Grand Scale Entertainment!

Movie: Enthiran/ Robot

Director: Shankar

Producer: Sun Pictures

Music: AR Rahman

Cast: Rajinikanth, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Danny, Santhanam, Karunas

Don’t know what I found more exciting about Robot/ Enthiran ; Rajinikanth, His Fans or The Robot, but I sure went for the movie with my mind in a whirl and expectations upto my nose! Rajini absolutely thrilled me, his fans not as much (they did not behave as crazy as I hoped!) and the Robot a crazy change in Indian cinema quite well executed by Shankar!

Courtesy: http://www.directorshankaronline.com/

The story revolves around Vaseegaran (Rajinikanth) a computer scientist who creates a near-perfect robot, Chitty, that can help the country either in defense or development. Aishwarya Rai Bachan plays his…err… their love interest! The storyline is basically sparse. It brings to life Shankar’s ultimate fantasy, A robot that develops feelings and is able to fall in love, with the same woman as his creator, the scientist. Unfortunately it also feels jealous, angry, and revengeful! The story is interspersed with many songs, not always a welcome break! But the choreography for all songs are excellently done making them quite a delight to the eye.

Courtesy: http://www.directorshankaronline.com/

Performances wise, Rajini as the villain is a feast for sore eyes; one completely forgets Rajini the superstar and is  enthralled by the enigmatic villain he plays! Santhanam does not get to shine in his comedy role much and Aishwarya plays the pretty woman, a perfect doll who desires for a little more attention from her love but ends up getting a lot more than she bargained for!

Courtesy: http://www.directorshankaronline.com/

The first half of the movie is completely absorbing, Rajini not just plays a one man army in the movie, but also proves to be the one man army for the film. He is perfect as the eccentric scientist, the comic Chitty and the scary revengeful robot in the latter part. Cinematography by Ratnavel is excellent, some scenes such as the fight scene in the train are absolutely thrilling. Latter scenes of the Villian Robots and their fight sequences through formations of the Snake, Ball etc show technical excellence. The songs especially have stunning visuals and shot in exotic locations prove to be very entertaining.

The outfits for all characters have been well chosen,  Aish looks like a super-glam doll in most songs, while Rajini and Chitty with the help of Bhanu’s make-up look young and handsome!

Special mention needs to be given to A R Rahman’s music, it is bold, it is edgy, sharp and completely machine, the music manages to breathe final life into the Robot character making it menacingly believable. Rahman has proved he can get even more adventurous and delightfully unpredictable with this sound track.

The movie sets hearts thumping towards the start, but does lose pace in-between, mainly because the thin storyline is stretched beyond time capacities. However the fight scene towards the end makes well worth the wait. As a film it has broken records in terms of budget, revenue, visual extravaganza and technical excellence as well as fresh thought. But more ground breaking than that is Rajini’s youthful and power-packed performance that leaves you with the urge to pop vitamins and hit the gym!

Watch it, the Robot visits India, and it cannot be more charismatic than this!

Endhiran Technical Promo

Enthiran Kadhal Anukkal Teaser

Endhiran-The Robot Irumbile Oru Idhaiyam Trailer

CTRL C + CTRL V

Tumbnail courtesy – Alephunky

No, we are not going to teach how to copy and paste. This is about plagiarism in bollywood. Apart from so many songs, that are being copied or inspired (which sounds more respectful), bollywood, often borrows film concepts from Hollywood, that too without any concern. We can’t even see any credit being given to the makers of the original. It will presented as if it was the director’s brain child, born out of discussion in hotel rooms with asst. directors. We don’t have dearth of new, creative talents here. Rather, we have lazy, intelligent filmmakers, who are ready to indianize an alien concept. From the legal view, though our Indian laws are not very stringent towards plagiarism, laws in other countries severely punish copy cats. Every filmmaker here was so happy that no non-indian knew about the plagiarism going around here. But globalization of Indian films came, both as a boon and bane.

The international arena started absorbing candy floss Indian films and I am sure that it would’ve come as a shock to them to see the level of breach of copyright happening in Indian Cinema. To trace back, the first bollywood film to be sued by an Hollywood company is Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai. US studio 20th Century Fox had filed a case, claiming that the film’s original was their 70 million rupees. But there was no follow up to that story and only god knows what had happened behind the screen. Few other recent films which was ‘inspired’ from Hollywood are Hey Babbyyy – Three Men and a Baby, The Godfather – Sarkar, Hitch – Partner, Derailed – Train, Nine Months – Salaam Namaste, What Lies Beneath – Raaz, God Tussi Great Ho – Bruce Almighty. Behold, this list has only very few films and there are more out there and it comes as a great surprise that these films are not sued.

Recently, another case has been filed, suing the US distributors of the blockbuster “Singh is King”. Viacom 18 was the company, responsible for the distribution and American Rights Management Company has challenged it in the US court on the grounds of copyright infringement. The company has claimed that the Viacom-distributed film is a rip-off of the 1929 short story Madame La Gimp made by Damon Runyon. Added, The film has also been copied from films like Frank Capra’s Lady For A Day, A Pocket Full Of Miracles and Jackie Chan’s Miracles, the lawsuit claims.

The distributors are yet to reply any. But nevertheless, I think its time for the directors to really think out of the box and create original ideas, rather than faultily interpreting fundamental rights. On a happy note, Indian cinema is no longer consider has just another cinema industry and it is clear that the world is watching and giving our films some respect and attention.

p.s. Good lawyers know the law; great lawyers know the judge. – Author Unknown

Author – Alan Smithee

Avatar is celebration of the visual possibilities of cinema. Cameron and Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital have changed the way movies are made. The film is a visual delight.

Watch the video of Stereoscopic 3D camera used in the movie: Click here

Coming to the story, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is an ex-marine who is offered an amazing opportunity after his twin brother dies; to participate in the Avatar program. The program is setup by humans on the distant world of Pandora as it has an abundance of precious minerals on its land. Since humans can’t breathe Pandora’s atmosphere, the company has created Avatars, in which human pilots use their consciousness to remotely-control a genetically engineered body that is a hybrid of Na’vi and human DNA. Jake becomes one such Avatar…human’s weapon to make force Na’vi to evacuate their planet.

The central section of the movie, as jake becomes a warrior and falls in love with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), is sheer magic. Cameron takes you on the back of the banshees, past “floating” mountains and cascading waterfalls. As Neytiri takes jake under her wing to teach him how to live in the forest, speak the language and honor the traditions of nature, he starts getting emotionally attached to Pandora and there begins the conflict.

Avatar Movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/

Avatar begins well, keeps you engaged in between and then picks up on its pace towards the climax. The battle for Pandora occupies much of the final third of the film. The planet’s animal life -the creatures of the ground and air- give battle along with the Na’vi. a 30-minute action sequence in the film’s final act that is quite literally awesome. After writing this story many years ago, he discovered that the technology he needed to make it happen did not exist. So, he went out and created it in collaboration with the best effects minds in the business. This is motion capture brought to a new high where every detail of the actors’ performances gets preserved in the final CG character as they appear on the screen. Yes, those eyes are no longer dead holes but big and expressive, almost dominating the wide and long alien faces. The quality of the Na’vi is so detailed and natural. The level of detail in the Na’vis’ skin is astounding. 75 % of this movie is all-CG, with CG characters in a CG universe-not a mix of miniature models and live action. This is as animated as a Pixar movie but utterly photo-real.

Through the eyes of Jake we’re introduced to the planet’s boundless, breathtaking collection of natural and unnatural wonders. At night, the plants have a phosphorescent glow. When the Na’vi treads through it, the ground lights up beneath their feet. A world that is rich with color and wonder, enhanced by a depth of detail. A world that’s never seen before. A computer-generated world that is photo real.

James Cameron: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000116/

Smartly, Cameron does not overplay his 3-D hand for stick-in-the-eye stunts. Within minutes, the extra dimension feels like a part of the viewing experience. For the most part Avatar’s proprietary 3-D cameras simply enrich the depth of field.

James Cameron didn’t just imagine the planet Pandora, he created an immensely detailed alien world. Avatar sets 3-D cinema on a profound path that might just change the movie-going experience for decades to come.

The Upside:

A spectacular visual experience unlike anything you’ve seen before.

The Downside:

The story isn’t entirely new, We’ve seen the concept ‘avatar’(surrogate) in films like surrogates, matrix …

We would like to know your comments about the film. Please comment below.

Our world gets destroyed often in Hollywood movies either through alien attacks or through natural disasters. Some might even find it tiring, seeing the same kind of destruction, again and again. But director Roland Emmerich makes sure that he doesn’t bore anyone by showing the cliché and also makes sure that he destroys everything. When i say everything, its literally EVERYTHING. The film is 2012 and the theme is end of world (again).

Its a default storyline for a disaster movie. Some scientists foresee the danger, they warn Uncle Sam. They start preparing themselves for the nightmare, by building huge Noah arch ships (near china!?!?!?) with the 1 billion money collected each from the billionaires around the world. The worst part here is, they are doing it secretly. Enter our Hero, a divorcee, father of 2 kids (obviously a boy and a gal and u r right, the boy hates him and the gal loves him) failed writer, now working as a limousine driver to a billionaire and as usual, the expected danger propounds itself and slowly, every part of the world starts experiencing catastrophe in different scales. Sensing the danger beforehand/on time and Still in love with his family, our hero tries to save them along with his wife’s boy friend, (a skilled player in flight simulator). His journey to the rescue forms the rest of the story.

2012:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1190080/

With a wafer thin storyline and a predictable screenplay, one might not have proceeded with a project. But the visual effects by Uncharted Territory, Digital Domain, Double Negative, Scanline, Sony Pictures Imageworks and other petty companies make it up and hooks us to the screen for the whole 160mins. This is where Emmerich suceeds again, after his previous disaster movie, The Day after Tomorrow, and the last 10,000 BC (a movie disaster). He again proves that he is the master of destruction and can destroy anything and everything he wish.

Roland Emmerich : http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000386/

The cast does their job perfectly, with a minimal room for performance. But the A list of actors like John Cusack, Thandie Newton and Danny Glover compensate for the weak script and saves the film. Woody Harrelson in an eccentric cameo role is adequate. But who cares about the cast, its the havoc that takes the center stage. Be it the eruption of super volcanoes or California Submerging in to water or Tsunami in Himalayas, everything looks almost picture perfect. We might not witness the apocalypse, but we can just get an idea about it after seeing this movie. But make sure you are seeing it in a good movie screen and also make sure that kids below 12 are not with you. Go for it. Its a pure popcorn fun (movie).

Check out the making of 2012 here:

The Huge Tidal Waves

Destruction of LA

Particle Effect