Lazy Geek : I hate Bala for all his heroes are cracks. Especially SETHU was the height of madness. Don't start arguing about SETHU, I get too hot when I discuss it. For more reasons, ask Senthil. He might kill you too ;-)

Ram : Finally somebody who shares my views on Sethu. Pithamahan is bound to be a flop after all this buildup.

Lazy Geek : Finally Ram is here to my views on sethu. It sucks bigtime for that one silly scene itself. no no. i am not going to discuss sethu again.

Anyway let me try. that silly scene where Vikram picks up that rock and threatens to kill the heroine if she would not love him. She falls in his feet and says I Love you. And for THIS kind of a kinky love she dies. Tamil cinema went bonker BIG TIME.

Hope Pithamahan does not include such crap.

Ravages : Yeah! I too think sethu wasnt all that great a movie. I didnt like Nanda.

Anand : Sethu became a hit not because of its story but the way it was presented. Haunting, disturbing visuals made the film stand out.

Kruthika : a difference of opinion which i was forced to share with u...i think that bala is a director who always tries to deal with tragedies....its his style....but i cannot believe that u can say sethu is a bad movie...u may not like the style but its still a good movie...the scene where vikram tries to throw something at the heroine & all that...well, anyone can use their creative license and use a little bit of exaggeration...just like how shankar has done in his movie boys(definitely not a better result than sethu!!)...the performance by vikram in sethu was gr8 and bala did a gr8 job as well...i am very glad that pithamagan is doing well...

Lazy Geek : Yeah, you are right kruthika, i don't like bala's style of movie making especially with sethu and nandha. I haven't seen Pithamahan yet.

In the name of creative license, I don't agree killing natural fims. Nandha was outrightly artificial from the hero eyes to the characters in the movie. However Rajkiran was the only solace.

Sethu wasn't that artificial but such silly scenes all over me dislike the movie and the director.

Senthil : kruthika..sethu is nowhere compared to boys.Let 6 crore people make a big hue and cry about this film.Where all these people where there when a yung boy give massage to a old lady in thulluvatho ilamai and hardcore sex between a school girl and a boy.Where are they when anand theatre was overflowing for 'fire' movie.Shankar has shown the 'boys'of tamilnadu.I just cant imagine our boys apart from the one which we have seen.he has not shown anything which is alien to tamilnadu.

coming to sethu..I sent a 2 page mail to bala asking him many questions and i was lucky to meet his asst director who is a friend of my brother in law.He was taken aback when i pointed out many mistakes in the movie .

1.Have u ever seen a college girl keeping 'mayil iragu in her book telling everyone 'athu kutti podum'?
thats the most stupidest thoughts.

2.Always a 3 rated rowdy falls only for a 'brahmin girl' and always..? the brahmin girl falls in love with the rowdy.

3.Sethu is the chairman of the college but behaves like a 'porukki'

4.Why is that a brahmin who has a kudumi is shown as a weak and dumb fellow.Bala tries to justify that only a rowdy is a perfect match for a brahmin girl..

What will happen when we show a handsome fellow becoming insane and caged in a lunatic asylum.Bala capitalized on this idea and gained.Thats all.There is nothing called creativity and all that.Bala is no where to shankar and boys cannot be compared with sethu cos it will take decade for poor bala to match the technology and creative thinking of shankar.

Im sorry if Ive been so rude..well we have had so much fights in drive in woodlands ....enna guru correct thaanae..?

Lazy Geek : 10,000% percent right. myself and senthil have had so much fights with ideas in movies but we were both similar with respect to sethu.

Me and elango(another philladelphia doctor friend) were talking over the phone last week about sethu and these were the points I told him about and I think he was slightly convinced(if not fully) that there were such blunders which senthil listed in sethu.

Also calling brahmins has half-mandais because of their kudumis throughout the movie is a cheap way of making people laugh. it is applicable for any cast creed or religion. try calling scheduled caste or any religion by names in your movie and see what the heck happens. just because someone is tolerabl to your stupid thinking don't abuse them. THIS IS FOR BALA.

Padhu : Marupadiyum solren, shankar/mani/kamal are in a different league.

I havent seen Sethu even once completely. Because the first time I stopped watching after 30 minutes. Why ? Level...sami...romba mosam...ya ya..the movie picked up after that..but level illiye...

I think the next director who has a chance to make it big is Jeeva - 12B director...

Elango : hmmm.. It is just few days… but it looks like I missed lot of extra hot discussion...
It’s kinda same feeling when you pass by the road filled with firecracker debris after a 10,000 wala. ?

Actually Guru, when I read senthil's points I did checked the poster's name more than once coz it sounded just like what you mentioned over the phone (after all, you guys must have munched it only a million times right. )
Yeah, I almost echoed Krithika's views when I talked about Sethu with Guru over the phone. Guru brought to light some serious flaws in the movie and I agree to the fact that it’s wrong in Bala's part that he has portrayed a particular sect as weak and took advantage of them for comedy. But there are some good points for which he deserves some credit.

But when it comes to comparing Shankar and Bala, I think they are both talented but in a different way and it make no sense to compare them. Shankar believes in extravaganza with comedy and lot of creativity in his movies where as Bala seems to be attracted towards subtle yet shocking, serious but rare characters. See, every one cannot make movies like Maniratnam even if they try it that won’t be as good as him.

Talking about exaggerated or unrealistic characters, I believe that as a very common commodity in film industry. (Regardless of Holly, Bolly or kollywood.) If we look in that perspective we can see that The Godfather Michael Corleone (remember the director sleeps with his dead horse’s head), Nayagan Nayakkar, Guna Gunasekeran, Gentleman Kicha or Mudhalvan Pugazhendi, were all exaggerations.

So what Bala did with the rowdy, the lover with almost psychotic shades or the zombie-like mental patient Sethu and the innocent college freshman, homely, tradition-bound girl Abitha character as a story is important than the individual character’s nature. I think as a director Bala did his job pretty good. Hey! I am not recommending him for OSCAR but saying that he is much better than some of the directors we have now. In fact I was very thrilled to watch this movie (Sethu) transforming from laidback raucous of Sethu and company in college, then the kallukul eerum kinda awkward romantic expressions of the tough guy, their romance and the stunning part where the hero lose his mind and then followed by the pinnacle – the climax.

As an average movie watcher I didn’t expect more than this. And I think that’s why Bala did get the result that he deserved.

Is that right that our first impression about a director or a movie is very important and when it unfortunately happens to be an unpleasant one, we tend to pay more attention to the darker side of it and vice versa?
I am like that how bout you?

Senthil : I agree there are good points but you need not build a character by degrading a particulat community and we are also unfortunate victims to cherish in such blunder.I have seen that in many films (even you would have seen it..)brahmins portrayed as weak dumb fellows..why is that..?..why can't a director have healthy thoughts..and the worst part is that abitha's would-be tell her that 'sethu' is her perfect match..

I really can't enjoy such ideas..why dont they show abitha as a schedule caste girl and all her relatives as thugs..we watch a tiger pouncing on an innocent deer ,tearing its flesh and savouring its meal slowly in discovery channel with so much enthu and though our lips say"acho acho" cos it satisfy the animal in us.Bala tried the same thing..offcourse its my personal opinion and im not tryin to justify anything.