Guilt free reviewing

There is guilt free viewing and then there is guilt free reviewing!

While I felt that Kamal had gone overboard in Dasavatharam and was so upset that he could have made a much better movie with a lot less effort with the same material he had and promptly wrote a post at 2 in the morning just to vent, today has been a different day.

A post mortem, of sorts, on the movie, the initial reaction and some guilt on being too hard on Kamal.

My mother, holds me to a different standard than by brother or sister! She rarely agrees, but everyone knows. Call it the first child syndrome. I cannot get away with a lot of things that my brother or sister can get away with, even if I already set a precedent!

That said, there is three reasons for the guilt.

1. Did not mention what was good in as much detail as what was not. There are some great Kamal moments in the movie.
2. A higher expectation from Kamal because he is expected to pull this off without flaws.
3. The initial negative reaction has now given way to some reconciliation inside the head that "it was worth watching once!" . One can always point to the million things that could have been done differently to make it Oscar worthy (no pun intended), but what is done is done and that is what got presented to the audience!

The funny part is there are so many reviews out there that actually shower accolades on Kamal playing Fletcher or Bush! The two things that really irked me to no end because the makeup for these roles prevented him from showing any "acting"!

Then my MIL is talking to someone on the phone saying "the chinese Kamal".... and I was thinking "Hmm.. if you dont know the difference between Chinese and Japanese, and if you don't know that NaCl is salt, chances are you might appreciate the movie a lot more!"

In the movie Kamal says "I dont say god doesn't exist! Only say it would be great if he did!" and the irony is, I didn't say this movie is bad. Only said, it could have been a lot better!

Still, never thanked Kamal once in the previous post for :

a. Trying so hard
b. Getting us to sit there for 3 hours and make it feel like 2 hours and 40 minutes
c. Getting a lot of things right, the way only he can!

So, there.. Thank you!

Now Dr. Kamal Haasan, please go and make a Crazy Mohan dialogue based comedy before you make another mega movie! We know you are versatile enough to pull it off! Flawlessly!

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How to make a blockbuster -101

To date, this blogger has not made a movie. His entire videography experience is limited to movie maker clips under ten minutes!

As Confusius once said (he said a lot of things and I am not sure if this is one of those things) "Every ass has a hole!" and along those lines, I have a little primer for how to make a blockbuster movie, purely based on watching movies that went on to become blockbusters or bankbusters.

1. Do not go overboard - on anything. Be it makeup, stunts, dialogues, accents, length of the movie, anything!

2. Do not insult your audience - even if you are doing something that is not normal, make it look possible under the assumptions of the movie. In other words, don't violate the rules of your own movie.

3. Find your target audience - You cannot please every type of audience, even if you are a universal hero! Go right or go left!

4. Screen time - One person showing his face for 80% of the movie, even if the face is disguised brilliantly, severely, grotesquely, is still cloying! Give other people in the movie a chance to participate! It is a movie, not a one man stage show.

5. Movies are expected to have a coherent flowing storyline and relevant dialogues. While they are not a must, they do help. A movie is not just a showcasing of acting talent. If one is capable of multiple disguises, you could technically do 36 five minute skits with 36 different makeups and string it all together and call it a three hour...."talent show"!

Why do I suddenly have the urge to write all this? Well, just came back from watching Dasavatharam, the movie.. sorry.. the Kamal Hasan talent show!

I am upset that he did not play Hilary Clinton or Barak Obama!

Well, maybe in the sequel Beesavadharam, where he plays 20 roles in the same movie, he will consider those two characters!

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BARR - Dosa Place

A restaurant review, after a long time. This restaurant made me get back to writing reviews!

After a strong recommendation from Mitr and K, we decided to check out Dosa Place this weekend.

When San told me that it is between Kiely and San Tomas Expressway on El Camino Real in Santa Clara, I immediately reeled off possible locations.

"Either it has to be in the complex which has DiCiccos or the complex that has the Officemax and Java Coffee.. there are no other places there.. unless the Uno Pizza which became a Chinese restaurant is now an Indian restaurant?". For those women out there who are intersted in knowing San's response, it was "Just shut up and drive!"

There are two new Indian restaurants. One called Peacock in the Officemax complex and the Dosa Place, which has actually replaced Dicicco's Italian Restaurant! I have fond memories of the Italian place. When San was pregnant with Jr., she would order me to go get breadsticks from Diciccos.

Location : 2665 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA
Wait time : 5 minutes (reasonable crowd but the place is big and we were seated instantly).
Food wait time from order : 10 minutes for all items including Dosa
Check time : 2 minutes (Visa, Mastercard, and they take AMEX)
Average price per person : $8
Rating "I miss my mother in law!".
Service : Excellent.. Really Excellent!

Items sampled : Rava Dosa, Poori Masala, Andhra Thali, Chai.

The old Italian restaurant used to be long and the walls were painted a dark color. Now the whole place is brightly lit, and looks spacious.

The food was excellent. All the items were amazing. But there is more to this review than the food. I remember my mom telling my sister once during a function at home "You should always smile when you serve the guests food. That is when they feel like eating". If you read that and said "hey, that is just common sense", well it is not the norm in most Indian restaurants in the bay area where someone serves you because they are paid by the hour and you can pretty much tell that they don't care about your culianary experience!

Dosa Place has a lot of things going for it.

1. It is brightly lit. The place looks festive!
2. The waiters, waitresses, manager, cleaners all seem to be in the 20-30 age group. They remind you of the singapore airlines air-hostesses. Always smiling and energtic and very polite they made us feel welcome.
3. They play nice fast paced Indian instrumental music in the background.

When we asked the manager she said "this is a kind-of family owned restaurant. We started two months ago and have a branch in Fremont".

We really hope that their service doesn't decline as the crowds go up!

For a second I was sad to see Dicicco's go, but now I am happy that it has found a worthy replacement.

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Out of the blue

During our long weekend visit to the east coast, we stayed in a hotel near the BWI Airport. After a long days sightseeing in DC, we wanted to go get some Indian food.

Called the lobby and they suggested a small Indian Restaurant nearby. It was the only Indian restaurant in that small town on the phone book. We had nothing to lose and so off we went.

We were pleasantly surprised by the ambience and the food!

In about an hour we were seated, we had finished a sumptuous meal and were out!

The prices were reasonable too (12$ a person)

The naan, matter panner and poori's were awesome.

But if you are in the BWI airport area, this place is a good spot for a nice Indian dinner. It is called Indian Delite and is in Catonsville just outside Baltimore. It is on Frederick road (two blocks behind where route 695 intersects route 40 aka National Pike).

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Shah Rukh Magic

Watched Chak De India over the weekend. I came out all teary eyed. I would have gone and watched it anyways being an SRK fan, and sooner if it werent for the hectic trip to the east coast.

It is the only movie which I have watched to this date where I have come out and said "I would watch this again!". I still cannot get the visuals out of my head or the Maula Mere song that still keeps running in the background.

It is a movie to be watched on the big screen. A very realistic sports movie with a message on todays reality when it comes to :

1. how women are treated
2. how sports are treated
3. how sportswomen are treated
4. how religion gets into sports
5. how the general public reacts to sporting events

There are multiple messages that come out in this movie, but they are all told in a very subtle sublime way, without pushing the message across forcefully or melodramatically.

On a side note, if you want to get back memories of being cooped up in a small common room in a dormitory with 100 other students to watch world cup cricket or soccer and you are holding on to go to the restroom.. drink a large coke while watching Chak De India. Makes the movie watching more interesting towards the climax!

SRK rocks!

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