Movie Review - Queen!! Probably the 1000th review or so! ;)

How long has it been since I wrote a film review on this space?

I think the last one has to be somewhere in the month of May last year around my birthday.

So why the gap all these months? Not because there were no good movies that I watched... On the contrary, there were so many good and awesome movies that I have watched over the last few months. But none that I really felt like writing a review about!! Okie! Let me rephrase that, I did feel like writing about a few of them, some really good ones, but then lost the interest somewhere between the time the thought struck and the time it took me to get to a system! :) :)

But now, there’s this movie that I want to review here. Ok! Not so much a review, as much as an appreciation for the feel-good factor that the movie spread.

We went and watched QUEEN a couple of days back. Yes! This in all probability is the 1082438923587^th article that you’re going read about QUEEN.

But seriously how good was the movie? :) :)

I am a very big supporter of these films where the women walk away with the film in the end, no surprises there yes! But also very few of those movies around! :) English Vinglish was one; but much as I loved the whole way the subject was dealt with, it did not leave an imprint on me.

The tagline of QUEEN should have been - ;-)

 “I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.” – Maya Angelou

QUEEN was so so good. I had a smile throughout. Kangana owned the movie. And I thought she was good only in those Fashion / Gangster kind of movies. But with this one, I have to say, she has come into her own! And what a way to take the world by storm! :) Most of the time, it’s those little things / nuances in movies like these that give weight to the entire film and carries it forward. There were a lot of those in this gem of a movie.

Before you second guess it, yep! Spoilers ahead! :) These are in no specific order… just moments that I really liked from the movie!  

The instance where Rani’s younger brother Chintu shakes his fist at the hero for making his sister cry! He doesn’t really know why she is crying, she doesn’t tell him of the marriage being called off. All that mattered to him was that his sister was crying. Oh, that fist-shaking was a very good touch! :)

Lisa Haydon as a perfectly cast Vijaylaxmi. :) She even got the accent down pat. Such a carefree attitude to life! Would love to emulate that!

The last scene in the restaurant where Rani meets Vijay, and she addresses the waiter as Roche. Simple yet subtle to show how much she has evolved from being a wallflower to the person she has now become. Actually the look of surprise on Vijay’s face said it all! Some other glimpses, like when he asks her in a previous scene if she had had alcohol and she corrects him saying that it was champagne and not ‘sharaab’, where she drives the car for the first time, navigating the roads with a map, and she thinks about the time where her then fiancé gets impatient with her for not driving properly. She is so engrossed in the driving that she ignores the phone ringing incessantly (call from Vijay!) obviously.

There is this one other scene that I thought was usual but not so much. She goes on to try a dress that is a little revealing, clicks a selfie and then I am not sure if accidently or not, the pic gets sent to Vijay. He sees it, he is stunned of course. However, she suddenly realizes that it has been sent to him, and then thinks about it for a second and completely puts it out of her mind. This can be seen of course in two ways. One, she wanted to make him jealous and see what he was losing out on (all pun intended), two she doesn’t care anymore, what he thinks or what he doesn’t. I prefer to think it was the second one! :P :P

The beginning scene – the marriage preps -  the thoughts flowing through Rani’s mind, about her mom still not wearing the new saree, that her friend was not yet there dancing at her sangeet, where her brother had disappeared to when she had entrusted him with her phone to take pics to upload to Facebook, and then an affectionate recollection that her fiancé is back from London and how he had put on some weight but in the right places :) – and all through these, the expressions on her face, the fleeting glances, the involuntary smile that lights up her face… I thought that the scene was very nicely done. :)

Kangana devoid of makeup is one beautiful girl. An untouched innocence that is so compelling that you just want to shield her from the big bad world.

And the best of all (this has been done to death in all reviews I am sure!)… That she said NO to Vijay. Yes! Glad. Very glad about that. There’s a whole world of learning in there! Also, the fact that she thanks him in the end for calling the marriage of. Very nicely done. The guy was dumbfounded to say the least! ;-)

Oh! And I am so so glad that she kisses the Italian chef. :) I was so hoping that she would – the guy was striking ;-)! Very heartening to see that! I would have been a wee bit disappointed if she hadn’t done that. The moment called for it and thankfully she delivered. Yay for that! :)

Bonus points for the FB timeline track at the end credits. And also for calling the hero a ‘kuttaaa’ ;-)  :P

Vikas Bahl, way to go!!!

Definitely a must-watch. Don’t miss this one!

'So Sorry about Little India' - A Review & An Interview with 'Evam Karthik'!

“Being an Indian is a pain… Being a South Indian is a bigger pain!!” …

Four glib-tongued, smooth-talking performers, a little less than 1.5 hours, an audience that willingly lapped up all the one-liners, remarks, and well-meaning insults with nothing but laughter…

This was “So Sorry about Little India!!” … Evam’s standup-comedy act …

When Divya offered me a pass to the show, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I have to be honest here. I have only watched standup comedy on YouTube before this and that was Russell Peters and Vir Das. I will admit that I was a little nervous and so took a seat right at the back, poised with a pen and notebook, ready to jot down points for I was to do a review of the show.

You see that first point up there about being Indian... Well, that’s the only one I noted down! I didn’t have time to note down the rest of it for I was clutching my sides, laughing out loud, something that I don’t do alone ‘coz I am weird like that. :-P

Evam was brilliant and brilliant would be a mighty understatement… check out the range of topics that were covered… 

From South Indian surnames to public display of affection to the Kama sutra to the behavioural tendencies of Indians to dissecting the different types of girls that a guy meets on a date, feminism, astrology, they covered it all… and if you are Indian or even better, if you are a South Indian, you will totally totally get it! :-)

And if the show was the cake, guess what the icing on the cake was… 

You see this guy?  Yep! That’s the one!

That ladies and gentlemen is ‘Evam Karthik’ as he is popularly known, and I interviewed him after this show! :D :D

Yes you can see my Cheshire cat grin… :D :D

Go on… Read on … while I still keep grinning... :-) :-)

A 20 minute chat and here are some interesting snippets from the conversation …

Me: Why such a short show today? You got an awesome response today and it was a really entertaining show.

KK: 75 minutes is what we promised. It’s always best to quit when the audience wants more. In standup comedy it’s always best to quit when you are ahead.

Me: What do you do for sponsorships? How do you run your shows here, apart from the ticket sales?

KK:  We are completely self-funded. We haven’t been sponsored by anybody for this tour. If you realize, sponsorship is not a sustainable model. You can get sponsors once and twice and it’s not something that a professional group like Evam relies upon unless we have a very big project. A project if it’s small should be self-sustainable.

Me: Isn’t that risky?

KK: It is. It definitely is. But then any business is and we see ART as a business. It should be a business. Lot of people do art as a passion or a hobby, but they don’t continue to keep doing it prolifically. We do shows in Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Coimbatore, almost every other week even in unconventional places where we get paid nothing at all, but it’s only to keep the wheels lubricated.

Me: It’s very hard to make people laugh and judging by the audience reactions; you had a terrific response here. Tell me a bit about the shows here.

KK: We are doing four shows here at 900 capacity and we are currently filling at about 80% of that. For a debut tour that’s not bad at all considering that this tour will nett us a 15%-20% profit. Usually in a debut tour you lose money. So we will be going back home happy.

Me: Evam basically encompasses the entire art gamut right from management to education to entertainment. Isn’t that so?

KK: Yes. We are basically an arts entrepreneurship. And most of our growth has come organically. We started out as dreamers and we wanted to make a living out of the arts. We are a 12 member company with offices in Chennai and Bangalore. We have started a legitimate Singapore office so that we can do business here every three months, and we hope to have our first permanent employee in about 12 months.

Me: Great. How do you guys scout for new talent? Do you get talent coming to you, or do you do auditions and such?

KK: Well as far as creative talent goes, we work on a project-to-project basis. We have a repertoire of 7 stand-ups right now and we constantly source new stand-ups who we taken in and train to become stand-up comedy artistes. Most artistes are contracted with us for a certain period of time. Once the contract finishes they are free to look out and carve a niche for them as well. Mostly it’s a yearly contract. As far as India is concerned, Stand-up comedy is still in a nascent stage and it’s new. It’s irreverent, brash and there are no taboos.

Me: How about your content for the show? Does that depend on audience reactions or is it impromptu?

KK: About 40% of the show everyday changes because of the audience. This is my weapon and armoury and it depends on me what I am going to pull out based on the way the audience reacts. 30% of today’s show was also impromptu.

Me: So when are you coming here next?

KK: The next activity we are bringing down is our two-week children’s summer camp in June which is a lot of art-based workshops for children – Indian story-telling, puppetry, theatre, music, dance etc. thereafter we are likely to follow that up with two stand up shows one of Evam’s and one of touring UK artists sometime in Sept-Oct. (more details on that to follow!!)

Karthik, I need to tell you that you were really charming and you answered my questions with a lot of patience. And most importantly, you were my first CELEBRITY INTERVIEW :-) :-)

Thank you for the interview! :) It was a pleasure interviewing you.

Hope to see a lot more of you guys in Singapore!! Good luck with your upcoming projects and films! :) :)

Right back at The Hindu .... with love from the TOI!!

This is sure getting interesting. But in my personal opinion, it does not have the same punch of The Hindu ads. This seems like a retort for the sake of it, and a weak one at that! I felt that the ads from The Hindu were a lot more solid and had a lot more ingenuity to them especially the Print Ads. This last one from the TOI seems desperate and a way to stay in the picture than a rejoinder.

But comeback or no comeback, the war is getting exciting and it sure is grabbing a lot of attention! ;-)

Bring it on … Let the fun begin! ;-) 

Ouch and double Ouch TOI!!

Oh! The Hindu is not done yet!!


Check these out! :) :)


This is getting interesting! ;-)


Ouch! Ouch! And double Ouch TOI!! :) What do you have to say to this? :)

And the best for the last!! :) :)

War of Brands, Words and Comebacks! :) :)

I have always liked ads! They are fun to watch! Only some of them though! Most of them are just crap! And calling them that is sugar coating it!

There are some that make you want to gag! And some that make you go Ugh!! And most of what comes out these days which have you thinking what the hell was that an ad for?

Then, there are a few that make you wonder about the amount of creativity and the attention to detail!! And the hard work that goes beyond it to capture the viewer’s attention for a span of 40-60 seconds! You definitely need flair for that!

So when this came out a little while ago, you could see that it was a cheap dig! And one below the belt at that!! 

And then this comes out as an answer to the above ad and all you can say is –

“Brilliant! What a comeback!!”

Tongue-in-cheek, hard-hitting and a befitting reply! 

And not one! Not two! But three!!! :-) :-)

Here's the first one!! 

And now the second one!!

And now the third one!!

And you can't but help say it again!! 

What a comeback!! Loved it!!