(Disclaimer : All characters referred to in this post are NOT figments of my imagination. If there is any resemblance to reel life characters, it is exactly whom you think they are.)
Imagine this - Our 'Mr.Ilaya thazhavali[sic]' Vijay after watching 'Vettaikaran' with his wife and son, eagerly asks his wife for her feedback. Or 'Mr.Title-relinquisher-on-account-of-unworthiness' Ajith Kumar accompanied by Shalini watches 'Asal' and asks her the same dreaded question - How eez the movie sweetheart? I really pity these women and our resilient audience who keep going back to theaters expecting a decent movie at-least on their God knows which visit. Are tamil movies so bad these days? For those innocent souls, sample these -
- In the late 60's when a soon-to-become-CM was happily serenading a not-so-soon-to-become-CM, heroes were portrayed with a lot of dignity as wealthy businessmen, doctors, law enforcement officers and even scientists. But these days they are all uniformly cast as happy-go-lucky uneducated youth sitting on a wall (frequented by stupid donkeys) along with their friends who never seem to age. Well, we (read as audience) are to be blamed to some extent for this. Fed up with the 'angry young man' themes of the 80's, we wanted some realism in our movies. Looks like the directors had taken it very seriously and started casting heroes (read as Vijays and Dhanushs) in their real life avatars.
- Gone are the movies where heroines were a prominent part of the hero's reel life (ya sometimes real life too). These days whenever our hero is fed up caring for his ailing mother or 'vazha vetti' sister or unemployed brother or bashing the villains, he jumps into a Raymond suit or Tommy Hilfiger outfit and starts dancing with the girl nearest to him in the movie sets. That girl is the heroine. And if that girl gives a solo performance thats the 'item' girl.
- If the movie has no story or screenplay but a compulsory run-time of 2.5 hours and the producer has lot of funds, cast another heroine and picturize 2 more songs in a foreign locale.
- Can we ever imagine Sivaji Ganeshan doing a triple somersault followed by a long jump followed by a pole vault 'n' number of times? It's one thing that his anatomy wouldn't allow him to do so, but the fact is he didn't have a Kanal kannan or Rambo Rajkumar as stunt masters. These guys make a completely mockery of Sir Isaac Newton with the help of Archimedes (defying gravity with the help of pulleys and levers) and help our heroes vertically scale running trains and flying planes . But one good thing is they have done away with the biggest legacy of tamil cinema on mankind - that quintessential 'dishoom-dishoom' BGM.
- From the days of Nambiar to Nasser, villains had a real bash in movies. They got to trash the hero till the climax, forcefully sleep with some close or distant relative (obviously female relative) of the hero and at the end get general amnesty. But now a days they get the trashed from the beginning, can't touch even the hero's servant maid and on top of it have to consistently shout at 90dB level.
- Latest techniques to compose a song - A.) Pick your favorite old song. Attenuate the voice and amplify the music and throw in some drum beats here and there. And place it exactly in the middle of the only good scene in the movie. B.) Repeat A.
- The latest menace are the new breed of hero cum director cum producers who look like and act like yuck. But whats the big deal. Cast yuckier guys as co-artistes and all is well by the theory of relativity .
And the worst among the herd are those directors who staunchly believe in the concept of re-usability and hence don't want to waste their non-existent creativity.
(N.B. - The title suggests nothing more than the fact that tamil cinema is decomposing rapidly...)
