all the time.. Also kamal addressing the crowd in the beginning of the movie in Senthamizh (the way he does in his TV interviews)...

5) Music: Seriously was Himesh the best they could get?? A couple of good songs could have certainly helped the movie...

Positive things:

1) No silly duets between kamal and Asin in the movie.. The last thing this movie needed was a dream song in switzerland when they are running for their lives.

2) Balram naidu's role which was neatly done... He provides some lighter moments in the movie which is a welcome relief.. but his scenes along with Appa Rao (Dance master Raghuram) reminds us of Apoorva Sagotharargal Janakaraj and sivaji.... Though his scenes are funny after a while it becomes stale... Particularly Appa rao talking on the mic everytime...

3) Vincent role was pretty good.. The nellai tamil slang was class and the body language of that Kamal was pretty good.. Unfortunately this kamal comes in very few scenes and is loosely connected to the story..

4) The 12th century picturisation and the opening scene with Rangarajan Nambi... Ravi Varman's cinematography was excellent throughout the movie..

End notes:

Overall, the weak story and screenplay overweighs the positives by a big margin..I remember the good old days when I walked out of Guna, Devar Magan , Mahanadhi or Kurudhi Punal with a sense of satisfaction and head high against my fellow rajini fans... Now, I really don't have an answer but fortunately everyone has grown up now an we don't have those arguments anymore.... I sincerely hope that he doesn't disappoint in Marmayogi...

Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na - Pappu Can't Dance (Full Song)

Video from Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na (upcoming movie produced by Aamir & music by A.R. Rahman)
The song starts similar to the Ilamai from 'Varalaru' (Godfather) but then changes course.... The video and Genelia's looks reminds me a little bit of 'Hairspray'..