Another Jab Harry Met Sejal trailer! Isn’t it nice of Shahrukh to make sure my views stay up even as Bahubali fever ends? Or, to put it another way, isn’t it smart of Shahrukh to hold is promotion until there is a gap in the news cycle which he can fill?
New trailer! Gives us a little more of cheerful unaware Anushka. Introducing herself as “Sejal” and then giving a hand gesture to indicate wind. A little reminiscent of the whole “Rani matlub ‘Queen'” thing from Queen, but not bad. Mostly it seems to reinforce that she has a sense of her own identity and is not going to change it for anyone else. Or even think about changing it.
I like how Shahrukh is lowkey rolling his eyes and but also going along with her. Seems to follow along with the kind of idea of their relationship from the other trailers (I refuse to say “trails”, it is a silly made-up word!). Shahrukh wouldn’t normally choose to spend time with her, but has to because she has hired him, and therefore is barely polite to her. And, I assume, because he is forced to spend time with her, he will eventually fall in love with her. While traveling. Just like Jab We Met and Highway.
Oh, and also there’s a lot of Ittefaq posters just released. As we know from the title and the fact it is a remake, Siddharth is an escaped convict.
Sonakshi is a woman alone late at night.
But, what I was NOT expecting, AKSHAYE ALERT!!!! My goodness, he is back with a vengeance. This, Mom, and Dishoom last year. I am delighted with his new role as the quirky entertaining character actor! Seems like a much better fit than the “leading man” kind of parts he used to do.
Anyway, I am still dubious about the necessity of this film in the grand scheme of things, since it seems like the original already made the best possible version of it. But I felt the same way about the new Don, and then it turned into one of the most rewatchable movies I have seen.
dontcallitbollywood 
I liked this JHMS thingy better than the others…seemed more light-hearted and I really am looking forward to this one. After watching the original Ittefaq recently, I can’t wait for this and the posters look good. I know what you’re saying about the original being enough…the fact that it had no songs and that that was so unusual then makes the remake less “unique” because there are so many more mainstream songless Hindi dramas now. Still, I am anxious to see how all three of these actors work together!
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Ittefaq is definitely all about the casting for me! I was so-so on Siddharth and Sonakshi, but with Akshaye in the mix, suddenly I am really interested. Definitely one of those things were Akshaye is like the salt or lime juice or whatever that will better bring out the contrast between the Siddharth and Sonakshi flavors. They all three have such different acting styles! Sonakshi is so natural, Akshaye is so twitchy and entertaining, and Siddharth is so rock-like.
On Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 1:05 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Is it just me or did Anushka remind you of Parineeti in Hasee Toh Phasee a little bit?
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I still haven’t seen Hasee To Phasee, OR Daawat-E-Ishq. I am far behind in my low-key Parineeti rom-coms.
But I am interested by the comparison! Hasee To Phasee was about an interesting original heroine and a staid reliable kind of hero getting caught up in her madness, right?
On Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 2:06 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Wow, you must see both of those soon! Hasee Toh Phasee is my favorite Sid movie (Parineeti’s character while interesting is a bit problematic, but the overall romance has some nice moments and it’s at least a solid HEA which are hard to find these days) and Daawat-E-Ishq is really a delightful film that may be in my top ten Hindi romances of all time (definitely in my top ten rom-coms).
And, yes, that’s a good synopsis of HTP. I just hope if JHMS is similar at all that Anushka’s character walks the fine line between charming and annoying. At this point I trust Anushka’s acting skills more than Parineeti’s in that respect.
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I don’t know when it was, maybe with Jab Tak Hain Jaan, but Anushka has definitely crossed the line for me from “promising young talent” to “reliable, knows what she is doing, and still getting better with every role” actress. Alia, Parineeti, Jacqueline sort of, they still feel more on the “promising” side. I trust Anushka totally to do what needs to be done for her character and to make it work one way or the other (even if it means ignoring the director or forcing rewrites, she has the confidence to go that way now). She made her role in Bombay Velvet slightly better than Ranbir was able to pull off his.
On Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 2:44 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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SPOILER
HTP had potential but I hate how they made addiction look like something “funny” and not serious. It could be so better movie if they treated it differently (or better actress played it) For that reason I would skip HTP and watch Dawat-e-ishq, it’s much better, and Parineeti character is less annoying.
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SPOILERS From wikipedia it looks like it also a little light in its treatment of mental health.
On Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 4:18 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Yeah, I didn’t like HTP at all. I felt that they were trying too hard to make a quirky rom-com.
Daawat-e-Ishq is more fun though I find it kind of similar to Ladies vs. Ricky Bahl. But I do like it; it’s a sweet rom-com. Plus you see Hyderabad in a totally different perspective when compared to Telugu movies.
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I am too busy at work and I haven’t seen the mini trailer yet. The SRK devotee in me is so ashamed!
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You should be ashamed! Shame, SHAME! It’s only 30 seconds too.
On Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 2:22 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Hey M!!!!! The Making of Radha from JHMS is out!!! Thank you Shah Rukh for a great Saturday!
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Ooo! Of course, I leap on plot hints. And YAY! They said Anushka’s character is trying to be sexy and can’t! That’s what I wanted, no sexiness from her. Or at least, no “I’m pretending to be sweet but actually I am sexy” plot point.
Oh, and Shahrukh is DEAD SEXY in even the out of character parts. I don’t know what Imtiaz was doing to him or what kind of crazy styling magic it was or what, but I am having the same reaction to these clips that I did to that interview he did on set with Anupuma. the shirt, the fake tattoo, the unshaven look, the fluffy hair, it’s all really really good.
On Sat, Jul 1, 2017 at 4:27 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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RIGHT?? RIght? Right? Exactly what I am sitting here, pondering and thinking. He’s not even doing anything special! BUT SO SEXY.
I like how long he seems to have rehearsed that bit with the coin. When I saw the song, it didn’t even register for me, but only goes to show how little the viewer knows about what happens behind the magic.
I am excited for this movie!
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I also liked Anushka’s comment about how comfortable she is with SRK because he was her first co-star. Dips has said the same thing. I get this sense of kind of mentor/big brother/uncle figure with them, that he tried extra hard to make sure they were comfortable on that first set and did well in their first movie. Heck, we just heard similar stories about him and Mahira! and in that case she wasn’t some little girl who reminded him of his daughter, but an experienced actress. But he was still extra kind to her because it was her first time as a ‘Shahrukh Khan heroine” level actress.
On Sat, Jul 1, 2017 at 4:59 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Hi M! I was away for a while recovering from a bad cold and fevers over the July 4th weekend! (And my reward for being good is the DDLJ post! Thank you so much! That’s two wednesdays in a row!).
Anyway, back to this comment thread on SRK-heroines, – I agree about how comfortable Shah Rukh makes his first time actresses. However, I was reading some of your answers on Quora (yes, I am stalking you on multiple platforms now) about the alleged Priyanka-SRK affair.
I don’t know why but I sort of expected you to completely shut down the idea, that SRK will never ever ever have an affair, cross your heart. But then I realized that there is a lot of difference between the kind of unabashed fangirl love and subjectivity that I have for him, and a different perspective that you bring to cases like this. I think you are able to be more objective about things like this (he is after all only human) and this objectivity might be due to the fact that you came to Indian cinema with an analytical eye at least to start with! Would you agree?
(Of course, taking nothing away from how much you do love him today!)
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I took my first analytical film class in high school, before I “met” Shahrukh. And even before then, I was gobbling up everything in the film section at our library when I was a kid, and digging through tons of classic film options. So the analytical came first.
What happened when I “fell in love” with Shahrukh is that I ended up sort of putting a wall up between the two halves of my brain. I have the objective side, where I can be analytical and practical and simply look at his public persona and how and why it was created the way it was. And then I have the other side of my brain, where I can be all “OMG I love him!”
The same argument can be expanded to all of Indian film. I have an emotional thoughtless connection to it, but also an intellectual one. The emotional connection came first, sort of, that’s why I started watching the films. But my brain was already trained to process through anything I watched and look for the kind of objective qualities of it, and I can’t turn that off. So watching what I liked also meant analyzing it.
What can be confusing is, both with Shahrukh and Indian film, I also objectively think they are great. If I remove the emotion of my response from it, the visual language of Indian cinema is something I have never seen in films from anywhere else. And with Shahrukh, the intelligence and social engagement is something I have never seen from another movie star. Setting aside his acting range.
So I get comments all the time on the blog or quora or where ever saying “you’re just saying that because you love him!” But no, really, I’m not. If I say something because I love him, I will “flag” it somehow, put it in fangirly language or straight up say “of course, I love him so I don’t want to believe that….” But if I am making a more formal kind of statement, or talking about the details of a film or whatever, then I am making a judgement as objectively as I can.
On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 3:05 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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That’s the thing! I have noticed your disclaimer multiple times on various posts – “I love him!” or where you joke about how he reads your post and has hence added subtitles to his videos. I get the difference when you are being critical about something and when its your love for him shining through.
Having said that, will you be open to doing a post on the Priyanka-SRK story in maybe Hindi FIlm 101? Or somewhere else? I have seen several Quora answers and some comments here, but a nice post will be good!
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Ha! Back when I first started blogging I wrote a post about Priyanka and my issues with her public persona related to the SRK affair.
And I got the strangest backlash! People were furious with me for being a bad feminist for criticizing Priyanka for having an affair. Which isn’t what I was saying AT ALL. But someone posted a link and suddenly I got thousands of people who just read the headline and then started commenting. Anyway, it spooked me from writing anything explicit about any recent news stories ever again. Just ancient business and gossip that is hidden in the middle of analysis so people have to actually read the post before they can comment.
So, yeah, never gonna be a post specifically on Priyanka and SRK. But maybe I can do some kind of work around like “Affairs through the ages and how they have been reported”. Which will let me do the analysis that interests with me without getting people angry.
On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 3:21 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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