Sapphire Indian Restaurant

My first and only visit to this beautiful restaurant was very enjoyable.  I would gladly go here often, if not for the distance from home.

A grand selection of food items makes the weekend buffet very sumptuous.  I am not sure I saw any thai entrees in the buffet, but there was an array of north/south Indian; veg/non-veg dishes.  The ambience of the place was good too.  What I liked the most is that the weekend buffet is open till night!  That's fabulous for people like us who 1. habitually go late to places 2.if we are running errands we can just stop by the restaurant whenever we feel like it.

http://www.sapphireindianrestaurant.com/

Jab tak hai jaan - Hindi movie review

SRK, Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma

One refreshing thing is SRK acts his age at least for some part of the movie.  It is a welcome break from seeing him as 'just out of college' kid.  With the opening, Samar (SRK) is shown as challenging death, he takes on risky assignments such as bomb defusing in the Indian Army.  According to him, its only his death which will make Katrina (Meera) lose her faith in God (with whom she has a barter system going on).  She has given up seeing him because of one such barter, even though she is deeply in love with him in spite of being engaged to another man.

Meera's understanding of love is somewhat incomplete; she thinks love is something to be avoided.  Her mother's elopement with another man when she was 12 probably had a huge influence on her outlook.  But in comes Samar with his happy go lucky attitude and creates a reunion between mother and daughter.  She sees her mom very happy and content with her partner.  After the reconciliation Meera's outlook on love is entirely the opposite of her previous one - now she thinks people have to run away to find true love.  Her habit of 'praying' to God frequently and having an ongoing agreement of barter system is very annoying. 

However Anushka's character (Akira) is more annoying with her rustic attitude of youngsters and sex.  She has no problem bringing it up even to strangers.

Unless you are a fan of either of these actors, you can skip this movie.

Moondru per, moondru kaathal - Tamil movie review

Three people, three love (stories)....Hmm...Once again what made me want to watch this movie was Cheran.

The story moves slowly at times; certainly a unique perspective of love.  One of the heroes has completely sacrificed love; another has lost his loved one.  Both these instances have affected the third hero so much that he decides to do a little soul-searching and comes to the conclusion that what he felt as 'love' in fact was nothing deep.

This movie raises one question for me: does one have to sacrifice love in order to do social service?  Is not Love a sense of overflowing bliss that it would encompass all in its path.  Its certainly a very reasonable wish for a girl (or a guy, for that matter) to want to spend the rest of her(or his) life with the person she looks up to - as a friend, soul mate, inspiration all in one.

Chennaiyil oru naal - movie review

A wonderful movie! 

I started watching it because it has two of my favourite actors - Prasanna and Cheran but soon was drawn into its nail-biting suspense and thrilling story line.  This movie is in fact star-studded - Radhika, Sarathkumar, Vijayakumar, Prakashraj, Surya.  

The first part of the story moves slower than the latter part.  Post interval literally adrenaline rushes, with the viewer not knowing which way the see-saw would turn; but all ends well except for the young man with so many dreams to make it big in journalism, who is almost fatally knocked down in a road accident.  Its his heart which has to be taken to Vellore Hospital from Chennai.  

The cinematography is amazing.  This movie has all the usual elements like power politics, powerful message, kidnap/carjacking, unity of people, emotional manipulation etc, but all these weave into a unique perspective.

Makes one realise the value of the gifts that we have been endowed with and the greatness of organ donation.

Kadal - movie review

     Coming from the Mani Ratnam banner, I started watching this movie with lots of expectations - good story line, catchy music, hero/heroine being lookable/likeable etc etc.  

      Story is alright, the motto being 'truth alone triumphs' which is very noble.  After watching this movie I am starting to think Aravind Swamy and Arjun are the real hero and villain respectively.  Gautham Karthik is just a person of circumstance; drawn into the influence of the former first then the latter.  His convictions seem to be un-crystallized, which is probably because of his troubled or non-existent childhood.  The heroine Thulasi looks good and exhibits very promising talent; her costumes look a trifle incongruous and in most frames she wears white.  It struck me that she smiles and giggles a bit too much and found out towards the end that this was in fact intended.  The local dialect and way of life is well depicted.  Overall a good movie.

         

Movie review - Aravaan

Has been a while since I watched this movie; but remember it to be a good one.  A novel theme (this is a period film) about a people who steal from the rich to survive. 
There is a good mix of action and emotion, and this movie is an entertainer. 
Aathi as the hero is very convincing.

Kumki - Tamil Movie review

Overall a very nice movie!

Certainly a welcome change to watch an elephant in almost every scene.  

Manikkam the elephant is adorable.  My favorite scene is the one in which he follows his angry mahout Bomman (Vikram Prabhu) around town and finally finds him aboard a bus in the bus-stand.  Animals have an amazing way of endearing themselves even without dialogues and dramatics!.  

The story is based on a 'Kumki' or a trained elephant which is taken to Adhikaadu to stop the rogue elephant which is wreaking havoc every harvest season.  The Adhikaadu residents are very traditional and do not compromise on their ways in spite of changing times.  They chose to bring a 'Kumki' elephant to their village rather than take the help of the government to oust the nuisance.

As expected, the hero falls in love with the village leader's daughter (Lakshmi Menon) and whether they are able to come together and also keep the rogue elephant at bay forms the rest of the story.

The photography is awesome: the greenery of the Western Ghats is simply awe-inspiring.  Music score is pleasant but all songs seem similar.  Comedy is spontaneous and hilarious!  But I found the hero's love a little annoying - especially since he jeopardizes all his close circle.