Jun 09, 2005 04:25 PM
17723 Views
(Updated Jun 09, 2005 06:45 PM)
Ok, I am back with another review. This time, I delve deeper into the less trodden path and choose a category that has a laughable 3 reviews in total. There are many reasons I chose this review. One, is Kannada movies are the most scorned pile of movies at the moment. They are known to have little content, vulgar dialogues and no original story line among other things. This is true to some extent, but there are a few people in the industry who do a decent job acting and directing and have come up with really good movies, which went un-noticed due to poor marketing and bad hindi remakes. The second reason is, me being a Bangalorean (despite not having lived in the city for years now...I will rephrase a cheesy dialogue from some movie.....''Once a Bangalorean, always a Bangalorean''), I wanted to write something about the innumerable kannada movies I watched on TV, and sometimes even in the theatres..So here is a list of 5 movies that you will never get bored watching and are really entertaining.
5. America America This movie may not be the greatest movie ever made, but it does have a freshness to it that makes it a good vieweing. When it was first released, it was in the late 90's, the theme was new and was later aped by zillions of movies in other languages. The story is about 3 friends with completely different perspectives, one wanting to get out of ''this goddamned place-India'' and running off to America, one who thinks India is the greatest country in the world and there's no place like it and one who is confused and is trying to judge which is better. Towards the end, each one realises how single-dimensional their perspectives were and each acknowledges the pros and cons of being an NRI or being Indian.
4.Nishabdha There are not too many people who will like this movie. I looooooooooved it and there is only one reason I loved it....Dogs :D....This movie is full of dogs, dogs and more dogs. (Aaa http://www...they are so adorable, I could watch this movie everyday). The story is about a retired Army General, who lives in a secluded estate upstate with his 20 dogs. He loves his dogs to death and has them all very well trained. His younger brother is murdered one day and with the help of his dogs, he is able to fend off the murderers from killing more people and also restore peace in his disturbed life. This is no vengeance seeking dog-chasing movie. Thankfully, the dogs are not made to ''feel'' and take badla like in a corny 80's hindi flick. The climax choked me up and I was bawling (so was my sister and mother). The only creature that didn't get the movie was my dog, probably wondering why we were all howling at some dogs barking :D
3.Ganeshana maduve This is a very hilarious movie and caught on so much that the director decided to make 2 more movies with the same cast. The story was very original and the comic timing of the actors was superb. The hero, Ganesha is a tenant in a ''Vatara''(a chawl), which is owned by a rather miserly landlord who lives in the chawl too along with his wife and daughter. The landlord's ridiculous ways to cut costs bugs the tenants who are always instigating Ganesha to fight for them. This leads to several comical fights and situations and finally culminates with Ganesha falling in love with the daughter and vice versa. The tenants then come up with ingenious ways to patch up things between Ganesha and the landlord in order to get the couple united, which they finally succeed. Watch it if you understand kannada. Sub-titles will ruin it.
2.Om We are not very good when it comes to making good action flicks. But one thing we are quite capable of churning out are underworld based movies. This movie was released even before RGV concieved Satya. Its out and out a gangsta movie which turns into a love story as the story progresses (Now that's the tagline on all movies ain't it). The ''hero'' of the movie is an underworld don, who is crazy about a middle class girl and stalks her and troubles her family obsessively to get the girl. A journalist is out to document the lives of gangsters and is told the story of the hero, who actually turned to the ''dark side''(never mind that he already looks like he rolled in charcoal)due to the middle-class girl's antics. The girl realises her folly and tries to ''convert'' him back much to everyone else's displeasure. For the weirdest reason possible, this movie has not been released in VHS, CD's or DVD's...I wonder if they are waiting for an apocalypse....or until Upendra chops his hair.
1. Gowri Ganesha This is one hilarious con-job movie that is entertaining from start to finish. Anant Nag again plays a con-man who is too lazy to earn a living the honest ways and is always pulling off small con-jobs to make ends meet. He happens to come across the journal of a dead young woman, who claims that although she is a virgin, 3 men believe to have slept with her(this part was boring but quick). The hero then decides to cash in on this and make way for a steady monthly income by making each of these 3 men believe that the dead woman is his sister and is pregnant with their baby. For years he pulls this off and along with a fake nephew he borrows from an orphanage, they put big topis(to make someone wear a hat in kannada is to make a fool out of them)on everyone's heads. Really funny. I watch this movie once every few months, and it still makes me laugh. So there's a list of some contemporary watchable kannada movies. There are a lot more movies that are good, but they are all remakes, and its no point talking about remakes (including Apthamitra....which is the only word they have to say for a year now)
On the Flip-side I know a lot of movies in Kannada are known to be vulgar and derogatory, but some of them are so ridiculously hilarious, that it makes you laugh so much, you can get a stomach ache. Although most of us in college spoke in English, there was a general sprinkling of Kannada in the conversation and a lot of lingo is pretty funny (My kannada is so much better than my mother tongue that people think I am a kannadiga). So these so-called ''vulgar'' movies did provide some major holding-the-stomach-tears-in-our-eyes laughter that is unforgettable. Like how Kashinath thinks you can make a person horny by downing raw-onions and some seedy looking chawanprash. And how Jaggesh can slap a girl and make her menstruate. And the lingo is absolutely hilarious albeit vulgar. Don't take them seriously and you can have a good laugh watching these films.
