Aayutha Ezhuthu

title: Aayutha Ezhuthu (2004)
Language: Tamil
youtube links

Synopsis: This is a story of 3 men and how their stories all come together. Inba (Madhavan) is a rough man, who doesn't have the best relationship with his wife and can't hold onto employment. Being bailed from jail by his brother, Inba meets a corrupt political minister and agrees to stop/control a group of rebelling college students on the upcoming election. Michael (Surya Sivakumar) is the popular leader of the rebelling college students. He believes the Indian youth should show more interest in politics so they can shape and change India's future. Finally there's Arjun (Siddharth) who is a recent college graduate determined to study in the USA, but ends up falling in love with a girl he meets at a club. Together the three men's stories come together at a bridge where Inba is chasing after Micheal, and Arjun is on the side professing his love to Meera (Trisha Krishnan)...there the stories merge together and continues to an intense climax.

The Good
+ The mood of the film. What I mean is, the film was intense when it was suppose to be intense. Funny when it was suppose to be funny. All the scene fit together.
+ I liked the whole concept of separate storylines coming together and merging as one (like the movie Crash or Babel). I really was struggling to see how Arjun's storyline would fit, but they all came nicely together.
+ The last 15 minutes had one of the better fight scenes I've seen in a film. For a film that wasn't necessarily suppose to be action-oriented, the fight was well choreographed.


The Bad
+ The musical interludes weren't terrible, and as much as I look forward to these moments, I felt this film would've been far better without them. They didn't hinder the film, nor did they necessarily enhance the film.
+ You definitely have to be in the right state of mind to watch this, which is probably why it took me so long to finally finish watching it (despite my busy work schedule). No where near a happy-go-lucky film, but it does make you think about things a little, and then you have to keep track how everything ends up being related. I suppose you can say the whole point of this bullet is: don't watch this film starting at 1 in the morning like I did.
+ Poor treatment of women, but it served it's purpose in the film. It had it's place, I just felt sorry for the characters.

Final Thoughts: Was this movie worth watching? Yes. Acting wise, this film was fantastic. To me there was never a moment where it was over acted and far over the top. Madhavan once again proves he's a fantastic actor, and he does an excellent job of making you hate his character. I also liked the message of youth needing to participate more in politics/future of the country and speaking out.

Fun Fact: This movie is also made in Hindi - Yuva - starring Rani Mukerji, Abhishek Bachchan (who plays Madhavan's character and with Rani Mukerji won 2004's Filmfare awards for best actor/actress), and Kareena Kapoor. I haven't seen this version, though. Esha Deol plays the character Michael's girlfriend in both Tamil and Hindi versions of the film.

Rating: 3/5

Favorite Song: Yaakai Thiri... Trisha is so pretty! The dancing seems like an endurance race! haha

Rang De Basanti

Film: Rang De Basanti (2006)
Language: Hindi
Netflix streaming

Synopsis: A British film maker (journalist?) had been reading a journal written by her grandfather who worked at a jail during the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. She's inspired by the 5 freedom fighters he had written about and wants to make a movie based off of them, but is refused the funding. Sue then goes to India to make the film herself and becomes involved with a group of college kids whose lives start to prove similar as those of the 1920/1930s. A tragedy occurs that soon catapults them at the forefront of Indian politics fighting for justice.

The Good
+ The acting. This has to be the first Bollywood film I've seen with a foreign actor who was actually pretty decent. She didn't take away from the scenes like most do.
+ The large cast actually meshed well together and I felt like they genuinely got along well.
+ New-to-me storyline, kind of nice to see something other than a typical Rom-Com
+ Madhavan... again, I'm so crushing on this man
+ Aamir Khan really did look like a college-age student for once.

The Bad
+ I felt the movie was kind of long, but I also don't like political films that much, so really, it probably was fine.
+ Political songs are fine, but I didn't feel this was A.R. Rahman's best work (for what it's worth, I'm not a big fan of American patriotic songs)

Final Thoughts: Was it worth watching? Yes. I actually went into this film not realizing how much it was going to be about politics. That being said, the film doesn't revolve 100% around it, I'd say a good 60%. I did enjoy the coming together of the characters and their political activism for their friend's tragedy. A very realistic film, despite the fact they got a little carried away with their plans. I felt the worst for the female characters, though.

Rating: 3/5

Favorite Song: Tu Bin Bataye (loved the lyrics)

Alaipayuthey

Film: Alaipayuthey (2000)
Language: Tamil
youtube links

Synopsis: Karthik (Madhavan) is an engineer starting up his own company and comes across med student Shakti (Shalini) and after continuous chance meetings, they fall in love. Their relationship isn't easy especially when their families don't get along and call off the approval of their wedding. Therefore, they secretly get married with help from Shakti's older sister, yet still live in their same living conditions waiting for things to improve between the families. They don't, and they end up moving out of their homes into an unfinished apartment together where their marriage is tested.

The Good
+ The directing (another Mani Ratnam film) coupled with the nice cinematography = very well done
+ Madhavan and Shalini's chemistry. It was very natural and they played off very well with each other. Everything about this film was realistic and believable
+ Probably one of the only Indian films (that I have seen) where a relationship/marriage is realistically portrayed. Not everything is song and dance-worthy

The Bad
+ It's not bad at all, but some of the outfits/dancing were pretty hilariously awful, considering this film is from 2000. But it actually kind of adds to the charm of the film. Really, I can't think of any serious complaints about the film, since it was so realistic depiction of real life.

Final Thoughts: Was it worth watching? Yes! I'm a sucker for indie-like films that are character studies/coming of age/"slices of life". This definitely fit that category. Don't watch this expecting something exciting/fun with friends, it's not meant to be. Mani Ratnam has definitely sealed himself as one of my favorite directors. I've yet to see any of his work to be deemed 'crappy', although Dil Se has to be my least favorite of his films so far.

I adore Madhavan, and this is his Tamil film debut (also one of his first films). I think he's a fantastic actor and love to see more of his things.

Rating: 4/5

Favorite Song: Pachai Nirame. I loved it for the colors and the cute/goofy dancing of Madhavan's

Kannathil Muthamittal

Film: Kannathil Muthamittal (A Peck on the Cheek) (2002)
Language: Tamil
Streaming on Netflix

I've had this movie sitting in my queue for almost a year, and I finally decided it was time to watch it. As you can see it, it really is not a Bollywood film, but a Tamil film (I'm not sure what they call the southern Indian film industry?) I've seen "Tollywood" and "Kollywood". Ok, I just looked it up. Tollywood = Telugu films, Kollywood = Tamil films. The film industry outside of Bollywood is entertaining for the fact it's clearly lower budget, but anyway... Tamil is interesting because it definitely is different from Hindi. It seems more sing-song in my opinion - very pretty.

This film was directed by Mani Ratnam, who next to Karan Johar (kuch kuch hota hai, K3G, KANK, MNIK), is the only name I'm familiar with as far as Indian directors go. He did Dil Se, Yuuva, Guru, and now Raavan. So I knew this film would be visually appealing, and it definitely was. Also, A.R. Rahman did the score/music and he can do no wrong in my eyes.

Synopsis: The movie starts off in Sri Lanka with a man and woman getting married, but their happiness is disrupted by the fight with the Tamil Tigers. Fast forward time, there's a family in Chennai with a engineer/famous author father, mother and 3 kids: 1 girl and 2 boys. The girl's 9th birthday comes up and the parents decide to tell her that she's not their biological child, that she's adopted. This sets off her obsession to try and find her biological mother and finally her parents agree (after she runs away twice) to go with her to try and find her. The warring Tamils & Sri Lankans make things chaotic during this journey and is a bit of an eye-opening experience to the girl.

The Good
+ The first song is kind of silly, but the rest of the music is really good. Again, A.R. Rahman can do no wrong
+ Excellent acting by everyone
+ Different storyline from what I've mostly seen
+ The different viewpoints. Again, alot of Bollywood is told from a male perspective, and even though they have that here, I'd say a good 50% is from the child's POV

The Bad
+ the subtitles were kind of off. Sometimes they'd be slow, or obviously they had left out subbing something. There was 1 song where they didn't bother to subtitle at all, which I thought was weird. But it was never enough to where I felt like I lost meaning or didn't know what was going on

Final Thoughts: Was it worth watching? Yes! I thought the storyline was really well done, all the acting was excellent, and liked how they spliced storylines nicely (biological parents history, girl's story, and adoptive parents history). I never felt like the movie got too over dramatic either.

Rating: 4/5

Random thoughts: The actor Madhavan (who is totally hot, by the way!), is apparently well known in Kollywood, and has done a few Hindi films that are well known: Rang de Basti, Guru, and 3 Idiots. It took me a while to make the connection that he was in 3 Idiots, and then I found it hilarious because the 3 idiots, who were college kids, were played by much older actors. (Madhaven who had to be about 39ish during filming, Aamir Khan is in his 40's, and Sharman Joshi is in his early 30's)

Favorite Song Kannathil Muthamittal