Round-up for August 2010

Monthly Prakash Raj Movie Total (8/31/10):  4
Overall Prakash Raj Movie Total (as of 8/31/10): 39

Premaku Velayara (Telugu, 1999)

Date watched: 8/3/10

Role Type: Prakash Bad

The story: Madhavi (Soundarya) is the daughter of business tycoon Venkata Narayana (Prakash Raj).  She runs into Manohar (J. D. Chakravarthy), her father's (maternal?) nephew, who is scheming to get rich by marrying the uncle's daughter. Madhavi feels that she can reform Manohar, and get him to give up the prospect of easy wealth by marrying Madhavi in her disguise as a not-rich, regular girl.

Movie Rating: 4/5  Soundarya is so appealing, and I loved that she was really active in pursuing Manohar, and setting it up so that he fell in love with her. (Nice version of the classic Telugu-stalking-romance!) JD Chakravarthy was good as the guy who is reformed in the end, and Ravi Teja was adorable as his comedic side-kick friend.

Prakash Raj Rating: 3/5 This felt like the prototype of the  "urbane father" character that Prakash Raj had perfected by NVND and Jalsa.  All of his scenes with Madhavi/Soundarya were really winning, especially when they argued over Manohar's true character.

ETA: Thank you so much Githa (http://wordsfromalotus.blogspot.com/), for reminding me of a key part of this character.  He says the line "It's Confirmed!!" multiple times in the movie. Very adorable and quotable, and here's an example:

Gangotri (Telugu, 2003) 

Date watched: 8/6/10

Role Type: Prakash Dad

The story: Neelakanta Naidu (Prakash Raj) is the father of the heroine, Gangotri (Aditi Agarwal), and also a big factionist leader. His main henchman, Simha, has a son Simhadri (Allu Arjun), who is the childhood companion of Gangotri.  When the teenagers start up a romance, Neelakanta and Simha have a falling out, Simha is killed, and various other obstacles are presented to Simhadri and Gangotri.

Movie Rating: 3/5  This film had a pretty straightforward plot, and many of the adult characters were pretty well fleshed out, especially the womenfolk.  The teenaged characters were definitely young, and it was interesting to see a rural school setting.

Prakash Raj Rating: 3/5 This was an iteration of the affectionate, but violent father character that shows up pretty frequently (Brindaavanam).  It was a pretty large part, and it was enjoyable to watch Prakash Raj convey the character's love and protectiveness for his daughter, his anger at the perceived betrayal by Simha, and the final realization that his overprotective ways may have actually killed his daughter. My standout scene is when he's trying to get in his daughter's good side again (after sending her boyfriend away) and he's trying to cajole her with food, and she's being a sulky teenager, with lots of eyerolls and "talk to the hand" gestures.

 On a shallow note, there were A LOT of close-ups of Prakash Raj in this film, and he looked great.

Raja Kumarudu (Telugu, 1999)

Date watched: 8/19/10

Role Type: Prakash Dad

The story: Raj Kumar (Mahesh Babu, looking very young) is an actor/model working on a commercial shoot, who locks horns and falls in love with a spunky girl at a nearby camp (Preity Zinta, also looking young.) He hangs out with his happy-go-lucky-uncle, Dhanunjay (Prakash Raj.) At the interval, Dhanunjay reveals the tragic death of Raj Kumar's parents, and of his promise to get Raj Kumar married to his niece.

Movie Rating: 2/5  I watched this without subtitles, and I missed a lot. It seemed fun, but the dramatic, violent flashback was a bit jarring and messed with the playful mood of the rest of the film.

Prakash Raj Rating: 2.75/5 Again, I might appreciate this more if I'd understood more. Most of the comedic scenes with Dhanunjay (esp. with the other comedy characters) were fun, and the relationship with Raj Kumar was telegraphed pretty well.

Prakash Raj holding baby Mahesh, then swordfighting w/grown-up Mahesh.

Kantri (Telugu, 2008)

He's holding his gun sideways-so gangsta!

Date watched: 8/30/10

Role Type: Prakash Bad

The story: Poothu Raju/PR (Prakash Raj) kills a fellow villager, abandons his own wife and son, and gains fortune as a gangster in Hong Kong and India. Kranti (Jr. NTR) arrives on the scene, joins PR's gang, and reveals that he is PR's son. The plot twists and turns as Kranti makes things complicated and unpleasant for PR.

Movie Rating: 4/5  This is a pretty enjoyable Southie twist on some fun mystery/noirish puzzles. It was fun watching all of the layers unfold.

Prakash Raj Rating: 4/5 This role actually had an interesting narrative arc through the whole movie, as PR leaves his family, makes it big, believes he is reunited with his son, and is laid-up in the hospital with a mysterious disease. I couldn't get a great screen grab, but my favorite snippet of a scene is when PR escapes from the hospital wearing his hospital gown, and does a great run past the rival gangsters and their truck.

Oh yes, and he busts a move with Tarak in the song Raamare:

Round-up for September 2010

Continuing to play catch-up, here are the films I watched in September, 2010.


Monthly Prakash Raj Movie Total (9/30/10):   7
Overall Prakash Raj Movie Total (as of 9/30/10): 46

Atithi (Kannada, 2002)

The puppy almost makes you forget he's planning to bomb the dam.

Date watched: 9/1/10

Role Type: Prakash Bad

The story: An unnamed terrorist (Prakash Raj) is injured, and forces a local doctor (Dattatreya) to hide him and treat him. The terrorist's relationships with the doctor and the neighbor's young daughter, and how it impacts his future decisions form the core of the story. The title translates as "The Guest."

Movie Rating: 5/5  I really loved this movie. It was more typically "western", with no songs, and it clocked in at about 90 minutes. It had a nice mixture of suspense, dialogue and psychological development, and the performances were really fantastic. Overall, it was really well-written and structures, and sort of reminded me of a play. I'm looking forward to watching the other films by the director/writer P. Sheshadri.

Prakash Raj Rating: 5/5 This was an interesting, complex character. Prakash Raj did a great job of conveying all of the different motivations and emotions, from irritation at his subordinates, to the cold-blooded focus needed for the work, and to his growing respect for the doctor and affection for the girl. I'm always a sucker for understated films and roles, and this was a great one.  There weren't any big, showy moments for the character, but every scene was filled with a lot of interesting expression and dialogue delivery

Giri (Tamil, 2004)

This kid grows up to be Prakash Raj (see below.)

Role Type: Prakash Pal/Prakash Cop
Date watched: 9/4/10

The story: Two families are locked in factionalist battle in a rural village. Raj is the youngest son of one of these families, and is good friends with Giri, the son of the family's loyal bodyguard/retainer. The rival faction kills Raj's older brothers and Giri's father. Giri helps Raj to escape by floating down the river. Years later Giri (Arjun) is still battling rowdies. In a flashback, an honest cop (Prakash Raj) comes to town with the goal of ending the war between the factionalist families, and it is revealed that he is little Raj, all grown up.  There's more fighting, tragedy, two heroines, and awesome boat races between the rival families that bookend the movie.
Movie Rating: 3/5  This was a pretty good action-y type movie. I liked the twists and turns, but the structure of the flashbacks was a little clunky. The early scene with the two kids were well done. Arjun was solidly good in this, and had little sparks of  "something (which came across much more in Kotha Bangaru Lokam.) The big climactic action scene during the boat race was a pretty creative, fun action sequence.
Prakash Raj Rating: 4/5 Although this was a pretty short part, it was an interesting one, and Prakash Raj did good work with it. Adult, policeman Raj has returned to his home village incognito, trying to bring peace to the families. There are several scenes where his own father refers to Raj's "death", and you see the sense of loss on Raj's face. You also get a sense of Raj's frustration in how entrenched both families are in this battle, and the unwillingness of his police superiors to do anything about it.  In my favorite scene, Raj is watching from the distance while Giri and the heroine fight/flirt (she's in a canoe, he jumps in the water to catch a duck for her, also she's from the rival family.) In Raj's response there's a sweet mix of melancholy for the life and friendships that he's lost, his happiness at seeing Giri, and his newly hatched plan to bring the families together.

Kadhal Azhivathillai (Tamil, 2002)

Date watched: 9/4/10

Role Type: Prakash Dad

The story:  Poor(er) boy meets rich(er) girl at college, they fall in love, her father objects, things happen.

Movie Rating: 2/5  This movie was Simbu's big launch, and like many launch films, it was all over the place with the wacky foreign locales and weird sets in the songs, fight scenes in which scrawny Simbu beats up 10 goondas, and the requisite cameo from Simbu's famous comedic actor father. There were a couple of funny scenes, including one where Simbu and his friends go to visit the heroine's house disguised as Krishna, Hanuman, et al. There were also some scenes where Simbu gets beaten up while he's in custody, and his father (Prakash Raj) is abusively mean to his mother, which were a little uncomfortable to watch

Prakash Raj Rating: 0.5/5  I'm going to give this one a .5 because Prakash Raj's voice is dubbed, which is a huge travesty.  That said, he does a great job as the sarcastic, mean father. In the scene when he turns his wife's parents away from staying in their house, he has some great dramatic body language that almost made up for the weird, high-pitched voice coming out of his mouth.

"I'm using my hands, because they have taken away my voice."

Stalin (Telugu, 2006)

"It wasn't actually suicide. I had them killed, because I'm eeevvvilll."

Date watched: 9/11/10

Role Type: Prakash Bad

The story: Stalin (Chiranjeevi) is a retired Army officer who helps disabled college students, gets caught up in battle with the local evil Home Minister, Muddu Krishnayya (Prakash Raj), and starts a "pay-it-forward" grassroots movement.

Movie Rating: 3/5  I'm rating this almost entirely on the portrayal of the relationship of Stalin and his sister (Khusboo), and the drama around his sister and mother reconciling, which I loved. The "romance" with Trisha was pretty perfunctory, as if you could tell that the film-makers felt weird about pairing Chiru up with the younger actress. I also got a sense that this film (especially the ending) was a set-up for Chiranjeevi's political aspirations.

Prakash Raj Rating: 3.5/5 As the corrupt politician who threatens Stalin and his family, Prakash Raj gets to really ham it up and wear a crazy wig and make-up. In my favorite scene, he's picking up newspapers and pointing out stories about various murders and "accidents" and explains that these were all people that crossed him.

Subhash Chandra Bose (Telugu, 2005)

Date watched: 9/18/10

Role Type: Prakash Bad

The story: Subash Chandra Bose alias Chandram (Venkatesh) fights for Independence from the British and romances Shriya, and is friends with another local farmer, Bandodu (Prakash Raj.) Chandram is reincarnated as TV news staffer Ashok who romances Genelia, and again encounters an aged Bandodu.

Movie Rating: 2/5  This movie wasn't exactly good, but it was entertaining, cheesetastic fun.The present-day scenes were fine, but the historical stuff was a hot mess of anachronistic costumes, vehicles, sunglasses, hats, etc. It was clear that they were drawing on Lagaan and Ashok for a lot of the motifs, songs and characters (e.g. Russian accented daughter of the British commander has a crush on Venky.) Most of the acting was pretty over-the-top, which was fine for the bad guys--they are always a lot broader.  But when the main characters started making patriotic speeches referencing Gandhi while facing down a British-Indian colonial officer who was wearing a classic redcoat and Oakley sunglasses, I started giggling, which isn't what I think they were going for.  Still, Venkatesh's winning personality carried things along even when he had a really bad mullet in the flashback. 

Prakash Raj Rating: 3/5 It was a pretty hammy role, and it was fun to see him as both the rural yokel of the Independence era, and the successful politician in the present. They was lots of dramatic lurking, plotting, and speechifying in the present and the past.  Plus he got to wear crazy costumes and make-up, engage in a swordfight with Venky, and die an explosive death at the hands of a vengeful, elderly voter.

Check out the giant banners with Prakash!!

Samba (Telugu, 2004)

Date watched: 9/18/10

Role Type: Prakash Bad

The story: According to wikipedia, "The movie deals with how important education is to kids." Tha,t and some very bloody showdowns between Samba (Jr NTR) and the man who was responsible for the death of his family (Prakash Raj.)

Movie Rating: 4.5/5  I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. The story was solid, and I thought it was structured well, as different elements were revealed in the flashbacks and the present. The dances and action scenes were particularly great.

Prakash Raj Rating: 4/5 In Telugu action movies, it's important that the big bad guy really comes across as a true match and threat for the hero. In this role and performance, Prakash Raj really matched Tarak in intensity and ferocity.  Sometimes the bad guy is more of the delegating type, and you don't necessarily see him doing the dirty work, but not in this film. There's a great moment (a favorite of jjake over at Tollywood is My Bollywood) when Prakash Raj's character sits over his dying enemy and pokes him the heart, just to torture him.

Samba also has the two best eyebrow performances in all of Telugu cinema.

Jagadam (Telugu, 2007)

Sweater vest=sincerity

Date watched: 9/22/10

Role Type: Prakash Cop

The story: Since childhood, Seenu (Ram) has been fascinated by violence. Much to his parents' dismay, he joins the inner circle of the local gangster, then becomes his rival. Along the way, a police inspector (Prakash Raj) tries to convince him to leave the life of street violence.

Movie Rating: 4.5/5  A great movie. Ram was really convincing as the young guy who is drawn to the "fun" of violence, but doesn't really have a deeper understanding of what that entails. I appreciated that it offered a bit of a critical look at actual appeal of violence. Raghu Babu's performace as Seenu's despairing father was a highlight of this film for me. Usually Raghu Babu plays broad comedic roles, and this was so subtle and different that I didn't realize it was him until a third of the way through the movie.
Prakash Raj Rating: 4/5 Prakash Raj's role was small, but important. The police inspector is a sort of proxy for the viewer. When he arrives in the story, you are so relieved that someone calm is there to try and talk sense into Seenu. You also share the character's frustration when Seenu rebuffs his efforts. To cap it all off, Prakash Raj's character does a voiceover after the climactic scene. Such a nice voice--he should do audio books!

Round-up for October 2010

Hello, dears!
October was busy--a trip to NYC, then across Pennsylvania, then we had various friends and family in town--so I didn't have much time to blog, other than the Prakash Squash Tolloween post.  The good news is that I did manage to squeeze in some movie-watching.  I'm going to do a round-up of the Prakash Raj movies I watched, with the idea that this will be a monthly feature, and a way for me to go back and talk about the movies I'd seen before I started the blog.


Monthly Prakash Raj Movie Total (10/31/10):   7
Overall Prakash Raj Movie Total (as of 10/31/10): 53


Vellitherai (Tamil, 2008)

"I am a struggling actor. See me project 'happiness.'"

Date watched: 10/4/10
Role Type: Prakash Pal/Prakash Bad
The story: Kanniah (Prakash Raj) plays a struggling actor in the Tamil film industry. Saravanan (Prithviraj) is a slightly more established assistant director/screenwriter with aspirations of directing his own films. Kanniah commits intellectual property theft and becomes a major star, while Saravanan's fortunes decline. The whole thing resolves itself in a fun riff on a set-up that I'd seen in Bowfinger.  This is a remake of the Malayalam film Udayananu Tharam, which was also remade in Hindi as Shortcut The Con is On. There are a lot of fun behind-the-scenes references to the Tamil (and Telugu) film industries, which reminded me a little bit of Luck by Chance. 
Movie Rating: 3.5/5  I loved all of the film industry settings and dramas, and the romance scenes with Prithvi and Gopika (as a successful actress with a manipulative uncle.) I wasn't as excited how OTT Kanniah became in the second half, and there was a long dragging section before the comedic resolution kicked in.
Prakash Raj Rating: 4.5/5  This was a pretty substantial role.  All of the scenes at the beginning were amazing, I really felt for Kanniah, and his desperation to move beyond "extra" status. (I just realized that he totally reminded me of Andy Millman/Ricky Gervais in Extras.) It was disappointing that once Kanniah steals the script and becomes a star, all of that pathos is lost, and he's mostly an egotistical, evil caricature. However, it was totally fun to watch Prakash Raj ham-it-up as Kanniah dances and acts in big-budget movies, is a terror on the set, and finally gets his comeuppance.
This song is particularly fun:

Little John (Hindi, 2001)

"I'm a semi-nude version of Charleton Heston in the Ten Commandments"

Date watched: 10/12/10
Role Type: Prakash Bad

The story: This is basically a family movie (I think it may have been originally in Tamil, but I watched the dubbed Hindi version.) The plot didn't really stick with me, but there's a magical nose ring that is stolen/lost from a temple. 

Kalabhairavan (Prakash Raj) is an evil magician who is trying to get it. Bentley Mitchum plays John, an American who has come to study the temple. Jyothika is the daughter of his host family, and the two young folks fall in love. Nasser plays the swami that is helping John to understand the temple/history/mysticism, and at some point he shrinks John so that he can find the nosering/evade the bad guys (?-I really can't remember.) There's a happy ending for the good guys and a bad ending for the bad guys.

Movie Rating: 2/5  It wasn't as cheese-tastic as I was hoping it would be.  On the plus side, the cross-cultural stuff with the visiting American was actually pretty sweet, and Jyothika can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned.  My biggest complaint was there was really only about 20 minutes near the end when John was "little."   If I were a kid who had been promised shrunken-people hijinks, I'd be sorely disappointed.

Prakash Raj Rating: 1.5/5  Kalabhairavan didn't have much screen time, and since he was mostly alone, howling in his cave, there wasn't a lot of juicy, villainy dialogue.  I'm scoring the points almost entirely on the costuming and make-up, and the way that Prakash Raj totally owned the craziness and (hopefully) fake belly.

Brindaavanam (Telugu, 2010)

"I can lift my eyebrow!"

Date watched: 10/18/10
Role Type: Prakash Dad

The story:  Jr. NTR's girlfriend convinces him to go to the village to save her cousin from an arranged marriage.  While he's there he patches things up between two feuding families, beats up the bad groom and his goondas, and has two heroines in love with him. (I may add more once I see it with subtitles.)

Movie Rating: 3/5  Good, solid entertainer. The scenery and the dancing were great, and I liked all of the different family members.

Prakash Raj Rating: 3/5  Prakash plays the father of the cousin/heroine. I'll have to wait for the dvd to catch his name. It's a fairly standard, stern father role that he's played before in movies like Kadhal Sadugudu. As with Kadhal Sadugudu, it's fun to watch Prakash stomping around in a formal white shirt and lungi, glowering angrily at everyone.

Khaleja (Telugu, 2010)

"I look cool, even between takes."

Date watched: 10/18/10
Role Type: Prakash Bad

The story: Mahesh is a cab driver who ends up in Rajasthan and saves a village from the direct effects and side effects of the machinations of evil business guy G.K. (Prakash Raj). There's more, but as with Brindaavanam, I saw it without subtitles.

Movie Rating: temporary 3/5  I enjoyed the leads, the dances, and the action, but it didn't quite stick with me as much as I was hoping. I hear that the dialogues are pretty central to the film, so I think I'll like it more after subtitles.

Prakash Raj Rating: 2.5/5 This is a pretty standard urban bad guy role. As I recall, we didn't see G.K. directly doing anything bad until the end, mostly he just fumed, ordered his henchman around, and wore a variety of random suits.

Padayappa (Tamil, 1999)

"I am bewildered by the machinations of Padayappa's relatives."

Date watched: 10/21/10
Role Type: Prakash Cop

The story: (It's been over a month since I watched this, so we'll see how much I remember!) Rajnikanth is the engineer son of a beloved landlord. He comes home to visit, falls in love with the daughter of a family retainer, meanwhile the rich daughter of his uncle falls in love with him.  Evil uncle and relatives plot to kick Rajni's family out of the house, Rajini takes his family and finds success by starting a quarry, and marries his love. Spurned girl cousin waits it out in a room for 20 years, then plots the downfall of Rajni's daughter by having her nephew trick her into loving him.  Prakash Raj shows up as the local IPS officer near the end.

Movie Rating: temporary 3/5  This had lots of twists and turns, AND the plot had a lot of similarities to Indra, which I saw after this, so it didn't really stick with me.  Rajnikanth was enjoyable, and the soundtrack by A.R. Rahman had some nice songs.  Soundarya played the heroine, and she had some nice comedy moments. It always bums me out that she's no longer alive.

Prakash Raj Rating: 2/5 Prakash Raj only showed up for a few minutes. He plays the cop who is initially hoodwinked by the evil uncles, but then is convinced by something (can't recall) to help Rajni's character. I enjoyed this one for the beard--I think he must have been filming this at the same time as Rajakumari (Telugu movie with Mahesh Babu.)

Indra (Telugu, 2002)

"I bought this phone from Gordon Gekko in 1989."

Date watched: 10/22/10
Role Type: Prakash Dad
The story: Indra (Chiranjeevi) dances, battles power-crazed relatives, and has two heroines in love with him.  Along the way, he  locks horns with is Governor Chenna Kesava Reddy (Prakash Raj), who is also the father of another important character in the film. (This had a lot of things in common with Padaiyappa. Padaiyappa  had a montage of Rajini doing construction in his quarry, Indra had a montage of Chiru building a resevoir. And embittered, spurned lovers using their nephews to enact their revenge on the hero via his daughter/niece.)

Movie Rating: 4/5  In my opinion, this was a solid, masala entertainer. Chiru was in fine form, and I liked Sonali Bendre and Arti Agarwal as the heroines. The comedy tracks were fairly well integrated into the film, and there was lots of classic, Tollywood machete action.

Prakash Raj Rating: 2.5/5  The role that Prakash Raj was playing wasn't the most interesting role, but he did a good job with the 3-4 scenes he had.  I always enjoy this type of character, that occasionally shows up in Telugu films--it's the guy (or guys or ladies) that when everything is going crazy with angry relatives or factionalists, is the sort of Greek chorus, saying "hey, this is all crazy."

Rakhi (Telugu, 2006)

"I am judiciously deliberating."

Date watched: 10/31/10
Role Type: Prakash Cop*
The story: After a tragic loss, Rakhi (Jr. NTR) is on a mission to bring flaming justice  to men who abuse women. Ileanna plays his reporter girlfriend, and Prakash has a tiny part near the end.

Movie Rating:  4/5  This is one of my favorite Jr. NTR movies. The second half is full of creative ways to kill bad guys using fire. I liked that Illeana's character was pretty spunky, and helped him with some of the logistics of his revenge plan.

Prakash Raj Rating: 2.5/5 This was definitely a cameo, but I thought he was nicely subdued in the role of the judge who presides over Rakhi's trial. *I'm classifying this as Prakash Cop, because this role functions similarly to the other "Cop" roles, as an outsider to the main action and a supporter of justice/the law.

"I will see you with more movies to discuss in November!"

Happy Halloween!

Yes, it's a new type of role:  Prakash O'Lantern!

(I'm not sure that the mustache is quite right, but  have a week to make a new one.)

Fun fact:  the Kannada word for pumpkin is Kumbalkayi, and I came across this recipe for pumpkin idli that looks ridiculously delicious.