Reviews and Appreciation

I remember Drishyam (Malayalam) as the one big review I wrote on Movies of the Soul. It came before I developed most of my ideas about this movie blog, and hadn’t shared it much. Still it went on to become the most visited review and remain so for close to an year, only to be overtaken by the review of Om Shanti Oshana which kept that title until yesterday. Where Sapthamashree Thaskaraha coming so close and failed, Kunjiramayanam managed to do that in a day and half. Yes, this review had become fourth most read in twenty four hours and made it to the first spot with just half a day more.

I was actually surprised to see this big leap on the first day itself. It was unlike what I had imagined, and it was like whenever I looked, the number of visits just increased. When I looked at my own review page, I saw that the Facebook button showed the numbers in thousands. This was so huge. I was surprised and found out that the link to the review was shared by both the Official Page of the movie and one of the main actors in the movie Aju Varghese on his own page. It was also later shared by the director of the movie, Basil Joseph on his profile, and a lot of others had also shared my review due to the same reason.

When the movie’s official page shares your review, that boosts your confidence.

I have wished for my reviews to be shared, but never really wrote for the same. I have written the opinions on the movies which I had watched, related to what came on my mind, and concerning that particular experience having that certain effect on me. My reviews were only shared on Facebook improving my traffic only on a few occasions, and it started with Angels review, which had my link as part of a video created consisting of the opinions related to the movie which was shared by the director of the movie Jean Markose, the Official movie page and Joy Mathew who played one of the protagonists in it.

My second share happened related to the movie Ivide when the Official Facebook page of the movie as well as the Assistant Director of the movie, Priya Chokshi gave the shares. The third one was related to Mumbai Taxi when the leading actress of the movie, Mareena Michael Kurisingal gave it a share on her profile. Only the influence of the third can be seen on the Facebook button of the respective review pages, as I had bought the domain after that. So, with the count missing on the pages, I had hoped for something to come up there, and it is big here with Kunjiramayanam as it is above 5000 as of now.

When someone like Aju Varghese shares the review, things get even bigger 🙂

One thing which I have noticed about Kunjiramayanam is that it has the support of the general public and the usual audience who use Facebook regularly. It is more of a common man’s movie without adding anything complicated to it. It uses simple and yet effective comedy to make things work in its favour, and with these shares, they have made it clear that value is given to the opinions of people. When you are with people, they are with you. I know some people who hope for higher and higher ratings all the time, but here they have chosen to share those fair reviews, which has to be appreciated.

Yes, there has been more shares here and there, but among these four big shares which have affected my blog positively, I will rank the latest one far ahead of the others, because they have all shared this review as something significant rather than just adding it to their profiles, and the results have shown in the re-shares which has been received. The fact that it was shared by Aju Varghese makes me a lot happier because he is the one young actor whom I always trust with the comic roles. I do wish that he had a bigger role in Jamnapyari and also in Loham; but he does steal the show in Kunjiramayanam.

And then the awesomeness continues when the director shares the same 🙂

As Om Shanti Oshana which comes second in the most visited list has fallen more than a thousand visits behind, I expect Kunjiramayanam to hold on to that top spot for a very long time – the visits are still going on strong, and the lead is surely going to extend by a much bigger margin. There are only eight movie reviews on Movies of the Soul which has received more than a thousand visits to the page, and among them, seven are Malayalam with the remaining one Hindi – there is always a certain advantage in writing about the movies releasing in your own language, right?

I will leave you with a funny video song from the movie 🙂

TeNy