Theevandi

Posted on September 8, 2018 by Tennyson

What is the movie about? :: Bineesh (Tovino Thomas) started smoking at an early age, and tries to go on with his life without having any responsibility. He has a few friends around whom most of his life happens. The smoking which he started in school followed him to youth, and even though that bothers his lover Devika (Samyuktha Menon), they continue the relationship. Her father Madhu (Suraaj Venjarammood) is not confident about the relationship as he knows that he is a chain smoker due to which the title “Theevandi” was given to him – there is no positive side in the future which he sees about Bineesh, but he reluctantly agrees as Devika is certain about it. He talks to Bineesh’s brother-in-law, Vijith (Saiju Kurup) who works with him in the same political party and gets Devika and Bineesh engaged.

So, what happens with the events to follow? :: But Devika discovers that the smoking habit of Bineesh is beyond all limits and decides that she can no longer continue to be in love with a man who is obsessed with cigarettes. As she decides to be no longer engaged, another problem arises about who would be the next MLA of the constituency, following a terrible accident involving the MLA who has only a few days left to live. The two possible candidates are Bineesh’s brother-in-law and his possible father-in-law which brings another problem to light. In between all of these, is his smoking problem, and as long as the same exists, he can solve nothing. Can there be a solution to Bineesh’s problems, and how far can he go to make it happen? Or will he take the easy way out?

The defence of Theevandi :: There is the certainty of fun as far as Theevandi is concerned. Some jokes will be remembered for longer than we think, that is for sure. The message also arrives strong, and gets stronger and stronger as the movie progresses. The song “Jeevamshamayi Thaane” might be the best moment of the movie, with some other songs to join in. The music of the flick is very good, and there are some nice visuals of the beautiful village at which the flick is based. There is simplicity all around, and the message which the flick deals with, is serious and beyond the limitations. It is complicated when we see the whole of it, and the message against smoking is something of universal relevance. If the movie can inspire at least one person to give up smoking and lead a better life, there is great success being shown here – that one person will surely not be the end of it.

The claws of flaw :: There is no doubt about the fact that Theevandi could have done even better with its content. Being a movie which was supposed to release in June, this has been delayed for too long. The length of the move is also a negative thing, especially considering the fact that the main purpose here to provide one message, the one thing that it attempts more than the others. Some moments which were supposed to be funny, also falls short. The ending of the movie is certainly interesting and feel-good, and after a good beginning, it is the middle part that has somewhat a struggle. The political side could have also been a better satire. The tools and the premise were present there, but we see a struggle to go too deep in there, and maybe that concerns the possible risks.

The performers of the soul :: Tovino Thomas has another role of a flawed hero after Maradona and Mayaanadhi. He has done this job naturally, and there is no moment when he seems to be in trouble. The protagonist’s problems are nicely shown, and the man caught in the terrible situation has our attention. Samyuktha Menon makes a big impact in her first big role. As the industry seems to have less big names among current actresses, her performance here should elevate more of the cinema of these times too. She excels in the romantic and funny sequences, and just holds the ground during emotional scenes. The pair has fine chemistry running through, and the same feeling that was conveyed through the popular romantic song in the movie, goes on even when she seems to show less interest.

Further performers of the soul :: Despite being provided with an exaggerated character, Surabhi Lakshmi manages to bring the most fun of the same. The character seems to be forced into existence without detailed thoughts, but she could manage that, and make things work. Suraj Venjaramood is comfortable in this role which is mostly serious with some chance for comedy. We remember how he nicely kept the balance earlier with Varnyathil Aashanka, Oru Muthassi Gadha, Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum and Aby – here he has no problems in doing the same again. Shammi Thilakan also brings the funny elements, even though for a lesser amount of time. Sudheesh and Vijilesh do leave a few things for the funny side too. Rajesh Sharma is also there leaving a mark.

How it finishes :: These are the days when the Malayalam movies are making a comeback after a short break caused by the Kerala Floods. It is the return of the films as much as the return of the state to the normal world. It is with more interesting releases including Ranam and Theevandi that Malayalam movies are making a return, as movies like Koode and Maradona have been there for quite long. The case of Theevandi is stronger because it deals with a socially relevant movie. Translated better as “the vehicle of fire” rather than as the literal translation “the train”, this movie certainly becomes a better notice against smoking than any of those small advertisements shown in the beginning of the flicks. It marks a fine return of Malayalam movies as it surely seems to serve its purpose. You might also want to watch the video song from the movie which has become so popular.

Release date: 7th September 2018
Running time: 144 minutes
Directed by: Fellini TP
Starring: Tovino Thomas, Samyuktha Menon, Surabhi Lakshmi, Rajesh Sharma, Suraaj Venjarammood, Shammi Thilakan, Sudheesh, Krishna Praba, Neena Kurup, Vijilesh, Musthafa

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

Alamara

Posted on March 19, 2017 by Tennyson

Vampire Owl: A movie named after the almirah. It is an interesting case.

Vampire Bat: What is it about you and an almirah?

Vampire Owl: An almirah is a nice option for executing our evil plans.

Vampire Bat: You are not planning on scaring a few people by jumping out of an almirah, are you?

Vampire Owl: Well, what I plan is world domination using the almirah.

Vampire Bat: That idea won’t work. It is just an almirah.

Vampire Owl: You will know the depth of my evil plans, and then you will realise how far it can go.

Vampire Bat: It hasn’t gone that much with any of the plans.

Vampire Owl: You see, this one is different. I will get some special plan from this movie.

Vampire Bat: Let you find the best evil plan from a feel-good comedy movie.

[Gets the tickets with some cheese popcorn and vegetable puffs].

What is the movie about? :: Arun (Sunny Wayne) is a bank employee who is working at Bangalore, and despite having seen forty seven girls so far, hasn’t been able to get married to one. The last one got messed up after the girl whom he was supposed to marry, eloped with someone else. He is a member of various matrimonial websites, and there are his relatives who are trying to get him to be married to some girl or the other, but things don’t go well as something bad happens every time. It is during these times that his good friend Suvin (Aju Varghese) gets rejected by a girl Swathi (Aditi Ravi) because he ends up being shorter than her. Swathi gets transferred to Bangalore, and asks for some help from Arun who is the brother of her old friend Divya (Sonu Anna Jacob), and knows the city well enough to find her a place to live for the time being.

So, what happens next? :: He soon proposes to Swathi, and working in nearby banks in the same city, she accepts, and so do the parents and relatives of both of them. The date of wedding is fixed on a day six months later, so that Divya can also be married on the same day, after she also passes a bank test and gets to work in a financial institution just like them. As the date gets nearer, everyone on the girl’s side gets restless, but it seems that Divya is in no mood to pass the bank test any time soon – she just keeps studying and nothing much happens. The two families almost decide not to go forward with this relationship, but Arun and Swathi are adamant, and finally both families have to agree to conduct the wedding. The wedding goes on well, and both of them move to Bangalore after a few days at Arun’s place. But things aren’t that smooth as they thought they were going to be.

The defence of Alamara :: The feel-good element in this movie works very well, and so do the jokes used here. The message here is that the married couple has to live their lives, and the rest of the people around will be only there to give some free advice and also to have the food for the function. The movie asks the pairs to take the decisions about their later lives themselves, and listen the least to the others – also, not to compare, but to live a life which is meant for them and not for those who watch from outside. A lot of situations in the movie can be related, and the comedy used here might feel a lot closer to real life for many. It was also a nice and divergent idea to have the almirah do the narration as the silent witness to all the foolishness that the humans come up with inside their relationships. The movie is visually good, and the songs have good timing.

The claws of flaw :: You will see that there is a lot of predictability associated with this tale which has been going on for a long time in one form or the other. There is no shortage of stories like this in our world – we can see them in all directions. You once again see a married couple having their relationship in trouble due to the interferences from their families who were not sure about this wedlock at the first place. The subplot concerning the property sale at Bangalore was not at all interesting though, and it could have been kept to the minimum to decrease the overall length of this movie. There could have also been something really new and fresh here, considering the fact that the same couldn’t be done with the story and how it goes on. The actors like Bijukuttan and Vijilesh are a little too less used, with more scope there for their characters.

Performers of the soul :: Sunny Wayne is good here, and he maintains the level in most of the sequences too. It is Aditi Ravi who makes a bigger impact here though, and we can expect to see more of her considering how good she has been in this leading role. In the comedy department, it is Manikandan Achari as the protagonist’s favourite uncle, who stands apart in a role completely different from what he did in Kammattipaadam. Aju Varghese and Saiju Kurup scores the most as protagonist’s friends when at Bangalore – also look out for Indrans in another different avatar here. Ranji Panicker and Seema G. Nair makes a fine pair that brings the fun here. Sonu Anna Jacob also has a notable role here. Then there is Salim Kumar providing some fun as the voice of almirah, the poor creation from the wood which gets to see all these and suffer – these humans are truly bad, aren’t they?

How it finishes :: This is the third movie from the director Midhun Manuel Thomas after Aadu Oru Bheegara Jeeviyanu and Annmariya Kalippilaanu. Sunny Wayne, Aju Varghese and Saiju Kurup remains the common factors once again, and there is the humour element of the first movie and the feel-good factor of the second one maintained nicely in this particular flick. This movie is surely better than Aadu Oru Bheegara Jeeviyanu, but not that good as Annmariya Kalippilaanu. With the entertainment, the feel-good factor and the messages for a new generation of families as well as those of the older generation, Alamara will be an interesting movie for more than one kind of audience. The message provided by this movie is valid not just for now, but for a longer period of time, and therefore Alamara should continue to work as the right family flick for many despite not being a huge one! Also look out for C/O Saira Banu this weekend, both movies taking different paths here!

Release date: 17th March 2017
Running time: 130 minutes
Directed by: Midhun Manuel Thomas
Starring: Sunny Wayne, Aditi Ravi, Sonu Anna Jacob, Ranji Panicker, Aju Varghese, Saiju Kurup, Sudhi Koppa, Manikandan Achari, Indrans, Sadiq, Seema G. Nair, Manju Satheesh, Kunchan, Bijukuttan, Vijilesh, Salim Kumar (voice only), Arya Rohit (cameo)

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

Guppy

Posted on November 23, 2016 by Tennyson

Vampire Owl :: Oh, you mean the Vampire Guppy.

Vampire Bat :: There is no Vampire Guppy. Fishes don’t become vampires. None of us are interested in water including you.

Vampire Owl :: But all I have been hearing about in the last few days is related to the great bath.

Vampire Bat :: That is just the blood bath. Fishes don’t live in blood.

Vampire Owl :: It is really unfortunate. We could have used some fishy help. There are already too many things fishy with the humans.

Vampire Bat :: Still, we can watch this movie. I have read that this is one of the better human movies.

Vampire Owl :: If it is a better movie, I am sure that most of the fan-boys and fan-girls haven’t watched it yet.

Vampire Bat :: Yes, it is universal law; the quality and the fans won’t go together.

Vampire Owl :: Which is why good movies need us.

Vampire Bat :: Yes, we watch more good movies, and it is our superpower to differentiate between the best and the worst of them.

[Gets three cups of tea with jackfruit chips].

What is the movie about? :: This the tale of a boy named Michael (Chethanlal), who is known to everyone as Guppy, as he has a collection of the small fish called guppy and earns money by selling them to the customers in need. The boy has one dream, that of buying an automatic wheel chair for his mother (Rohini) who can’t walk after the stroke she suffered with the death of his father. The death of his father left his mother on the wheel chair, and she never let him go to the sea which took the man. The seaside village has people who admire his hardwork, and tries to help him in achieving his dream. The two people supporting him the most are Paappan (Alencier Ley Lopez) who runs a shop where Guppy also works, and Lalichan (Sudheer Karamana) who provides him the help needed to grow and sell the fish from the village office where he works.

So what happens next? :: Everything remains simple in this beautiful, scenic village by the side of the sea. The boys are all after Aamina (Nandana Varma) who is the grand daughter of the man who works at the railway gate (Sreenivasan), but the man makes sure that nobody gets to see her by covering her face with a purdah. The boys are happy spending their days in the usual way though – there is nothing special happening as life goes on as has been for a long time. But things don’t go well for him as an engineer Thejus Varkey (Tovino Thomas) comes to the his village for constructing a railway bridge. From the beginning itself, the boy and the engineer doesn’t like each other, and a certain rivalry begins between the two. Both are determined not to yield to the other. The story goes on to tell us how the differences go and how things get for the two.

The defence of Guppy :: There is a certain amount of artistic feeling that we get with the visuals of this movie, and how the incidents are set in motion. Remember Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea and Riders to the Sea? There is something special with the movies with this type of setting as long as they are done well enough; there is the struggle, there is the hope and there is the attempt to survive. The relationships and emotions are just on another level, even when the special situations are not attempted. There is no clear protagonist and antagonist here, and no hero and villain to be exact, as we see the flow of emotions making people do things which they wouldn’t want to do on another occasion. There is something so poetic about the life and situations here, and we move through the same, with some beautiful shots of the sea and the shores, along with some nice music.

Claws of flaw :: The characters might not seem that well developed for everyone throughout the movie. There are some of them who are there just for the same of being there. One might notice that there is a little bit too much time taken to get us into the whole thing. There is also a certain amount of drag in between, and the movie is a little bit too long for this kind of a subject. Going at a better pace would have made this movie feel even better. The number of songs could have been reduced for the same reason. The ending might not satisfy everyone, and there are things that the viewers won’t be clear about – the movie leaves one with enough to guess and more to think about. The key is to get the connection with these characters in the movie, and only after that can one get the full feeling of this movie – therefore, this movie needs its own thinking audience.

Performers of the soul :: All of us will notice how amazing a performer Chethan is with this movie, even though it is not the first time that he has brought the surprise right to us. He excels with those emotional moments, and this is more of a controlled performance which raises no questions. Tovino Thomas is not far behind here, as this character simply adds to his wonderful works, as he scores throughout this movie. There is no shortage of skills here, as we see him in this new avatar. Alencier Ley Lopez and Sudheer Karamana are there to bring some fine support to the cast. Rohini is there to add to the same, and Sreenivasan brings even more here. Sreenivasan’s role is of the most significance after the main characters too, and he remains comfortable throughout the flick. Noby Marcose adds some fun here, and the director of Maheshinte Prathikaram, Dileesh Pothan is also present in a notable role.

How it finishes :: Guppy goes through to tell its viewers the need for forgiveness. As long as that quality can get all the needed attention, life gets better. But the first kind of people whom we need to forgive are those who are yet to watch this movie. It is never too late to watch and support good movies, and with its well-designed world, Guppy provides us with more than just good times. We remember that Annmariya Kalippilaanu was another such movie that too many people missed! Guppy is the kind of movie which has the moments which will stay with us for long. It is close to the heart, and it is more about how life goes on, and how things change for the good and the bad, and Guppy shows us that it is never about being restricted to black and white, good and evil – it is more like being different people and going through our lives to get to the other end. But there is the need to be good to others, to forgive mistakes to make things better for everyone.

Release date: 5th August 2016
Running time: 158 minutes
Directed by: Johnpaul George
Starring: Tovino Thomas, Chethanlal, Sreenivasan, Rohini, Alencier Ley Lopez, Sudheer Karamana, Dileesh Pothan, Sudhi Koppa, Noby Marcose, K. L. Antony Kochi, Poojappura Ravi, Nandana Varma, Chempil Asokan, Bijitha Bhanudas, Vijayan Karanthoor, Antony Kochi, Devi Ajith, Vijilesh