Paasam

This was probably one of the most dragging movies I ever saw of M.G.R.'s, save the song paal vannam in the movie, which was what I was dying for. Perhaps the song itself set the expectations that the movie never met.
The movie opens with M.R.Radha constantly tongue lashing his wife as they had been childless for many number of years. His cousin sister arrives with a brood of her grandchildren and suggests to him to marry her second daughter, who would be 'fertile enough' for him. Listening to her, he taunts his wife further. Unable to bear the insults and being a good wife, she moves away from her husband, giving him consent to marry anyone he chooses.
M.R.Radha's brother dies and he is left with all his wealth and his nephew. Staying away from the nephew, he enjoys the wealth.
As M.R.Radha's wife is walking aimlessly, fate brings M.R.Radha's baby nephew and her together. She decides to bring the child as her own. She also becomes pregnant. She arrives happily to her husband's house, only to find him marrying another woman. She leaves the place and brings up the 2 children by herself.
Even after the second marriage, M.R.Radha is childless. Meanwhile, his wife is bringing up the children telling them that their father will soon come. But the boys get to know of the truth. The younger one, M.G.R. is infuriated, breaks his dad's photograph and runs away. While he is washing his hands, he overhears a conversation between a son and his dad of the son leaving his wife, because she is barren. He gets more mad and kills the son. He gets arrested and put in jail.
Many years pass and when he is released, his family has moved and he feels lost. He is then pulled to the wrong people and lives as a thug.
Meanwhile, his brother, Kalyan Kumar, works for the government and has recently obtained a respectful post in the same village as his long - lost father (although both are unaware of the truth). He works hard to make the village a better place. He gets rivalry with Ashokan, who is a local hitman and falls for a girl, Sheela (who fears the new government official), without knowing she is Ashokan's sister. As part of his improvements, he organizes a dance program fund raiser to build a local school.
During one of his heists, M.G.R. tries to rob Saroja Devi, who is a dancer. She talks of her mother and M.G.R. agrees to help her, and thus, arrives in the village where his brother and father live. Saroja falls for his good heart. Being old buddies, Ashokan and M.G.R. meet. Ashokan invites M.G.R. to his house for a meal and he falls for Ashokan's sister. When he asks for her hand, Ashokan refuses demeaning him because of his profession. M.G.R. is heartbroken and Saroja Devi keeps calling him home, as she is now in love with him. M.G.R. is unable to reciprocate her love.
Ashokan finds out about Kalyan's and Sheela's love and is vengeful but calms down, when he realises they want to marry. He sets the preparations.
M.R.Radha wants to take revenge on Kalyan and instigates M.G.R. on stealing the funds raised for the school. M.G.R. does the job and Saroja saves him from trouble. As he is on the run, he ends up in the wedding feast of his brother's and sees his mother. He is guilt ridden and returns to M.R.Radha for the money, but he feigns innocence and lets the police behind him.
Dejected, M.G.R. goes to Saroja for help and she helps him out and he agrees to marry her. When he arrives at Kalyan's home, he realises M.R.Radha had double crossed him and Kalyan and his wife are already arrested. Unable to hold himself, he blurts the truth to his mother and is thrown out of house, as the mother is not able to accept the truth. She, then, marches to M.R.Radha's home to demand justice and is happy to find her husband. Realising what he had done, M.R.Radha rushes to help his son, but injures himself. His wife travels by train instead.
After leaving his mother, M.G.R. is filled with vengeance for M.R.Radha and plans on killing him. He tells his plans to Saroja and walks out of the marriage.
He manages to get hold of the carriage his dad was traveling in and shoots him dead. On the way back, he meets Saroja, and at her request marries her. Right after he ties the sacred thread, she dies. Carrying her body, he surrenders to the police, only to find that his brother, his sister in law and Ashokan are free, M.R.Radha and his accomplices behind bars and most gruesome of all, his mother was shot dead. Seeing her body, he falls dead too.
It is was different type of movie compared M.G.R.'s usual flicks. Supposedly the movie didn't run well as his fans at the theatre couldn't bear to see him dead even in the movie. Such was his fan following! The movie, though moved a little slow and felt as though the most smallest things and sentiments were being dragged.
The songs were definitely a treat. My favourite as I mentioned before was paal vannam. But some other famous ones were ulagam piranthathu, jaljaljal ennum and maalaiyum iravum. I must warn not to set expectations about the movie seeing the paal vannam song - it is a dream song and people looked much different in the real movie. But definitely worth a watch for a different get up of puratchi thalaivar.

Naadodi Mannan

Purathchi thalaivar M.G.R. stars along with Banumathi, Saroja Devi, M.N. Nambiar, Veerappa, M.G. Chakrabani, Chandrababu and many others in this revolutionary movie of the 'wanderer king'.
The movie begins with a group of people shouting slogans against the monarchy, in support of democracy with their leader Veerangan. But they are held back and their leader arrested. Calmly the crowd disperses.
In a few days, a new king is to be coronated. As the king arrives in town, so does Veerangan get released from jail. With company, Veerangan walks around the city, only to be treated with respect, as he resembles the king closely. He also meets his lover's, Madhana's, father, who is also another revolutionary trying hard to find the late king's daughter, Ratna (identified by a birthmark).
At the same time, Veerangan finds new enemies too. As he runs away from them, he enters the king's encampment and meets him. He finds the king to be very jovial and nice and accepts the king's suggestion to be friends.
With the new king coming, there are many villains around him - rajaguru i.e. head priest and the commander, both are hungry for the throne. They plan tricks to eliminate the king - add poison to his drink. Thus, as Veerangan and the king are enjoying their meal, the king falls unconscious. But the doctor manages to save him in good time. To supplement for the unconscious king and to make sure the coronation ceremony goes well the next day, king's trustworthy ministers request Veerangan to act as the king.
Thinking the king is dead, rajaguru announces the commander to be the next king, but Veerangan appears in the last minute to have the crown placed on his head instead. The act of being the king goes fine, until the queen appears. Veerangan is not able to betray the queen as she is very true to her husband, but continues the act nevertheless, as he hopes to do good for the people being in this post.
Rajaguru and the commander find out that Veerangan is not the real king and kidnap the real one, right when the king has recovered. The trustworthy ministers, who were planning to kill Veerangan after the real king returned, decide otherwise.
Veerangan begins to implement interesting new schemes for the people and is happy that he is able to achieve his needs. At the same time, the queen becomes restless that the king is not paying any attention to her. Veerangan's lover, Madhana, also begins to suspect that he is with another woman. When he tries to convince her of the truth, the queen sees them and runs to rajaguru for help. Rajguru pretends to help the queen and makes the real king see intimate scenes between the queen and Veerangan, when in reality, the queen is in a stupor.
To corner Veerangan, the commander captures Madhana, but Veerangan comes to the rescue. As Madhana is escaping, the commander fatally injures her. After Madhana's death, Veerangan is distraught and at this point, he admits the truth about himself to the queen.
Rajaguru has contacts with some tribal islanders and now advises the commander to come to the island. Surprisingly, the tribal head has exact resemblance to rajaguru. Veerangan follows them to find the king. Running away from the tribals, he enters the tribal chieftain's daughter's, Ratna's, room and sees her undress. She had the birthmark, as he had heard.
Having been told by her father that her groom would be meeting her today, Ratna thinks that's the groom and runs to her father to tell she likes him. But is in for a shock, when her father says he is to marry her and that she is actually the heir to a kingdom. She returns to her room in sadness, but helps Veerangan find the real king and plans her escape with him.
The commander finds the truth about the tribal chieftain and rajaguru being one and the same person. He plans to take revenge and passes by Ratna's window at the same time that Veerangan was supposed to meet Ratna. But yet again, Veerangan comes to the rescue and they rush to help the king. He manages to save the king, but loses Ratna. Tribal chieftain's men capture Ratna and when the marriage is about to happen, there comes an expected twist. After an excessively dragged climax and action scene, all ends well.
That was a grueling 3 hour movie, which was half done in black and white and half in colour. Just sitting and watching this was a painful business to the rear end, but the movie itself was worth the watch, but with breaks.
The songs were all very sweet and nice to listen to. The best part of the movie was probably M.G.R. He was too good to look at in this movie - prime of youth. Also his dialogues were partly the actual schemes that he implemented during his chief minister term in Tamil Nadu. Supposedly this was the first movie that got released with M.G.R. and Saroja Devi - a great classic on-screen couple.

Diamonds are Forever

Sean Connery acts as the suave 007 agent in yet another adaptation of Ian Fleming's novel with the same name.
The movie opens with the agent on the hunt for Stavro Blofeld, who is making multiples of himself and also changing his face with plastic. Bond kills him in the mud.
Bond receives lessons to identify diamonds and about the smuggling ring that obtains diamonds from mines in Africa and transports them to the U.S. Mr.Wint and Mr.Kidd are 2 double crossers that kill the dentist who brings the raw diamonds and the smugglers who pay the dentist. They are then shown to abscond with the loot.
Bond assumes the identity of Peter Frank, the contact of the smuggling group, to meet Tiffany Case. He establishes himself with her. When the real Peter Frank escapes, Bond kills him and uses his body to smuggle the diamonds, meeting with his police friend Felix Leiter in the American airport.
The corpse is directly taken to the crematorium and the diamonds are obtained. Bond is double crossed, but the smugglers find out that the diamonds aren't real and save Bond from a heated death. Case is suspicious of where the diamonds are and finds out Bond's true identity.
Bond discovers the plot of the villain, Blofeld (who hasn't indeed died), who was using Willard Whyte's resources and lab to selectively destroy nuclear weapons in certain countries, with the diamonds.
The rest of movie goes in undoing that mission.
The movie seemed to drag a bit at certain places, but on the whole it was watchable, for both Bond and Case combination. The movie worth a watch.

Step Up

Starring Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan as the male and female lead, respectively, this movie shows the life of an aspiring dancer and her male partner in dance through their feelings and tranformations.
Tatum comes from a poor income family and is frequently involved in car thefts and other nifty work with his pal. On one of their heists, they break into a prestigious dance school and destroy their stage props and facilities. While making a run, Tatum is caught and punished to do community service hours.
He see Dewan dancing and is attracted to her, but keeps his distance after he realises she has a boyfriend. Her dance partner is injured just before an important audition and to replace him, Dewan takes Tatum as her partner. Together, they form a brilliant pair and dance sequence. They get romantically involved too.
Dewan's ex-partner gets healed and returns to the group. Dewan is unable to make a decision, but Tatum stomps out. Their relationship falls apart. Dewan's ex-partner is unable to carry out the steps planned. She wants Tatum to return, but isn't able to contact him.
Incidents in Tatum's life cause him to return to the dancing school on the audition night and all ends in success.
The dance sequence was entertaining to watch. But there seemed to be lack of chemistry and emotion through the movie. A better job could been done in direction, but a tolerable movie.

Diamonds are Forever

Written by Ian Fleming, this is another novel based on secret agent 007 James Bond involved in a drug trafficking group.
The novel begins with 007 receiving training to identify good diamonds from the bad, which the charming agent does not pay much attention to. But anyhow, he proceeds to contact the members from the trafficking group posing with a stolen identity of Peter Franks.
His first contact becomes a sexy lady Tiffany Case, whom he is instantly attracted to, but she stays aloof. Tiffany is part of the group by the Spangled Mob operated by brothers Jack and Serrafimo Spang with 'torpedoes Wint and Kidd.
The operation begins in South African mines, where miners provide a dentist with a raw diamond in their mouths, for money. And these are transported to London to Case, and then a hire help than transports the precious to New York City.
Bond does this through golf balls and some help from his old friend Felix Leiter. Leiter is involved in investigation of horse race fixing and a limping horse. They believe and find that the trouble in both cases is done by the same person.
After Bond completes his case, he is paid through horse bets, which never happens and he also witnesses the wrath of his 'employer'. And then arrangements are done for his payment through betting. After getting his money, Bond ventures in dangerous waters and is captured by Spang.
How he escapes with Tiffany and breaks down the operation is interesting to read.
A steadily engrossing read.

manamae kanamum

This is a song by M.S.Subbulakshmi from the movie Savithri.

manamae kanamum maravaathae jaga
deeshan malar padamae

moham moorgi paazhaagaethe
maaya vaazhvu sathamaa

naathan naamam
nee bhaji indrae
naalai endraar
yaarai kandaar
aathalaal bhava rogam odingidavae

nadaiyum thalara
thegam odunga
navu athu kulazha
kangal manga
enna seivaai thunai yaar varuvaar udanae

Save the Last Dance

Starring Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas, the movie is about a ballet dancer's life that changes after her mother's fatal accident.
Sara is an aspiring ballet dancer. For one of her auditions, she wants her mother to be there, but her mother is too busy. She is mad while the audition takes place and finds out that her mother is killed, as she was speeding to make it to the audition. Sara can not forgive herself on that account.
She moves in with her father, who lives in a predominantly Black neighbourhood. She goes to her first class, to find a smart boy arguing with her, hates him and expresses so to her new - found friend, Chenile, who also ends up to be the boy's, Derek's sister. After seeing Sara in the gym class, Chenile invites her to a night club to dance.
They go together and she dances with Derek. A breakout of violence, abruptly stops their night and they return home. While walking her home, Derek offers to teach Sara hip hop. During the lessons, Derek finds out that Sara knew ballet and takes her to a show. At the end of the show, Derek makes her talk about the accident and assures that she should follow her dream of a ballerina. That night, Sara starts her practise her art again and now she plans to audition for one of the top schools.
In school, she is constantly at war with Derek's girlfriend, as is Derek, with his best friend, for her. Chenile has an argument with her son's father. All this amounts to Chenile supporting Derek's girlfriend that Sara should not scoop away the few decent Black men left. Sarah is hurt and breaks up with Derek.
She reconciles with her father, and they go to the audition.
Meanwhile, Chenile is unable to see Derek unhappy and confesses to him about what she said to Sara. Although Derek is mad at her, he leaves for Sara's audition and encourages her. Sara performs well and gets into the college. And Derek and Sara get back together.
A well paced movie worth the watch.

Thenali

Starring padmashree Kamalahassan, Jairam, Jyothika, Devyani, Delhi Ganesh and Ramesh Kanna, this comical movie is directed by K.S.Ravikumar, with music by A.R.Rahman. The storyline is of a phobic person's living with his psychiatrist's family and the 'havoc', he wreaks on their lives.
Thenali Soman is a man with every type of phobia, due to his childhood brushes with the war in Sri Lanka. He comes to Chennai, in hope of a cure, and he undergoes treatment with Dr. Panjabootham, who also has an assistant.
In a publicly broadcast situation, Dr. P refuses to help his patient and Dr. Kailash (Dr. P's ex-student) arrives and deals with the situation perfectly well. With appreciation, he gives an interview that affects Dr. P's business of psychiatry. In vengeance, Dr. P sends Thenali to Kailash for treatment. Here is where the fun begins.
In his bid to get cured, Thenali almost stalks the doctor, but to keep a distance between himself (and his family) and his patient, Kailash repeatedly keeps Thenali out. Dr.Kailash' wife, Jalaja, daughter, Aishwarya, son, Arjun and sister, Janaki, start liking Thenali very much and are constantly with him. Janaki, also falls in love with Thenali. Because of this, Kailash loses a potential rich suitor for Janaki - Diamond Babu.
Kailash is very disturbed and decides to finish Thenali, once and for all, with a bomb. Thinking it is one of his practical treatments, Thenali escapes and brings the bomb home. Kailash knowing the truth behind the bomb, gets afflicted with paralytic attack, as he watches his home go up in flames.
Thenali and Janaki get married and a few days later, a pregnant lady and her father come by. The Kailash's family is shocked to find out that Thenali is already married. In extreme emotion, Kailash loses his attack and tries to hurt Thenali, only to find out that Thenali had used 'practical treatment' on him. All ends happy.
A very enjoyable movie from the beginning to the end. Kamal had done a good job imitation the accent of Sri Lankan Tamils. Although it wasn't the same, he had probably spoken with more clarity for the audience's understanding. He was well supported by Jairam, who performed equally easy and well. Romantic duets for Kamal with Jyothika was a little overdone, considering, he truly looked old and weak, while Jyothika looked relatively young and youthful. Definitely not a movie to miss.

Veer Zarra

Shah Rukh Khan as Veer Pratap Singh, Rani Mukherjee as Saamiya Siddique and Preity Zinta as Zarra Khan act in this movie about love across the India-Pakistan border. The movie is a Yash Raj Production, with an famed supporting cast of Anupam Kher, Kirron Kher, Boman Irani, Manoj Bajpai, Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini and many others. With all the hype of the characters, I started the movie with sky high expectations and the movie gave me rock bottom enjoyment.
Saamiya is an upcoming female lawyer in the country of Pakistan, that has been oppressing women. As her first, she gets a case that no one has won or had any hope in so far. She tries to get the prisoner talk and succeeds.
Veer is on the Indian Air Force rescue squad. On one of these missions, he rescues Zarra and is instantly attracted to her.
Zarra is the only daughter of an upcoming politician and as one of his moves, he arranges her marriage to one of his political friends' son. Zarra's nanny gets very sick and passes away before the marriage takes place and on her deathbed, wishes her ashes to be put in her homeland, India. So Zarra leaves for India.
With a growing friendship, he gets to know that she is in India to immerse the ashes of her nanny into the nanny's holy site. He helps her to get the goal. And in return, invites her to his homeland. She enjoys herself very much and when she is about to leave, he decides to propose, but her fiancee ends up coming down. Veer is very devastated, but he tells her of his feelings anyway.
Zarra leaves with her fiancee, but is unable to forget Veer. Shabbo, her friend, invites Veer to take Zarra with him. When Veer arrives, his union with Zarra makes quite a scene and her father falls sick. To help her dying father, Veer and Zarra decide to separate.
When he is leaving for India, he is arrested by Pakistan police and forced to confess his identity as another. He finds out that Zarra's fiancee is behind this to take his revenge. He agrees keeping Zarra's future in mind and has been in the cell ever since. It had been 22 years since that happened.
Saamiya, now starts and her and realises that her opponent is her ex-teacher and cunning leading lawyer. As she expected, the case seems like they might be losing, but Veer had strictly forbidden her to use any of Zarra's family's names, fearing her well being.
As a last resort, Saamiya leaves for India. Veer's uncle and aunt have passed away, but she finds an aged Zarra running a school. She finds out that after Veer was apparently killed in an accident in Pakistan, Zarra refused the marriage and returned to India to live with Veer's uncle and aunt and had been here ever since.
Saamiya now takes Zarra back to Pakistan. The case is obviously won by Saamiya and the old couple return back to India.
Most of the movie was in every other language, other than Hindi. Even though I lived in a city where there was a mix of languages, I found it hard to follow at some places. Perhaps, why I couldn't enjoy the intricacies of the movie. But, even otherwise, the storyline seemed really weak and pointless. The screenplay was weak and dying. An OK movie, but I would take a raincheck.

The Notebook

Written by Nicholas Sparks, this was the book that the movie was adapted from. After reading the book, the way the story developed in the movie wasn't the same way in the book.
The book opens with the time when both Allison Hamilton and Noah Calhoun were young adults. Allie decides to drop by to meet Noah and they receive each other casually - not with the awkwardness shown in the movie. They spend good time together and the interaction between the two takes place differently. They too think about the past and their first meeting was with less friction, than showed in the movie.
Then the book pans back to the current state Noah, who describes his battles with rheumatoid athritis and his wife's memory loss. He talks about his daily pain of watching his wife asking who he is and watching how she struggles with her forgetful reality.
Now, again, in the young adult time, an emotional discussion leads to a passionate night and then the breakup with Lon and choosing of Allie to spend the rest of her life with Noah. Lots of her letters to him and his letters to her were explicitly written in the book, which were really touching.
Finally, with deteriorating disease, both the characters die in each others' arms.
I found the movie better flowing and realistic, compared to the book. I usually read the books associated with the movies to better capture the emotions and thoughts of the characters, but in this case, I had go back to the movie to adjust to lack of emotional description in the book. But the book was easy and quick to read.

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle

I watched this movie on the recommendation of a co-worker, BD. Although I had heard of the movie, I never found it a bang in the theatres and so never watched it, but anyway.
Starring John Cho as Harold Lee and Kal Penn as Kumar Patel, this movie is a comedy about the adventures of two drugged guys during a night, when they are travelling to fill their hunger with burgers and fries from an outlet called the White Castle. One almost begins to wonder if there is so much time over a night.
Harold is ill-treated at work, in society and likes a fellow neighbour, but is always speechless and even acts trollish around her. With all these troubles, he has to put up with his brown roomie, who cuts his private hair in Harold's room with Harold's scissors.
Kumar is a brilliant student and has wonderful marks and record, but getting high is his only passion. He has to put up with his dad's decisions of becoming a doctor because he needs to be supported financially. But, when it comes to marijuana, Harold is his best bud.
So they do it again one night and when their hunger strikes, they want to have something different. White Castle's burger and fries on the TV makes their mouth water and they decide to eat only when they get there. Kumar knows of an outlet and when they get there, they find out that the outlet has been replaced by another franchise and are given the location of another outlet.
On the way, at a toll gate, their change doesn't work and Harold, in fright of the cops, drops the only weed that they had. Now Kumar is adamant on getting more stash and suggests going over to Kim's, a girl who likes Harold very much. Against his will, Harold spends time with Kim, while Kumar hunts for the stash. Kumar gets the stash and a date with two hot chics. While they are smoking, a security guard smells them and follows them. They find out that the party that Harold turned down is actually the coolest Asian gathering and to escape from the guards, they hide in the ladies.
As a couple girls (who were the same chics that Kumar got date with) come into the washroom, they hide in a cubicle, only to overhear the game of 'battleshit' between the girls. No words can describe this scene and only watching it can make up for it.
The guys miss their stash in the washroom and run out, only to bang into the guy who sold them the illegal stuff. As the guy is caught, Harold and Kumar make an escape. Along the way, Kumar needs to attend to nature's call and he leaves the door open. A raccoon enters the car, without Harold's knowledge. As they drive, the raccoon attacks them and they go to the hospital to check if Harold has rabies.
While in the hospital, Kumar sees his dad and reconciles with him. Then the boys don medical staff uniform to find medical marijuana, but are pulled into an emergency situation. When Kumar realizes, there is no stash, he brings the emergency under control and they leave.
While driving, they pass by a theatre, where Maria (Harold's love interest) is waiting to watch Harold's favourite movie. As Kumar calls out to Maria, Harold leaps under and pushes the accelerator. The car moves and swerves out of control down the hill. Now their car is not moving in a deserted place. But they find some hideous guy, Freak Show who helps them. Again, the scene where Harold is tolerating this guy is hilarious. When they reach Freak Show's house, the wife is exceptionally hot and she welcomes their advances. Just when they are about to do it, Freak Show walks in and when he suggests a foursome, the guys make a run for it.
They meet a famous actor (as a hitchhiker) on the way. Since none of them knew the way to get onto the highway, they stop by at a petrol station. Although they get the directions, their car gets stolen and they are also witnesses to a group of guys teasing the brown store owner. When they decide to make a call, a cop arrests Harold.
In the cell, Harold meets another black man, who claims that he is always ill-treated and it has become his way of life. Kumar comes by to rescue Harold and they make their escape amidst confusion and with a stash of marijuana, that was confiscated from another guy.
They meet a cheetah in the woods and giving it marijuana, they tame it and ride it. But Harold falls off and Kumar comes to the rescue. Harold finds out that his entire night's work material is lost and destroyed. Then they find the hitchhiker driving by, using Harold's car for his own pleasure.
Thoroughly down, they walk to the nearest food centre and they find the teasing guys there too. Harold has a plan and they escape with the teasing guys' truck. As they speed, a cop car picks on them and follows. Harold and Kumar move on even faster, take a detour and end up on a cliff overseeing White Castle. They decide to get there by hand gliding.
Finally they make it, but discover Harold has no money on him (the cop who arrested him steals the money). Suddenly the hitchhiker shows up and pays for the food and some money for repairing Harold's car.
Harold finds his workmates at the outlet and gives them a good word thrashing. They return to their apartment only to find Maria. Kumar sets up so that Harold and Maria are alone in the elevator. After some talk, Harold and Maria get together, but she has to leave for Amsterdam. When Harold returns to his floor, Kumar's suggests going to Amsterdam to follow Maria.
There ends the crazy movie. Although much of the movie wasn't relatable to, the movie was a hilarious sequence of events. Worth a few watches.

Dr. No

Starring Sean Connery, the movie is another movie adaptation of Ian Fleming's suave spy, James Bond. I actually had quite a crappy copy of the movie, where there was an annoying French translation that ran along with the English dialogue. So there were two voices speaking at the same time, which lead to a weekend long headache.
This is another story located in Jamaica. The British official, Strangways is murdered and Bond is sent on the mission to investigate. Word is that he just disappeared and Bond should just be at the location as a relaxing vacation, but the mission proves to be more than that.
He discovers that Strangways could potentially be murdered. The local police assistant draws his attention and to catch, he charms her and puts her under arrest. While locating who is the man working with her. He discovers it to be a man, he actually went to help for.
Then he finds his assistant Quarrel to set off to the island that Dr. No works from. At the island, he finds Honey Rider, a shell collector. Together, with Quarrel and her, Bond hides from Dr. No's men. Eventually, Quarrel gets killed and the rest get captured.
Bond and Honey get a puzzling welcome at Dr. No's place. Then, during the dinner, Dr. No speaks of his plans and intentions to torture both of them. As per plan, both of them are put under torture. Bond escapes and endangers the island. Then rescuing Honey, sails out of the island.
Although the actual book showed Honey was quite self sufficient and able to defend herself, the typical movies from those times showed Bond was omnipresent and was able to save his and others' skins - which was an overdo, but keeping the century in mind, it was tolerable. A tolerable movie.

azhagiya theeyae

Starring Prasanna, Navya Nair, Prakash Raj and others, the movie is a romantic comedy.
The movie begins with one of Prasanna friends meeting his lover and relating his story.
Prasanna lives with his 4 friends together, aspiring a career in the film industry. They are yet to get a break in the industry.
Navya is the daughter of rich man, who is constantly obsessed with killing and hitting people. She is trying very hard to get away from him. The father fixes her marriage with an NRI, Prakash Raj. To avoid the marriage, she runs away from the house and both her and Prasanna's fate, they end up having a marriage for her sake - to save her from any trouble from her house and Prakash Raj.
Prakash Raj is very supportive of their love and financially provides them with everything to love comfortably. But Navya never trusts Prasanna and they are bickering constantly. However, they come to an understanding and live peacefully.
Overtime, Prasanna's love grows and his friends come to know of it. He promises to let Navya know after his first cinema break. When he does, he comes home to find out that Navya has also got a job offer in Bangalore and she is leaving the next day. He never says the matter of his heart. But at the last moment, he can't hold it in and all ends happily ever after.
Although the typical line of hate first and then love is similar, the way the movie flowed was very different and the easy acting of Prasanna was very captivating. Prakash Raj has to be congratulated for providing Kollywood one of the few watchable movies, without any excessive squeamy moments or bloodshed. He is one of the few producers who comes up with some very good family movies. Definitely worth the watch.

The Illusionist

Starring Edward Norton, Jessica Biel, Rufus Sewell and Paul Giamatti, the movie is about an illusionist who does all he can to get his love for himself.
Edward Abramovich is the son of a carpenter, who learnt tricks and illusions. He attracts the attention of Duchess Sophie von Teschen. As teenagers in love, they are inseparable. But Edward leaves one day in search of mystery.
When he returns to Vienna as an established and famous illusionist, Eisenheim, many come to watch his show, as does Chief Inspector Walter Uhl. He is absolutely amazed and recommends the Crown Prince Leopold to watch the show. Crown Prince attends the show with his fiancee, Sophie. As part of a stage illusion, Sophie comes in close touch with Eisenheim. Although she doesn't recognise him, he does. She recognises him at the party after the show.Then they meet secretly.
Crown Prince believes that Eisenheim's illusions are simple tricks and sends Uhl to discover it, while inviting Eisenheim to perform at his castle. During the performance, Eisenheim challenges the Prince's ego. He seems angered.
Sophie, to help Eisenheim goes to his house, but they end up re-kindling their love. He wants her to come with him, but she tells him it's not that easy. They secretly go around the city, buying different things, while the police is stalking them around. The police also catches their plan to escape, but nothing is done.
Sophie returns to the castle to tell the Prince that everything is over between them. The Prince is drunk and follows her to the stable. She leaves the stable wounded, on a horse. Eisenheim is still waiting for her, but she doesn't return.
The next day, her horse returns. Eisenheim sets out with a search party to find her corpse in the river. She is examined by a doctor and is pronounced to be murdered. The doctor also finds a jewel on the corpse that he gives to Uhl.
Now, Eisenheim is vengeful and he performs even more dramatice tricks, almost getting a fan following for himself. His performance conjures up the soul of Sophie and the audience begins to question the talking soul as to who murdered her. To keep the peace of the society, Uhl tries to arrest Eisenheim, but he disappears. As the Prince gets more agitated, Uhl starts to suspect him.
Uhl searches Eisenheim's house and stumbles upon a locket design. Uhl searches the stable that Sophie was last seen at and finds the locket and another gem. Then he looks for the Prince's sword and finds that the gem is actually from his sword. He confronts him. The Prince who gets very agitated, ends up shooting himself.
As a fired police, he walks down the street, only to find a boy hand him the mystery behind one of his favourite illusions - Eisenheim is still alive and around. He follows him to the train and his mind unravels all the mysterious happenings. Watch out for this unfolding mystery.
The movie was fully engaging and mysterious. Although this movie was frequently compared with the The Prestige, in its theme, the story was quite different - one being rivalry and one being personal. Both beautifully made.
While watching The Prestige, I was quite confused at times, but The Illusionist carried the viewer quite qell along. A great one to watch for a totally engrossing climax.

Dr. No

Another one of Ian Fleming's James Bond 007 novels set in Jamaica.
Bond has just recovered from the injuries he got in his previous mission and to give him a relaxed atmosphere, M sends him to investigate a disappearance case, which is already determined to be closed. Although Bond doesn't want to take up the case, he does it nevertheless.
On reaching the spot, he thinks he has made many mistakes cause he was very visible with his assistant, Quarrel. But he continues to do his job and suspects that the disappearance of the previous officials was actually murders by Dr.No.
Dr. No was known to be a rich private owner of an island which was known to be abundant with a precious type of bird dropping, that was in high need by the market. Although the market went up and down, the need for the dropping stayed high enough for him to continue the business.
Bond and Quarrel now train to go to the island. When they reach the island, Bond finds a woman, Honeychile Rider, with whom they continue the rest of the adventure. Honey tells them more about the island and her own life.
Supposedly there is a dragon on the island that burns things that Dr. No doesn't want. They have an encounter with this dragon, which turns out to be a machine. Bond loses Quarrel in the fight and he and Honey are captured to be led to Dr. No.
Their place of capture seems very odd and strange with high tech hotels and polite matrons, with prompt and awesome room service. Although Bond is puzzled, he plays along. Finally he meet Dr. No, who seems to be a bald, hairless man, with machines attached to him, in his glorious aquarium.
Dr. No, who had a inaffectionate childhood, resorts to illegal ways of survival and in one of his adventures, loses his limbs and almost his life. But he survives and makes enough money to buy the island and believes that his power lies in his secrecy and discretion. He tells how he has used his previous victims for scientific tests, which is also the end for Bond and his girl.
Bond and Honey are split apart to be put in different tortures. Two chapters chronicle all the tortures and pain that Bond goes through. Finally, he manages to meet again with Honey and together they decide to hunt down Dr. No. Hunting him down, Bond injures him fatally.
Bond and Honey escape from the island, which is now almost destroyed. When they return, Bond tries to get Honey a good life by recommending her to a job that would help her to use all her skills. And he also keeps her promise to 'play' with her.
A good novel that was well paced. The tortures and escapades of Bond were a little squeamish with the talk of flesh burning and tearing, but it moved along with the flow of the story and was representative of the character of the villain.

An Inconvenient Truth

This movie is Al Gore's action to reach out to various people on the issue of global warming. Definitely a must-see movie.
It had lots of science and information, but it was given at a good dosage and in an easily understandable words. Pictures are worth a thousand words and Gore definitely used many many pictures and graphs to signify the state of earth right now and all the damage that mankind has done so far to a planet that is our only way to survival. It showed everything that our future generations would be deprived of, if we don't take an action right now. We worry about our kids future in financial, emotional terms, but fail to realise that environment and Mother Earth is an inseparable part of their future and most of us are not aware of the damage that we are habitually or carelessly inflicting on their futures.
It again showed the reluctance of U.S. government to adopt healthy measures. The scary damage they were doing to the environment by doing so.
By showing all types of natural disasters together in a one and half hour movie, it was convincing enough to think that human actions have destroyed our environment much more than it can ever replace itself and now the matter is in our hands - unless we do something about it, loss is more than we can imagine and fathom.
After watching this movie, I wished more that the presidential elections could have had a different ending, for the good of the world.

accham yenbathu

Here is a male solo from mannathi mannan:

(chorus) achcham yenbathu madamai adaa
anjaamai draavidar udamai adaa

aarilum saavu noorilum saavu
thaaiyagam kaapathu kadamaiyadaa

kanagavijayanin thunichalai ozhithu
kallinai vaithaan chera mannan
imaiya varambinil meenkodi yetri
isaipada vaazhthaan paandiyanae

karuvinil malarum mazhalaiyin udalil
dhairiyam valarpaal thamizhannai
kalangam piranthaal petraval maanam
kaathida ezhuvaan aval pillai

vaazhnthavar kodi marainthavar kodi
makkallin manathil nirpavar yaar
maaperum veerar maanam kaapor
charithiram thanilae nirkindraar

pukaartaa chalaa hoon main

Here is a male solo from the movie mere sanam:

pukaarthaa chalaa hoon main
gali gali bahaar ki
bas ek chaan zulf ki
bas ik nigaah pyaar ki

ye dillagi ye shokhiyaan salaam ki
yaheen to baath ho rahi hain kaam ki
koi to muddke dekh legaa is taraf
koi nazar to hogi mere naam ki

suni meri sadaa to kis yakeen se
ghataa utar ke aagayi zameen pe
rahi yahi lagan to ai dil-e-javaan
asar bhi ho rahegaa ik haseen pe

Troy

Here is another version of the much heard Greek mythology of the Helen of Troy, the Trojan horse and the Trojan war.
Agamemnon is trying to conquer every bit of land he can to make his Greece. Helping him in the venture are kings, who are dutifully worried about their subjects, and do his bidding and Achilles. Troy has always been a strong kingdom. Agamemnon's brother proposes peace with them. However, the young Trojan prince, Paris is very much in love with Helen of Sparta, sister-in-law of Agamemnon. In the face of love, he brings Helen with him in their ship.
Agamemnon's brother is rightfully mad and Agamemnon uses this as an opportunity to conquer Troy. Troy puts up a brave fight in warding them off.
Achilles funds love in Briseis, Hector's and Paris' cousin. He listens to her and backs off from the war. But Patroclus, his young inexperienced cousin, ends up getting killed in the hands of Hector, by posing like Achilles.
In anger, Achilles kills off Hector. Achilles softens up to stop any attacks on Troy for the mourning period. At the end of the mourning period, Troy finds a huge wooden horse on its shores and all of Greeks gone. Taking this as the sign of God, they take the horse.
Overnight, the Greeks come out of the horse slaying every Trojan they could lay their hands on. And so fell Troy. And in this battle, Paris takes revenge by killing off Achilles.
I have always loved Greek and Roman mythologies. So this was definitely a treat to watch. Besides Eric Bana had done a great job in posing as the rightful, gentlemanly and brave Trojan warrior. He was probably the hero of the movie. As was Sean Bean, who came as Odysseus. The sets were captivating. My favourite scene is when the princes are returning - everyone is clad in bluish robes and that was the central theme. Definitely a good movie worth the watch. I was watching for the 7th time myself.

Casino Royale

Daniel Craig stars as 007 and Eva Green stars as Vesper Lynd in this movie made of Ian Fleming's novel sharing the same name.
In pursuit of a bombmaker, Bond discovers the underground banker Le Chiffre. A good part of the movie shows how he gambles at Casino Royale to defeat Le Chiffre off his money. Not able to stand the defeat, Le Chiffre kidnaps and tortures Bond. However, both Lynd and Bond are rescued and for the next few scenes, it is Bond in love.
M contacts him to let him know the money won has not reached the appropriate party yet. With suspicion, he tracks down Vesper and discovers she has betrayed him. The movie ends with Bond gunning down the middle man.
The initial chasing scene between the bombmaker and Bond was a treat to watch. The nimbleness and the agility of the man who played the bombmaker, was certainly adrenaline pumping. As this was the movie where Bond had just received the double O status, there were many mistakes that he made and it made it seem he was truly human. I hated the torture scene and truly was pained when I saw it. Although I thought there could be more shown of the bad guys behind Vesper's doings, the movie was well done and it is worth the watch.

Aran

Starring Jeeva, Mohanlal, Gopika, Delhi Ganesh and others, the movie is about the war in Kashmir and terrorism experienced at the border.
Sandhya is the widow of hawaldaar Jaikumar. She is being taken to the soldier's grave to pay her respects to her husband with her new born son. Here the movie is panned to flashback.
Jaikumar is a sincere, patriotic soldier in the Indian army. He is the 'buddy' of Major Madhavan. Together, they have accomplished much in all their operations. They are part of a tight knit unit that takes care of top secret operations related to Kashmir's security. The latest being Hasrathbal - a religious site, mosque, for Muslims in Kashmir state.
The movie explains how the suicide bombers, terrorists and infiltrators in Kashmir are obtained. A fanatic visits the prison in Afghanistan and rescues prisoners who are about to be executed; uses these people to carry out his operations. Prior to taking his men, he sends other people to get information about the location of Hasrathbal and how it can be destroyed.
There are a series of other acts of terrorism that happen along the way, killing of children in a bomb in the bus, capturing of its planter, killing of an informer, etc.
Finally, the terrorists capture the house that would be the location of the missile to destroy Hasrathbal. They commit many atrocities to the family members. Because one of the guys ends up shooting, hearing the noise the army vehicle reaches the home and firing happens on both ends. In a fight, Jaikumar is killed. Finally, the terrorists are captured and Hasrathbal is saved.
The movie pans back to the present, where Major Madhavan salutes Sandhya and gives Jaikumar's medal to his new born son. Just after the meeting, the soldiers move on to their next mission.
The scenes where Jaikumar was in his village, just before his marriage and his romantic scenes with Sandhya was really cute and well picturised. It is really sad how the family breaks down with a soldier in the family. As much as they are patriotic, there is a need to be together.
Similarly, the past of Major Madhavan, his loss of family and how he reminisces about his family, when he looks at Jaikumar, is touching. He considers the unit of soldiers his own family and he does all he can to protect them and is truly sorry when one of them leaves. The scene when he kisses Jaikumar's corpse is saddening.
One almost hates the evil villain who is there for apparently, no just cause of Kashmir, by hurting everyone - Muslim or Hindu. He becomes just a fanatic who likes bloodshed and craziness. At the same time, I was a little sorry of the actor, who was almost constantly portrayed as a crazy fanatic from varying Indian enemies.
The scenes when the terrorists were camped in the Muslim family and the killing and raping that they did, was too horrible to watch. Poor people - so many slain and destroyed for one man's or two men's craziness and they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. And why their acquaintance brought unknown strangers home?
I was terrible annoyed by the human rights woman, or whomsoever she was. Really stupid questions and why was she asking if a kid could be arrested? No one had written any information about the kid being arrested and it was mere questioning to find where the bomb planters had some from. And I didn't understand why the soldiers were even answering and why their answers seemed quite parallel to what she was accusing them of.
On the whole, a good movie to watch. The friendship between Jai and Major was very sweet and warm to watch.

Bridget Jones' Diary : the Edge of Reason

Here is the second part to the Bridget Jones' (it's hard to type wrong) Diary. With the same star cast, comes another romantic comedy.
Bridge is happy with Darcy, although she frequently feels he shows no emotion or never stands up for her. They bicker over small things. She embarrasses him during meetings and can't mingle with the rest of the crowd. Things get a little worse with Rebecca, the young good - locking assistant. Bridge had enough and she walks out.
She finds out Daniel Cleaver is also in show business now and he is manipulative enough to bring Bridge to Thailand with him on a 'business' trip, but it is obviously to have a 'shag-a-thon'. Bridge almost falls for it, but finds out Daniel is upto no good. She decides to leave immediately.
At the airport, she is arrested for smuggling cocaine in the artifact that her friend had given her - a gift from her newest boyfriend. She spends some time in Thai jail, befriends the rest of the girls. Darcy comes by to rescue her and she understands that he is no more in love with her.
When she returns home, she realises Darcy had been her saviour and he was angry because she had spent time with Daniel. She goes to meet and all ends happily, also with a marriage proposal.
It was a flowing story, that ends well. Good job by Grant as the 'shagger' and the fight in fountain with Firth was really funny. Both the guys looked too polished to be doing that scene and they couldn't even fight (I was totally amused). I still think a better job could be done by Zellweger with the emoting department.
A good movie worth a watch.

Bridget Jones's Diary

That's seems so wrong to have an apostrophe s after a name that ends in s - Jones' Diary! Anyway...
So here's another adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, without the 4 sisters and again with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. Renee Zellweger plays the Elizabeth Bennet role as Bridget Jones and Hugh grant plays the George Wickham role as Daniel Cleaver.
Bridge is a 30 something spinster, who is a little plump, alcoholic, with a mouth that never closes and has been having quite a horrible love life. With a resolution to get something done in the new year, she maintains a diary, that becomes her comical record of her life.
She meets Mark Darcy, a divorcee, in whose lawns she ran around naked as a little girl. She tries to make conversation with the dashing man, but is insulted by him.
Her latest crush and love interest is her boss, Daniel Cleaver, with whom she ends up having a lovely time and thinks this is her soulmate, but discovers him cheating on her. After the breakup, she goes for the media and ends up having an embarrassing show and immediately, that night, she meets Darcy at a friend's dinner. For the first time, she realises, Darcy likes her.
Darcy helps her out in her job. And as a result she is famous for her work. On her birthday, Darcy comes by to meet her to congratulate, as does Cleaver. The guys have a fight and Darcy walks away realising Bridge has the wrong idea about him.
Bridge also deals with her mother leaving her dad for some show business guy and when they re-unite, they are invited to another party at the Darcy's. Bridge finds out that it was Cleaver who had betrayed Darcy, not the other way round. At the party, she apologises to him and invites him to her house, but the party ends up being an announcement about Darcy's engagement to his partner-in-law. After an awkward scene, she leaves and again goes through a phase of getting over Darcy.
A few days later, when her friends ask her to come with them to Paris, she finds Darcy at her doorsteps to be with her. When she invites him upstairs while she changes, he reads her diary with Bridge's words of hatred towards him. He leaves the apartment. When Bridge realises her mistake, she follows him only to find that, he had been buying a new diary for her to symbolize her life starting afresh.
It was a cute movie to watch. Nothing outstanding and the end was pretty predictable for anybody. Colin Firth needs to explore other roles where he can smile freely (which makes him look quite good). Hugh Grant did a good job as the evil lover. Good performance by Zellweger, although, she could have emoted better. She seemed to be embarrassed all the time, even though she was witty, which was odd. A good movie worth a watch.

paal vannam paruvam

Here's another gem - paal vannam paruvam from paasam.
M
paal vannam paruvam kandu
vel vannam vizhigal kandu
maan vannam naan kandu vaadugiraen

F
kann vannam angae kandaen
kai vannam ingae kandaen
penn vannam noi kondu vaadugiraen

kannam minnum mangai vannam
unthan munnum vantha pinnum
alli alli nenjil vaika aasai illaiyaa
paar vanna koonthal thottu
ther vanna maeni thottu
poo vanna paadam solla mangai illaiyaa

M
manjal vanna veyyil pattu
konjum vanna vanji chittu
anji anji kenjumbothu aasai illaiyaa
naer sendra paathai vittu
naan sendra bothu vantha
vaavendru alli konda mangai illaiyaa

F
paruvam vantha kaalam thottu
pazhagum kangal paarvai kettu
endrum unnai yenni yenni yaengavillaiyaa

M
maal kandu maalai ittu
naan unnai kovil vaithu
oorvalam poivara aasai illaiyaa

Darcy's Story

Written by Austen fan Jane Alymer, this book is about Darcy's story - Pride and Prejudice in the hero's perspective.
The novel begins with the introduction of Wickham's traitory to Darcy, with Georgiana's elopement; followed by the trip to Netherfield, the brush with Elizabeth Bennet. The re - introduction of the villain, Wickham. After this comes the scruples of Darcy to convince his friend, Bingley, out of Jane's love. His returning to Derbyshire and Pemberly, in his sister's company and his yearning to see Elizabeth Bennet again. His mistaken feelings for her and then her rejection. His disappointed hopes growing further as passionate love and intolerance towards his friend's, Bingley's, sister. And then the sudden meeting with Elizabeth - his fervent want to show her his 'gentleman' side. And then the impetuous introduction of Wickham again into his smooth life. His hunting down for Wickham to bring peace of mind to his love. And then his aunt's uncivil, but useful intrusion. Finally, his achievement of his heart's desire.
Although this was a fan fiction, and I was a little apprehensive after reading the prior ones, but I think this was quite loyal to the actual story with lot of excerpts from the original novel. I did expect a lot of Darcy's thoughts, but the story seemed more of a narrative. It was nice to see the points where there were mistaken emotions on Elizabeth's and Darcy's side. For example, when they meet at Hunsford, Darcy's conversation about the distance between Longbourne and Rosings was for questioning Elizabeth's liking towards him, but Elizabeth (in the original novel) assumed it to be questioning Jane and Bingley's acquaintance.
Also parts where Darcy was yearning to see Elizabeth and at times when he was just content watching her and times when he enjoyed her witty conversations and his jealousy when other men were able to easily interacted with her, was well captured and a good treat. A good book to read.

Ponnezhil Poothathu

There are just so many songs that have exceptional tunes and lyrics. Although I don't claim to be a genius in this department to critique them, I could write down the enjoyment.
Here are the lyrics for ponnezhil poothathu from kalankarai vilakkam:
M
Sivagami.. Sivagami..

F
o.. o..

M
(chorus) ponnezhil poothathu puthu vaanil
venpani thoovum nilavae nil

yen mana thotathu vanna paravai
sendrathu engae sol sol sol

thennai vanathinil unnai mugam thottu
yennathai sonnavan vaadugiraen
unniru kann pattu pun patta nenjathil
pun patta kai pada paadugiraen

unnam yen ullathil mukkani sakkarai
alli kodutha pon maadam engae
kinnam nirumbida thenkani saar unna
mun vantha sevvanthi maalai engae

F
(chorus) ponnezhil poothathu thalaiva vaa
ven pani thoovum iraivaa vaa

un mana thotathu vanna paravai
vanthathu ingae va va va

thennavan mandrathu senthamizh kann kondu
vanthathu ponn vandu paadikondu
mannavan ullathu sondham vanthaal endru
sendrathu poothendral aadikondu

yennudal enbathu un udal endrapin
yennidam kobam kolluvatho
ondril ondru aanapin thannai thanthaaneppin
unnidam naan enna solluvatho

M and F
aaaa..

Mistress of Spices

Starring Aishwarya Rai and Dylan McDermott, the movie is an adaptation from a book, and a story about an age - old tradition of 'spice-ology'.
A young girl, Tilo, with premonitionary powers is abducted by thieves to help them find gold. She escapes to 'first mother' who has the power of reading spices. Spices help a mistress of spices to help the people who come in distress. Being the mistress of spices requires following 3 rules - never to use spices for own desires, never to step out of the store and finally, never to touch skin. After learning the skill, Tilo leaves for America to practise her skill.
She helps her customers to have better lives by providing them with the spices that she senses they require. She combines her premonition skills to find what happens in their lives and the spices 'talk' to her to give her advice. She lives behind her store and is following the rules very faithfully until..
Doug comes her way and she breaks all the rules, against her definite resolve. The spices punish her by punishing her customers. Now she has to let her spices know that she isn't leaving them, but only wants both them and Doug.
I had watched the movie with high hopes, but the story ended up being quite bland. And the 'magic' was no where to be found. I was even wondering at times if the cast themselves understood some of the dialogues. Doug's character was totally westernized and Tilo was mentioning some of the spices in Hindi and I was wondering what was happening in Doug's head. Either he wasn't even listening to her or he was just dumbfounded with what he was hearing.
There was some element of magic which was hard to believe and the constant mind talking of Tilo's was a little distracting.
As always, Rai came as a model and stunned the screen as one, but her skills as an actress have to go a long long way. Sometimes, I found myself thinking, what exactly did she just do?
McDermott looked very good in this movie. I think the rough looks look good on him for a good boy and when he is clean, he looks well fit for a villain. (I also discovered one of my co-workers, HI, is an rounder version of him).
A movie I would have skipped if not for the fact that it was Gurinder Chadha's movie.

Thiruvilaiyaadal Aarambam

With Dhanush and Shreya in the lead and Prakashraj as the villain, the movie is about the cat and mouse game between the protagonist and the antagonist.
Thiru is a happy go lucky boy with a passion to do business. He is much frowned upon by his own parents as he is not very helpful towards the family situation. He falls in love with Priya, the younger sister of a business tycoon, Guru.
As expected, Guru is against their love and tries in every way possible to destroy the love. Eventually, he manages to buy off the love. When Priya comes to know of it, she is heartbroken and breaks off with Thiru.
Thiru uses the money to find his business dream and comes off very successfully. Now he is almost equal to Guru's status. Guru tries his best to destroy Thiru, but at every bend, Thiru gets back at him. They continue to bug each other throughout the rest of the show.
As Guru tries to get his sister married, he discovers another glitch. This was a good twist. Once he fixes that, the marriage goes as planned, but Thiru attends the marriage and after some exchange of words and some naughty tricks, Priya and Thiru unite, with the blessings of Guru.
The movie was well paced and it never felt like it was sogging under the weight of boredom. The quick comic and punching dialogues were funny to listen to. The ease of acting of both Prakashraj and Dhanush was a treat to look at. Dhanush's looks was very reminiscent of younger days of Rajnikanth with the overflowy hair and the scrawny looks (Wonder if this is why Rajni's daughter fell for him?). Scenes where he was hitting 3 to 4 men at once with a body like a skeleton was a little too much for his character, but other than that, he was bearable to watch.
Shreya had little to do except add glamour and she did that fine. I don't understand why no one checks on the movement of the heroines who don't know the language. They look so dumb and stupid as they mouth of something else other than the dialogue. Don't the actors performing with them end up laughing?
Although the songs weren't memorable, they were different to listen to and remix of yennama kannu with different lyrics was funny. A good movie, worth a watch.

Weekend Wodehouse

This book is a collection of short stories and excerpts from Wodehouse's other books, which show the comical genius at his best.
Since each story is different and unique, one would have to read the book to know the short story summary and the short jokes made, instead of a grand summary of the stories.
A worthwhile read for individuals who like short comical stories.

Vettaiaadu vilaiyaadu

Another police story venture by kaaka..kaaka fame Gautham Menon with padmashree Kamalahassan in the main character, with Jyothika as the heroine and Harris Jeyaraj as the music director. The movie has big shades of craziness, as in kaaka.. kaaka with Pandiya, except in this one with Ila and Amudha.
Raghavan is an honest cop. He is a widower. His wife was killed by some vengeful convicts, who were released. Arogyaraj (Prakashraj) was his support at that point in time leading to a deep friendship between them. Arogya lives happily with his wife and a daughter. Suddenly his life is in shatters - his daughter gets murdered.
To investigate the death, he calls Raghavan for help with the investigation. While the investigations are proceeding, Arogya leaves for the States to get some peace, but is brutally murdered in the foreign country. Looking at the clues, Raghavan feels the murderer is the same for both the cases he is investigating. He also uncovers other string of murders, all having similar clues. With the investigation, he traces the murderers to be 2 Indian medical students, Ila and Amudha. But they escape by severly injuring Raghavan.
Also during his stay at New York, he meets Aradhana, a to-be divorcee of a cheating husband. He falls in love and eventually proposes to her. She accepts the proposal after they return to India.
The 2 students infiltrate into India, escaping all the police traps with clever disguise and other murders. As a final trap, they plan to kill Raghavan and his family, along with Aradhana. But their plan backfires and all ends happy.
The craziness of the 2 medical students was very well captured, I must say, because it almost made me throw up and close my eyes everytime they talked about the murder or one of the bodies was discovered. I was thankful that they didn't show the actual things too many times. Probably, wouldn't have gone through the censor board. As much as it is nice to see reality, some of it could be contained as not everyone has a very stable digestive system. My sibling totally forbade me from singing one of the songs in the movie, cause it reminded her of the scenes.
But good job by the director and the rest of the cast. As usual, the visuals were astounding and very realistic. Songs were melodious, but it seems like all of Jeyaraj's tunes seem to be coming from the same raaga and after a while one song meshes into another. The only one that stayed in my mind was pen nilavae.
A good movie, worth a watch, or perhaps more if your bile can handle it.

Dhoom 2

Once again with Abhishek Bachchan, Rimi Sen and Uday Chopra, join Hrithik Roshan, Aishwarya Rai and Bipasha Basu. With the star studded cast, it almost makes you think if someone is going to be underplayed, but it went all good.
Shonali is an ex-classmate of Jai, on a new assignment of catching Mr.A, who has been making impossible burglaries of the most expensive and priceless objects all over the world. Shonali is an expert shooter, while Jai comes up with the pattern of Mr.A's heists.
Jai manages to narrow down to his next attack, but they lose him over the chase. As a challenge to the police, Mr.A provides the world with his next location of attack.
As the force is waiting for him, enters another thief, who uses Mr.A's signature and both of them escape with the loot.
Mr.A discovers the fake A is a gorgeous woman, who can't stop talking, by the name of Sunaheri. She proposes a partnership to work with him. Although A refuses at first, he brings her aboard. Here comes a twist, where Sunaheri comes down to meet Jai to give him information about A. Supposedly she was a thief, who agreed to help the police in exchange for her freedom. Mr.A comes in at the same time to tell her that they are going to Latin America for their next attack.
With the information, Jai and Ali reach the same location. To provide Ali with a love interest, Shonali's twin sister, Monali is introduced as an Indian living in Latin America, who doesn't know Hindi and is quite foreign. She provides slight comic relief with Ali.
As Sunaheri is living with Mr.A, she discovers many of his talents and his name, Aryan. Eventually they trust each other and also fall in love. Aryan finds out about Sunaheri during one of her secret meetings with Jai. He is devastated and emotionally tortures Sunaheri, until she confesses she loves him and they escape together, against Jai. But they are caught and with lure of love, Sunaheri kills Aryan.
6 months later, Sunaheri is running a restaurant with Aryan and Jai comes by to arrest them, but lets them go, as Aryan is not stealing anymore and they just want a normal life.
The movie was all in all, Hrithik's. Great screen presence and acting. Even though most of his stunts were supported by ropes and all secure, they seemed pretty natural. And of course, his dancing was fabulous. He did well as the mystery man. There were good disguises. As soon as I saw the queen's face, I was sure that was what Aryan was going to use to steal the diamond. And his features fit perfectly with the plaster as one of the Greek men along the wall. I would have liked to see how he had escaped from the wall into the cleaner's clothes. Some bits just seemed to be telling that Indian police was too dumb, which was overplayed. Is the power of observation or even noticing present in none other than Jai? The little machine along the floor and not a single person looked at the ground the whole time?? That was an overkill, but oh well..
There wasn't much scope for Aishwarya and I have never been satisfied with her acting. Sometimes, her eyes were just gaping, instead of acting, but if wearing few clothes and providing some glamour was her purpose, then it has been fulfilled well. The type of dance in the movie was not her cup of tea. Although she managed to come along, she wasn't that great.
Bipasha did better in the dancing department, especially in don't touch me, soniya. Again, not much scope for her in the movie either. I thought she would be coming along the movie as an important aide for Jai, but the cop disappeared and some bikini lady came back, who didn't have much comedy scope either.
Abhishek didn't have much to do after the interval. There were intermittent sightings of him. And the few times he seemed around Aryan and Sunaheri in the second half, he seemed to be staring daggers at Hrithik for dancing with Aish (:D). Uday Chopra, like he said in the movie, was nothing much but comic relief in the movie and he didn't have much to perform either.
The excessive English lyrics and dialogues was really a push. Although it was nice to see shades of Hollywood in the movie, it was from Bollywood and it felt like the essence was lost with all the English and Latin influences - especially with the Dhoom 2 title song lyrics. But a good watch for the time and music.

Crash

With a cast of many actors along with Sandra Bullock, Brendan Fraser and Don Cheadle, the movie is about the friction of people of different backgrounds colliding.
A lawyer and his wife. A Korean couple. A Mexican locksmith. A Persian shopkeeper. A police detective couple. A mother looking for her youngest son. Two car-jackers. An African - American director and his wife. A cop and his sick father. A buddy cop. These people form the storyline where their lives 'crash' into one another's.
The lawyer and his wife are walking down the street as 2 car jackers get away with their car. As they reach home, the wife is paranoid of the Mexican locksmith and is annoyed by her Spanish housekeeper. As she wakes up the next day, she has an accident and none other than her housekeeper comes to her aid.
One of car jackers always thinks Blacks are illtreated and thus plans on car jacking only people of other colour. He and his friend drive away the lawyer's car. On the way injure a Korean man really badly and then drop him off at the emergency ward of the hospital. But they are not able to selll off the car as the dealer doesn't want any cops in his store. The next car they jack is the African American director. After some high drama, they are let off. Then the Korean's car is the next pickup, only to find that it has many people kidnapped as 'slaves'. He lets them go.
As the African - American director and his wife return home from a party, they are the victims of a molestation by a white cop. They are very mad. The next day, the wife is stuck in an accident and the only person who could help her was the cop who molested her.
The cop is trying very hard to get his father an emergency appointment for his health problem, but the hospital refuses and he gets mad at the Black receptionist. He unleashes that anger on the African American couple he sees on the road. His partner is not very happy about it and switches.
The cop's partner catches the same African American man, as he is became the victim of a car jack. As he travels home, he gives lift to the younger one of the car jackers. With a laugh as the base of the argument, he ends up shooting him. He dumps the body and burns his car.
The younger car jacker is the brother of a police detective, who brings his devastated mother to the spot.
The hospital staff, who examines the dead car jacker, returns home to console her father of the recent loss of their store. The Persian man runs a store as his livelihood. He calls a locksmith to fix his door. He hurls vulgarities at the locksmith who suggests to him to change the door. Next morning, his store is burglared and he is unable to get his insurance money.
He hunts down the locksmith and shoots at his daughter, but it seems it was only a fake bullet.
Although the story of the trials with each character was good to look at, there was too much racism and vulgarities being thrown around. A good movie to watch for broadening of thought, but you must be prepared for the mouthing.

The Prestige

Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale, with Scarlett Johansson and Michael Caine star in this movie about rivalry between two magicians.
The movie starts with the explanation of a successful trick - the pledge, the turn and finally, the prestige. And then, the movie proceeds as Borden is reading from Angier's diary.
Starting off as juniors with Cutter, Robert Angier and Alfred Borden aspire to become stars of their own show one day. Although Borden is extremely adventurous and wants to try out new things in their show, Angier is content and happy with his life and their shows. As part of his thought to trial to do new things, he ends up being the reason for Angier's wife's death.
Here begins the rivalry between the magicians.
Borden finds his love. He also starts setting up his own show. His show starts to get more daring and popular. During one of these shows, Angier shows up and hurts him.
Angier continues the show as Cutter retires from the stage. Olivia Wenscombe joins as his assistant. Bale, now, comes to his show and spoils it.
'The Transported Man' is the new act that Borden does and Angier is dying to get his secret. Although Cutter tells him, it is a man who looks like him, Angier refuses to believe, and sends Olivia to act as his assistant and get Borden's secrets to him. While, Angier finds another, who looks like him to help him with 'The Transported Man'.
Olivia ends up falling in love with Borden and instead starts helping Borden, instead of Angier. After knowing Angier's secret, Borden destroys his show. Olivia, still, passes on Borden's diary of his encoded secrets to Angier. But without the key, the secrets are useless. To get this secret, he kidnaps Borden's old man and he gets the cipher in exchange, which is also the solution to 'The Transported Man'.
Now Angier travels to America, while reading Borden's diary, in search of a scientist names Tesla. He provides the scientist with funds to develop the machine for 'The Transported Man'. It is here that the film begins to have a very interesting twist, which you should watch for yourself.
Borden's life is falling apart by this time - with his wife and lover.
The machine is made and Angier returns to complete a 100 shows with this machine. He does so with success. Borden tries to find the trick behind the show and reaches backstage to find Angier stuck in a water tank and dying.
Cutter walks in to find Angier dying and basing on their age-old rivalry, accuses Borden of having killed Angier. Borden is found guilty and sentenced. He leaves his daughter with his old man, but soon the daughter would be sent to the workhouse and to prevent that, he prepares to meet a rich man. He is shocked to find that the rich man is Angier in disguise. Now he is vengeful.
The movie after this point is just too good to describe in words. Do get the movie to watch the awesome ending twist. Bale's acting was commendable and Jackman, as usual was too good. Newcomer who played Borden's wife has also done a good job.
Although, I felt a little lost in the beginning of the movie, after about 20 minutes, everything started falling in place and it was a great psychological thriller with two obsessive individuals. A great movie worth many watches.