Thursday, July 26, 2007
Watching something perfect
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Sivaji -The Boss : A Review
Direction: Shankar
Music: A. R. RahmanI know it’s quite very late for writing a Sivaji Review. Though I had watched the movie 2 weeks back itself, my offline status from blogging has permitted to write a review after so many days. And as I always say, better late than never :P
I watched the movie in San Jose, in Camera 3 cinemas. It is right in center of San Jose downtown, in quite a nice place. I was on time for the show and there was a long queue waiting to get inside the theatre. (Though it was nothing when compared to India) The show started at 1.10 PM. (It was scheduled at 1 PM ;-))
The movie was quite good, a good entertainer for a time pass, though I would say from the expectations that I had built up on a Shankar and Rajini combo, it fell little short. Mainly for two reasons:
1. There were not much of Shankar's thoughtful ideas seen in the film. Getting the knots undone was simply a matter of super heroism.
2. The theme was on similar lines of Shankar's old social themes. Nothing fresh or unseen about the theme.
Having said that, if we leave all expectations aside and sit for 3 hours free minded, we can really enjoy the movie to the fullest. There is surely guaranteed fun unlimited.
Rajini was at his full fledged action, be it comedy or stunts or styles. But the fact that he has grown very older is too very evident in many scenes, the blitzkrieg style action was really missing. For an actor if his age, he had done a very good job.
Shreya has atlast got a chance to prove her critics wrong, and has displayed equal good amount of skin and skills :P Supporting cast had done a good job, especially, Vivek was seen back in good form. The villain Suman was just okay. I couldn't get the feel of a powerful villain in him pitted against Rajini, like Raghuvaran in Baasha and Ramya Krishnan in Padayappa.
The "motta boss" climax fight was no good either as everyone claimed, except for Rajini's get up, I felt it was the worst climax in any Shankar film. Not impressive atleast for me!
Songs are main strengths of the film, especially Vaaji vaaji and Sahara Pookal. The other good one was Adhiradi kaaran by Lawrence. Style song was good only for Prabhudeva's excellent choreography. The intro song is a big big let down, brickbats to Brindha was totally messing up with a crappy choreography inspite of having a sexy Nayanthara and beautiful locales and properties. Even Rajini's steps were like making evident of the fact that he has become old. Very bad attempt of an intro song for a super star!
Stunts on the other hand were also good and executed well. Comedy by Vivek and Rajini was good in the first half, but a lot of scenes introduced in the name of comedy were ultimate mokkais. There were unintentional comedies too. For instance, the whole theatre laughed for Rajini's dialogues like "Give me a break yeah" and "Software system Architect" :P
The movie has very good production values and star values and its undoubtedly the biggest movie of the year. Still, I felt that it was like idly-vada eaten with tomato sauce. Everything is great, but still, something missing on the whole :))
To end it all: Sivaji - Sooperji!!! :D
Friday, July 06, 2007
From April to July....
My last blog post says April 12th, almost 3 months back. I am just surprised to see how much I have been kept busy not even to post a single blog post all these days!!! Yup, I had quite a tough time with job meeting up some deadlines and deliveries. Then came the news by the end of April that I had to travel to the Sunnyvale, California, US of A for short term project assignment. I was not very keen on any onsite trip, neither was I prepared for it. But at the same time I was not ready to let the chance go off (I don't know if I had any option of letting it go off :P)
So again busy with Visa procedures, Interview, shopping, packing and all that. That left me no time for my online activities for quite some time. Finally on 18th of May I was all set to leave. It was my first flight and first trip outside India. Thankfully, everything went smooth and had no issues anywhere on the way.
Hong Kong Airport
From setting foot in the US on 19th May till today, it has been quite a delightful experience and I had lots of fun that cannot be explained in words. I can write a separate blog of my US experiences. :P My Orkut albums and the photos I have shared have spoken enough of my experiences. To make it all short, I will list down everything I had enjoyed till date here from Sunnyvale:
Places Visited: San Jose, Great America Amusement park, Sunnyvale Downtown, Intel Museum, Stanford University, San Francisco(Travelogue following soon)
Intel Tech Museum
Shopping places visited: Walmart, Target, Macy's, Bestbuy, Fry's Electronics, Circuit City, Safeway, Albertsons, Big Lots, Great Mall of Bay Area, Longs Drugs
Indian shops: India Cash and Carry, Namaste Plaza, Coconut Hill
Hotels stayed in: Bestwestern Silicon Valley Inn, The Vagabonds Inn
Films watched:
English: School of Rock, Punisher, Behind Enemy Lines, Men on Fire, Fools Rush In, Pursuit of Happiness
Hindi: Life in a Metro, Chandini Bar, Namastey london, Ta Ra Rum Pum, Bheja Fry, Khosla Ka Ghosla, Shootout at Lokhandwala, Laage Raho Munnabhai
Tamil: Unnale Unnale, Sivaji(Review in next post)
Revisited movies: Ghilli, Sachien, Pokkiri, Bommarillu, Boys, Ghajini
Eat outs tried: Komala Vilas, Udupi Palace, Passage To India, Lovely snacks, Dasaprakash, Swathi Tiffins, Bombay Gardens
Sunnyvale Railway Station
There are so much things to say, so much to crib about but this blogpost is not enough for all that. But one thing what I can say is, instead of bringing in the American culture and accent back to India, the US returned Indians can bring in some amount of patriotism and respect that the US citizens have towards their country. I really admire the way they follow the rules set here.. so strictly that even the uncivilized desi buggers are made to follow them. If they or we had done it all these years in India, our country would have become a much better place to live in.
San Jose Downtown
Anyways, carrying a lot of good memories and happy days, I am leaving USA next weekend back to India. Whatever heaven US is like, the very thought of going back to India is really exciting. Afterall, "Sorgame endraalum adhu nammoora pola varuma?" :D:D