Matters to whom? You, probably. Ghajni was a blockbuster hit. So apparently it doesnt matter to our audiences. Thats the point. The average fan for these films in Madras wouldnt have even heard about Memento much less care about what films are there in top 250. Magalir mattum,Avvai shanmughi etc. were even more balatant lifts and both of them were BO successes. So our audiences dont care as long as the film is well adapted for local consumption. And so Murugadoss doesnt have to worry about where he lifts from. If he is worried about critical acclaim then he shouldnt lift at all.

so you are more worried about the “smartness” of the lifts or about the director getting caught than about the lifts themselves?

BTW, For an average filmgoer in TN, Usual suspects might be as alien as an European film. Murugadoss laughed all the way to the bank with Ghajini. So lifting parts of Memento wouldnt sound “stupid” to him, would it? Gladiator is a different story. I dont think anyone will remake that in Tamil :-)

I know critics tend to go overboard but u just watch both movies and see how Sanjay Gupta has left no stone uncovered.It is not some Independent movie maker’s story that helifted but the hugely popular OldBoy which was raved by critics at Cannes and is hugely popular all over the world.No one can copy better than him.

I think that such columns should be just banned. The media has its own yardstick for measuring foreign films and a totally different yardstick for measuring Indian films.

@Vijay

Pudhupettai has not even released and I am sure Selvaraghavan wont copy a movie frame to frame,ppl say Nayakan is a copy of Godfather but If u have seen both movies carefully u can see the trivial lifting of a few scenes than any concept as such.

Krithika,so if Selvaraghavan lifts from a remote German/Italian film,its smart and OK?!!

copycat writers in the making? after Gautaman bhaskaran, our suspicion cannot be faulted

Off topic:

You don’t want to miss the latest issue of Vikatan. 2 good items – an interview with Ravi K.Chandran about the Hindi-vs-Tamil cinema; he makes several interesting points and is similar to the interview he gave to Kumudam some time back. Second is the article by Jnani comparing Hindi-Tamil cinema – quotes some scary #s and talks about corporatisation os movie making etc. If you are already knew about this, pl ignore this post.