All the three have one thing in common; they are woman centric movies. A genre which is used rarely in Tamil cinema, if we just scroll our Tamil cinema history and check the woman centric movies which have got a good reception, we can hardly come up with a few like Radha Mohan’s Mozhi, Mani Ratnam’s Roja, Suhasini Mani Ratnam’s Indira, Singeetham Srinavasa Rao’s Magalir Mattum and a series of movies from the legends Bhagyaraj, Balachandar and Bharathy Raja. But why is there a down surge of such movies? And in this age of growing multiplex audience, Tamil filmmakers should start experimenting and try to come up with different themes. Will our thirst for good cinema over different genres be fulfilled? Only time will tell.

Now over to the analysis of three movies that are releasing this week:

Elizabeth: the golden age

Shekhar Kapur is back with the sequel to his Oscar nominee Elizabeth. The celebrated Indian director became a celebrity in England too, after directing the first Elizabeth and the Australian actress Cate Blanchett who was almost an unknown actress before Elizabeth, is now one of the top heroine’s in Hollywood, thanks to the Lord of the rings series, The Aviator, Babel, Good German, and many more. But same cannot be said about Shekhar Kapur, as his last movie “The four feathers” was a failure at the box office. And when the two decided to come together once again for Elizabeth: the golden age, which talks about the relationship of the queen with the adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh played by Clive Owen, the hype started to climb. And the Indians too had something to cheer about as their very own A.R. Rahman was in charge of the background score, but to everyone’s disappointment the movie hasn’t lived up to the expectation. A movie which was expected to dominate the Oscar’s this year may get a nod for just the Best actress category. The movie which boasted of a bigger budget will now be hoping that it did get a good reception in other parts of the world and at least break even, as it is declared a flop in both US and UK. But still if you are a history freak and want to know what the two Indians have come up with then open your wallet, if not save it for something useful.

Why you should watch it? – You want to spend some time with your girlfriend alone. And you are a big fan of either Shekar Kapur or A.R. Rahman or Elizabeth.

Why you shouldn’t? – After the end of the show, you will probably end up liking your history teacher.

The Brave one

Jodie foster is back to kiss kiss bang bang. The brave one is a vigilante story of a woman who is mobbed and whose fiancé is killed (haven’t we seen the same story in Quantin Tarantino’s Kill Bill?) and the depressed woman decides to take the law in her own hands and cleanse society. We have seen a series of vigilante stories in Tamil (thanks to Shankar and Murugadoss) but the quality of the Hollywood movie cannot be paralleled. Whether it is Matrix or V for Vendetta, Hollywood has stamped their class in the genre. But this movie with too much emotion is about how the transformation takes place. The movie is quite good and people will like it but the lack of marketing and a strong competition next week from Beowulf will curtail its prospects.

Why you should watch it? – Because you love Jodie foster (who doesn’t?).

Why you shouldn’t? – You have seen many movies with the same story.

Now for the Behindwoods pick of the week...

Behindwoods.com pick of the week is Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal

The ace producers are back with another sports drama. Yash Raj came up with a blockbuster in the form of Chak De India, and the success of this has given more confidence for producers UTV to muster all their energy in the marketing department to make sure the movie get a tremendous start.

The sports genre has started to spread in Bollywood, as after the stupendous reception of Lagaan, they came up with Iqbal, Say Salaam India for Cricket, Chak De India for hockey and now Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal for Football. This multi-starrer has John Abraham, Arshad Warsi, Bipasha Basu, Boman Irani and Naveen Andrews who is known for his role in Bride and Prejudice, Kamasutra, and the famous sitcom Lost. Naveen Andrews also stars in “The Brave One” which is also releasing today. But the trailers of the movie haven’t impressed me enough. But still with just three releases this week I went ahead with this one. Will Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal do to football what Chak De did for Hockey? Only time will tell.

Why you should watch it? – Because you love football or you liked Chak De and want to relive the experience.

Why you shouldn’t? – John Abraham is not Shah Rukh Khan or Aamir Khan, and the trailers didn’t impress you much.

Verdict – It’s a battle between John Abraham and Jodie Foster and John scores a Goal.