Jay Jay(2003)

Somewhere along the line, I learned to hate Madhavan. Okay, maybe "hate" is too harsh a word. How about "strongly dislike"? Anyway, there was a time, long ago, when I actually liked him. But now, for reasons unknown, I can't stand him, as evidenced by my inability to make it past the first few minutes of this flick. Every time I try to watch it, I give up by the time this song starts. I can't believe this is the same Madhavan I found attractive in Priyasaki. I can be so fickle with my affections, sometimes. **sigh**

Back in the day, I wanted to see this solely because of Nisha Kothari. It was her Tamil debut, and as I mentioned in this post, I have a "thing" about watching the screen debuts of the actors I like. At that time, however, the Tamil DVD wasn't in stock, so I bought the dubbed Telugu version and never watched it.

Fast forward to about two months ago when the Tamil original was available from bhavani. I ordered it, this time because of my newfound crush on Pooja Umashankar. Too bad I didn't stick around long enough to see her. If I ever decide to give Jay Jay another chance, I'll have to skip ahead to her scenes. Until then, this movie will languish in the "waste of money" pile.

Anjalika(2005)

Pooja Umashankar's Sinhala debut in which she plays a dual role as the title character and her lookalike, Uththara. I became interested in seeing this after reading about it on Pooja's Wikipedia page. The VCD appears to be available from the same site I discovered a few months ago while searching for an online source for Sinhala movies. The plot sounds like a 90s Bollywood flick, which isn't necessarily a negative, provided it falls into either the "awesomely bad" or "watchable timepass" category. (For some reason, I think it's the latter.)

Chamitha Kuruppu of the Sunday Observer online was very complimentary towards Pooja:

"...All the credit goes to pretty Pooja Umashankar from India who portrays the title character Anjalika. The film will no doubt be a commercial hit, thanks to Pooja's brilliant acting, superb dancing skills and of course her gorgeous looks. Young Pooja's performance as mischievous Anjalika living a carefree life hanging around with children in a village, deserves all the praise. Applause to you Channa for your sweet and worthy 'introduction' to the Sinhala cinema!..."

S.V. Fernando, on the other hand, was less than impressed:

"...Pooja Umashankar is clearly out of her element as Anjalika...why would you hire a foreign actress who cannot speak a word of Sinhala to play a Sinhalese village girl and then hire a Sri Lankan actress (Nadeesha Hemamali) to voice/dub the dialogue of the first actress?...The 'role of Anjalika' should have been given to the 'voice of Anjalika' Nadeesha Hemamali, this would have alleviated a considerable expenditure in the budget and also would have improved the film entirely."

Songs I found on YouTube: "Payana Era" and "Pamawee Pipunu Mal". Pooja looks gorgeous, which could possibly make up for any flaws the film may have. Then again, not even Sada's pulchritude could force me to watch Pranam beyond the first half-hour. **shrug** Oh, well. I'll try to check it out later tonight or tomorrow, and if I like it enough, I might order the VCD.

Unrelated: I typed the magic words "taking a break" and suddenly, I feel inspired to start posting again. It never fails.

TPP: Ajith and waists, pt.3.

From Attagasam:

Attagasam(2004)

I'm sick of seeing "draft" beside this entry so I'll sum it up thusly: Ajith plays twin brothers Jeeva and Guru who are separated as young boys after Guru witnesses their father's murder. In an effort to protect him, their mother sends Guru to live abroad, but he escapes and grows up to be a feared rowdy in the fishing town of Tuticorin, while Jeeva becomes an instructor at a driving school in Chennai. When Jeeva goes to Tuticorin to retrieve a car that was stolen by one of the instructors, he is mistaken for Guru, which leads to Guru finding out and swapping places with Jeeva so that he can go to Chennai and take revenge on his mother, and leave his brother behind to get killed by Samudrakani, the town's senior don. Do things go according to Guru's plan? Of course not.

I would describe this as "a very average movie", but borderline stan that I am, I compulsively rewatched it, anyway. Ajith looked like "a fat mafia dude"(TM a YouTube commenter) most of the time, particularly in the "Nachendru Inchendru" song, but I didn't really mind. I wasn't feeling Pooja's looks in Ullam Ketkume but in this movie, I found her so appealing that for a while, I was seriously tempted to impulse buy a few more of her films.

Here are the few somewhat decent caps I made of Pooja. They don't do her justice; she was much prettier in the film: