Balaji's Thots

Films revolving around disabled individuals are in even more danger of slipping into melodrama compared to your average drama. Watching such individuals surmount difficulties as they go about their lives is inherently full of drama and so any attempt to introduce more obstacles or highlight those difficulties pushes a film into melodrama territory. Cuckoo, whose […]

Reviews for Bramman, Aaha Kalyanam, Vallinam, Thegidi and Nimirndhu Nil are now online at the reviews site.

Courtroom dramas usually double as thrillers since most of them arise from murder mysteries. Vidhi employs the courtroom as the battleground for an emotional drama about a woman who takes on the man who cheated her(something along the same lines, with the genders switched, was attempted more recently in Devadhaiyai Kanden). With strong characters and […]

Telugu movies have perfected the art of mixing action, family drama, comedy and romance, in that order, to serve up some entertaining masala films. Films like Dookudu and Mirchi became big hits by following the formula and Attarintiki Daredi follows in their footsteps, though it has more weak spots than both those films. Gautham(Pawan Kalyan), […]

After films highlighting the importance of friendship(Nadodigal) and hard work(Poraali), director Samuthirakani goes the Shankar route in his latest film Nimirndhu Nil as he tells the tale of a common man’s fight against corruption. It is a well-intentioned film but the idealism doesn’t come through thanks to its confused tone that fails to infuse the […]

Thrillers are typically filled with action sequences like fights and chases and take place in a world that seems alien to us. Director Ramesh shows us that a thriller can be effective even when it doesn’t follow either of those directives. Set in a very familiar milieu and favoring escalating tension in place of action, […]

After another long gap with little or no activity – other than release date announcements and subsequent postponements – on the Kochadaiiyaan front, today saw an important step in the movie’s long journey to screens as the audio was launched in a grand function attended by the likes of Shah Rukh Khan, Balachander and Shankar, […]

Barring a few exceptions like Chennai 600028 – and films that have featured kabaddi, the logistics of showing which are relatively simple – Tamil cinema hasn’t had a good record of presenting sports convincingly and has had some laughably bad portrayals(Exhibit 1 – the climactic cricket game in I Love You Daa. Exhibit 2 – […]

After the un-PC, controversial hosting gig by Seth McFarlane last year, the Oscars played it safe this year with Ellen DeGeneres. I like Ellen. Her deadpan style of telling jokes is frequently funny and she has the ability to make everything seem unrehearsed and spontaneous. Both those were in evidence during the show but didn’t […]

While faithful remakes, especially of films that are popular, arrive without the surprise element, romcoms have less of that disadvantage since the genre itself demands predictability and knowing the storyline isn’t a big turnoff. But that also means the other aspects of the film gain more prominence than usual and those aspects are more more […]