Wednesday, March 25, 2009

PAWAN KALYAN AT ANJANEYULU OPENING

Ravi Teja's Anjaneulu Opening

TEJA -A SEARCH ENGINE FOR MOVIE LOVERS

SONTHA OORU-A FILM OF CLASSY NARRATION AND PHILOSOPHY

Film: Sontha Ooru
Genre: Art Film
Rating: 2.75
Banner: Sravya Productions
Cast: Raja, Theertha, L B Sriram, Swathi, Tanikella, M S, Jeeva, Vijaychander, Jayaprakash Reddy and others
Music: Saketh Sairam
Cinematography: Sabu James
Dialogues: Gandham Nagaraju
Editing: Sri Guha
Director: P Sunil Kumar Reddy
Producers: Y Ravindra Babu, Kishori Basireddy
Release date: 21/03/2009

Given the commercialization and globalization, the essence of countryside and agricultural lands has been going through a phase of extinction. In that context, the film has been made to take through a nostalgic journey. How true has it stood to the sentiment, let us see.

Story
A small village has many characters in the form of Bujji (Raja) who is in love with Malli (Teertha), the prostitute and both of them are quite close to Rudrudu (L B Sriram) who takes care of the dead bodies in the graveyard and arranges for their funeral.

They all have a village head Devudu babu (Tanikella) who has the goodwill and respect of all the villagers. Then there is Naidu (Jeeva) who always becomes the victim of crow droppings. Reddy (Vijaychander) is the honest and hardworking farmer.

Everything goes well but their lives take a turn when the government comes with the proposal of setting up a special business zone there so they want the villagers to sell their lands and leave. This news is brought by the MRO (M S).

Whether the village folks accept it or not forms the rest of the story.

Performance
The film belongs to L B Sriram as he came up with an award winning performance; it was the strength of his dialogues that gave him the added impact. Raja was regular, Teertha is a buxom babe and oozed out her sex appeal and oomph to the fullest extent, Tanikella was elegant, M S was normal, Jeeva was just okay, Vijaychander and Jayaprakash Reddy came and went. The others did not have much in it.

The director has attempted to come up with a thoughtful message about the current urbanization of the villages but then there seems to be few hitches. While the presentation is somewhat okay, the narration lacked the depth and the script was written without much gravity. Screenplay was okay, music and camerawork was average, editing could have been better, dialogues are excellent. Locations and costumes fitted the scenario and not much for the art department in this.

On a whole it is an artistic attempt with no big commercial elements.

Analysis
Right from the beginning, the film had the smell of an art movie in it and given the romantic angle and the philosophic angle of death, it looked like a mixture of life with a very spiritual view.

However, the film has fallen flat in conveying a message to the audience. The issue was about the acquisition of villages and agricultural lands. So it would have made a lot of sense to come up with a revolution or an awakening among the village folks to come together and preserve the lands. Instead, what follows is a string of deaths and in the end it turns out to be a complete tragic tale without a message to audiences nor enough substance in it to feel an impact.

The film could have been a lot better if the focus was towards a positive solution towards the situation. However, the real life and soul of the film was L B Sriram who has come out with an exceptional performance. His strength lied in the dialogues and the way he has given the reality of life in a philosophical way. This will be one of his all time best performances in his career. If the idea of the makers was to show how important it is to protect the agriculture and the village system then why was the issue not attended during the climax?

The story moves towards the characters in the movie and the stale endings they have. All efforts look waste and depressing after so much that has been shown, the pace of the movie also was slow and it must be said that there is hardly any story for the first twenty minutes or so. The film is more of an art genre material and there is not much for the mass audience except the exposing of Theertha and a weak item song. Even the class will not have the patience to sit through the movie only to get depressed in the end.

Although the first half is interesting, second half killed the tempo. The length of the movie would have restricted to 1.30 hr or below 2 hrs.

MAHESH TEASING ANUSHKA

Prince, Jejamma Photo Shoot

Prince Mahesh Babu and Heroine Anushka participated in a Photo shoot for the director Trivikram Srinivas’s picture. It is learnt that Prince teased Anushka by calling her Jejamma. Namratha (wife of Prince Mahesh Babu) designed the costumes for this photo shoot.

RAMCHRANTEJA COMPETING WITH MAHESHBABU

Ramcharan Pepsi vs Mahesh Thums Up

Ramcharan Pepsi

If you missed the recent Pepsi Ad which features Ramcharan Tej and Deepika Padukune have a look at it here. Coke and Pepsi are the world famous arch rivals just like India - Pakistan, BMW - Benz etc. Coke (Thums Up) has a good market share in India in the recent times. Pepsi on the other hand has pretty less share compared to Thums Up. So Pepsi is now trying to compete with Coke in a aggressive manner.

As Andhra Pradesh is the third largest in soft drink market, Pepsi has used Ramcharan and Deepika Padukune to advertise their product. Thums Up on the other hand has Prince Mahesh Babu in their ads for a long time. Lets see if Ramcharan can bring Pepsi any luck.

PRP GAINING STRENGTH

More and more defections are taking place into the PRP, after the announcement of the Congress list.

The latest talk is that former minister and senior Congress leader B Chittaranjan Das is planning to join the Congress, as he was denied ticket in the elections. Das is very popular as “Giant Killer” for defeating none other than Telugu Desam founder-president late N T Rama Rao in Kalwakurthy constituency in Mahbubnagar district in 1989 elections. Since then, he has been getting a lot of prominence in the district. Yet, he did not get ticket. So, he chose to join the PRP.

Similarly, villain-turned-hero Srihari, who once acted as a personal bodyguard of Chiranjeevi, also decided to jump into the PRP. Till now, he has been with the Congress and even considered to be its star campaigner. He expected ticket from Pedana constituency in Krishna district and also recommended ticket for Vangaveeti Santhan Kumar.

However, the Congress high command denied both his requests. Peeved at this, he decided to join the PRP.

Nagachaitanya film -A combo of siva and gharshana

It is known news that Naga Chaitanya, son of Nagarjuna is busy with the shooting of his debut film. The movie has been tentatively titled ‘Josh’ and this marks the debut of Vasu Varma as the director while the man with the golden hand Dil Raju is the producer.

Chaitu is pairing up with Karthika, daughter of the ravishing beauty Radha and given the names involved, the curiosity was more on finding out the story. According to sources, there is news that the storyline is a combination of Shiva and Gharshana (of Prabhu and Murali) that came many years ago.

This will be a challenge for Chaitu since he has to emote many facets, if this is the story. Karthika might have to come up with an exceptionally good performance given her mother’s image and beauty. On top of it, the bigger challenge is for Dil Raju to ensure that his film runs well at box office.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Puri-Prabhas' New Title 'Ek Niranjan'

The crazy director Puri Jagannadh is currently busy with the groundwork of making the movie with young rebel star Prabhas. Their earlier combination came up with ‘Bujjigadu, made in Chennai’ and it turned out to be an average fare at the box office.
Now, there is news that Puri has decided to name the movie ‘Ek Niranjan’ and Puri has set a brand of his own with his unusual titles. Some of his movies like ‘Pokiri’ ‘Desamuduru’ ‘Idiot’ brought great success at the box office but at the same time films ‘Neninthe’ bombed miserably.
It now remains to be seen what he wants to convey through this movie of his. Many in the industry are keen to see if he is going to throw satire at someone just like his earlier movie. Meanwhile, Prabhas is gearing up to arrive with his much talked about movie ‘Billa’.

billa audio entertaining people

Billa' Song Entertaining Children

The most promising movie for the Ugadi season happens to be ‘Billa’. This has young rebel star Prabhas with the hot voluptuous beauty Anushka as the heroine. Recently, the audio release of the film took place and some really interesting reports have come from the market.
It is heard that the song ‘Harilo ranga hari… has been catching a lot of attention and the tunes set by the famous Mani Sharma are ruling the roost. This has been fitted with Ramjogaiah Sastry’s lyrics and they say that this is one of the most entertaining and interesting songs in the movie.
Sources reveal that even the video has been done very well under the direction of Meher Ramesh and add that this song will appeal to the children. With something for the children and a bikini act for the adults, ‘Billa’ sure looks promising.