2020 Diwali Release Movies

 This year we watched 2 of the Diwali release movies - Mookuthi Amman and Soorarai Potru - thanks to the O.T.T platforms. Both were interesting for their segment of audiences. 

Mookuthi Amman

Mookuthi Amman:

Mookuthi Amman, is a God movie of a different kind. Upon watching this movie, I understood one God (Goddess here) can become jealous of another God. The movie is more about God Vs Godman. In reality Godman become God themselves. One can realize that at one point of time, Siradi Saibaba should have been a Godman, with some good qualities. Thus we can come to conclusion that, with time, Godman become God themselves. We can even see statues of the prominent disciples of Saibaba, and they also are worshipped as God. 

The movie is all about who wins at the end: God or Godman, leading to an obvious ending. The best thing about the movie is that they shown the Greeneries of Nagercoil in its full. Many parts of it being shot in Vellimalai and Vattakottai. 

Being the son-in-law of Nagercoil, and a person who likes the city a lot, I know its landscapes and greeneries very well. Earlier I thought that the story will revolve around Mookuthi Amman, the Goddesss in the famous Kanniyakumari Amman temple, and the areas around the temple and Kanniyakumari beach. 

RJ Balaji keeps on talking, but think its needed for the role he's portraying, a Local TV reporter & the first son of a family with only younger sisters. As it happens to every Guy in such a setting - no one in the family listens to him or minds his words ;-).

Vellimalai is shown in full length and breadth. Also Vattakottai, which is shown as the Godman's ashram. The performance of the Godman is fantastic. 

The movie is worth a watch. Kids too enjoyed. My little friend Deepak initially was scared to watch God movie, as he felt that God will look similar to Ghost as shown in Ghost movies. I told him that God will be beautiful and will come in a three-layered make-up, and it did :-). The Goddess was beautiful indeed. 

Thank God, none in the movie spoke Nagercoil slang, which made the movie completely understandable to me, else I would have needed my friend's service to translate it to neutral Tamil :-). 

Capt. R. Gopinath

Soorarai Potru:

Story of R. Gopinath, founder of Deccan Airlines. Anyone with Entrepreneurial apatite will like this kind of movie. Suriya was the only disturbing factor as far as I was concerned, as I am not a fan of him and avoid watching his movies. But still went ahead due to its story, though my friend also hesitated to watch his movie. 

A kind of movie that drives one emotionally, and hence keeps us tied to it till the end. The hero, from a normal background faces lots of hurdles, financial hardships, betrayals, opposition from the powerful elite lobby and inactions from the Govt machinery. At every step, he never loses hope, keeps banging until the door opens for him. 

Finally, things happen as expected. Hard, constant, continuous, un-ceasing work never goes un-rewarded. The movie is a good entertainer - but for Suriya. But, however hard I try, I have to agree that his presence made me uncomfortable and it was not an enjoyable experience for me. 

Getting to know about Capt. R. Gopinath, he had achieved when was 52, holding onto the Entrepreneurial dream until 52 is something I admired, since that's an age, at which people in India, resolve to their fate. 

- Pavala.

2.0 - Movie watching experience

Last Monday, suddenly the idea of going to a movie flashed in my mind while we were on our way back from Mercy Electronics. I suggested to my friend we all go for a movie. I also suggested that we go to 2.0 as kids will enjoy as its made in 3D and its more of a movie for the kids. Here all includes kids and parents-in-law. We told our idea to parents-in-law and they too agreed. Before lunch we both started to the Skywalk to book in the PVR cinemas. As we have already chosen the seats by looking into the availability in PVR's website. S row, 2 consecutive seats, close to the pathway.

The guy at the counter immediately gave tickets for the same. This time he also took our phone number, and I got a message on my phone, which included a code, with which I can get a big salted pop-corn. Actually I dont like eating while watching the movie. Also chewing for more than 1.5 hours which watching the movie is not good for the jaws.

We went back home, had lunch, and then I started out to pick Dhanesh & Deepak from their school. Immeidately as I got on the bike, I told that we are going for movie, they became excited. I told them that they should finish off their homework before we start. Deepak asked what is the movie name. When I told "2.0", Deepak said "I thought it will be Sircar".

It was six o clock evening show and we all started by walk to Skywalk. Mama  Athai and kids started a bit ahead of us, but we caught them at the life in the mall. My fried was wearing a special outfit which was drawing everybody's attention on the way and some school going girls were commeting about it too. A sample comment was "cute-a irukku illa..." (isn't it cute).

We went it, got the free big salted pop-corn, took a couple of photos and went inside the movie hall. It was a big one and half of it was empty. While going in we got the 3D glass - this time its a polaroid black coloured glass, as Dhanesh rightly identified. Movie started and we all had a nice family movietainment. Mama got burger for all of us in the interval. Because of the black glass, the movie appeared a bit dim, colours were also a bit dim, which didn't give the theatre effect that I normally used to get while watching movie in theatres. But the movie was in full 3D, shot in 3D camera. Kids and parents enjoyed a lot. I was surprised to find even parents-in-law liked the movie and commented that the movie was nice. The much awaited song came at the end, towards the end credits, which we all liked. Deepak beautifully named the antagonist Akshay Kumar as "Phone Paiyyan" ("Phone Paiyyan vanthuruvaan").

This is our first movie after the GST implementation. Our last movie was "Bahubali-2". All these days we were proudly saying that we didnt watch any movie in theatre after GST. But we cant say that anymore :).

- Raja.

Oru Vadakkan Selfie

Three weeks back when we visited sky-walk for booking tickets for a movie, we didnt find any good one. We ended up booking for "Valiyavan". At that time, I saw a malayalam movie listed in the PVR theatre - "Oru Vadakkan Selfie". It had the new crew - Nivin & Vineeth Srinivasan. Valiyavan was not upto our expectation.

Work pressure in office kept on increasing and I wanted to have a break - decided to see a movie. The first one that came to my mind was "Oru Vadakkan Selfie". Though I dont know Malayalam, thought that I will be able to understand as the movie flows and also due to its phonetical similarity of Malayalam with Tamil.

[pic:Oru Vadakkan Selfie]


When I told this to my friend, she asked about the hero and heroine. I told about Nivin, she didn't know who it was, then I told her that, he is the hero in "Neram" movie.

[pic: Nivin]



But I forgot the name of the heroine, though I read her name in the internet, but I remembered part of it and told her "Muniamma". She got surprised upon hearing that name. But later it turned out that the heroine was "Manjima" (Should be the Malaylam equivalent of "Muniamma", I guess).

[pic:Manjima]

We reached the Ega theatre around 6:30 PM and bought tickets and started waiting outside. I started taking a Selfie and some photos of my little friends. I also observed that many were taking selfies. These days, whatever we do, there is a need to capture it in a photo and share it with others through Facebook or WhatsApp. I observed most of the girls are following a particular posture for taking the Selfie. They raise the hand with the mobile phone above the face level to an angle of about 40 degrees, bend the upper portion of the body slightly backwards, slightly join the lips as if they are about to kiss someone, and then click the Selfie. If more than one girl is involved, their cheeks will be stuck together.

When the movie started, we were surprised to find that the movie had "sub-titles", thanks to the Qube digital projection, though we miss the "grrr" sound of the old projectors. Now we can understand the movie better. But the problem with sub-titles is that we will be missing the scenes, as we focus more on reading the text, than watching the picture.

The initial scenes showed the beauty of Kerala, its greenness and scenarios. I liked the scenes where  the Guys were taking bath in a river (or a water-stream), as I always long to take bath in a river or in a water-stream. Nivin looks like a Tamil Guy, and Manjima too looks like a normal girl, a girl without that special "mallu-prettyness".

[pic:bath is water stream]


The movie has a simple story where Nivin happens to go to Chennai, and in the train, he accidently  finds Manjima and secretly takes a Selfie with her and shares it to his friend. Actually the girl elopes from her home, and when his friend shares the photo to public, they think that the girl eloped with Nivin. This puts Nivin and his friend into big troubles and why the girl elopes, and how Nivin and his friend solve this mystry with the help of a private detective "Vineeth Srinivasan" forms the rest of the movie.

[pic: Vineeth Srinivasan]


Also observed that my little friends were trying to make out how the movie gets projected from the projector to the screen. To Deepu, its a big TV, the moment we entered, he kept asking when they switch on the big TV.

- spgr.

Complex plots and stories

I am amazed to see the speed at which my little friend Dhanu is able to watch and understand the movies. I never understood the plot or the story of any of the movies until I was in 10th standard. When I think about the reason, now I could realize that the movies in those days had complex plots and stories. Almost all the movies had rape scenes and the main characters or the villians(bad-boys) involved in adultry. By contrast most of the movies today do not have a story and if at all they have, its a simple one.

When my little friend Dhanu started watching movies, one the earliest movies he saw was "Naan Ee". The movie had a narration style as if its told by someone. Also it has the concept of a good boy versus a bad boy, where the good boy wins and the bad boy looses. So, nowadays whenever Dhanu watches a movie, he initially asks us who the good boy is and who the bad boy is. Most of time he is able to identify this himself. Also he is aware that the good boy will have a girl friend. Unlike the movies of the yesteryears its not mandatory that the good boy should marry that girl before the movie ends.

At the rate at which my little friends are watching the movies on TV, I fear that soon they will become movie buffs.

But on the contrary I identified that the complex plots and stories, with rape scenes and adultry have moved to the TV serials. Some of the plots of these serials are so complex that even I am not able to understand at this age. For eg. in a serial, the second wife of a man conspires to separate the third wife from her first husband. It took me months to understand this plot and still I have to agree that my understanding may be wrong.

One day I decided to spend sometime watching serials. I saw one serial where one guy was a bad boy and doing all sorts of mischives. After a couple of ad-breaks found that he has changed completely. He became a good boy and was helping everyone. But I was not able to follow the serial, since almost all the people around him were different, including his wife. It took me sometime to realize that it was two different serials. In the first serial he was a bad boy, and in the next one he was a good boy. I couldn't figure our when the first one ended and the next one started.

All the women in the serials can be classified into two categories - bad ones and the suffering ones. Yes you read it correct. There are no good ones. The bad ones will be conspiring to spoil the families of others. The suffering ones will be suffering all through the serial, and they will be crying, crying and crying all the time. I moved along the channels and got to know that in all the serials there were only the above two groups of women. In Mallu serials, it was even more worse. Almost everyone was crying. I was sad to the condition of these poor women. Endless cries.

Neither the men in the serials appeared happy. Almost everyone in all the serials looked like as if they have lost something and worrying over it all the time.

Once when I felt that I was surrounded by worries and troubles both in my personal and professional life, I decided to see a serial - one serial - continuously. I took that decision because almost all in that serial were having problems and no one was having a peaceful life. While watching, I felt happy that my troubles in life were nothing compared to theirs. At least the problems in my life will come to end  sometime. But for them, there was no visibility for a peaceful life. Their problems and worries kept increasing. But after a couple of days, I couldn't tolerate, as I started worrying for their problems on top of my problems and I stopped watching it.

- SPGR.

Chennai Express in Vijay Mall.

When I entered the movie hall I observed that the screen was just a bit bigger than our TV screen. I was disappointed, as I am person who likes to watch movies on bigger screens. Also our seats were in the second row, and thus I almost felt that I was watching the movie in our home. This was our first movie in the new Trichy’s Vijay Mall, the first ever shopping mall of Trichy. By the way, the mall has a nice name J. The shopping mall in Nagerkoil had an even nicer name J.

After a long time, went for the movie “Chennai Express” to theater, with family. It was a Hindi movie taken in  Tamil(pun intended). Almost all the characters spoke Tamil including Sharukh, who spoke a statement in Tamil at the end, which majority of the Tamil speaking population couldn’t  understand. Will come to that later. I am sure the Hindi speaking people would have had some difficulty in understanding the story.  

In the initial scenes, the background sceneries were more beautiful than Deepika Padukone. Or may be, with time, I have learnt to see the beauty beyond women J.  But, nowhere in Tamil Nadu one could see such a place. Later got to know that it is some place near Goa. People watching the movie from North India would assume that everyone one in Tamil Nadu will be having a sickle in hand, as when Sharukh gets down from the train, he was welcomed by a huge crowd, where everyone had a sickle in one or both the hands.

“Thangabali”, a name which I am sure, no one will be having in Tamil Nadu. Also Mr. Thangabali, is a fair, tall, well-built person, who definitely should have born somewhere in the temperate zone.

Most of the Tamil Guys will remain un-married if we were asked to lift the girl through those many steps to the top of the mountain, because…(I don’t want to complete this statement here, but I can share the complete statement over email, on request J).

The Perumal kovil Poojari in having Pattai all through his body. Mohan Ram, the actor whole played the Poojari role, would have hit his head against a pillar upon watching this scene in the movie.

Priyamani’s dance for “1234 song” was awesome. One of my short term goal is to learn her steps. All through the movie I tried to translate the hindi statements to my friend, who objected to it saying “I can understand, no need to translate”. With the flow and with many characters speaking Tamil, she was able to understand except when Sharukh Khan said “Ippdi oru appan iru-paaa-naa…” towards the end of the movie. He repeated it again, even then many couldn’t understand. I understood it at the second time. At this time my friend asked “What did he tell???”. I translated Sharukh’s Tamil to our Tamil.

The way Deepika calls “Aaapaa” was sweet and wonderful. We have a person in our family who pronounces “Appa” in almost the same way, almost having a similar name to hers. J.   

They call it a tribute to Rajini, but sing and dance about lungi. Dear Sharukh, Rajni’s dancing style is unique and not the regular lungi dapankuthu. And by the way, we Tamils cannot claim ownership over lungi. Lungi belongs to one of our neighboring state, the "Land of Lungi", but they call it as "God's own country". The Chetans will murichu our chundu, if we claim ownership over lungi.

But at the end I have to agree that it was good watch and had a good time with family. 

Thupakki

My Dearmost Vijay,

- I am entering the Audi 3 of PVR cinemas, skywalk, it is as if i am entering a shrine... after the starting credits, i was waiting to see you, but it started with a beautiful girl, making some remarks about you. from her charishma, I could immediately realize that she should be your sister... who else can be so beautiful??? (jollu... jollu... :-))... but within a couple of minutes when you appeared... she is not even comparable to you... you were so charming... I felt a big vibration inside me... I saw my God... I clapped, whistled and jumped in joy... while watching for the second time with my little friends and when I whistled, my little friend asked "I dont know how to whistle, teach me..." soon i will be teaching him and also will be teaching my very little friend too... and soon you will see three fans whistling and jumping when you appear on the screen...

- For the opening song, you were dancing wearing a baniyan, which intially made me confused that whether I am actually watching a movie, or a poombuhaar baniyan-jetty ad... but I could immeidately realize that you were wearing such an outfit, to show your well built arms... you are smart and charming however you are... at the same time, I felt very happy and glad that, like some stupids, you didnt develop six packs, otherwise I cant imagine how you would have appeared on the screen, but for sure, if the movie is remaked in hindi, with Salmaan and Asin chechi, I know how Salmaan will appear on the screen and how our Asin chechi will admire him... :-)...

- After the dance in one song when kajal prompts you to give a kiss, and when all were set and when you were about to zero-in... Alas... I admired how even at that time you remembered your duty and related that event to your duty and flew from there and jumped into action, dumping the poor Kajal there itself. Had I been in your situation, considering the gravity of the situation, I would have decided never to return to work in the near future & may be I would have put down my papers and given notice for seperation... but I cant expect that from a sincere & responsible person like you... hats off... may be I should learn this trait from you...

- Generally slow and very slow songs like the "Vennilave" gets added to my mokkai songs list... but you made it great with your beautiful dance steps... only you can dance for such songs too... and now this song also got added to be best list... and from now on, i will listen to slow songs too... Before your movie, I
watched Sundarapandian, where that fellow just walks and smiles at that mokkai herione even for good songs for which can dance very well... But, you are great... But I have concern about this in this aspect... Even when you are given a pretty heroine like Kajal, you are focussing your entire energy on dancing and not on romancing... And rarely you turn towards her... Kindly try to maintain a balance...

/* this is written by pavala at www.spgr.blogspot.in */
- Most became your fan after seeing your performance in Poove Unakkaga (or) Kathalukku Mariyathai... But I became your fan after seeing your performance(?!?!?) in Rasigan itself :-)... But, dont worry, I wont keep being your fan forever... soon I will upgrade myself and become your AC (air-conditioner)... :-)...

- As usual after the movie ended, I do not remember anyone else, except you and Kajal (for a different reason :-)...)... When you are screen, I see only you... and no one else... Not even Kajal... But, I see her when she is alone or with others... Hope you wont object... :-)...

- Now I hear your Thupakki movie songs many many times everyday, and have also started practicing the dance steps... In fact I started dancing and developed a passion for dance after seeing you only... But even after watching for more than 20 times and practicing more than 30 times, I still couldnt hold and twist the hands from left to right then from right to left in the way you do for the song "kutti puli kootam...". Seems its going to take more time than I expected...

/* this is written by pavala at www.spgr.blogspot.in */
- All through your movies, you were known for your dialogues, interleaved with punches, which at times brings out blood from our ears... Especially in the last scene when you were with the main Villain, there was a big silence and I got horrified to core that you are going to come up with a very big dialogue, with lots and lots of punches, which finally is going to change the mind of the villan, also driving out many from the theatres (who are never going to come back again for any of your movie), and finally the villan will change his mind, become a good boy & a patriot and join the Indian Army and serve the country. But there was a totally unexpected move from you... hats off again... As one of my friend said, Murugadoss would have discussed each scene with you and asked what you typically do in that scene... and based on that he would have kept the scene exactly in the opposite way... without your punches, though you missed some whistles, it was a good change, and it shows the level of maturity you have attained and everyone almost started admiring you... already many from the opposite camps are considering to enter our camp :-)...

Now coming to your dance steps...
What to say and what to leave... Excellent, though at some moments you were replicating Michael Jackson & Hrithick Roshan... But ultimately dance is about moving hands and legs and jumping and twisting and somewhere or other its going to be in sync with someone else... So nothing to worry... Surprised to see that Kajal is also equally able to dance with you... Which neither Anushka Akka or Hansika Akka could do...
Most of your steps were awesome, symetric...



Now coming to the take aways from this movie...

1. You came for a vacation, but instead of enjoying your vacation with friends & family, you still did your job and saved the country... great...but this is something that I definitely cannot do... it is going to be really tough for a person who never did any work even while at office, during office hours for the past one year... anyway I will try to learn this from you...
2. "Yuvathigal thedi avadikal kodi... Irunthum athu than sugamellam..." - I am not going to elaborate more on this :-)...
3. How smart and charming you are... If at 38  you are like this, then at 23 (what???? this is too too much da Pavala....) how I should be... I am taking this as a challenge. In 6 months, I will also look smart and charming like you...



Finally My Dear Vijay,
I never knew how I became your fan. Its like falling in love with someone. We never know why it happens... but the feeling is great... Whenever I enter the "karuvarai"(sanctum) of Lord Renga in SriRangam, as I see Renga, I first feel a shock in my body and then a whole calmness & happiness fills in my body... The cute little warming smile of Renga says that "I am with you always...". The same is the feeling I get when I see you on screen... which is what prompting me to see you again and again on the big screen... You always Rock... And I know you will keep rocking... Your fan & devotee... - Pavala...

[Click on the comment link below for adding your comments... Comments can be added anonymously & strictly no moderation is done... :-)...]

Tirumalai @ Trivandrum

It was in 2003 when I was attending training as a fresher in Trivandrum that Vijay's Tirumalai got released. I was new to Kerala, home-sick, pulled our of my comfort zone and trying to get adapted to the new environment and life-style. We all trainees were staying in a hotel called Aruvi, in Pattom, Trivandrum.

[Hotel Aruvi(Aruvi Tourist home), Pattom, Trivandrum]

In the picture above, the gate on the extreme left is the hotel's main gate. Now a security is found sitting there, in those days there was no such security. The door next to it is a phone booth, run by the same Hotel Aruvi. In this phone booth, I had spent long hours, both for calling home and also for a hidden agenda :-). And next to it is Woolands hotel, where we used to have our food.

On a weekend, on one afternoon, I decided to watch a movie in theatre. Among the movies running there at that time, I decided to go for Vijay's movie Thirumalai. In those days, I like to watch watch Vijay's movies in theatres, mainly for the fast songs and the accompanying dance sequences.

I got ready, went to the bus stop nearby Aruvi hotel and got into the town bus that goes to the bus stand. In the bus stand I didnt know where to go or how to reach the theatre. I didnt even know in which theatre the mvoie was put up. I was heading for the morning 11:30 show. I found an auto outside the bus stand and told the auto Chetan about my situation. He at once jumped into action. He took a newspaper, that he had kept by inserting between the auto's iron frame and the auto's rexin roof. He turned the pages, saw the advertisement of movies released in theatres, located Thirumalai and found that it was put up in the Ajantha theatre. And he drove fast to that theatre as the time was already 11:25.

 [Ajantha Theatre, Trivandrum]

The auto reached the theatre at 11:35(five minutes late). Paid and thanked the Chetan, and ran to the counter. The person at the counter said that only Rs. 12 ticket was available. I didnt mind it, as my only intention at that time was to somehow enter the theatre. I got the ticket, ran to the hall and entered the auditorium. The movie was already put up and I just stood at the gate after entering, since the hall was so dark and I couldnt see anything clearly. Then after getting some visibility of the path, slowly went inside and sat in the seat number mentioned in my ticket. That was the first row in the theatre and it was very close the screen. I had to lift my head up to see the screen and turn my head left and right, if I had to watch the individual characters on the screen. Intially, it appeared to be a nuisance, but once I started involving in the movie, I became ok. I also convinced myself that since I am in the first row, I am seeing the movie before everyone else in the hall, however fast the light travels :-). Exactly after I sat, the song "Vaadi Amma Jakkamma" started. So fast movements, fast music and I was satisfied that it was worth coming all the way from Pattom.

The movie had a boring story, with boring twists and turns. Still I enjoyed and watched the movie :-). Had pop-corn in the interval. After the movie was over, walked back to bus-stand. On the way, found a mid-sized hotel and had meals. The first question they ask in the hotel is "White rice?". I know that there is another kind of rice there - brown rice, a little bit big in size, which gives the feeling of chewing a bubble gum for those who are not used to it and hence difficult to swallow. Had a good lunch with all types of non-veg curries, chicken side-dish. From the bus stand got a bus and reached Pattom back.

- Pavala.