Happy Friday! And Happy Dharmendra’s Birthday! I considered changing my plans in honor of Shashi, but I decided no, Shashi would want life to go on. And anyway, we should let Shashi serve as a reminder to cherish our legends while we have them (Dilip Sahib’s birthday is in 3 days, get ready for a blow out!)
Happy Friday! Time to check out the news again and see if people have moved on from Shashi. And the answer is…..not quite yet.
Sharmila was 13 at her debut, so she will have 13 reasons I love her! And one more than Dharmendra, to make up for going after him. (this is an updated and reposted post from last year)
Happy Birthday to the Garam star, and continual winner of my TGIF posts! Here are a dozen reasons I love you (this is an updated and reposted post from last year)
What a great song! A big song number with the whole cast involved, but it doesn’t feel contrived, it feels like a party at a Punjabi farmhouse, only slightly exaggerated. (full index of DDLJ coverage here)
This is fun, doing these little over view posts! The lists help me from getting all tangled up in my own thoughts, and let you join the discussion, because everyone has an opinion on what wasn’t included and should have been, and what was included and shouldn’t have been.
I put up a version of this post a couple of days ago, but then we all spitballed back and forth in the comments and ended up coming up with a few changes. So this is the New Improved Better version of the post (original version, you can still view here). This is to help sort of orient you to Indian film history. A big accepted “classic” from each decade that will help you understand how the industry grew and changed. I don’t promise that you will be able to find and watch each of them (the website indiancine.ma is a fantastic resource you might want to try), but you should at least be familiar with the titles of these films and what they meant.
There’s nothing I find really exciting in the news, but there’s a lot of little things we can talk about. Mostly casting announcements.
76 years ago today was a day which has lived in infamy (am I the only one who hears that in the distinctive Roosevelt East Coast twang?). And I am using that as a jumping off point for a game of film song Antakshari, in my own random style. Because it’s been tiring mourning Shashi, we need something fun. (in case you don’t know, antakshari is a game where you trade off songs, player B having to pick up with a new song on the same note/word/syllable as where player A left off, and back and forth)
I know it seems like I’ve done way too many Shashi posts, but he is the only news right now, the biggest news right now. Because in the Hindi film fraternity, a death like this has an impact beyond just grief, there is a process to it that dominates everything for a few days.
This is to help sort of orient you to Indian film history. A big accepted “classic” from each decade that will help you understand how the industry grew and changed. I don’t promise that you will be able to find and watch each of them (the website indiancine.ma is a fantastic resource you might want to try), but you should at least be familiar with the titles of these films and what they meant. And if you are familiar with the titles, feel free to tell me what you think in the comments, especially any Timeless Films that I may have missed including UPDATE: This is now the original version of the post, based on the comments I updated it considerably, but I kept this original version for reference and to save your brilliant comments.
Did a little youtube video for Shashi because I still had SO MUCH to say.
Happy Wednesday! Halfway through a very busy week at work for me (we decided to push out a big update while everything was theoretically slow over the holidays). very excited to be distracted by chatting with all of you!
This movie is so good that it tricked me into thinking it was a Balachander. But no, apparently this was the level of camerawork, characters, and acting that was just standard back then!!! Oh, and Kamal Haasan and Rajni Sir are super fun to watch opposite each other in their youth, that’s another plus. The plot is not quite perfect, but it’s still pretty darn good. No Moodru Mudichu, but that’s a very high level to set.
Still upset about Shashi. I just read Amitabh’s little tribute, he talked about how Shashi would always introduce himself by holding out his hand and saying with a warm smile “Shashi Kapoor”. It was a sign of his humility, he never assumed that people knew who he was. You can see that humility in this film, he has a wonderful role, but it is no bigger than anyone else’s, he easily shares screen space with Nawazuddin Shah, with Nafisa Ali, and of course with his own wife.
Short video this week, to match my very short box office post. Really, there is just not much to talk about if you don’t want to talk about Padmavati (which I don’t).
Kind of a dull week. Nothing terribly unexpected. But I might as well report on how Kapil Sharma and Vidya Balan are doing. SPOILERS: one is much better than the other.
See, this is what happens when no one is commenting, I get depressed and watch random not very good films. Although Kunchacko did his best to cheer me up. But that was countered by the heroine Kavya Madhavan, an actress I was really liking until I looked up who she was and learned she is (maybe) a terrible human being. But even so, I have to admit she did a wonderful job in this film. This very uneven film.
This is a loose collection of what I call “Hindi Film 101” pieces. Things that give you a basic grounding so that you are able to understand the films, and the film industry instead of feeling lost and confused. And which might also make you think a bit even if you are already familiar with the industry.
Continue readingI wrote a silly thing for Sunday using Christmas traditions for fanfic. And I put up a fanvid post, and I am doing a Christmas Card giveaway. All of that is kind of silly and superficial, it may seem as though I don’t take the holiday seriously. Or maybe I do, but I don’t find anything in it that can overlap with my Hindi film love. And that’s not the case, so I want to write some posts about why Christmas is so important to me, and how it wraps itself around every part of my life, including the films I watch.
I’m surprisingly not prepared for this one. Shammi, him I was prepared for. He was so sick and so old. It was sad, but it didn’t shock me. I don’t know why Shashi is shocking, he was old and sick as well. I guess because he is the last of his generation. The Kapoors are changing.
Happy Monday! And happy day 11 of my massive sudden slide in blog views! Stupid holiday season keeping people busy in the real world instead of the internet world. Oh well, I will see this as an opportunity to do some experimenting.
First of all, blessings on Hotstar for making this available, and blessings on Shahrukh for agreeing to do something now, during my all time lowest view periods when I really really need content. Now, on to the discussion! Of the first two episodes, with Alia and Deepika.
Mostly I wanted to do a video to play with my new toy, moviemavengal gave me a lapel mic as an early Christmas present. I think it works pretty well! The video is too sunny and my head isn’t exactly centered, but by golly the microphone is perfect!
It’s coming so fast! I have to craft faster and faster and faster or I will never be done on time! Oh, and also it’s time for another Christmas card giveaway.
dontcallitbollywood 