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Sivaji - Reviewview

Preface : This is about the Tamizh Movie "Sivaji" staring Super Star Rajni!

So what is different about this Re-view-view ?

Well, you have to see a movie to review it! I am going to violate all known ethical codes by writing a review for a movie that I have not yet seen. But I am not the first one. I have actually seen a lot of posts which say review, but talk about the hype and what to expect and promise to write the real review after watching the movie. I will join that bandwagon.

Who is who ? What is What ?

I will now proceed to set minds to rest over the various questions that people might have with respect to this post. Why should it be even relevant ? Well, people are asked a few questions in the United States and binned accordingly ! Are you a republican or democrat, are you pro-life or pro-choice, are you okay with homosexuals or are you a homophobe, etc. etc. But in Tamizhnadu they also ask you, do you like Super Star or not, do you like Sivaji or not, etc. Plus any post with Sivaji in the title is immediately judged. The author is judged on his % Pro Rajni-ness! and is promptly lauded or flamed. Considering I am sarcastic by default, I better answer these questions..

So lets proceed :

Do I like Rajni ? Yes
Do I like movies ? Yes
Do I like Rajni movies ? Mostly!
Do I still like him after he is old and tries to act young ? Yes (except the romance part).
Did I like Baba ? No
Did I like Chandramukhi ? Yes
Did I watch FDFS (first day first show) for Baba ? No
same for Chandramukhi ? Yes
When did I really watch Baba ? After it came out on DVD.
Will I wait for Sivaji to come out on DVD ? probably not!
Then why the $*%& am I waiting ? For tickets to drop to 10$
Have I made up my opinion on this movie yet ? No (seriously!)
Will my wife throw me out if I watch the movie and say it sucks ? No
Will my wife make me vadai, payaasam, etc. if I watch the movie and say I loved it ? No
Do the above two answers prove that I will express my honest opinion when I do see the movie ? Yes!
Do I expect this to be a good movie ? No.
Do I expect this to be a good Rajni movie ? Yes.
Will I watch it only for Rajni and ARR ? Yes.
Will I actually come back and write a real review later ? Hell NO! That would become an insignificant post. "Bay area man writes the 646,259,946745'th Sivaji Review" would be the headline. No Sir, not me.

Now here is my Re?View based on all the gazillion reviews I have read in the one week since this movie has been released to the general public! Practically everyone and their dog has a review of Sivaji!

Ahem...

Sivaji is a mass entertainer, where Super Star still shows that Style always rules over substance when it comes to this genre of movies. If Tom Cruise had half the style of Rajnikant, MI-III would have been a real blockbuster. It had the same hype and the money thrown in, with Cruise Star power, possibly the biggest hollywood could boast at the time, but the results were not even close. .(Well I havent seen Sivaji, but everyone else has and ergo, style has ruled over substance. As for lack of substance, that seems to be in unanimous agreement as well!).

That said, there are still a lot of gripes over the lack of a proper storyline, coherence, poor chemistry between the hero and heroine, songs that come up suddenly, length of the movie, etc. etc. The blogosphere seems to be polarized between two extremes on this one.

Some reviews say that these things while considered flaws for an average movie, do not really matter in a Rajni movie where the audience pays, just to see the man strutt his style on the big screen and utter punch dialogues. As a guy who stood 764'th in line at AMC Mercado to watch first day first show of "End of Days" or the dude who stood 1234'th in line to watch "The 6th Day" at the same theater, just to watch Arnold utter punch dialogues and throw people in the air, I can totally understand this type of review.

The next type of review goes on to pay its respects to "Thalaivar" (Rajni's nick name), his style etc., and bashes everyone else involved in making this movie with the exception of ARR. Shankar and Sujatha are prime targets with the producer being the secondary target, for wasting his money and not keeping an eye on the quality of the film! Now, how many of you can claim that you have watched two free movies in the same year, by just using your AMC movie watcher card? San and me can. That means, in the year we got married, we watched "at least" a movie a week, in theaters!! One day, we went to the 21 theater complex and found to our dismay that there was only one movie that was playing in all 21 rooms that we hadn't watched. So we watched it as well. As irony would have it, the movie was "Superstar", a film that left us speechless! We considered it an all time low in our movie watching life. As someone who has seen enough and more movies which lack substance or logic, my guess is that these guys are probably right. But a Rajni movie has to have all the Rajni elements or it would cease to be a Rajni movie. It is a self fulfiling prophecy! After Muthu was released, the Japanese have discovered the "Rajniberg Uncertainity principle", which states that it is impossible to have Rajni and Logic in the same movie and any attempt to precisely fix logic in the movie will make the Rajni part questionable!

Finally, we come to the hardcore "nay" sayers, who write, "Rajni is obligated to give his fans a decent movie", "A movie should not insult the audience's intelligence", "who will bell this commercial cat" (okay, okay, I came up with that last one), etc. etc. These are reviewers, who have either tried to judge this movie by the average movie standards or have reviewed it with an underdog mentality or trying to reason with mass hysteria, with an aim of being the sane voice. These are the ones who are promptly lauded for their guts and honesty for daring to say the truth and are also flamed in the comment box. I offer my deep condolences to this type of reviewer. India, or the USA for that matter is not free country. The internet does not have freedom of speech. If you do speak against mass hysteria you WILL be flamed! I can write a book about this! Once again, this is like saying bad things about WWF (and fear getting beaten up by some big dude next to you who is a fan), or saying bad things about Harry Potter (and fear getting beaten up by an angry teenager) or saying bad things about George W Bush (and fear getting beaten up by the government)! Apparently there are consequences if you dont agree with the general public. I would also point out to these reviewers that "Rajni is not obligated to do diddly squat!". He has made his money, and made his die hard fans happy, which were about the only things he was obligated to do, and even that obligation is questionable!

As for fans demanding more from their star and fans making or breaking a star, Rajni would have ceased to be a star a long time ago if his movies are judged by the average movie reviewer standards. The average Rajni fan is more of a fanatic. (Er, what I mean to say respectable Sir's and Madam's, is that you tend to watch Ranji movies with your FAN on in the AtTIC). That means box office logic does not apply to Rajni movies either!

Neenga ellam review than ezhduveenga. Naan reviewvukke review ezhudhuven! Idhu eppidi irukku ?

Translation (without Rajni style): You guys only write reviews. I write reviews of your reviews. How is that ?

:)

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Vadivelu revisted ?

Recently a video was chosen (not by me) from the local Indian Grocery store for the usual weekend viewing.

This one said "Vaigaipuyal Vadivelu acting superbly in 9 roles"!

Vadivelu is by far the reigning comedian in Tamizh movies today. He has become increasingly popular in the last three or four years. We had never heard of him doing 9 roles in any movie.

Once the wife and MIL started watching this movie, they were in for a rude shock.
Vadivelu was not the main focus of the movie. At least not in the first 20 minutes. They got sick of it and returned the movie.

I have selected a few bad movies in the past. Looks like my track record has improved, just because I did NOT select "Thesiya Paravai"!!

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Mozhi

Last week, same time, I was finding the best seat in a near empty theater to watch Mozhi. It was a very well made movie in a great theater with a big screen. This theater usually plays English movies that have been taken off the mainstream theaters for lower fares. Now that they are screening Indian movies here, it is quite a blessing. Nice seats, relatively kid free! audience, great sound, not to mention super toilets! I am seriously considering watching more movies in theaters, after this experience.

This is one clean movie. No violence, no double meaning dialogues, no crude humor! Well, you probably got all that from the movie review pros! However, I couldn't help notice the similarities in some of the situations between this movie and "Children of a lesser God", something that was not mentioned in any of the regular reviews! I had no idea what Mozhi was all about, but within the first 20 minutes, I could guess how many of the scenes were going to end.

I guess "Children of a lesser God" was probably not a popular movie in India. It came out in the late eighties. I watched it on cable (in bits and pieces) when I was in grad school. Got to watch the full movie only a few years ago. But it is one of my favorites of all time. I just can't forget Marlee Matlin in that movie. She was gorgeous and she could speak with her eyes. Later when I learnt that she is deaf in real life, I probably felt something along the lines of what Prithviraj feels in the hospital lobby in Mozhi!!

The catch though is, if you liked "Children of a lesser god" , you would definitely like "Mozhi", but not vice versa. The english movie has some nudity and strong language. So, wouldn't exactly call it a movie that you can watch with the whole family. It is a very serious movie compared to Mozhi, which has you smiling for the most part. You have to watch this movie. It got a best actress oscar for Marlee!

Now back to Mozhi! I have really taken a liking ot the soundtrack of this movie. I must have heard the song "Pesa Madandhaiye" a dozen times!! Had actually closed my eyes for a second just listening to the song. Well written, well sung and nicely directed! I did feel that it was a cross between "Deivam thandha veedu" from the movie Aval Oru Thodarkadhai, and "Evano oruvan" from Alaipayudhe. Again, I was surprised to find out that the singer is not KJ Yesudas or his son, but Madhu Balakrishnan. Let's just say that Madhu has a new fan!

If I have heard this song a dozen times, then I have been listening to "Sevvanam .." a few dozen times. Just love it. It is also Jr.'s current favorite song ("in the whole world" if I might add!). The funny thing is that when I listen to songs where I have heard the song for the first time while watching the movie, I tend to get the movie when I close my eyes and picturize the song. I get to do my own choreography in my head if I have heard the song without seeing the movie! Yes, I am actually doing the dancing. This song however is unique. For some reason, I get San in my vision instead of the heroine!

Was humming "computer kandavalo, karate katravalo" (maybe she has learnt Computers, Karate) thinking "damn, I am one lucky bastard to have married someone who knows computers and karate!" and at that precise moment San tells me: "please stop singing that song. every time you start singing it, either Jr. is coughing or the little one starts throwing up or bad things happen. That song is not good for our family!".

I burst out laughing at the irony of the situation. Considering that Jr. is the president and CEO of Virus Inc. and the litte one has recently been promoted to CTO of Germcorp, my singing has little do to with the state of affairs in the house. But an order is an order!. So, I stopped humming, we took one look at the kids, and we both started laughing!

Jokes apart, do go see Mozhi and if possible watch Children of a Lesser God too..

Wah Guru Wah !!

Watched

Guru

last night with my MIL at the Sion CINEPLEX..

You cannot beat watching a great movie in a great theater with the right ambience..

Still cant get "tere bina beswaadi.." song out of my head..

don't want to!

ARR rocks !!!

This experience more than made up for not watching Hindi movies in the US with all the babysitting duties. Go watch this movie if you get a chance..Worth every penny!

India has come a long way.. the movie watching experience here is a lot better than watching it in an AMC !!

You order tickets online and a delivery boy gets the tickets to your house !!!
You order snacks and coffee online and it gets delivered to your seat in the intermission !!
The theaters are absolutely clean and the sound quality is near perfect!
and the audience is well behaved !!

Hats off to Mumbai Cinema !!