"Slumdog Millionaire" is what Kinetic cinema is!

We've seen raving reviews for Danny Boyle's best yet - 'Slumdog Millionaire' - a British movie with Indian cast. I was the lone Indian in the whole crowd at Royal Oak - Landmark Art Theatre. Was it exciting ? Yes! I understood the meaning of kinetics!

What "Slumdog Millionaire" offers is nothing new to Indian audience, but the form it takes is breathtaking. The form of movie making with all its provulsive mood destined to attain high quality direction effort and this is what the movie acheives.

Danny Boyle acheives what Hollywood was not able to. Bringing the color, joy, essence and happy ending of Indian Cinema along with Dark, gritty, thrustful movie making of western films. This alone deserves a thousand credits.

By now everybody reading this review would've known what the movie is about. Yes! It is about a boy from the slums of Mumbai on the hot seat for 'Who wants to be a Millionaire?" show. Dev Patel is Jamal, Friedo Pinto is Latika, Anil Kapoor , the host of the show and Irfhan Khan the inspector. Nothing more about the story ,Go watch it!

The style of cinematography is something comparable to the style of "City of God" and hence the camera in motion. Thats a perfect comparison infact. The movies mixes up past and present , but not as non-linear as Alejandro Innaritu's movies. This is where the buoyant editing comes into picture. Spectacular.The tale of riotious tough childhood and hoodlum of the brothers , the horror of pseudo orphanage people..well you know that's a tough life out there..how else can this be depicted? The kids were magficient cast.

The film has dirt, joy, color, filth, beauty and everything you might expect from a movie.The only thing I felt as an Indian was the nativity which was missing. And for a western maker, I hope that doesn't matter. What matters is how it fits to the market it was made for , where the film scores a cent percent.

There is a slight tone of philosophical twitch within the film and its for those who tend to see it that way or perhaps that was the filmmaker's intention. Dev patel , Anil Kapoor and Madhur Mittal (Salim) bring out their best, but who stands out in the first half were the kids and Irfan Khan. His eyes play his role.

Then comes the pulsating soundtrack. I don't know what made Danny to bring in Rahman , but thats the movie's greatest positives. The movie starts going with 'O..Saya' till 'Jai Ho' and you'll never find it was almost 2 hours at the end. Rahman's score is one big reason. M.I.A's 'Paper Planes' was much better her in this movie and was as if it was made for the train scene. The Bollywoodish "Jai Ho" is not a perfect Bollywood number, but thats how westerners perceive Bollywood musical and its not too far away frm being perfect.

With a very happy ending , it was hard for me to think of this movie fetching this year's oscar along with "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button","Milk""Revolutionary Road", but sure is a place for it in the nomination's list for Best picture,director,editing,screenplay,cinematography and Rahman's music. IT IS WRITTEN.

'Slumdog Millionaire' soundtrack is propulsive and pulsating!

The highly praised 'Slumdog Millionaire''s soundtrack by A R Rahman and few tracks by others including M.I.A. is a highly propulsive album .It bursts with thrust. There are three tracks featuring M.I.A , one of which along with A R R himself.

'O..Saya' - Featuring Rahman and Maya's voice, the soundtrack is full of resilience. With his elevated pitch, Rahman turns on the pace along with the sporadically pounding rhythm. Accompanied by great bass work, the sound track excels.

'Riots' is an elegant haunter. The orchestration work sounds somber and so is the lingering bass line. The track also contains a high profile from-the-bottom hum which adds up the vibrancy.

"Mausam & Escape" - The song starts with strings filled with romance and tranquility, and when it gets on its shoes , we very well know the man behind is goin wild and naturally wild, so does our senses. The rich and Vibrant sitar and strings will let you swing in the compelling world Rahman has shaped.

'Paper Planes' - 'Paper Planes - Remix' - Although not Rahman's, I personally feel this song certainly adds up to the album and the delusionary tune perfectly fits.Credits to M.I.A.

"Ringa Ring" - The only whole hindi song in the soundtrack featuring Ila Arun and Alka Yagnik is another rendition that is expressive and a proficient composition. It has all that blend, Rahman stands for.

"Liquid Dance" - Well percussioned and with all that jathis by Palakkad Sriram doesn't really stand out, but still maintains the cadence of the album. Shades of ‘Spirit of Rangeela’ inevitably come to my mind with that choral orchestration.

"Latika's Theme" - A typical Rahman melody and it has got all the bass lines and strings that would bring up your mood towards what is desired out of it.

'Millionaire' - The track gradually grows and characteristically at the middle where the glorious effervescence builds up, there is also a gradual feel of raise of illusional hype.

'Gangsta Blues' - A R R's hands on typical hip hop sung by Blaaze and Tanvi starts out similar to the rhythms of M.I.A's 'Boyz' but isn't what it is really when it comes to the interludes and tunes. It’s dark and subtle, graceful and sleek.

'Dreams on Fire' - Ultra- melodious and should be a special mention. It has the same kinda tamburas or string running at the back as in 'Journey Home' or 'Ni sa ri sa'. But it’s simply fresh and scintillating. A beautiful Dream for sure!

'Jai Ho' - The song that has been getting rave reviews - even a oscar note. The Bollywoodish and dazzling tune is accompanied with the orchestral and choral symmetry. Sure to win hearts.

"Slumdog Millionaire" is surely one huge step for A R Rahman towards global audience and he does what you anticipate from him. It is extremely propulsive and at the same time packed with hope, joy with the darkness of music giving way to the light in all the world around us.

Rahman's "Ghajini" is dazzling!!!

Aamir Khan starrer ."Ghajini" is seen causing a lotta talks in the market and now that the audio is out, Rahman owns the show. And what does Rahman offer you this time?

The variety and genre of songs that Rahman has dipped us into this year , sorta amazes me..starting from "Jodha Akbar" till "Ghajini".

"Guzarish" sung by Javed Ali and Sonu is a heavy bass-ed soothie. The sharp tone of Javed Ali ripples across throughout the song and there is a lotta Bollywood essense to the song. There are a few instances where the choir does a nice work.

"Aye Bachho" starts with a rivetting pop tune out of the box, followed by the heavy guitar strums and we know how the number is gonna be..very early..Rahman keeps us surprising with his creativity here...

"Kaise Mujhe" is the slower - melody sung by Benny Dayal and Shreya Goshal. The song soothes and haunts and the very end of each part. Personally, I had a feeling that Shreya's part was sung with much more emotion. Benny Dayal could improve a bit.

"Behka" - A surprise experimental number from Rahman. The song's structure is what surprises me ; the structure of the instrumentation and the climax where Karthik sings the pepped up number with so much grace and love. Lovely!

"Lattoo" Not only a foot tapper, but a gracious dance number; and we don't stop there. Its a pack of delicious sound , synch and rhythm. A perfect blend of Carribean and arabian. If not Rahman who else can do that?

This year has been so wonderful and all that wonder is because of one man's creativity and his impressive talent to dump it all in music and give it to us. "Ghajini" is one more of the the thousand feathers in Rahman's hat.

"Yuvvraaj" is mesmerising and A R Rahman is the reason!

Its True! The music of "Yuvvraaj" - Subhash Ghai's new venture in collaboration with A R Rahman only after "Taal" which blew minds away is out. Is it as good as "Taal"? Not now ! But surely is growing (going) to be.

"Tu hi to mei dost"
First word: Instrumentation is fantastic; Its grows on you; Although there are certain sounds that sound familiar, its almost a mesmerising number.The interludes are grand and effective and so are the voices.Who could think of playing bongos in the background for a melody like this and do it perfectly well, other than Rahman? When Rahman takes over at the end, you knows its gonna be a great number sooner or later in your mind.

"Shano Shano"
A peppy disco number.Its not that very peppy number, you'd expect of Rahman ..and you know when Rahman tries to be different, especially after the second interlude..yes, it is interesting.I loved the way the percussion turns Indian!

"Tu Muskura"
The strings that start the music had me, sink into the deep driven thoughts of my mind.It's fantastic!And later the song turns out to be pretty good. Be it Alka or Javed Ali, the song never loses its track and at the end turns out more haunting with the voice of Roopkumar!

"Mastam Mastam"
Creative Rahman back here! What a number!!! This song is certainly different and the sounds in the song, I'm sure only Rahman can be so creative! Sonu's voice,lyrics with the soothing music just get you going. The riffs are awesome!

"Zindagi Zindagi"
My favourite of the album for now!WOW! Its almost a number in which you feel the waves of Rahman doing music for Deepa Mehta, if you know what I mean.I don't think , I can complement this anymore.WOW!!!!

"Dil ka Rishta"
This number is a very peculiar one.Starts of nicely with single keys and ends with a real heavy orchestration.Lotsa english lyrics and chorus. Beautiful transitions,light and heavy interludes. Pretty good number.

"Manmohini Morey"
It is interesting to see , Rahman do this song. Not on many occasions, he takes up things like this..But when he does, he makes the occasion worth it and make you celebrate.

I do not want to comment on the remix version of Shano Shano, its not Rahman's. "Yuvvraaj' - although there are a few shades of his own previous essense here and there,but the music has so much ambience and so rahmanisque.Its fascinating to see Rahman coming back again with all that he has got for that moment. After all, thats what we expect from him. Don't we?

Sakkarakatti is sweet , but without the lyrics!

It has been raining Rahman for the past few months. After the Stupendous "Jodha Akbar", Peppy "Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na" and entracing "Ada" , its something that doesnt reach those heights but a sweet album "Sakkarakatti".

I'm too impatient to review track by track and this is not a review but my opinion on the album.

"Taxi Taxi" is Finicky and Peppy. Blaaze does have his command over the first few lines of the song and after that its almost a typical Rahman song. A nice fast listen.And why is hip - hop affecting Indian music too much nowadays?

"Marudaani" , would be my original pick of the album (I don't consider Chinnama and Yesh Rishtaa, as they belong to Rahman's own spellbinding "Meenaxi"). Sung well, but with bad tamil accent , which doesnt spoil the song to a noticable extent. Very well orchestrated, sung and again the lyrics ain't that good.

"I Miss You", sung in the husky tone, din;t impress me much at the beginning, but then , nowadays I'm feeling its kinda good.

"Yelai", this must have been the most creative song of the album with guitar strummings and scottish tunes. But then the lyrics spoils it. I mean it. How long are we going to use the galaxy, antenna , telescopes...is it futuristic? I mean, it sounds like the lyrics is written somewhere in the 80s. And I would like the lyricists to undertand today's youth don't use such scientific terms. But the song as far the music is concerned is very impressive. It has a rahmanisque ambience which is what we expect. Don't we?

"Nee eppodum " and "Chinnama" are the same tracks from Meenaxi. "Yeh Rishtaa" is one of my life time favourite track, and I din't even bother to listen it tamil.I donot want to spoil the image I have on the song.

On the whole, "Sakkarakati" music may not be as sweet as sugar but surely as a sugar free sachet for the diabetics patients.

WALL - E is Extraordinar - E

What you've heard is true : Yes ! This is a near animated masterpiece. Its groundbreaking by the fact that its the first Animated Art Film. "WALL E" is the Best Animated Feature for Oscars '08; 'WALL E' is what critics will love after a mediocre range of movies front running the year.

Pixar does it again and as one of the reviewers said "It's getting monotonous" to review Pixar's, its almost always a masterpiece. WALL E is a whole new dimension to filmmaking and it is very similiar to Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. "WALL E" tend to have the same kinda feeling that the climax of "City Lights" would give and to indian audience ,it would be something comparable to "Sadma" or "Moondram Pirai" with a happy ending.

I will not /never let out the plot or the story in my reviews. May be thats the reason , this blog doesn't look like a review which is not important.

The first 40 minutes of this movie is for the film making students to learn how to visually narrate a story. Its not simple. This movie again is the most intelligent flick of all the pixar's.We need to understand ,conceive a lot of things. We can term it as a science fiction classic and it gives you a lot of dimension on how the future will be.

"WALL E" is the Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth Class , a robot which falls in love with EVE - Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, another robot.Thats it. No more spoilers. "WALL E" is the darkest of Pixar's , and also the most innovative.

And the most important point about this movie is that IT MAY NOT BE SUITABLE for non-critical viewers and children, who may very well appreciate the movie in parts.But for those who like "City Lights", "Modern Times", "E.T' or "Blade Runner", this is the movie.

Its visually breathtaking , hyper densely rendered (RenderMan rocks) , beautifully scored (music is the backbone) ,consistently thought provoking (you may need to watch this again to understand the details and intelligence) and faboulosly directed by Stanton,the director of "Finding Nemo". This movie might be the solution for the people who need a relief from the animation movies with the same way of animals talking , funny gestures, one liners. "WALL E" is different and its art.(Except for the portion of the movie in the AXIOM).

I'm sure after a few years, this movie would be considered a classic or one of the greatest movies of all time, but will this be a world wide mainstream entertainer? I'm not very sure, because what hurts me is people getting up and going around in the theatre as "WALL E" was trying to express itself or outta- theatre people feeling it's not as good as Incredibles or Ratatouille. I pray that movies like this get accolades from mainstream audience.

Note: "Presto" is the most hilarious short from the PIXAR and it is featured at the beginning of the film.It rocks!

My Rating : 89/100

"The Happening" is not bad!

You can see the critics tearing it apart. The reviews say ,the movie showcases end of a career.Is "The Happening" really so bad?

I'm a kinda critical viewer and believe me the movie is not that bad ,but it is highly flawed. It should have a had a plot. But still the movie has a lotta chilling moments and thats the reason why you go to watch a Shyamalan movie.Isn't it?

The acting is bad;Music is awesome and so is the cinematography; Dialogues are pretty bad though. Yes, the theme is good, but the movie embraces a lot of moments from other Doomsday movies , esp. War of the worlds.

Why don't Shyamalan leave Philadephia and shoot his movie somewhere else. This is not a bad movie and I hope the critics don't end his career. Give him a few more chances.

Watch "The Happening" for the chilling moments.


My Rating : 77 / 100

"Kamal' efforts cannot save the movie "Dasavatharam""

I'm an ardent fan of Kamal Haasan. But this movie is stupid and I mean it.I'm not sure how Kamal could get along with this script. It's highly flawed. A commercial film like this ain't the problem, but the issue lies with the script.

Talking about the positives is easy;we have only a few.Kamal Hassan's acting.Especially The telugu police character,Ramanuja follower, Dalit character, the bush character and the american character. He alone rocked.

Again ,the make up department has done only good. But doing good is not good these days. They should do their best. We can easy make out that the characters and the make up should've been better.

Ravivarman's camera is bad; Was he using an ArriFlex camera ? Where is the DOF? The movie looks like a B- Grade movie.Just gushing around in and out is not camera work and I'm pretty much sure that Ravi varman knows that well too.

I've been seeing in reviews that the movie which says visual effects are of Hollywood standards. Has anyone seen hollywood movies here? Yes. They've tried it good, but its not even 20% of hollywood visual effects. But they have tried and I appreciate the effort.

Other performances are good and also the certain dialogues penned by Crazy Mohan.Story - there is nothing with that name.

Efforts cannot make a movie great, the movie should be.I'd gladly recommend to avoid this movie and rent a movie like "Gilli","Anniyan" if you want commercial action or if you want the same combo,"Dasavathaaram","Thenali" and laugh your hearts out.

If you still want to see "Dasavathaaram", you have a good reason - Kamal hassan


Rating : 58 /100

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the crystal skull - Rocks

Is the Indy 4 as good as its predecessors? - definitely better than "The Temple of the doom".
Is it a real good fun ride? - Yes, it obsolutely is.
Is it good for even the Non- Indiana Jones fans? - Oh, Well.It depends.
For Jones fans ? - An absolute rocker.
Does Steven Spielberg Satify the audiences? - Oh Yea! To almost the maximum.

I'd gladly wait for next few Indy installments, if there will be.

Rating : 82.5 /100

Steven Spielberg's Next???

Now that Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull is released and is running over the box office, what's his next project or what are his upcoming ones?

The most probable would be "The Trial of Chicago 7" rumoured to star Will Smith and Kevin Spacey. The next would be "Tintin" trilogy out of which Spielberg is gonna direct the first movie , the second would be directed by Peter Jackson and the third yet not let out.This is gonna be fun to watch.

After these two, Spielberg as sites and people say would jump to his long awaiting project on "Lincoln" and then the "Interstellar".

He might want to release "The Trial of Chicago 7" for the 2008 Oscar season,if the hinderances get apart.

Lets wait and see.

Mixed reviews on "Ada"?

Lately, after the audio release of "Ada" and "Jaane Tu ya jaane na", hype has been surrounding more on "Jaane Tu..." and the marketing division has been more keen on the latter.

Almost all the reviews have been favouring "Jaane tu.." as peppy ,youthful music ,but whats up with "Ada".

"Ada" is a far better and serious composition by Rahman.It has a very complex structure of songs.I accept "Jaane Tu..." is fanstastic too.But there are many composers who could replicate Rahman to make Peppy music in the market, but "Ada" belongs to Rahman.

1. Songs like "Ishq Ada (both versions) , "Meherbaan", "Hawa Sun Hawa" and "Milon Wahan Wahan" are Rahmanisque and is not easy for any other composers in the new world to create.

2. Very few like Monty( with the stependous Saawariya) may be able to perceive the orchestration like "Ada" but may not be as consistent as Rahman does.

3. "Ada" music was composed long time back and you can in no way feel the rust in the songs.It takes your breath off sometimes after a few listens.

Listen it and feel it.

There is no stopping Rahman!!!

Ain't it a treat? Two of A R Rahman's albums getting released in the same week after the master music of "Jodha Akbhar".

It is; atleast for the Rahman's fans and music lovers who are looking out for creative music all time.

Yes ! "Ada" and "Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na" audios are in the market.

This time what does Rahman have to offer you?

First, "Jaane....."

The music is not what you expect always! It sounds different and it takes time to realize that the music is really "New" for people who take their time to understand music and always concentrate on critizising Rahman.

With three peppy numbers and everything standing out, there are two riveting numbers and jazzy numbers too.

Authentic Rahman taste. I don't want to review each and every song. Hear 'em . Tell me.Take your time .Listen it! Don't just hear it while you're watching something else, taking to someone or while boozing.

"Ada" is not a seperate music listening experience, it is living with Rahman.

"Ada" is world -class.
"Ada" made me speechless.
"Ada" is not what you've heard ever.

Where in the world, did this guy gets this talent; of stretching music beyond one's breath making it a breathtaking experience to just hear his music?

Who needs anything else , when you have a moment of truth with the music that spreads peace in to your blood, brain and heart? Experience 'Ada".

-Srivathsa and Vishwa

Mr. Jones is back and so is Spielberg!

I'm thrilled.

The second trailer of one of the greatest film series directed by the most influential director is already in the sites. Waiting for the movie to shoot out next week.

Indy 4 - The kingdom of the crystal skull is Spielberg's "Fun" movie after the breathtaking more seriousminded "Munich". Since then I've been waiting to watch this guy come up with his new offering.

All the other Indy parts had rave reviews when they were released.Hopefully its gonna be the same this time and I'm sure it will be.

lets wait..just a week to go.

I cant wait to sit in the AMC 30 in Detroit next week.