Malayalam Cinema 2010 – First Quarter Roundup

vc — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 05:47:37 +0000

Jan:
The year started with Navya Nair getting married. Wisely she did not go to honeymoon in Egypt.

After facing a bad year in 2009, with only 10 movies making money out of the 79 released, Malayalam cinema made a bold move. They experimented by releasing a lousy movie with the number 2010 added to it. The movie, Drona 2010, written by A K Sajan and directed by Shaji Kailas flopped miserably, but adding 2010 helped the public because they could differentiate between the lousy Hindi one and the lousy Malayalam one. Giving it tough competition was a film which brings bottomless to bottomless pit – ”Senior Mandrake” which looked “like a lackluster production for TV that suddenly ran out of funds.”

Bad movies can only cause a slow demise. To accelerate the death of the film industry, you need politics. As usual Thilakan came to the rescue. He accused a superstar of preventing him from acting in Christian Brothers. We are sure that superstar is none other than Tom Hanks since there is always an American conspiracy to every event in Kerala.

2009 left many male viewers depressed because Sameera Reddy was supposed to act with Mohanlal in Cassanova. After spending 3.5 crore on location scouting the movie had to be shelved. So the sexually starved Malayali – as per Paul Zachariah — was happy to hear that Sameera Reddy would act with Mohanlal in Oru Naal Varum.

Meanwhile Happy Husbands turned out to be the first hit of 2010. It did not have any superstars, but had four minor stars and more than four heroines. It was colorful. It was funny. More important – it was better than Drona 2010 and Senior Mandrake.

In January, Sathyan Anthikkad, the man who is still able to make hit films with Jayaram, started work on his latest film. The film which has emotions, sentiments and humor is different from his other films which had emotions, sentiments and humor. The expected release is April.

In January Cochin Haneefa, the veteran actor of Malayalam and Tamil cinema, left earth to join Rajan P Dev, Murali and Sathyan who live in Pandora where they show better movies and the bajji is free. Meanwhile on TV, Idea Star Singer started their 212th stage with three new rounds – songs composed by Illayaraja at age 47, Swahili devotional songs and Duet with the ISS cameraman.

February:

February started with Jayaram declaring that he is a Tamilian. So for all Malayalis who thought he was a fellow Malayali – Sorry. This state change was a fallout of some dark humor. On TV he mentioned that he would not be attracted to his maid because “My maid is a dark, fat buffalo-like Tamil woman. How can I even look at her?”. The only way to escape the situation was to be Tamil himself. One Tamilian insulting another Tamilian. Problem solved. He is now in great demand as a political consultant.

February was also the month in which Malayalam Cinema made some strategic moves. Analyzing last years movies they found that even M&M cannot guarantee a film. 20-20 was a hit. So make as many miniature 20-20s as possible. This is a sureshot strategy exemplified by the success of Happy Husbands. So shooting started for movies like Pokkiri Raja (Mammotty-Prithviraj), Christian Brothers (Mohanlal, Dileep, Sharath Kumar). The iceberg which is waiting for the Titanic called Malayalam Cinema has to wait.

A quick look at the box office results showed that Shafi’s Chattambinadu was still making money and was at the No 1 position. Second was Avatar. Both Bodyguard and Drona 2010 went to the dustbin. Much awaited movie of February was Kamal’s Agathan, which went to the place where recent Kamal movies go – the barnyard up in the sky.

Mammotty did not say Thilakan was nuts, but AMMA – the judge and executioner of Malayalam cinema did. Innocent asked Thilakan to apologize. Thilakan asked Communist Party to interneve. Communist Party asked Thilakan who are you? Then Sukumar Azhikode jumped into the fray and said Mohanlal’s romantic scenes are obscene to which Namitha got offended. The public wanted this to be made into a movie called 30-30.

Meanwhile on TV, Idea Star Singer progressed to the 213th stage, where all candidates we put in the elimination round and then restored back using various excuses. Mayans probably saw this and predicted the end of the world to put an end to this program.

March:

Some thinkers think that Superstars are the bane of Malayalam cinema. Just replace them and flowers will rain from the heaven and Urvashi, Rambha & Mumaith Khan will dance all around. Just like how Tom throws a live dynamite to Jerry’s face, Malayalam Cinema threw four new movies on the face of those thinkers: Cheriya Kallanum Valiya Policeum, Nanthuni, Kausthubham and Valiyangadi. The thinkers threw those movies back at Malayalam Cinema and there was a loud explosion to Scott Bradley’s music.

Thilakan vs Alphabet Soup organizations was still the biggest news in March. Various pedestrians like Vellapally Nadesan, Late Veerappan, all jumped into the fight and Malayalam news channels gave proper publicity to this feud. If this was made into a movie, it would have fared better than Cheriya Kallanum Valiya Policeum, Nanthuni, Kausthubham and Valiyangadi.

One of the hyped up movies was Nayakan. This was not Maniratnam’s Nayakan, but a local variant in which Indrajith plays a Kathakali artiste “, who has to wage a battle against a world of crime and injustice“. This is quite different from films like Puthiyamugham and Chess because the heroine is different. Then guess what. It turned out to be a decent movie.

Looking for divine inspiration to save Malayalam Cinema, the industry turned towards two people who know the pulse of Malayalis. These people have been in every possible situation you can imagine and have an opinion on everything under the sun. We are talking of Boban and Moly.

Malayalam Cinema has two thinkers: Mammootty and Prithviraj. If you have listened to any of their interviews,(samples here and here), they have an opinion on everything from how to repair the Hubble telescope to eradicate flooding in Machu Picchu. One talent they both lost in March was in reading scripts. Mammotty acted in a movie called Pramani which was a poor man’s version of Parunthu, which was a poor man’s version of Vargam, which was a poor man’s version of Devasuram. Prithviraj meanwhile acted in a movie called Thanthonni which was a clone of Puthiyamugham and various Jayan movies. Worse, there were suggestions that Prithviraj was aping Mohanlal and many scenes were chopped from the movie. Both movies(Pramaani and Thanthonni) collected firewood, lay on top, and lit the pyre themselves.

While Malayalam cinema continued providing the same fare and wondering why movies are flopping, Idea Star Singer moved to the 214th stage, where again all candidates were again put in elimination round and restored back. This time viewers who had died during stage 1 and reincarnated were also added as new contestants.

PS: Mohanlal didn’t have any releases in 2010′s first quarter, but he was busy facing googlies from Thilakan and Sukumar Azhikkode

PPS: In Ghost House Inn shows promise in the box office, but lacks in content.

Review Roundup: Drona 2010

vc — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 01:14:44 +0000

No surprises here, Shaji Kailas’ recent track record is intact. Do the actors read script before they commit?
NowRunning.com comments:

They say, without a striking clincher, the spectacular build up simply isn’t worth much. Shaji Kailas’ Drona talks a lot about what is to take place, and much to our chagrin, not a thing happens.

It has to be accepted that Drona is one of the best attempts by Shaji Kailas in recent times. This is unlikely to work in the film’s favor though, because the last few of his cinematic outings have been anything but comparable. But the director who had flashed those sparks of brilliance some years back, and who had since disappeared into the shadows is out again in Drona. The film accentuates that all is not lost and the man still has got it in him.

Rediff.com comments:

When a film’s title is chosen based on some weird superstition; what more can we say about it? It is believed that the makers of the Malayalam film Drona 2010 added the numerals to the title because a film with the same name had failed in other languages.

The movie directed by Shaji Kailas, written by Sajan A K and starring Mammootty, is supposed to be a spook fest but is anything but.

As for the story, it is about two wealthy families involved in a feud for generations. One side is always trying to get even all the time but fails. You get a sense of déjà vu as you have seen at least half a dozen films with the same premise every year.

IndiaGlitz reviews:

Even after an array of flops, it seems that director Shaji Kailas has not yet figured that style and substance alone cannot make a good, commercial potboiler. What essentially needed is a promising story that can make the viewers sing-to its tunes and wonder at its narratives. Shaji’s latest product ‘Drona 2010’ also seems to a confused product, which hardly will appeal too much of the masses.

The highlight of the movie is definitely its lead star Mammootty, this time in twin roles as the young Kunjunni and his brother Pattazhy Madhavan. Kunjunni, the younger Mammootty is basically an atheist who lives a flamboyant life. Not believing much in the stories about the ghosts in Nelloore Mana, he comes up to buy the ancestral house. But inside the Mana he gets the real taste of the unusual and even after a tough fight to escape, he fails. And now arrives Patatzhi Madhavan, his elder brother who lives like a sanyasi, to clear off the mystery that is surrounding the house of horror. He succeeds in driving out the screaming ghost from the house but there was much more which intrigued him and make him realise that the whole revenge story happening there is dated back to generations.

varnachitram » Drona 2010

Malayalam Cinema 2010 – First Quarter Roundup

Review Roundup: Drona 2010