#KaakkaMuttai #IndianTamilFilmMovieReview #JohnsonThomas #Rating: * * * 1/2

#KaakkaMuttai #IndianTamilFilmMovieReview #JohnsonThomas #Rating: * * * 1/2

#PicksAndPiquesSnippetFilmReview5thJune2015 #JohnsonThomas

                      

#PicksAndPiquesSnippetFilmReview5thJune2015

#JohnsonThomas

#DilDhadakneDo(Hindi) Rating: * *1/2 A ship-board family drama that doesn’t pick up steam or allow for emotive attachment. The 2 hr 50 min runtime is a weight that pulls it down further disallowing any chance of swimming with the tide. Performances are quite good and the writing has it’s sublime moments but the high society characterizations don’t ring true, Aamir’s ‘Pluto’ avatar as narrator is tedious and the contrived ending doesn’t fit in with realistic tenets. #ZoyaAkhtar #ReemKatgi #ExcelEntertainment #FarhanAkhtar #RanveerKapoor #AnushkaSharma #AnilKapoor #ShefaliShah #SpicePR #JungleeMovies #AjayBijli #AamirKhan

#LateefTheUnfoldFact(Hindi) Rating: No Show. This one crawled out of the wood work, has #NawazuddinSiddiqui (in his lean phase), in the lead and is pretty much fated to tank given the low-brow marketing campaign and unremarkable treatment

#KaakkaMuttai(Tamil/EnglishSubtitles)) Rating:* * * ½ Highly endearing and heart-warming. This celebrated Tamil film with English subtitles, superb award winning performances from the two young leads and gritty realistic direction from cinematographer turned director MManikandan, draws you in with it’s aspirational, heart touching story and robust vivacity. #RameshThilaganathan  #JVignesh #MManikandan #Dhanush #FoxStarStudios #Wunderbar

#WhatWeDidOnOurHoliday(English) Rating: * * * Would have got an additional half-star if the censors had not mutilated the dialogues with incessant beeps. Nevertheless, this is a quirky British comedy set in beauteous Scotland, with  some really ingenious kid players powering it’s  amiability and far-out ideology. SGNMediaworks #PrakashKhetpal #GrasshopperEvents&Communications #RosamundPike #DavidTenant #BillyConolly #AndyHamilton #GuyJenkin #PVRDirectorsRare #BBCFilms

#TheAgeOfAdaline(English) Rating: * * * ½ A superbly plotted timeless romance that draws you in with conviction and grit in spite of  it’s confounding preposterous premise. The implausible becomes plausible here and that’s why it’s a winner. #Pictureworks #PVRPictures #BlakeLively #HarrisonFord #MichielHuisman #EllenBurstyn #AmandaCrew #KathyBaker #LeeTolandKrieger

  #BestFilmsReleasedthisWeek5thJune 2015 #JohnsonThomas

                      

#BestFilmsReleasedthisWeek5thJune2015 #JohnsonThomas

#TheAgeOfAdaline(English) Rating: * * * ½ A superbly plotted timeless romance that draws you in with conviction and grit in spite of  it’s confounding preposterous premise. The implausible becomes plausible here and that’s why it’s a winner. #Pictureworks #PVRPictures #BlakeLively #HarrisonFord #MichielHuisman #EllenBurstyn #AmandaCrew #KathyBaker #LeeTolandKrieger

#KaakkaMuttai(Tamil/EnglishSubtitles)) Rating:* * * ½ Highly endearing and heart-warming. This celebrated Tamil film with English subtitles, superb award winning performances from the two young leads and gritty realistic direction from cinematographer turned director MManikandan, draws you in with it’s aspirational, heart touching story and robust vivacity. #RameshThilaganathan  #JVignesh #MManikandan #Dhanush #FoxStarStudios #Wunderbar

#WhatWeDidOnOurHoliday(English) Rating: * * * Would have got an additional half-star if the censors had not mutilated the dialogues with incessant beeps. Nevertheless, this is a quirky British comedy set in beauteous Scotland, with  some really ingenious kid players powering it’s  amiability and far-out ideology. SGNMediaworks #PrakashKhetpal #GrasshopperEvents&Communications #RosamundPike #DavidTenant #BillyConolly #AndyHamilton #GuyJenkin #PVRDirectorsRare

 Indian Tamil(English Subtitles) Film Review

Johnson Thomas

A genuine charmer!

Film: Kaakka Muttai(The Crow’s Egg)

Cast: Aishwarya Rajesh, Ramesh Thilaganathan, Ramesh and Vignesh.

Director: M Manikandan

Rating: * * * ½

Runtime: 110 mins

Kaakka Muttai (The Crow’s Egg)  directed by noted cinematographer M Manikandan, under Dhanush’s production house Wunderbar,  and accompanied by fluent music by GV Prakash, is a childrens’ film with a difference. Starring newcomers, the film is a stirring adventure drawn from the lives of two brothers (Ramesh and Vignesh, National Award winners for their performance in this film) who reside in a tiny hut in a Chennai slum colony along with their sole bread-winner mother(Aishwariya Rajesh) and an ailing grandmother. Their father is in prison so the boys contribute their bit to the family kitty by selling coal that they find strewn across the railway tracks. Like any other kid, they too dream of owning a mobile, wearing new clothes, getting gifts, and watching TV. The boys constantly beg their mother and grandmother for toys they can't afford and when the government gifts them a free television and they see the ad for a new Pizza joint that has set up shop right outside their slum colony, having a Pizza becomes their new craze. Their mother is not amused and grandmother tries her best to cook up a ingeniously similar looking dosa pizza but the boys want the real thing and are ingenious enough to try and earn the money, an exorbitant Rs300 /- , in order to buy it themselves. Unfortunately even after getting together the required money they are unable to convince the Pizza joint owner to let them inside the joint. Humiliated and slapped in front of their friends who record the incident on their stolen mobile the boys go back , deciding to come back wearing new clothes. In the meantime politicians and local hoodlums get involved and the story takes a turn for the worse before it gets better for the boys.

Manikandan’s sophomore effort achieves a stirring adventure vibe with fun added on, as the intrepid twosome experiencve several setbacks and become unknowing puppets in a class struggle that comes to the fore towards the film’s climactic moments. The jovial jauntiness that was the highlight of the boys’ pursuit of their culinary dreams, gets replaced by clashes between within class and haves and have-nots. The best part of the movie though, is strong family construct in the slum situation and the incredible verve on display as the family embraces hope despite unending setbacks. The character driven plotting of the earlier section gets replaced by contrived shenanigans of the political and PR kind. Above all it’s the strong sense of optimism on display here, that makes this experience a heart-warming one.

Johnson Thomas

Johnsont307@gmail.com