Filmy Illusions

Down south, a few stars are stars less but god more, for their fans; it’s almost established even in North India. Two days before Petta’s release I walked into a theatre in South Delhi talking in my native language Malayalam to my friend and the security women started speaking amongst themselves, “Their superstar’s movie is out already, it’s supposed to be two days later, na?” or when I finally went for the movie today and the ticket counter person enthusiastically said, “Madam your Thalaivar’s film is super hit, its house full.” An honorary Tamilian and a die-hard fan of the language, all my life, I have always been amused as well been happy when people mistake me for a Tamilian, when I speak or by my looks, which in North India can be confusing, as for many of them STILL, all of South India culminates together in TamilNadu or as the infamous ‘Madrasi’. While that will take much longer to change I am super glad that Thalaivar is making better choices at scripts. By cho...

“Do you ever look at your life and wonder how you got there; if you made different choices, would you be happier?” On a normal day, I ask this question end number of times to myself and maybe that’s why Second Act despite being another ‘chick flick’ as they would like to call it, became so personal to me. It’s been a while since I wrote a movie review, something I really enjoyed. In spite of watching all the new releases, somehow I couldn’t word it out how it made me feel. What was stopping me? Well, the only thing stopping me was me , a little quote from which the movie draws its premise and something I really need to get my head around, still. Second Act is a breezy and heart-warming story about  Maya (Jennifer Lopez) who gave over 15 years of her life to a store but is denied higher opportunities since she had to drop out from school and doesn’t own a degree. With a birthday wish for  a world where street smart equal book smart, Maya’s life takes a turn...