The Disruptive Innovations of Venkat Prabhu
An interesting one-liner; a jolly, happening cast involving young guns who have a marked sense of humour; some veteran actors who are made to join the fun; a rock-solid technical crew that is mostly unchanged; a specific template of screenplay involving twists; comedy and action thrown in at seemingly inappropriate places which still clicks with the viewers; an unexpected climactic volte-face.
The Abominable Arm-Chair Critic
The surge in the usage of Internet and the urge for people to tap stuff on their keyboards and keypads and share them with friends has sprung multi-folds in the last few years. 'Crowdsourced' websites are quite popular. In other websites and magazines, there are specific limited columns which encourage views of visitors/readers. Among the pleasant positives this phenomenon has brought about are a few diabolic downturns. One among those is the increasingly growing clout of the 'Arm-chair Critic'. As I am going to base this article on this referential ‘abominable’ person, let me be clear in my definition of who it is, in the context of movies and movie-reviewers.
A model to work for our ‘Mass Heroes’
‘A Separation’ ,the Iranian film that won the coveted Oscar in the foreign language category in the 84th Academy Awards held in 2012, is a film that bowls you over with the simplicity in its plot. It is a subject whose one line can be translated to ‘Ponna pudichu thalli vittaya’ (like the famous ‘ponna kaiya pudichu izhuthiya’ Vadivel joke). In its simplicity, there is a lesson for films from our land. It makes one think about the question on why such films with simple yet tasteful making are not dished out from an otherwise capable Tamil cine-industry. That question could potentially lead to a series of questions and a probable answer to the last question in the chain. More on that below.