Srimanthudu Movie review

Srimanthudu - Telugu Movie review

Tag line - Old wine in new bottle with subtle presentation

Disclaimer: Views are strictly personal. Please notify any copy right infringements or if content is offensive. I may be using "he" mostly out of habit. He/She is what I mean.

If you are reading this review you either watched movie or looking for a review to support your views. Since movie released almost 3 weeks ago.

Story:
Harsha is son of a rich father who has a distaste for relatively poor people in money and status. Harsh on the other hand driven by universal well being and good morals. This is shown where he helps one of his company's loyal employees. He meets Charuseela at a birthday party and learns she is doing an agricultural course for developing villages through latest in agricultural technology. Instead of simply insulting her to express love, like in most Telugu movies, he promptly joins her college and becomes a sincere student. She feels ignored and presses him for answer. They start to develop liking towards each other and eventually fall in love. One day Charuseels casually learns who Harsha's father is and decides to keep him away. Harsha doesnt like it and while confronting her learns the reason is a village and finds his purpose in life. Rest on screen.

Analysis:
Koratala Siva must be commended for writing a script for Mahesh specifically. All dialogues are written to suit his style. In my personal opinion, Mahesh matured as an actor (and male with his voice, rugged looks and got rid of girlish manners) since Athadu. And peaked with Dookudu and 1-Nenokkadine (Which I liked a lot). Gladly for him and audience there is more scope to see his acting talent and he is awesome to watch. Be it Action emotion or comedy timing he absolutely nails it. This movie is completely written to suit his strengths and you will fall in love with his performance.

Surprisingly Shruthi Hasan has few dialogues and un-like other telugu films only one song to show navel and thighs. On the flip side she exposed enough in last song to compensate for missing item song (which is a norm these days). In fact, that last song is a bit contrast to the whole film. When you think there is no intentional skin show this songs comes like it is supposed get all money from "C" centers. She did really well and her expressions actually suit the situations - like after Mangrove fight. Rest of the cast is apt. Rajendra Prasad and JB are well suited for roles but don't have a lot of screen time. Mahesh takes most of screen time. 

Background Music is good. Songs are apt to situation other wise audio is not extra ordinary. Typical Devi Sri "Percussion" Prasad album. Not sure why they call him Rock Star now. Sometimes I wonder if this is the same guy who did "Nuvvu Nuvvu" in Khadgam.

Photography is excellent. Fights are routine except for Mangrove fight. That will be watched in youtube for few years if not a decade. Lyrics are good especially for Rama Rama.

When you leave the theater you feel like its an incomplete movie. Reason - our brain tuned to "run of the mill" movies. Comedian made stupid or slapped repeatedly in second half or DDLJ style hero lives with Villain and proves his stupidity. Or Hollywood/Korean movie ideas. I felt movie looked very polished in 1st half. They tried to make it as simple as possible. Even minister uses few cars instead of several hundred Sumo SUVs.

What I did not like:
Dance in Rama Rama song - What happened to "abhinayam"? when lyrics go like - "pada pada mani vantenesi penu kadali ni datinadu..." I see same repeated moves but nothing that sits well with lyrics. Mahesh is either lazy or simply can't dance (his dad had the same issue). But he needs to work on it. When he repeatedly talks about "convincing audience" I dont understand why dance would not convince audience.

Dhimmatirige song - This can be removed. Lyrics are OK (we heard worse). Unnecessary skin show spoiling the decent movie till that point. And Mahesh can't dance. Sorry Prince fans. He needs to work on this. He confessed in an interview that he is at his best fitness level now. May be he can join a Dance school now. 

VIllage issues - Instead of showing few scenes where Hero made difference hands-on, they simply show it in a song. rest of the time is allocated for "fights". 

Too many fights - When there is a message and presentation is simple why so many fights? So if in reality someone wants to adopt a village he must be ready to bash villains? Because I am sure there will be villains. This is why old movies showed Hero bringing revolution among villagers and eventually fighting as a group against baddies. 

Mahesh look - He looks slightly bulky in second half compared to first. Like most other Telugu heros he hastily becomes fit when needed. Telugu heros are still a long-way from Bollywood when it comes to fitness.They flaunt six pack or biceps in 1 or 2 movies and back to normal. They don't need to look beyond South India and Kamal hassan for acting,dance or fitness. 

Overall it is a good effort. Mahesh lived up to his fathers billing as Daring and Dashing. It is a bold decision after 1-Nenokkadine.


 

Ousted once again!!!

India exits early from Champions trophy. I get this feeling that there are some issues among team members. And this was clearly evident in final match in SriLanka where Yuvaraj was acting like Bhai (Bhai bole to DON) of Indian team. I can clearly see no communication between Dhoni & Sehwag or between Dhoni & any senior player for that matter. Dhoni either can make decisions on his own or hate to consult senior players.

It is very unfortunate that we can not see any upcoming quality players in India these days. If you look at Sachin, Dravid, Ganguly & laxman they are like the best examples of 90's cricket. You enter the team based on your talent and consistency and not records. Laxman & Ganguly belong to different class. Ganguly focussed more on charm, aggression than improving technique in later parts of career. At his peak, he deserved Dravid's admiration about off-side play. Laxman's is kind of a roller coaster. Injuries, poor/very little confidence shown by selectors, Inspite of his ability to score runs, especially in test cricket. Eventhough Laxaman is not techically perfect, he has his own approach and can be very good against any bowling attack. Sachin & Dravid are the best cricketers for inspiration to younger generations. Even today, Dravid amazes me when he rocks back and cuts the ball through square. Sachin started giving real time video shows by playing some best strokes using best technique. Dravid always looked like someone trying to evolve always and near perfected his technique. Selectors resorting to him after all young blood got "bounced" in England was a great example of his abilities.

I can not think of suresh Raina or Yuvraj or Dhoni displaying such great technique in scoring runs. Imagine test cricket (for India) without Dravid, Tendulkar & Laxaman. It will be Gambhir, Sehwag, Dhoni, Yuvraj,Raina, Rohit sharma, Karthick. Who is the next best technically good player for India after Dravid & Sachin? Rohit sharma has good technique. Dhoni is completely unorthodox. You might enjoy looking at scorecard but not watching him bat. I can not remember him scoring an orthodox cover drive or straight drive. Sehwag is exception. He is good at scoring runs but not completely reliable. Yuvraj does not know how to play cricket without charm and arrogance. He needs constant guidance not to loose patience and temper. Gambhir is good. What is India is 10/3 . who can come out and bat for rest of the day?

But one thing is sure. We will see many players in next year's IPL hitting fours and sixes like they took adrenaline shot. No need for technique just learn one or two things and keep rocking. And IPL continues ruining world cricket and fate of other forms. It is unbelievable that no young cricketer wants become a Bedi or Chandrasekhar or Kapil Dev. All of them want to be Sachin or Dhoni and appear in every ad you can possibly imagine. I do not know how many of yesterday's ICC awards were bought using ad money. And meanwhile Amit mishra, Ojha, Powar will pray god for Harbhajan's retirement. However, thats not the case with fast bowlers. No one looks consistent and promising. Biggest upset being Irfan pathan. He can become Bracken of India. Do not know what happens with him every now and then. I will not surprised if Dhoni is fixing half the matches he plays and paying selectors for his wishes.

Who is Paul valthaty?

I watched a marvelous innings today by this guy. I think I saw his name pop up in domestic circuit sometime ago. But never really paid attention. But his innings today epitomized class batting as I learned during my childhood. No non-sense cricket. Pure cricketing strokes. And never for once he looked in rush. Except in the end when he flashed his bat to finish it. He played this innings may be a bit too late. By 4-5 yrs. Otherwise he would have been drafted into National squad. His career was halted by an injury to eye it seems. What a luck?

Champions League 2010

Finally Chennai lived upto IPL hype to clinch CLT20. Warriors unfortunately added more substance SA's chokers image. Dhoni managed his troop really well to squeeze out a good performance in semi-final and final. Ashwin has been a new revelation and in line for next spinners berth on Indian squad. Raina, Vijay were at their best at times to provide solidity. Foreign players contributed in every match to win.

In all, the tournament was of high standard and better compared to IPL. In IPL at least 2 teams appear below par every time. Punjab of course takes first place, while Kolkatta is not even close there. Even champions league showed those shades with Central districts and Wayamba succumbing to pressure in every game. It was amazing to see RedBacks, Lions and Warriors winning games against all teams. All matches were really good with medium and slow pace bowlers controlling games. Mumbai lacked winning attitude, Central Districts has no key players while Wayamba couldn't get their attitude right. Except for Ravi Shastri, Gavaskar and sometime Doul, the commentary was also good. T20 did indeed change the dimension of the game. Watching Champions league T20 on a 36inch HD TV gave me that franchisee sport feel, that we get with NFL & Euro soccer leagues. It was more like a party out there at BullRing except for the serious cricket in the middle.

I felt that RedBacks gaveup too easily in the semifinal but worked too hard to deserve a chance in the final. But Bangalore was up and down and couldn't repeat their magic against Chennai. Lions were decent but not good enough in the crunch games. Victorians were good to comeback strong but were a tad bit late. They had to hope for the third team's loss to enter semis.

To be continued..........................

India vs SriLanka or SoapOpera? - I

Yes. This is what I am thinking about right now. These two cricket boards are so after money that instead playing per calendar and sparing time- they play cricket in spare time i.e when both nations have no ICC commitments. Cricinfo has actual statistics of how many times these two played since Jan 2009. What I don't understand is the attitude of both cricket boards.
BCCI are in never ending Money coma that nothing else matters. No quality bowler? So what Selectors are sleeping and rest of the administration trying to solve "unfortunately become public" issues, power fights & rejecting candidates. BCCI treasurer owns a private cricket franchisee? GOK whats going on. Secretary's son gets a chance in A team. Union minister becomes ICC president. Hello, what is ICC. Indian Cricket Money, corruption Coma. Surprisingly Indian government has no role to play. They do not want to manage cricket like Hockey or other Olympic sports. But I can guess the reasons. They do not want cricketers like Sachin Tendulker buy their own tickets to overseas trips while Govt managed BCCI office houses lousy staff enjoying all the funds through various ways. Hold on! Its just another case of respecting British legacy? Like administration, railways etc? Ghosh, there is no Nehru to send teams to CA, CSA to see how they administer cricket. Rest We know (Money & power).
SriLanka on the other hand is thirsty for matches so it can clear all debts. Every new development- sport minister of the country makes announcement. Not sure I understand if its support or the interest to follow the cricket board on the other side of adam's bridge. Hang on fans. Asia cup organization shows the interest in revenue vs game. Poor floodlights, stupid format & unconvincing effort. Not sure if Bangladesh players remember that series as Asia cup or something else. I sometimes doubt if BCCI & Srilanka Board agreed to play a certain no.of series between them and pre-decided how many to share between them.
So these tests are consequential? No way. Who will enjoy them?
1. Players like Mahela, Tendulkar, Dravid & Murali who were from the test era (and few others of course). BTW, definitely not Yuvi
2. Test cricket fans who will watch them on TVs
3. New fans who come down to see cricketers.
4. Boards for ranking reasons and revenue
5. Yeah. I did not forget. Dhoni, if he wins the series. Not sure Murali or Warne is the best. But Dhoni will be the best among who played against Lanka in all respects.

I want to wake up one day and hear that no one is watching cricket on TVs anymore. Guess what happens to BCCI & SriLankan cricket boards?

to be continued.............................

Shame on Indian cricketers!!!

What stops? 1. IPL 2. Endorsements 3. Parties 4. Remuneration 5. Fan following

Unfortunately nothing for Indian cricketers. I have been watching cricket since 1987. And I can see remarkable transformation in the Game and Technology around it. But the attitude of Indian cricketers (few exception here) transformed on the similar lines of Politicians in India. It was just outragious the way India got eliminated from T20 WC. But it seems Indian team already knew and not interested in changing it. For the simple reason that they already have the 5 I listed above.

2007- Big drama was made of Sehwag's absence. Looks like Dhoni was in similar situation and couldn't say anything :). All new comers - Raina, Rohit, Pathan struggled against short bowling.

2010 - No change. How ridiculous?

An excerpt from Harsh Bhogle's article on Cricinfo - "Not one of these three shortcomings was unknown, and it would be easy to blame the system and the coaches for it. Teachers don't write exams, students do, and eventually they must figure it out themselves, and so we must return to attitude. There is no point blaming the pitches and the bowlers in domestic cricket for the inability to play short-pitched bowling. Gavaskar emerged from the same school, as did Tendulkar, Dravid and even Laxman. Abhinav Bindra and Saina Nehwal are products of such a system. Azharuddin emerged as one of the world's finest fielders. Greatness lies in rising beyond the system. It isn't the system, therefore, but work ethic that lies at the heart of success. I'm not saying India's cricketers don't possess it, it's just that they don't display it often enough."

If Tendulkar struggles against short ball for one complete series, tournament, almost all of us know what he does in the next series. Does anyone in the current Indian team has that hunger, zeal to learn, determination to succeed? Not everyone can be a Tendulkar as a matter of fact. But you can be a Dravid if you work as hard as Dravid did (you can get close to him by about 90% rest 10 his specialaity). I recall numerous games where every cricket fan was tired of Dravid hitting every single ball to fielder and eating 50 odd balls for 10-20 runs. But he transformed himself into all modes - oneday/Test/T20 (evident from IPL - I don't care if you call it below standard as long as any cricketer prioritizes it over national cap). And Dravid undoubtedly is the technically perfect batsmen among a bunch of big/goods like Bradman, Lara, Pointing etc.

Unfortunately, no one in current Indian team has that hunger to score runs and working hard to get there. Yuvraj singh, Rohit Sharma, Yousuf Pathan should be removed from team and their contracts terminated. They show no respect & enthusiasm for game. They reflect arrogance, crazy after fame and absolutely no determination to improve. Their fundamental approach to Game is wrong. Most of the above statements apply to Yuvi than others. Being fit is not an option but requirement to perform to fullest potential. If someone is not interested in maintaining fitness that indicates indiscipline and lack of respect for Game.

Gambhir, Sehwag must be taught to run between wickets and removed from team the next time they get run out or get thier parnter run out. Ravindra Jadeja has no maturity to perform at international level and should not be given anymore chance. Suresh Raina has no skill to perform on foreign soil and must be retained only for home tournaments. And all of them need to improve fitness. If someone is interested in IPL and Preity only then kick him out. No commitment no place.

What is the point in paying 250,000 USD a year to a foreign coach if the problem lies with players? BCCI runs like a business - profit only profit and just profit. They don't even care for the money they spend. Not a professional body by any means. And it is a big mystery why it is not run by government like other sporting bodies. No point in getting Gary Kirsten or Greg Chappell if players don't want to come for fitness training and are unprofessional.

One more Damn weekend in AAmeRaca

Just started. Can't think of much other than Walmart, TV Guide for movies over weekend, cleaning house and wash/press clothes. Is life this boring for guys in India who work their ass off during week. BTW, I meant guys n gals. And suddenyl a thought of cooking something for next week strikes my mind. Cook & freeze! The single most thing I have been doing without a thoguht of dropping the idea ever. I spoke to several bachelors over last 2 yrs and some families also. Looks like we all Desi's (Please read Day-see-ss) have same life style and thinking. Of course I know guys who want to rent a car every weekend and go around to take pictures of white skin (No offense intended). And some trying their wardrobe with an ever new camera to abuse Orkut album section. Some playing cricket etc. Some building muscles and getting Tattos on. All of a sudden my L1 visa gives me Licence to become a Bro or a Klan (No offense again).

Strange I thought when I saw few guys playing vollyball in a parking lot of course Day-see-ss. Many go to temple. And 98% download telugu movies. Sorry guys, I forgot your group of MAA,TEJA,GEMINI devotees. I somehow have a feeling of controlling politics in India through satellite :). At least, I can blabber while drinking Vodka/Scoth (Read Voddkha/Scotchy/eSchotch).

Last but not least, using google maps to find directions to stupid and dirty theatres to Watch stereotype Desi movies at distributor-monopolized prices. Of course, after reading Jeevi(Please read J-chiru-E-Spicypix-Evi) review.