2.0

I haven’t been in the blogosphere much lately, thanks to some changes happening in the physical world, more about that will in a few weeks. But this is something I have to share. The Tamil movie 2.0, a sequel to Enthiran (or Robot), was released recently. My family (along with the kids and friends) went to see the movie on Saturday and let me know that it was amazing and that I shouldn’t miss it. Luckily we had a screening of the same in a nearby theatre and I happen to have a discount card for that too. So we decided to try it out. They had only one show and it was for 7.40 pm.

Mr M hasn’t seen the prequel to this movie so I filled in with the basic storyline about Chitti and we were there ready for the moving, hoping that they had subtitles. Thankfully, they had and I should say it was the best ever subtitles that have ever been done so far. Even the very colloquial lines were well translated. Whoever did the subtitles, hats off to you!

The movie is very grand, hovers between fantasy and modern or even futuristic technology, has very very few songs, very fast paced and doesn’t make you sleep. Rajni does look aged and tired in many scenes. The one-liners are very cute, especially with the humanoid. References to the prequel are there but nothing you can ignore if you haven’t watched it. Mr M enjoyed it and thought the storyline was very good and very appropriate for current times. I am purposefully not giving away anything about the story because it will kill the interest. The only thing I thought could have been done was to cut short the last fight. I had this issue with the prequel too. I thought the last fight scene was going on forever. They could have edited it a lot. But then most people love that and I might be in the minority. Even though they have pitched for a sequel, I sincerely hope they stop here. Otherwise, it would get very repetitive and end up being boring irrespective of how grand it is and it could be.

I really enjoyed the various facts presented throughout the movie which forms the premise of the story and they are very interesting. Makes you think and read about them too. That is a big positive out of the movie. Bringing the huge and difficult topics which might be too technical for a layman to understand and presenting it with a healthy dose of facts and a generous helping of masala. Overall it is a movie well done and the visual effects are a treat. We enjoyed it and it was a well-spent Saturday night.

Now for some books and movie

I think it is time for some books and movies in this blog. Been a while since I wrote about any of them. Last month I read a book called “The Sound of Rain” by Gregg Olsen. I absolutely loved it. I did an all nighter which Mr M wasn’t very happy about. But then I did not have an option. I was so involved in the book I just couldn’t keep it down. I had to finish it off else I wouldn’t get any sleep. But then I did finish it off and ended up not getting any sleep 😀 There were twists and turns until the very end. Drove me doolally (a word I learnt from Mr M) for a bit and surprised me at the end.

After that, I ended up going through some romance novels because I had to relax and not strain myself by missing more sleep. But when I travelled to India, I was already jet lagged and with so much work that was pending, sleep was something that was foreign to me for a couple of days. So I decided to pick up another one that was on my kindle library and decided to use my sleepless nights to finish it off. This one was called “The Sixth Window” by Rachel Abbott. Good that I picked it up during my sleepless nights. Otherwise, I would have had to do one. Another gripping tale. A little bit more disturbing than the other one and scarier too in terms of child abuse and stuff like that. But the culprit was again someone I had least expected. These two books surprised me that way. After reading so many mystery books and watching such series you tend to think a little bit in those terms and usually, I am at least 70% correct with the guesses. These two threw me for a loop.

I would definitely recommend these two if you like mysteries. Now to the movie of the week. Bahubali 2. There is a lot of controversy going on with this one. It is a sequel to Bahubali. I liked the first one too (except for the heroine) and that ended in a cliff hanger. This one tells you the back story (which takes up most of the screen space) and how the story concludes. We know that the good triumphs over the evil in these historical dramas. So it is not the end that is the surprise. It is the how and why. It was close to 3 hours or so, but I wasn’t bored. I like to see such pure masala entertainment now and then. The graphics in this movie was amazing. I absolutely loved it. Wasn’t too cheesy. It was more dreamlike. Storywise it isn’t anything different from what we see in many other movies. Except that it has some historical background to it and all the grandeur attached to it. The songs were picturized very well. If only the dialogues in many places weren’t dubbed in Tamil from Telugu it would have been brilliant. I hate watching dubbed movies or scenes. Anushka was good in her acting and so was Ramya Krishnan. I was glad that I could enjoy it with my family members and the kids enjoyed it too (even though my nephew became too emotional when Bahubali gets killed – it isn’t a spoiler alert. We know he gets killed even in the first movie)

Magizhchi!

I did mention on my SoCS post that I will be watching ‘Kabaali‘ movie with my friend. We did. Even though I was shocked to see only 5 of us in the theater in Boleyn Cinemas I am not sure if it should be attributed to the success or failure of the movie. There was a news that the movie was leaked online a day prior to its release. And Boleyn Cinemas was not a well maintained movie theater, sadly. The only saving grace was they had the subtitles for my friend, who otherwise would have had a very bad time trying to understand. Heck, I needed those subtitles for some parts of it because the slang was very Malaysian Tamil and I didn’t understand most of those words. And according to my friend, the subtitles were very well done (as opposed to some of the ones he had the pleasure of seeing in Bollywood movies where he had to focus hard to ignore the grammatical errors 😛 )

So what did we think of the movie? I am a Rajni fan, but not to the extent that I have watched all of his movies. I haven’t watched his last two movies because I knew, even from the trailer that they would turn out very bad and it did not give me the ‘you gotta see this’ vibe. But ever since I watched Kabaali’s trailer I wanted to see it. And there are a lot of good points that I really really appreciated. He isn’t romancing the heroine who is almost half his age. The romance angle was very subtle and also it shows more of when he is old and still in love with his wife and is searching for her. He plays his age. He has some scope to act when compared to his last 5 movies. It was a gangster movie. When I heard the songs separately, I didn’t quite like them, but in the movie most of them were in the background, so they went well with the story line. This was a big deal for me. I wanted a commercial entertainment movie and that is what I got. And interestingly my friend also liked it for its commercial value.

We both were a little confused with the Malaysian politics and how people kept backstabbing each other. But after some time I got the hang of it. My friend struggled to get that part especially in the first half. It is based in Kuala Lumpur and about two gangs there. Unless we are aware of what had happened with Malaysian Tamils over there, I don’t think we can appreciate it. But I am glad that someone made an effort to shot an entire movie (except for a small part in Tamil Nadu) in KL based on the life there. I have no clue why there were so many bad reviews for the movie or why Rajini was criticized so much. He is criticized not matter what he does, so I shouldn’t be bothered. I don’t really care for his or any of the movie star’s personal life. That is their own. As a profession, he, the director promised me a good time in the movies. And they kept their promise. That is all that matters to me. Magizhchi! (Cheers!)

Second time, Second day

I am here in London, my second visit this year and guess what. I am going to watch the movie Kabali (Tamil) (it is a big deal for Rajnikanth fans all over) the second day of its release here in London. Got it booked in Boleyn Cinemas. Yes, it will be today, the saturday, the 23rd. My sister who is a very huge fan of his was a bit upset that she couldn’t see the first day first show. But thankfully they got tickets in my home town for the second day and both my siblings and their families would have seen it before I get to the theater. I have heard mixed reviews but nothing beats the excitement to see my favorite movie star in a pucca masala entertainment movie. I am also taking my friend (non-Indian) to this movie and hope that there are subtitles for him to follow. He knows more about Bollywood movies than me. But this will be first Tamil movie. I am really excited.

---

Post for this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “second.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

 

 

SoCS Badge by HopeFloats@ My Leaky Boat

Regional Movie Updates

Some quick updates on regional movies I recently watched.

Yennai Arindhaal (Tamil)

Watched this movie of Ajith (one of my favorite actors in Tamil Cinema) when I went to my home town. Went for a night show with my siblings. Overall it was a good movie but it was a little slow. Ajith has aged 😦 and Trisha looks very beautiful. But the one that steals the show is Arun Vijay. He has done a pretty good job as the villain. Good job. I like Gautam Menon (the director)’s depiction of love and romance. It is always a little different. In this too, he shows the love between a single mother and a cop , which is not very common in Tamil movies. But Anushka wasn’t that impressive and I wonder why the first song was in at all. The movie goes back and forth in time a little bit and that is a little confusing but then that is Gautam’s usual style too. Songs werent that impressive. Forgot them as soon as we left the theater. If only they had did some editing and made it a little faster, it would have been awesome.

Roy (Hindi)

Saw this over this weekend with a friend. The concept of the movie was good but it was too bloody slow. I almost fell asleep in some parts. It is about the parallel’s of a director and screen writer’s life and that of his character Roy’s. How their lives are entwined and how one woman plays a very important part in both of their characters is what the story is about. I really liked it to be honest. But it could have been a lot more fast paced. Arjun Rampal and Ranbir Kapoor, two good looking men and the trailer, that is what exactly got both of us ladies  to the theaters. Jacqueline looks part Priyanka and part Sunny Leone. Acting wise there isn’t much to say, but I would definitely give credit for the screenplay and the story line. And it is sad that on a Valentine’s day this movie was only half filled, especially with such a star cast.