Balaji's Thots

P.Vasu brought his film Apthamitra from Kannada to Tamil as Chandramukhi and delivered one of Tamil cinema’s and Rajnikanth’s biggest BO hits. He travels the same route with Shivalinga, a remake of the Kannada hit of the same name which also he directed. Raghava Lawrence lacks Rajni’s star power but more importantly, the film, a murder […]

Nayanthara is truly in a league of her own when it comes to Tamil cinema heroines today. While the Samanthas and Kajals are showing up in inconsequential and sometimes downright insulting roles in hero-centric films, Nayanthara is getting films where she not only gets top billing but does many of the things we usually expect […]

After the success of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, there were several authors who adopted a similar style to tell their stories. So I read a string of books(The Woman in Cabin 10, The Widow, In a Dark, Dark Wood, etc.) with shifting timelines and/or multiple narrators and I was actually looking for […]

Kadamban falls in the same category as films like Kaththi. It addresses an important, topical issue and builds a hero-centric story around it. The issue here is deforestation and though the film itself is simplistic, hero Arya’s lower star wattage allows it to be more focused while the issue itself leads to a unique setting and good action […]

For Vijay Sethupathi, easily the busiest hero in Tamil cinema today, Kavan can kind of be considered a step up into the big leagues. He has so far been working on smaller films with newer directors while Kavan is helmed by K.V.Anand, who has made big-budget entertainers with stars like Suriya and Dhanush. But the film, […]

Actor Marimuthu has been pretty busy recently with good roles in films like Yaman and Kodi. He has become a solid, dependable character actor and is a quiet actor with a unique voice and dialog delivery. I was watching Vaali recently. In the clip below, where Vivek walks into the camera shop to get a picture of […]

In Raavanan and then even more in Kadal, we saw a clear change in Manirathnam’s films. Straightforward stories were replaced more with universal themes, characters became more complex, having been painted in darker shades of gray and the romances became heavier. But those films didn’t bring him much BO success and with OK Kanmani, he went back […]

With Pichaikkaaran‘s surprise success, Vijay Antony became a bonafide star, a fact that is evidenced by the buzz around his new films. Following the film’s success, the music director-turned-actor seems to be following a simple formula for his films. They have a short, catchy title(his last 3 films were Pichaikkaaran, Saithaan and now Yaman and […]