Wal-Mart: The High Cost Of Low Price

Following An Inconvenient Truth, this (Wal-Mart: The High Cost Of Low Price) is another documentary that caught my eye while I was looking for some DVDs to watch. The synopsis pretty much lured me into watching this.

Everyone has seen Wal-Mart’s lavish television commercials, but have you ever wondered why Wal-Mart spends so much money trying to convince you it cares about your family, your community, and even its own employees? What is it hiding? Filmmaker Robert Greenwald takes you behind the glitz and into the real lives of workers and their families, business owners and their communities.

And the outcome was pretty startling. It is like the ones handled by Michael Moore. You wonder if the information is true, how come no one seems to be doing anything about it.

This documentary deals with issues like deliberate understaffing in the stores, the benefits offered by the company to the staff, how the staff is treated at overseas walmart locations, working conditions, environmental impact and much more. And the big issue of all – how walmart affects local businesses in each and every town. The documentary also features lot of interviews from past and present Walmart employees (both in the US and overseas).

Do watch it if you get a chance.

Movie Review: Indiralogathil Na. Azhagappan

I don’t want to waste time writing a review for this movie. I am just doing my part in helping some of you.

Please don’t watch this movie. Please don’t even think of watching this movie. Please don’t even think of this movie. If you thought Imsai Arasan was average/bad, this is horrible. The only reason I stayed until the end of the movie was because my car was struck in the parking lot and had to wait until the movie got over 😦

Movie Review – Chak De India

This movie isn’t any different from other movies that is based on sports. The hero (main character) loses early on and how he fights back and regains victory and glory forms the rest of the story. 

SRK after losing in the hockey finals of world championship is defamed, thrown out of the game. How he comes back and coaches the women’s team to win the world championship forms the movie.

Image from yashrajfilms.com

Here are some good things about the movie:

1) There is no heroine and this helps the movie to focus on the story rather than romance and stuff.
2) There aren’t any songs (meaning songs as such) and this definitely helps to maintain the tempo of the movie. There are a couple of songs that blends with the movie and hence it doesn’t affect the flow.

It is really good that the above two elements have been eliminated from a movie coming out of Bollywood. Wish other directors also take such bold decisions.

3) Hindi movies have definitely come a long way with respect to being more mature. I really wish that the tamil movies take some out of these ones.

There are a couple of scenes where the Indian cricket team is mocked at, but it was put in a very subtle manner 🙂

The casting is really good. With the way the girls played/acted, it looked like some of them really knew how to play hockey (at least a little bit). Unlike some movies, in which the hero being the basketball champion, doesn’t even know how to dribble the ball 😆

Overall, it is a clean movie with nothing out of the ordinary, but definitely doesn’t bore you out. The movie is worth a watch and do watch in theatre if you get a chance.

Movie Review – Sivaji

I am sure that by the time I publish this, there will be hundereds of sites/blogs with the review for Sivaji. This is by 2 cents…  

And I just don’t know what to say… seriously. I am not sure what to say about the movie.

If you go to the movie because you are a Rajni fan or you want to watch Rajni, then you will walk out happy.

If you go to the movie because you want to watch Shankar’s movie, then you might be disappointed.

If you want to continue reading the review, please do select all (Ctrl – A). Warning… spoilers ahead!!!

The movie’s theme came out long back. It is about the problems faced by a man trying to do good to the society and how he overcomes them. Well… this is the basic theme in most of the movies from Shankar. And I don’t mind that. His previous social subjects were atleast a little different from each other. But this movie is a little too extreme.

Take Arjun out of Gentleman and put Rajni and you will end up with Sivaji. Kicha (Arjun) takes (steals) about 45 crores from bad guys and then builds one medical college. It has been 10+ years since Gentleman and the amount has risen 1000 times. Sivaji steals 45000 crores (all black money) from the bad guys and then builds universities, hospitals etc etc all over the country. You get to see the usual scenes that you will see in any tamil movie… common people crying to release the hero etc etc.

Rajni is his usual stuff. He looks a lot younger and that’s nice. His on-screen presence is as usual great and like I mentioned before, if you go to the movie for watching Ranji, you will come out happy.

Shreya is a typical tamil movie heroine. Not much of role except for the songs.

Suman plays the villan in this movie. Lately, the villans or other characters are the ones that have stood out in Rajni’s movies. Neelambari in Padaiyappa, Chandramuki (Jyothika) in Chandramuki etc. Even in this, Suman’s character will definitely stand out. He has done a great job and has played the soft spoken villan vey well. I have heard that Mohanlal, Amitabh and even Sathyaraj were asked for this role. I am sure all of them would have suited perfectly for this rule as a soft-spoken villan. Shankar has done a great job in moulding this character.

The comedy is definitely above par and Vivek has done a good job. There are certain scenes where you can really laugh.

The other parts of the movie are typical of a Shankar’s movie. Great. He has done a super job with the songs… I especially like the style song. Very nicely done!!! And the movie is technically great. The visuals are awesome. The art  direction, editing etc are all great.

Just like any other Shankar or Ranji movie, the movie is logically flawed. But I am sure most people (including me) won’t mind it. We don’t go for logic. We go for Rajni and Shankar.  

Sivaji utters the “cool” word several times in the movie which is really an overkill and gets boring after the first couple of times. Not sure why Shankar went with it… Some scenes are really boring (where shreya removes her half-saree to stop the train), the scenes with Solomon Poppaya and Raja etc could be avoided.

Overall, I am sure that we can definitely watch the movie. It is not bad, but it is definitely not great.

Check out other movie reviews in this blog.

Movie Review: Imsai Arasan 23rd Pulikesi

This is the 21st century equivalent of “Enga Veetu Pillai” set in a historical background with a comical flavor. The storyline is very similar.

Twins are born. One is weak and stupid and the other is strong and intelligent. The stronger one is separated from the family by the uncle so that he can control the wealth (kingdom in this movie) with the weaker one. The twins (after they have grown up) exchange places. They take revenge on the uncle. All is well that ends well!!! That’s the entire movie in a couple of lines.

The movie is just average. It was definitely not upto the hype that was surrounding it. There are just a few (maybe 2 or 3) scenes where you can really enjoy the joke and laugh. Otherwise, it is just ok. And most of the scenes are boring and you have to sit through it with pain. The songs could have been avoided.

There are a couple of scenes where Vadivelu makes a mockery of the Government employees and the Government as a whole.

a) He teases the Govt employees of not doing work and coming to the office at 9.10 AM and leaving at 5.00 PM with a hour of lunch break.
b) He makes fun of the process of tenders for different government contracts and how things.
c) He also hits out at the movie stars and sports personalities who promote inferior products for the sake of money.

Overall, the director has “tried” to make a full length comedy just like old times along with some message… but it could have been done better. It is not a must watch, but can be watched with a very brave heart. 

Movie Review: Thirutu Payale

Susi Ganesan (FiveStar and Virumbigiren) has definitely tried something different. A  thriller is not something that comes along very often from the Tamil industry.
 
The script is the hero of the movie. It is a nice cat and mouse game between Jeevan and Malavika. The core story of the movie is established in the first 15 mins. The first half of the movie is just great. The movie moves with great pace and is completely focused on the chase between Jeevan and Malavika. Sonia Agarwal plays Jeevan’s love interest. But even her character is introduced with a twist which is nice. But after that, she has the role of the usual Tamil movie heroine.

But the director succumbs to the usual pressure of a comedy track. The pace is affected by Vivek’s comedy track in the second half. Abbas also has a key role in the movie. Jeevan has to improve on everything. From acting to expressions to stunts… everything.

Overall, the movie is watchable. It won’t figure in your’s best list, but you probably won’t be too bored watching this one.

Movie Review: Dishyum

In a nutshell: Definitely worth a watch!!!

The movie has been out for a while now. But I just had the chance to watch it this weekend. Wish I had watched it earlier instead of movies like Paramasivan and Kalabak Kaadhalan.

The movie revolves around ‘Risk’ Baskar (Jeeva) who is a stunt artist and Cinthya (Sandhya) an art student. Baskar is a take it easy character who is very popular in the stunt world for this daring stunts in the movies. He meets Cinthya and falls in love with her. Cinthya rejects and explains that she is just a friend. Baskar tries to be her friend, but realizes that it is something more than that and confesses his love to Cinthya. Cinthya asks him to wait to see if she also falls in love with him.

For a change, Cinthya’s parents give the go-ahead for the love marriage. While Baskar waits for Cinthya’s approval, the movie takes a turn and things march towards the climax.

The director has done a great job to give a clean entertainer. The screenplay is pretty decent and the movie does not get on your nerves at any point.

A couple of songs are melodious and good on the ears. After a long time, the movie has a very good comedy track (not a separate comedy track) provided by Baskar’s sidekick in the movie (a dwarf) and it is really refreshing after sitting though Vadivelu and Vivek for a while now. After a long time, I can literally laugh for some comedy. No double meaning jokes. Really straightforward and simple jokes. The comedy is definitely a plus for the movie.

Do watch it if you get a chance. You won’t regret it.

Movie Review: Kalabak Kaadalan

In a single line: This is the inverse of movie “Aasai”.

Two people (Arya and Renuka Menon) get married and start living happily. The wife’s sister (some new face… I believe) falls in love with the brother-in-law. How the bro-in-law handles the situation and what happens in the end forms the rest of the movie.

The photography and the movie all together looks rich, but the +’s end there. The songs are all mediocre. Nothing great about the background score either. The movie could have been handled slightly better and the end could have been much better. The movie just had an abrupt ending. And the whole concept of having the entire movie in a flashback is just getting old these days.

But one thing that I should really appreciate is that the director did not give in to the usual element of having a separate comedy track. It could have been really awkward for such a movie. And almost 60 – 70 % of the movie is just between the three characters and in a single apartment.