Congratulations Suraj Venjaramoodu, for disrupting our National Film Awards 2013 sensibilities

Suraj Venjarummodu in Kerala Cafe (2009)

Truth be told, no one saw that coming. The announcement of the 61st National Film Awards for 2013 came as a big surprise for the Malayali. The comedian known for “one and only one type of role” in all the time he has been part of Malayalam cinema bagged the Award for the Best Actor.

The Old Malayalam Cinema Blog is slicker, sleeker and responsive

Image Courtesy & Credit : My Recipe 4 U

After a two-month hiatus, the adda has been dusted, mopped and spruced up – in a way, the sprucing up bit was badly needed, to keep in tune with the times.

Here is how the “sprucing up” has manifested in terms of Content and Design.

A labor of love that will be a benchmark for future legacy digital projects in Malayalam.

To the question of where the janitor of this place had been, for the past three months, here is the answer.

The last three months have been a whirlwind of activity, which was a natural culmination of another 5 months of extensive collation and sorting of archival material, digital assets and print to create the most extensive, exhaustive and engage tribute online, for an actor we have revered ( yes, I use that word after a lot of deliberation) onscreen – Bharat Gopy.

2013 in review.

 

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Malayalam Movie Mindscapes | Ulladakkam (1991)

( SPOILERS AHEAD )

If we were to chart the journey of our inner minds, we would realize that the paths it chooses are part of an infinite maze. The mind ventures through these paths and when we have traveled too far in this maze, we are lost. A certain fear grips us because we no longer know the way out or the way back.

താറാവും മായാജാലവും, അഥവാ മറ്റൊരാൾ ആയിരുന്നെങ്കിൽ.

നെഗറ്റീവ് പബ്ലിസിറ്റി നല്ലവണ്ണം ഉപയോഗിച്ച ഒരാൾ മലയാളത്തിൽ സന്തോഷ്‌ പണ്ഡിറ്റ്‌ ആണ്. അഞ്ചു ലക്ഷം രൂപയ്ക്കു ഒരു ചിത്രം ഇറക്കി എന്ന് വാ തോരാതെ പറയുമ്പോഴും ചിത്രയും എം.ജി.ശ്രീകുമാറും പാടിയ ഒരു ചിത്രം അഞ്ചു ലക്ഷം രൂപയ്ക്കു തീരുമോ എന്ന ചോദ്യം ബാക്കി നിൽക്കുന്നു. ആദ്യ ചിത്രത്തിലെ “രാത്രി,ശുഭരാത്രി” എന്ന ഗാനം ചിത്രത്തിന്റെ ഷൂട്ടിംഗ് സമയം തന്നെ നെറ്റിൽ എത്തിയിരുന്നു.

A Quiz on those movies made inside the Malayalam movies we watched through the years.

{ Narayan is back with another quiz, on the fictional movie titles that had been a part of the story-line of some of the movies we have watched. Give Google a rest and see how many of these you can identify correctly. }

When Ghosts Come Calling | Re-projecting the Disappeared Muses of Malayalam films

[ Co-authored by Darshana Sreedhar and Vinu Abraham, this originally appeared in the Sarai Reader No 9: Projections. Darshana Sreedhar is a PhD scholar at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her work focuses on the history of Malayalam cinema. Vinu Abraham, journalist, novelist and scenarist, is better known for his novel  Nashtanayika, the fictionlised biography of PK Rosy, which formed the basis for Kamal’s Celluloid (2013 ). ]

The Old Malayalam Cinema Blog turns Three.

And, We are three years old.

The operative word is we, and that was exactly the objective when this initiative began, on my own terms, to contribute and put on record online , on whatever I could on the sepia years of Malayalam cinema , solely because, there weren’t any for me to immerse myself in, you see.

The Magic of those Fictional Reads from Malayalam’s Celluloid book shelves.

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter
Read books are great, but those unread are greater.

Movie lovers ! Cinephiles ! It’s time to bring to your attention some books, some classics which redefined the way we watched movies. May I welcome you on a journey across my celluloid shelf ? As I riffle through, the first title that catches my eye is Palunku written by Ravi ¹ in 1969. This book has an interesting history.

Adoor Bhasi | Malayalam cinema’s favorite cross-dresser

Cross-dressing onscreen in Indian cinema isn’t anything new, in fact it has been one of the reliable tools of generating guffaws in an onscreen narrative when the going is tepid or lack-lustre. Same has been the case with Malayalam cinema too, and more so owing to strong, polarised, testosterone-dripping “maleness” that have come to be associated with the onscreen leading personas since the past six decades – ever since we got the “bi-polar successions” of Sathyan – Prem Nazir, Mohanlal – Mammootty and hopefully it would end with the last.