You have been warned, don’t watch it. Because once you watch it, the movies wont remain movies for you. Every other movie will look very very ordinary.

Once the movie started, I was like wow, then fcuk.. then amazing.. then… then.. then silence for next two hours. It was 2 hours:45 minutes of magic tour of Pandora, then I returned back to mother earth. But I am still dreaming I guess. Its almost 2:30 AM, let me go back to my dream. Again don’t watch it. If you still want to, then go to the nearest Imax 3D. Good Night Ladies and Gentleman. Sweet Dreams.

Cast: Jaggesh, Yagna Shetty, Tabala Naani, V. Manohar, Shyam Prasad, A.S. Murthy
Story-Screenplay-Dialogues-Direction: Guru Prasad
Producer: Sanath Kumar; Music: Anoop Sileen; Camera: Ashok Raman
My Rating: ****

Watched “Eddelu Manjunatha” on Saturday. Its so different from any regular Kannada movies (or Indian movies). Its a satire(double meaning) comedy which makes you laugh and think at the same time. Its good to see Jaggesh in restrained acting. Yagna looks beautiful. I was expecting a lot from Guruprasad after his first movie Matha, which was a dark comedy. He lived up to it.

The movie starts with Manjunatha sharing the same room with blind director Nani. To pass the time, Manjunatha (actually its his full time job) starts conversation with Nani about his own life. The whole movie is about lazy Manjunatha. In between you can see them conversing about politics, film industry, sex, marriage, life etc. Conversations make most of the Movie and that is where Guru is successful. He can make you laugh, think and wonder.

There are two songs in the movie. The title song eddelu manjunatha is corny. The second song by sung by M.D.Pallavi “Prapachanve Devaru Madiro Baaru…..” is good. I also liked the actress who has played bar singers role for this song. Do any one of you know her name? (update: its Veena Bhat.)

Go watch it.

Note: There are moments (double meaning) where you might feel uncomfortable if your parents are around. Other than that film is mostly clean and watchable with family.

“An animated version of the epic Indian tale of Ramayana set to the 1920’s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw”

Sita, the heroine, reminds me a little of the immortal Betty Boop. But her singing voice is sexier. Paley synchs her life story and singing and dancing with recordings of the American jazz singer Annette Hanshaw (1901-1985), a big star in the 1920s and 1930s who was known as “The Personality Girl.” Sita lived around 1000 BCE, a date which inspires lively debate among the three Indians discussing her. But when her husband outrageously accuses her of adultery and kicks her on top of a flaming pyre, we know exactly how she feels when Annette Hanshaw sings her big hit, “Mean to Me.”

There is another level. In San Francisco, we meet an American couple, young and in love, named Dave and Nina, and their cat, named Lexi. Oh, they are in love. But Dave flies off to take a “temporary” job in India, Nina pines for him, she flies to join him in India but he is cold to her, and when she returns home she receives a cruel message: “Don’t come back. Love, Dave.” Nina despairs. Lexi despairs. Cockroaches fill her apartment but she hardly notices. One day in her deepest gloom she picks up the book Ramayana and starts to read. Inspiration begins to warm the cold embers of her heart.-Sun times

This whole film is an effort of single soul – Nina. Nina is betting on audience to raise money.The whole concept is borrowed from free and open source software movement. The film is released under creative commons where anybody is allowed to download and screen the movie. The users or film buffs will contribute money to the creator if they like the product. Its working pretty well in software world. I am not yet sure about creative world.

This is what she had to say when somebody asked, How are you going to make money?

I’m betting that you, audience, can find me more money – and certainly wider distribution – than a commercial distributor could. I get wonderful emails from people like you, people who offer to set up little fundraising screenings, who write good reviews, and do lots of things to help. Audiences are so eager to help distribute films! Old-school commercial distributors not only ignore the power of the audience, they actively fight it, calling it “piracy” and “theft” for example. And the audience comes up with much better ideas than I or a distributor could (I didn’t think of doing fundraising screenings, you did). And once I free the film, I won’t have to do any more work on it! You, the audience, can take care of everything. – Filmaker Nina Paley

Now go ahead download the movie, watch it with others and then tip her. Even $1 makes lot of sense. ( $2 = cost of watching movie at a local theater in India)

BTW the first edition of BRTFF in 2009 is scheduled for April 4th 5th. We are planning to screen Sita Sings The Blues. You can register yourself at BRTFF website.

Knowingly or unknowingly I was talking about Shankar Nag’s (Shankar Nagarakatte) talent and films yesterday. 18 years have passed since we lost a great director/actor of Kannada film industry. We Kannadigas are still trying to find a Shankar Nag in every debutant.
Shankar who gave us movies like Minchina Oota, Accident, Noodi Swamy navirode heege. Shankar who gave us television serial like Malgudi Days, Shankar who got Nagamandala to stage is missed by every Kannada movie buff.

I miss you personally.

Looks like bollywood is slowly has started getting what web2.0 can do for them. Few days back at Filmcamp myself and Sanjay Jha had a long discussion about bollywood and blogging. How much it can cut the PR and newspapers? How much near it can bring the actor to his fans? I have been reading Aamir Khan’s blog ever since he started to blog. I have been his blog’s biggest fan. Of course Aamir was the starting point of my and Sanjay’s discussion ( BTW we met Sanjay on LinkedIn- How cool is that).

I had this dream of Aamir twittering about his life/work. I had left a comment on one of his blog post too. I am not sure if he read it. But looks like Saawariya team picked it up. It was a shocker when EventsBangalore got followed by somebody named Saawariya. Well I did not believe until I got a confirmation.

I am happy to see a main stream movie team picking up non-main stream method to give the details about the movie. Now I don’t have to send an SMS to one of those costly NUMBERS to get updates. All I have to do is follow saawariya on twitter. I get all those tweets on to my mobile. This might be that one reason for me to watch Saawariaya instead of OSO :)