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aha super alasal.
I think Kamal won in the end becoz whatever may be the movie one thing for sure is he did succeed in making people talk about it chaos theory or not.
Again and again people buy into hype.
 

Dude so what if he had twisted it and said earthquake. its just a commercial story relax.. u r so hell bent on pickin on kamal movies in an effort to make sure everyone sees u as an expert critic which u r not.. chaos theory as such is not a very simple theory to understand.. and i am sure u have not done a phd on it. some ppl say kamals explanation is right that is a seemingly inconsequential event of a vial being stolen saved avathar sings life and so on .. while some disagree. but atleast its something new.. u can be critical but atleast appreciate the effort man!! his mannerism and accent of bush was freakin perfect.. and so was his balram naidu accent or the patis.. there is no denying the fact that he is a genius.. if u like mohan lal more then do us a favour and watch his damp squibs and excuse for movies which he has made recently and stop watching kamal movies period.. or if u seriously want to write good reviews then write both the good and the bad and then give one star or 2 star out of 5 .no problem. perfectly justified.. just my advice take care!!ps..ppl in the theatre i went to did not notice bush saying lets nuke it or what is nacl ..and they did not understand the connection between the starting and the end.. and overheard them saying machi kuselan superba erraku..when even such a highly dumbed down story was not understood then what will anyone understand. if u r looking for a serious movie wait for marmayogi.. this was done to earn money yet was timepass ps pls dont come up with flethcher sincity connection for god sake and say look look kamal copied his face..)cheers!!
 

Did kamal say that the film starts with the "tornado" and ends with a "butterfly flap"?? I dint know that.. Thanks for the info. Now, i realise his genius. Then it means he s intended to talk abt destiny, god's (supernatural power) meticulous planning and things like that!!!
 

ths is one bullshit review written by some one just to shw he s a big critic or physics buff... this reviewer didnt even try to understand tht the story is based on chaos and karma...
 

Everything coming from the south are not excreta and everything coming out of the north are not pure gold either. Once in a while someone tries to break this paradigm and inject some life into this otherwise zombie-ised film industry that we call bollywood (or whichever wood u like) and the least we can do, if not celebrate such an achievement, is leave the film alone and see how it turns out. Agreed that the film is not perfect. You know why?, Coz, if the film was perfect, audience like you who just consume media and don't know a thing about multi layered film-making even if it crawled up your bottom and tickled you to orgasm through prostate simulation would have made a flop out of it just like you guys did to Hey Ram which by any standard is by far the best film India has ever produced, according to film schools around the world. So stop cribbing about how bad the film is and look at the number of box office records this film has already broken.
 

Vijay,
You said "It's just another commercial movie".. that's exactly what iam saying also.why sell some ordinary movie with references to chaos theory and butterfly effect.

Iam not a chaos theory expert.But it shouldn't think it should take much for any of us to atleast understand the basic and relate to what is being told in the movie.

"ppl say kamals explanation is right that is a seemingly inconsequential event of a vial being stolen saved avathar sings life and so on"...

Again this is what iam saying as total bullshit.Ask yourself whether you have seen any other movie where one inconsequential event led to another good or bad event.Let me put a Disclaimer first.**Iam not a rajini fan**.But i can argue that if the monkey did not take the rudraksha from arunachalam and run to the villains place, he would have never come to know the truth and he would have never saved the life of so many poor people.All iam asking is think for yourself, don't blindly believe what ever kamal says.

FYI.Iam not done with the movie yet.Iam going to write more about the little positive sides of the movie also later.

You are saying this is a movie that was made for money and time pass.On that case why should a screenplay writer, complicate it so much, even for example the bush joke.That is a mistake on the screenplay writer for taking care of his target audience,that is kamal wanting to show Off, period.

Anonymous,
What are you talking about south india, north india where did i talk about those things.Iam sure you didn't even read the post.You just copy pasted your template for all the post that talk against kamal.I thank you for atleast sticking to the subject of cinema and not talking about israel, arab conflict as a response to dasavatharam post. But I do agree with you on one thing.Yes Hey ram was one of the best movie india ever produced.

For all the kamal fans,First of all let me say that iam never suggested that one should watch a rajini movie instead of dasavatharam or that hindi movie are the best compared to tamil,Or that iam an expert critic or a physicist. so please stop assuming things.
 

Sen.. what kamal says is simple as i read in a blog elsewhere as well.he just wanted to show that evry action is a result of another.. whether it is the tsunami which acc to him was a result of human actio or for that matter anything that happens in our lives is a result of another human action.. in short he wants to say that a persons destiny is driven by his actions and also the actions of ppl around him.. now a theist will interpret the tsunami action as gods anger or like asin may interpret it as god trying to save us from a deadly virus.. the atheist will interpret it based on how he wants to believe .. thats it.. there is nothing else that kamal wants to say.. he never came out and said this movies storyline is the most complicated in the world nor did he say he did something revolutionary.. now coming to the theory.. yes.. according to him a small disturbance in the ocean floor can disturb the techtonic plates and amplified over the years to creat a tsunami(this is what ks ravikumar said in a channel at least) now technically it may not be correct though i believe it is.. but so what.. even if it is not.. maybe its just his interpretaion and not right.. it still does not matter..probably it was done just to connect the 10 characters but its okay.. for me it was a time pass film exactly as what kamal wanted it to be so i dont understand why u feel so hard done by the movie..
btw is it wrong to parody bush.. i dont think he has proved himself as an intellectual just bcoz he parodied him.did anyone think of it that way.. he is making fun of bush just like every tom dick and harry does.. it just saddened me that not many ppl understood..so the screenplay is no way trying to be complicated or unique..
2nd ur tone is what upset me more then ur review.. all the bullshit kamal sells repeated too many times.. pls tell me what bs has be seeling in all his movies for the few years.. i am happy at elast u acknowledged MX which was pretty good though rejected by the public. owas hey ram bs?was anbey sivam bs? was mx just bs? was virumandi just bs? no the story was not abt whether capital punishment is right or wrong.. it is just an afterthought or an appendix.. the story was the screenplay and how truth gets diluted.. as in the case of rashamon..the comment on capital punishment is only an afterthought for saying because truth can get easily diluted and will vary no one can be completely proven guilty and so should not be hung..
 

phew!! long post so i thought i continue in another.. now coming to ur general comments that kamal is narcisstic and self indulgent and does not give anyone else equal oppurtunity.. that is the biggest BS i have ever heard..first of all its not that all other actors are very magnanimous in promoting other co stars including mohan lal i might add since u like him so much that it seems to give u enough reason to sully kamals reputation..fair enough to each his own.. some ppl like mohan lal brand of acting which to me like tomhanks is extremely bland and not my cup of tea.. i prefer it if actors bring with them a lot of screen presence even if it is slightly over the top.. case in point de niro and pacino.. so i probably like kamal better.now coming back to the point of not giving oppurtunity.. let me talk of the tamil industry.. do u rember thiruttu paati .. do u remember naseer,do u remember, urvasi, do u remember nagesh though he was already famous ..do u now remember his latest find paupathy.. i cant think of a single decent film which really showcased naseer talents apart from kamal or even paati for that matter.. whether it is nagesh in abborva.. or in panchathanthiram ornaseer in kurudhi punal or devar magan or pasupathy in mx or virumandi..i did not see him hog the limelight in panchathanthiram or any other film for that matter.. if u feel that way then it is really sad..inspite of that if u feel he is narcisstic so bloody what.. when useless heroes and heroines feel so proud of themselves saying i am doing this i am doing that then i dont see why kamalshould not be narcisstic .. infact if anyone has the right its kamal..

another grouse i have noticed on seeing ur posts is the fact that u have an obsession with his double triple roles.. as i understand he is a fan of peter sellers and so trys to emulate it .so whats wrong in that.. did ppl in hollywood say peter sellers is narcisstic.. did kubrick ever say peter sellers is narcisstic bcoz he acted in multiple roles in strangelove.. infact apart from say dasa maybe u can fault him bcoz he wanted to go one up on sivaji i really dont see it as a hindrance.. i cant imagine anyone else doin a kameshwaran or anyonelse doin a appu.. can u.. or indian for that matter.. now abt makeup which is the usual criticism.. u mean to tell me that anyone who puts make up can become a good actor.. its not just abt the makeup.. its abt the gait.. the accent the movement everything.. is it the easiest thing in the world?surely if u feel so than u r a stupendous actor send me a video of ur plays.. even a little thing like speaking is diff with the make up. look at the difference in the voice and accent of say avai shanmughi and a krishnaveeni paati.. both being old.. thats acting!!! now does he always act with make up?no he has proved he has not.. did he do swathi muthyam with make up.. did he do guna with make up(not that bullshit again abt it being inspired by rainman..plsss that is a load of bs with nothin bein similar in their acting.)did he do moondram pirais last scene full of make up did he.. did he do mahanadi full of make up.. did he do pushpak one of his greatest performances with make up.. i can go on and on . including mmkr mx and even the registrar scene in appu raja..
now coming to another grouse which i guess u have of inspirations.. is it wrong being inspired.. does my opinion of him come down because he was inspired by rashamon for virumandi .. naaa infact it was a brilliant adaptation and i challenge u that not many filmakers in our country even if they see rashamon a hundred times will be able to come up with something like kamal did.. especially showing the same scene in 2 diff camera angles sheer genius.the thing i like abt his inspirations is that he brings aa novelty and a touch of class to his inspirations that most of the times make it better than the original if u want to see films not inspired he has given plenty as well including moondram pirai.. indian,appu raja,swathi muthyam,salangai oli, pushpak(fkk!!),hey ram. no i dont think u have got the inspiration in ur list rightly it was sheer genius.. mmkr and many more..
now coming to ur other grouse in acting.. he copies om puri,naseer,al pacino ,de niro ,hoffman.. i personally do not see that anywhere and if like u say he blends all that in movies like kurudhipunal without even probably om puri or naseer realising (he he..)then he is an even bigger genius than i thought.. btw naseer and om puri have gone on record saying they feel he is way more talented more of an all rounder as it were.. and no they were not being humble.. because they have not praised any other actor that he is better then them.. why for nayagan where he is inspired by brando clearly comes up acc to me a far better potrayel. the fact that satrajit ray was so moved after seeing the movie.. (kamal regards this as his best moment apart from the letter from rajini) is testimony to his genius there can be no better example.. now can i come to reverse inspirations.. nammavar u say is inspired by to sir with love.. have u seen the movie 187 samuel l jackson? very very similar to nammavar and not to sir with love.. co incidence.. forrest gump is very close to swathi muthyam.. coincidence.. maybe.. aalavandhans cartoon scenes which come when kamal is on a high.. (brilliant scenes i must add psychedelic to say the least though the film was very corny in some places it was sheer genius in some others..) these cartoon scenes later came in a quentin tarantino movie.. i keep forgetting the name.. i will check it up and let u know.. coincidence.. have u btw seen marudhanayagam trailor.. very close to apocalypto (mel gibson) in the feel but i cant come to conclusions.. all i am saying is there is nothin wrong bein inspired.. as long it brings in its own novelty.. if at all u can question kamal the story teller but not kamal the actor or screenplay writer.. hope u keep these things in mind and not be tooo critical of him even if u feel mohanlal is better.
 

and btw i am not saying all this blindly.. just because we defend kamal that does not mean we blindly love whatver he makes... its because we genuinly like it!!!

nice blog btw!! if it was not for the kamal bashing it would have been perfect... (just kiddin).. keep up the good work!!
 

How can the flutter of butterfly wings cause an earthquake? Is this the question? Very possible, in physics there is a phenomenon called resonance. Imagine a trillion or more butterflies fluttering their wings together simultaneously it can certainly cause an earthquake!!! hmm simple physics dude! by the way certain domains in physics like chaos theory, butterfly effect can be used in various contexts. For instance, entropy is also chaos. Therefore there is nothing wrong with kamals interpretation. I think there is a flaw in the way you understand scientific theories not in his. I disagree that chaos theory is a very complex theory to understand, it is as simple as it is portrayed in the movie. As far as my scientific understanding of the theory the portrayel in the movie is not flawed!
 

vijay,
i was taking time to answer all your points.But i don't think i can do that. too much stuff to talk about.Will answer the important ones.

The core concept of the thread that you guys think is chaos theory that " every action is related to one another".That i say is BS. cause this movie is no different than MMKR or any other double tripe action movie.Every action in all these movies lead to another one.But because Kamal uttered a few words all you intellegent guys are trying to prove that this movie is on chaos theory, that case so is MMKR or Aboorva sagaotharargal or Enga oru pattukaran.

regarding giving oppurtunity to actors, You have to remember that for every small character that you remember there are 99 characters that were wasted in a kamal movie.The thing about kamal is he selects the best of talents, no question about that.He is awesome, when it comes to finding the right person for every role.But the thing is how many minutes do these people come in the screen.Nagesh is an awesome talent and it is great that kamal gives him chances but look at his role in dasa.He would have come comes totally for 3 few minutes and uttered 5 dialogues.The talent of nagesh and the role that was offered to him, you compare.If you really respect that talent, if he is selfless and not a narcisst, he as a screenplay writer could have given him a chance to show case his talent.But he didn't, which for me shows his total disrespect to an artist.For kamal naseer, santhana bharathi, nagesh etc are people who will come and act in his movie without any question and without disturbing his showing off.They are pretty much rajkamal films office boys.That is the only reason they are in the movie.These people shine because they are extremely talented.As far as iam concerned, far more talented that kamal, but don't have a fan following and dont know how to bullshit to audience.

And again like any kamal fan you are doing this blind pooja that he is far better than al pacino, de niro and Marlon.Let me tell you this simple truth.Kamal is COPYING/EMULATING them.But they didn't copy kamal.Kamal is a tiny fish when compared to these whales.A "Wannabe".The question that you should ask is how many people did kamal inspire??.

"is it wrong being inspired.. does my opinion of him come down because he was inspired by rashamon for virumandi .. naaa infact it was a brilliant adaptation and i challenge u that not many filmakers in our country even if they see rashamon a hundred times will be able to come up with something like kamal did.."

No offence This is exactly why you are a kamal fan.The more good movies you see.You will slowly move out of kamal. You should have watched the tamil movie Andha Naal by veenai balachander.It came in 1954.
http://www.geocities.com/bbreviews/month/anaal.html

well i have to write a lot on why kamal is very detrimental to any one from becoming an intellectual or a knowledgeable movie lover.Will do a seperate post on that soon.
 

Robbie,
Like a true fan of Kamal, who twisted tornado to earthquake in the definition of butterfly effect .You are twisting flap of A butterfly to Trillion butterflies."ORU(One, Single, okatti, Ek, 1, Numero Uno) pattambuchiyin" - words of your thalaivar.

Machi any small disturbance when increased trillion times will cause such an effect, it need not be a butterfly flap it could be a trillion frogs jumping or trillion anything.You don't need a big "Butterfly theory" or physics for that, any ramaswamy or kuppuswamy can say that.

Dude i have been waiting for an expert like you.Maybe my understanding of chaos theory is wrong.Maybe you can explain me.This is the definition of chaos theory in wiki

"In mathematics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain dynamical systems – that is, systems whose state evolves with time – that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect). As a result of this sensitivity, which manifests itself as an exponential growth of perturbations in the initial conditions, the behavior of chaotic systems appears to be random. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future dynamics are fully defined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos."

Can you relate every word with dasa.say in 10 lines. don't deviate to asimov stories.Just relate word by word.Also if you have understood the theory correctly.What is the flap of a butterfly in the movie??.And how it is propagated through the various characters portrayed in the movie.?
 

In the movie the flap of a butterfly can be many things, it can be the fight between the vaishavites and the shaivaites, it can be the dropping of the idol into the sea. The movie might also imply that the dropping of the idol caused a slight shift in tectonic plates that caused the tsunami in the end!!! The fight between the shaivaites and vaishnavites can be extrapolated to the current world where the fight has just got bigger, nuclear weapons or bioweapons, we can keep extrapolating it. The fight between people who discredit global warming or people who are for it. The fight between people who remove top soil without knowing its significance and people who fight for it. The fight between atheists and theists. The list just goes on and on. The idol which was dropped into the water reappeared in the end and somehow numerous completely unrelated events like the destruction of a bioweapon, killing of innocents and the tsunami all became linked!! Isnt that chaos theory the way it was in wiki? Something that happened in the 12th century accidentally got connected with an important event(according to the movie) in the 21st century!!!! Do you need more examples?
 

sen i have seen my fare of these so called critically acclaimed movies and so i think i can judge well enough whether kamal is good or not.. thank u. and i have also seen these so called inspiration and the so called copying of pacino ,brando which i think is absolute bs.. question of who kamal has inpired.. none maybe. has mohan lals actting inspired anyone.. has om puris acting inspired anyone.. hmm i dont think so.. r they bad actors? thats the question u should ask urself..

Btw u still have not mentioned what is the bs that kamal sold in movies like hey ram,virumandi,anbe sivam.. u still have not replied abt the reverse inspirations...u still have not replied to my reason about his thirst(so called narcisstic) for multiple roles.
If his co actors do extremely well in their role it becaue of their talent. while if they dont get screen time it is because he is narcisstic.. man i can clearly see prejudice in every statement..
i guess this argument will go nowhere neither u nor me r goin to be convinced. Tell me seriously did u go to dasa wanting to watch other actors get screen time when kamal is doin 10 characters.. omg does pacino give a lot of screen time to his fellow actors say in a movie like scarface.. i am again quoting virumandi and pasupathy or nasser in kurudhipunal as an example i would not have cared if they got 5 min roles or say 20 min as long as the story was good and it didnt make a diff.if nagesh didnt have a problem working in good roles given to him in abborva and nammavar and work in a not so imp role in dasa i dont see what is ur problem. when he gets ample oppurtunity in abborva u say it is because of his talent.. when he does not u accuse kamal as being narcisstic.the registarar scene an appu raja is enough to kick anyones backside regarding kamals acting talent and the so called copying..
as for the funny part of being an expert in cinema to understand the shortcomings of kamals films.. dude u think kamal fans r ignorant abt what happens in world cinema.. i have watched all there is to be watched from bergman,tarkovsky,kubrick to the modern day genius i might add who i hope will sincerely overthrow these guys.. (darren arfonsky).from de niro ,al pacino to hoffman.. i am not boasting .. all i am saying u should watch these movies more carefully and realise the stupidity of ur argument so spare us movie guru if ur greatness in movie knowledge is not appreciated..

AMEN!
 

at robbie!! well said!!
 

"You are twisting flap of A butterfly to Trillion butterflies."ORU(One, Single, okatti, Ek, 1, Numero Uno) pattambuchiyin" - words of your thalaivar."
I forgot to address this... Well by a single flap do you think butterfly effect means that a butterfly flap will just cause a tornado without resonating with something else? In a similar manner a single butterfly flap can resonate with some other thing of the same frequency and the resonance can get amplified if there are a trillion things of the same frequency and cause an earthquake!! Does that make it clear brother? If you thought all this while that a tornado was not a result of a resonating frequency,your interpretation of the "effect" was wrong!!!!!
 

robbie,
you are gain deviating,i know exactly you would do that and that's why i told you to give a precise answer.Again you have talked about so many things and you are somehow trying to tie all of it together.

Let me reiterate what i have already told in the post.Even with your example, how is the energy created by the fight's between vaishnavite and shaivaites or dropping the idol
extrapolate to the krishnavenni patti or some other xyz character that kamal did??.

If you want to generalize at that level, at the level that, two groups of people fought a few centuries before and there are a few group of people fighting now and because they have this commanality they are related.

Let me help you on this.There are more commonalities between them. many of them who fight are men, they all want to kill there enemies,they all belong to the same world and universe.This is actually the logic behind your argument.Actually you have diluted chaos theory to LCM or least common multiplier.Your understanding of chaos theory is completely wrong.I will do a post on that next.

I do know that the butterfly flap would have to resonated with something else to make the tornado at the end.But not trillion butterflies flapping.If you read the Butterfly efect carefully, you will understand that the initial force creates a ripple effect with exponential growth, which cause the ultimate end.Meaning one small change, forces something else, which forces something bigger.The only way that can happen with your idea is, if trillion butterflies are waiting in stadium to do a mexican wave.Even that, they have to do synchronized flaps of exponential growth.Like one Giant butterfly flaps, the energy from which forces the 4 other probably a small butterfly to forcefully flap,may be they will force more butterflies to flap.Iam ridiculously hypothezising on it and i think still it wont be possible.

The Important thing is one butterfly's flap should force the other to Flap. The chain of events, the energy, has to be carried forward.what kind of an energy do you think would force one trillion butterflies to open and close their wings at the same time??(Mind you, they are two opposing actions).I don't think you can come with anything within the rules of physics, may be with imaginary rules.Think about it ...
 

vijay,
You have chosen nice movies to talk about when it comes to kamal's BS.HeyRam is an awesome movie, i already told that.but there are 99 other movies that he just sold on hype.Virumandi for example.What is great about the movie?.What way is it different from any other two landlords fighting?. Just because he used two different camera angles for the two versions... that's exactly the point in which he sold you guys a very ordinary garbage movie with extra ordinarily nice packing. For one he tried to copy a movie that came 50 years before and still manages to do a bad job in screenplay and story(BTW if you can get hold of a criterion collection ROSHMON, watch it, you will understand the camera work in that movie).But still you guys will be talking about the two different camera angles as the greatest thing to have ever come in tamil cinema or the rest of your lives.And as usual the camera angles or editing techniques used in movies like Orampoo etc, will never be talked about.Just because we are only tuned to listen to hype and gimmick and never look at a movie as what it is.

In the previous post that you argued that kamal gave equal opportunity to everyone, now you are saying you don't care, as you didn't go to dasa to see anybody else but kamal.Think that is kind of the point that i was saying.

I just can't stop admiring you kamal fans, your comparison's are always with pacino and marlon brando.Regarding scarface, for one you should understand who takes these movies, do you know who directed and who wrote scarface.Can you seriously say that these are guys who wanted al to hog the whole movie??.ON the other hand for the past 10 yrs every kamal movie is quasi written and directed by kamal and he pretty much has the last say.

Iam not saying you are ignorant or anything,sorry if it came like that.What iam saying is there is a level of maturity that comes with watching great movies.that can make you see a hyped movie clearly on just its contents and merits.Iam glad you watched all the movies, and iam delighted by your mention of darren arfonsky, i do agree with you on him.I hope you watched fountain, do you know you can hypothesize the whole movie on String theory :).Try that it will be a wonderful experience. Also did you see Pi??.Do you know that it is based on chaos theory , do you seriously see any relationship between chaos theory in Pi and in Dasa??.

There is also another thing that i want to mention, just as a fellow good movie lover.There is a difference between watching a movie,understanding a movie and loving a movie.With the masters of world cinema, you should ask whether you are just watching or loving there movies, they are two totally different things.I personally think that anyone who understands and loves tarkovsky can in no way like a kamal movie. Maybe iam wrong, but that's my strong opinion
 

yeah!! again I was just giving an example of resonating frequency!! yes of course the chance of a billion butterflies flapping is very less and here in chaos theory we are definately dealing with small probabilities!! Your paragraph infact does not make any sense!!! a butterflies wing can resonate with another frequency of something else!! not necessarily a butterflies wing!! Did you do physics lab in the 12th standard? Its the same thing. The probability of a synchronized frequency occuring is very low!! thats exactly what I have written about in my post on Asimovs short story as well as here!It takes a miraculous or an incident of very low probability to occur. I think there is no argument here! Well the shivaite vaishnavite incident is a metaphor! The whole movie is a metaphor to chaos theory!! The story is metaphorically talking about the chaos theory! If you remember the actual dasavatharam of vishnu, vishnu appears whenever there is chaos! "pralayam" in sanskrit. This chaos and the chaos theory are the same thing! the word chaos does not have a different meaning. The chaos in physics and the chaos we talk about in english are the same things!!! Vishnu appears whenever there is chaos in different avatars to restore order! This resonates well with the mathematical chaos theory! The movie is also made on those lines! through out the movie chaos is dealt with by different people for different reasons to restore order and finally the tsunami comes in causing more chaos and restoring order of some sort! There is a lot of significance and the movie does deal with the chaos theory!!! Is this enough? or do you need more explanation??? I guess you have to understand the movie the way I have to understand the connection between different things that are brilliantly shown in the movie.
 

Sen guy must hate Kamal Hassan so much for the sectarian divide that was portrayed in the movie, that he finds every little excuse to accuse Kamal of something or other.
Perhaps he belongs to the Saivite community and the first segment of the movie offended him greatly. Screw Saivism man, Perumal rules.
 

Sen and Vijay!!
I dont understand where this argument of yours is going towards! One person is Kamal bashing and the other is defending! There is no end to this stupid argument. Vijay just because you like Kamal you dont have to defend him! I am not here to defend Kamal haasan! I am here to defend my own perception of the movie. I dont like all movies that Kamal makes. I hated Vettaiyadu Vilayaadu. I like most of his movies and I like the way he acts. Sen! Do not think that I am a blind fan of Kamals and will defend him for everything he does. I am defending my interpretation of Dasavatharam. Dasavatharam is for the masses a pure masala movie. The cleverness with which certain concepts have been included and hidden has to be appreciated. The movie even according to Kamal haasan started as a project whose USP was the 10 roles. The story came afterwards. Writing a screenplay including all the masala elements and these subtle undercurrents is the beautiful thing about this movie. This movie is not the greatest movie ever made or the greatest indian movie ever, but it is the first movie which has attempted to include graphics and technical innovations of international calibre. Even though the film does have massive technical shortcomings (it is inevitable because the budget is 1/10 of a hollywood movie) it makes for good enjoyable viewing and has some thought provoking moments. The fact that you have taken the pain to go through some wikipedia entry to try and come up with arguments against the movie is a victory in itself. Why did you have to go through the pains when you already knew the movie was not about the butterfly effect? It is because you yourself did not know what it was, it was a new concept to the world of Indian cinema. We are trying to criticise this movie just because we want to prove that we are as intelligent or more intelligent than kamal haasan is. But we do not realize that it doesnt make any difference to Kamal haasan the actor. He has done his job and reaped the success. The same holds true to Rajnikanth the actor. We will continue to have mediocre movies in india as long as we do not broaden our horizons and accept good movies. Hey Ram was a good movie by your own standards but it did not run for even 10 days in Pune. Infact we live in a country where people do not want to think during a movie let alone after the movie. Dasavatharam in addition to providing the cheap thrills and entertainment somehow also manages to shake the sherlock inside people to find out what exactly the plot was. This alone is the movies biggest victory! I have never seen people arguing so much about one movie in all my life. This movie has changed that all! No wonder why the movie is getting mixed reviews. Like I said in my review the movie is as good or as bad as people call it for it is that kind of movie. You either love it or hate it, there is no two ways about it. Sen, your posts also seem to suggest that you have outgrown the common man and become enlightened when it comes to cinema. I am sorry if you think so because I do not consider you an authority. When someone like balachandar or even a nagesh praises Kamal haasan it does mean that he has earned it through the years of being in the field. How many years have you been involved in cinema to discredit Kamal haasan or anyone? And why should we take your word for it? Try and take a softer stance and analyze the movie for what it is instead of including your own bias. I am that way despite being a kamal fan. If I didnt like a kamal movie I am open about it because I too like good cinema. Dasavatharam is certainly good cinema according to me, you are free to disagree as long as you dont preach or dictate what my likes and dislikes should be. Thanks
 

sen , " kamal writes scripts himself" who will write scripts for him.. u expect p vasu or other crap over here to write scripts and come up to him and u expect him to do those.. the quality of scripts which come out in tamilnadu are lamentable and u want him to work in those scripts.. About me changing my point regarding dasa.when he is comin in 10 roles in a movie u cant expect much screen time for anyone else.. its like saying u did not want to see too much of eddie murphy in nutty professor its stupid to even expect that..
at the same time when the character other than he was requiered to be potrayed he did that as i have quoted some examples again and again.To me virumandi was riveting from the start to the finish.. why for that matter i liked parts of allavandhan.. some of it may have been laughable but some scenes esp when he is drugged and when he kills the fat woman is fantastic!! now i am not saying it bcoz i have to find something good abt kamal... hell even i hated vv and felt sorry i had to go to the theatre.. though i liked dasa it did not give me the satisfaction of watching appu raja(proof of amazing screenplay ) or say mmkr
to say anbe sivam is pure bs and that the make up was just a gimmick is again bs!! to say it is copying planes trains and automobiles is again absolute bs..
we never compared pacino with kamal or de niro with kamal.. once actors attain a certain level of experience u really should avoid comparing them.. its not us who say he is better or worse.. rather u seem to be comparing them with him.. can pacino be compared with hanks.. can norton(personally i feel he has the best potential i just wish he stops doin crap like hulk) be compared with hanks or fonda. can sellers be compared with jack nicholson. no they cannot.. each have their own style and their own way. while hanks may look expressionless and ppl may call it realism.(certainb ppl like it) others may like the slightly eccentric jack nicholson or the over the top pacino..no one is inferior then the other.. they cater to diff tastes.. you may have diff perceptions of how an actor to be. u may again want him to be as innocuous and as bland(realistic in ur terms) as possible. to me an actor should bring the character to life which is why i like kamal.. he blends it beautifully.. he is niether too over the top like sivaji ganeshan yet he is not too bland like a hanks.. he fuses it beautifully in most of his movies bringing with it that power and that aura in his characters..take guna for example.. again u and a lot of ppl may find it over acting. ppl who dont find scarface overacting after finding guna to be the same are just being stupid.. its like u have to like it bcoz its hollywood.. i thought kamal really transported me into his crazy psychotic world in guna brilliantly and in no way was it inspired by rainman!! u got to be kidding me if u feel so.. similarly i liked the cocky over the top pacino in scarface or carlitos way.. why like one and dislike the other.. again i just have the appu scene to show he is a brilliant actor.. period!!!
as far as darrne arnofsky is concerned yes i loved his wonderfull trilogy as many ppl call it of one being the mind, the other being body and one being the soul.in fact more then requiem which ppl consider to be his best i feel its the fountain followed by pi. death is the road to life.. and the cycle is so brillianlty and i should add phantasmagorically shown!!! the thing is such abstract art will have its own interpretations.to such an extent i thought i will never fear death again!! though that was temporarily.. .hmm i did not look at it from the string theory point of view.i dont know much abt string theory so will read up on it and then see. and tie music by clint masell!! OMG to me the best musical score ever
!! something so magical and each frame was a painting in itself!! abt ur point abt not liking kamal bcoz i have seen tarkovsky.. thats a fallacious argument..if i like tarkovsky should i not like the wacky ideas of quentin tarantino or should i not like scorcese.. why do u guys end up comparing..to some darren arnofsky may not be art but again just bs!! which arnofsky is selling to do things diff and these ppl may prefer scorcese.. so freakin what!! does that mean they have bad taste!! and if u expect kamal to make movies like tarkovsky(i really dont think he can) then u can be the producer.how can u expect him to make movies like that in tamil nadu.. r u insane!!can u imagine an average tamilian sitting through even a scene say the one in zerkalo.. where they show the spoon from the table that is falling or do u expect them to find out the real meaning of the bird flying and then getting hit..
to me every object in a tarkovsky flick is so errily magical .. to an average tamil viewer he will be swearing at the screen.. yet kamal works well with the limitations he has.. too me a movie like mahanadi and guna was fantastically shot and so very rustic..he did try bringin in metaphors like vasundhara changing into a gun when he is havin sex or even when he is braving the storm.. showing only the fire in colour and showin rest in black and white (it immidieately changes to black and white after gandhis death fkk!!!! that was brilliant) and need i say the wonderful touch at the end.. but it bombed big time!!! even allavandhan in those drugged scenes was fantastic!!! i was drawn into his wacko world alebiet for a very brief time but still it was brilliant... ppl rejected it.. what do u expect him to do.. he can never ever be a tarkovsky even if he had the potential.. so what.. should i look at his movies in a demeaning fashion.. thats the problem in ur thinking.. movies need not always be arty and too realistic ex showing a dog peeing for 5 min.. in the name of realism it is a blend of realism with slight exxageration that is far more engrossing.. kamal blends both beautifully with the constraints he has.. PERIOD!!!
 

Back with a bang, huh? Tell me one thing - Is this better or worse than Thenali?
 

RobbZ,
I think you are confusing a lot of information that you know.As far as resonance was concerned, the whole thing was an exercise in dreaming, or what you can call as MIRACLE.If you are talking in terms of pure science,We have to talk how you can produce a resonating frequency that can match the earth's resonance frequency or how powerful it should be to interact with the tectonic plates which are 20,30 kms below earth's crust or whether this will just result in a earthquake or the earth breaking itself to pieces, because of increased induced energy.That's why i told in my last post you that it is not possible under physical laws and may be with imaginary rules.You didn't even bother looking at possibilities that i mentioned above,but all you have
given me is a Asimov story ,miracle and mythological stories. My question remain
the same, where is Science?? Ultimately you are diluting various theories and physical laws to fit into the movie.The movie can be related to physics only if you bend the laws of science.

Look at the whole system in terms of science or in terms of mythology.Don't mix
and match. Your idea of pralayam and chaos in the last answer gave me insight on how you are understanding it.Let me explain my view point as a separate blog
as it would be helpful for lot of people who don't understand chaos theory.
 

robbz,
The response blog is here.
http://jackofall.blogspot.com/2008/07/pralayamchaoschaos-theory.html

Continuing on the cinema part of your next comment,Guess the new post will tell you why the movie is not about chaos theory.Which is exactly the reason why iam against kamal.If you think kamal is doing a great service by bring in chaos theory, you should consider me as doing a even greater service because iam talking about the real chaos theory.Iam making people think clearly.Look at you, you are a man od science and where are you know.You are trying to fit science into the movie to justify that it is a great movie.What i h takes another stupid movie and says that it is based on your thesis or research subject.Obviously you would write against it,not because you want to prove taht you are smart than kamal, but to tell the truth.

What ever greatness that you are talking about in the movie is, what the movie could have been, not what it is.Iam not an authority on cinema all iam saying is that kamal repeatedly gives flawed movies with lot o hype and the fans are buying it everytime.
 

vijay,
we are talking too many things here.Let's talk about the core.If you think the difference between an art movie and a main stream movie is the pace in which they are taken, 5 min dog pissing and high speed car chase.You lost me here buddy.This is the most common idea that everybody in india carries.In shot what you are looking for is a masala movie, but not necessarily the same story that you have watched earlier, some hyped foreign words like chaos theory , kurusawa , roshmon etc.

From what you have talked so far and what you enjoyed so far in a kamal movie.I can understand that you like the visual side of things and that is exactly where kamal comes in, the make ups, gimmicks etc.But actually heyram has a lot more than that.A movie need not be artistic, but i think a movie should have an integrity, in a movie story in the no one thing, one should not realize that so and so actor is acting this movie and a lot more...

If you have seen pi. why don't you analyze both the movies and write a comparison blog on why dasa is great or pi is great.I think that will give you a clear idea on the difference between them too.
 

aparna,
how are you?.yeah after a long time.I think relatively, thenali was better.
 

again u r confused urself.. i didnt say parralel movies r boring..i just replied to ur comment on why if one likes tarkovsky then he possibly cannot like kamal.. visuals? if i want to see good visuals i rather see a hollywood movie.. why would i seem kamals.If u feel that u r seeing kamal and not the character in movies like appu raja,sadma,pushpak,mmkr then its ur fault not his bcoz u r hell bent on finding a fault where none exists.i was arguing with u not just abt this movie in particular but ur opinion on kamals acting..
when u said he uses gimmicks like make up i told u off all the movies in which he has not used but still acted brilliantly..
when u complained about him goin overboard then too i gave examples.. the fact is u have not been able to give a reply to dent my stance and wont be surprised that u r all geared up to criticize marmayogi.. pity u...
as far as pi is concerned u cannot compare it with dasa its impossible.dasa is a pure commercial flick with a slight difference thats it.. its like askin me to compare indian with some other good hollywood action flick.. dasa was made as a celebration for the actor mainly..
i guess untill u answer to my points mentioned in the previous post there is no point replying further.. i have given u an answer for make up grouses,screenplay,giving oppurtunity and u have not been able to refute any of them.
ps i have the criterion collection of rashamon.. just checked!!
 

Vijay,
As far as your criticism are points are concerned.Its not that i dont want to answer.its that you are talking some of the stuff that every kamal fan talks and i have answered them all before.Every kamal fans talks about the same 3 good movies that he has acted in the past 10 yrs and the same points.you can find some of the conversations on the comment section of this post.
http://jackofall.blogspot.com/2005/03/inspired-kamal-hassan.html

First of all you are talking on both sides and clearly giving very wrong examples.I just didn't wanted to magnify them and make this conversion about trivial things.But looks like that is want you want, So Let me try to answer some of your stuff

" kamal writes scripts himself" who will write scripts for him.."

what does this mean.You guys are yourself crowning kamal.So kamal wrote a script for himself and took smash hit movies??.cmon that is the only way he can do a movie like alavandan on some producers money.Any sane scriptwriter would have vomited on such a story like that.Also that is the only reason why he keeps making one DUD movie after another.

"dasa was made as a celebration for the actor mainly.."

Exactly that is what iam saying.It is kamal celebrating on some producers money.Some non kamal fans might call it narcissm.But it is ok, for a kamal fan, like virumandi which had those two different angle shots.dasa has chaos theory and butterfly effect, which is worth every thing.

Virumandi was riveting for you from start to finish??.I asked you what was special about the movie and this is all you are answering me, yeah off course the camera angles.Apart from the so called camera angles, the movie was another pathetic attempt to make money out castesism and violence.

"kamal and not the character in movies like appu raja,sadma,pushpak,mmkr".
A typical kamal fan response. Sadma...?? give me a break.You guys have to dig into movies that came 20 30 yrs to talk about his poor standard of acting for the past 10 yrs.Glad you didn't mention kalathoor kannamma.

"again i just have the appu scene to show he is a brilliant actor.. period!!!".

Every other sentence you are talking about the appu character, cmon man, i was in high school when the movie came, it was 20th century then.
Can u come up with something that happened in this century.

"can u imagine an average tamilian sitting through even a scene say the one in zerkalo.. where they show the spoon from the table that is falling or do u expect them to find out the real meaning of the bird flying and then getting hit.."

I would have completely agreed to this if some rickshaw puller has told this.But unfortunately, only college educated , Highly informed post graduate guys are taking for some rickshaw puller and in the same vein justifying why it is appropriate to have masala elements.When you are saying that , please be atleast bold and accept that you like that part.Don't blame it on some C center audience guy.Justify the movie for yourself, i will talk to the rickshaw puller directly when i get time.

Yes you can watch a tarkovsky movie and quentin taratino movie.If you havn't observed so far, the movies, apart from good VISUALS have something called a structure.The story has a structure, the narrative has a structure and the whole movie is always built on one strong and clear point.An actor and an actress are miniscule ants trying to build a bigger ant hill, every scene is provided for completeness of the structure.

They dont take a pacca masala movie with convoluted explanations for chaos theory and mythology and also let mallika sherawath dance on the pole.It's a pity that you have seen so many good movies without understanding the basic movie structure of art movies.The statement that i told is an art movie 101.

"he can never ever be a tarkovsky even if he had the potential.. so what.."

:)...



"to me an actor should bring the character to life which is why i like kamal.. he blends it beautifully..

I like you sense of humor :).Brings the character to life.You mean in terms of make up ?.Yes i agree that , he tries to brings the character to life with good makeup..But other than it is the same self confident,mentally strong, male chavunistic, narcisst and egoistic Man in ever character.For gods sake even the supposedly mental guna character was a played by him in the same lines.

Realism and kamal??.Again in that next line itself you are acknowledging that many people find it over acting :).Is guna a very realistic acting??. i think, for you, realistic means someone hitting your senses with a big hammer.somebody hitting you in the face to look at him.somebody brainwashing you to accept his lies.Not for me.

Guess what? in realism, a dog can pee for 5 mins...You are totally confused here.

And when you think of realism, is tom hanks the only actor you can think of.Dude you talked about tarkovsy and all great director's and you are talking about tom hanks as the epitome of realistic acting."Ayooooo" I dont understand you man.Did you really see the movies that you are talking about , did you understand them?? did you enjoy them??.I dont get you dude.

"when he is comin in 10 roles in a movie u cant expect much screen time for anyone else.. its like saying u did not want to see too much of eddie murphy in nutty professor its stupid to even expect that.."

I dont know whether to laugh or cry.Are you comparing kamal with eddie murphy??.Are you a fan of eddie murphy also.Excuse me please.I dont have any thing to say further.

ps:Do watch that criterion collection with commentry and try to UNDERSTAND camera angles that were done 50 yrs ago.
 

'what does this mean.You guys are yourself crowning kamal.So kamal wrote a script for himself and took smash hit movies??.cmon that is the only way he can do a movie like alavandan on some producers money.'

What bullshit r u talking abt!! u mean to say he has not done anything different in rajkamal productions money.. again if u say allavandhan was just bull shit then u r being ignorant..
'doin stuff on other ppls money'
so what if other ppl r ready to finance it then whats ur problem..
'movies r a dud in tamil nadu'
pls get ur head examined and check the box office records of most of his movies including dasa..

'why bring up movies in the past instead abt the last ten years..

because mr ignoramus. i got it bcos u had questions about kamals acting abilities in the first place.. u said he cant act.Why do u argue for the sake of arguing..
past ten years.. hmm hey ram .. anbe sivam.. mumbai express.. how many movies has he made in the past 10 years apart from these.
if u did not like any of the above mentioned movies well i can understand ur well let me say.. ur
refined tastes..
again not for comparison pls!!! name some of the good movies de niro has done in the past ten years or say post score..hmm if some one were to ask u abt whether de niro is a good actor.. wont u mention movies from the past.. see thats ur problem.. u r too juvenile and r arguing for the sake of it..

"would have completely agreed to this if some rickshaw puller has told this.But unfortunately, only college educated , Highly informed post graduate guys are taking for some rickshaw puller and in the same vein justifying why it is appropriate to have masala elements.When you are saying that , please be atleast bold and accept that you like that part.Don't blame it on some C center audience guy.Justify the movie for yourself, i will talk to the rickshaw puller directly when i get time."

pls do and make sure u do show him one with tamil subtitles.. and let me no the response.why c centres ask some educated ones too and u will get ur reaction to zerkalo..

" kamal and realism...
now i am seriously wondering whether u have actually watched these movies or even read my post."
did i say many ppl found guna overacting.. u will be surprised to know how many hate pacino and call it a load of trash.. again so what they follow different brands of acting.as long as they keep a viewer engrossed it does not mean narcissim it means screen presence..again not to compare their acting..

"tom hanks..."
ha ha.. dude when did i say he is the epitome of real acting.. i am saying quite the contrary.. the reason i mentioned this is bcoz u like the so called boon to arts like mohanlal i mentioned hanks becoz both r as bland as bland can get. hanks reminds me of mohan lal thats why i mentioned it.. but i am not demeaning mohan lal here by any means.. it works for a lot of ppl good enough.. nothin to complain.. just like kamal works for a lot of ppl as well..
goin by that logic i am sure u should hate mifune if u hate sivaji.. is it wrong to consider mifune a good actor.. even now whenever i show yojimbo ,seven samurai or rashamon or any other kurosawa movie they ridicule me for liking rashamon.. thats ur problem.. u like one brand of acting and somehow seem convinced that all other forms r narcisstic,self indulgent..i am surprised that u actually like such a diverse set of movies.. now i am havin my doubts..

is guna, pushpak,appu raja,mmkr realism..
again if u like mifune please dont tell me guna was like in ur face..
u dint think much abt pushpak,mmkr .. he he.. that pretty much somes abt it.. if u didnt like them then u will not like any other kamal moviei dont understand why then u go to a kamal movie.. is it just to hope that.. 'let me hope i can find something to screw him and feel good abt my ahemm... so called superior artistic taste'..
dude get a life... man seriously u r becoming a joke with ur ramblings..


mifune is considered a joke by so many ppl man.. why again though it is over the top it perfectly somehow fits in well ..

'Yes you can watch a tarkovsky movie and quentin taratino movie.If you havn't observed so far, the movies, apart from good VISUALS have something called a structure.The story has a structure, the narrative has a structure and the whole movie is always built on one strong and clear point.An actor and an actress are miniscule ants trying to build a bigger ant hill, every scene is provided for completeness of the structure.'

sometimes i wonder who is more narcisstic.. kamal or u.. why this self praisal of u understanding the structure of the movie..who said no.. u dont have to be a genius to know that.. what is ur point..

'
I dont know whether to laugh or cry.Are you comparing kamal with eddie murphy??.Are you a fan of eddie murphy also.Excuse me please.I dont have any thing to say further.'

OMG!!enna kodumai sarvanan edhu..
dude r u being serious or r u joking.. i never compared kamal with eddy. probably will compare him with mohan lal and other actors he he..
i mentioned eddy bcoz u went into a move expecting significant screen time for other actors in a movie where one actor is doin ten roles.. thats stupidity to the fullest.. its like saying (once again not comparing) .. strangelove was nice but there is too much of peter sellers.. i didnt like that . he is soo very narcissic.. he is using too much gimmickry.. what is the need for him to come in multiple roles.. so self indulgent.. blah blah blah blah..
yawn dude seriously u need to really watch movies u like.. pls do us a favour dont watch a kamal movie hoping to pick some faults just bcoz u have to and sound superior and quote movies which ppl have seen and feel good abt being an acompolished art lover as if u got a degree in it bcoz u r not. a genuine art lover is one who removes all biases and prejudices and views a movie strictly on its merits within the constraints of its target audience and see if some innovations or something diff is being brought to that industry if u dont then dont watch period!!
as far as kamal fans being blind.. u think we r jobless that somehow we have to defend kamal and so we r contradicting u..rather we love him for what he is. a GOOD actor.. period!!!

kamal brainwashes.. noo my friend rather it is ppl like mohanlal who brainwash ppl like u into believing that bland acting is underplaying..
ps yes i have seen the commentary and has nothin to do with changing opinion abt virumandi..
 

vijay here.. for some reason not able to access my profile
continuing my previous post

this argument abt overacting and selfindulgence exists even in music.. as long as one weaves ones own creativity around it.did u know many of illayarajas tunes r inspired by Bach.. but he weaves his own magic around it.. similarly the same debate between frederic chopin and franz liszt. two entirely diff composers.. while chopin is known for his subtlety liszt is known for being bombastic and over the top.. but what u really need to realise is there r two different styles which should not be compared. infact what comes to my mind is an interesting inspiration of liszt from chopins heroic polonaise which he incorporated into his piece an eligy called funeraille..
check that out.. its inspired all right but check out liszt brilliance and his creativity around that. call it imrovisation or whatever.. now just bcoz he was inspired did ur opinion of come down.. it should not infact many of the movies like rain man and planes trains and automobiles which u have mentioned i totally disagree with abt them being used as inspiration.. for the rest few u say he has been inspired from he has given his own touch around them..
here is the link to chopins heroic polonaise and liszt funerraille..

this is funeraille (this piece is mind biggling!!! by liszt)
http://pianosociety.com/cms/index.php?section=1433

listen to the griner version (ie the 2nd one ) listen carefully to the base or ht harmonies after 7 or so min (it will be very fast u will notice it immidiately notice it)
and then check out heroic polonaise 'a flat major' wait for a few min to see the same but look at the diff it made to liszt song and see the diff from how chopin used it.. heres the link
http://pianosociety.com/cms/index.php?section=131

listen to bachs preludes fantasisas and fugues and see if u can detect anything..
 

Vijay,
Dude.I dont even know where this all started now.Chopin, toshire mifune, You are going all over man and it is getting nasty.Well let me keep it to the point and bring things into perspective.

who is Kamal the actor?
This is what i think,Kamal is a tamil movie star, who apart from dubbed movies acts predominantly in tamil movies and rarely in other language movies.

who is he competing with?.
He is competing with actors like Rajinikanth,vijayakanth,sathyaraj,vijay
surya,vikram and every other tamil hero.

what is his reputation in the indian art movie circle?

Not much, other than the fact that he is an actor who tries hard to bring different kind of masala movies.people hardly consider him as a realistic actor.

So why are you comparing an actor, who is confined to a small part of india and who is not even considered as a genuine art movie hero in indian art circle, to every great actor in the world.As you said in your comment, that a good critic is one who "views a movie strictly on its merits within the constraints of its target audience".I want to ask you, what is the context in which he is acting.

will you call all his movies as art movies.I would call it as masala movie only.So if that is the context,let us talk within that context.Lets not bring al pacino, tom hanks, toshire into this.I can as well go back 30 years of his and De nero's carrier and compare sakala kala vallavan's "Nethu rathri yemma" and see whether De nero came with anything as stupid as that.I dont want to go there and i dont want to bring in those guys because it is comparing apples and oranges.

So i think you should be comparing him within the context in which he is making movies and not bring every single world actor into this.Is he a better actor than vijaykanth, sathyaraj, ramarajan, Ajith or vijay.Yes he is.Is he better than rajini,surya or vikram? iam not sure.
 

Abhishek,
thanxs...
 

Vijay
dear sen
my point was in response to ur general opinion on inspiration which is why i mentioned even in music ppl like illayaraja are inspired but should not be bellitled because of that.now when did i want u to compare what kamal did earlier to what de niro did.. i just raked up the past (not the b grade movies he did before he established himself) to tell u he can act. i am not comparing him with any hollywood actor.. again i mentioned mifune only because of ur opinion on kamals acting being over the top and over dramatic and not being subtle..
as far as art movies are concerned when did i say he was making art movies and not commercial movies.. if u mean any movie which has songs as a commercial movie then sure he is def making commercial movies.. yet to name movies like mmkr pushpak mahanadi ,aopporva,anbe sivam as just masal movies is where i am finding fault with ur analysis..
yes it does have songs.. but the movies are brilliant in their own way.think abt the audience constraints which he has..even movies as fanastic as mahanadi (which had commercial elements) flopped.. what did u think is the problem .. apart from the songs(commercial elements) i did not find any problem.. yet it was refused.. imagine then how a complete art movie would have done in tamil nadu.yet he is trying in his own little way to do things diff yet earn cash.. and whatever acting talents he has shown in the above movies and many more r proof enough that he is talented and if u dint like his acting in those movies let me assure u wil not like any of his other movies then why bother to go and see them..just like mohanlals acting will not work for me and many others there is no point going into the theatre and expecting something diff from mohanlal bcos thats his style.. whats realsim and underplaying to u will always be a snooze fest for me and vice versa with respect to kamal..

'ppl hardly consider him a realistic actor'

u r talking as if u conducted a census and u talked to everyone from satrajit ray to shyam benegal nihalini and so forth..
on the contrary a lot of ppl think he is a brilliant actor including like i said om puri ,naseer and even nihalini has gone on record saying he likes his acting.infact i was just looking for that wonderful interview of om puri in bombay talkies and he speaks on kamal.. am searching for it hopefully i will find it..
so pls dont genrealise ur opinion and say even the so called art world think so.. every actor has certain strong points and weak points.. it is important for a good critic not to be judgmental.. for eg kamal may lack in a certain aspect of acting but excels in comic timing..wheras another actor may be good at somethin else.. kamal is brilliant with dialects (its soo bloody perfect!)
and i am yet to see an actor who masters it so easily as kamal.. wher as mohanlal may not be able to do so..
anyways this debate will never end. neither u nor i r goin to change our opinion..if u r comparing him with surya rajini then what can i say..( pls not the earlier rajini movies showcased his wonderful acting capabilities crap..)
 

Hey guy,

Just appreciate one genius who stepped out of a cage.
Any how still he won this industry by making everyone to think about this chaos theory and butterfly effect.

Thanks to this genius !!!
 

Arey... U can easily find mistake on others... But its difficult to be creative. I know almost 90% of the guys came to know wats Chaos theory only after him... So stop blaming..

More over.. Butterfly effect itself is not chaos theory and its jst a part and may be u can tell its an better and easier example for it... This is wat is told in the movie..

If u want some stupid stuff's like romance, comedy... U can very well go and see other movies and clap ur hands.. .Need not comment on a genius thnking ...
 

Mr Sen,

First of all kamal never sold the movie based on chaos theory. He just mentioned that he is going to don 10 different roles and it was the media that created all the hype.

I really don't understand why you are not able to see any single positive aspect about kamal in any of his movies( leave alone Dasavatharam). It is so obvious from your blogs that you seem to proceed to watch his movies with the idea of finding faults alone (ie with a preconditioned mind) and naturally you end up finding faults only. Try to watch all movies with an open mind ( without prejudgement or preconditioning)and I am sure you are bound to see lot of positives not only in kamals movies, but others as well.

That being said, you mentioned that kamal plagiarizes from lot of other originals and that you would tend to move away from watching kamal's movies after viewing the originals).That being the case, why did you go and watch Dasavatharam in the first place ? Isn't that a paradox ? You also mention that kamal overhypes his movies and I am sure you can expect the same from Marmayogi- his next venture. I am also sure you will watch that as well and come up another big list of faults. This definitely proves you are a hypocrite. You seem to be inwardly enjoying his movies, but making a pretense at being a critic or an intellectual. Be true to yourself. Do not watch his movies, if you feel you are wasting 3 hours.

For example, I don't like Rajini's movies that much. Naturally, I don't watch every movie of his and then go about criticizing his work. It's absurd. Even people that hate kamal appreciated the kind of effort and ordeals he had to undergo to make this movie. But it didn't seem to catch your eye. Really surprising( or rather not as you seem to have a bias)

Tip: Yoga, meditation or breathing exercises can help one cultivate an open mind and help you see the positive side of things as well.
 

Hello Sen,

What is your definition of an art movie? Move making is an art in itself. There can be only 2 distinct categories "Entertainment and Non Entertainment movies". You seem to be a thorough Pseudo intellectual. A true critic or reviewer has to overcome personal bias before writing reviews.

Just read the link below for comparison of kamal and mohan lal
and learn how to write more open minded reviews.

http://www.rediff.com/movies/2004/feb/14south.htm

Actors whom you rave about such as Nasserudhin Shah and OM Puri themselves regard kamal very highly as an actor and OM Puri in particular had written and approached kamal to feauture alongside kamal atleast in a small role and actually thanked kamal for giving him a role in Hey Ram.
Kamal was earlier approached to feature in an english film which he turned down and the the offer went to nasseerudhin shah.

Nasserudhin shah confessed that he found it more difficult to act in commercial films than art films as he had to frequently change his emotions which was a big challenge for him.

This being the case, you write as if you are the living encyclopedia of world cinema.

Truly accomplished people seldom brag too much and don't belittle other's works. What is your true credential in the world of films?Have you ever acted in stage or ever made even a small telefilm ?

Just reading books and watching films will not take you anywhere. At best you could be an arm chair critic. You don't need any talent to criticize, but to act or direct you need some.

Educated people are not necessarily any more open and simple minded than rickshaw pullers and their education only serves to bolster their own ego which becomes a hindrance in appreciating talent in others.

From all your blogs it seems obvious that you have nothing but pure envy for kamal's achievements.

Come on. Grow up. Leave aside your prejudices.
 

vijay,
First of all i didn't talk about inspiration in this post.Maybe you were talking about the other post. Regarding Al or Toshire, it is not what you think it is.Al or Toshire became famous because of the impact they created in the audience and you cannot separate the characters they acted in any movies with the movie itself.Which is not the case with kamal.Kamal movies are made to project kamal and not the story.You might argue on this but the truth is, the story is secondary in any kamal movie.Yes they are not subtle but did the movie require the subtleness?.you have to be subtle where you have to be.

In dasavatharam i thought an iyengar character that lived a few centuries ago, would be pious and peace loving.But when the kings guards come to take th idol , he suddenly kamal becomes jackie chan's brother and starts doing kung fu.thank god they didn't give him an AK 47 in the movie.

Again you are saying all kamal movies minus the songs are art movies.I just told you one scene above.Just imagine this you are saying that Dasavatharam or say mahanadhi - SONGS is in same league as a pather panchali or say Ardh sathya.It is up to you to decide man.

"om puri told kamal is a great actor, satyajit ray told kamal is a great actor". what are you guys talking about.Kamal invites these film personality to his film's inaugural function and they are supposed to talk.What do you think they will talk.Any decent guy would say only good things.what it says is that those guys are gentleman and nothing else.

kamal excels in comic timing.I think i have to do another post man.You guys are so wrong.kamal does not excel in comic timing.Kamal is not a natural actor.Kamal's dialect??.I think we should first talk about whether his normal tamil pronunciation and diction are wight or wrong.You talked about Al and Toshire, part of the reasons why directors liked them where there booming voice,the voice that commands the complete attention of audience. Kamal is a mumbler, it is hard to understand what he talks.you were talking about over the top acting of AL.Most of the people who saw scent of a women can repeat atleast half of Al's dialogues.How many kamal movies have distinguishable/repeatable dialogues??.If there aren't many question yourself why?
 

suresh,
What is so genius about kamal.could you please let us know.He did mention chaos theory and we are talking about it, it is a good thing.But also look at it this way.kamal just made fool out of everyone who went to see the movie believing that it was on choas theory.

Anonymous,
"If u want some stupid stuff's like romance, comedy... U can very well go and see other movies and clap ur hands.. .Need not comment on a genius thnking .."

Did you see dasavatharam.Are u saying that there is no stupid romance and comedy in dasavatharam.watch the movie again.See this is exactly the problem with kamal fans, kamal makes everyone think that they are seeing something different but in the end they are all seeing another version of a rajini movie.
 

sns,
why are you posting the same comment on different blogs.sns who told u that, meditation can make one open minded??.I have never heard this man.I was having a different opinion about this.I once read in news that yogic and meditating sadhus from kasi and varanasi went and destroyed a mosque to build a ram temple.some how they were not open minded about the other religion?.But this is surprise news to me.Good work man. think You should submit your research paper on yoga and meditation for doctorate.

Yes kamal is very good in bringing new technology and selecting apt characters for his movies.But why do you all kamal fan's what us all to appreciate his 5hr makeup stuff, which had pretty much become a part of all his movies,everytime.by what you say,Pretty much every reviewer can pre write 10 lines for every kamal movie, which is his great effort in putting a makeup for 5 hrs.

"What is your definition of an art movie? Move making is an art in itself."

what is your point?.Are u trying to say that every movie is an art movie.Guess you don't know what kind of movies are called as art movies in the movie circle.

regarding the ompuri thing as i said before, in the release unction of any movie, nobody will talk ill about the actor or producer.This is simple logic.You have spiced the story so much as if ompuri was a village farmer and kamal was the land lord and ompuri begged kamal "Ejaman ennakku ethavathu oru chinna role avathu kudunga".. :)

Regarding me not being open.How open are you sns?.Let me ask you this, why are you not watching any rajini movies? As a open minded person you should go and watch his movies, with open mindedness. why do you hate rajini movies??.let me pass on a secret tip i received from a psychologist,

Tip: Yoga, meditation or breathing exercises can help one cultivate an open mind and help you see the positive side of things as well.
 

@sen

r u freaking kidding me man.. u say his tamil is not good.. man ur tamil must be insane probably even thiruvalluvar will be beaten..'his dialects r not good' dude there is simply no more point in me arguing still cant stop laughing at the statement ..tooo funny..
om puri mentiond it when he went to attend a function.. u wish.. unfortunately dude he happened to mention it of his own accord in an ndtv interview bombay talkies so did naseer infact he has not invited them to any function of his. at least its better than the crap om puri and shah are doing for god knows the last 10 years...
al was respected because he had a commanding voice.. by that logic u should like sivaji ganesan.. man total commanding voice.. dude listen u r seriously confused.. first decide what u like and what u dislike .. its like u r arguing just for the sake of it..
most of the ppl who saw scent of a woman can mouth the dialogues.. dude what the hell is ur criteria for a good actor .the dialogues should be remembered.. hell if that was the case even rajinis oru dharava sonna nooru ... is a legendry dialogue and many more which can be repeated.. man!! sad argument.. thevar magan,kurudhi punal, guna, hey ram,anbe sivam had wonderful dialogues which obviously u will not agree..
n'he mumbles' ahh now we have a problem with that do we.. ahh well maybe u r one in a billion who find it hard to understand him.. just like some ignorant ppl will tell that abt crowe or brando or any of the other actors i can think of..

sns good reply!!! perfectly asked.. just as i had asked before.. if u can find fault in each of those masterpieces i have mentioned before thenu will def not like his acting then why be a hypocrite and watch his movies probably with a note book and say look there kamal is mumbling yipee there kamal is jumping from a train.. must be copied from bourne.. yipee there is too much water coming out. must be copied or inspired from day after tomorrow and blah blah.. and try to make urself look good and say another pathethic performance.. yawn .. seriously dude u r funny..
all ur blogs smack of hypocrisy.. just bcoz i dont like mohanlals brand of acting which i know will not change why should i go to each and every movie of his and right the same thing. he is bland ,,he is bland. blah blah..
'My ideas about kamal and his greatness all started crumbling when i started watching english movies other than the regular box office hits.'
which means u thought he was good initially before u realised his so called inspirations as u call it..
dude that above statement sums it up..grow up kiddo!!! and who knows u might actually become a decent critic someday..
 

vijay,
y are u getting so agitated.Again look at the things that you are talking.if i start talking about kamal's acting you are bringing everybody from al to toshire. you start talking about chopin in music and i talk about kamal's tamil and you are bringing thiruvalluar.This has been your thinking pattern.Just take kamal to the top.For a second stop here and think locally.Let's compare with somebody else.Forget thiruvalluar(actually iam surprised to know that you are familiar with thiruvalluar's pronounciation)Do you seriously think that kamal has a better pronounciation/diction than shivaji.??

Ompuri,again you are getting flustered , just because i talked about your thalaivar.sns was talking about ompuri's speech in heyram function and that is what i replied.

My criteria is not that the dialogue should be remembered.The dialogue should be delivered clearly and powerfully, so that the audience can understand it and the dialogue delivery will make an impact.And that was in reply to your glorious comments abut his dialogue delivery and accent.You are just bad mouthing me and you still havn't given me some good example of kamal's diction or dialouge delivery.Does that say he is not good at it..?

well rest of the stuff that you talked felt like some kamal's mumbling dialouge.i didn't understand a thing.
 

Vijay
examples well i can give hundreds but then i thought what is the point when i guy is so obssesed to find fault then there is no point tn talking about the famous scene in guna or his accent in mmkr,thenali or even a poovaraghavan in dasa.. chopin liszt i got them into the discussion only to give u an example and say nothins wrong with being inspired as long as u bring ur ativity into it as far as sivaji is concerned.. i thought u dont like his acting and his loudness hee he god only knows why u keep giving his example then anyways ..yes he does have better diction but as far as dialects and many other aspects kamal scores over him..
sigh!! whats the point neither of us r goin to change our opinion..i also assume u dont like brando then if diction and loud clear dialogues was ur sole criteria..
i repeat dont show ur hypocrisy by goin to his movies if u dont like his acting.. and then maybe u can spare us of ur so called artistic knowledge he he..
 

Hi Sen,

First of all, my apologies for double posting the comments. Now please see my response to your queries inline.

who told u that, meditation can make one open minded??.I have never heard this man.I was having a different opinion about this.I once read in news that yogic and meditating sadhus from kasi and varanasi went and destroyed a mosque to build a ram temple.some how they were not open minded about the other religion?.

The term "Sadhu" is a loosely used term in india for anyone that wears a saffron robe and leads a vagabond life. This doesn't always mean they are enlightened and infact they could be much worse than you or me. Infact, lot of them use this attire as a license to commit crimes, which is what we have been witnessing a lot these days. Yoga and violence do not go together. True yogi's are the one's that have transcended the ego and can live with harmony with other human beings and other religions. EG Christ, Buddha, Ramanamaharishi,Vivekananda, Thiruvalluvar, Shirdi Sai Baba etc. Did they ever act against any religion ?

As a practitioner of yoga for over 15 yrs, I can speak with some authority on the virtues of yoga and meditation. You initially need an open minded approach to yoga ie meaning the initial effort has to come from you and with regular practice over a period of time open mindedness becomes second nature to you. IF you get a chance try to get hold of books on Zen, Krishnamurti etc or more modern thinkers such as Dr.Deepak Chopra to get an insight on yoga and meditation and its physiological and pyschological benefits.

think You should submit your research paper on yoga and meditation for doctorate.

It would be naive to submit a research paper on a well established religious truth, that has been scientifically validated and prescribed by Medical professionals to patients suffering from various ailments.I am just a practitioner reaping the benefits and would recommend to someone that is interested.


what is your point?.Are u trying to say that every movie is an art movie.Guess you don't know what kind of movies are called as art movies in the movie circle.

I am not saying every movie is an art movie. Art movies in movie circle was once confined to a select set of audience that deemed themselves to be intellectuals.
But in the recent past, directors have started to break free from those cliched definitions ie Even Satyajit ray's and shyam benegal's movies have songs in them, which was absent in their earlier ventures. Look at wikipedia's definition for art films

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_film

Nowhere does it indicate that one has to be more talented to work in art films. In fact, introducing a new face will make it appear more natural. The true test lies in doing experimental films and roles
and that is where kamal outshines lal, ompuri and naseerudhin shah because of his versatility.
It is hard to even imagine the other 3 in the role of appu (Apoorva Saghodarargal) or in Anbe Sivam. Imagine om puri doing the close up shots in the registrar office. Of course, I do have lot of respects for Om puri and Nazeer having watched movies like Ardh Satya and probably are the among the best in the country.


.You have spiced the story so much as if ompuri was a village farmer and kamal was the land lord and ompuri begged kamal "Ejaman ennakku ethavathu oru chinna role avathu kudunga".. :)


I did not concoct anything here and this was not part an film function that Kamal Organized. I read this in one of the indian magazines(Maybe Little India) that is circulated in US. If my memory serves me right, it was sometime during the Hey Ram release period.


But why do you all kamal fan's what us all to appreciate his 5hr makeup stuff, which had pretty much become a part of all his movies,everytime

I am not a conventional fan of kamal and have still not watched Alavandhan(after reading bad reviews), Thenali etc and
neither did I like movies such as Kadhala Kadhala which I found very silly. Effort doesn't just mean physical effort such as
makeup, working long hrs etc. It also means that he is trying to inject new ideas, themes and technology and forces other
actors and technicians to give more than 100% effort.
How many Indian actors do you think have the guts to play a george bush ? How about the Jazzy music and off the road comedy in mumbai express hitherdo
unheard in Indian Cinema. Illayaraja may have been the musician, but for kamal it would have been another run of the mill music which we normally hear. As far as tamil movies are concerned, he seems to be the only hope, whether you like it or not.


How open are you sns?.Let me ask you this, why are you not watching any rajini movies? As a open minded person you should go and watch his movies, with open mindedness. why do you hate rajini movies??.

I never said I hate Rajini movies. I just told I don't go and watch every other movie of Rajini and come up with a list of criticisms. I still like and watch his older movies made during the Pre SuperStar days such as Thillu Mullu, Nettrikan, Mullum Malarum etc. After a point of time after he became superstar there was no substance, but only hero worship and deification and it became too mechanical and preditable which I started disliking. Disliking is not the same as hating. If he again acts in quality movies, I will go and watch. I watched chandramukhi after a long time, it was ok. Shivaji was disappointing. Infact, I expect you to do the same(not watch Kamal movies), as you seem to dislike Kamal movies much more than I dislike Rajini's movies. But on the other hand, you seem to watch every other movie after fully being aware that he is
Plagiarizing, Over hyping, gimmickinmg etc etc as per your own confession. Why ? . Why not be just content with the Art movies of
Nasserudhin shah and om puri ? You have not given a satifactory explanation to my and vijay's posting
 

totally agree sns.. and whats with plagarizing.. man have u seen most of the originals to comment on his plagarizing.. if u think anbe sivam and mahanadi is just plagarising then u seriously are blind.. watch planes trains and automobiles properly then see whether they r smilar.. whatever this guy has accused him of is just plain bs
what qualifies as a gimmick and what does not.. hell that means every movie is gimicky right down from amores perros to the pathethic vantage point.. if u r aware of cinema u need to understand that such stunts are not gimmicks they r called hooks in cinematic terms which needs to capture the director or the producers attention..anyways ppl who have a prejudiced mindset cannot be changed..
 

sns,
The more and more i talk to you kamal fans.I have understood that there is a basic difference between the way you kamal fans are watching a movie and iam watching a movie.What you guys look for is completely different from what iam looking for.I want to do a very detail post on that , but iam not getting time.but iam definitely going to do it.

what do you mean, when you say that iam not answering you are vijay.what do you think that i have been doing all along.If you are asking why iam watching kamal movies.Iam watching it to let everyone know how kamal is bullshiting everyone.It is not necessarily to you kamal fans.But so many others.Look at how everybody hijacked and glorified a stupid movie like dasavatharam with chaos theory.
 

finally u realised there is a difference in the way we watch movies and ppl have diff tastes .So pls dont act as if u r the most renowned art critic in the world and ur so called educating ppl also does not seem to be accepted considering the movies success..
 

vijay/sns or who ever it is,

Please read twice before what you are posting.what is the point of the whole post, Every rajini movie is 10 times more successful than a kamal's movie, does that mean they are all great movies.And try to talk about kamal specific stuff than talking like a politician about everything other than his acting.

And dont try to define ME.

I never told that iam the renowned art critic in the world.If you have some kind of inferiority complex, dont put that on me.My blog is a place where i speak my mind.You guys talked so many things about mohan lal and many actors that i like.I didn't start screaming or start defending them.Because iam not a crazy fan, who feels compelled to protect his hero's reputation or someone who takes criticism of public figures personally.If you think that kamal is the UNIVERSAL HERO and the greatest living actor/Human being on earth.Create a blog, a site and write all about it.spread the word, make everyone aware of his greatness and do detailed review of his work, do something positive, rather than wasting your time and my time.

Because for me Kamal will always be the highly hyped average actor and i will write more about his hyped acting capabilities.
 

'MORE DETAILED POSTS eh..' pity the blogging world
 

ONLY GOD CAN SAVE THE BLOGGING WORLD NOW..
 

I don't think this movie was sold on the fact that it is based on chaos theory. In fact, I did not know that either even after I watched the movie. How many people in tamil nadu even know about chaos theory ? Even among the educated, more than 80% do not know about this. That being the case, I don't think anyone would be foolish enough to market a movie making claims about chaos theory.(Remember this is not hollywood or European cinema). But people know that he has a penchant for trying different things. Nobody has attempted 10 different roles in an Indian movie and that is why people flocked to see the movie and that pretty much explains the success of the movie. It is a very simple story based on karmic effect and interconnection of events told in an entertaining fashion. I don't understand why you have taken so much pain to disprove this, as if kamal had presented a research paper on chaos theory and you are among the scientific community scrutinizing and validating the authenticity of the theory. In fact, your blog has given much more publicity for the movie than what probably was intended by the film crew.

Please read my previous post carefully. I reiterate that I am not a conventional fan of kamal and infact have watched fewer movies of his than you have.I also wish to assert that I am against hero worship, don't believe in
tags such "SuperStar", "Universal Hero" etc. There is no need to start a new website eulogizing kamal, as there already are tons of them. I usually don't write film based posts and consider that to be a waste of time as there are other more burning issues such as
poverty, terrorism etc that needs to be addressed.I inadvertently landed up on your web site
and after reading only negative reviews about all kamal movies, decided to do some posts.

You have mentioned that the way you watch kamal movies is different than the way others view it.Infact, that is the crux of the problem and that's why you end up finding flaws alone.One normally goes to any movie for the purpose of enjoying the movie for whatever the movie has to offer.
On the other hand, you seem to be particularly obssessed with the idea of finding flaws from
the very 1st scene( if it is a kamal movie) with an attempt to belittle his standing in the
film industry. How can we expect you to be an impartial critic ? Naturally , you don't seem to find anything impressive about what he does on and off the screen. While constructive criticism is always welcome, criticism for the sake
of criticism and that has ulterior motives will not be given the kind of reverence and credibility you seem to expect. Whatever respect he commands in the industry has come through many years of harwork and determination and did not happen in a year or two to be dismissed as hype.

I always had respect for Mohanlal, OM puri and Nazeer and only mentioned that they cannot fit into some of the roles that kamal played. Instead of kamal if one of the other 3 were to play the 10 roles in Dasa, how convincing would that have been ?

It is a pity that the judges that awarded 3 or 4 national awards and 17 filmfare awards to kamal did not get to read your blogs before handing away their awards or else they may have backtracked. The same applies to people like K.Balachander, Nagesh, Maniratnam etc thathav been lavishly praising him without realizing how much he has been hyped, as your blog seems to suggest.

You could possibily target your blogs at them and try to see if any
of those Awards can be revoked and also prevent such future blunders from happening.
 

sns,
i was talking about the so called educated kamal fans who are burning the
Internet trying to portrait dasavatharam as a movie based on chaos theory. As usual kamal fans bought
the hype and are forgetting that there is no hard story in the movie. You for instance are saying that
"It is a very simple story based on karmic effect and interconnection of events told in an entertaining
fashion".what karmic effect are you talking about, why did rangarajan nambi suffer?what was the bad or good karma that caused it?.What was the interconnection, look closely you will see that how ever you dice it, no rule applies for all the characters.And i think i also said what you said before instead of
simple movie i told a usual masala movie very badly executed.

For all your disclaimers on hero workship "I am against hero worship, don't
believe in tags such "SuperStar", "Universal Hero" etc", that is all you have been doing.This is one of
the few times you talked about the movie dasavatharm(the blog was on the movie).But you guys are
only talking about kamal this and kamal that and trying to defend kamal by finding every bit of
examples that you can find in the world.Yes maybe iam on a extreme side trying to find mistakes in
everything that kamal is doing.But you guys are not the centrist who look at things both the good and
bad sides either.


Well i would not take film fare awards as a criteria for someone's acting talent.It is not better than an award given out by cinema express or kumudam.Film fare gave best actor award to ajith for villian and varalaaru, surya for perazhagan and it usually gives the award to anybody who will work on there makeup a little bit.If you want to know more about the standard of filmfare awards. sarathkumar like ajith also got it twice for Naatpukkaga and suryavamsam.Iam not saying that he is not at all acting, iam saying that half of the acting that you think he is doing is hype and not real acting.He is yet another average actor and that is all he is.Comparing him with every other great actor in the world is just ridiculous and shows how one sided kamal fans are that's all.

Yeah another scale to calculate an actors talent, what some directors told about him.Maniratnam praises madhavan also, balachander praises Aravind so why are you not talking about them.Well they don't have any glamor or hype associated with them. You should ask yourself a question why kamal did not act in movies with a great director like kamal after unnal mudium, because if he has to act in a balachander movie like Unnal mudium thambi, he has to put himself inside a story and act without any hype and that exposes his acting talents. Narcissm works better if you take a not so good story and sell it with hypes like 10 roles, makeup etc etc and make everyone wow at you for your acting skills without really acting.Try thinking on those lines...

Iam definitely going to write about all these things. But right now kamal is the least of my priorities. Iam actually sick of talking about kamal the Univesal hero, on a blog about chaos theory in dasa.please do write about dasa stuff and forget the rest. We can talk about that on my next blog on his acting skills
 

I know that this blog is about the movie. But, there were debates and arguments already going on about kamal's acting capabilities, diction, delivery etc in this blog and hence I thought there was nothing wrong in posting my views as well. Sorry, about that. If need be, I can write about that
on your next blog that you are intending to start.
".what karmic effect are you talking about, why did rangarajan nambi suffer?what was the bad or good karma that caused it?.
Karmic effect could be a result of deeds in the present life or in the past life according to hinduism or Buddhism. You should first acknowledge that this is just a movie and that too an entertainment one and it would be
impossible to go into every minute detail in a 3 hr movie. You will have to be making a mega serial like Ramayana or Mahabharata or atleast a 5 hour movie like "Gandhi" to go into every other detail.

I mentioned that the movie is a "simple one" meaning the storyline is fairly thin, but the interweaving of characters
is fairly complex and the effort that has gone into making the movie deserves praise ie technical finesse,and the potrayal of characters such as Balaram Naidu, Fletcher, Poovaragan etc and also the multilayered approach to film making not common in indian films.

To me, Dasavatharam just means the 10 roles played by kamal and cannot be likened to 10 incarnations of vishnu, as fletcher is depicted as a villain and also the flaw where one incarnation (fletcher) fights the other( Japanese Martial artist). IF such a comparison or claim is made, it is totally erroneous.


Regarding your views on "Hero Worship", appreciating someone's talent is not hero worship. But I accept that it is cross posted and should happen on a different blog. I already gave my reasons above as to why I did that and this post will probably be the last one for this blog, just to answer your questions. Just bear with me.

You have the tendency to over blow the negative sides of kamal and underplay the positives as much as possible. That is very conspicuous in all your blogs and you seemed to have recognized that. While you are so enthusiastic to find and highlight the mistakes in the movie,there is absolutely no recognition of the effort involved. Remember, it is much easier to sit and criticize than
to actually face the camera. I have read a couple of other negative reviews about this movie, but even they had something
positive to say about the effort kamal is putting in to raise the viewing experience. That is why I even tried defending kamal and this has nothing to do with hero worship. I may not be perfectly neutral, atleast I don't get negatively biased against any actor to the extent of turning a blind eye even towards good performances.

Let's forget filmfare awards, what about national awards ? Was that given by a Kamal Fan sitting in the panel ? The same national award was also presented to OM Puri, Mohan lal etc ? While they are fully justified in receiving
it, for some reason kamal never deserved it according to you ? right ? What reason you are going to come up with ?

Our discussion is about kamal- the protagonist. Even that is irrelevant within the context of this topic ? How then do you expect
me to talk about Madhavan or Ramesh Arvind ? Secondly, while Ramesh Arvind is now a very mature actor and doing variety roles mostly in kannada films, he hasn't done too many variety films in tamil. I accept, I liked him as much or probably even more than kamal in "Sathileelavathi" and "Mumbai "Express". I read that kannada version of sathi was even better. But Ramesh Arvind initially was aping kamal's acting a little too much and had confessed he was an ardent fan of kamal and it started rubbing off on
his roles. But now he has managed to shake it off. On the other hand, Madhavan has just started doing variety roles and still has a long way to go to. Kamal was taken seriously only after "Nayagan" even though he had done quite a lot of variety roles earlier and even had won a national award or two prior to "Nayagan".

Balachander or Maniratnam may have praised "Madhavan" or "Ramesh Arvind" seeing their potential. But then their respect for Kamal is totally different altogether. See link below. Not all of kamal's movies came in for this much of appreciation from KB.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/fr/2008/06/27/stories/2008062751090400.htm

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/fr/2006/02/24/stories/2006022403630100.htm

KB has mentioned recently that "among his students only kamal and saritha can handle lengthy close up shots". He doesn't say that about every other actor. Most recent example of that would be the last scene in "Vasoool Raja" where prakash Raj and others question him. You just watch the same in telugu( done by chiranjeevi) and note the ocean of difference in the way they emote and how the scene has been changed in telugu oweing
to chiranjeevi's limitations. Forget chiru, show me another tamil actor that can generate the same intensity in that scene.




"You should ask yourself a question why kamal did not act in movies with a great director like kamal after unnal mudium,
because if he has to act in a balachander movie like Unnal mudium thambi, he has to put himself inside a story and act without any hype and that exposes his acting talents"


It's funny, most people accuse him of being "Self Indulgent" meaning he deliberately chooses roles or stories that can give him ample scope to display his acting skills thus giving secondary importance to story or screenplay and you are just claiming the opposite.


So, you want kamal to act in the role of that new comer in "POI" that needs loads of acting capabilities. Excellent. I appreciate your lateral thinking.


Kamal already proved his capabilities in K.B's earlier ventures such as "Punnagai Mannan" and as per balachander's own words has outgrown most other
people in the film industry. KB has mentioned that the kind of film he makes will be more suitable for Newcomers as he can mould them the way he wants.
That should put your doubts to rest.

Finally, as pointed out by others, no actor in the universe can please all the fans. What I like may not be appealing to you and what you define as acting may not strike a chord with me. This is a universal law and cannot be changed. As much as I like kamal, I like ompuri or Nazzer in a different light. I cannot put them in kamal's shoes and expect them to emote like kamal, as they are unique in their own way. You on the other hand, have a preconditioned mind set and dismiss everything else that doesn't conform to your pattern as hype, unnatural etc and try to establish that as a universal truth.

IF so far whatever kamal has done has not had any impact on you, it is unlikely that anything he does in the future ever will. Perhaps his approach to acting doesn't jell with your mindset. That's possible and quite natural. After having discovered that, why take the pains to watch his movies, write blogs etc.

BTW, tell me who you think is the best actor or which movie you think is the most well made. This time I will use the technique you use for watching kamal movies and come out with an inventory of errors.

Sorry for this lengthy ramble.
 

The links got cut in the previous post

http://www.hinduonnet.com/
thehindu/fr/2008/06/27/
stories/2008062751090400.htm

http://www.hinduonnet.com/
thehindu/fr/2006/02/24/
stories/2006022403630100.htm
 

http://www.naachgaana.com/2008/06/16/the-rise-and-fall-and-fall-of-kamal-hassan/
 

The funny thing about "Dasa" is that all those(paricularly kamal fans) that watched this movie either liked it very much or disliked it very much.
 

Does that mean the tamil movie 12B dealt with chaos theory?
 

the worst review ever written..hats off to u man!!