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Parking Lot Notes: Thupparivaalan

TP3

It begins with the light of a matchstick, an aide in a search or the dispeller of darkness.

That is what essentially a detective story is about; the search for answers and the journey into the unknown.

The detective, our guide or sometimes a co-traveller.

While the opening statement might seem grandiose, this was the first thing that struck (like that match) while watching Mysskin’s Thupparivalan. A detective also fits the mould of the director’s heroes who are seekers.

Fitment is also found in the casting of Vishal (also the producer) as the tall, loner with a bent towards the martial arts as Kaniyan, the detective of the film, but movie making is not just casting.

Thinking through the course of the movie (which the movie allows you to do once you catch it by the flow,which would not be tough if you had been living with a steady supply of detective novels) made me wonder why there was something missing in this homage to the creations of Conan Doyle.

Everything seems to be in place, which by itself is a cause of worry.

While Kaniyan’s room looks like it has been vacated by the BBC and not a living room that would suit the city in which this movie is set, the detective and his trusted sidekick seem to advertising for Indian Terrain in the meanwhile.

I dwell on these extraneous factors only because the characters are flat, whether this is a conscious decision is something best left to the maker.

A character being flat in a film, which more or less depends on the interest created by that lead character, is what I deduct to be the problem.  Especially when your lead is a character that is a shade of the great detective (Sherlock, as we speak is one of the most assumed characters on the screen).

Great ‘Holmes’ of the past have been played by dramatic actors, this would include Jeremy Brett who made the role his own, portrayals since have been either variations of what Brett did or to do what Brett did not do and hence stand out.

The eccentric nature of the Holmes-ian character cries out loud for an expressive actor who can control his/her expressions, which is why I insisted on the word ‘dramatic’; that was the big miss and thus bringing down the levels of excitement.

Sensation and excitement are two keys to the same room in a detective story; Thupparivalan on the other hand is locked in another room filled with Mysskian tick-tock henchmen, beautiful pick pockets and a climax that would reiterate that we already have the best locales for filming. It could be great cinema, but is it engaging?

The Sherlock Holmes homage pool is an ever-deepening one and whether Thupparivalan enriches this pool is something that needs to be seen, but for Tamil Cinema we now have a mainstream detective and I have Arrol Corelli’s teaser music on loop.

 

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cinema cinema:tamil FRS

FRS: AAA

AAA1 copy

 

So, you guys are quite familiar with what FRS is right? Right?

We have no idea why we keep asking this, but it cuts the cackle and come to the osses’.

Yes, that is a phrase.

It is a phrase like how AAA is a movie.

+500: This movie got made, absolutely. Like if you are screenwriter, which means you are also the director here and if you walk up to a financier and say that this is going to be my movie, we don’t know; maybe there a lot of risk hungry financiers out there or let’s just call this Avant-garde art film( we have no idea what it means, but if you are in a written quiz this phrase will fetch you part points somewhere), because none of us are equipped to even classify what AAA is.

What is AAA? Let’s find out seekers of the truth, let’s find out.

-5: above phrase has repetition, to add effect.

-389.108: narration irritations, like seventy years of movie making and people can’t kick this habit and in AAA we don’t even know who is narrating, some old fellow somewhere in dubai etc, the whole film is narrated in his POV but then again scenes are not written from his POV which means that we are shown things that he has no way of knowing, this is simple boss, why should we keep saying these things. Who is this narrator guy anyway? Troubling.

Just start with something like you guys know what FRS is right? Right? People who know will follow, others will find out, if they want.

-10: Dubai

-25: If hero goes to Dubai he will become a Don only (not oxford don, underworld don)

This is of course an extension of the rule, if hero goes to X location, he will become an underworld don only. No other occupation is worthy of the Tamil movie hero, he is either simpleton farmer, urban agitator or underworld don.

He protects the masses in all cases. Of course, gets the girl also.

Introducing let’s blame it on Godfather clause, ever since Coppola’s movie came out, every other filmmaker thinks it is the best profession for mass hero which results in over romanticising of illegal activities. Like have u guys seen Goodfellas or not?

-15: Madurai

If hero is from Madurai he will not be veterinary doctor, he will be ‘veritanama killer’ only, also obviously, he will work for a don there, like not even freelancing.

-30: Movie made with the assumption that even killing a life is justifiable, as long it is done by a hero.

+50: Hero syndrome: In AAA hero’s friends believe that Madurai Michael is special, but example of his speciality is ever displayed, yes he kills people for living, but then friends be like “Wow da dei super da, semma da”.

In real life, real friends assess you and bluntly put out your lack of talent in stuff out in the open.

Like how our friends tell us all the time that we suck at writing, but we continue to, maybe we should get some cinematic friends who praise even the shite that we write.

Nevertheless, this is becoming too emotional for us.

-10: Hero’s friends have no reason to be alive expect to sing praise of the hero.

Update to the reader: 500 words and we haven’t even come to the opening song sequence yet

We try and improve our vocabulary once in a while, like hey, we are writers you know and the new word we are using here is: demure.

-12: Demure lady falls in love with demolishing hero trope. Also, if you are contract killer in Madurai, you have enough time to do romance and all. Must be good profession.  But no work from home option available since it is an on the road job. Hmm.

+50: Opening song, hero claims that he is no one without us. (not the Laureate, us here refers to the audience at the large). Which is true because we buy tickets.

-17: Why will a town celebrate a contract killer, who like weekly kills one of their own is a big question that needs answering. Unless of course Madurai Michael and STR are used interchangeably.

-25: Heroine’s father portrayed like a stupid man who has a ‘thing’ for switches, the sad state of heroine’s father is a sorrow song in the history of tamil cinema.

Notice how Y Gee Mahendran has Bhiarava wig.

Everybody has a wig in Madurai, hair raising city.

-10: Mouth to mouth resuscitation which can bring back a life in emergencies is used for comedy effect

-10: Something something happens and we end up with an old STR who is an ex-underworld don but now in Chennai feeding pigeons under the alias Ashwin Thata.

Yes, really.

<Insert Interval Block here>

 

-12: Thata means not really thata, Simbu looks more like middle aged only, but I guess at this point in the movie they don’t really care.

-51: failed prosthetics is failed only. Gurunathar Michael Westmore will not be happy.

+34: Ashwin Thata wears good clothes that even IT employees don’t get to wear on fun Fridays.

If you don’t know fun Fridays, then you are better off not knowing.

+5: Tammanna aka Tammy plays a social worker who life mission is to bring happiness to the lives of elders.

+6: Since Tammy is doing this social service, we hope this will be followed by millions of youth

+11: Heavy duty Tammy dancing, not Devi level though

-57: All songs whenever, wherever, most mimic STRs previous films, tune setting everything

+5: veteran Nilu calling up STR and addressing him as Machi. LOL

Suddenly Tammy & thata become expert painters of portraits, when and where did they learn this art, do underworld dons go to summer camps with kids to learn water colors?

Interesting questions, no answers

A repenting ageing don, seeking to colour the rest of his life by joining a summer painting class. Now that’s a movie there. Go make it,  ideas are not only bulletproof, here we give it for free.

-91: Director thinks mere presence of Mottai Rajendran and Kovai Sarala will make us laugh like anything, like they need to do something hai na?

+100: Director gives three to four movies for the price of one, in fact AAA is an assemblage of all STR films put together, there is a monologue like VTV about love, there is the age difference love matter from Vallavan, there is the I will do anything for my friends thingy also from Vallavan, there is the “Dei all girls will ematify boys” from Manmadan, heck there is even a recreation of Thallipogadey from AYM with Mottai Rajendran and Kovai Sarala.

The last bit is a must watch for sophisticated GVM fans.

Yes, all of this is there in this one movie, in fact all of this happens in the second half which means that this movie has taken controlled randomness to a different level.

You know something is going to happen, but you don’t know what, but you can guess it is from an earlier STR film.

AAA itself is an existential film where STR lays out all his glories and worries right before the audience and asks them to choose what path he must take, it is really deep that way.

-56: Three four fights happen, but we didn’t really get what was happening

-26: Two hours into movie and director cannot decide if the movie is romance, gangster or comedy

-71: Tammy thinks (or director wants tammy character to think) Rajni+Kamal=STR (actual line, not extrapolated by FRS fact checking team)

-34: Hero spends two minutes explaining to everyone the ill effects of drinking.

Starts drinking next second

+68.91: Thikku Siva LOL Spoilers LOL

-145: General discourse on how boys and how girls are….yeppa yawn

<Insert cue for part two>

<Yes there is more>

Until then it is goodbye from

THE FRS Team

Subam

Vanakkam

Categories
cinema cinema:tamil FRS

FRS: Singam 3

So you all know what an FRS is right? right? OK

s3_3

-5 : For every fellow who said Singam 3 is very loud, boss he is shouting in the poster for Godsake, also you do some 300 poster/teaser breakdown videos, like you didn’t expect it or what?

Singam is supposed to be loud, that is the point, what did u expect Silence?

Adhu Scorsese film.

#HariDa

<Adra! Adra! Adra! Adra!> read it in caps

+151.3: Hari, perhaps the only big budget director currently operating with a stamp of his own, commercial filmmakers mostly focus on the returns, but Hari is perhaps the only one who focuses on increasing excitement film after film, testimony to this is the title credits of a lion literally jumping over roman numerals I and II, only to leap over a gigantic III and roaring at those assembled.

I mean what’s not to like.

+1.5 Tonne: Suriya, yow what a performance; we were reading somewhere that for an audience to feel what actor is doing on screen, the actor must really feel what is really happening around him, Suriya takes method acting and combines it with monstrous rage.

As DCP Duraisingam Singam, Suriya becomes his own animal (see even we write such loaded phrases) , throughout the movie the camera and Suriya try and compete with Hari’s screenplay.  Faaaaar better than when he is restricting himself in other films(hi to Pasanga 2 and such), maybe a component of Singam-rage is against his other directors?

Only time will tell.

So fast is that what is happening on screen that if you allow it in the Olympics, it would win a medal or something (we write such phrases as well )

Also watch out for the 1.5 tonne reference

-712: Shruti Haasan,

or in other words, because we killed Hansika in the previous film (same character, different occupation)

+45: Home Minister Vijaykumar: for being the longest serving Home Minister and having more powers than American President so that he can send Duraisingam to any corner of the universe and take over cases, i think Singam 4 will be about how some Russians steal cement from Thoothukudi for the international space station and only Duraisingam can bring it back.

+007: Yes, Duraisingam is our James Bond, like really he is, well he doesn’t sleep around and has family and all and drinks only green tea, but really he is. Bond too is driven by rage and patriotism (which again came into much question, when the character turned gray), but even he wont be able to match Duraisingam in commitment

Open thread:  Also what is with this liking towards gray characters? why a film with gray protagonist always treated with some deference, here in Singam good cop vs bad guys, why should the film be anything else?

-95.7: Soori, not even telling how bad this comedy track is

+6: Even in item song, Duraisingam will be watching for clues, rest of audience is watching Neetu Chandra

-6: Item song

+120: 2nd Biggest mystery in Indian Cinema answered in SIngam 3, no not telling what it is

+61: For a villain who has memorized latitude and longitude of every place, I have not seen anything like this before and another villain whose cheeks vibrate like a suppressed mobile phone (yes)

+10: When Government has any doubts in Indian Penal Code, they can ask Duraisingam, a hero who knows his law and a villain who loves geography, this is really the most academic movie I have seen since Pallikoodam.

-42: In Singam 2, Duraisingam climbed up and down a full mountain in 2 minutes, nothing in Singam 3 has been able to match that, but almost running down a plane using a police jeep is almost there

s3_4

-214: Drones: there are only three types of shots in the film and shot-breakdown is as follows

Singam rage shot: focuses on him mouth dialogues, total rage in closeup (11%)

360 Singam shot: camera going all over the world to cover action sequences without skipping a beat (4%)

Drone Shot(85%): Every other shot in this movie is a drone shot, sometimes in the second half we began to think whether we are sitting in movie theatre or watching the world from a chartered flight. DEI!

Movie could have been called Singam III: Attack of the Drones

-20: Ethical Hacking monologue, also first Tamil movie to feature ethical hacker Ankit Fadia look-alike

-4: Ankit Fadia

-52: All songs whenever, wherever, I mean Harris Jayraj would have taken a holiday to some Bodhidharmar cave for peace and self reflection because, this movie is totally NOT for him, even Adra! Adra! Adra! doesnt make it.

#MissingYouDSP, but yeah Duraisingam shouting would have drowned the BGM anyways.

+77: Something , something , something happens, before you reach halfway point in popcorn box, movie is actually over.

No really it is like that.

Hari never disappoints, he gives you 1200 for your 120 rs!

It is not like you are going to remember the scenes.

+44: Singam films offer a kind of high that most films can only aspire about, coming out of the theatre, people were seen walking in upright swagger and showing symptoms of wanting to hit someone right in the middle of the head.

Yes even some FRS writers reported this feeling.

This however can be calmed by listening to some eight hours of Gangubhai hangal type music, only then.

Just beware if you are a person of dubious character, Duraisingam might just be a phone call away. We loved it, we really did.

All numbers incidental and arbitrary.

Subam

THE FRS TEAM

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
cinema cinema:tamil FRS Uncategorized

FRS: Bogan

 

Hi

 

Right, we all know what an FRS is right? right?

 

bogan1

+50: Hero is Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) which is the go-to designation for heroes playing cops, TN Police in an unofficial statement said that the morale of ACP aspirants had gone up by 50% since Tamil cinema discovered the post. Jeyam Ravi is the 300th person to don the role. He himself had played the designation a record 12 times.

-12: Hero is honest means it is assured that hero’s family is also honest to the core, sometimes we are confused if this is family or Sabarmati Ashram.

-17: Hero’s house looks like proper Madras type building, inside however the decor looks like some castle in Budapest (are there castles in Budapest? i dunno, Europe is out of portions for me); maybe art director landed up at the different film set.

I wonder.

-81: Supporting characters as non entities, basically I believe characters are written only for top billed actors (if writing is actually thought of value in a film), it is like Aadukalam Naren means father only, and since we have seen him play the same role so many times, same case with Saranya Ponnvanan. Like while writing they just give names I guess.

-10.78: Hansika’s name is Mahalakshmi Azhagamperumal, is like rooted to society in naming if characters, but casting? Oh well, lets not be unkind.

-12: Hansika’s voice seems to have been dubbed by the person who dubbed for Dora in the tamil version of Dora the Explorer , if someone clarifies that this was for comedic effect, we will of course revert the points to positive. Thank you.

-41: This movie wouldn’t have been made, if Thani Oruvan had not happened, which is quite sad because Thani Oruvan is actually quite good.

bogan3

-31.23333: Director doesn’t realize that characters only came back in their own sequel/franchise model; is not like Aravind Swamy can go on playing Sidharth Abhimanyu (his role from Thani Oruvan) in ever film, here of course he plays Aditya Verma(Varma?) which is just Sidharth Abhimanyu with a different name.

-5: I have signed on Aravind Swamy, so he will always speak in ‘deeeeep’ voice type commitment

+10: Archaeological Survey of India

-107: So Aditya Verma (Varma?) is actually shown as a prince, whose family had lost all their possessions because Government of India took all of it, which at some point seems acceptable, but what isn’t acceptable is that they actually show the Red Fort as one Verma (varma?)’s palaces.

Before you say WTF, they show Mysore Palace as well, we waited till end credits in the hope that they are going to show Marlinspike Hall as Arvind Swamy’s summer home.

Umm..no luck

-120: Maan Karate rule of abuse of spiritual power (or) The Baba theory of kite wishing

In other words whenever in a Tamil film, a character is bestowed with some sort of divine power, they put it to the most trivial tests.

-23:  Hero climbing out of helicopter and walking slowly is considered as Masss/Style. Edho

+55: Hansika goes to TASMAC and asks for a drink so that she can be bold and stuff, sensing this is the first portrayal of dutch courage on the tamil screens, yes were are now international #ulagacinema

-7: Even while drunk, heroine will talk about numerology #yeppa

+16: SJ Suryah references! (Is this a positive or a negative, benefit of doubt based positive)

+41: One scene or is it half a scene (are there half scenes? dammit we are so under prepared as reviewers) in which Arvind Swamy speaks to himself in a mirror

+5: For the number of newsminute articles on sexism in the tamil filmdom, this movie will lend itself to as fodder.

-190.59: If you have been seeing movies on a regular basis, twists in a film stop registering or creating an effect on you after a point of time, especially in a film which uses the reviewer friendly phrase of ‘cat and mouse’ type format, where there is a supposed battle of wits and there are crosses, double crosses and railway crosses happening, sleep comes to you automatically. Maybe this should be prescribed to insomniacs.

-21: Second half of movie should have been titled ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Long’

First part should be titled, ‘wait till you get to the second half’

-37: All songs whenever, wherever, special mention to a party number which spells out BOGAN 300 times, troubling.

+11: the fact that Bogan rhymes with Dragon has been used to good effect.

-91: Commisioner of Police Control Room Server maintenance will take 15 minutes only, dei

0: Movie comes close to being actually bold at one point, but never really is. I am guessing the director should have stuck with his Dutch Courage theme.

-151: Some kind of logic this police offer hero has, whenever there is a video evidence, you take multiple copies of it for safety, you don’t destroy other copies, edho da.

-78.91: All commercial movies will end in a pointless fight in Chennai Harbour, and there is this promise of sequel also.

+5: Expected the movie to be troubling, was not disappointed.

bogan4

All numbers are irrelevant and arbitrary. All spelling and grammar mistakes are intentional, because we dont know grammar only. Semi-colon. LOL;

The FRS team

Subam

Categories
cinema cinema:tamil FRS

FRS: Remo

The last time we did FRS or the Fawlty (Faulty) Rating System, we decided that this does not in anyway add to the discourse on film, it was a cheap way to get back at films that we did not like.

But things change.

Maybe some movies still do need to be ‘tried’ by FRS.

We thank Sivakarthikeyan for bringing us back to life.

remo-sathyam

-3: Narration

-6: Narration by Sj Suryah

-23: Hero is jobless, but one respite is that, he is trying for a job. Job here is to become the next acting sensation.

-10: His friends equally jobless, their lives are entwined with the life of our hero; who has no life anyways.

-78: Irritating yellow antique car is irritating, like let us spend a moment on this; i guess this car whatever model that is (soon to be a quiz question) is the male equivalent of the yellow vespa which is the default vehicle of all Tamil heroines for the past few years. I mean I understand that this is done to increase the classiness of the picture, but hero can sell that car for fortune and make his own movie only. Edho da, this is the poor hero with antique car- kadhalikka neramillai 1960s trope.

-12: Hero has doting mother, but of course. No, ok let us settle this right here, just because we know that Saranya Ponvannan is playing mother should we like think this is the extension of all the mother characters that she has played before? How do you even convey the script to her? ‘Madam, this is the same thing that you did in OKOK and zillion other films”. Also all mothers are doting on sons, except when not scolding kid for not getting job.

-5: KS Ravikumar wants to make Avvai Shanmugi part two

-45.6: Hero can do everything in life except love scenes, because he is very shy yaar, no experience with other girls

-24: Number of Rajni+Ajith+Vijay references in the movie is more than the number of pages in the movie script (well this is a fairly passable assumption)

-10: Apart from the above mentioned references, SK (which is SivaK rebranded and dumped on us as an excuse movie character-regular hero) makes references to his own films, atleast most of them in his looooong career. No we like self referential irreverance and all that, just we are being extra unkind here. Yes our tone is set.

-3000: LOL Cupid uses iPad for project management. Like how are cupids able to procure these gadgets? What is their allocated budget? and how many arrows are cupids allowed to have? How do they decide on projects? No i seriously want to know! Atleast that would be more interesting.

-78.99: Love

This is where it begins. Cupid strikes arrow at SK, now he is in love with some random girl walking on street on the way to work. This could happen to anyone.ANYONE

-100: AIM OF EVERY BOY’S LIFE IS TO GET LOVER GIRL WHO IS CUTE

-26: Hero believes that he is in love, because director has arranged for cute breeze to hit his face while heroine goes past. Dei in chennai no breeze da and you are not standing in beach road also. Summa.

-52: Hero follows heroine to supermarket. Maybe he thought it was important for him to know her favorite brand of curd. many serious reviewers have written about the different ways in which stalking is advocated in this film, if we start deducting points for each and every attempt then this will become like one 2G scam number only.

-52:  after what seems like 11 years of stalking, hero finally wants to speak to girl thing, but girl is getting engaged to some pune guy at the same moment.

+30: Girls parents think it is good to conduct engagement on flat terrace, i mean this is the sort of cost cutting that one likes to do in real life.

-10: for an engagement that happens on a terrace, it is WAY TOOO GRAND, only elephants they didnt call.

-40: whenever such engagements happen, hero will come and stand exactly opposite to the stage, so that camera man can focus on his sad face cliche, also flowers that he brings will fall on floor in slow motion. We would like to cut more points for the roses, but being kind here.

-3: You guessed it right, guy who is not hero but engaged to heroine is an ass of the highest order, although this will be revealed to you later in the movie. Yikes, spoliers

-10: for us, we gave away spoilers.

-15: Weta Workshop,

-98: Heroine is a doctor. But obviously the every moment she is on screen confirms our fears that surely she got through due to management quota or being cute.

-100K: Cuteness. Default character toolkit for heroines, if you do not want to take the glamour route that is (however eventually that too happens). Will come and say in any court that cinema is the main contributor for some stupid men thinking that girls like these actually exist and yearn for them. Being cute is to be a puppy but in human form, you have to appropriately curve your lips, widen eyes, take 300/moment selfies, draw in smileys, basically do these things so that some male fantasy is satisfied somewhere.

Because self righteous men can be graciously seen as fans of ‘cute heroines’. In the battle for cute vs hot (hot being the other kind in the heroine character toolkit, which is basically baring midriff and grooving to folk songs in some rustic background and biting chilli in close-up), hot is actually more honest (which is like, this is what you want, this is what we will show which is again wrong. Dei everything in heroine character writing is wrong only)

But this cute variety is a major killer and casual disrespect and utter disregard for heroine’s intelligence and esp in this movie when she is said doctor. And that cuteness happens only in U certificate films is an even more troubling thing.

Again, how does director come and say, “Madam, you have to turn up on set and be cute?” What fakery.

-20: Hospitals have advanced to the level that now they are indistinguishable from day care centres.

-150: using a child’s illness to progress your plot. yes, this happens.

-20: All songs, whenever.

All songs look the same btw. if you watch on mute, you might think all picturisations are same. Also some three colour gradient is used in the songs, we dont know why.

-5: Prataph Pothen

-20: Hero is best reader of body language, he can see love in heroine’s eyes. Also he wont take no for an answer (maybe he has not seen Pink). Heroine after saying no many times finally says yes, because arranged marriage is for fools and ugly peoples (actual dialogue)

-60: Suddenly pune doctor becomes villain, suddenly hero also becomes bruce lee type fighter.

-80: Cheating and confusing girls is ok as long as you spend some 20 seconds being remorseful. Also hero’s mother believes that what hero does is actually valiant. Hero’s friend advises against it, the only sane voice in the movie, no wonder he is playing the comedian.

+20: Chennai, some snobs still will call ‘madras’ but yeah good outdoor locations, this actually felt like a city film because mostly was shot outdoors in the locations that we go and come on a daily basis, and chennai still has a lot of those locations, good use of chennai metro as well, but as in all movies, here also it rains whenever hero and heroine want to kiss. But actually in chennai, it rains only for three days or something. I guess this is a very PC Sreeram thing, of shooting outdoorsy, dunno just guessing.

-10: For everyone telling, dei this is entertainment da, it will be like this only. What da we shouldnt ask anything? And why should we leave our brains at home whole watching films, is that even a valid expression

-3: for every reviewer who used the phrase “leave your brain at home”

Atleast i dont know, i have never made a film, maybe it is difficult to make a film which is entertaining but not irresponsible, but state that with your ‘alcohol is injurious to health’ message.

We are actually sad that people are profiteering from movies like these, I’m all okie if such movies come and no one watches them, but this will be a Blockbuster Budhan and now everyone will continue to make them, hence we can never stop FRS, which is even sad.

All this sadness is making us angry. Hulk level.

Edho da. Be happy. You have cracked the commercial code. We are only idiots.

As in every FRS, all numbers are surely random and arbitary, they do not mean anything.