Well, shoot! This was not a great movie. After I spent all that time reading and thinking about the book, the film was just bleh. Kanan Gill was still amazing, but the rest of it really wasn’t worth it. Oh, and then the end credits song with Badshah and Diljit was fun too.
I think Chetan has earned his birthday post on my film blog, don’t you? He’s about to have his 4th big budget big deal movie made off of one of his books. And according to his wikipedia, he wrote the screenplay for Kick (although that’s a remake, so I don’t know how much there was to writing the screenplay, probably just putting in some Hindi dialogue). But he isn’t a “real” film person, so I am not going to do a full 43 reasons, just leave it at a dozen.
I was going to make this my Sunday post, but I really feel like the Sunday options should be full and in depth sort of things. Whereas TGIF is more for the “read in 5 minutes, return to whenever you feel down kind of stuff”. And so, inspired by a conversation I had with Filmilibrarian in the comments a couple days ago, “What every movie star would do if you were trapped in an elevator with them for 6 hours”. (oh, and feel free to play along in the comments if you have an alternate idea, or for an actor I missed)
Chennai Update Part 3! THE FINAL LIST!!! My sister is flying out tomorrow, so this is the last update. Unless you suggest something really good, and then I will send her an email. But ideally she can just print off this blog post and carry it with her at all times. Like her passport, but more important. Anyway, I am putting it up on the blog so that she can refer back to it at any point from anywhere with internet access, and also so you all can see it if you are curious.
This is one of those situations when I get SO FRUSTRATED with how everyone is going “WOW! Did you see this?” While I am going “Yes, when I was 5 years old…..Do you, like, never watch anything before 1980?”, and I just CAN’T TAKE IT ANY MORE!!!! So I am going to force you all to learn the basics of American musical/dance history on film, so you can better appreciate how that interacts with modern Indian film, and the occasional very very rare modern American musical.
(this is an updated and reposted post from last year) I think this might be just an American thing, but 4/20 is traditionally a day to celebrate Marijuana. There are a whole bunch of different versions of where it came from, but just accept that “420” in general is slang for marijuana, and therefore the date 4/20 has become a marijuana holiday. Which means, I get to do a post of my favorite songs in which people are high!
Oh boy, another family saga! I can settle in for a good long discussion. This is also one of the oldest families in Indian film, on both sides, and pretty much the only matriarchy from the Samarth side. Older than the Chopras and as old as the Kapoors.
Thanks to Salman’s Being Salman app, my phone has been going “boop-boop” and alerting me every time he puts out a new Tubelight image. I keep waiting for a teaser or something more than just a poster, but that doesn’t seem like it is happening any time soon, so I will work with the poster.
Sorry, yesterday kind of got away from me, so only one post. I’m so ashamed! But at least I woke up super early and I am knocking out the review I missed posting yesterday. It’s a fun movie to talk about, a lovely way to start the day!
Happy Wednesday! Halfway through the week! And halfway to Noor FINALLY releasing! This release has been pushed back and pushed back and pushed back. Which is a terrible sign for the film, but I don’t care, I put in so much energy reading the book and I want to get some of it back.
This is partly inspired by the Op Ed that was in the Washington Post a few days back. It was a so-so article, there were some things that I felt weren’t fully explored, but then on the other hand it was just a brief article for an audience with no background in the Indian film industry, so he couldn’t really explore everything. But I can! I want to zero in on one point from the article, how there are so few films with women working behind the scenes, and even fewer films with real female lead roles. This isn’t something that just came up in the past year, and it isn’t something that will be solved overnight.
I watched Double Barrel! Only one Pellissery left to see. And I think this might be my least favorite of all the Pellissery’s I have seen? Which doesn’t mean I didn’t like it, just means I didn’t like it as much.
I’m falling behind on my trailer viewing/writing about! But Raabta just came out today, and I find it mildly interesting, and to fluff up the post I thought I might as well talk about Mom and Hindi Medium too.
Happy Day after Easter! I still have a 3rd of a chocolate bunny in the freezer, so the holiday isn’t entirely over yet. Although I do have to go to work today (boo!), so I want your questions to keep me entertained while I am here!
Happy Easter! I am going to cut up cardboard in the basement with my Sunday School class, and then maybe have brunch with Grandpa afterwards to celebrate. Oh, and eat the chocolate bunny that my parents gave me. And also, think about the most Easter-y of all Indian films, Amar Akbar Anthony!
Third post on this! But I am just going to keep going until I feel like I have heard from all of you. I’ve been feeling very grateful for the warm weather and sunshine and general good things in life lately. And one of the things I am most grateful for is that people actually read what I say on this blog! It’s so AMAZING!!! And I want to thank you all for that. So, even you just started reading, or have never commented, or comment constantly, doesn’t matter, I still want to send you a Spring greeting card to say “THANK YOU!!!!”
I am the India Area Chair for the Midwest Popular Culture Association! The annual conference is in October, the submission deadline for that conference is this month (gah!). But the submission is easy, just a paragraph about what your talk will be on, and then you have 6 months to actually write the thing. If you want to add a conference to your CV, and think it would be cool to talk with other people about Indian film, read on for more details.
Wow! Just, like, WOW! This is not my first Indian concert, it’s not even my first all musical concert, but I had never expected to see this combination of audience fan madness offstage and technical brilliance onstage.
Happy Good Friday! I am celebrating by seeing Arjit Singh live tonight (WOOT!!!!). But I don’t want to totally ignore the massive religious celebration going on all over the world. So, in honor of Jesus, let’s look at some hot men. Who kind of look like Jesus (as presented in American pop culture).
Did that sound mean? That sounded kind of mean, didn’t it? Well, I don’t care, I’m seeing Arjit Singh tonight and you aren’t, nah-nah-na-nah-nah (is that how that is spelled?). And so you can be extra jealous, here is a reminder of why Arjit is so cool.
Hello my loyal and faithful readers! Have you noticed that I did a bit of spring cleaning of the website last week? Slightly different site design, which gives us back our header menu. More importantly, I re-arranged the categories of things. It’s all in tidy weekly order now, starting with Monday Questions straight through Silly Sunday. But, I need to do a lot more! And I need your advice on that.
I know this is a fond favorite for some of my readers, but you don’t mind if joke about it a little, right? Like, you are aware that this is a little sappy and fantasy-fulfilling and ridiculous from the plot side of things? If your reaction is “This is the most realistic and perfect presentation of love I have ever seen!”, then maybe don’t read on. If your reaction is “This is like a romance novel come to life and that’s why I love it!”, then go for it. Because that was my reaction too!
After taking a little journey through film as a family industry and the Ratnam-Rahman connection, back to the old reliable Hindi Film 101 topic, tragic film heroines! Parveen Babi is a strong contender for “most tragic”. And part of that tragedy is how very short her story is, I bet I can do it all in one post.
I finished Karachi You’re Killing Me! Partly while waiting for my car to be fixed (if you listened to the Phillauri podcast, you know that my side mirror was falling off), and partly while sitting in the now-fixed car for five minutes because I got to the knitting group early and had to kill time. Well, sitting there for 15 minutes. I got sucked in and ended up being ten minutes late to knitting.
Happy Wednesday! Time to discuss what we have seen so far this week. And what we have read and what we have thought about what we have read and seen.
dontcallitbollywood 