Review

So I am an entrepreneur now. And I turned 41 last week. Despite all this, the year has been extremely eventful. We took two vacations, I attended two conferences; presented in one, my wife found a good position that challenges her and gives her the space to grow, my son completed a year learning to play the drums, finished level 1 of swimming. Not all was bright though: I got covid twice this year; my immunity seems to be in a terrible place, i've been dealing with a variety of stuff with my body - results of not taking enough time to exercise in my twenties are showing now. There have been some things that could have been better but not entirely bad either. So let me just catalog these as good, bad and ugly. Its all relative though. If there is one thing this year cemented in my head, its the relativity of things. ...

Yet another year has gone by! I was just running by my last year’s birthday post. It is sad to see that not much has changed from that post although quite a lot has happened in the year. I still cannot call myself an entrepreneur. Not even a freelancer. I still am trying to beat the blues from last year. Maybe I’ll just count my blessings this year and set some realistic goals for 2016. ...

Another day I never dreamt would happen – I actually am beginning to believe Dhanush might be one of the better movie makers out there. Thinking about it, absolutely every movie made by his Wunderbar Films has turned out to be brilliant and/or entertaining. For instance, even the lighter ones like Maari or Kaaki Sattai were absolutely entertaining. Kaaki sattai even had a good premise. Of course, Kaakka Muttai and 3 are perhaps the best movies to have come under this belt. Ethir neechal and VIP were both entertaining and had a decent story to tell. ...

I attended the Singapore MiniMakerFaire this weekend at Tampines. It was fun. I had to keep it a short trip for other reasons, but am happy that I didn’t miss the faire at least. Next year, I really should present something or volunteer at the least. One of the things about attending this event is, it kinda puts me to shame. I can give you reasonably detailed steps on how to make most of the stuff in display. Yet, I haven’t made even a simple four wheel bot on my own. Shame on me. ...

I saw OK Kanmani recently and have been itching to write about it for a while. The movie was a breeze and a nice watch. It doesn’t try to persuade you one way or the other. And it has very little content. But for Nithya Menon, Prakash Raj or Leela Samson, the movie would have fizzled out too fast. I know Nithya Menon is a fantastic actor from her role in 180. But this one is probably a crown jewel. Her eyes speak so many dialogues that are best left untold! Hats off to her for bringing the character to life. ...

I came across a post on Facebook that requested people to refrain from reviewing movies critically simply because they may not have the technical know-how to review one. True. Most of us are not screenplay writers, dialogue writers, story writers, haven’t taken even a single good selfie with the phone camera let alone shoot a good video, have no idea editing a video, no idea what goes on with dubbing, clueless about direction, post processing etc etc. True to a very good extent. But is that reason enough to refrain from reviewing the work? ...

A lot of people have been recommending Malayalam movies to me. I used to catch a few Malalayalam movies on DD long time back. They usually had good stories but were a drag. You know, at that teens you really want action (both kinds, yes). And then there is the stigma of watching a Malayalam movie as a teen. It can’t do you much good. I still managed to catch a few very good ones and mostly from the Mammotty stable – Iyer the great, New Delhi, Oru CBI Diary Kurippu etc. Of course, if I think a bit more I can locate from other major heroes as well. What always attracted me to their movies is their no nonsense movie making, again the stigma is what kept me away 🙂 ...

I never thought I’d ever say this of a Kamal Hassan movie: Uttama villain is a brave story. And I loved it. I think the last such movie was “Anbe Sivam”. That was a classic and I truly appreciated Kamal Hassan in that role: It was a brave story in multiple ways and had a truly appreciable philosophy backing it. TL;DR – Go watch Uttama Villain without expectations. You’ll love it. ...