Filmmaking 101

A hilarious review of Anniyan in Raman's blog. Check it out here. Absolutely spot on, especially the analogy to Onion.

There was a time, when I used to like such movies. I wonder why I ever grew up hence. Life was so simple with poor taste.

It confirms my longheld belief that all Shankar knows is two genres of filmmaking- Love and the supposed "Socially-Relevant" cinema- which he happily alternates between. And hopes that we being the brainless twits that we are, don't notice that it is the same story again and again. And again.

I wouldn't blame him for thinking that though, given our track record with the kind of movies that we help become Super/Mega/Ultra Hits.

Coming to think of it, there is a specific formula that we all readily fall for.

1) ALL socially relevant Shankar films will have a flashback. No questions asked. The flashback will involve one relative of the protagonist dying due to some government servant/politician's neglect. Usually this will be followed by some scenes of extraordinary hamming.

2) There will also be a "makkal" scene- where various sections of society will voice support for the hero- for example, college gals will drool, "Hey paar ya! Indian thatha style! Kewl!!", or old ladies will scream, "Pugalendhi dhaanungo!"

3) There will definitely be a Matrix style stunt scene. People will scale buildings with the ease of a Zhang Ziyi in Crouching Tiger. Motorcycles will jump 20 feet up and then decide to explode. Sometimes cars will jump over trains, and coconut trees will uproot automatically and soar into the heavens. Sometimes, when the hero breaks the villain's hand, there will be a zoom-in to an X-ray shot where we get visual confirmation of the fracture, in case we had feared that it was a mere sprain.
(Although, to be really fair, this technique has been borrowed from Sarath Kumar's follow-up to Lion King, Deewan.)

4) All songs will have graphics which will be stupid, kitschy, or both. Hero and heroine will jump into the air, the frame will freeze and the screen colour will suddenly become dull, the world will revolve around them, and then after a few seconds of suspended animation where we are supposed to hold our breath, the lovers will resume normal movement and fall gleefully into each others' arms. There will also be a man-to-animal transformation. Like Kamal Hassan will morph into an Iguana, lion, etc. or Manivannan and Vadivelu will reveal a snaky aspect to their character hitherto unknown to mankind.

5) Shankar's films will depict "cool" people by having them spout Thanglish in ludicrous westernized accents. Funnily enough, many people seem to share his opinon.

Thalaivar Rajnikanth has a few formulae as well. Will probably dedicate a post for that on one of those long, rainy afternoons.

And yes, in Sun TV Lion Dates Top 10 Movies fashion: Anniyan, Saniyan.

Irrelevant Film Fact of the Day: Did you know that there is a Telugu actor who actually goes by the sobriquet, "Challenging Star"? I wonder what they intended.