NBS Film Awards 2010-Part 1

awarded by nikhimenon@gmail.com

This year’s NBS film awards…(The second part of this post will be published next week)


 1.    The best Feature film- 'Once Upon a Time in Chennai'.The Award- the shades used by Rajnikanth in the movie,Enthiran.

 The plot- Sajan (D.Rajan) is a school drop out who dreams of making big money.His father is Satyendra,an honest lower division clerk in the irrigation department. Satyendra gets falsely implicated in a PVC pipe scandal which results in his dismissal  from the service.Struck by poverty and hunger,Satyendra takes his son to Galeinjer,the local politician(who is a godfather like figure to the people and a man of principles) and pleads for help.Galeinjar appoints Sajan as his private secretary.Sajan slowly becomes Galeinjar’s trusted aide.Meanwhile Galeinjar gets married and goes to Guatemala for honey moon. The Clever Sajan takes advantage of Galeinjar’s absence and bribes his party members to vote for Thalaivi’s party in the upcoming by-election(thalaivi had promised sajan, 3 jeeps full of money in return!).On his return from Guatemala,Galeinjar comes to know about this and slaps Sajan for his misdeeds.This infuriates Sajan and as a revenge,he files his nomination against Galeinjar in the next parliament election ,defeats him and also becomes the next telecom minister with the help of the Godmother.The movie ends with the wide shot of Sajan and his 3 jeeps(full of money).

2.    Best Actor- D.Rajan for pulling off the character of Sajan with panache (Movie-Once upon a time in Chennai).

      The Award- The hat used by Quick Gun Murugan

 The winner also gets a Dvd of nikhimenon’s latest blockbuster movie,’Maut ki Dukaan’.

3.  Best Actress in a leading role- Hira Badia (Once upon a time in Chennai,Godmother)for breathing life into the character of ‘God Mother’ in ‘OTIC and it’s sequel ‘Godmother’. The Award- The dupatta used by Neha in the movie ‘kareeb’

 The Plot of Godmother-As stated earlier,’Godmother’ is the sequel to ‘once upon a time in Chennai’.Badia plays Ragini,who is a telephone operator in ‘Data Corporation’, country’s largest mobile company.The C.E.O of the company,Mr Batan(played by Vatan Data) falls in love with Hira.Meanwhile Rajesh joseph,a clerk in ‘Data Corporation’ gets pissed with Hira’s progress in the company.So he makes an MMS of Vatan making love with Hira and leaks it to the media.The movie ends with the close up shot of a depressed Vatan.

4 Best Actress in a supporting Role- Sona Gupta( ‘This is it’) is a surprise entry to this year’s list.She bags this coveted award for her role in the film ‘This is It’.It was the story of an aspiring actress,Yinta whose life takes a U- turn following a wardrobe malfunction.

The Award-The ‘snake’ dress used by Mallika Sherawat in ‘Hiss’

 The winner also gets a pink chaddi sponsored by V.I.P.

5 Best Still Photographer- The man who took this Snap (Movie-‘This is It’).The Award- The wig used by Akki Bhai in ‘Action Replay’.

6 The Promising talent of the year- Rangan Mohan yeddie (Movie-Kursy ki Aawaaz) . The Award- The chair used by K.B.Kiddyurappa in the movie 'Yeddie and the Undie'  
              Immense screenpresence,terrific looks,impressive histrionic skills; Rangan has everything that's needed for a true super hero.After parting ways with the Kaangress studios,Ranjan is all set to launch his new banner, 'Rangan Films'. 
Last year's NBS awards 

3        

                  

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" Trust me,he will behave himself"

buzz by nikhimenon@gmail.com

"//He Will Behave Himself. Trust Me, He Will Behave Himself//"- oops.! Its not nikhimenon  justifying his pet dog through his blog.He is just quoting a corporate lobbyist . Apparently Ms Nira Radia,(tata ji's privacy keeper) was referring to the (former) telecom minister of the largest democracy!

Ps: Neither the desi news channels nor the sardesais' seem to have heard this.So posting it here too.
Hats off to Outlook india,shame on you Barkha!

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The Six Movies that influenced me the most,this year.

thought by nikhimenon@gmail.com

1.Love Sex Aur Dhoka(Hindi,2010)

                                    LSD was Bollywood’s answer to ‘The blair witch project’ and ‘Paranormal activity’.Though the concept of using hand held cameras and passing off the visuals as third party footages was nothing new,Dibakar Banerjee (Oye lucky lucky oye,Khosla Ka Khosla)could successfully make use of it in telling not just one,but three provocative ,disturbing and (most importantly) interlinked stories.Undoubtedly,a masterpiece!

2.Pranchiyettan and the Saint(Malayalam,2010)

                                    Pranchiyettan was unarguably one of the most successful(both critically and commercially) and honest malayalam movies of the year.Though the movie had no story as such to boast off and relied on three major incidents in the life of Cherammel Eenasu Francis(played brilliantly by Mammootty) to take the narrative forward,it was a gem of a film.Some of the references were quite obvious (~jewellery ad,padmasree)while someother were subtle and intelligent.After Kayyoppu and Thirakkadha (I seriously believe that his ‘palerimanikyam’ was highly over rated),another good one from Ranjith.

 

3.My Name is Khan (Hindi,2010)

                                                Karan Johar’s’  MNIK’ was the story of Rizwan khan,a man with Asperger’s syndrome who was on a quest to personally deliver a message to the US president.Kjo,the master of ‘Raj-Simran’ stories talked about a very serious issue(of  terrorism and religious tolerance) in his own trademark stye(read emotionally manipulative/bollywoodish)but what he had to tell  was definitely worth listening to.Even SRK delivered a restrained performance and  this movie is easily his best work to date.

4.Vinaai Thaandi Varuvaaya(Tamil,2010)

                                    In a touching climactic sequence ,Karthik(Silambarasan)tells himself ‘Kathale thedi pokanathu kathal alla jessie,athu thaniye nadakkanam'.

Gautham Vasudeva Menon’s VTV was so realistic that you could actually feel the hero’s pain (in not being able to unite with his lady love) and sympathise with him.VTV gave a new lease of life to Silambarasan's acting career  and he was indeed good in this film.Hats off to Gautham Menon,for giving us this beautiful tale of love.

5.Magadheera(Telugu,2009) and The Social Network(English,2010):

                                    ( ‘Magadheera’ was released in Aug,2009.Since it is one of the few good movies that I have seen this year,it gets a place in this list)

                A princess and her bodyguard fall in love. Both of them die in a battle prior to their marriage. Four hundred years later they are reborn and the problems repeat again one by one.Magadheera was not a great movie by any yardstick,but was escapist cinema at it’s best.Afterall,one hundred and sixty minutes of pure,unadulterated fun isn’t a bad thing,right?

David Fincher's ‘The Social Network’ had a great script,riveting performances from the lead cast and an effective background score.A truly remarkable film.

Ps: I am yet to see Peepli live and Inception…

-nikhimenon

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‘Bala takes the plunge’ is funny in parts..!

Title-Bala takes the Plunge
Author-Melvin Durai
Publisher-Hachette
Pages-192
Price- 195 INR
source-Review Copy sent by the Author

             The Chetan Bhagat effect in the Indian publishing industry is undeniable.He inspired quite a number of men and women to write on ‘the young urban educated Indian’ in simple(often plain) language. Even the international publishing giant,Penguin started a new line of low prized books,aimed solely at the masses(or the ‘new readers’). Most of the popular bloggers(Amit Verma,Sidin Vadukut,Arnab Ray,Meenakshy Reddy Madhavan et al) turned authors overnight evoking mixed responses.As Mr Surender Mohan Pathak, the grandmaster of Hindi crime fiction rightly said in an interview ‘there is a Chetan Bhagat kind of book releasing every fifteen days,these days’.

             ‘Bala takes the plunge’ is humour columnist ‘Melvin Durai’s debut novel published by ‘Hachette india’.Prized at a modest 195 INR,this book has the potential to become the next ‘big thing’ in the so called ‘commercial fiction’ market provided it’s marketed well.

             Melvin’s prose is more like an ‘Anurag Mathur’ than a Chetan Bhagat.’Bala takes the plunge’ is the story of Balasubramanium,a middle class tamil boy who dreams of making tamil films and directing his favourite actor,Rajnikanth.After completing B.E. from Tiru Harischandran Institute of Technology(THIT),he ends up in the U.S. as the director of design at FlexIt Inc which makes exercise machines.Bala’s life in the U.S and his attempts to find a suitable match forms the rest of the (?)story.The plot and it’s treatment is quite similar to Anurag Mathur’s ‘The Inscrutable Americans’ which came out almost two decades ago.But still,’Bala takes the Plunge’ manages to raise a few laughs and that’s where Melvin Durai scores.Traces of black humour can also be seen in the flexerciser episode.

            The two scenes in the book which I liked the most were the one in which Bala joins the Sociable fun ride group(Melvin also manages to make a few statements here) and the one in which Bala names his dog America.

        On the downside,the book has cheesy lines in plenty,right from the very first page(‘’ ..the IIT where brainstorms were common than rainstorms..’’,’’I haven’t tried any cream in my life except ofcourse ice cream-,…’but if you asked me to name my favourite dish,I would have to say satellite dish’-*wtf!*).The chapter about the Matrimonial ads (chapter 10) was not that funny and something similar had been done in a funnier and much more effective manner by Arnab Ray in his book-‘May I hebb your Attention Pliss’(Harper Collins,2010)

        On the whole ,’Bala takes the Plunge’ is the kind of book which you can make use of on a boring Sunday afternoon.If you are not looking for a light read,please stay away from this one.
Verdict: Decent debut.Rating-3/5

-nikhimenon

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Nothing Great about 'TD Dasan VI B'

reviewed by nikhimenon@gmail.com

 ‘Mohan Raghavan’s debut feature film ‘TD Dasan VI B’  got positive reviews from almost all the leading Malayalam movie portals when it was released early this year.Obviously nikhimenon’s expectations were sky high when he bought the dvd of this small movie.The covers had a fully dressed up Swetha Menon(thank God,she sn’t playing a pro this time! -thinks nikhimenon.) along with Biju Menon(oops.!) and two child artists.

100 minutes and a moserbaer dvd later nikhimenon was back with some startling discoveries and…..

·       TD Dasan VI B is a simple but pretty ordinary film which has it’s heart in it’s right place.

·       11 year old  Dasan’s search for his father would have been a compelling watch,had the makers concentrated a bit more on the scripting avoiding cliches’ like the lunatic (who comes out of nowhere and fades into the oblivion in the beginning of the movie ),the un necessary ‘movie within the movie sequences’ (honestly, the track is quite underdeveloped and it adds nothing much to the narrative),to name a few.

·       Both the child artists were quite competent.The boy who played Dasan(Alexander) deserves a pat on his back

·       TD Dasan had a decent and (most importantly)an original story to tell which  couldn’t  live upto it’s potential,thanks to a mediocre script.

…………some annoying querries…..

·       Will Ms Swetha Menon ever be able to play a morally correct character in a Malayalam film?

·        Biju Menon’s character is shown as an Ad film maker in the movie.One fine morning, he calls his assistant and says that the story for a movie is ready.C’mmon ,is it so easy to start making a movie?One needs a producer atleast.. right?

·       What was the ‘movie within the movie track’ doing in this film?

·       Why does Malayalam Cinema  prefer an Alex Paul or a Suresh Peter to  a Sreevalsan Menon or a Jason J Nair when the latter is available at a cheaper rate with better music?  

·       What made the reviewers think that this movie (‘TD Dasan VI B’) is some sort of a masterpiece?

Verdict: 2.5/5(Not bad)


ps: Mr Jagadish,please don't torture us more..!

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Finally,the movie came out....!

Poster of the Short Film

       Finally our short film ,'Silence' came out yesterday.It was screened at the conference hall of the Medical College hospital for which more than 500 people  turned up,including doctors,medical and nursing students and the non teaching staff.To be frank,in the few days prior to the screening of the movie ,I had been through hell! Misunderstandings,technical glitches,financial constrains....there were too many complications...There were instances which even made me think about dropping this project altogether.Anyways all were happy with the final product once it came out.

The biggest compliment for the movie came from my Associate Professor, Dr Vijy Paul.He didn't say a word but hugged me and gave a smile after the screening! Dr Jomine also had some good words for me.Everyone seemed to have loved the movie .There were a few interesting criticism too(honestly we were expecting that since the movie delt with a complex and serious issue).At this point of time,I would also like to mention that a major share of the success of this short movie goes to Mr Harish Krishnan who not only edited this short film brilliantly but also corrected and guided us through out while making it.Harish was also kind enough to help us in taking some difficult shots.Joseph Sabu,Sarath R.S,Unni C and Kiran Gopal all had worked really hard to bring out this movie.

Right now,we are planning to make some corrections and send this movie to selected amateur short film competitions.

Update: This post was written way back in 2009.'Silence' was screened in a couple of Short film festivals of the state.Initially,we had plans to re-make it with a better cast and also on a bigger budget.But as a lot of feature films and shorts have come out with almost the same theme since then,we shelved the plans for re-doing it and moved on in Life. 

-nikhimenon

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2 months and 3 movies..!

nikhimenon@gmail.com

Had been busy with making a short movie during the last couple of months(by God's grace, 85% of the shooting is over now).Anyways did manage to watch a few new movies.Here is an ultrashort review of them.

1.Anwar:

This Amal Neerad directed 'Prithviraj' flick deals with terrorism topically,still with it's lush visuals,ultra slo-mo sequences and a decent story line( haven't seen Traitor' though )manages to entertain.Prithviraj is competent,Mamtha does the damsel in distress 'act quite well while Prakash Raj and Lal deliver solid performances.The comparisons with Amal's earlier films are inevitable though.

Verdict: Anwer has a story to tell which Big B and Saagar didn't have.

Overall-Racy and Entertaining

2.Pranchiyettan And the Saint:

Renjith's new movie 'Pranchi' is definitely one of the better movies of the year.It may have it's flaws,but with it's shear honesty,sarcasm and a brilliant performance from the legend 'Mammootty'(who delivers the thrissur slang with panache),the movie is definitely worth a watch.

Verdict: Don't Miss it!

3.Shikkar

Mohanlal's much hyped Padmakumar ' movie was a disappointing flick for me.Loosely inspired from 'Madhupal's Thalappavu' and Blessy's Bhramaram,the movie had an extremely disppointing first half(with some boring jokes from 'Jagathy Sreekumar' and Suraaj.The only saving grace being ,the stunning cinematography by Manoj Pillai.
Verdict: Nothing new.

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Kerala 2050

thought by nikhimenon@gmail.com

Nikhimenon got into a time machine yesterday and went to the year 2050. As he was about to return back to the year 2010 ,the newspaper boy came with the newspaper.

1.K.Muraleedharan forwards his 51 st Apology to the Congress president.The poor chap hasn’t got his 3 rupee worth congress membership yet!

2.Thilakan replaced by Prithviraj in an ‘upcoming youth flick’ by Kamal as sukumar Azheekodu and Vinayan gets emotional.Meanwhile in a press conference thilakan blames the SC-ST lobby which is ruling ‘Malayalam Cinema’ for his exclusion.

3.Karnataka Police finally decide to arrest Abdul Nazar Madauny in the Bangalore Blast case.The arrest date will be officially announced early next year in a live t.v. show.

5.High School teacher’s private part chopped off  for insulting a ‘particular community’ in an exam paper.  

Meanwhile nbs.com was fortunate to get a copy of the ‘controversial’ question paper that was distributed among the 8 th standard students for their half yearly exam.The controversial question is attached below for the readers of this blog.(READER DISCRETION ADVICED)

            1v. Read the conversation given below carefully and punctuate  it adequately.

Shepherd:  Mary Mary

Mary: What is it idiot

Shepherd:How many sheep do we have

Mary: you dog I have told you many times that we have 3

A Couple of weeks back,the powerful Christian Men's council had protested against the question paper that allegedly defamed 'Jesus Christ'. The School teacher was under suspension while the attack occured.

6.Shalini's daughter to play Mammotty's heroine.Shalini(Mamattykuttyamma fame) and Ajith Kumar's Daughter will play Mammootty's heroine in the upcoming malayalam film 'College Rowdy' which will be directed by Shaji Kailas.Sanoosha will play mammooty's mother in the movie.

7.V.S.Achuthanandan is dismissed from the CPM for his allegedly derogatory remarks against the party. 

8. Pinarayi Vijayan says he is willing to be the chief minister  for the sake of the poor people of kerala.


9.State government decides to make their 70 th agreement with the 50 private medical colleges in kerala as the court cancels everything. 

10. Nikhimenon is awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.

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Movie Review-Malarvadi Arts Club

reviewed by nikhimenon@gmail.com

What should you do if you think you are talented in doing more than a task at a time?Focus on the one in which you are the best in and try to improve more,else you might end up being mediocre in everything.Doubting why i have turned philosophical all on a sudden?(C'mmon.. i have moved on,she is history,i know!) Go and watch 'Malarvadi Arts Club' and resume reading this post if you still don't trust me.

Vineeth Sreenivasan who was produced some 26 years ago by the talented,iconic script writer-director  Sreenivasan  is some one who is obsessed with lengthening his resume every now and then.After a successful singing  ( which is still going strong) carrier  and a 'passable' stint in acting ,he has turned to scripting and directing movies now.His debut movie 'Malarvadi Arts Club' was supposed to be a trend setter(atleast Dileep,Kalyan Jewellers and Radio Mango thought so!) with an all new star cast, fresh songs and an astounding story line.After watching the movie i was pretty convinced that Vineeth is also banking on the 'rent a dvd,make a movie' trend which has helped Priyadarshan,Sanjay Gupta et al mint crores back in Bollywood.

While Sanjay Gupta and co might have spend a lot more on English/French/Korean DVDs ,Vineeth sreenivasan has effectively cut a lot of cost (C'mmon..,Malayalam movies have a small market) by resorting to cheaper Dvds(thanks to moserbaer and Eros) of desi flicks like Rock On! Chennai 600628,Goa and Happy Days.

So we have 5 men who do nothing 24*7 living in an imaginary village some where around thalassery.(C'mmon, I love my native ,i have shown it in movies!,rite? thinks Vineeth !).They organises Hartals and walk in slow motion to kill time.( "I want my movie to be stylish too..the girls will go drooling over my lead men!).Oh! the movie has to run for two hours atleast,so let me add a comedy track with Suraj.("i am not good in writing comedy,let me ask suraj etta to play his favourite character.Inky-pinky-ponky...omg! he will play the 'comic goonda' in my movie..!he s gonna rock.....!").They are always in short of cash , hence they decide to start a music band to earn money. Santhosh Damodaran the lead singer can beat even Kaithapram in Kacheri  .But apart from Kumarettan who runs the local tea shop(Nedumudi Venu) no one else knows that they are such great 'pulis'.So no bookings for the show..!!Surprise surprise,Santhosh comes on tv reality show.Right from Kumarettan to goonda suraj start smsing  for him,he wins.Then comes the really surprising twist in the form of Intermission.(I liked the timing of the intermission a lot since i wanted to go to the loo badly at that point of time.)

("Oh, there are no female characters in my script.let me add two.But where?There are five guys right?let some random woman love one of them...Waah....!kyaa love story dude, tells Shaan rehman,my music director from my side! ).So we have an awesomely awesome' love story in between Purushu(not Santhosh! that's socialism for you from junior sreeni) and Geethu.They meet during one of their early ganamelas and fall in love.After her brother gets him beaten to pulp,their love ripens and they marry only after a touching' dialogue sequence between purushu and her parents.(You know, i love to make everything realistic")Twist.. Santhosh who is so famous  that even Shakira is after him dumps his friends and moves on.(Y? Watch the movie miser!!)

Now have a climax which is so different from Rock on and London Dreams since neither Salman,Ajay Devgan nor Farhan Akthar is a part of junior sreeni's Malarvadikoottam and Santhosh Damodar has to sing a Malayalam song here.For a change, we have a couple of hummable songs by Shaan Rehman but that doesn't seem good enough for a movie which banks heavily on it's music to get itself clicked.Where is the Kashmalan song?("oh,dileepettan told me that he would come himself dressed in 50 different costumes and make a promotional video with that song so that all the malayalee children would flock into the theatres playing malarvadi;like they did for Paapi Appacha").

             Coming to the technical departments of the movie, Vineeth Shrinivasan has chosen the conventional way of story telling . A lot of unwanted scenes like the one in which one of the lead men falling from height while making preparations for a programme could have been easily avoided. Sukumar’s camera also didn’t surprise us much. As far as the song visuals were concerned, there was nothing extra ordinary there too.The new comers were convincing with the guy who acted as Purushu being the pick of the lot.The character of ‘Kuttu’ is not as funny as it was supposed to be.The girls come and go after a couple of scenes. Some of the scenes were genuinely funny like the one in which Purushu first meets his love. As I mentioned before, Shaan Rehman’s songs were hummable,but it’s just not good enough. But the re recording was good. On the whole,the whole movie ends up as just another average fare which desperately tries to recreate the magic of similar ‘friendship’ movies made in our neighbouring states.

Verdict: Very Average Movie(since it is competing with other blunders like 'apoorva Ragam',otherwise i would have given it a below average tag)

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