Happy beginning of the Christmas season! After Shahrukh’s birthday, that’s the official start of the next holiday time, right? Anyway, it is for me! And since it is now the Christmas season, it is time for the annual DCIB Christmas Giveaway Contest! I am VERY EXCITED!!!!!
The giveaway will run for 9 weeks, starting this week through to the end of December (I think that’s 9, if I miss-counted I will deal with it later). Every week, whoever makes the most comments that week will get one of my FABULOUS Christmas cards. And I will post the name of the winner and a photo of the card, so you can all be admiring and jealous.
You can only win once, if the person with the most comments in a particular week has already won, I will move on to the second most commenting person. Or 3rd or 4th or however many are necessary. With 9 weeks to go, there is a good chance that most of my regular commentators will end up winning.
It was super fun for me to put together 9 unique cards this year, and I am super excited to share them all with you!
And the first winner is…….Claudia! With a stunning SEVENTY-EIGHT comments over a 7 day period!!!!! The next runner up wasn’t even close. Claudia, fill in the form below with your address and I will send you your delightful winnings!
I will post a photo of the card she is getting next Sunday, because I don’t want to ruin the surprise. So instead, I will post a photo of one of my favorite cards from last year, just so you have an idea of what kind of thing you might be getting.
dontcallitbollywood 
Great! A giveaway! Sounds like fun! 😉
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Awesome! Congrats, Claudia! 🙂
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Congratulations Claudia, You are so very knowledgeable. I do enjoy reading your interesting comments.
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You may regret encouraging me to comment more, lol
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Never!!!! I love comments, that’s why I am rewarding you for them!
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Cool beans, so here’s a couple of questions: do you ever watch and review NRI movies like The Big Sick? I’ve added that to my watch queue along with Meet the Patels and The Namesake.
Also, Sultan: yea or nay?
Also, also: I’ve gotten DVDs for Lagaan, Talaash, PK, and Rang de Basanti. Any order I should watch them in? Does it matter?
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1. I don’t usually review the NRI movies, just because I’m not really qualified, I’ve spent a decade obsessing about Indian film which means I’ve fallen back to just normal film buff knowledge of non-Indian films. You can find much better reviews elsewhere.
2. Sultan, not nearly as good as Bajrangi Bhaijaan. But still much better than must new movies. Salman has some really touching scenes, Anushka is predictably great, and the songs are really bright and fun. So, Yea, but not a must watch, more a “I feel like a movie I haven’t seen before with good acting and songs” watch.
3. Oh boy, this is a hard question!!!! Rang De Basanti is a real divisive one. Either you absolutely love it, think it is brilliant and touching and inspiring and everything else you want in a film (where I land), or you just don’t understand what it is trying to say. So watch it, but be aware that you may or may not end up loving it. Talaash, that is a guaranteed win, you WILL love it, especially if you are an Aamir fan. PK, not nearly as good as 3 Idiots, but similar feel. So watch it when you feel like seeing 3 Idiots but different and not as good. Lagaan, you will LOVE.
So I guess I would say, Lagaan, Talaash, Rang De with an open mind, then PK. But it doesn’t really matter, 3 Idiots before PK and Dil Chahta Hai before Rang De are the important ones, and you’ve already seen those.
On Sun, Nov 5, 2017 at 11:44 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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One more observation: I’m finding that a lot of Hindi films really benefit from a second watch, you catch all sorts of things you missed the first time around. So for example I think I’m going to watch Ghulam again so I can see it without being distracted by bad fashion and cheesy fight scenes since I already know to expect that. It’s weird how that’s happened to me a few times already, where I watch a movie, think that it’s okay, then it stays in my mind for a few days and then I watch it again and fall in love with it.
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Something that we’ve talked about a lot so the other commentators are probably sick of it, is that Indian films are/used to be made for rewatching. They didn’t get wide releases, they got long releases. So they would only play in one or two theaters in a city, but for weeks and weeks at a time. It was the repeat viewing that drove up the box office. So there would be scenes and songs that you could watch over and over and still enjoy. And they idea is you can get the general plot while half paying attention on the first watch (also part of the reason the plots are so predictable), but then if you wanted to come back, you could always get more and more out of it, notice little moments or clever lines and so on.
That’s changed in recent years with the prevalence of wide releases. You can see how the box office drops off immediately because everyone sees it opening weekend and then has no interest in coming back to see it again. And the films that do work for rewatching tend to leave theaters too fast for word of mouth to spread. It’s a real problem.
Aamir’s films tend to be the exception to this, so you may not have noticed it much 🙂 But try rewatching Ghulam and then PK, or Dhoom 3, and you will see, there is just more in Ghulam on a second watch. Noticing little character moments, enjoying the songs just as much or even more, action scenes so perfectly built that you are still feeling the tension coming up even when you know how it will end, and so on.
On Sun, Nov 5, 2017 at 12:02 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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ShahRukh recently talked about that problem, that basically a movie has to do the maximum out of a weekend nowadays because the running time in theatres generally has become very short.
As for a second or 3rd watch to really grab all the beauty, that I have experienced more than once, especially because at the first viewing I have to split my attention between the movie and the subtitles.
After the first watching of Ra.One (premiere in London), I had a strange feeling of failure (especially because the audience was so q u i e t !!!), but then I watched it the next day in another London theatre with m a n y people cheering, whistling etc. I could even dance in my seat (I think during the premiere I was the only one going with the tunes *blush*). So it wasn’t only a happy ambiance, I also could pay more attention to the happening on the screen.
The 3rd one the same day in the evening was the best one…full house, super ambiance but not too loud, and I got even more details, notably in the action department.
Margaret, sure you didn’t triple the number of my comments *gosh!* ???
Thanks for the nice words…I feel fine here…and I like to talk to people and have a big box full of cents so I can put in my two cents whenever i feel like or have the time 😉
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Well, you know how you feel bad when you make a typo and always conscientiously post another comment correcting it? That definitely drive the number way up!
Anyway, you make great comments, so keep it up!
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(*chuckle*) I forgot about that! (so next time you don’t count them in 😉 )
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I haven’t seen The Big Sick yet (still not avaiable in Italy), but Moviemavengal said in her review that it’s one of the best rom-coms in years and so I just can’t wait to see it.
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Congrats Claudia!
By the way, that’s the card that I won last year 🙂
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It’s very good one!
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It is 😃
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Well-deserved, Claudia! I always enjoy reading your insights.
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