Uttama Villain What a Mess ... Glorious, Noble and Compelling though !

Over the weekend, I was in Chennai trying hard to get tickets to the latest Kamal Hassan opus "Uttama Villian" which off course didn't happen with the finanical issues and the state government capping ticket prices to INR 120 only, if you book a ticket online, with service tax the princely amount goes to INR 150.  Damn I feel ripped off in Bangalore when even a morning show costs you INR 200.


Coming to my thoughts about the movie - SPOILERS AHEAD ! ( it is really a character driven movie rather than a coherent plot)

Synopsis 

Kamal Hassan plays Manorajan (Entertainment)  who is a sell-out superstar who makes masala movies for a living, drunkard, callous and also unfaithful having an affair with a much younger doctor Dr Arpana (Sacrifice) played by Andrea, married to a woman for 20 odd years just for the money aptly named Varalakshmi (Goddess of Wealth) played by the marvelous Urvashi.

On the same day, he gets two game changing news, he has a daughter from a previous affair and brain tumor which does not allow him many more days to live. So he decides to take control of his life and goes back to make a movie with his former mentor Margadarshi (Advisor / Guide) played by real life mentor and directorial legend K Balachandar for one last movie from the heart and not purse strings.

The names of characters do seem to be on the nose on their motivations but it does work rather well.

What Does Not Work 

• The movie is very slow at 2 hours and 52 minutes, I believe it has been trimmed by 15 minutes already. 
• The screenplay is so self indulgent with Hindi, Mayalam, Telugu and Pure Tamil been used interchangeably even the more bi-multilingual audience member will miss several scenes due to loss in translation (Hey Ram once again)
• Although the portions as part of Movie in Movie set in the 8th century was supposed to be rocking comedy, you barely get few smiles on the jokes if one is charitable 
• K Balachander due to bad health couldn't dub his lines so it clearly shows a disconnect 
• Too many songs
• Ramesh Arvind though credited as director seems completely seems ghost directed by Kamal Hassan

What Does Work    

• Kamal delivers a knock-out performance which acknowledges his age and the banality of 50+ year super-stars romancing young girls in dude masala flicks 
• Lots of self referential jokes on his own career, in a way its an ode to the wonderful relationship between Kamal and his mentor K Balachandar
• Hard hitting reality of how one reconciles to impending death and how priorities change so quickly 
• The juxtaposition of Manorajan who is dying in real-life while Uttama played in the movie within the movie is an Immortal (Mitrunjaya) is an beautiful irony 
• There are several scenes which can best be described as poetry in motion, the use of mirrors, metaphors of removing make-up during a key revelation , looking at his family from a window and a game of catching the ball during a difficult discussion with his son. my descriptions cannot do justice to the scenes so I will not even try.

What will stay with me ? 

Will the movie make money, probably not but this is a master-class acting by Kamal Hassan who can conceive, execute and bank-roll this venture. 

The complexity of a lout / sinner (villain) who finds his Uttama (Nobility) in his dying days just opened my eyes how we view life and suffering as life-long but the life-span of a human is so short and we really do know what our priorities are. 

Love is complex and each relationship has its own ups and downs but what matters is expressing it on time before its too long.

Life is short and none of us are immortal but what we achieve in life can and will make us immortal, so make each day count 

How Twitter killed the blog star Or How Social Media affected the millennials

Well first off, it is fairly appalling I return to my blog after about a year and half however in the interim I have been dabbling in more corporate blogs on Linkedin and give out doses in shorter forms via Twitter ( Damn who thought 140 characters could be so addictive)

Coming to the topic on hand, honestly blogging as a medium has lost its shine but some things do bounce back so quick recap of social media trends and how we desi's responded over the years.

The fun of being a millennial ( born in the 1980s) really gave us a range of technologies to experience. you know VHS tapes, audio tapes (Side A and Side B), Floppy Disk and off-course Yahoo messenger

2000-2003

I guess most Indians got online and experienced hot mail, yahoo messenger on dial up connection ( the speed was nothing to speak about however the telephone bills escalated quite fast)

People still had secret identities so folks had email ids like loverboy_27 or angel16 as user names :)  and crumby desktops where you always had 2 fingers on the  "Alt-Tab" button to maintain your privacy

2004-2008

I know Facebook and Orkut released around the same time but Brazilians and Indians really took to Orkut like Fish to water, every one who had a net connection was on it and the things which mattered -  No of scraps, No of Fans and No of testis --- monials that it :P

Orkut was the first time people let their guard down, engage in private conversations on the scrap-book (wall for Facebook junkies) which really changed how one reacted to electronic medium ( the word social media didn't really catch on)

Yahoo Groups - By 2008, it was no longer cool to have secret identities and social discussions happened via groups.  It was a radical thing to share email forwards even at work.

Facebook was catching up but it was still for the cool kids ( NRIs, or MS students) not true blue desis who were seeking Fraanship

2009-2012

As smartphones began to evolve and better internet speeds + Wifi, the internet truly became personal , you didn't need to fight with a sibling to get online

Facebook got better and addictive, Google didnt do much for Orkut so it died. thankfully it was pretty fun having friends on Facebook, folks on Gtalk - ( This was Facebook before hyper fast news feeds and attack of Famville and Candy Crush requests)

This was the time every one had blogs and people who would religiously get and monitor comments :) - I quite liked that phase to be honest.

2012-2014

The attack of "Selfie" - This truly marked the Phase 3 of social media where the focus of interaction moved from one to one to actually one to many .... all emotions conveyed through sappy status messages, pics of self  (imagine a giant head with pimples and all with a small effiel tower in the background) and this is where the disconnect actually began.

People had more than "800-1000" friends on the network but would speak to less than 10 on a regular basis. since people keep broadcasting their lives on Twitter and Facebook, there was liite incentive to even catch-up

Blogs also a causality, then you get addicted to social media, you lose the urge to write in the long form, I really believe our future generation kids will be ADD (attention deficit disorder) because we are always online but not really connecting with people in the ways of the past.

Now people are so bored rather than communicate how they feel, i guess they did just post a "sad selfie" on Facebook or Snapchat.

2015 & beyond 

With the older folks (Parents, Uncles and neighbors) coming online and invading facebook, the youth are retreating to new technologies like Whatsapp, Viber etc.

Whatsapp groups are the new yahoo messengers and I am also seeing the resurgence of blogs on cooler sites like Medium / Quora and Tumbler.

Video is becoming a strong medium - Vine, Youtube, Meerkat & Periscope ( Video selfies - ugh :P )

The  "Dark Social" is pretty much Social Media Phase 1 on the mobile which only reinforces the fact - what goes around comes around.  
The only casualty in this evolution is the ability to communicate in long form - from letters, email chains and long chat conversations is becoming short form, statuses and pictures