Category Archives: ET

Venkatadri Express….

Veteran director Kodi Ramakrishna (one of my father’s favorite directors) dished out quite a few blockbusters during his hey days. In a very old interview he compared a wholesome entertainer to a sumptuous meal. He observed that no matter how big the assortment of items, if you missed out on the essentials like  ‘Avakaya’ pickle Telugus would go unsatisfied.

The movie ‘Venkatadri Express’ is designed based on this principle and weaves a simple story into an engaging screenplay. While the movie resorts to a few scenes that manufacture comedy, the threads that move forward to logical conclusion keep the audience interested throughout the movie.

Predictable characters like a tough father, a good-at-heart and risking the danger of becoming a good-for-nothing son, devoted mother, drunkard accomplice, pelli kaani babai etc actually help the audience to savor the comedy that is woven around them. Popular themes like father-son relationship, hero and heroine’s serendipitous meeting and their journey together, youngest son saving the day for the family, Tirupathi connection etc  keep it simple for the audience and makes it for an easily digestible entertainer.

The producer (Gemini Kiran) deserves a special mention for backing a debutant director, selecting a seasoned yet progressive cinematographer like Chota K.Naidu (who is known for both his big budgeted and small films) and promoting the movie just enough before the word of mouth kicked in.

Director Gandhi’s directorial journey has a  fairy tale beginning, with decent theatre occupancies even in the third week of his movie’s release. Will his future trains make a stop at  ‘Cuddappah’ or ‘Araku’ or take off from  ‘Platform 9 3/4? 🙂

Some links

Director Gandhi’s short film

‘Khubsoorat’- First movie I watched with a disciplined parent as the protagonist 

My all time favorite drunkard’s scene

The Hobbit: Desolation of Smuag…

Peter Jackson got noticed when he made a film called ‘Bad Taste’. It’s about  group of aliens that chase human flesh for their intergalactic fast-food chain.

In the early 90s our local cable guy played this movie, that too during Diwali festival season. I confronted him later when he paid a visit to collect the monthly bill and asked him ‘why’…’WHY’ of all the movies he had to broadcast this movie, and that too during the festival season. Don’t quite recollect what he said other than his broad smile. I am sure, I will not pose the same question to him, had his choice were ‘Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’ now 🙂

Peter Jackson has come a long way from his amateurish, home-grown special effects laden films to blockbuster spectacles that have raised the bar in story-telling and audio-visual splendor. It’s an amazing journey for Peter Jackson, and so it is for the audience of his movies.

‘The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug’ is a delight for senses and a must watch for all movie lovers. The movie takes-off with a small back-story that connects to the prequel and moves ahead with break-neck speed. As the good and bad forces unite to battle it it out, The Hobbit and the dwarves march on to the lonely mountain to confront the dragon and make a claim on the dwarves’ fortune. Peter Jackson reserves the best to the last, and the scenes with the dragon are outstanding. The ending disappoints but the rest of the movie’s experience more than compensates for it and makes you wanting for more. (A third installment is on the anvil, of course).

It calls for a brilliant mix of art and craft to create a true blockbuster, that can be watched with family n’ friends. Peter Jackson and his home-grown Weta Digital are probably the best in this business right now. Hope he looks beyond and digs into old Telugu hits like ‘Patala Bhairavi’ or a few of the Vithalayacharya’s films and create ‘our’ heroes on the big screen 🙂

 

Ajith’s ‘Aata Arambham’…

Youtube has a content management system(CMS) that allows movie producers to upload a reference file of their work and apply a policy to the user uploaded files. The content producers can either choose to monetize such ‘claimed’ videos by allowing Youtube to play advertisements in these videos or simply take down such content.

Wonder what would happen if such a CMS comes into vogue for copyright management of films worldwide. What if a content clearance exchange with such fingerprinting system  is used before a film hits distribution channels. Guess, most of our films would never make out of this exchange ‘claim’ free.

‘Aata Arambham’ a Tamil dubbed film that has a quite few inspirations (aka claims) at the ‘clip’ level. Let it be the first hacking scene which is nicely adapted from ‘Swordfish’ or the iron box scene from ‘Pride and Glory’ or the (very diluted) Dubai hacking scene from ‘Mission Imposisble: Ghost Protocol’…and many more that might have slipped my CMS would have made it to this movie directed by Vishnuvardhan.

Swordfish: Interview 

Swordfish: Before climax

Iron box scene from ‘Pride and Glory’

 

If you leave the CMS aspect, the movie works for the most part primarily because of its pace and main cast. The second half sags under the weight of a predictable flashback episode but the director makes amends towards the climax. Ajith carries the film on his portly self, and the rest of the cast support him adequately. Yuvan Shankar Raja’s background score is a definite plus (Ajith’s theme though appears a bit monotonous and could have had a few variations).

VFX are not upto the mark specially in the blast scenes and with all the progress in this domain, one would definitely expect more. Also glaring is the inconsistency in appearance of Ajith and Rana, which might be due to the long shooting schedules and other projects?

Speaking of which, Rana who is introduced in the beginning of the movie, in what might be his ‘Bahubali’ getup, suddenly sports a trimmed look. Now this wouldn’t look so odd, had it not happened in the middle of a commando operation on the lines of ‘The Raid: Redemption’.