Ponniyin Selvan sticks to the script. It's less a Mani Ratnam movie and more a faithful adaptation of Kalki's novel. Raja Raja Chozhan was a glorious emperor, about whom Kalki wrote a well-researched story Ponniyin Selvan in the early 1950s – serialized in the Kalki magazine for nearly...
Among the many unwritten rules that are a product of the unique reality of Tamil filmgoers is the timing of film releases. Big budgets jostle and edge out smaller banners to arrange multi-theater release during festivals. The festive mood brings along with it an urge to entertain oneself and...
Actor Dhanush in his film Padikaathavan says: “Guys like me are not liked on sight; will be liked as they are seen more and more.” I have often thought if these lines were written keeping in mind music composer A R Rahman. The reason is that there is a critical opinion right from his early days...
Kanam should count as among the few of a genre widely popular in Hollywood and elsewhere, not in India. India should be the natural home of the spiritual film but is not. A spiritual film has no religious content. Nor is it to do with myths, religious epics and stories. The spiritual film is...
Mani Ratnam was a pioneer in making a south Indian film have a pan-India appeal. His Roja rode the nationalist surge earlier than most filmmakers. The challenge for him now is in making Ponniyin Selvan, quintessentially a Tamil story, pan-India. If Ponniyin Selvan were to go the Bahubali way,...
In Cobra movie, Mathialagan, played by Vikram, is a socially conscious man who teaches poor and other children lacking support so they can advance in life. College teacher Bhavana (Srinidhi) loves him but Mathialagan doesn’t return her love. Vikram is not only a maths teacher he is also a...
If Liger is Bollywood's foray into pan-Indian films, then it shows Bollywood hasn't learned how to make those films. In the past, Hindi films were naturally considered pan-India merely because Hindi was spoken by more people than other languages. Others were called regional cinema. But each...
If the Tamil film industry has a bug bear, it’s Tamil Rockers. It’s the website many Tamils are thankful for, especially those who can’t afford pricey tickets or those who can’t be bothered t trudge to theaters and want the comfort of their laptops and homes. Film industry folks rail at pirates...
Every now and then a film that releases that comes as a whiff of fresh air, driving away the heady smells of masala for a few moments. And that film inevitably comes from our western neighbour. Nna Thaan Case Kodu’ (If so, sue me) by Kunchacko Boban takes up an everyday difficulty and expands...
Romance is passé among the current generation, it is said. The hostility to saccharine sweet romance is so much that even if romantic love is one among the elements in a film, it is dubbed a romance movie. Hanu Raghavapudi’s Sita Ramam seeks to buck this trend by telling a classical love story...
