I review: Vikram is good but Shankar has lost his magic touch

January 15, 2015

Vikram Shankar

Chennai, Jan 15: He is considered India’s answer to James Cameron and his romantic thriller I has been touted as the movie of the year, even if it is only January now. His name is Shankar, he has a 90% hit rate, and his magnum opus has released for Pongal, worldwide, in over 15,000 screens. I is a story of love, revenge, jealousy and truth. Lingesan is a bodybuilder who dreams of model Diya (Amy Jackson) on one side and winning the Mr India title on the other. She is the educated, sophisticated rich girl. He is the exact opposite – a guy who lives in the housing board flat and whose Tamil is as local as it gets. But that doesn’t deter him from ‘loving’ her and he buys every product she models for - right from sanitary pads to bras.

Meanwhile, Diya is relentlessly pursued by model John (Upen Patel) whom she rejects time and again. Diya happens to meet Lingesan at a shoot and ropes him in place of John for an ad shoot in China. The twist in this tale takes place when Lingesan rejects an ad from Ramkumar, a wealthy businessman, and the advances of Ojas M Rajani, who plays a transgender stylist. Suresh Gopi, who plays a doctor, plays another key character in the film.

Vikram essays three characters in the film – the bodybuilder, the model and the hunchback. He has worked hard on the transformation for these characters and that is quite evident from the weight gain and loss, and make-up for each of these roles.

The role of the hunchback is perhaps the most difficult and defining in this film. Vikram has to be applauded for the effort and number of years he’s poured into this film as he is the backbone of the film.

Still, I doesn’t meet expectations – and this is a big disappointment for Shankar fans. Shankar has always made films that had not only technical brilliance, but also told a story that resonated and contained a message. Be it Gentleman, Mudhalvan, Anniyan, Sivaji or Enthiran, there was that distinctive Shankar magic to every film he directed. It was spectacular and entertaining. In I, however, Shankar's magic is missing.

In the past, the writing combination of Shankar and writer Sujatha was one of the best in the Tamil film industry. Sujatha, a pseudonym for writer S Rangarajan, penned the dialogues for many of Shankar’s previous films, including Anniyan, Indian and Enthiran. Unfortunately, his demise while working on Enthiran has created a huge void in Kollywood and perhaps in Shankar’s life too. Shankar worked on I with writer Subha for the first time, and the script just doesn’t measure up.

As for technical brilliance, I has it all – all the scenes in the songs are like picture-perfect postcards. Shankar has done justice to A R Rahman’s tunes and that’s a visual treat in the film. Watching Jackson turn into a mobile, a bike and sprout into a plant may be edgy, but it doesn’t give the movie any depth. As for the chemistry between Jackson and Vikram, the less said the better. Upen Patel, Suresh Gopi and Ojas Rajani end up to be just props and are quite forgettable.

Made with a budget of about Rs 90 crore, I has a running time of three hours and nine minutes. This is a too long, especially when the story is quite flat.The film is one-man show starring Vikram, but perhaps Shankar now needs to rediscover himself. The first step would be to look for a writer comparable to Sujatha.

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Agencies
May 18,2020

Muzaffarnagar, May 18: Bollywood actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui and his family has been quarantined for 14 days in his house in Budhana in Muzaffarnagar district.

The actor and his family underwent medical screening and have tested negative for Coronavirus.

The actor reached his home on May 15 after taking a travel pass. He and his family have been asked to remain in home quarantine till May 25.

His mother, brother and sister-in-law also made the journey with him in his private vehicle.

The actor told reporters that he underwent medical screenings at 25 points during his journey.

Kushalpal Singh, Station House Officer (SHO), Budhana police circle, said that the health officials had visited the home of the actor and ordered a 14-day quarantine for them.

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News Network
July 3,2020

Mumbai, Jun 3: Investigators will subject the cloth allegedly used by actor Sushant Singh Rajput to hang himself to "tensile strength" analysis to determine whether it can bear the weight similar to that of the filmstar, as part of probe into his death, an official said on Friday.

Rajput (34) was found hanging at his suburban Bandra residence on June 14.

According to the investigators, the actor ended his life by hanging himself from the ceiling using a green coloured night gown made of cotton.

No suicide note was found from the spot, the police had said then.

Besides viscera from the actors body, the police also sent the gown for chemical and forensic analysis at the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in suburban Kalina, he said.

It will take at least three more days to get final forensic report, the official said.

To ascertain the exact cause of death, forensic experts will check pattern of ligature marks around the actors neck and also determine the strength of the gown with the help of "tensile strength" analysis, he said.

The tensile strength test will technically establish whether the cloth can bear around 80kg, the weight of the actor, he said.

The test will help determine if there was any foul play, the official said.

Tensile strength is maximum load that a material can support without fracture when being stretched.

Viscera analysis will help in checking whether there were any traces of chemical, poisonous or narcotics substance in his body, the official said.

"Usually, it takes eight to ten working days to get s report from the FSL in regular cases. But since this case is sensitive, experts are taking more precautions to avoid any kind of error in their analysis," the official said.

The forensic report of the actors mobile phone is also awaited, he said.

Recently, the police received the final post-mortem report of the actor from Cooper Hospital, which mentioned the cause of the death as asphyxia due to hanging"

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News Network
January 24,2020

Jaipur, Jan 24: Actor Sonali Bendre has said that she came into the movies to make money but fell in love with the profession where she discovered herself and found her family and friends. The 45-year-old actor said she owed a lot to Bollywood which is the most wonderful place to be, both mentally as well as creatively.

"I came into movies to make money and I fell in love with the profession. It was the most wonderful place to be, mentally and creatively," she said.

"I found myself there, found my friends and family over there. I owe a lot to Bollywood. It was one of the most wonderful things that happened to me," Sonali said here on Thursday.

The actor said her entry into movies by purely because she happened to be at the right place and at the right time.

Sonali added when acting offers came her way she knew that in no other field could she have made as much money, and as quickly, as she did in movies.

"Basically, I got into this because it was great money," she said.

The actor was speaking at the Jaipur Literature Festival and also talked about books and how her book club named ‘Sonali's Book Club' came into being.

Sonali, who has been convalescing after undergoing treatment for cancer in the US, said that books gave her strength and kept her afloat while she was going through one of the toughest phases of her life.

The actor was diagnosed with high grade cancer in July 2018 and underwent treatment for it in New York.

"Books were my friends other than my sisters while I was growing up. I'm nowhere remotely connected to movies. I have a very middle class Maharashtrian upbringing. When I got into movies, it was like being on another planet. Again in this world where it was easy to feel the peer pressure and do certain things or not do certain things, or look a certain way, books kept me grounded," she said.

"'A Gentleman in Moscow' (a 2016 novel by Amor Towles) was uplifting and I got so much strength from that book during my treatment in New York," Sonali said.

The actor, who often shares posts about books and authors on social media, said one should stop feeling guilty about not completing a book.

"Sometimes you start judging yourself by not completing a book, but I have reached a stage where I understand that I'm a book-lover, but that doesn't mean I will like all the books. It's okay if you don't like a book," she said.

Sonali also said that nobody wanted to know about the intellectual capacity of Bollywood stars as it was not "entertainment enough or gossipy enough".

Earlier before her session, Sonali launched author Ashwin Sanghi's latest book ‘The Vault of Vishnu', the sixth book in the Bharat series, at the 13th edition of the festival.

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Advisor
 - 
Sunday, 26 Jan 2020

Please read the religious books once in your life time specially the QURAN which tells lot about this life and its journey and to recognize the true ONE GOD who has no partners and the creator of all that Exists . God asks us to use our intellect and find logical answers for many of our life's query which is a guidance to HUMANITY.  READ with a OPEN HEART without bias... Good LUCK

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