Desicritics Author: Nandhu

Movie Review: Mozhi - Hype Kills the Movie

Nandhu — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:09:54 EDT

It’s the dignified flash of Jyothika’s wrists that gives the first clue that Mozhi won’t be an ordinary Tamil movie. Confronting an angry Prithiviraj, Jyothika quickly signals that she can neither hear nor speak. It’s done so smartly that you would miss it if you blinked. But still this being a Tamil movie, we get a replay 30 seconds later. Minutes later, Prithiviraj also explains the significance of the movements to his dear friend played by Prakash Raj. The sign language she employs conveys her dignity and independence, he tells his friend.

The two are musicians working in the film industry and Jyothika’s character Archana can’t hear. Director Radhamohan doesn’t miss a single opportunity to keep pointing out the philosophical implications of this. One of his characters whose passion for music can perhaps never be understood by the one true love of his life. But Karthik (Prithiviraj) believes that she can understand. He believes good music is felt as much as heard. And all through Vidyasagar’s standout track for the film, Jyothika is repeatedly seen listening to music, trying to understand the sounds Karthik makes.

Going by the furore it created upon release, I expected a movie entirely devoid of clichés. This is unfortunately not so. Sometimes Mozhi sinks to alarmingly pedestrian levels. A Pomeranian chases Karthik all the way from Adyar to Beasant Nagar as Prithvi run much like the Malayalam superstar Mohanlal would have decades ago. A neighbour of the two friends and the secretary of the up market apartment falls off the balcony after being frightened by a dead cockroach. The sequences are many when Radhamohan opens up the movie for laughs and panders to audiences. Even if he had chopped those sequences out, Mozhi’s dialogues are witty and sharp enough to prompt many laughs.

The film does have an admirable story to it. Jyothika’s Archana has near-feminist leanings. She is independent, fierce and brave, qualities the hero admires in her, calling her his Jhansi Ki Rani at one point. Radhamohan take care to equalize the genders. For once, man and woman seem on eye-level with each other. Just like Karthik and Viji (Prakash Raj), Archana is friends with Sheela at the dumb and deaf school they both teach in. And it’s Sheela, the matchmaker, with whom Viji, rather conveniently, falls in love with. This’s despite the fact that Sheela is a widow.

Prakash Raj, seen here without his usual irritating mannerisms, is happy to play second fiddle though he is the producer of the movie. As producer, Prakash Raj has seemingly mastered the art of making small-budgeted, light-hearted, contemporary love stories, two of which were directed by Radhamohan. Priya directed the third, Kanda Naal Mudhal. It’s hard to believe that the producer didn’t have a hand in ensuring that these movies had strong female characters.

In Mozhi, it’s Archana’s fierce independence and her refusal to be a burden to anyone that lends the movie its crisis. Diligent feminists would notice the contradiction here: a feminist character’s whose apparent feminism standing in the way of her marriage and normal life. But thankfully, the climax is nuanced. Prithivi doesn’t do a Vijay. Instead he makes a passionate plea to Archana to get a life. And well, she does.

Both Jyothika and Swarnamalya, who plays Sheela, exude the air of sophisticated, urban women. Only that both are sometimes a little too well dressed. Actually none of the characters ever appear in everyday clothes, which is strange for a movie that seeks to be rooted in reality. But this does give a chance for Jyothika to appear almost breathtakingly beautiful.

An interesting, comic sub-plot involves an absent-minded professor caught in a time warp in 1984 after receiving news of his son’s fatal accident. While his initial encounters with Prithiviraj were deliciously funny, I didn’t particularly care for the scene in which the hero helps him snap out of his condition. In fact, much of the comedy doesn’t further the plot but act as optional accessories. The editor could choose to keep half the movie out including some of its funniest portions and you wouldn’t notice anything amiss.

Radhamohan isn’t a virtuoso performer going for the intense symphony; this is like a simple folk tune. The movie is much like normal life. Bits and parts put together with seeming carelessness that somehow act as a whole. Only discerning viewers would notice the clever use of time-space. The plot trajectory never loses sight of logic and rarely wants you to suspend your disbelief. The movie is light, but never fluffy.

Much of the movie’s prestige is also derived from what it avoids. It’s got only one thing common with the average Tamil entertainer, the film it’s shot on. Most of the time, the movie steers clear of the usual pitfalls, especially in characterisation.

Perhaps because of the strong female lead, it occurred to me that K. Balachander, the man who introduced Prakash Raj to moviegoers, could have very well have directed the movie. Also much of the movie is like a play, a fact that cinematographer K.V. Anand tries to hide from us. Often enough, all the characters meet across the table and discuss their lives or life in general, often a mesh of both.

Also as the plot is largely absent, the movie rests on its comic content, or more appropriately put, its saccharine sweetness. Privithiraj’s character is of a man so good at heart that, without the wings and halo, it’s hard to take him. When he gets angry with Archana in the climax it doesn’t appear as if a character is vending his emotion, but rather as if something is wrong with the film itself.

Without the hype, I would have perhaps liked the movie. Burdened by it, I felt a bit let down.

Movie Review: Chak De! India - About Patriotism, Not Sports

Nandhu — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 11:53:48 EDT

Chak De! India banks more on the emotional high of patriotism than on the sport it is based on - hockey, our national game. Shahrukh Khan plays Kabir Khan, a disgraced captain of the national hockey team, who returns to the field, this time as coach of the women's hockey team on the eve of the World Cup.

This is the classic tale of the underdog overcoming all odds and doing well when it matters the most. And yet, the movie is nearly free of clichés. The matches are a marvel in the way they have been shot, with the camera never capturing a shot not possible while shooting a real life hockey match.

If you have seen A League Of Their Own, you know the routine. Take a team filled with characters, warts and all, make them the underdogs with not a chance to win anything, you get a killer movie in the sports genre. Many a time, Shahrukh Khan reminded one of Tom Hanks in that movie. I am not a big fan of the star, but this a good performance from the actor. He finally gives what by his own standards is an understated performance. But what is really surprising is the ease with which he shares space with the lesser-known actors who comprise the hockey team.

In 1999 or 2000, I attended a lecture by a German director, who made documentaries, at the Max Mueller Bhavan in Chennai. He spoke of how he chose the faces of characters that portray ordinary scenes in his films. He said the characters should have "strong faces". In a sequence from a documentary he showed us, a group of women cycle down a hill with the camera in a jeep tracking them. As the wind blows on their faces, the women – none of them good looking – smile at the camera. It's a rare, honest moment on film.

Many of the actors who comprise the hockey team in Chak De are not conventionally great looking. Some are pretty, but there are a few who don't have actor good looks, only strong faces. All of them are quite unlike the other - in body, face, diction and character. Each one of them comes with her problems intact. Their faces create an immediate impact when caught on camera.

When the team parades before the press wearing sarees with tricolour borders post interval, you finally realise that quite a few players – often shown as being dirty and bruised on the field – are actually good looking. Until and after that moment, it's all back to the strong faces again. Much could be said of the casting of these actors, who are nothing short of wonderful.

When I reviewed Rang De Basanti, I thought the movie was manipulating our natural patriotic instincts for commercial purposes. I am still uneasy when the patriotic highs of the movie bring tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat. I always have to ask: Am I being manipulated?

Patriotism is often a prop in Aditya Chopra's movies. In Kabul Express, the take on patriotism is irreverent. Everyone seems keen on saving their own skins first. In Veer-Zaara, however, the lovers are divided by land; one is in Pakistan, the other is in India and the patriotism is contrived.

However, in Chak De!, director Shimit Amin (Ab Tak Chappan) keeps the reins tight. The patriotism dose is just about right or at least it's enough to ensure commercial success.

I can't help but think that writer Jaideep Sahni (Company, Bunty aur Babli) borrows from the Hollywood sports classics. He at least lifted a couple of ideas from A League Of Their Own. But still this is a brilliant effort.

The cinematographer Sudeep Chatterjee also shot Iqbal. So the sports genre must have been familiar to him. The music by Salim-Sulaiman is quite good, though the title song seemed a bit familiar and, therefore, hummable.

Movie Review: The Departed - Oscar's Best and Scorsese's Weakest

Nandhu — Sun, 4 Mar 2007 08:18:17 EST

In view of its Oscar win, taking re-look at The Departed might be appropriate. I don’t think this is Martin Scorsese’s greatest work, but this will go down in history as the movie that made the Academy kiss and make up with one of the premier movie directors working in Hollywood. Apart from Best Director and Best Picture, William Monahan won for his adapted screenplay and Thelma Schoonmaker, a lifelong colleague of Scorsese, won for best editing.

I saw the movie on DVD a few weeks back. It just got released in Chennai, theatres obviously hoping to exploit the Oscar spoils.

Long after the movie was over, I keep hearing Jack Nicholson. "In this country, we don't come to a business meeting with automatic weapons, because in this country that don't add inches to your dick. It gets you in jail," he tells Chinese businessmen trying to buy stolen microprocessors from him.

Jack is playing Frank Costello, a mafia head based in Boston. But he is really playing himself or the screen persona that he has developed over the years. Not even Martin Scorsese, who has finally made a movie that audiences and critics alike have come to expect of him, can rein Jack in. Sometimes the swagger in Jack's tone is delicious, but in a couple of scenes it does grate a bit. Especially when he and DiCaprio are discussing the rat in their gang.

Scorsese has based his movie on the script of Infernal Affairs, a wildly popular Hong Kong film. Which is to say that screenwriter William Monahan said that he didn't see the original, instead choosing to just write his script based on the script of Infernal Affairs.

Jack gets the best of Monahan's lines; some of them will no doubt go on to become as famous as Travis's (Robert De Niro) monologues in Taxi Driver. The story revolves around Bill Costigan and Collin Sullivan played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon. Collin is groomed from his early teens by Costello and he becomes the gang's man inside the Boston police department. Costigan, whose uncle is a don, wants to join the police department but is forced to go undercover within the Costello gang.

In his speech at the Oscars, Scorsese said this was the first movie he made with a plot and that might be true. It is impossible to write the plot for a movie like Goodfellas.

Scorsese, much more than Coppola, is the granddaddy of mafia movies. Much like Goodfellas, The Departed is not romantic. There is no glorification of violence. Rather, the end that most characters meet in the movie is a sort of moral lecture Scorsese is making; for instance, violence begets violence. But it is incredibly interesting anyway.

Wikicamp in Chennai on February 25

Nandhu — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 15:23:34 EST

A few months ago, I was an organiser for Blogcamp.in. Recently, I got to know that the guys behind Blogcamp are back at it.

This time they are flying in Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, for Wikicamp.in to be held in Chennai on February 25. The venue is the same as Blogcamp - Tidel Park.

Wikicamp.in will be a one-day event that will bring together the best minds using Wiki to talk about issues and opportunities surrounding it. The event will also look at the future and evolution of Wiki, which is one of the most valuable tools on the Internet.

The event is an unconference along the lines of Blogcamp.in. This means that all the sessions will be interactive and everyone can pitch in with what they want to discuss about.

Mr Wales, obviously the superstar of the event, has played a big role in the formulation of Wikicamp.in through his support rendered to The Knowledge Foundation, which is the primary organiser behind the event.

Topics of discussion include: How corporate companies are using wiki to increase business productivity, wiki vandalism and its solutions and structured blogging & distributed content architecture.

If you need a group of well-informed folks to discuss things that you could do using a wiki or what you could build on top of already existing Wiki-based knowledge platform, then WikiCamp.in is the place to be at. Visit www.wikicamp.in to register for the event.

A short note on TKF: The Knowledge Foundation is a non-profit body formed by a high energy team of technology enthusiasts whose aim is to create a healthy ecosystem of constant learning. The members believe in the spirit of learning by sharing. They believe in the power of collective intelligence.

Movie Review: Casino Royale And The Reinvention Of Bond

Nandhu — Sun, 3 Dec 2006 12:37:03 EST

How difficult was it to reinvent James Bond?

When critics say that Daniel Craig is the best bond since Sean Connery and closest to Ian Fleming’s literary creation, are they reacting to minor changes in the Bond formula? After all, any Bond film made now has to take into account the MI series and the Bourne films, particularly the latter, which seem to have changed action movies forever? And isn’t it time anyone making a Bond movie was influenced by Quentin Tarantino? Or took into account the newfound love for dark movies among both critics and audiences? Now, unlike in the sixties, everyone loves grey; black and white is passé.

But the counter argument is powerful. For 21 official films – Dr No was made in 1962 – and through five Bonds, the franchise remained, at least in its essentials, largely the same. Bond is suave, intelligent, handsome and lethal. Except in the case of Roger Moore, who made Bond silly instead of lethal. He was a delight in his own way, but he played himself instead of Bond. But in the early years of the franchise, it was Connery who enthralled audiences worldwide with his cool smile and smooth talking ways. He was Bond, in all his glory, and those who came after found it hard to replace him. That was the story for all actors who stepped into the Bond shoes.

For me growing up in the 90s, the Bond movies were campy and outdated. Having never witnessed the paranoia of the Cold War, Bond movies seemed to be like a Mediterranean cruise. And Bond always won. And you always knew it. Like the Bard says, the rub always lies in the how.

Golden Eye was the first Bond movie of my time. It reprises all the clichés, the out-of-the-world opening sequence, the two Bond girls, the amazing stunt sequences, the gadgets, the BMW, the globe trotting, and the megalomaniac villain who is out to destroy the world. It smelled like euphoria. But every Bond movie made after that was a disappointment. I wasn’t sure if I had become big or the movies small. But it just wasn’t the same anymore.

It isn’t the same with Casino Royale too. Bond has been, perhaps, forever changed. First of all he gets real. Then he gets vulnerable and falls in love. He gets beaten up, stabbed and tortured. He has scars on his face, and through the course of a night in a club, his shirt is repeatedly drenched in blood, some of which is his.

The changes begin right from the opening sequence. Instead of the gravity-defying stunt sequence, we see Bond making his first two killings and earning the 007 status. What could have been the opening sequence comes a little later as Bond chases a Black runner through the streets of Madagascar in what must be one of the best Bond chases ever. But this one is on foot.

Later in the movie, there is a car chase. The villains have the Bond girl, played by the dignified, virginal Eva Green. Bond is chasing them in his Aston Martin. Classic Bond scenario. The first Bond chase was in a boat in From Russia, With Love, I think. None of them have ended in an accident. So director Martin Campbell (Golden Eye, Zorro) end this chase in one.

He also does away with Money Penny, the adoring secretary to M, and Q, the gadgetmaker. The famous score doesn’t make an appearance in its entirety till the closing credits. “The name is Bond, James Bond,” is said again only at the end. Ironically, someone else says it before Bond in the movie.

Craig is outstanding in a couple of scenes. In one he is washing away his wounds in front of a hotel room mirror. In another, he almost dies in his favourite car of a cardiac arrest. He plays Bond as a spy instead of a superhero. This is the how-it-all-began story and so all that makes sense.

As the movie unfolded, I realised that Campbell had based the entire movie on the novel. In my teens, I had thought of that as a very boring novel. But that is believed to be Fleming’s best writing. The loyal adaptation works in some cases, and even when it should not work, it does. Like when Bond drinks poison. Everyone in the theatre knows Bond cannot die. But that scene is one of the best of the sort made since Connery beat to death a large spidery creature put in his bed in Dr No. (Wasn’t it?)

Another new thing is the torture sequence adapted from the novel. Bond is stripped bare and tortured in a way that makes Goldfinger look like a wuss. Bond also falls in love, for the last time, with the Eva Green character. He falls, falls hard and learns his lesson. Trust no one.

But again was it so hard to do this? It really wasn’t. But what cannot be explained is how hard it was to reinvent Bond. To make him real, vulnerable, and dark. To put fear, pain and loss in his eyes. That is what is different in this Bond movie. That is why you shouldn’t miss it.

It’s not about how good the movie is. It is about how good it opens up the series for the movies to come.

Movie Review: Aquirre, The Wrath of God by Werner Herzog

Nandhu — Sun, 3 Dec 2006 12:10:55 EST

In 1560 and 61, a group of conquistadors from Spain made a doomed attempt to invade El Dorado, the city of gold, according to legend. This movie by Werner Herzog was shot in the Amazon and its tributaries on a small budget.

Aquirre, played by Klaus Kinski, was the second-in-command in the expedition.
Upon arriving at a foot of a tall hill, Gonzalo Pizarro, who leads the expedition, sends a smaller troupe of soldiers on rafts to look for El Dorado. After a mutiny led by Aquirre, a noble is installed as the dummy Emperor of the land. Aquirre is the one who really controls the men. The group is killed off one by one by the Indians, who are never seen attacking in the movie.

Herzog, who wrote the screenplay of the movie during the course of playing in a soccer season, freely mixes fact and fiction. He came up with the sparse dialogue for the movie, often only minutes before the shot. When a river swelled flooding the location, he incorporated that into the script.

The strangest thing about the movie, which is full of strange happenings, is Kinski, who must be well over six feet. Kinksi was a friend of Herzog's and the two shared a strained relationship during the shooting.

Kinski, who has a long face and piercing blue eyes, invented a walk - jerks and sideways motions - that is scary. He also pretended that one of his arms was shorter than the other, and his costume, which he and Herzog designed together, is strapped to his body in such a way that it looks like he needs it to stay in one piece.

In the last shot, Aquirre is seen walking his crablike walk on the raft, long lost in wild river waters, still dreaming of the lost city of untold riches. He picks up a monkey murmuring that he is 'The Wrath of God', a ruthless dictator, who is capable of leading the people to El Dorado. But sadly, none in his group is still alive, and it seems unlikely that Aquirre, in his state of frenzied madness, will make it out of the jungle alive.

A movie-length interview that comes with the DVD helps us see the movie from the director's viewpoint. It may not be advisable to see the movie if you don't have the option of watching it once more along with the interview.

This is also an independent movie in the truest sense of the term. Herzog made the movie exactly like the way he wanted to, casting his surgeon and even a retarded beggar from the streets in the movie in small roles. The music by Florian Fricke, Herzog's friend, is a combination of natural sounds and instrumental music. Most of the customes - they are deliberately inappropriate - came from Berlin.

This movie is a series of arresting visuals shot in a documentary style, with the camera in constant fluid motion. What makes it great are Herzog's interpretations. Unless you are incredibly sensitive to them, you might miss understanding why this movie is so haunting.

Movie Review: Vallavan: Melodrama of the Twisted Kind

Nandhu — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 13:12:59 EDT

This is the story of a twisted male gadfly caught in a seductive but treacherous web of a monstrous female spider. Simbhu, playing the gadfly, sets his directorial debut Vallavan in the formative and vulnerable years between adolescence and adulthood.
Once scarred as a teen in school by a sadistic lover, Valluvan is twice as cautious when he sees his dream girl, Swapna (Nayantara). Inspired by the 1979 Kamal Haasan-starrer Kalyanaraman in which the actor appears with protruding front teeth, Valluvan appears before Swapna as the ugly Pallan.

That charade - played out to ensure love is of the heart and not the looks - is soon ended. They make love - "not sex" as Valluvan explains, but he fails to tell Swapna that he is three years younger than her and a student in the college she teaches in. In a scene enacted with lukewarm intensity and a shrill voice by Nayantara, Swapna ends their affair. Simbhu during this sequence and in some scenes with Reema Sen seems to go to extreme lengths to portray himself as the victim.

Yuvan Shankar Raja's score sheds on the movie a loud sort of much needed brilliance. The title number 'Vallava enai vellava' is superbly composed, and as Simbhu dances alongside a scantily dressed and acrobatic Nayantara, the camera keeps us intimately aware of her voluptuousness.

Sandhya, perhaps portraying the only normal person in the movie, is the plain Jane. Her portrayal of Suchi is of a friend in big bold capital letters, who stands by Valluvan through thick and thin, and endearingly so.

The earlier affair in school with the sadistic spinner of seductive webs Geetha, played in a student's uniform and sans makeup by a pony-tailed Reema, is shown in flashback. The success of Reema's off-the-beaten-track portrayal lies is the actor's struggle rather her ability to convince us that she is a student. Geetha's verbal duels with Valluvan are a cinematic success, but Reema, quite inexplicably, fails to even hint at from where this sadism stems from in her character.

The dialogue by Balakumaran, who appears in a cameo role of a psychiatrist, is sharp and to the point. But there is no end to the double entendres, chauvinistic macho dialogues, and philosophy in ready made jars. He is writing for the Little Superstar, after all.

Simbhu, fresh off the success of Manmadhan, desires to takes us back to what he thinks is the same rarefied zone of brilliance. But after the umpteen twists and when the only predictable thing in the movie is its unpredictability, the air gets so rarefied that it left the audience gasping for breath. From the thrill or mere exasperation, this reviewer could not quite tell.

Simbhu needs to give the Shakespeare in him a break. Melodrama, particularly of the twisted kind, is best in small doses.

Movie Review: Cars - Not As Bad As Made Out To Be

Nandhu — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 00:43:04 EDT

A few months ago, Cars, the latest movie from Pixar was released to mixed reviews. It was not received by reviewers with the same enthusiasm and glee that preceded movies made by the studio in the past.

Finding Nemo and The Incredibles are just a few in the unbroken series of remarkably successful films made by Pixar. So when Cars, which features no animals or humans, came out, everybody wanted to jump on it and say that this was Pixar's first failure since 1995 when it made Toy Story.

But that was good in a way because I went to the movie with low expectations. This is how the movie begins, with brief shots of a car race that keep fading to black (between the punctuations):

"Okay. Focus. Here we go. Speed. I am speed. One winner. 42 losers. I eat losers for breakfast. Breakfast? Sounds good. Maybe I should have had breakfast? Breakfast could be good for me. No no no. Focus. I am faster than fast, quicker than quick. I am Lightning."

That is Owen Wilson, who voices Lightning Mcqueen, the rookie racecar - brash, arrogant and ambitious, and with no friends.

The opening sequence is a grandly picturized sequence, with cars watching cars racing. Mcqueen ties the race with two cars and has to travel to California for the decider. But, in a cruel twist of fate, he gets stuck in Radiator Springs, a town that has gone off the map after the interstate highway was built in US in the 1960s.

Jesus Chrysler, ladies and gentlecars...the movie's endless puns on our common usages are funny and a bit excessive. Veteran actor Paul Newman is the car that won the Piston Cup three times in the 60s. He becomes Mcqueen's mentor, teaching him the finer points of racing.

In the forgotten town of Radiator Springs, Mcqueen will learn about racing and working, will form friends and fall in love. All the while the rookie car has to lay a road, which he accidentally ruined.

Sally, a Porsche, voiced by Bonnie Hunt, in a superbly envisioned sequence, tells him how Radiator Springs, once a boom city, had now become yesterday's story.

In this story lies the theme of the movie. Of unbridled development and the American dream gone wrong. (There are now officially more movies where the American dream goes wrong, starting with Citizen Kane). She also tells him of the need to slow down and enjoy life. As Sally puts it, before the interstate was built, "people didn't drive to make good time. They drove to have a great time".

Book Reviews: Eragon, Eldest

Nandhu — Mon, 2 Oct 2006 23:52:22 EDT

Christopher Paolini was only 15 when he began writing Eragon, the best-selling book that would change his life. The book was published when he was 19, causing book reviewers to enthusiastically call him a whiz kid and teenage sensation.

Mr Paolini's young age, however, is never once betrayed in his writing. In fact, the book seems mature beyond his age.

Eragon is the story of a boy who grows up in Alagaesia, a fictional world created on the lines of J.R.R Tolkien's Middle Earth. He discovers a polished blue stone out of which a dragon hatches, changing Eragon's life and causing his entire family to be wiped out with the exception of his cousin Roran.

Paolini borrows from the existing stock characters and legends of the elves, the dwarves and the humans. But creates a few of his own characters too like Durza, the Shade and the Ra'zac.

Thirsting for revenge for his family's death, Eragon begins a chase through the desert in which he is accompanied by the storyteller of Carvahall, Brom.

A movie, based on the book Eragon, is to be released on December 15 and it features Jeremy Irons as Brom and Robert Carlyle as Durza. Alagaesia is ruled by the evil King Galbotrix, who is played in the movie by that wonderful actor John Malkovich. But in the two books written so far in the so-called Inheritance Trilogy Galbotrix doesn't even have a speaking part.

Much like Frodo, Eragon is also brought up by his uncle. The influence of Star Wars is also visible and comparisons can be made between Luke Skywalker and Eragon. Both don't know who their father is when the series begins. In fact, later in the second book, Eldest, it is revealed that the father is an evil man, who is killed by Eragon himself.

Remember - "You killed my father. No, I am your father" from Star Wars?

Like in the Harry Potter series, magic has a big role to play in Eragon. But magic in this series comes with a law of energy conservation. A person using magic to achieve a task has to spend the energy he would otherwise use up if he had to do the same task without magic. Is that a bit like the Robotic laws from I, Robot?

But the book is also deeply philosophical - at least it has pretensions to be - and here is where Paolini slips. He doesn't have the sweeping style of Tolkien and lacks the plotting genius of a JK Rowling. And certainly, he is no philosopher.

While this is the story of the land of the Alagaesia and its fate, it is also the story of Eragon's family.

Eldest - the second book - isn't half as good as Eragon. There is something unbearably thrilling in a relationship that we can imagine between a boy and a pet dragon. Saphira, the dragon, is quite well realized too. But as we enter the second book, much of this charm and the novelty has worn out on us. However, I plodded through, turning page after page of details that overlap in a mind numbing fashion.

Roran plays a big role in Eragon and I couldn't help but remember Mel Gibson in Braveheart. In the way that Roran is conceived as this raw and powerful character he is much like William Wallace. It is Roran who rescues the entire village of Carvahall from Galbrotrix's clutches.

Meanwhile, Eragon is being trained as the rider who can save Alagaesia from Galbotrix. He is trained at Ellesmera by the Elves and last of the Riders Orromis. Meditation and understanding the life of animals and plants is a big part of the training. But much of the book is spent recovering from a wound that Eragon receives in battle. Some of this repetitive and is overwritten.

And however I try to understand it, I can't really see the differences that separate Lord of the Rings from books like these two. LOTR was undeniably great. So are books like Dune. But somewhere there is this huge difference between those books and Eragon. Quite what it is, honestly speaking, I don't know.

The third and concluding part of the series may be called Empire and is on the cards.

Movie Review: Unakkum Enakkum (Something Something)

Nandhu — Sun, 1 Oct 2006 00:11:18 EDT

In the weeks since this movie's release, it amazes why nobody who saw this film mentioned its similarities with Maine Pyar Kiya.

When I watch films like this one, a part of me is embarrassed to be enjoying the show. Almost everything tells me that the movie is fake. But darn it, it's watchable too.

Ever since Rajshri films discovered that happily families on screen meant a lot of happy families in the cinema hall, the genre has been reduced to a charade. A chemical formula that is repeated endlessly to get the same result: success.
Manic hero + pretty heroine + their naivety + feel good factor + good songs + family values + all is well that ends well = success.

There are no grey areas. All characters are neatly divided into the bad ones and the good ones and given separate corners. Nobody is allowed to move from his or her corner.

Jayam Ravi is Santhosh, the hero, who is too old to be in college and too young to be in the office. Anyway, he is too rich to do any work. He is brash, sweet, and lovable. Ravi has enough charm to cakewalk through this role with his eyes closed.

Trisha is the pretty young thing, who is so na�ve, that you would want to fall in love with her for that alone; beautiful eyes and charming smile notwithstanding. She is brought up by her farmer brother - Prabhu who increasingly reminds me of his illustrious dad.

They meet at her friend's marriage and after the usual courtship rituals fall in love. All so good so far. But the villains - there are too many to count - can't stand the class differences.

I don't know how everybody sees this movie. But for me it works like a fairytale. Nothing is real. You almost expect angels to show up at any moment. Makes me wonder why so many movie critics insist on films being real. What is that hang up about? The couple who sat next to me had a wonderful time and that must count for something.

But what grates me is this movie could so easily have been made 50 years ago. And probably has been. So kudos to the cast and crew for making us enjoy a movie we have already seen.

They are the costume department, Jeyam Ravi and Prabhu and the composer. Without them the movie would have not been half as good. Do catch it on DVD.