Hi people from all over the world,
It was my New Year resolution to post at least 2 ‘TWR’ interviews a month and I seem to have broken the vow even before I started!
So here I go re-making my March-wish to march ahead telling myself. “New year wishes are meant to be broken!”
Let me start 2016 with this handsome young lad from Toronto who goes by the name ‘Review Raja’ alias R2 (pet name) alias Davis Courneyea which happens to be his real name. Born in Belleville, movie mania ran in his blood even when he was in High school. He worked in a movie theater called ‘Famous Players’ while still a student. He graduated in Business management from Ryerson University. His dad Richard, mom Shawna, sister Destiny and bro-in-law Alwyn, with nephew Ethan and niece Cadence make up the rest of his family.
I must say Destiny (not his sis, but the real one, as in karma) played a huuuuge role in bringing him to our shores. His Sri Lankan friends made him watch a video of a Tamil film and at the end of which he said “That was one hell of an interesting Bollywood film, thank you for showing it to me”. His friends replied “Sit down, that wasn’t a Hindi film but a Tamil film”. His immediate reaction was “Tamil…?” and he hadn’t even heard of a language like that!
Guess what that film was?
Billa directed by Vishnuvardhan…and our beloved ‘Thala’ Ajith won his heart and soul from the word go. This was 2012.
He was so intrigued; he started watching more Tamil films. He started haunting 2 theaters that played Tamil films owned by Mano, outside of Toronto, Woodside square cinemas and York cinemas. He found himself to be the lone foreigner that made him decide to review Tamil films.
‘Review Raja’ was born again! From Saguni, July 19th 2012 to 2013 he reviewed 27 films and gathered a colossal fan following.
And again the aura of Ajith, Billa 2 gave him an instant 100,000 hits, Sivaji 3D enhanced his page with 80,000 hits, the charisma of our Superstar.
My favorite is of course Maattrraan. For those of you who didn’t get to watch this, R2 found his clone in Andrew Gordon, a friend of his roommate in Toronto. First reaction of Andrew’s was an incredulous laugh, “You actually review Tamil films?”
His name started spreading by word of mouth and his professor used him as example in his Media classes, to prove the power of visual media! That indeed is a feather in his cap. He visited India in February and one of his favorite meetings was with our ‘young commander’ Vijay.
In his own words, “Vijay is so humble, down to earth, no airs and graces and readily agreed to see me, which zapped me. Even though I spent hardly an hour with Vijay, this meeting will always remain evergreen in my memory forever”.
He felt at ease in the company of ‘the Chennai 28 brothers’ Venkat Prabhu and Premji who bowled him over with their ready wit and innate friendly nature.
Back in Canada, things turned ugly. His team mates locked him out of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Davis drew a blank any which way he turned. Reviews on his old channels after this occurred were actually not by him at all. So he took a brief hiatus and (thank you for the patient read) he is back again with us as ‘Reel Review Raja’ bigger, stronger and more energetic than ever.
He met his girlfriend Tara and here they are to meet everyone in Kollywood and do their squirrel bit in bridging the gap, between Tamil Nadu and the rest of the world.
And I for one am on cloud 9 because he walks my dream with me!
On that note, let me say tata, bye-bye, cheerio
See you soon!
Fingers and toes crossed
rekhs
Ps
You can find Reel Review Raja here:
https://www.facebook.com/thereelreviewraja/
https://twitter.com/reelreviewraja
