Cinema, Karam, Kapi

Disclaimer: I am an ardent fan of Kamal Hassan, the actor. However, I don’t endorse most of his personal views, especially on religion. Kamal and I are Scorpios, a day apart rather and have so many commonalities in life. I was all excited to see Uttama Villain. His last few movies haven’t been like the ones he has given in the 80s and 90s which was probably his golden period. Uttama Villain, seemed to be a movie about a movie star, one who has achieved superstardom rather. From the trailer and hearsay, I was expecting to see how an aged actor reinvents himself touching upon his Professional Guru while also embracing a first time Director and a 20-something Music Director. Who else, other than Kamal Hassan has the guts to test new talent in today’s age, especially given the fact that big budget movies and the expected results are projected to be a big hype. The star cast looked impressive too – Pooja Kumar, Andrea, Urvasi, Jayaram, MS Bhaskar, K Vishwanath and the legendary Late K Bala...

I have been a self confessed fan of Director Shankar for many years now. My first tryst with his direction dates back to Gentleman when I was still in school and had limited understanding of the art that is cinema. But he was one of those Directors, I thought then, who has a bright future since he had tread on a sensitive subject in that film with elan. I have enjoyed all of his movies thereafter. In each outing of his, he brought out a different panorama of film making - something that the commercial directors have always refrained from. His heroes were larger than life, be it the "One day CM" in Mudalvan or the "Bribery conscious old man" in Indian. Ofcourse, and naturally my most liked movies of his are Sivaji and Enthiran, which feature my personal matinee idol, the Superstar of Indian Cinema, Rajinikanth. After watching Sivaji, I felt that for a change, Shankar has made a film for someone else - for Rajini fans in this case. After a successful run, his...

Madras I There are two things that are making the news these days in the city, probably three. Madras, as the city has been known historically (and I choose to spell the city's name that way most often) is also the name of a recently released movie. Featuring Karthi, btoher of veteran actor Suriya, Karthi has been quite experimental with Tamil Cinema ever since his first release 5 years ago with Paruthi Veeran. He has played a village lad, unemployed Chennai youth, and many a time a happy go lucky guy. His box office records have been topsy turvy, where he has the most returns when least expected. Back to Madras, the film is shot in North Madras, which has been largely neglected in Kollywood for a long time. Except for a one-off gana song or a kuthu song, nothing has captured the imagination of this part of the city, which was also the original settlement along the sea shore. I have had the privilege of travelling to North Madras twice or more every week to work where my prev...