Cocktail [2010] Malayalam - Butterfly On A Wheel [aka Shattered] [2007] Canada

Ravi Abraham (Anoop Menon) is one of the key brains behind the success of a construction firm. He has rivals within and outside the office, jealous of his success. At home, he has a blissful life with his wife Parvathy (Samvrutha Sunil) and daughter Ammu. But things go terribly wrong for Ravi and Parvathy one fine morning, with a stranger named Venkitesh (Jayasurya), who asks for a lift in their car. For the first few minutes, Venky appears to be a naive mild guy but his tone changes soon and he begins to blackmail the couple, telling them that their daughter is kidnapped and within one call the babysitter will kill her. They are forced to obey several things one after the other. First Venky asks them to withdraw the entire deposit from their bank account. Later Venky sets fire to the currency notes in a suitcase and throws it into a river along with their wallets. Venky asks for more money, Ravi sells his wrist watch worth one lakh rupees, for a sum of just 6000. As the day progresses both Ravi and Parvathy are made to drive around and do many things, including leaking Ravi's firm's top notch business plan to the rival group, bargaining with a sex worker etc. Venky also traps them in a lodge where he tries to make advances to Parvathy but stops short of proceeding further. At last, towards the late hours of the night, they reach Ravi's boss's house. Ravi is asked to shoot his boss if he wants to have his daughter alive. Ravi enters the house and to his surprise finds his colleague Devi there.

Part of the drama unveils to the audience now: it is Devi's house, Venky is her husband, Ravi and Devi have been having an extramarital affair. In the subsequent few minutes, we realise that all this was a drama plotted and enacted by Venky and Parvathy, both hurt by their partners` deceit, to teach their partners the pain they themselves went through.

The last shot of the movie has Ravi and Parvathy an year later at a hospital for the infirm. They see a paralyzed Devi, a victim of a suicide attempt, taken care of by the affectionate Venky.

Where was it from?
A perfect family's dynamic is ruined by a kidnapper's brutally efficient plot.

Director:  Mike Barker 
Writer:  William Morrissey 
Stars: Pierce Brosnan, Maria Bello and Gerard Butler

The movie was met with critical acclaim. Even though Cocktail could not manage a bumper initial, the movie picked up after a couple of days of the release. Cocktail has the dubious distinction of raising a controversy about the box-office performance. In a box-office analysis, Sify said that the film did not do well in the box office. However, an article in Expressbuzz.com, published some days after its release, said that the film is a "sleeper hit" and had a "dream run at the box office".According to Malayalamcinemanews.com, the official website of Kerala Film Producers Association, the film's distributor's share is between  40 lakhs and  1 crore, which makes the film only an average grosser. I wonder whether Mike and William ever found out about this stuff.

Starters - Do Kaliyan [1968] - The Parent Trap [1961], remade in [1998]

Just to give you an idea of what's in store, here's what's there off the top of my head


Do Kaliyan 1968 from The Parent Trap 1961, remade in 1998


Well, Whadayaknow!! It started way back.

Proud, wealthy, and haughty Kiran meets with down-to-earth middle-class fellow collegian, Shekhar, and after several clashes and misunderstandings, both fall in love and decide to get married. Shekhar meets with Kiran's dominating mom and mousy dad, and is told that he must successfully pass a test that will be put to him through Kiran's mom, to which he agrees. Subsequently, he is put to the test, and succeeds, much to Kiran's delight. The marriage is performed with great pomp and ceremony, and Shekhar moves in with Kiran and her family. He soon realizes that his presence is next to a lowly servant. He rebels and wants Kiran to leave with him. But Kiran asks him to be patient. Thereafter twin girls are born (Ganga and Jamuna). Shekhar still feels that they would be better off living away from Kiran's family, differences arise, and Shekhar moves out with Ganga. Years later, the twins Ganga and Jamuna meet at a school outing and both decide to switch places to see how it is like on the other side. Both twins then devise a scheme that will bring their proud grandmother to her heels, and bring their parents together.


Where is it familiar from?
Thirteen year olds prim and proper Bostonian Sharon McKendrick and tomboyish Californian Susan Evers meet at summer camp. It's hate at first sight as besides the differing length of their hair, they look exactly the same. After the girls carry out one battle after another against each other, the camp administrators ultimately place the two in solitary confinement, the two eating, sleeping and playing only with each other. It is during this confinement that they finally get a chance to know each other and learn that they are indeed twins, separated when they were babies when their parents, Maggie McKendrick and Mitch Evers, divorced. Wanting to get to know and ultimately love the parent they never met, Sharon and Susan decide to switch places - Sharon will go to California and pretend to be Susan, and Susan will go to Boston and pretend to be Sharon. The other thing they believe is that their parents still love each other - why else had neither ever remarried. The two parents would ultimately have to 'un-switch' them, when the girls hope their parents will fall in love all over again. Both Sharon and Susan are initially able to carry off the ruse, but in California their plan hits a snag when Mitch introduces his daughter to a young woman named Vicky Robinson, Vicky who aspires to be the second Mrs. Mitchell Evers. Sharon and the domestics in the Evers household think Vicky is merely a gold digger out for Mitch's money. Sharon and Susan have to figure out a way to get rid of Vicky and bring Maggie to California more quickly than planned so that their parents can reconcile and the foursome can be one big happy family.

The film was theatrically rereleased in 1968. The Disney Studios produced three television sequels The Parent Trap II (1986), The Parent Trap III (1989), and The Parent Trap IV: Hawaiian Honeymoon (1989). In 1963, the ABC television sitcom The Patty Duke Show debuted using similar filming techniques in a series about teenage cousins (played by Patty Duke) with identical twin appearances but with completely different personalities. The original film was remade in 1998 starring Lindsay Lohan.

In 1965, a similar Tamil film called Kuzhandaiyum Deivamum starring Kutty Padmini released, which was later remade into Telugu as Letha Manasulu and in Hindi as Do Kaliyaan starring Neetu Singh in the double role.. Unfortunately, I can't recall the name of this Rishi Kapoor starrer movie with the same story. Anyone care to enlighten me?? 

STATUTORY WARNING

This blog is strictly only for people who have it in them to stomach truth about the state of affairs our present day film industry is in and has been. It is definitely not for ones who do not understand the true essence of good cinema and especially not for somebody who would take it as a personal offence reading this. Whatever stated in this blog is simply my opinions and also opinions of like minded people sharing the same views as myself regarding cinema. For the best interest of anyone and everyone (unless its just me and myself) reading this blog, I would like to say that this blog is not to dis the film industry in India. It is to simply dis those so called movie makers and self defined directors and music directors, so that real film makers be differentiated from those phony two-faced businessmen whose only interest is to dupe the film loving masses of India as well as the world by bringing out cheap imitations of movies executed in a better style and class by some other directors, adding a few songs and some desi masala to simply cook up the sentence 'inspired from' in case of getting caught by the intelligent media of today. A skeptic may ask why bother, well to him/her, I only have to say: "Bugger off!" There is definite potential in quality cinema in the Indian Film Industry (Yes, I prefer calling it that rather than the B word!) There's more to quality film production here but the ignorant masses rather prefer star casts, item numbers and a million-times-heard-again dialogues rather than carefully scripted and tastefully directed movies. This is just an eye-opener to already open ignorant eyes, don't promote such plagiarised material, be it cinema or audio, 'cos it simply just degrades and insults some bit of intelligence the world may credit Indians for.

Moreover, anyone who wishes o contribute their thoughts and findings here, are welcome to do so. This could well be a start!!

The Kick Off

Why? Need I say why there should be such a blog that needs to state the sorry state of affairs our so called 'bollywood' industry is bringing into this world. I mean, its like it wasn't enough that we as indians have gone through enough torture and turmoil throughout the ages, but now we actually had to go global withrelease of indian movies worldwide and hence, bring out the cheap plagiarised stunts of many but not all... i repeat.. NOT ALL... producers and directors in our country.
Starting with the basics, we have Hollywood, and let me quote what wikipedia has to say about this term:
"Hollywood is a district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym ofAmerican cinema. Today, much of the movie industry has dispersed into surrounding areas such as the Westside neighborhood, and the San Fernando and Santa Clarita Valleys, but significant auxiliary industries, such as editing, effects, props, post-production, and lighting companies remain in Hollywood, as does the backlot of Paramount Pictures."Now let's try the Indian counterpart... not because we couldn't come up with a better name... but you know... because we really needed the west to approve of our cinema... so let us come up with something that sounds similar... hmm... what could sound similar enough to turn some heads from the West??... Then I guess one smart alec might have come up with some intelligent idea like---
"Wait!... Now B is for Bharat...or Bombay!!... Let's try B-Hollywood or Bollywood!!... What do you think??"The others awed in awe.And thus was coined the term Bollywood. Hence, for all you people out there who don't belong within the boundaries of the country called India, as well as for all those who do and never knew squat about it, Bollywood unlike Hollywood is not a state or district or town where the production houses and studios of India's media industry are based. Nobody can 'go to Bollywood' to be a star in India. Even if someone did, poor guy would reach as far as Mumbai. That's cos if you try asking someone directions to Bollywood, the fingers point as far as Mumbai. Once you reach there... well, that's another story. I'll have to start another blog on "How Not To Get Lost In Mumbai For A Newbie"And one might think this would stop there. But quite a few smarter Indians lived among the smart ones... and they brought in their own versions namely:-Tollywood - Disputed between Cinema of West Bengal, Bengali language film industry based in Tollygunge, southern part of the city of Kolkata in the state of West Bengal, India and Cinema of Andhra Pradesh, the Telugu language film industry based in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. (Does it matter who came up with the idea first?)Mollywood - Malayalam Film IndustryKollywood - Tamil Film IndustryOllywood(!!) - Oriya Film Industry (Now ain't that even smarter?)and then of course... Lollywood - Film Industry in LahorePollywood - Film Industry in PeshawarSollywood - South African Film IndustryNollywood - Nigerian Film IndustryNow that we know of these, I think its safe to suggest Collywood for the Canadians or Rollywood for Russia or Gollywood for the Germans. Come on, comrades... register it before it gets taken!Anyways... the idea of this blog hit me one boring day at the movies when I had gone with my folks for some good entertainment, and I realized I no longer could sit and enjoy a movie without the familiar feeling of knowing the script from somewhere or the story from somewhere or the background score and beats from somewhere or even the sets as they are from somewhere!!, and trust me, not meaning to brag, I usually would get the answer under 5 minutes. In fact, be a motion picture enthusiast or simply a movie buff, and it really would not take that long for it to sink in.

Hence, here it is. A hearty welcome!!