Onam Movie Reviews

Onam is not only the festival for Malayalees but also a festival for the film fraternity of the state. 

The Onam releases that were expected to pull in people in large numbers are Peruchazhi, Rajadiraaja, Villaliveeran, Saptamashree Thaskarah and Bhaiyaa Bhaiyaa.  

Peruchazhi: The Mohanlal starrer hit the screens a week before Onam. Touted as a major entertainer, the movie failed miserably in terms of the expectations. The comedy rarely makes the lips curl. Baburaj and Aju Varghese, the aides of Lal were a disappointment. The story lacks content and punch. 

Verdict: watch only for the killer looks of Mohanlal. The die-hard Lalettan fan couldnt fall for the movie. 

Rating: 1.5/5

Raajadiraaja: The movie looks like a myriad adaptation of Baasha where the story falls short by several notches. Mammooty looks awesome with the beard and fares decent with his acting. However Joju George stole the show with his timings and quirkiness. The movie is a strict one time watch but still can make you disappointed. The action was blown out of proportions. The script was flaccid and nothing new to offer. 

Verdict: Mammooty is back with a bang but the bang did not seem loud enough. For the mass loving Mammukka fans

Rating: 2/5

Villaliveeran: From the Janapriyanayakan, this is not what we wanted. Sans a very few comedies from Shajon and Dharmajan, the movie is unbearable in terms of everything. Dileep has lost the flair of acting compared to what we wanted from him. The heroines were just props unwanted. 

Verdict: watch only if the movies on TV bore you. 

Rating: 1/5

Sapthamashree Thaskarah: This is the Onam movie that we were waiting for. This is that movie the one that clearly demarcates  the fine line between good and fine movies. Prithviraj with his subtle acting and Asif Ali with his fervent penchant for ruggedness kept the show going. Everyone did their best in the movie but it was Chemban Vinod who was the star of the show.  With his impeccable irreproducible Thrissur accent, Vinod took the audience to roll. Neeraj Madhav as Narayanankutty took innocence to a different level. 

Verdict: Despite a letdown compared to the debut movie of the director, this is a good watch for the festival season. 

Rating: 3/5

 

All in a day's flight

The tarmac seemed incredously bullish as the overladen, late running flight inched its way lazily on a cloudy and extremely groggy day. The flabs of fat that had accumulated all over me wobbled as the whole plane shuddered in anguish as a reply to woes on the pitiful runway of the Chennai International Airport.

Earlier, the fare wars by all the low cost carriers in the nation had peaked in all the airports running them into paradigms of operational ineffeciency.

The extremely sensous airhostesses were continuing their bored recorded monotone, greeting the tired customers who yearned for a seat rather than that red lipstick clad lip curlings. The wait for over an hour to get into the respective gates had made most of the customers grumpy. Add to the woes were the passengers who pooled up to form illicit lines or jump the queues stating lame reasons like boarding calls, wanna pee etc took the patience into the bidding.

The flight was the perfect fit for what was christened as a low cost carrier. The seats were a slim piece of fabric covering a stingy piece of cushion making your butt cryout over the course of the journey. Cost cutting was evident with the intermittent switching off of the aircon and pay-through-your-nose rates for that bottle of water purchased.

Lucky day it was till reaching the airport, hitching a free ride on Olacabs, thanks to their travel partner MakeMyTrip. I thought my luck was running out when I reached the airport when the jam packed winding queues of people started taking its toll on me, who were eagerly waiting to get to the lounge as early as possible for that dose of caffeine. The driver who picked me up was also in a state of non-alcoholic inebriateness which I assumed to due to being woken up at 3. He was swerving the cab unnecessarily and made me thank Heavens when I reached the airport unscathed.

The engines groaned, chugged and came to life as the metal bird hit the tarmac ready to soar. As the power reached maximum, the 200+ people garnered momentum and pushed off the ground. I could feel the pressure differences crushing and elongating the skull during the ascent. As the craft gained the altitude, the flight reminded me of the bumpy rides in the KSRTC. The petite figurines made way hawking the inedible, hilariously priced food stuff which at the spur of the momemt seemed tempting for the sans-tea-empty tummy, but the experience of experiencing it previously made me stay hungry to stay healthy during the much sought after vacation home.

We began descent after being airborne for less than 30 minutes.It was then, I lifted my eyes and the incessantly prodding fingers off the phone to see the white fluffiness of the vanilla dough up in the sky. The turbulence was making typing a theocldmeh (I actually typed tedious) task. As the descent continued, the lush greenery started appearing with the tinge of monsoons adding vividness to palette. I felt the chugging underneath as the landing gear had opened up the wheel trio.

The pale green was adding hues and the colours were more strong now. We were brushing against the windiness of the coconut trees and touched the soul and soil of the God's own country.

Touchdown Kochi. Now to grab my bags and run!!

The Flying Mortarboards!

2 years ago, with a heavy heart and weary eyes, we entered the temple of learning. 

50 subjects, millions of assignments, trillions of pages of assigned reading, countless cases, endless lists of powerpoints and an insane list of spreadsheets later, did we just become a little more wiser?

If the answer is yes, quit reading this and pursue satisfying your unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Harvard Business Reviews and The Economists of the world awaits you. 

For all the others who believe that this was the two years that meant life, read on!

We did become more humane, came out of our comfort zones, confronted lives, got crushes and got crushed, bridged the regional gaps, learned new crafts and became craftier. 

We became new individuals, more witty and eloquent, more personified, more strong, diligent, zealous, valiant, industrious, calm, composed, compassionate, elegant and all the more, better dignified human beings. 

To add to that, we stood for each other, regardless of who we were, where we came from, we stood up for our friends. 

As the last thread that was binding us snapped when we received the shard of paper embossed in gold, the inners have already gelled in and formed an inseparable mound of friendship coupled with sparks of love soaked in the ocean of the togetherness that lay frenzy in the course of time. 

50 mugged up subjects, millions of copied assignments, trillions of pages of assigned reading which we did not even bother opening, countless cases which we read and did not understand, endless lists of beautifully animated powerpoints copied and edited from Scribd and Slideshare and an insane list of jigsaw spreadsheets later, we just became a little more of what we really are. 

The mortarboards flew in the air

With a promise kept to spare

Forever shall kindle the flame

Never to be the flame

Friends shall we remain

Till time sets us apart

The Perspective

Didn't you ever feel for a fact that life is all about perspectives?

After all, what is right and what is wrong?

All that matters is perspectives. 

It is not true for a fact that the sun rises in the east. We took the perspective for granted. Our forefathers took up the direction as a perspective to map the other directions. 

Life is a wild race set upon the calmness, chivalry and cavernous attitude of perspective. We seek the endless meaning of life with either our carnal uncouth barbaric desires or shall relentlessly pursue it with the magnanimity of attitudes. 

If perspectives weren't a part of the tantrums in life, the whole cycle would be a circle of apathy. If our perspectives on life were moulded in properly with good incline, we would see the brighter side of things. A tube light spreads brightness with its light spreading white vision. If at all we perceive it to be in a negative incline, it is depressing white light throwing sight on to the misery that yearns to be hidden in the folds of darkness. 

Perspectives matter!

But when I wrote this, there weren't anything, no perspectives, no direction, no right, no wrong. 

If a perspective was put to it, it was directed to kill time!

The Delectable Palate-1

Foodie! 

A tag adorned by anyone and everyone who relishes a good meal.

No one can deny the ambrosia that a hearty good meal provides. 

Not even me!

Well, how do I put myself to the haters side?

I would put myself in a violent strife between the heart and the mind if I were to say so. 

Let me ask you a question!

How would it feel for you to go through the same mundane combination of rice-sambhar-thoran or roti-daal-subzi every day?

We would often put up with an answer saying that 'No, I was brought up like this. I wouldnt mind this everyday for the rest of my lifetime.'

And then you would start cursing who ever makes this same boring uninteresting menu every day. Be it your mom, wife, cook, the smile coated outers  would be accompanied with under-the-breath-muttering-curses. 

Come some special day, cometh some special dish. Put a mirror in front of you while eating/record you in action, thou shall see a horrendous glee while the pot is opened, followed by a miraculous escapade of saliva forming channels down the mouth. The digging in to the severely tasty dish would be accompanied with some smearing of the gravy around the face. 

With a tinge of boredom that crept up on a day when I was subjected to the usual rice-sambhar-no thoran-only pickle and pappadam menu for the night, it started!

The Delectable Palate embarked a new journey of and for taste!

Our Linguistic Slurs!!

India is a country of vast cultural and traditional differences. The transitions between every 5 kilometers has a change of dialect and renders the same language in a different voice modulation.

We, Indians, the descendants of the Indus valley civilization whose forerunners have been myriad combinations of Aryans, Afros and Whites, have in them one common element, English.

We have over 1500 languages and over 5000 dialects that reflects on our ethnic variance, we have tried in making the same amount of variance to the universal language.

How much do we degrade the language? It is a paradigm of how much jugaad people like you and me practice in our wonderful nation. 

Just as a Brit would buy a pack of chips and biscuits at the petrol pump after filling petrol, the Americans would grab a pack of crisps and cookies at the fuel pump after filling gasoline. Wait! Cookies have got eggs in it.

Fine, she is an eggitarian. She'll have it.

It seems it is in India that we coined this term that refers to the ovo-lacto vegetarians. How nice of us to flex the language according to our wish and will!

We have non-veg for dinner. Not specific at all. Means we could even eat the fluttering flies that accidentally goes on the plate and becomes the palate's appetizer.

The differences what we Indians have brought about in the language is immense.

What if we get to have a dinner date on Saturday with your eggitarian girl friend? With an important match on TV? You ask her to prepone our date to an earlier time so you can accommodate both.

The Americans or Brits never 'prepone' a meeting, but we do. They just schedule it prior to time.

While we play with our words, the language itself is a master of deceit. 

The word 'laid' says it all. The hen laid her eggs on a heap of straw stacked as her nest. The guy got laid off from work, went for a swig to forget the misery, met a girl and got laid. 

Funny language it is!!

Well, me and my Paagalpanti!!

Bangalore Days!

What's in a movie that makes it worth watching it more than once?

You will know the answer when you watch Bangalore Days for the first time.  

The second time in the theatre is a revelation that there are movies worth a second time. 

It is also a proof because the movie is still fresh despite you have sat through the entire 172 minutes once.

Bangalore Days is just another story which has nothing new to boast about. Well, if you stop here, you do not know that you have just lost the most beautiful 172 minutes that you would be spending in a theatre ever!  

The chemistry that Anjali Menon has made to work out is an act of sheer brilliance. The ensemble cast comprising of young stars Dulquer, Fahad and Nivin with the bubbly presence of Nazriya and an out-of-the-world performance by Parvathy has made extraordinary out of the ordinary. 

The movie has all its negatives put to rest by the classiness of on-screen combinations of the cousin trio and the rest of the reel held up by the powerful performances of Parvathy and Fahad. 

Dulquer is a treat to watch. Nazriya brings out a matured performance intertwined with her cheery girl image. Parvathy, despite wheelchair bound leaves the viewers spellbound. Fahad, as usual delivers his best despite less screen time. 

But the star of the show is Nivin who proved that versatility is his foothold. Comical timings with subtle and sublime facial expressions put up with ease has made Nivin the best of the lot, proving that the actor's diverse repertoire. The senior cast comprising of Vijayaraghavan and Kalpana has given their career best performances yet.  

Bangalore Days is the golden feather in the hat of not only the National Award winning writer-director Anjali Menon, but is a fresh breath of life for the Malayalam film industry, which is finding difficulty in accepting rustic youthfulness in movies.

Must watch! Theatres awaiting! Packed houses still!

Rating: 4/5