SO EXCITING! Don’t feel too bad if you didn’t win (although I think most of the regular commentators did), I’ll be coming up with some other kind of give-away for Valentine’s cards in a few weeks. (week 1 here, week 2 here, week 3 here, week 4 here, week 5 here, week 6 here, week 7 here, and week 8 here)
If you recall, way back when the blog started, I laid out the different kinds of FanVids. My favorite were the ones that told a whole story. So, to start off 2017, I thought I would give you some of those.
Thanks to badgering (in a nice way) from the comments section, I finally got around to watching this, my first Ram Gopal Verma Telugu film, and my first RGV Sridevi film. And it was a revelation! Not that different from his later Hindi stuff, but different enough that it made me look at his whole career in a new way.
When I was putting together the post for last Friday, I ran across a photo of Salman with a puppy. Which lead me down a bit of a movie-stars-and-puppies rabbit hole. And what a lovely way to enter the New Years weekend, with a bunch of movie star and puppy photos!
Kajol has signed another movie! And one that no one expected from her. I am very very curious how it will turn out.
I finally watched Bommarillu! The movie that I was told is like Boys, and like Happy, and like Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana, only better. And it really was better! Or at least just as good.
I am trying a new thing, sort of cliff notes version of Hindi film history. Not the actual history (“Bombay Talkies studio was founded by Harivanshri Rai and Devika Rani…”), but the gossip history that everyone kind of knows if they’ve grown up with the films or if they’ve been following them for years. But I know that isn’t true for some of my readers and so, just for you, I am giving you the kind of informal oral history. Starting with the Kapoor Family (part 1 here).
Yesterday I did a brief post on Carrie Fisher and mentioned that I feel a much deeper connection to her mother, Debbie Reynolds. Which is true. And now Debbie is gone, and my farewell post will be a lot more in depth and personal. But not terribly sad, because she had a long and wonderful life.
Christmas is over, which is sad, but it means I have a lot of new presents to play with (check them all out here!), and it means I can go back to listening to Saavn and my Indian music instead of Christmas carols. In early November, when I start my Christmas channels, it feels all refreshing to listen to White People Music (as I think of it) for a little bit. But by December 26th, I am ready to go back to my Indian stuff. And for my first playlist, I went with the theme of “good songs from not good movies.”
What an interesting masala of movies (that tracks, right? I was going to use “melange”, but that’s just French for “mix”, so why not “masala” instead?)! My Netflix envelope claimed it was a remake of some American movie called Assassins. But that’s just one of many many films that went into creating this one.
Carrie Fisher died, as I am sure we all know. Which is sad, but doesn’t have much of a connection to Indian film, so it falls a bit outside of my area of expertise. I can tell you that I will always love her for her amazing guest appearance on 30 Rock. And I can also tell you that she was so embedded in film history that multiple films she is connected with have somehow traveled across to India.
I have had so much fun in the past few weeks talking with Ryan C in the comments. He is new(ish) to Indian film and is asking me all sorts of wonderful questions, and giving me delightfully enthusiastic responses, and it made me think about how maybe I should do more posts sort of aimed at that level. Ideally, you can get that from My Book (really, read it! It’s super short and fast and once you are done, you will know everything you need to understand the movies), but now I am thinking maybe I should try something like that on the blog as well?
Poor Aamir. I don’t know if it is even possible for him to surprise us at the box office at this point. Once you reach the limit of how many tickets are even available to sell, and they all sell-out, well then there is no where else to go! (figures are, as always, from Rentrack courtesy of BollywoodHungama)
I did it! I downloaded the Salman App so I could see what it was like! And it’s interesting. I kind of wish the other stars would do something similar, just to make life easy.
1 through 40 are important too, but these are my top eleven. (UPDATE: These are mostly the same as in 2015, with a few tweaks. And of course a new one added!)
So, earlier today, I posted the first 20 reasons I love Salman Khan (not as much as I love Shahrukh, but still quite a bit). Here are another 20. (UPDATE: This is the post I put up in 2015, but it’s still true today! I’ve just cleaned it up a little)
I am a Shahrukh person, not an Aamir or a Salman person. But I can still appreciate not-Shahrukh stars for the wonderful people they are, even if that person is not my particular person. And Salman is wonderful. (This is what I said last year for his 50th birthday, and it is still true today on his 51st!)
I’m not the biggest Salman expert, but I will do my best if you have questions! And by the way, there is a huge 3 part series of 51 facts and videos and photos going up over the next 24 hours. So many questions may be answered, or come up, from that! (Home for the new Monday Morning Questions category is here, you can see them all in one place)
I already put up a post that I wrote earlier about past presents. But now Christmas morning is over, and I officially have all my gifts for this year, and there are a couple of phenomenal ones! Which I get to brag about to you, because they are blog-adjacent! (plus, the Christmas salt and pepper shakers that I used for the header image because they are festive!)
What, just because it’s Jesus’ Birthday too, you thought I would skip Salman today? No! If I didn’t skip Anil yesterday, I’m not skipping Salman now!
Well, if we are on our usual schedule, my family is now in hour 4 of Christmas morning present opening. We take presents VERY SERIOUSLY in our family. Each person opens one at a time while we all watch, and each person gets about 25. So it takes quite a while. To clarify, not all 25 are good presents. They can range from a blu-ray player (my “big gift” about 7 years ago) to a joke pencil (one of my 4 gifts for my brother-in-law this year, DON’T TELL HIM!!!!). But no matter the value/quality of the gift, they are always wrapped, with a note including a clue that must be read out loud and debated and appreciated before the gift is unwrapped. So the time adds up.
Merry Christmas!!!!! As we all know, that means it’s time for a sexy bondage dance, followed by Santa to counting down to midnight, and then we all kiss while fireworks go off.
There was a request for me to set up an area for all the Monday Morning Questions posts, which made me think I should also set up an area for all the TGIF posts. Which meant the menu became too long to easily fit, and it all kind of snowballed (how seasonal!), and now there is a new site design! I am tentatively enthusiastic about it, but if I change my mind, you may see a whole series of new designs show up as I try stuff out.
The celebration continues! I’ve done hair (very important) and film performances, now it’s time for film partnerships! One of the things I love about Salman is how he is willing to step back and let his co-stars shine if it is better for the narrative. And so he has helped to create one half of some all time great “jodi”s.
dontcallitbollywood 