Superstar daa!

Yesterday, we got to watch the latest Rajni movie, Kabali. All I knew was that :

it had Rajni as a Don...  Nothing new there

Rajni plays an old man .. okay but there were scenes in the trailer where he is in flashback young Rajni mode

No typical Rajni movie soundtrack : okay.. that was a red flag but still..

Went to watch it and came out shaking my head. 

If you don't know what going to a Rajni movie is like..

Imagine you go to a James Bond movie. There is some hint of action for 30 seconds and then Bond comes and shoots once.. the camera iris closes.. blood drop flows down the screen and the Bond movie theme music soars!  

Then the scene moves to a monastery.. Daniel Craig is now a non-violent priest who is training students on tai-chi.. and they don't even show his face.. they show the side and back of his face.. you are to infer that this Bond is not the usual Bond you are used to seeing. Maybe that is a hint for us to get ready for more surprises.. 

The movie keeps going. You are waiting for some hot bombshell pin up girl to join the action... instead you see that Judy Dench is now mother superior and they are taking about starting an orphanage. You scratch your stubble and go "hmm.. ticket says Bond movie... are we sure this is the right theater. these two have acted in other roles in other movies and they are good.. and that tonsured dude does look like Daniel Craig!"  You give it the benefit of doubt and sit down quietly.

Another thirty minutes passes with Bond(if you can still call him that) going into details of Tai-Chi moves in slow motion with a few kids and there is a loud noise.. You are expecting some typical Bond movie style train to run through the monastery and are expecting Craig to remove that head piece to reveal his executive style hair underneath that fake tonsure, to pull off his robe to reveal a charcoal black tux and  to jump on the train to put the brakes on.. but the scene moves to Dench who has just dropped her box full of prayer beads. At this point you have had it.. 

Then Bond smiles at Dench from the corner of his lips and says some quirky one liner and you go "okay.. I think I saw a slight hint of Bond there.. should I jump up and clap because this is where it all begins? or am I going to be the only idiot clapping?". You look to the left and you look to the right and you see other folks in the dimly lit theater doing the same thing.. everyone is looking at everyone with that "what are we do make of this?" look.  You realize that most of the movie is done and your typical hero is nowhere to be seen. Your typical experience for this franchise is not coming.. 

and it dawns on you.. you have been had! After Rumble in the Bronx, this is the worst experience for tralier excitement : Movie reality that you have witnessed. Given you have never forgiven Jackie for tricking you by putting the best stunts in the two minute trailer and filling the rest of the runtime with crap, your blood pressure goes up. 

Right then, there is a scene. Bond does his usual wink and blink and there is a brief scuffle, but it is too little too late.  You come out a litlte confused. If it weren't for the Bond theme music and the single shot fired and the iris closing at the begining of the movie, there was nothing Bond about it! It could have as well been a Tai-Chi documentary. 

As a die hard Bond fan, you convince yourself that you saw glimpses of Bond in a few fleeting moments, but you get very very angry. You wanted the entire movie to be that!

That people was my way of explaining to the world what Kabali was as a Rajni movie. If we didnt have the opening credits showing SUPERSTAR RAJNI in StarWars font capital letters, this had nothing of the typical Superstar in it. It was a violent documentary of the Malaysian Tamil community and its struggle to gain equal rights with respect to opportunities, pay and representation in the government. 

I am not trying to diss that movement or the fact that it gets much needed attention in this movie. Would I go to watch a movie on that topic if it actually had some activists or soap opera actors playing lead roles? Maybe not. Then again they could have made a documentary and have Rajni do the voice like Morgan Freeman does to Penguin movies.. or they could have had him show his support to this movement or set the record straight with a few clips. There was no need to trick me into thinking it was a "Rajni movie" when it clearly was not.

Yes, Ranji was in it.. but that was it! 

Now I have to go watch some old Rajni movies to try and reset my head and expectations on what a superstar movie watching experience is really like!

ps. Used to write  funny posts on Rajni movies or even Kamal movies (by dragging Rajni into it).  Tried to put some frivolity into this post, but deep down I am pissed.

Enthiran - the north south divide

Why is there such a north south thing going on with the comment boxes w.r.t. enthiran on any forum? what does this movie have anything to do with Dabaang or Anjaani?

It is a Rajni movie. It is not trying to prove anything to Bollywood. It is a good movie. Just enjoy it and let it be. They are not the same genre. There seems to be no connection between the two movies other than they were released same day. Now that is silly, no?

on a side note to the Maarans and the "nidhis" karunai or otherwise : What goes around comes around folks. this is what you get for alienating other languages for no good reason. Tamizh as a language is not going to die anytime soon. Hindi speakers are not aliens!

Some idiot goes and posts a comparison of Robot with Anjaani and then the entire message board goes to dogs. Same theme everywhere in every news article I have read in the last couple of days.

In a world where Rajni = Mob = paal abishegam = frenzy ------> hysteria, it is not a good idea to keep doing this.

It is a question of time before this rage jumps over from the message boards to bill boards and before you know it people are hitting each other with boards!

The other weird thing is that there are media reports which go out of their way to say the movie did extremely well outside the four southern states and some that go the extreme opposite and say "this movie did not do well at all.." and the frame of comparison is always Anjaana Anjaani.

Guess two big production houses are going at it big time in showing they are doing good and a lot of simpleton fans might have consequences for this!

One has to be happy with the fact that Ranbir Kapoor doesn't have fans who are as fanatical as Rajni fans.

Thank god for small favors.

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Enthiran - The festival

That was just one of the many videos of the crowd and celebration at a small Theater in San Jose. There are only 200 or so seats in the theater where we watched the movie tonight. (we= me, MIL, San's aunt). San watched the preview show because she could not wait for the 24 hours and I was still sick last night.

Rajni movies are a treat, especially because the audience is so alive! This movie was by far the best Tamizh movie I have seen in a long long time.

Everything about this movie was a notch above my expectations! This team went all out and made a fantastic effort to make a Sci-fi Tamizh movie.

Recently there was a Tamizh Western (comedy). That trailer alone made me squirm. Apparently the movie got okay reviews. Was wondering what a Tamizh Sci-fi would be like. Very happy to realize that this Tamizh Sci-fi absolutely rocked!

All of us got a free poster at the ticket counter. That one goes into the souvenir box for sure. Tonight was a very memorable night.

Thank you Superstar!

If only they had released it on one of the local AMC theaters on the biggest screens with louder sound....

Who knows, maybe they will see how good this movie is and do that ?!

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Edible Hero Worship

San came home after watching the new Rajni movie Kuselan (on opening night) and gave the kids a little treat!

You got that right!

M and M's with Rajni uncle's picture on them! Jr. was giggling away as she ate them. She thought it was hilarious. Considering that she has not seen any pictures printed on an M and M to date, she was surprised that Rajni uncle beat Dora the Explorer when it came to being on the candy.

The little one didn't quite understand what the big deal was, giggled away as well to copy her sister, and ate the candy.

The movie got a "okay movie" remark from San, but the M&M's got rave reviews from Jr.

ps. San corrected to "okay movie".. my original translation to "nice" was not accurate!

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Kamal, Rajni and the proverbial Mango!

There is a mythological story that kids in south India are told, about Lord Ganesha and Lord Muruga aka Karthikeya.

The story starts with Lord Shiva and Paarvathi in possesion of a mango. They call both their sons and being typical south Indian parents, they decide that there is no fun in just cutting the mango into two halves and giving it to their two sons. So as is customary, they tell their kids that only one of them can have the whole mango and make it into a little test. Whichever kid cracks 800/800 in the Math section of the SAT will get the mango. No, I am kidding. What they really said was something more simple. Simple for little god kids that is!

Whichever one of you, goes around the world three times gets the mango!! they declared.

Muruga, the hot headed athletic dude, decided to hop on his pet peacock and started flying around the world three times. He was clocking Mach 8 on the mythical peacock and looked like a sure winner, but....

The nerdy Ganesha scratched his head with his trunk and said "Hmm.. I cannot compete with my brother and his flying peacock. All they gave me was this pet mouse which is no good for such contests!". Just as that thought had flashed in Ganesh's head, the mouse, worried that he might get a kick in the butt from his master for his physical inabilities, scurried behind Lord Shiva and Parvathi!

The fact that the mouse chose to run around them clockwise, gave Lord Ganesha a brilliant idea. He jumped up with joy and said "a^2 +b^2 = c^2! the hypotenuese.. the hypotenuse.. why didn't I think of that before!" The celestial crows heard this and started course correcting to their destinations along the shortest route! The greek gods promptly took note.

Ganesha folded his hands in prayer, winked at his parents and walked around them three times. Shiva and Parvathi looked at him and said "Duh. So?"

"Don't you get it mom? Don't you get it Dad?" cried Ganesha. "I am trying to say that my parents are my world at this age and walking around you three times is the same as walking around the world! Now, cough up that mango!"

Shiva and Parvathi were stumped. They knew that the precocious kid was not easy to deal with. He had come up with things like Boolean Logic, Fuzzy logic and Eigenvectors all at the tender age of three and the humans were already building temples for him in every street corner!

They asked young Ganesha to go wait outside while they had a parent conference.

Shiva: What can we do now?

Parvathi: We could wait till Muruga comes back and declare him the winner for genuinely circling the globe three times!

Shiva: But what kind of message do we send to the rest of creation?

Parvathi: What do you mean? Hard work always triumphs! That is the message you send.

Shiva: Come on now girl! When was the last time you or me did any hard work around here. We delegate. That is what we do. We work smarter, not harder!

Parvathi: You have a point there. I forgot that I am now in Universal management! We have to send the right message here. Smart Ganesh knows how to get the mango! He is a role model for the earthlings on how to get things done.

Shiva: I only have one problem with giving him the mango. The earthlings might suck up to him more than they suck up to us. After all, he is going to be their role model for taking the short cut!

Parvathi: Overall, it might be a better move to give it to Ganesha. We never know what he will come up with next!

So it happened! Ganesha got the mango. When poor Muruga returned, with his hair all messed up in flight, only to realize that his parents were tricked into giving up the mango, he got real mad, tonsured his head and sat on top of the Pazhani mountain to meditate.

Ganesa, who had still not had a chance to "echchai" the mango, was worried! He knew all too well from Tamizh movie stars and American rock stars that when they threw a temper tantrum, they usually got what they wanted! Muruga, a celestial heartthrob, could still sway people his way.

Yet again, Ganesha scratched his head with his trunk and went to Cafe Kailash, a popular tea joint, where the gods were busy spreading the latest gossip about the Mango incident! Making it look like pure coincidence, he went and sat next to Narada, who had a controlling stake in Narbook, Narspace, Nartube and MyNarad, not to mention Narkut!

"Did you know the real reason why he tonsured his head?" he asked Narada.

"He was angry and wanted to call attention to himself. Isn't that the reason?" said Narada, as he instant messaged a dozen gossipmongers on SameNarad.

"It is such a pity that only 6.25% of celestial beings understand Aerodynamics! All this free floating in free space has spoilt us. We are worse than American kids who cannot point to "I"raq on the world map!" Ganesha retorted.

"Aero what ?" !!! said the small crowd of gods who had gathered around in response to Narada's message.

"Aerodynamics!! Muruga did not win because his hair kept flailing around and created a drag effect and slowed him down. His peacock's feathers didn't help with the flying either. That is why he tonsured his head, so he can do better next time. He is meditating on the hill, because he is contemplating defeathering his peacock!"

The crowd pondered for a second and said "Ganesha is soooo smart! No wonder he won the race, with his aerodynamic trunk and his clean shaved mouse!" and walked away.

That is the untold version of the Mango story. The official pictorial version is here.

"Now, what has this got to do with Kamal and Rajni?!" you ask?

K.Balachander told them both that, when they have the Tamizh movie audience eating out of their hands, they will get the "box office" mango.

While Kamal went on to play ten roles in the same movie, and took two three years to make the movie, where he acts as a thin, tall, short, bald, old, young, fat, black, brown, white, Iyer, Iyengar, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, athesit, scientist, beggar, doctor, priest, fisherman, dentist, terrorist, secret agent, police, cab driver, etc. etc....., Rajni quickly thought to himself, looked inside his pockets, found some cigarettes, cooling glass, toothpicks, coins, paperweights etc., oozed some style, did some clever antics with the stuff from his pockets and won the box office mango!

In all sincerity, do hope Kamal gets the mango this time with Dasavatharam!

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