Mister Madras

Director: Chezhiyan Cast: Santhosh Sreeram, Sheela Rajkumar, Dharun  In a scene from Chezhiyan’s award-winning To Let, Ilango (Santhosh Sreeram) and Amudha (Sheela Rajkumar), break their heads and savings to make ends meet. As Amudha brings out her last ounce of savings that she had stored between the pages of her bible, their son, Siddharth (Dharun), brings out his hundi and places it between his parents. A regular film would’ve made that kid as an unnecessarily mature character who has probably understood the grave situation and is willing to let go of what he has saved for the betterment of the family. But To Let , unexpectedly, does what you’d expect a kid to do. Seeing his mother holding a handful of notes, he had brought the hundi and Amudha too plays along by inserting a hundred rupee note at its mouth, only for Ilango and Siddharth to push it down. That’s one of the many times To Let’s realism would remind you of Balu Mahendra’s cult classic Veedu – a comparison that you’re

Director: Sundar C Cast: Silambarasan, Megha Akash, Catherine Tresa, Prabhu, Ramya Krishnan  Though I’m not comfortable with the usage of the term ‘comeback’ in Tamil cinema, Chekka Chivantha Vaanam was termed as one for Silambarasan a.k.a Simbu a.k.a STR. You know how much the Mani Ratnam film means to the actor’s career when his next film is titled after a a line from  CCV . But it’s rather sad when you see Sundar C’s  Vantha Rajavathaan Varuven and realise that the title is as creative as film gets. And let’s not forget the fact that VRV is technically a remake of the Telugu film Attarintiki Daredi . VRV has the so-called essentials that you’d find in any Sundar C film from the last decade – a cast list that’s as long as the population of a small town, an expensive set of a house, a host of comedians who’re given more screen space than the actual female lead and of course, intolerable songs. What’s different – if I had to nitpick – is that it’s been a while since his films had a

Director: Rajiv Menon Cast: GV Prakash, Nedumudi Venu, Vineeth, Aparna Balamurali A film on underdogs is anything but new in Tamil cinema. In fact, the heroes are written as so, so that when he rises from the ashes a la a phoenix bird, the transformation is ought to give a high to the audience. But Rajiv Menon’s comeback film Sarvam Thaala Mayam can’t be brushed under the carpet as yet another such film. For starters, we aren’t given a conventional ‘hero’ but just a happy-go-lucky-guy named Peter (a role that seems to be custom-made for GV Prakash) who loves being a die-hard fan of a hero. While it’s Thalapathy Vijay, in the beginning, his hero-worshipping soon changes focuses to veteran percussionist Vembu Iyer (Nedumudi Venu) after seeing the latter perform. What follows is a series of insults and tribulations that hit Peter like how he wants to hit the mridangam, for which he even goes against the words of his mridangam making father Johnson (a brilliant Kumaravel). The biggest tak