kannada premi

"If you want to know about a mother's love then watch a movie by Prem, if you want to know about brother and sister relationship then watch a Sai Prakash movie but whatever you do, don't watch an Upendra movie. He'll tell you love is a brinjal and just as crappy."

Kannada movie bonanza this weekend. Saw Alemari with Yogesh alias Loose Madha as hero and it wasn't bad at all. A horribly disfigured and somewhat slow man is brought to Bangalore from a village to work as manual labour. Every night he sleeps and dreams of a time when he was a normal looking dude and living his life as a milkman, falling in love with a girl (Neeli) and getting involved in gang fights with a local rowdy who goes by the name of NIMHANS Suri. Mental fellow. The story is the by now cliched plot of love, rowdyism and longs. What makes this a bit different is you're never sure if it's a flashback of the hero's life or simply a dream. Its only when the movie's over and I was putting all the pieces together that I realised every character in the hero's dreams was someone he met on the streets during the day. His dream mother is a woman who takes pity on him and feeds him, his dream lover is the woman who lives in a house next to the shed he's staying in, his dream mentor is a man who's dead in the real world and whose giant billboard he passes by every day and his dream brother in law is a rowdy who's just gotten out of jail. Or, maybe, it all actually happened and his mom and brother in law just don't recognize him cause of how fucked up his face is. Originally running at over 3 and a half hours, the movie was then cut by about an hour before release and further cut by 20 minutes after its initial release. Its a jumbled tale and some parts don't make much sense. The fight scenes are great though. A chase where Milk Madha is running through the lanes with all of NIMHANS Suri's area boys chasing him is done nicely and the final fight is pretty good too. I have to say, Jogi has had such a huge influence on kannada movies that its scary. Its given birth to a whole new dialogue, our own street, full of sketches, deals and fittings. Hardboiled as hell for anyone willing to sit through a half assed love story and a few obnoxiously loud songs to get to the good bits. The writing is really good. The dialogue is sharp and honest. The above quoted lines lose something in translation and with no context but it made me laugh. Also, Ramesh Bhat as Shastri the brahmin music teacher, simple man and father of heroine is such a lame character and Bhat has been doing these for years now. Umashri in the role of milk Madha's mother is also on autopilot. She's done this whole loud, short tempered but loving mother role hazaar times. On the other hand MICO Nagaraj as Naganna the kind hearted moneylender and ex-rowdy and Adi Lokesh as Pulav Krishna the cold and heartless rowdy play out newer cliches like they were born for it. In fact, Adi Lokesh was quite impressive. Not hero material but maybe another solid character actor. Anyway, it's a movie worth checking out.

Tired dude. Too early to sleep so here I am. Also saw Spartacus: Blood and Sand and it was pretty crappy except for one great fight scene and Lucy Lawless who's quite hot after horrible Xena. Season 2 of the Borgias cannot start soon enough.