Cricket Mania(c)

I was just browsing through a regular blog of my friend’s and there I read this analysis of his about the Indian cricket’s debacle at the world cup. I do not know if I am a cricket fanatic. However if tested for fanaticism, guess I should score an easy 7.5 on a scale of 10. That much is enough I guess to have me have upset over the recent developments in Indian cricket. But I try hard to put away the emotions and try and find out some logical answers and if possible some solutions.

I always thought to drop Mohd.Kaif was the biggest loss to Indian team. One of the major & oft repeated criticisms is that he was not consistent. So what? It was and is a problem with any player in the team. Sure consistency is something which is of prime importance and is something which can be collectively worked upon. But by dropping him we only dropped virtues like commitment; never say die, being-patient, and above all we dropped some stupendous fielding characteristics from the team profile. Also don't forget the magic he can create in by building partnerships with people like Yuvaraj Singh. I just can't stop imagining what a bloody combination it would be to have kaif and Dhoni on the crease. Definitely the bowlers would have their nightmares. Blame it on the short sightedness of BCCI. But when at all weren’t they?

I firmly believe that this debacle is definitely a collective responsibility. I do not believe in singling out one factor be it the coach, BCCI or any individual. But on a fair assessment definitely it is the playing eleven which should morally take the major share of responsibility. The reason is simple. End of the day it is all about the focus, attitude, and application of mind for a particular match or tournament or even a farther vision of a career (Indians again here have got it totally wrong. Career for them is more about Ads and being celebrity. Though they can’t be again blamed singularly. Here I would blame more the media) or even longer which matters. However the BCCI, Selection Committee, Coach and various other factors have a considerable share in affecting the prima facie which in any circumstance should be the Performance of the team.

The BCCI have blatantly got it wrong. Being the Richest cricketing body it is obvious that Indian cricket should be having the right and the best conditions to develop. However BCCI is just like any other failing institution in India. BCCI has its own reason as to how it has to work within the limitations of political sentiments, regional sentiments, and people’s sentiments. Damn those reasons. Cricket is a sport and the moment you speak words like sentiments you are giving the essentials like talent and other factors a back seat. That in itself does the majority of damage for the Indian Cricket. Professionalism per se would not sink in the current BCCI format.

I firmly agree with the people who defend the coach and will sure buy the argument that it is the players who need to perform and a coach cannot play for them. Agreed! It is humane to fail. It only becomes inhumane when we fault again and again. Repeat of mistakes is unpardonable. And that sums up Greg Chappell’s way of working. I do not want to speak more about this useless guy and all his lousy insipid chopping, experimenting styles. Now to sum up things we see that he has ended up only taking Indian cricket steps backward and have seriously disturbed & damaged the career of one or two players. So that the useless he was always let us put the issue aside and delve on the broader issue being that of appointments of foreign coach. Whenever in the past or even now I see interviews of cricket players and where in they talk about the inspirations for them , I could hardly remember any cricketer mentioning a foreigner’s name. Tendulkar still maintains that Vengsarkar was a big inspiration for him, and he in turn himself has been an inspiration for lots of players who are currently playing. Apart from that the one other big or the biggest ever inspiration for any Indian cricketer is the picture of Kapil Dev holding the 1983 world cup in the Lord’s. We derive all inspirations from all these great legends of our own, but we deny learning the tricks from them. I am not blind to the fact that there have been Indian coaches in the past. But the point I am trying to make is that why do we every time have to argue and debate between a foreign coach and an Indian coach. Why don’t we believe in our own people and allow the team to be coached by their inspirations. Just a thought of that is only raising hairs in my body. Also by that way we would make them do better jobs than being hypocrites on some channels. One thought I would like to strongly share is that foreign coach is one among the several factors which the BCCI uses to project its pseudo professional image.

Henceforth we can go blabbing about the willies of the Indian team. But on a serious post mortem (though I did have this notion very much before the world cup) at least I am clear that this was not at all the good team composition. I am not even discussing anything about whoever was not fitting to have been in the team. But Kaif, Suresh Raina, Dinesh Karthik, Romesh Powar could have been a couple of characters who if not for wonders would have definitely made more meaningful contributions. But let by gones be by gones. World cup is not the end. We did not deserve it and so we did not get it. The logic is simple and is more important than just emotions.

Apocalypto

These are real hard days to find a genuine action movie. Action has become synonymous with hi fi graphics or unbeleivably flying jets or aliens and characters with weird makeups. Apocalypto comes a bolt out of the blue sky compensating for all actions one has been longing for. It is sheer blood flowing all over. The Director Mel Gibson gets into the forests to capture the mayan era and films it at his best known capacity, as violent as possible. However the film in itself demands that. People in the movie are still wearing animal skins, hunting wild boar and trying to eat its ball raw, speak a language of their own. They live life in the forests only one step better than animals. Now when one such group of people is attacked by another group of people for another group of people who are still less civilized than these people is when hell breaks and blood flows. The plot is simple. The hero's village is ransacked by a group of people whose job is to hunt for peopla and take them as captives to a far off place. Here in the ladies are auctioned out and men are sacrificed to their holy god. Sacrifice is a small word. As these men's hearts are plucked from them and blood squeezed from them and then their head is butchered. This is just a sample of the violence in the movie. How our hero manages to hide his family , a pregnant wife and son from the ransackers, and how he manages to escape from his captive and return to save his family is the movie all about. The movie is simply fascinating.The locations, cinematography and in all the whole techinical aspect of the movie is so authentic and unbeleivable. You will definitely live through the Mayan civilization. You don't fool around yourself with those movies claiming to be hard core actions. Jus give a def ear to them and go watch Apocalypto.


T

MOZHI

You go for a night show with your family. If after watching the movie and in the wee hours when you come out of the auditorium you find yourself so refreshed,light hearted after going through a gamut of emotions, with a tithe of a smile persisting in your lips, and you just wishing the feel to persist for moments as long as possible. No what you would call that kind of movie. A Feel good film eh. But Mozhi scores more than that. In the sense that its a movie with neatly etched clearly defined characters which is a rarity in tamil movies. The movie scores in various aspects as the undetering pace, extremely enjoyable light hearted deliveries, a subtle apt performance by each and every cast, a soothing scintillating music, a pleasant outlook, ...come on that is more than enough man. Again here the story or plot is simple a guy falling in love with a gal and winning her. However the scenarios are different, the gal being a differently abled person, a widowed friend of the gal, simple easily identifiable apartment life. Nothing is complex. Simple is the mantra and that works wonders for the movie. Prithiviraj has definitely improved a lot when compared to his earlier movie parijatham which in itself was quite a dignified acting exhibit. It is only his mallu slang at certain instances which takes away the tamil flavour. However that is not a indispensable crime. Nonetheless the neat performer is he. Prakash Raj , we find it hard initially to absorb him into the character of being young and being a friend to the hero. But then he connives so easily and definitely tends to steal the scenes at many a moments. This is definitely a challenging role and she has done her homework and hard work. But she holds on to a couple of expressions and recycles them. In that sense she definitely has missed once in a life time opportunity to prove her acting prowess. May be she never intended to. The comparison of her character with Rani's character in black is inevitable and JO is no way near the mark. Swarnamalya makes you wonder what could be wrong with her. If only she is such a decent performer like this she could make a much better filmy career for herself. She is perfect cast. There are other interesting character like Brahmanandham (The Apartment Secretary) who bumps in with prakashraj for a couple of hilarious scenes. Bhaskar (sevuttu pattabhi) proves once again how versatile a actor he is with an impeccable timing sense of humor. You will sympathize with his character more than Jo's and that proves the point. Guhan's camera is pleasaing. So is the art direction. The houses shown be it that of prithviraj, jyothika, swarnamalya each depict a different mood with usage of different shades. Music by vidhya sagar and lyrics by Vairamuthu are yet another highlight of this movie. Barring the paesa madanthayae song all songs fit in place and don't disturb the narration as such. If the song kaatrin mozhi is submerging in your heart, Sevvanam jingles a few bells in your heart. However the song i liked the most though not the best is Kannal paesum pennae, a good song taken to dizzying heights by S.P.B's stunning vocals. I just could not stop wondering how much this legend has to offer. All the individual praise do add up to the praises for director radhamohan and producer prakashraj. Radhamohan reinforces faith of ordinary man in tamil cinema.

First one......

I was pondering quite some time now as to what to blog first so as to kick start this blog space. However nothing solid flashed. May be am unfit to be a blogger , to not have any flash of idea for 10 days are so. May be am a bit far lazy. so as a simple start i thought i will review some three films that i happened to see in the last fortnight. I was awestruck by all these movies in one way or though. Now, i am a film buff and it isn't that i get awestruck unreasonably. I jus don't want to write big reviews though they all definitely deserve one. However i post this more so as a record my feelings about this movie rather than hot reviews.

Paruthi Veeran
Cast: Karthik Sivakumar, Priyamani,Saravanan, Kanja karuppu & Others
Technicians: Ameer, Yuvan, Ramji

This move just affirms the fact that a cinema is a director's medium (which unfortunately is not so prevelant in tamil cinema). No doubt that great movies are great teamworks. But i have no choice left but to be a bit biased towards the director of this movie, Ameer. I just could not envisage this movie without Ameer. There is no great story or plot or whatsoever. It is the the screenplay & style thats sparks magic. It simply captures lively the rustic lifepath of a bunch of people who get entwined by relations and emotions.It is sheer hardwork that works in favor of this film. And this is easily evident from the performances of the artists and especially the lead artists. It is a solid, stupendous, power packed performance by karthik. A performance of this sort for a debutant actor is unexplainable. That is something only to be relished. Priyamani too does display her acting prowess to a great extent. However she scales a bit down in comparison with karthik. The reason i guess is one is not equally convinced with the muthazhagu character as they are with paruthiveeran. But still it is a convincing portrayal of the character by priyamani. Every other character including one time hero sarvanan, ganja karuppu, the kid and a whole lot of others are so natural and only add to the authentic flavour of the movie. The screenplay and the characters were so soothingly flowing that i did not care to take a seperate notice of the music. That is in itself tells a lot how Yuvan has blended music into the narration. However i strongly feel that this is a movie which could have been taken to still greater heights if RAASA had scored the music. That does not demean Yuvan in any way. Full credits for the songs ariyatha vayasu, Ayyayyoo and many a pieces of brilliance in the Background scores. Camera by ramji is the second most important aspect next to ameer's direction. Right from frame one it is such a genuine portrayal of a perfect village with the right shades reflecting the rustic moods of the happenings. Many may not be able to accept, digest the climax or atleast the way it is presented. But one have to accept that the climax is disturbing. There are a few shortcomings like too much of violence, the film getting sluggish at moments. On the whole a movie that would definitely take tamil movies to higher leagues. Don't ever forget that all the mantra behind this classic output is that one man called Ameer. Watch out for this director who definitely can easily get on the leagues of names that changed the face of tamil film industry.