Sudhir Srinivasan

The man who made Rajinikanth

The censor board wasn’t pleased when they learned they had to certify A Creator with Midas Touch, writer-producer Dhananjayan’s documentary on Panchu Arunachalam. For one, the screening was scheduled on New Year’s eve. Two, it was a documentary, over two hours long. But according to Dhananjayan, when the film ended at 10:30 that night, the…

Valeba Raja: Shrink-wrapped

Check the trailer here. I’ve always been awed by laughter yoga practitioners, by how they will themselves into voluntary laughter, and sustain it for so long. But they have a new challenge in town in the form of Sai Gokul Ramanath’s Valeba Raja, which has finally released after threatening to for the last two years. Try laughing…

Sawaari: Not enough thrills, not enough laughs

It’s becoming increasingly evident that a lot of our new filmmakers have been raised on Western cinema. The visual treatment of the opening scene of Sawaari reminds you of the neo-noir visuals of Sin City. It’s all black and white, except for a burning cigarette. There are slo-mo shots of the smoke. There’s much darkness inside the car,…

Go, going, gone

Considering how besotted we all are with cinema, it may seem a bit absurd to say this, but lately, I’m beginning to believe that Tamil films meant a lot more, say a couple of decades ago. Do you remember that time — when a trip to a cinema theatre was almost an exotic outing that…

Pokkiri Raja

An ineffective comedy that leaves you yawning It takes a while for you to grasp that Pokkiri Raja isn’t a serious film. It is even irreverential in parts: its villain has no problems smoking in a temple, its hero and heroine are in a gag that parodies divine possession… you get the idea. It all…