Gah! I still haven’t wrapped my gifts or finished decorating my tree(s)! Quick, distract me from all that with interesting questions. (previous posts here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here)
As always, you can ask me something personal (“what is your favorite holiday movie?”) or something you’ve always wondered about Indian films (“are there any holiday movies in India?”) or some general topic of discussion (“which holiday is more filmic, Holi or Christmas?”)
The only rule is to let me answer first, because otherwise it’s no fun for me. Oh, and remember you can always come back to this post at any time during the week if you suddenly think of something you want to talk about and there is no other good place to put it.
dontcallitbollywood 
I’ve never thought about it, but are there any/many Hindi or Indian animated classics? Why or why not?
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Old school animation, of the kind that Disney and Warner Brothers did, is extremely time consuming and expensive. Well, unless you run a little animation sweatshop like Disney did 🙂
It also requires a lot of precision and structure, movies take years to make, and that’s with a full staff working long hours. It’s just not the kind of structure that Indian film could muster, especially in the years before industrialization and liberalization of the Indian economy, which opened up new funding sources. There were a few attempts at animation, but they didn’t really hit it big. And the occasional rudely animated sequence in the middle of a full-fledged film, some times in the middle of a song or over the ending or opening credits.
But now computer animation is possible and it is aaaaallllll different! Roadside Romeo was, I think, the first large scale all animated feature, a Yash Raj film (because they have the corporate structure) in combination with Disney, and it flopped.
Where animation has really taken off is in children’s TV programming. The “Chota Bheem” program in particular is a HUGE hit. The “Pogo” network, which is a Turner company, specializes in children’s programming and has an animation block that includes “Chota Bheem” and a few other shows.
This is just my hypothesis, but I think part of the barrier in India to animated features of the type we see in America is that regular non-Animated films already fill some of that audience gap. For whatever reason, in America, animated films are the only area will we will accept songs, jokes that work for both kids and adults, and plots that will make sense if you are 6, and still be enjoyable if you are 60. In India, the same appeal of, say, Tangled in America can be found in Prem Ratan Dhan Payo.
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What do you think of the new Jagga Jasoos poster? It seems to have some kind of animation doesn’t it?
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Oh that is odd looking! This movie has seemed like such a disaster all along, I just have no idea what to expect. I have minimal faith in Anurag Basu as a mainstream director, especially with this producing team. Ranbir is inexperienced, which makes me think he is unlikely to say “no” to anything. Plus he is starring in the movie, and he is such a director’s actor, giving himself over entirely to the director’s vision, it makes me worried that he is even less able to be objective about things and say “No” when needed as a producer.
And then there’s Siddharth Roy Kapoor and UTV who have had such a terrible terrible year, partly due (I think) to SRK’s terrible judgement as a producer. So I don’t have much faith in him. And there was the whole filming delay because Kat and Ranbir didn’t want to spend any time together for a while.
And now this poster with a seemingly very non-traditional kind of story, not like your usual poster with a guy and a girl embracing, or a guy holding a gun or anything.
I don’t know, maybe it will be brilliant, maybe it will prove that Ranbir has inherited his grandfather’s producing talent and Basu should be let free to do what he wants and SRK and UTV actually know what they are doing. And maybe it will be like Jab We Met and the Ranbir-Kat chemistry will be even better now that they have broken up.
But it doesn’t seem likely.
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I haven’t seen Barfi! but wasn’t it a big hit? I’m sure that people will be attracted to the Barfi! Team coming back and there will be some kind of extra publicity due to Ranbir and Katrina’s breakup (like for Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani). The poster makes the movie look very kid friendly and the movie is coming out in the beginning of summer holidays in India. Plus I’m sure that seeing the Disney name attached to the movie will add more credibility to the movie. I’ve only seen it on Khoobsurat and ABCD 2 and both of those were hits as far as I know. I think Jagga Jasoos has the chance to be a hit though the multiple delays of the film have been a major negative.
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Barfi was a multiplex hit, so were Gangster and Life In a Metro. Which is great, it’s good to be ambitious and do different kinds of films and all that. But the last time Basu was involved in something that was a big budget and supposed to be a big blockbuster film in single-screens and multiplexes, it was Kites!, which of course turned into a total disaster.
I was just assuming that Jagga Jasoos would be something a little small, considering it was a Basu movie and Ranbir’s first production and all that. But if they are doing animated Ostriches, that makes me nervous. Might be too big to succeed. And it also looks like a kids’ movie, doesn’t it? Which Basu has never really done before, actually he’s specialized in the opposite. Murder and Gangster and Life in a Metro were definitely not for children.
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just an info…kamal hassans tamil film alavanthan(2001) had some animated violent sequences..later hollywood director Quentin tarantino acknowledged it as the inspiration for animated fight scenes and violence in kil lbill
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How interesting! I just looked into this, and apparently the story tracks back to a casual conversation with Anurag Kashyap at a film festival in Venice. From BOC:
“In a private interaction with director Anurag Kashyap, Quentin Tarantino, one of America’s most influential directors, has candidly admitted that he was inspired by an Indian film while making his famous Kill Bill (2003-2004).
Everyone remembers the animation-action sequence used to depict some gruesome scenes in the movie. This style, Japanese Manga animation, was first used it in 2001 by Kamal Haasan. He used it in the Tamil movie ‘Aalavandhan’ (Abhay in Hindi) to portray violence.
Anurag Kashyap first heard about this influence from Sight and Sound critic Naman Ramchandran. He then happened to meet Quentin in Venice and asked him whether the Manga sequence in Kill Bill was inspired from an Indian film. Kashyap has revealed that Quentin had excitedly remarked, “Yes, I saw this Indian serial-killer film which showed violence as animated.””
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alavanthan was well ahead of the time..it flopped in theatre becoz of complex characters sex and violence..but later gained positive response and now considerd as a cult classic.. it was my first tamil film in theatres..i was only 8 then and it was the first film i enjoyed watching…crazy racing scenes and bloody fight scenes nd animations were all new to me.. very diffrent from slow deep boring malayalam classics which i was used to
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Very progressive of your parents to take you to a movie like that!
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no internet in those days in my place.not possible to know the genre,sensor certificate nd reviews in advance..my father decided whether to watch a film depending on the poster and tag lines.he was also a big kamal hassan fan ..so took me to the theatre…later watched one more kamal film ‘virumandi’ which too had enough sex nd violence.and he stopped watching kamal haasan films..but both are classic films and i enjoyed both
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You were a hardier child than I. My parents tried to make us watch classics like The Seven Samurai when we were around that age, and it was too scary for us. Heck, even ET was too scary for us.
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“make (you) watch classics” — sounds like very enlightened parenting to me.
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As many as I’ve seen the Indian awards shows still baffle me. Once I learned that the reaction shots are not actually the reactions, it was kind of ruined. Apparently some acts are played to an empty audience because either they’ve gone home or they’re not there yet. So Question #1 is that true? And question #2 Are the Stardust awards as devalued as my Twitter feed seems to say? and finally Question #3 Is the Stardust Editor’s choice more or less prestigious than the rest because are own Shah Rukh won for fan. (and I fear ALL the other awards will overlook him)
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Indian Awards shows are very different from American ones, because they have a very different kind of background.
The Academy Awards were created back in 1929 as part of an industry wide effort to “legitimize” film. Following various scandals like the Fatty Arbuckle thing and Charlie Chaplin (if you don’t know either of those, there’s a wikipedia hole you can fall right into!), Hollywood wanted to start presenting itself as legitimate “art”, just like stage theater, not just something low class people did for low class audiences.
American Awards shows still follow in that tradition. We all know this, right? We can identify the movies that are “Award Bait” versus the movies that are popular, we know that there is a difference between the actors who are just in regular popular films versus “Oscar Nominees”, and we are always a little interested when someone moves between those two realms. And if you are a fancy important person, you always tend to claim that you only like the Oscar winner type movies, not the popular ones. Or you admit liking the popular ones, but in a self-deprecating “I know I should be better than this” kind of way. There are a lot of Award shows now besides the Oscars, but they all follow the same policy, you have to make something that’s kind of boring and unpopular in order to win. Even the really ground-breaking artistic movies don’t always win, you can have something like, say, The Lobster which critics are talking about and which will probably be on all kinds of “Best of The Year” lists, but it is just weird and confusing and upsetting, so it won’t be nominated for an Award. You want your nice solid dull movies that everyone can agree are “good”. Occasionally there is an overlap between groundbreaking artistically and popular and respectable and legitimate, like La La Land might be this year. But more often we end up with something that is forgotten in a few months, like The Imitation Game.
But Indian film never really had a hope of convincing people it was “legitimate”. The original Oscars were put in place in an effort to prevent governmental censorship of the movie industry by proving that they have judgement and good taste and could police themselves. Indian film was (and is) already subject to extreme government censorship. And that is just a symptom of a general attitude that Indian film is below the notice of the “quality” people.
And so Indian awards shows are more about pleasing the people and the stars than the Elite. I think the oldest one is FilmFare, which is sponsored by a movie magazine of course. There is a ballot in the magazine in the issues leading up the the awards, but I’m not clear on whether they actually follow through on what people mail in. The main consideration for who gets their Awards seems to be “who do we need to butter up so they will give us an interview in the next issue?”
Stardust is even shlockier than FilmFare as a magazine, so their awards are even more ignored, since they are just going after interviews they would never normally get. And the “Editor’s Choice” is the Hail Mary pass of “we can’t possibly justify giving you this award in regular competition, but we want you to know that the editorial board loves you, so we are doing it this way”. So it’s less important in that it means Fan really wasn’t popular. But it’s more important in that it means Shahrukh is so powerful the Editor went out of his way to suck up to him.
And then there’s a whole assortment of “Awards Shows” like Star Screen, Asia something, and so on and so on. These are new, since the satellite television revolution. FilmFare back in the day would have a spread on the Awards show and list the winners and so on. But it wasn’t televised. Now, FilmFare and all the others are major television events. Recorded weeks in advance, and then edited down and broadcast and sold as DVDs for repeat viewing.
Which means there is now a new concern in giving these awards, making sure it is good TV. They will be more likely to give awards to people who will show up to the event (first of all), and give a good acceptance speech. And if you agree to perform, you are basically guaranteed an award as a thank you (this is why Shahid Kapoor, for instance, has a disproportionate number of awards, because he is a trained dancer and therefore really good live performer).
Post the liberalization of the economy, the multiplex revolution, and various other factors, suddenly some Indian films are being seen as more and more “legitimate”. And so you get random Award winners of the same kind as in America, like Zindagi Na Milege Dobara taking home the FilmFare award the same year Ra.One and Don 2 and The Dirty Picture came out. But the vast majority of Awards choices still seem to be of the “we need to butter up this powerful person/we want to make good TV” variety.
Which isn’t meaningless! I actually find Indian awards more meaningful than American ones. If you win an Indian Award, it says that you are so beloved, all of India and the diaspora will turn in to watch you win, even though they know in advance who is getting the award (it’s not broadcast live, so the winners are always reported weeks in advance). That you are such a good performer, not just on film but live, that you are invited to dance on international TV. And that you are so powerful, this particular media conglomerate wants to suck up to you.
Bringing it back to your starting point, Shahrukh winning an Award for Fan from Stardust means he is beloved enough that people will tune in to watch him win, entertaining enough that he can easily perform live, and powerful enough that Star Screen wants to suck up to him. Which is why Shahrukh almost always wins an Award. Because he gives good TV/
Only problem is, you could say the same thing about Salman who also had a big movie come out this year, and Ranbir Kapoor, and Ranveer Singh. If Fan had been a more popular movie, so more people would be interested in seeing Shahrukh make jokes about it in his acceptance speech and perform a dance from it, than he might win. But I think most people would rather watch Salman do something from Sultan or Ranbir do something from ADHM.
Oh! And another thing! It’s not just the one star you get if you give an award. Everyone knows who is winning in advance, so if you are tipped off that, for instance, Ranbir is getting the award for ADHM, then probably Anushka, Karan, and Aish will all attend. But Fan, no co-stars, no one besides Shahrukh to suck up to. Well, there’s also Yash Raj, but in that case you can still just give the award to Sultan instead.
And in this whole long thing I think I still haven’t answered one of your questions! Yes, sometimes they perform to empty or near empty theaters. Last year I was following the Times of India live tweet of FilmFare. They definitely scheduled the night knowing that everyone would be arriving late and leaving early. The whole thing was like 6 hours long, and these are very busy people. So the big acts were in the middle of the night. And then for the TV broadcast, they re-ordered and shuffled everything around so it was more balanced. Shahrukh was “hosting”, and he didn’t even show up until 2 hours or so in.
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So when Shah Rukh writes this:
@iamsrk
“Sometimes ones best does not always answer…so a very heartfelt thx Colours Sansui Stardust awards for Fan & Gaurav. Want to work harder now.” Is he being disingenuous?
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Hmm. Well, first, I can’t take any of his acceptance speeches as seriously after seeing him doing a spot on one at Karan’s show, talking about his dead parents at all, and then dropping the act immediately and bragging that he can even cry on command.
But I think he is serious in being grateful and glad for the award, just not for the surface reasons. He knows and the awards people know it’s not just because he gave a phenomenal performance. But them giving him the award is saying that they still think he is a powerful figure in the industry, and that Fan wasn’t a total embarrassment of a film that they don’t want to be associated with.
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1. Could you briefly summarise the Charlie Chaplin scandal?
2. Also, could you create a separate page containing links to all Monday Morning Question pages sorted by date? It would be easier to find them under one tag. And just include this session number in the title? I want to make sure I don’t miss any of these threads.
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1. Chaplin had a bunch of scandals! He was, well, a pedophile. Or to put it another way, he had a weakness for teenage girls. Of course, it was a different time, teenage girls were regularly considered “adult” and often were married or living on their own. And none of his wives ever accused him of pressuring them or blackmailing them or anything. And his last teenager was also his “one true love” and stayed with him until he died. But from today’s perspective, it looks really bad. And even at the time it was considered “immoral”, if not quite the unforgivable sin it might be now.
The biggest scandal was in 1924, when Chaplin was already the biggest film star in America. He had a shotgun marriage with Lita Grey. He had first met her when she was 8, cast her as a “flirting angel” in his film “The Kid” when she was 12, and impregnated her when she was 15. They had a quicky marriage in Mexico to avoid prosecution for “sexual relations with a minor”. He was 35 at the time.
The worst interpretation of the whole thing is that he was sexually attracted to a 12 year old and got her pregnant a few years later. But the more commonly accepted interpretation is that he didn’t pay her any particular attention until she was a teenager, and at that time she was the one who seduced him (with the encouragement of her mother) in order to force him into a marriage.
What makes this a little tricky is that Lita was just one of 3 teenage girls that Chaplin ended up marrying. And the second shotgun wedding. His first wife he started dating when she was 16, and he was 28. She thought she was pregnant, they had a quicky wedding when she was 17, it turned out to be a false alarm, but then she really did get pregnant. And then they divorced after a couple years. At which point he started dating 14 year old Lita and got her pregnant at 15.
After divorcing Lita, he moved on to Paulette Goddard, who was 22! Over the hill! She moved into his house shortly after they started dating, and they finally got marred 4 years later. Living together was plenty scandalous for the time, even if for once it wasn’t a teenager. They were married until 1942, and still had a good relationship post-divorce. She went on to marry Erich Marie Remarque, the author of “All Quiet on the Western Front”, which is just an odd little footnote, that Charlie Chaplin and Remarque shared a wife.
And then his 4th and final wife, Oona Chaplin. She was 17 when they met and one month past 18 when they married. He was 44. They were married until his death 34 years later and had 8 children, the youngest born when he was 73 and she was 37.
2. Good idea! I will have to fiddle with the blog settings and figure out how to make it work, but I’ll see what I can do.
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That’s seriously messed up!
Side note: I knew Oona Chaplin who played Lady Talisa Stark on Game of Thrones was Chaplin’s grand-daughter. She must be named after her grand mother.
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Also, on this same topic. What do you think about this “Indian Academy Awards” that is going to be in Oakland, Ca. that they just announced?
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Wait, is this IIFA? IIFA is AMAZING!!!!!! It is tied with FilmFare for my favorite Awards show. It’s over a whole weekend, kind of a massive stadium concert crossed with a fan conference. It’s always overseas, so the idea is that international fans can fly in for this one of a kind concert experience. And you can go to acting workshops and stuff over the whole weekend. And there’s always a random local celebrity there too (Hillary Swank, Kevin Spacey, John Travolta).
But the big thing is, since it is this HUGE deal with a lot of build up and thousands watching live and millions watching by satellite, the performances are truly once in a life time. IIFA is where both Madhuri and Sridevi did their big “I’m Back!” live dance performances, John Travolta danced with Hrithik Roshan, Pradbhudeva danced with Sridevi, it’s just unbelievable.
Or at least it usually is, the past few years the big names have been skipping it (Shahrukh and Salman), so it may have been dropping off a little.
The Awards are whatever, the biggest “Award” you can get is to be one of the headliner acts, that proves you have really arrived.
Or were you not asking about IIFA and there is some other awards show I haven’t been able to find in my googling?
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Carol and I are pretty sure its not IIFA. He did a press conference today announcing a NEW show. It is going to encompass all of Indian cinema as well as the western cinema that comes to India. That is what is SO intriguing. We don’t have any more details. Just that it will be in Oakland in July. Here is the link to his statement:
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Oh how interesting! My first thought is “Hey! CineYug! They are supposed to be super mobbed up!” Beyond that I don’t really have any big thoughts. It does remind me a little of IIFA, in the idea of bringing the Awards show to the overseas fans. I’ll wait until I have a chance to read a few more reports and analysis and learn who all is involved before I have any more thoughts.
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I just finished reading your book. I loved it! I learned a lot from the main text and thought that it provided an excellent overview of India’s film industry and its history. My favorite parts, though, were the chapter introductions. I really enjoyed reading about your personal history with the movies and how they have shaped and influenced your life. I bought the Kobo version and it was such a bargain for under five dollars Canadian. I literally spent more on my lunch today- your book was a lot more filling! I liked the warm, conversational tone of the book. It really did feel like having a chat in a living room. Your writing on here is that same way. I will still probably grab a physical copy (my wife has an aversion to reading on anything other than paper.) This book and your thesis should be essential reading for any non-desi or Westerner first exploring Hindi cinema.
My questions: how did the book come to be? Was it something that you wrote and sent around, or did a publisher contact you based on your thesis, knowledge and reputation? And, do you ever plan on writing another?
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Thank you for your kind words! And please please please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon, my publisher tells me that I can qualify for more promotional opportunities if I get more reviews.
Speaking of my publisher, I would love to answer your question! It’s kind of a funny journey. The publisher is this tiny press that specializes in non-fiction ebooks. It was started by a woman who also runs a popular blog about being a woman in the sciences (http://www.wandering-scientist.com/). I’m not in the sciences, so I don’t read it, but I have friends who do. And she mentioned on her blog that in addition to her freelance research and other projects, she was starting this small press. And encouraged anyone who thought they might have a book idea to send it to her.
I’d been published before in a couple of academic places, and it was a very stressful and unpleasant experience. I had to justify a lot of stuff that was common knowledge (because it’s only common knowledge if you know Indian film, and no one in academia does) and make my language very formal and soften my arguments and blah blah blah. I finished my thesis, which was also very stressful, and then had no interest in writing anything for public consumption ever again.
But I was sent the information for this publisher and it felt weirdly like it was a friend of a friend. Because I knew people who had followed her blog, and knew from that she had the same kind of sense of humor and attitude towards writing and sharing knowledge that I do, even if it was in an entirely different field. So it felt like, okay, maybe this is someone I wouldn’t mind working with. (plus, now that I was finally finished with grad school, I was getting bored and needed a new challenge)
And I was right, she was wonderful! Very friendly, very understanding, completely open to my vision for the book but also with really good suggestions. She was the one who suggested that I include personal stories (I avoided that, because it felt kind of egotistical, but she said that the reader would be curious about me). And she suggested a couple of new areas I should cover, and suggested I pull out some other areas, and was just great. There were about 4 massive re-writes, including one with a wonderful woman who was both Desi and a PhD in Indian social studies type stuff and did a really big fact-check for me. And then, poof! Released!
Since it is a digital and print on demand book, there is no huge release or publicity or anything, it’s not like we printed up 200,000 copies and have to sell them right away. So my publisher periodically suggests things I should be doing to promote it (like telling people to write reviews), and it just sort of sits out there, waiting for people to notice it.
And then the epilogue is, I finished all the re-writes and sent in the final version, and then after about a week went “I am bored out of my MIND! Working 40 hours a week and hosting 2 movie nights just isn’t enough to keep me busy! I should start a blog.”
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That is a great story. You answered my questions and then some! I’m glad that you and the publisher found each other (and that you took her advice about adding the personal component to the book.) It also amazes me how often you update your blog. Your passion for the subject of Indian cinema always shines through. I signed up for a Goodreads account and wrote a review of your book. I hope that it helps- it’s the least I can do!
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Thank you!
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Your award explanation was so on target as usual. It still makes me sad to know that often the host is talking to an empty room. Now, they are actors and speak to empty rooms all the time, but still. I am in the middle of your book, so as soon as I’m done I’ll comment to you and post a review, but loving it so far.
Last thing, I discovered up in the corner of the screen a small bell. I clicked on it and found all these comments to my comments I hadn’t replied to. What is the best way to make sure to see them? I don’t always remember which thread I commented on! I don’t want to be rude and not reply!!
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Hmm. I don’t have to worry about following comments, because I am the Queen of the Blog, so I get an email for every single comment. But now while I am typing this, I see a little “Notify me of new comments via email” checkbox write below. If you see that too, that might be the simplest way.
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why did u name this blog ‘dontcallitbollywood-call it indian film’. if u are focuusing on hindi films nd stars only, shouldnt it be ‘call it hindi film’ ?
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Good question! The purpose of the name isn’t so much to identify the blog, as to identify the attitude with which I approach the films, and the attitude I hope to foster in others. People who don’t watch these movies tend to lump all films from all languages from South Asia under the “Bollywood” umbrella. So, I am reminding them to call films from India “Indian films” instead.
The reason I suggest this terminology change is that I have noticed when I gently correct people in “real life” to switch from “Bollywood” to “Indian film” (and this is everyone from relatives at family events to professors in my film grad school program) they immediately stop making jokes about unrealistic love stories and doing that one Bhangra move everyone seems to know, and start treating the films as legitimate movies, just like they would “Swedish Films” or “Iranian Films” or films from anywhere else in the world.
And by the way, I actually do cover more than the Hindi industry! I didn’t when I first started this blog so it wasn’t a consideration in picking the name, but thanks to some commentators who encouraged me to try other industries and gave me suggestions, I now have a fair number of posts on Tamil and Malayalam and Telugu films. I don’t know enough about those industries to really discuss news items or box office in great detail like I do for the Hindi industry. And right now, with so many big Hindi releases coming out, I don’t have time to watch and write about many non-Hindi films. But if you keep reading my blog (and I hope you will!), once the Hindi releases slow down in January and February, you will start seeing one or two non-Hindi film reviews going up every week.
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that was a nice explanation and different from wat i expected. it always irks me when bollywood n indian films are used as synonyms.our so called national medias centered around delhi n mumbai has created an impression that only hindi films and stars matter here.while in reality 55% indians dont even understand hindi and non hindi films do well in national awrds nd different film festivals. ur title misled me as i thought it will be about indian films beyond bollywood nd i followed u for a while.
and to be honest most of films in ur non hindi film list,both watched nd yet to watch , are just strictly average entertainers.much better films are available especially in tamil,malayalam,marathi n bengali.seems ur commentators are interested in recommending the films of their favourite stars only.but most of the good indian films dont have any stars.
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What you say makes sense. Probably if I were writing for just a desi audience, I would change it to “Hindi”. But when I was naming the blog, I was kind of picturing the entirety of the English language internet, most of whom don’t know anything about Indian films, so I was figuring that the most basic message I could offer them was to just stop calling films from India “Bollywood” and not thinking any more than that.
Please, if you have suggestions for me of other non-Hindi films, let me know! As I said, I really don’t know much beyond the Hindi industry, so I am always looking for more information.
Also, and I don’t know if you would consider these as “good” films, but I recently discovered that there are about a dozen early black and white R. Balachandar (is that the spelling? I’ve been told he is one of the truly Great directors of Tamil cinema) films on the Rajshri Tamil youtube channel. I’ve already watched a couple, and those reviews will be going up sometime in the next few weeks.
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I’ve already asked you a about why Indian films often a day release earlier in UAE.
Now a similar question. Recently DZ released in USA a day earlier then in India. Now Dangal (two days earlier, if I’m not mistaken?). Why so?
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I’ve already asked you about why Indian films often release a day earlier in UAE.
Now a similar question. Recently DZ released in USA a day earlier then in India. Now Dangal (two days earlier, if I’m not mistaken?). Why so?
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Both Dear Zindagi and Dangal ended up landing right at huge holiday weekends in North America. Thanksgiving is on a Thursday, and almost all offices are closed that Friday as well. Dear Zindagi was scheduled to open that Friday, but moving it up and opening on Wednesday in North America gives them that 4 day weekend.
Similar this week, Christmas is on Sunday, but most offices (not mine :() are closed at least part of this week, and schools too. So opening on Wednesday let’s them get that extra business.
The other part of it is that all movie releases in America are following this schedule. So all the movie theaters were switching their schedules and screenings around on Wednesday, not Friday, this week. It would have made it much much harder for them to squeeze in an Indian movie opening on Friday after all the rest of the schedule was set on Wednesday.
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Now got it!
Thank you!
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Still a little confused as to where to put a question (or a comment) that does not fit in an already designated topic. Anyway, here is my question: I friend of mine is a bio-ethicist who trains doctors how to have difficult conversations with patients. When she heard I was a Hindi film fan, she asked if there were any films about Doctor- Patient interactions (good or bad) because sometimes she uses film clips to help illustrate some ideas. I could only think of Vivah which has some great scenes with a doctor telling a family hard stuff. Are there any films with a doctor as a main character or a sick/dying person who interacts with a number of docs. I also thought of the Kalki film where her husband is in a coma, but I haven’t seen it. So, I wonder if you know any I could aim her towards?
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Anand is the ultimate doctor-patient film. It came out in the 70s, and was one of the movies that helped make Amitabh into AMITABH. He plays a young doctor who has to deal with an incredibly charming and loveable young male patient, Rajesh Khanna, who he knows is terminal.
Munna Bhai MBBS is another one that is really all about the doctor-patient relationship. With some really interesting attitudes about end of life stuff.
Ayalum Njanum Thammil is a great Malayalam movie about a doctor kind of coming of age, which opens with a really dramatic doctor-patient interaction.
Geethanjali is a really sweet Tamil love story which also has some end of life issues in it (I don’t want to tell you any more because that would spoil it!)
Oh, and there’s Kal Ho Na Ho. It’s a small part, but there are some significant conversations between SRK and Doctor Sonali Bendre.
And please, feel free to put this questions or general discussion things on the Monday Morning post! that is the perfect place for them, it’s refreshed every week and I will always see it there.
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