Wordless Wednesdays -- Outing with the Team (Movie + Lunch)

Image Courtesy: www.bollywoood3000.blogspot.com and www.bjngroup.in

Angadi Theru -- Market Place

The title of this movie means market place or more specifically a road that only consists of shops. Angadi (Shop) + Theru (Road). Since the movie is filmed in Ranganathan Street,
Chennai, the title fits very well. I was actually surprised that Angadi was a tamizh word. I thought the Tamizh word for shop was Kadai (Not Kadaai Paneer, Kadaai Vegetables etc.). I knew that Angadi was a Kannada word which meant shop. Hmmm.. Interesting - the way Tamizh and Kannada are linked.

Image Courtesy: movie.suleka.com

The Story: The movie is 'bout a fictitious shop "Senthil Murugan" that is in Chennai on Ranganathan Street. The shop recruits their salesboys and girls from remote villages in Tamil Nadu. The primary criteria for recruitment is that the younster should belong to a large family and must be the primary bread-earner. The hero, whose father dies in an accident at an unmanned railway crossing is ob. chosen because he is the sole bread-winner. His friend, who fails his XII, wants to escape his father and lies to get the job. The movie show cases the life of these salesboys and girls.

My View: It is a realistic movie, with a lot of sub-plots and a number of characters. Each character does justice to their part and the director has ensured that they do not overact and unnecessarily add drama or comic relief. If you wanted to experience the life of a salesboy or girl, I feel that this would be the best possible depiction of it. A slice of life is how I would describe this movie. In some weird way or maybe it was intentional, everything about the shop "Senthil Murugan" reminds you of Saravana Stores, including the character who plays Annachi and Sneha who does a cameo. The movie was released last year in March. Don't get put-off by the looks of the hero and the heroine and avoid the movie. The script is the hero in this movie. Hats off to the director for taking up the not-so rosy side of life and for staying away from the cliched endings.

Wah Wah:

• Hard-hitting, realistic movie with an undercurrent of hope


• No unnecessary characters or comedians - the friend provided the much-needed comic relief.


• Good selection of actors to play key roles - sneha in a cameo playing herself.


• The song "Aval appadi onrum azhagillai" was nice and apt.

Bah:

• Slow pace after the intermission and slightly depressing

Meeting with the Master Storyteller

Yes.. I am referring to Lord Jeffrey Archer, who was in Bangalore, last week. I would have missed the event altogether if it had not been for a chuntu advertisement. The Sunday Times included a small ad 'bout the author's book-signing event. I called the Senior Arien, from whom I inherited my interest in books, and asked if he would accompany me to the book signing event. He agreed immediately. The Arien sulked a bit because I had not invited him. Well, he is not that into books and he comes home only around 10 pm and he knows this.

So, at 5:30 pm on Wednesday, 9th March 2011, myself and the Senior Arien were on our way to the Reliance Time-out outlet on Cunningham Road. Unfortunately, the store had no idea 'bout the number of folks who would turn up on a weekday at 6 pm. The number of chairs were few and occupied by the time we entered the place. The author, Lord Jeffrey Archer, entered the building and then moved to the dias around 7 pm. He kept the crowd enthralled with anecdotes, his success-story shared in a self-deprecating manner, references to Indian celebrities such as Sachin Tendulkar and R K Narayan, making the audience Whooop in delight. He also tackled questions from the audience, some of whom were ~9 years of age, while others were as old as 60. All this with a twinkle in his eye and a Grrowwl for the photographers who annoyed him.

It was after 8 by the time we pushed our way to the dias. It took him a second to sign his name before we were out of the dias. The queue, with folks yet to get his signature on the book, was right up to the entrance of the outlet. The senior Arien, who was completely tired after standing for two straight 2 hours, realized that he was better off than the guy who was still standing at the queue :D It was after 9 wen we finally reached home. Surprisingly, the Arien was at home and I was late. I bladed him to death 'bout my experience. He wanted to know if I managed to get a picture of myself with the author and my response was to show him this snap. What you are seeing is 1/4 of the actual queue. The fact that Jeffrey Archer even agreed to sign all the books was very generous of him. Overall a nice experience.

Wordless Wednesdays -- Only Time Will Tell

Wordless Wednesdays - Finished, Finally!!

Lunch @ Sue's Kitchen in IndiraNagar

This weekend, both of us wanted to eat at some place we had not been to and I opted for Sue's Kitchen. I had heard 'bout this place from a few colleagues and friends. The cuisine is Carribean and that in itself was going to be a new experience for us.

I was so fed up of the buffets I have been to offlate, that I was ready to enjoy any change. The food was quite different and nice. I was also amazed at the vegetarian variety. There was a Ghar-ka-Khaana feel to the food. I especially enjoyed the Calypso Rice, the Russian Salad, and the fried vegetables. The Arien found some of the non-veg items slightly sweet. He likes his meat to be spicy. Some of the dishes were spicy and the Arien enjoyed those. He went in for seconds which means it was good. There was a karela subji which I avoided that the Arien bravely tried. By the time, we started on the Dessert, I was stuffed. The Dessert was simple, no zillion pastries to choose from which was a blessing, and yummy.

The place was quite empty, two or three couples, at the most and usually accompanied by chattering or yelling toddlers. Surprisingly, majority folks who came, were malayalis. While I was slightly disappointed with the ambience, the lunch for two turned out to be quite expensive. Parking is a challenge sometimes - someone from the resturant helped us out and so it was easier for us. Overall, an OK experience.

Wordless Wednesdays -- Confessions of a Shopaholic

7 Khoon Maaf

The Story:
Susanna (Priyanka Chopra) is a young rich orphan who falls in lowe with the dashing Edwin Rodrigues (Neil Nithin Mukesh). She marries him only to learn that he is not quite what she believed him to be. A brave fighter during war-time, he is quite insecure in his personal life. His suspicious attitude, hurtful comments, and jealous actions hurt susanna a lot. Susanna, instead of divorcing him or running away, kills him. She meets and marries Jimmy (John Abraham), a choirboy turned rockstar. Just wen she is settling into wedded bliss, she learns that he is a liar, a cheat, and an addict to boot. So Susanne, sends Jimmy to parlok as well.

And subsequently she meets 4 other men: Wasiullah Khan (Irrfan), Vronsky (Aleksandra Dyachenk), Keemath Lal (Annu Kapoor), and Dr. Modhusudon (Naseeruddin Shah) and while all of them love her in their own way, they also hurt her very badly and so they have to die too. Susanne's quest for love ends when she meets her 7th husband. As Susanna moves from one husband to the next, she is ably assisted in her murders by her butler, maid, and the horse trainer, Goonga. Arun, the orphan she adopts, falls in love with her and the whole story is shown from his perspective and what he has pieced together. Based on Ruskin Bond's short story, Susanna's Seven Husbands.

Image Courtesy: http://bollywood3000.blogspot.com/2011/02/7-khoon-maaf-music-review.html

What I liked about the movie:

• The concept of the female bluebeard character. Priyanka does a good job.
• Fleshing out the characters of the husband(s) to show us the qualities that Priyanka falls for and the ones that she abhors
• Transformation of Irrfan from the soft-spoken, romantic, poet by day to the beast by night.
• Vronsky's mouthing hindi dialogues especially "Mera pass Ma hai" in a thick russian accent.
• The song "Daarrrling" was simply fantastic.

Why some folks may not like the movie:

• No suspense element -- the trailer gives away the plot. Some folks believed the movie to be a murder mysetery.
• Linear style of narration and pace -- no twists
• Why did Priyanka never not stop falling in love or stop murdering her husbands?

You can either like it or you can hate it -- there is no middle ground. There are no punch dialogues, no mushy stuff, no masala potboiler, no detective story, and no twists. This was my first Vishal Bharadwaj movie and I enjoyed it. Watch it and let me know what you think.

What am I reading nowadays?

I do not like vampire stories.. I did not even watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer when it was aired, like a zillion years ago.

So, when my SIL handed me her copy of the first book of the Twilight series, I was not so sure if I wanted it. That was until my cousin(her hubby) started groaning in the background and yelled: "How can you ppl read such trash?" His putting the book down was enough encouragement for me to accept the book and begin reading it :D I had watched a few scenes of this movie everytime it was aired on televison but I never got to see the whole movie. So, this was kinda like the Golden Compass. I can only hope that I like the other books.

I am yet to finish reading the book -- it even has a poster of the two actors which means this is another young adult book. I mean, who would stick a poster of the movie inside the book - movie promoters who are sure gals would go ga-ga over it. And I am reading it :( More in my review... coming up shortly.

Kaavalan -- a movie review

After taking a break from watching movies.. I am back with a bang. Well, I was not really guzzing the movie watching all this time - jes not reviewing them :D Anyway, I wanted to see a Tamizh film after a looong time. Though this movie was fraught with gossip and bad press about both the co-stars: Asin's return to Tollywood after London Dreams flopped big-time, Vijay's chance to redeem himself after his successive flops and his political hoo-haa, I wanted to see the film. Maybe that is why I wanted to see it :P

Image Courtesy: http://www.movih.com/tamil-movie-songs-download/kaavalan-release-date.html

And then I heard that Kaavalan was a remake of the malayalam film, Bodyguard (pronounced bow-dee-gaa-rd). Now, malayalam movies are way ahead of Tamizh movies in terms of script, story-line, movie-making style etc. Tamizh folks, meanwhile have to contend with Vijaykanth in yet another fight against corruption movie, or Sarath Kumar in yet another triple role as grandfather, father, and son, or watch Simbu gyrate to yet another mindless dapanguthhu song in his next movie or watch Dhanush play the underdog yet again. Naturally, this movie would be like movie-amrutham.

So we went with high expectations. And as usual it ended up going phhhhttt! Firstly, it was not a typical Vijay masala movie. The songs were bad and looked mostly unnecessary. There were a lot of holes in the story and a couple of loose ends which the director did not tie up towards the end. The end was supposed to be a twist. However, because the movie is sans masala, the twist has minimal impact and actually raises a lot of questions. Vijay's awful wigs for two songs were honestly laugh-worthy. There were some scenes which were good but I think the director tried catering to the Superstar Vijay instead of the actor Vijay resulting in a movie that only partially redeems itself. I am not a major fan of Vijay but I usually enjoy his songs and some of his movies are pretty much like Dabaang -- loads of fun and a total entertainer. This movie disappoints and how. Watch it and share your thoughts.

Wordless Wednesdays -- Belgian Chocolates for me

Manmadhan Ambu

Madhan (Madhavan) is a rich business man and the suspicious fiance of film actress, Nisha (Trisha). Due to his suspicious behavior, Trisha asks him to wait till she completes all her film commitments. She decides to go on a European cruise with her childhood friend Deepa (Sangeetha), a divorcee with two children. Madhavan hires a detective, Major Mannar (Kamal Hassan) to spy on Trisha because he is sure she is meeting Suriya (Suriya in a cameo). Usha Uthup, as Madhavan's mother was quite funny, and the credit goes to the script-writer for the hilarious one-liners. Madhavan was good as a amma kondu, suspicious lover, and a drunkard. Kamal sleepwalks through most part of the role and his flasback story (told in re-wind mode) does not offer anything new and fails to impress. Some of the dialogues are so non-filmy that you are impressed but post-interval, the movie kills you with a supposedly filmy comedy sequence where you want to say "Oh Stop it!!".

The movie is supposed to be a laugh riot. However, the movie drags and fails to impress. There are a few nice scenes in between which raise your expectations but sadly the movie does not meet those expectations. There is absolutely no chemistry between Trisha and Kamal -- I think the audience connects to their character in the movie but their falling in lowe makes it absolutely filmy. Who is the Hero? sounds innovative. Neeeeela vaaanam could have been good but Kamal kills it, I feel with his rendition of "neeeeeeeeee ----eeela vaanam". The movie is different - it does not have an item number, the story deals with a business man falling in lowe with a film star and his insecurities while dealing with her work and her proximity with her co-stars. Sangeetha as the divorcee seems quite mercenary - very realistic. It could have been great but it misses it for me. Catch it and let me know what you feel.

Wordless Wednesdays -- Four Years completed in Jan