Lakshmi Manchu and Samantha Ruth Prabhu Empower Women with Telusa Telusa from Agninakshatram

After the whirlwind celebrations of her brother’s wedding with Mounika Bhuma, Lakshmi Manchu teams up with her long-standing comrade Samantha Prabhu to release a high-octane number, Telusa Telusa from her upcoming film Agninakshatram.

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Brahmotsavam Movie Review: The Family Saga that Fails to Excite, Entice or Amuse in Any Manner

A leading man who at 40 can easily pass off as someone in his late 20’s naturally and who is a superstar by all means, with his previous film (Srimanthudu) being a blockbuster, that’s Mahesh Babu for you. A director who has only made 3 films prior to this, but all of them being different from each other, coming across comfortable working with newcomers as well as big stars, that’s director Srikanth Addala alright. A production house which is known to back its directors all the way, investing in the fashion that is needed for a film and whose last 2 Telugu ventures (Kshanam and Oopiri ) have come across as among the better Telugu films of late, that’s PVP Cinema‘s identity in case you aren’t aware. With Mahesh Babu, Srikanth Addala and PVP Cinema coming together to make Brahmotsavam, the film was indeed expected to be a grand celebration, worthy enough of the film’s title. Continue reading “Brahmotsavam Movie Review: The Family Saga that Fails to Excite, Entice or Amuse in Any Manner”

24 (2016) Movie Review: Ambitious Tale of a Time Twisting Watch

Travelling into the past or the future, in short time travel is something that has always fascinated the human brain. For centuries together someone or the other has been trying various means to manage the same, even attempting to make their own version of a “time machine” or any such device to enable the same. While many theories abound on the feasibility and practical nature of time travel as a concept to develop and exist, nevertheless it’s also a phenomenon which has caught the fancy of filmmakers across the World, including India as they go about trying to exploit the concept through films. Be it Aditya 369, Love Story 2050 or even the recent Indu Netru Naalai, all of them have been attempts at making a true sci-fi film with time travel as the core concept. Vikram Kumar‘s 24 is one such addition to this list of films, this time around the stakes involved are higher as it features Suriya in the lead, an extremely popular actor from Tamil cinema, with a fan following all over South India. Considering that Suriya has gone on to produce the film himself the potential involved was also something that was appearing to be obvious.Continue reading “24 (2016) Movie Review: Ambitious Tale of a Time Twisting Watch”

Theri Movie Review: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, There’s No Wonder that Vijay in Form is a Real Star

Of late Vijay, one of the most popular actors in Tamil Cinema has been seen working with a lot of young directors, balancing their films with those of senior directors like Shankar and A.R.Murugadoss. Of course not all the films with the younger lot of directors has worked, case in point being his last film, Chimbu Deven‘s Puli which couldn’t meet the huge expectations that it was facing, turning out to be a cold turkey eventually. When Theri, Vijay’s film with director Atlee was announced it didn’t really come as a surprise as such. Atlee who started off as an AD with Shankar, turned director himself with Raja Rani (2013), a film which had worked quite well commercially. With Theri the scale was being upped considerably, being a Vijay film after all and that too an action film, quite different from his previous film. With the promos being well received it was but natural that there was going to be a lot of hype and curiosity over the film. Theri’s success was important for both Vijay as well as Atlee. For Vijay it mattered because the success of Theri could make people forgive him for Puli and for Atlee because it could prove that the success of Raja Rani was no flash in the pan.Continue reading “Theri Movie Review: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, There’s No Wonder that Vijay in Form is a Real Star”

Kaththi Movie Review: A Social Message Delivered via a Commercial Film

Over the years writer-director A.R.Murugadoss has made an impact with his films in Tamil (and their remakes in Telugu-Stalin and Hindi-Ghajini and Holiday). One may or may not like his films but I guess there is no debate about the fact that he does manage to bring in a variety of subjects with his films, with no film of his so far having any resemblance to any of his previous works. Even in case of an ambitious project like 7 Aum Arivu (2011) while the final outcome wasn’t all that satisfactory, the premise was quite interesting. When Murugadoss and Vijay joined hands for the first time for Thuppakki (2012) what emerged was a good commercial Tamil film which according to me is the best Vijay film since Pokkiri (2007). So with both of them coming back together for Kaththi obviously the expectations were clear and the questions were many. Continue reading “Kaththi Movie Review: A Social Message Delivered via a Commercial Film”

Anjaan: Trailer

Anjaan Poster 2Anjaan marks the coming together of writer, director and producer N.Lingusamy and popular actor Suriya for the first time. Produced jointly by UTV and Thirrupathi Brothers, Anjaan is written by Lingusamy and Brinda Sarathy. The film features an ensemble star cast which apart from Suriya includes Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Manoj Bajpai, Vidyut Jamwal, Soori, Dalip Tahil, Asif Basra, Murli Sharma etc. Chitrangada Singh and Maryam Zakaria feature in item numbers as well. The music is by Yuvan Shankar Raja while Santosh Sivan is the DOP and Anthony is the editor.Continue reading “Anjaan: Trailer”

Manam Movie Review: A 3 Generation Family Saga with the Right Spirit

Manam-2014Recently while watching Mahesh BabuSukumar’s 1-Nenokkadine I experienced a moment where I felt that the director had let go off a lovely opportunity to make the audience, especially the fans of Mahesh Babu happy. If you’ve seen the movie you’d recollect that I’m referring to the climax portion where there is a lot of time devoted to Mahesh Babu trying to discover his old home and in the process remember his past. While we get to see and find out who his parents were, I thought it would have been wonderful to have Mahesh Babu himself and Namrata Shirodkar playing the parents. This I thought would have pretty innovative, considering the amount of time being devoted to this segment in the movie. Alas but that was not to be and we couldn’t get to face what could have been an interesting moment in an otherwise grandiose attempt but with its pitfalls galore.Continue reading “Manam Movie Review: A 3 Generation Family Saga with the Right Spirit”

1 Nenokkadine Movie Review: Sukumar’s ambitious attempt which works only in parts

Mahesh-Babu-1-Nenokkadine-Movie-First-Look-Wallpaper-downloadFor the last two years, the Sankranthi festival has been very good for Mahesh Babu as his last two Sankranthi releases Businessman and Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimale Chettu did very well at the box office. Similarly Director Sukumar ‘s last film 100% Love starring Naga Chaitanya and Tamannaah did very well at the box office.  Due to this reason, Sukumar’s latest film 1 Nenokkadine starring Mahesh Babu has been eagerly anticipated and was expected to be the third straight successful Sankranthi film for Mahesh Babu.Continue reading “1 Nenokkadine Movie Review: Sukumar’s ambitious attempt which works only in parts”

Eega Movie Review: Revenge of the Musca Domestica

A year back, I was randomly reading through the filmographies of various directors of Tollywood and landed up on the page of SS Rajamouli. There was an entry for his forthcoming movie called Eega which apparently was a bi-lingual with a Tamil version called Naan Ee being shot simultaneously. What caught my eye was that it was going to be Sudeep’s proper debut in Telugu after a supporting role in RGV’s Rakta-Charitra and thus, my curiosity was piqued. Then of course came the trailer which pretty much laid out the story for us and I gotta say, I was quite dumb-struck. A guy gets killed and comes back as a fly to take revenge on his killer. But then, this was SS Rajamouli who has not had a single flop till date, if I’m not mistaken and so I figured, “Chalo, Yeh bhi dekh lete hai”. And then again, the movie also starred Nani who I’m slowly becoming a fan of, because of his affable screen presence and Samantha who to me is cuteness personified (Yeah yeah, I am human after all 😛 ).

Now the story as the trailer was kind enough to tell us is quite simple, Nani (Nani) is your friendly neighbourhood do-gooder who is madly in love with Bindu (Samantha) a social worker, who runs an NGO with her friends helping to educate kids by providing them with textbooks etc. Bindu one day approaches a tycoon Sudeep( Sudeep), who also falls for her at 1st sight. When Sudeep realizes that Nani is a competitor for Bindu’s affections and is ahead of him in the race, he brutally murders Nani and passes it off as an accident. Fortunately for Nani (And us too), He is resurrected as a fly, and decides to have his revenge on Sudeep, Makkhi style!

I gotta admit, Considering this year has been a tad underwhelming, I walked in expecting a decent entertainer and nothing more, and thankfully, Rajamouli is up to the challenge here as he pulls out all stops. 7 crores were spent on the graphics for this movie, and I can safely say that they’ve been well spent. Equal credit goes to KK Senthil Kumar for the camera work in this movie is absolutely brilliant. He actually manages to make us a part of Eega’s world and gives a new meaning to being a fly on the wall. And kudos to the graphics team for actually making an otherwise disgusting housefly look absolutely adorable and kudos to Rajamouli sir for making sure that we live the story.

The writing by Rajamouli Sir, Janardhan Maharshi and Crazy Mohan is excellent, and while I didn’t get some of the dialogues as Big Cinemas didn’t bother sourcing a subtitled print, the movie doesn’t have a single dull moment. It makes you smile during the initial romantic sequences, it shocks you during Nani’s brutal murder, it amuses you when the Eega harasses Sudeep and it thrills you when it boils down to a fight between the villain and the fly. A special mention of the sequence where the Tantrik casts a spell on 2 birds to hunt down the fly, it is a triumph of cinematography and good solid writing.

Nani steals the hearts of the audience even in a small role as the affable lover-boy and makes sure you miss him after he’s gone from the story, especially in the entire sequence before his departure. Samantha is absolutely adorable, whether as the blushing object of Nani’s affection or even while grieving his loss and even while in a rather unorthodox relationship with a fly. The chemistry between the 2 is excellent and can help reduce the wait for Yeto Vellipoyindhi Manasu. However the 2 showstealers in the movie are Sudeep who manages to add a decent amount of menace to an otherwise Prakash Raj like villain who is hounded by a resilient foe and of course, The Eega who I warn will be one fly you will not want to swat 😀

The music by Keeravani is quite easy on the ears, The pick of the lot being the title song and Nene Naani Ne( which has also been shot quite beautifully).

So, Verdict is, Go watch this one. SS Rajamouli’s most ambitious work till date is a treat to the senses.