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Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Athma Kadha - an extremely moving tale of a dad - daughter duo

Cast: Sreenivasan, Sharbani Mukherjee, Jagathy, Shafna, Babu Nampoothiri, Bindu Panicker, Munshi Venu, Chempil Asokan

Producer: Santhosh Pavithram & Shafeer Sait

Director: Premlal

Music Director: Alphonse

Sreenivasan plays the role of a blind man Kochubaby in the film 'Atmakatha'. Sharbani Mukerjee dons the role of his wife Mary.

Kochubaby has a very unique ability to grasp the life and behaviour of people around him. He is an employee of local a candle prodution company.

It is there that he meets Mary and becomes friends with her. They decide to get married and are soon blessed with a child.

Bottom Line
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Athma Kadha - an extremely moving tale of a dad - daughter duo

Premlal's directorial debut 'Athmakatha' reinstates your faith in good cinema. Narrating an extremely moving tale of a dad - daughter duo, Premlal displays a remarkable mellowness in his direction that very few debutantes possess.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Yakshiyum Njanum - This 'Yakshi' may not impress

Cast: Sajan Madhav, Jubin Raj, Megha Nair

Direction: Vinayan

Production: Ruben Gomas

The movie has Goutham as Shyam, a recently recruited member of a quotation gang, who is trying to make big money instantly for the heart operation of his sister. He secretly grabs one assignment -to kill a guy who is in love with the daughter of a state minister. Shyam accomplishes his mission and is sent to an old guest house to hide from media for quite some time. As usual, the idleness with this haunted house makes Shyam to look for some company in Aathira, a girl from the neighborhood, who passes by the guest house to take bath in the nearby river. Shyam falls in love with Aathira, but it is later that he realizes that Aathira is a Yakshi, who has plenty of back stories associated with this house.

Many twists later, Shyam is now left to take revenge on many including those who have ill-mannered with Aathira to finally make her a blood thirsty Yakshi. Then, there are plenty of horrifying serpents, black cats and dark hounds and sound effects sprinkled all through to create the necessary ambiance of a horror movie.

Bottom Line
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Yakshiyum Njanum - This 'Yakshi' may not impress

Director Vinayan is letdown this time, by his own script with plenty of loose ends. Given a title and plot like this, the film ought to evoke strong emotions, at least towards the second hour, when the romantic developments take its central points. But technical wizardry and VFX dominate this hour, with no emotional moments to evoke any reactions. Actually, your heart does not pine for the lovers and that's why this horror love story hardly creates any impact.

Pattinte Palazhi - This ‘Paalazhy’ may drown you with emotions

Banner: Aditya Cinema

Cast: Manoj K Jayan, Meera Jasmine, Krishna Kumar, Nedumudi Venu, Prem Kumar, Revathi, Baby Bhavani and Baby Theertha

Direction: Anchal

Production: A K Pillai

Music: Suresh Manimala

The movie has Meera Jasmine as Veena who has landed in Chennnai with her ambitious father (Jagathy Sreekumar) trying to make big as a playback singer. It was also a dream of Veena's late mother to make her daughter a famous singer The favorite disciple of a music maestro, played by Nedumudi Venu, Veena has a thick friendship with the maestro's daughter Raziya (Revathy), a psychiatrist who is settled in London. Enters Amir (Manoj K Jayan), basically a sandalwood businessman, who offers her a bright career. All of a sudden she falls in love and elopes with him, which ultimately makes Amir mend his ruthless ways, though he is facing a down in business. Veena has a second chance to singing on sight when her friend Sreehari (Balabhaskar) debuts as a music director. But things were not easy for her as certain unexpected dramatic events change the course of their lives.

Bottom Line
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Pattinte Palazhi - This ‘Paalazhy’ may drown you with emotions

In an attempt to pack in a musical in a story of marital discord enmeshed with some psychological drama, the movie attains perfection in none of the genres. 'Paattinte Paalazhy' may well be appreciated by those who still love high voltage drama and conventional styles of narratives.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Neelambari - Neelambari is a drag

Cast: Vineeth, Anoop Menon, Bhama, Vidya, Suraj Venjaramood, Indrans, P. Sreekumar, Kalasala Babu, Ambika Mohan, Bindhu Ramakrishnan

Direction: Hari Narayanan

Production: Premananthan

Music: Kaithapram Vishwanath

The movie has Bhama as Parvathy who has a bossom friend in Lekshmy(Divya) residing in her neighbourhood in a ''Palakkad''an Brahmin Gramam. As parvathy lost her mother at birth, she is brought up along with lekshmi, by the latter's mother. The two girls who live like twins share the same thoughts,and dresses and Paru is even thought of to become the bride of Vidhyadharan, the brother of Lekshmy.But Vidhyadharan soon becomes a spolit brat by engaging in college politics and ending up in jail.

When Parvathy and Lakshmi join the music College, Parvathy falls in love with Devanand, their music lecturer. Without realising this, Devanand's brother plans to get him married to Laskhmi, when the music lecturer is away on a foreign trip. Parvathy keeps her longing to herself but when she has to reveal her love to his father, he commits suicide and the parvathy finds herself abandoned on the streets.When Lekshmy realises parvathy's love for devanand, she also deserts her. This leads into the suspicious missing of the girl from her home.The story told as a flashback after three years from these happenings, goes on to reveal how all the pains end up in happiness of some sorts.

Bottom Line
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Neelambari - Neelambari is a drag

Apart from being in a predictable stuff, the biggest letdown of the movie is that the depth of relationships between the lead ladies or with other characters are rarely depicted with needed intensity. The scripts are mediocre unable to add the colour neither with dialogues nor with the sequences.The former half of the movie just movies in the neeeded pace but the later half of the movie drags bigtime.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Raama Ravanan - ‘Raamaravanan’ leaves no big impact

Banner: Thushar International

Cast: Suresh Gopi, Mithra Kurian, Nedumudi Venu, Lena, Sudheesh, Biju Menon, Vijayakumar, Jagathy, Suraj, Baburaj, Krishna

Direction: Biju Raveendran

Music: Kaithapram

The movie is all about a poet turned LTTE terrorist fugitive and his attempt to capture his lost love from the opposite front; a theme handled umpteenth times in Bollywood flicks. Here Sureshgopi appears as Thiruchelvam, a fugitive on the run finding refuge in a deserted bungalow somewhere in Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. The mansion is not afresh to Thriruchelvam as he had been there almost a decade ago. It was there that he found a Singhalese girl Manomi, who took care of his wounds and helped him to come back to normal life. Though she was aware that he was a member of an outfit that killed her father in Sri Lanka, she falls in love with him. Though she had expressed her intentions of marrying Thiruchelvam to her caretaker uncle Annadurai, the terrorist leader couldn’t take care of her because of his dedication to his ideology and his mission.

In his comeback to the same house narrowly escaping from the Sri Lankan Army, Thriuchelvam has got some mission before the cops arrive to nab him. He had to find his mother whom he hasn't met for years and also wants to meet Manomi whose love he had turned down years go. Meanwhile, the state police lead by Sooryanarayanan (Bijumenon) who has got reliable information about the fugitive and his hideout is all set to grab him, which leads into the settings of a thriller.

Bottom Line
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Raama Ravanan - ‘Raamaravanan’ leaves no big impact

The movie with a genuinely good storyline could have worked well, if the screen writer and the director has shown little more sincerity and sensitivity in etching out a more believable, engaging product. The movie appears melodramatic most of the times, with very limited number of characters on the frames. The debut director fails to bring in the grand ambiance necessary for a film that needed more splendors on the screen. The technical side of the movie with Jibu Jacob’s cinematography and Samjith’s editing is just up to mark, while the music by Kaithapram is mediocre.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Plus Two - cinema for the next generation

Cast: Roshan, Vishnu Mohan, Shafna, Justing John, Deepak Murali, Ranjit, Sai Kumar, Manian Pillai Raju, Salim Kumar, Suraj, Shaiju, KPAC Lalitha, Sona Nair

Producer: Ramesh Babu

Director: Shebi

'Plus Two' talks of five higher secondary school students Prince, Faizal, Shambhu, Mathews and Ranjith (played by young actors by the same name) who have just realized that it isn't quite easy being seventeen. When a young girl Meenakshi (Shafna) takes refuge at Prince's place where he stays alone, the boy falls in love and looks forward to adulthood.

Bottom Line
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Plus Two - cinema for the next generation

The debut feature by Shebi Chavakkad tells an delightful coming of age story that provides you with a fulfilling journey into the land of teen angst. The small film that it is, 'Plus Two' has in store a few harmless chuckles, a few memorable scenes and some lilting music - much more than you can ask for these days.



Monday, August 9, 2010

Advocate Lakshmanan Ladies Only - This Lakshmanan won’t satisfy ladies

Cast: Mukesh, Jagadish, Mallika Kapoor, Harishree Ashokan, Prem Kumar

Direction: Pappan Payattuvila

Production: S. Mohan

Music: Mohan Sithara

The film revolves around an advocate named Lakshmanan, quite famous for ‘liberating’ women from the clutches of evil husbands. ‘A divorce case’’ specialist, Lakshmanan sees to it that once the divorce is sanctioned, he even helps them to live an independent life by offering them jobs in his Pickles factory named ‘Ladies Only’. A man with number of fans among the fairer sex, for his cunning ways to secure divorce for hapless women, he always comes with loggerheads with his own brother –in –law (Suraj Venjaramoodu), another advocate who is destined to fail in every situation.

After establishing the premise in not so funny ways, the real turn happens in the life of Lakshmanan when an ‘Aaradhika’ started calling him regularly for his big deeds. After some days she reveals herself to be ‘Annie’ a college lecturer in a city college. She has her share of problems with a former lover ‘Alex’ following her. Lakshmanan who had already started admiring her decides to jump into the case which further complicates the life of the protagonist. The rest of the film is all about some twists in tale, revenge stories and finally the advocate is destined to turn a new leaf, realising his problems in accessing behaviors of others.

Bottom Line
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Advocate Lakshmanan Ladies Only - This Lakshmanan won’t satisfy ladies

A potential one-liner, but poor writing and tacky situations. Add to that some very shoddy direction and routine performances…. There ends the chances of a film, particularly one that features old names like Mukesh and Jagadheesh.

Thaskara Lahala - Run away from 'Thaskara Lahala'

Cast: Suraj, Jagathy Sreekumar, Bijukuttan, Jaffer Idukky, Salim Kumar, Shivaji Guruvayoor, Machan Varghese, Kochu Preman, Narayanankutty, Poojappura Ravi, Jayaraj Warrier, T S Raju, Indrans

Direction: Ramesh Das

Production: Azeez Kadalundi

Music: Shyam Dharman

The movie is all about four youngsters namely Manikanthan (Suraj), Ayyappan (Salimkumar), Maimunni (Jaffer Idukky) and Govindan Kutty, once obsessed with stage-plays in a village named Kurukkanthara. But some events force them to flee from the village and to attempt petty thefts for a living. If you are given a notion that from the movie's posters Suraj Venjaramoodu is the hero of this film, you will actually see a number of actors like Salim Kumar, Jaffer Idukki, Lakshmi Sharma, Sajitha Beti, Bheeman Reghu, Geetha Vijayan, Thesni Khan are some more unknown actors let loose before the camera to do what all they please. There seems to be very few in the crew who know how to make a movie worth watching.

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Thaskara Lahala - Run away from 'Thaskara Lahala'

A mismatch of disjointed sequences pasted together in the name of a movie, ‘Thaskara Lahala' intended to be a comedy is a acute mayhem with no such storyline or scripts. Directed (or misdirected) by Ramesh Das, we won't see any logic in creating such a movie and constantly wonder who could be the supposed target audience of such a film, when someone plans to make one. With not a single moment to evoke laughter, the efforts for giggles here are quite brutal that 110 minutes of running time seems like more than a day.



Saturday, August 7, 2010

Sakudumbam Shyamala - An 'Urvashi' show

Banner: Kunchu Veetil Films

Cast: Urvashi, Saikumar, Bhama, Kunchakko Boban

Direction: Radhakrishnan Mangalath

Production: S. Gopakumar

Music: M G Sreekumar

District collector Sekharan IAS (Nedumudi Venu) who had brought up his kid sister Shyamala (Urvashi) with great affection is devastated when Shyamala elopes with Vasudevan (Saikumar), a tutor in a parallel college. Later Vasudevan becomes an office staff with Shekharan and is also living in the neighbourhood of the collector, but never do the sister and brother see eye to eye and both take every step to harass each other for that lone incident that happened 25 years ago.

Shyamala, meanwhile nurtures hopes of getting her only son, Aakash, a video editor by profession, married with a girl of an NRI parents, though Aakash is in love with a channel anchor Nandhana (Bhama), the daughter of an idealist Viswanathan. On the insistence of Pappan (Suraj Venjarmoodu) a leader of a local party, Shyamala accidentally becomes an MLA and later a minister, but the fights between the collector and the new revenue minister is the only agenda that goes on, now in public. The movie moves on to tell what dramatic events make an U- turn in the life of Shyamala who had by now turned into an epitome of greed and selfishness.

Bottom Line
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Sakudumbam Shyamala - An 'Urvashi' show

She can be loud but still be appreciable. And when it comes to comedy there is no other star to beat her in Mollywood ...Yes, Urvashi, once again proves why she is one of the most demanded actress in Mollywood even in her comeback with a senior look. In the movie 'Sakudumbam Shyamala', built on very illogical storyline ala channel comedy soaps, the title character offers plenty of space for its lead actor to show off her finesse in comic timing and acting.