Moothon to compete at Valladolid International Film Festival, Spain
Geetu Mohandas directorial ‘Moothon’ continues to go places as the film is now set to compete at Valladolid International Film Festival, Spain. Geetu shared the big news through her social media handle. She has written,
#Excited to inform that my film, #MOOTHON is in competition at 64th Valladolid International Film Festival, Spain!!!! Anurag Kashyap 2.0Rajeev Ravi Nivin Pauly Alan McAlex Ajay Rai #Ministudios #Jarpictures #Goodbadfilms Sobhita Dhulipala Roshan Mathew #Dilishpothan Melissa Raju Thomas #Shashankarora
‘Moothon’ had its world premier at Toronto International Film Festival in August. The film received positive response from the audience there. Earlier this week, the film’s Asian premiere was held last night at the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. The Nivin Pauly starrer was the opening film at the festival.
‘Moothon’ is scripted by Geetu with Hindi dialogues by Anurag Kahsyap. The film presents an unsparing yet inspiring vision of Mumbai through the story of two small-town siblings, each with their own reason for escaping to the big city, in this urgent drama pondering gender, sexuality, violence, and tolerance. If reports are to believed, the makers are planning its theatrical release on November 8.
The official teaser of Mysskin directorial ‘Psycho’ has just been released online. Ace filmmaker Mani Ratnam shared the teaser through his official social media handle. The one minute long teaser has all the signature Mysskin elements and looks highly promising.
Udhayanidhi Stalin plays the lead role in the film. It looks like the actor has put in the best of his efforts for this film. He even appears naked in the film, which is quite daring considering his political image in Tamil Nadu.
The supporting cast of ‘Psycho’ includes Nithya Menen, Aditi Rao Hydari, Ram and Shaji Chen. Tanveer Mir, a former associate of veteran PC Sreeram is cranking the camera and the film is an Ilayarajaa musical. Arun Mozhi Manickam is producing it under the banner of Double Meaning Production.
Along with all the critical acclaim, ‘Asuran’ is turning out to be a phenomenal success at the box office. The Vetrimaaran directorial ‘Asuran’ has gone well past the Rs 100 crore mark, thereby becoming Dhanush’s first film to achieve the feat. The film is now getting a Telugu version as veteran star Venkatesh has expressed his interest to remake it. ‘Asuran’ producer Kalipuli S Thanu of V Creations and Suresh Babu of Suresh Productions will be producing the film.
Kamal Haasan, Telugu superstar Mahesh Babu, DMK supermo MK Stalin, Bollywood filmmaker Karan Johar had all heaped praise on ‘Asuran’ and congratulated its makers. The film which is based on the famous Tamil novel ‘Vekkai’, is an intense tale of revenge, caste and class violence. The performances of its lead actors – Dhanush, Manju Warrier, Karunas, TeeJay Arunasalam and Pasupathi have been lauded unanimously. It will be interesting to see who all will be part of the Telugu remake.
Bigil Review: Predictable but an enjoyable festive entertainer from Vijay!
Atlee and Vijay have already delivered back to back hits together with ‘Theri’ and ‘Mersal’. ‘Bigil’ is their latest attempt to score a hattrick of hits and it is safe to say that the film has the potential to emerge a huge hit at the box office.
‘Bigil’ starts off with a protest in college where innocent students get beaten up by the Minister’s gang disguised as policemen. Like in a typical star-vehicle, the stage is set for a mass hero entry. The students run for help and reach out to the man we await eagerly to appear on screen. Yes, we now get the intro fight followed by the intro song. You name all the existing cliches in a Tamil mass entertainer, ‘Bigil’ has it all.
Bigil Movie Review
It has always been the case with Atlee’s films. There is nothing extraordinary in his storylines. More often than not, his films are the rehash of some yesteryear films, preferably a popular classic. ‘Bigil’ also follows this same template. It is a mix of ‘The Godfather’ or ‘Thevar Magan’ and ‘Chak De India’. But what works in Atlee’s favour is his knack to properly package a big star film.
In ‘Bigil’, Vijay plays a dual role as the aged gangster Rayappan and his son Michael aka Bigil, a State level football player. Circumstances force Bigil to leave football and instead take up the sword. While he prefers staying away from the sport, fate has it that he returns to the field as a coach of the State woman’s team. Overcoming all the obstacles, how Michael helps the team to win the cup is all ‘Bigil’ is about.
Bigil Movie Review
After the highly promising initial 20 minutes with the intro fight and the rocking ‘Verithanam’ track, the film drags as it takes time to establish the characters and their back stories. Add to that, the romance track between Vijay and Nayanthara doesn’t work out either with the ‘Unakkaga’ song also acting as a big jerk. The introduction of Rayappan’a character once again holds our interest but when we see all the hype that this character got, wish it had a bit more punch. Still Vijay has done his best to portray this role as the voice modulation and body language are totally different from usual style.
As Michael aka Bigil, Vijay is back at his naughty self that he is being doing in all Atlee films. However funny it may appear, it is quite evident that the actor goes overboard at times. Moreover, even Nayanthara was found wanting to get the North Madras slang and the comic timing right.
Bigil Movie Review
Coming to the second half, Atlee brings football to the front and thereby infuses all the social messages that are associated with these big star films. Though the film is said to be a dedication for women, there is a patronizing tone throughout. We regularly see Vijay advising and giving life lessons to his players. There are umpteen number of these small messages in the film and most of them are extremely loud.
Among the supporting cast, Reba Monica John and Varsha Bollamma get two well fleshed out characters and they have done their parts well. Induja, the actress who played Thendral, Kathir, Daniel Balaji, Rohini, Yogi Babu and Anand Raj are the other notable actors. Actor Robo Shankar’s daughter has done a role in the film. The character is supposed to be a statement against body shaming but ironically the makers themselves have shown her in poor light by making her look purposely gigantic on screen.
Bigil Movie Review
GK Vishnu’s cinematography is praiseworthy especially in the song sequences but the same cannot be said about the football scenes. Considering the huge budget at which the film has been made, the excessive special effects used to capture the grandeur in football games haven’t come out well. Except for the songs, AR Rahman’s work is ordinary but he along with Atlee add to the goosebumps in one particular song.
Rahman’s foot-tapping ‘Bigil Bigiluma’ song in which Vijay and Nayanthara dance together was an absolute screamer of a moment. Ruben could have edited out a lot of portions and made the stunts more racy. But he has done well to maintain the thrill of watching a football match.
Overall, Bigil is a highly predictable but thoroughly entertaining Vijay starrer that has everything in it to set the box office on fire. Looks like Atlee-Vijay combo will be making waves this Diwali.
Mohanlal to play a 57-year-old lorry driver in Bhadran’s next
Director Bhadran has been planning to make a film with Mohanlal for some time now. The duo is known for their hit films like ‘Spadikam’ and ‘Olympian Antony Adam’. Bhadran had earlier revealed about his idea to make a road movie with Mohanlal, however it did not work out that time. It looks like the director is set to revive it soon as he divulged more details about the film in one of his recent interviews.
Apparently, Mohanlal plays a 57-year-old lorry driver in this movie which will be high on action and adventure. According to Bhadran, Mohanlal’s character has no name or identity. He is a wanderer who has travelled the length and breadth of the country. So he speaks all languages fluently but doesn’t have a mother tongue as such. Earlier, the director had also said about Ramya Krishnan and Sarath Kumar starring in the film but nothing has been confirmed officially yet.
Despite being just four films old, Atlee is one of the most sought after commercial filmmakers in the country today. All his three films that have released so far – ‘Raja Rani’, ‘Theri’ and ‘Mersal’ have been blockbusters. His fourth film ‘Bigil’ starring Vijay is slated to hit screens tomorrow but the film has already done phenomenal business.
For the last few months, there have been reports about Atlee teaming up with Bollywood badshah Shah Rukh for a big budget mass entertainer. While that project is almost confirmed, the director has also hinted about doing a Telugu film with Jr NTR. Last day, during the promotions of ‘Whistle’, the Telugu version of ‘Bigil’, Atlee revealed about how Jr NTR calls him up after the release of each film to congratulate him. Tollywood medias report that there is a strong possibility of the two teaming up in near future.
Jr NTR is currently working on ‘RRR’, the upcoming biggie directed by SS Rajamouli. Ram Charan, Ajay Devgn and Alia Bhatt are also part of the film. Fans are hoping to see Jr NTR will be joining hands with Atlee next.
The second part of ‘Lucifer’, which has been titled as ‘Empuraan’, will start rolling only by mid-2020 but various talks about it have already started doing the rounds. Director Prithviraj, writer Murali Gopy and lead actor Mohanlal will be reuniting for what is supposedly one of the most prestigious projects in Malayalam cinema in recent times. While nothing much about the cast or crew are known yet, there have been various speculations in social medias.
Recently, a photo of Mohanlal and veteran Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt was found online and it has lead to rumours that the two will be coming together for ‘Empuraan’. It must be noted that Sanjay Dutt is yet to share screen space with Mohanlal and also act in a Malayalam film, so it will be huge if such a collaboration happens.
Interestingly, Dutt is making his Kannada debut by playing the villain in Yash starrer ‘KGF: Chapter 2’.
Watch the teaser of Sivakarthikeyan starrer Hero here!
The official teaser of Sivakarthikeyan’s new film ‘Hero’ has just been released online. The film looks super promising from the teaser and it seems like Sivakarthikeyan plays a vigilante hero in the film. The super hero mask that he uses reminds me of the one in Hrithik Roshan’s ‘Krrish’.
‘Hero’ is written and directed by PS Mithran of ‘Irumbuthirai’ fame. Touted to be an action-thriller, the film also stars ‘action king’ Arjun, Kalyani Priyadarshan and Bollywood star Abhay Deol in major roles. According to director Mithran, ‘Hero’ will be on the lines of his maiden film ‘Irumbuthirai’, with a very relevant social message in it.
Abhay Deol reportedly plays the prime antagonist in the film. The actor is well known for his performances in Hindi films like ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’, ‘Manorama Six Feet Under’ and ‘Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye’. ‘Hero’ marks his entry to Kollywood. It is also Kalyani Priyadarshan’s maiden Tamil film.
‘Hero’ has George C Willaims as the cinematographer and Ruben as the editor. Yuvan Shankar Raja is the music director. The film is being produced by KJR Studios.
Mammootty’s ‘Mamangam’ is publicized as one of the biggest films ever made in Malayalam cinema history. The Padmakumar directorial is made on a huge scale with massive production values, star-studded cast and a strong technical crew. A making video that documents the mammoth efforts that went behind the film.
‘Mamangam’, as per the makers, is a historic film with almost 80% of it being inspired from true events. The film is based on the religious festival, Mamangam, that took place every 12 years in a place called Thirunavaya, on the banks of Bharathapuzha, for over 280 years. For shooting these portions, art director Mohandas and team had erected huge sets in an area sprawling over 18 acres. According to them, it is one of the biggest ever set works in Indian cinema. The film was shot across five schedules in Kannur, Kochi, Ottappalam, Vagamon and Athirapally.
Sajeev Pillai, the original director of ‘Mamangam’ penned the script, which was later adapted by Shankar Ramakrishnan. The film is slated to hit screens on November 21. Apart from Malayalam, it is also releasing in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi languages as well. Venu Kunnappilly of Kavya Films is producing the film.
Tovino Thomas’ new film ‘Forensic’ got launched Palakkad with a customary pooja ceremony. Akhil Paul of ‘7th Day’ fame and Anas Khan are directing the film. The two have also scripted it based on some real life inspired events. Tovino reportedly plays a forensic officer in the film.
The makers have signed Mamta Mohandas as the female lead. The actress, who is known to be selective with her projects, will be sharing screen space with Tovino for the first time. Saiju Kurup, Giju John, Reba Monica John, Dhanesh Anand, Anil Murali and many others are also part of the supporting cast. Cinematographer Akhil George, music director Jakes Bejoy, editor Shameer Muhammed, art director Dileepnath, costume designer Sameera Saneesh, action director Rajashekar and sound designers Vishnu Govind and Sree Sankar form the film’s core technical crew.
‘Forensic’ is being produced by Navis Xaviour and Siju Mathew under the banner of Juvis Productions and Raju Malliath’s Ragam Movies.
