Balaji's Thots

Among the 9 national parks in California, we have so far visited 8 with Channel Islands NP being the only one we haven’t set foot in yet. Among the 8, though we have technically visited Lassen Volcanic NP a few years ago, our visit was simply a drive through the park when returning from Mt. […]

For as long as we can remember, the USP of a Rajnikanth movie has always been the actor himself. But the technology behind the film was just as talked about as Rajni when it came to his latest movie Kochadaiiyaan, a photo-realistic, motion-capture, computer animated film directed by his daughter Soundarya. The first-time director’s execution […]

Tamil cinema kicked 2014 off in style with films from both Ajith and Vijay arriving for Pongal. But since then there haven’t been any real ‘event’ movies – movies headlined by one of our top-rung stars or helmed by a big-name director. That is about to change this Friday as the biggest star of ’em […]

Even as he remade many of his own Malayalam hits into Tamil and found equal or sometimes, as was the case with Varusham 16, greater success, director Fazil showed himself to be a versatile filmmaker who could handle romance, drama and thrills with equal ease. His mastery over the thriller genre is on display in […]

Horror and comedy would seem to be two genres that a single movie cannot fall into since the emotions they try to evoke – fear and humor – seem so diametrically opposite. Lawrence’s Kanchana straddled both genres but both the comedy and the horror were over-the-top and so they coexisted rather uneasily. Director Dee Kay […]

In films headlined by a big star, the hero’s image dictates a certain path and resolution for the storyline, which impacts the film’s ability to generate genuine tension and suspense. Those factors are key in thrillers and so its no surprise that the best crime thrillers(Aaranya Kaandam for instance) feature actors without the baggage of […]

2014 hasn’t been good for remakes so far as films like Aaha Kalyanam and Yennamo Yedho failed to recreate the success of their Telugu originals by not capturing the aspects that made those films work. The latest remake to hit the screens is Nee Enge En Anbe, which is based on the Hindi film Kahaani. […]

Director Balaji Mohan showed us in his first film, the charming Kaadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Eppadi, that he was capable of delivering an enjoyable romcom that elegantly mixed comedy and drama. He reinforces the same even more emphatically in his follow-up, the curiously- but also aptly-named Vaayai Moodi Pesavum. By adding a dash of the whimsical to […]