Monday, July 19, 2010

Vedam – Movie Review

This is not a commercial flick. Its more of an experimental class that are rare in telugu film industry. It does not surprise me that it came from the director of Gamyam, another good movie.

Story:
Do not get me wrong. It is definitely not first of its kind. Five different stories hanging linked to a single climax. Hollywood has them, bollywood has them and I am sure other “Regionalwoods” have them. But it is relatively new to Tollywood. Trust me it is not easy to handle such subjects as audience would be lost in so many different threads. So the ambitious project was not very much perfect but it is decently made script.

Narration:
Krish tired his best and surely bettered himself in the art but not quite perfect. As I mentioned earlier it is not easy. There are some parts in movie where either audience get bored or lost. That’s one of the reasons why it cant become box office record getter movie sorts. Other reason being it does not stick to tired and tested 5 songs, 5 fights and/or 2 heroin and one hero concept. But I am glad that telugu movies are coming up with multistarrer movies with Novel subjects. Krish may be accused of trying to handle too many problems at on go, but to be honest he just tried to portray all the problems and did not ambitiously try to offer solutions. (Like Posani does in his movies by offer bizarre solutions to long impending problems thankfully)

Performances:
Allu Arjun:
He is a smart guy. I started realizing it as I just made a recap of his films. He is doing commercial formula based films, message oriented ones and now some novel multi-starrer. I am guessing over a period of time, he would end up having some nice memoirs than some of his peers. He enacted role of cable raju. He has done decent action clubbed with subtle comedy and carried the film very well. If you have watched climax scenes of movie named Happy then you would instantly recognize that he has improved a lot in enacting emotions. Way to go Arjun!

Anuskha:
She is beautiful and did justice to the role. I wont discuss whole lot about her character but she depicts some problems of sex workers.

Manchu Manoj:
There is no debate about this guy that he is any day better than his brother. But this movie surely brought some of his best action. His portrayal as rock star was near perfect, though at times his emotions betrayed him.

Manoj Bajpai:
We have seen his talent in movie Satya itself and he has enacted role of a muslim who gets bad outing in India and wants to leave country. He did justice to his role and very well supported by the lady who enacted his wife.

Nagayya:
Some true taste what poverty in India is like is depicted in character of Nagayya. I could see some missing lipsync at times but expressions were extraordinary. The scenes where he tries to protect his money from thief and the scene where he celebrates recovered lost cash touch heart of even rocks. He will be my pick for best supporting actor in the movie. His daughterinlaw character also is well enacted of a poor mother who sells kidney for son’s education.

Music:
Music from Keeravani is good. I did not listen to any songs before going for the movie. I fell flat with fist song “Now or Never”. I immediately recognized it is written by Sirivennela SeethaRama Sastry. All songs made sense lyrically.

Overall:
It is a movie that needs to be watched once at least.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Wimbledon Final with out Roger :-(

To say the least, it is painful to a fan to watch a Wimbledon Final with out Roger Federer’s participation. We got so used to it, for past seven years to see him in grandslam finals and more so if the slam in question is wimbledon.

In many ways Wimbledon is one slam which is precious. Tennis as a game reaches pinnacle of beauty at this place. In contrast to hard hitting baseline gamers, beautiful Serve and Volley gamer prevails a lot at Wimbledon. Pete Sampras reigned this place before Roger Federer broke lose to the Tennis scene as dominant force. Roger has shown signs of future in 2001 when he sent Pistol Pete home in 2001 Wimbledon. Not many at that point have done that to Sampras. People would have realized a prospect there but not many would have thought the guy would go on to become greatest Tennis player ever to hold a racket.

It is 2003 where Roger laid hands on his first slam and so fittingly at Wimbledon. Post Sampras era Tennis world has seen some Hewitt’s and Roddick’s but they were either not consistent or not all round in their game or showed signs of champion. I almost stopped watching Tennis after Sampras left scene. I would have committed a biggest blunder if I did so because Tennis world has witnessed a great phenomenon couple of years later an the champion has appeared. Champion in truest sense and more complete than Pete Sampras.

2004 is the year where Roger bagged three of the four slams of the year which Pete Sampras also has not managed. Show did not stop there. In 2005 he bagged two. In 2007 and 2008 he repeated feat he has achieved in 2004 and additionally he reached finals of French open both the years, only two lose both to greatest clay player named Nadal.

Roger is one way responsible for raising expectations on him. 2008 year was considered as low year for him and people said and written that Roger’s time is over. As Andy Murray pointed out end of 2008, Roger has semi final of Australian open, two finals at French and Wimbledon and Won US open, which is a great achievement. But, definitely not by Roger’s standard. Biggest pain that year was losing Wimbledon, which is more Roger’s home since 2003.

When every one is writing off Roger, he has other plans. He came back strongly in 2009 by breaking Pete’s record of maximum slams along with bagging French slam which eluded him for 4 years and also gaining back Wimbledon. Some may argue that he was lucky to be helped by injury of Rafa Nadal in the process. But there is no argument against Roger being second best Clay player and would have bagged 4 more of them if not for Nadal.

2010 is a bit painful for fans because we cannot find him in Wimbledon final. It has become a habit to look at Roger’s matches only after semi final stage because for more than 5 years till semifinal stage games looked more of a formality. This year was completely different and more so in Wimbledon when he struggled in first round. I am not writing an obituary here but after the first round match there was a strange feeling in the stomach that this year he is not going to win it. But like many others I thought, he would lose it to Nadal or Murray in the final but quarterfinal exit to a man whose match I never matched earlier is something that pained me.

Season of slams takes a break now till year end US open. Sincerely hoping Roger to compensate for what has happened at French and Wimbledon at Newyork later this year. It is not too easy though, with old horses like Hewitt and Roddick rediscovering their mojo and “generation next” in form of Nadal, Murray, Djokovic, del Potro trying to deny the throne to the King. Hope the King Returns.