Filed under: Currently Watching | Tags: chicken curry, Currently Watching, Excuse Me Mr. Kanthaswamy, Kanthaswamy, kothu roti, Mexico, movie, Robin Hood, Shreya, song, Tamil, Tamil movie, theatre, Vadivelu, Vikram
Awesome movie. Really long, but I would have sat there all day watching if that’s how long it went just to stare into the bedazzlingly icy dark green contact lensed eyes of Vikram 
Or staring at the landscapes they shot in; by beautiful beaches, deserts, Mexico, especially Chichen Itza, oh my. So very breathtaking. The whole production was made of win.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
Really great easy-to-follow yet not boring plotline. Vikram plays Kanthaswamy, an income tax investigator for the CBI. He is of course awesome at his job. Shreya, who has outdone herself as leading lady, plays the confident minx as Suppalakshmi. The daughter of a billionaire raided and ruined, she sets out to make Kanthaswamy fall in love with her and then sorta…ruin his life. As revenge. Anyways, the banter between them is pretty amusing; I don’t think I’ll get “Excuse Me Mr. Kanthaswamy, oru coffee kudippoam, come with me” out of my head for a longggggg time.
The story deals of course with income tax officer Kanthaswamy’s alter-ego, who is a superhero of sorts. Think Robin Hood-esque in purpose, but with way, way better resources and a small organization rather than a one man show. The state’s (well, the government and a few evil billionaires, really; everyone else think it’s God’s doing) scramble to figure out who is behind the ‘Kanthaswamy’ phenomenon, forms the core of the plot. As serious as it sounds, it’s interspersed with lots of comedy, especially with Vadivelu’s work XD.
But yeah, all in all, excellent. And really comfortable experience since the theatre wasn’t crowded like crazy..it’s been over 2 weeks : D. Oh except for the crazy Tamil guys a few seats away who snuck in of all things to eat, Kothu Roti, still in its container, as well as some chicken curry to put on top XDDD. Hilarity. I almost died laughing.
Filed under: Currently Watching | Tags: Autograph, Bala, Bharathwaj, Currently Watching, Dishyum, Five Star, horrible, Kaadhal, Kanda Naal Mudhal, Manjal Veyil, Masilamani, movie, Prasanna, RK, romcom, Sandhya, Silambattam, Siva Manasula Sakthi, Tamil, Tamil movies
What with my recent Tamil movie high, and the movies I’ve been watching consistently being really good- Siva Manasula Sakthi (SMS) and Masilamani being awesome (seriously, the cutest romcoms I’ve seen in a while) , and then Silambattam being reasonably fun if not for the excessive violence- I guess I expected too much of the next movie that I chose to watch: Manjal Veyil.
It’s actually sorta deceptively attractive on the surface. Come on, the leads are Prasanna, who was awesome in movies like Five Star and Kanda Naal Mudhal; and Sandhya, who I don’t really like all that much, but has gotten state awards and everything for her roles in Kaadhal and Dishyum. I’ve never heard of the director, and the music couldn’t be that bad either when you hear it’s by Bharathwaj- after all, he did deliver the hits for the movie Autograph.
Those are over two hours of my life that I will never get back. In addition to the mindnumbingly stupid movie, the horrible quality of the Sruthilayam DVD made me want to kill myself for choosing to watch this thing. Spoilers are gonna follow, so if you want to make the colossal mistake of watching this for yourself, don’t continue.
So you see these two leads going to college, lalala, having fun, cut randomly to first song. A few minutes later, cut to the meeting of the villain (RK, who the director apparently has a deep, deep hate for; why else would he cast him and give him a horrendous wig?) who upon failing to get the prize he wanted in a carnival game (One of those cutesy porcelain figurines. Yeah, you read that right.), oh-so-villainously breaks it when Prasanna wins it.
Cut to Sandhya’s house where her sister is getting married to her father’s friend’s son, apparently a HUGE favour because OMGSHEHASDIABETES AND HAS TO HAVE REGULAR INSULIN SHOTS. Yup, so Prasanna and friends show up to help prepare for the wedding and the groom shows up at the same time. Guess who? RK,who falls in love with Sandhya instead of the older sister makes some evil evil plans to off her sister before the wedding and force the family into marrying off Sandhya instead. Somewhere before the 20-minute mark in the movie, another song is sung and danced to. Don’t worry, this rate slows until the lack of songs are totally noticeable. So, with some evil flipping of the fake hair (Didn’t anyone think that maybe this guy is too old to be playing in this youth movie when they had to give him a FREAKING WIG?) and some malicious plans like electrocution and switching the girl’s insulin with something else, the family ends up being forced to switch brides the night before the wedding.
Guess what Sandhya and Prasanna do? RUN! They run into their old professor who acts as the helpful adult figure. And he suggests “Alright kiddies! Get married! No one can hurt you then!” And here it comes…they’re not lovers like everyone thinks! (Then stop acting like it, you idiots.) Only close friends, so much so that they would do anything for each other! In fact, Sandhya is in love with someone else, an artist she met a while back. (TOTALLY MISCAST character played by some random dude named Bala. It’s hideous, this flashback, in its utter lack of chemistry). But oh, they can’t find him right now, cuz he’s sorta disappeared off the face of the earth, looks like. Cut to flashback (It’s been a while since I’ve seen one of those in a movie.) of the two meeting, falling in love in of course a remarkably short time and singing and dancing and all that pizzazz. And then he disappears just like that.
Back in the present, Prasanna gets a job at Subway and attempts to find Bala, while Sandhya…waits at home. Prasanna is chased and has to fight off RK, who’s still looking for Sandhya, who apparently isn’t good for anything but crying and telling Prasanna that she’ll give up her love (and then he’s all, no you can’t). Anyways, one day, Prasanna manages to find Bala who apparently was wrongly arrested that fateful day (CUE FLASHBACK) and lalala will get out tomorrow. At which point he and Sandhya will get married. BUT RK shows up and in a totally unreasonable fight, dies, leaving Prasanna mortally wounded. At the hospital, Sandhya (guess what?) cries and breaks up with Bala in the worst deathbed scene I have ever seen because they’ll have to take care of Prasanna for the rest of their lives, and won’t be able to be together. (Onoez). In response, Prasanna who was apparently conscious, rips out his oxygen mask and kills himself. Monitor flatlines while heart rate still reads 55. Sandhya cries. THE END.
In conclusion, if you value your sanity, DON’T WATCH IT.
Filed under: Europe Trip | Tags: life, travel, Europe, Europe Trip, fun, home, flight, enRoute, 17 Again, Sunshine Cleaning, Race to Witch Mountain, Scandal Makers, new
Finally back home after a pretty enjoyable 8 hour flight. The food was good, the air hosts and hostesses were pretty nice, and the enRoute personal entertainment system actually WORKED! I was even on my fourth movie when we landed (Race to Witch Mountain, after burning through 17 Again, Sunshine Cleaning, and Scandal Makers (Korean), if you must know). What more can a person ask for? : )
I had an epically awesome trip, seeing new places and things and meeting new people. Europe was a blast and I can’t wait to go back again >:3. But I’m really glad to be back home XD since I actually started to miss it a little. Time to go on with normal life again, heh.
Filed under: Europe Trip | Tags: airport, Album, birthday party, Carré Sénart, Chateau Fontainebleau, Europe, Europe Trip, fun, manga, Paris, picnic, travel
A nice relaxing last day in Paris. We walked around the gardens of Chateau Fontainebleau and then had a picnic by the small lake. It’s a beautiful chateau, but I really didn’t want to go sightseeing anymore, so I didn’t go inside, just sat and ate lunch and played some badminton XD. My Aunt B. makes a great salad : o.
In the evening we had to go to a birthday party, so we stopped at Carré Sénart, the nearest mall to buy a gift, at which point I stumbled upon a manga store called Album. I’m so jealous :< I wish we had a store that close to where I live. And very affordable prices too. Anyways, the evening has been wiled away having fun talking to people and eating food XD.
Better sleep now, gotta go to the airport early for my flight in the morning.
Filed under: Europe Trip | Tags: artists, bunny, Coco, Corot, Europe, Europe Trip, fun, Julius Caesar, Louvre, Mona Lisa, paintings, Paris, Rousseau, The Madonna and Child, travel, Valenciennes, Venus de Milo, Vernet
Because really, that’s what I need. So much walking in one day T____T and we only saw a few sections. SO MANY PAINTINGS which is what I really wanted to see, so don’t take it in a negative context.
Let’s get the perfunctory Mona Lisa comment out of the way: Meh…so many people crowding around it, so you can only see it from afar. But apparently some crazy lady threw tea or something on it a few days ago…>_>
Anyways, I liked the Venus de Milo alot. And I got to know some new artists that I would like to check out later- like Corot, Valenciennes, Vernet, and Rousseau. There was this one guy standing in front of a Vernet and doing an amazing sketch of it. So much so that people were looking at the guy’s sketch instead of the other paintings XD.
However, there are too many paintings of people >__>. And I think the museum has probably collected every single interpretation of The Madonna and Child known to man.
But yeah, an overall enjoyable experience; though I’d like to see the rest of it next time with someone who’s actually interested in the stuff, rather than my Dad who was just tagging along >_> and was pretty bored. Though some of his questions about some exhibits were hilarious- “Julius Caesar was an important emperor; why is this statue of him not wearing any clothes? D:”
Oh, as you can guess, I’m back in Paris. And my day flew by with spending my time in the Louvre museum XD.
Also, I’m in love with the cutest bunny ever. Coco’s got me picking dandelion leaves for it to eat . Whenever I walk past its cage it sorta reaches up and starts sniffing expectantly and I’m such a softie =__=.
Anyways, time to sleep. Tomorrow’s my last day in Paris, so I’m going to do my best to enjoy it : D. Night~
Filed under: Europe Trip | Tags: Black Madonna, chocolate, church, Europe, Europe Trip, fun, goodbye, Switzerland, Tamil, Tamil movie star, travel
Ok, not really- I think every country is beautiful in some aspect. But right now, I’ve been too dazzled by the alpine scenery to think about the others. We’re leaving Switzerland in a couple of hours and I wish I could have stayed longer. Maybe caught a Tamil movie star or two :3. But alas, we are on a schedule.
All we did today was go to some famous church of the Black Madonna, well known to, once again, the Tamil population, according to the person we stayed with. And this I could actually believe- the signs were in like 4 languages: English, French, Deutsch, and Tamil. : o But there was a service going on, so we couldn’t do much except go inside and light candles.
After leaving the church, we made our last, and perhaps most crucial stop before going back to the house and packing stuff up- BUYING CHOCOLATE. As if we could leave the country without stocking up on it. >__> Once we had sufficiently bought enough chocolate to tide us over for at least the next 7 years, we came back to the house and with much difficulty, fit it into our luggage. XD
Anyways, time for lunch. Seeya in Paris : D
Filed under: Europe Trip | Tags: Alps, beautiful, Castle of Gruyeres, cheese, Europe, Europe Trip, fun, Gruyeres, lake, sightseeing, Switzerland, Tamil movies, travel, view, Vijay, Villu, visiting, Zurich
We drove around Zurich this morning. It was really confusing =_= and hard to find parking. But we managed and found a space, and then we walked down to the waterfront of the lake in the middle of the city.
After that, we drove to Bern to have lunch at another one of my parents’ old friends house. The people’s daughter, N. was really, really, nice and took us sightseeing. The main place we went to see was Castle of Gruyeres, which is a preserved castle museum. It was really interesting as an indicator as how people who weren’t royalty, yet still high-born lived. Also, it was very beautiful XD. They’ve also preserved the little fortified village, except they’re shops and restaurants and hotels instead of houses. Also, Gruyeres is where they make that cheese : o which N. bought for us to sample and tastes very interesting.
We spent way too much time XD with the castle so when we got to the next house that we had to visit, it was pretty late. They also had some really friendly daughters. XD Before we left we went down to the lake which is like a 30 second walk from their house, and has a really REALLY nice view of the Alps. So. Very. Jealous. To top it off, their place is the site of a lot of Tamil movie filming and such. D: Like Villu. OMG VIJAYYYYY. : O
Our return to Zurich was very very late night, so I should really be asleep right now..Night :3
Filed under: Europe Trip | Tags: Amsterdam, Cento, crazy, deadly, Europe, Europe Trip, French, fun, German, gps, Italian, Lugano, Madurodam, Matterhorn, roads, Romansch, Swiss Miniatur, Switzerland, travel, Zurich
Yeah, Switzerland has 4 official languages- German, French, Italian, and Romansch, respectively. Amazing, isn’t it. : o
A rather uneventful yet long drive to Zurich from Cento took up most of today. We stopped in the middle, somewhere near Lugano, to see a tourist attraction recommended to us by someone.
Called Swiss Miniatur, it’s a little park full of mini versions of several famous buildings/aspects in Switzerland. It was actually about to close when we got there, but they were so flattered that we were from Canada and wanted to see the miniature park that they not only let us in on a discounted price, they also gave us a full hour after closing time. : o Similar to Madurodam in Amsterdam, which I visited a couple of years ago. It was a fairly interesting way to spend an hour and a half, and had a really nice mini-version of the Matterhorn.
After that break, we resumed the drive to Zurich, which we reached at night. CRAZY, CRAZY, DEADLY ROADS. WTF, GPS- you freaked the hell out of us all. o____o Enough said.
Good night, all!
Filed under: Europe Trip | Tags: Cento, Coliseum, Europe, Europe Trip, fun, gelato, ISIC, Italy, La Pieta, lines, Michelangelo, Old Bridge, panorama, Pantheon, pizza, Roma, Roma Del Cielo, Rome, sightseeing, Sistine Chapel, souvenirs, St.Peter's Basilica, Switzerland, travel, Trevi Fountain, Vatican Museum, Vittoriano
I want to die. It’s too hot. T__T It’s almost 40 degrees out.
Today was a CRAZY day. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it certainly cannot be seen in one. But we covered a lot.
We woke up early to go to the Vatican Museum, and when we got there at around 9, there was a HUGE line-up to get in. Like a kilometre long…okay, maybe a tiny bit shorter than that. But the wait wasn’t all that long since it moved fast and we managed to get our tickets not much later. I finally made use of my ISIC card to get a discount!
The Vatican Museum is a pretty amazing place. Very big, but somehow we managed to see it all. And in a pretty short time. Don’t believe the signs, though. They start pointing the way to the Sistine Chapel miles before you actually reach there. It’s the last part of the museum T__T. But lots of other amazing things to see; it apparently has the largest art collection in Europe or something like that. After finishing up with the Museum, we went to visit St. Peter’s Basilica, which also happened to have a long line, but once again moved fast. This too was well worth the wait. : o With its ornate and cavernous halls, the place was the most beautiful church I have ever seen. And it also housed the famed work by Michelangelo, La Pieta. It was just…wow. : o
On the way back, after we had bought some souvenirs, we saw a long line outside of a gelateria called…Old Bridge or something. And people coming out with enormous ice cream cones. Taking J’s advice on actually going to the ice cream stores with long line-ups, we bought some. Huge mistake. The stuff melted so fast in this heat, that even though ours were in cups, they had put so much that the gelato started overflowing… =__= It tasted good though, I suppose.
Next stop was the Pantheon, which was reasonably nearby, but we had some trouble finding it. Also it was reallyyy crowded in the piazza. Fairly remarkable for its architecture, but after the morning, I wasn’t all that amazed. And we couldn’t go inside, apparently there was a wedding or something going on. After this, we went to get some lunch. REAL ITALIAN PIZZA. Yummy stuff. : o Also very filling. And some awesome milkshakes from McDonald’s XD.
After lunch, we were attempting to navigate to the Coliseum, when we were stunned by this gigantic building that we passed by. We wanted to go up, and the only way to do this was to climb a huge flight of stairs. We somehow managed…=__= In that heat, I almost did die. But the view was great. And there was this nice little museum inside. And then when we got out onto the deck area of the building we found an elevator service to go to the highest floor of the building for a small fee.
The view was amazing up here! You can see the whole city : o And all the other old architecture looks great from the place. We didn’t find out what the place was called until we left…it’s called Il Vittoriano, and the elevator service is called Roma Dal Cielo (Rome from the Sky? Or something). But it was an amazing place. We all really enjoyed it. Anyways, it was already getting to be late afternoon so we hightailed it to the Coliseum and frantically found parking.
But alas it was too late. It had already closed : ( So we only saw the outside. A very awesome exterior, nevertheless, so we took lots of photos. After that, we finally found our way to the Trevi Fountain :3. So many people were there! But we managed to find some space to sit by the fountain. It was amazing, and I wish I could have spent more time there. : o When I go back some day, I’m going to go early early in the morning and sit there for as long as I like. I could have stared at that all day. We even threw coins in and made wishes…that was hilarious XD.
Finally, after saying goodbye to Rome, we left on our longggggg drive back to Cento. Rome is full of more things to see, and I hope I can come back later and see more of it. : D Time to go back to Switzerland tomorrow!
Filed under: Europe Trip | Tags: ancient history, Bocca Della Verita, Cento, Coliseum, crowded, dirty, Europe, Europe Trip, Hotel Palladium Palace, Italians, Italy, madmen, Mouth of Truth, road trip, Roma, Rome, St.Peter's Basilica, travel, Vatican City, Venice
Finally. We left Cento this morning and drove to Rome- it took about 5 hours. We took a while to find a decent hotel; the place we ended up staying at is called Palladium Palace.
We spent the evening just driving around, since most of the stuff was about to close. We also visited Vatican City, but St. Peter’s Basilica was closing, so we hung out in the square and took pictures. After that we stopped by the church that houses Bocca della Verita (Mouth of Truth)- that thing where you put your hand in and it doesn’t let you take your hand out if you’re lying…or something like that. But that was also closed by then, so we just stopped and looked at it for a little bit XD. When we were driving back, we saw the Coliseum at night, and it was really pretty, so we parked nearby and took lots of pictures. After that, we went back to the hotel.
May I say, Rome isn`t as awesome as they make it to be. Maybe I haven’t spent enough time there, or Venice is much more attractive to me in relativity. Yes, there is ancient history everywhere you look, and that is awesome. But it`s dirty, crowded, and the Italians drive like madmen. MADMEN. There is a very tiny bit of disappointment, but maybe I`ll have a better opinion tomorrow ^_^.
Time to sleep; tomorrow is another busy day. : D
