Okay, there are a few images beginning to filter out of the calendar-that-isn’t-a-calendar. For newbies, Dabboo is the biggest celebrity photographer. And every year, he gets together with his celebrity friends and shoots a calendar. 24 images, which are revealed at a party in January, and then 24 copies of the calendar are made and given to the models. That’s it, you can’t buy it, and the images aren’t made available to the public. Except through illegal fuzzy reprints that slowly leak out on the internet over the course of the next 24 hours. Which is their purpose, to be leaked so we all know Dabboo’s name and he gets publicity. Dabboo Dabboo Dabboo.
I have completely lost count of how many of these I have done. Oh well, they are just for fun, it doesn’t really matter. And I’ve had a high number of “thinky” posts over the past few days, it’s okay to throw in one that is just for fun.
Well, here’s exciting news! For the first time since these things started being tracked, Shahrukh Khan is NOT the most valuable celebrity brand in India!!!! Instead, he has been knocked off his perch by Virat Kohli. Which made me start thinking in a different way about Virat, about Shahrukh, and about all the other perches Shahrukh should be knocked off of.
Happy Wednesday! Halfway through the week! And this weekend, I am getting a dog!!!!! No matter what you say! (REMINDER: you can come back to this post whenever you want all week to post links to articles, talk about movies you just watched, anything else)
More news!!!! Yaaaaaay! Lots of little things that are interesting to keep an eye on and see how they pan out. And of course Padmavat, the story that will never die.
This was fascinating! Started out a typical police film, and then somewhere it turned into an interesting discussion of crime, regionalism, caste, and all kinds of neat things like that. A lot of it being the same things that Aamir’s big ridiculous Thugs of Hindostan is about to cover, but in modern day instead of colonial times.
I actually ran the numbers for 2017. Claudia, my German reader, by posting 9 times in a German language fan forum, gained me 506 new readers. Not all of them stayed, but 506 separate people clicked through from her comments to my blog.
Someone else who I don’t know posted twice in the comments on a Bhawadraj Rangan review and gained me 177 click throughs. In contrast, I wrote a guest post for srkuniverse, a massive fan community, and that post with their official stamp of approval got me only 66 views.
So when I say to you that the best way to gain me new views is to put a link in the comments of another site, or in another forum, I’m not kidding! It’s practically the only way. And it isn’t something I can do for myself, no one clicks through links posted by the author.
So, here’s your monthly request to please help by posting links to my related content on other sites.
Oh, and also, COMMENT!!!! My view count goes up with each comment, and down with each non-comment. That is, during times when people have been busy elsewhere, not commenting here, my view count takes a drastic hit. Which means I drop lower in search engines, lower in the WordPress priorities, lower in all kinds of ways besides just the 0.000000000000000000001 of a cent I get per view.
Can I cackle with glee at being correct, while still being depressed that the box office hasn’t sprung back? I think I can! Especially because the box office is bright depending on where you look.
It’s Sidharth Malhotra’s birthday! I’m not going to do a full 32 reasons I love you, but I will shoot for at least a dozen. (this is an updated and reposted post from last year)
This is a film that was recommended in the comments last Monday, after I admitted to an affection for Asif Ali. A fascinating film, about big fish and little fish and swimming with the water and seeing what is underneath.
New year, new post! I mean, same ask, but I’ll put it in different language for you. This is your general reminder that the internet economy has gotten us used to receiving something for nothing, but that isn’t necessarily fair to the creators of that “something”. If you have the money and are able to, I would appreciate a donation of whatever you feel is fair (donate here). Or at least, a purchase of my book (purchase here)! It’s really good, and I want more people to read it.
One other request that costs you nothing. Please “whitelist” my site. That is, turn off your adblocker when you are here. I know ads are irritating and all that, but it’s part of what helps me pay for movie tickets and my domain name and everything else. Well, not really pay for it, but it helps me not lose quite as much money. So if you have adblocker going all the time and don’t even think about it (as I do myself), this is a reminder to turn it off on my website because you like me so much.
There is a little button on the menu at the top, if you enjoy my writing and want me to keep going, you can always click there to give me a donation. If you don’t have the money, or don’t feel my content is worth paying for, that’s okay too.
Additionally, you can always buy my book, click HERE to purchase.
Donate through Patreon, which will allow you to set up a monthly subscription donation. And which can allow you to pick a reward, if you wish.
Or through Paypal, which allows for a one time donation of any amount you choose. Any time you particularly like a post, or appreciate something I am doing, just go over here and give me a dollar. And feel free to add a note saying why you are donating, maybe I will write more posts like that.
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To help support my work, donate to the site, $1 or $2 or $20 or $200, however much you want.
Happy Monday again! Normally this is when I would put up a news post, but there is nothing that I am interested talking about. And I am having a hard time getting focused at work. So, time for a songs post, songs that will help me get the weekend wriggles out and back into a Monday frame of mind. Just like when I tell my Sunday School kids “okay, we are going to have 30 seconds to shake the wriggles out, and then be serious”
Yet another video! Which I filmed a few days back but didn’t want to overwhelm The Internet with videos, so I held off on posting it. It’s the video version of this post.
Happy Monday! And happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! I am one of those sad people who do not get this day off work. But I did celebrate yesterday by helping my Sunday school kids do service projects. And today I get to celebrate by letting you guys ask me questions about stuff! The funnest thing of all!
This will be a fun post to write! A combination of audience, text, and industrial analysis, because all of those things combine to influence what happens to film. Part of what makes popular culture studies so fascinating to me! It’s the intersection of so many things.
Last one! Best fanfics. Hopefully these are helpful, I suspect that the full list was a little overwhelming, this might be easier (and more fun) to just see a few with excerpts. Anyway, FINAL VOTES go here! You can only pick one!
This is partly based on a joking back and forth I had with my friend, partly based on a news story Asmita linked to in the comments, and partly based on everyone’s least favorite “actress”, Shraddha Kapoor.
So long as Kaalakaandi isn’t coming out this weekend, we might as well all stay home and work on this vital issue. These are the TGIF posts nominated so far in the comments. I will give you samples from each post to help remind you, and then you can pick ONE POST from all of them as your favorite and list it in the comments. I’m excited!
I put up the exhaustive list of all the Editorials of 2017 two weeks ago, and there were a fair number of comments, all of which mentioned the same few posts. So, as a final vote, just for fun, I am going to list all of these and you can only pick one. And as a reminder, I have a little excerpt from each of them listed. So you can make an informed decision on this VERY VERY IMPORTANT topic.
Well, Kaalakaandi is not coming out in America. Which means I have yet another empty weekend. Empty Friday night, and empty Saturday since I’m not rushing around to write a review. Since you aren’t getting reviews, I thought I might as well catch you up on the other things I have been doing.
I debated a lot with this one, and finally decided to just be honest. It’s “least favorite film”, not an objective judgement, just what you didn’t like. Tiger Zinda Hai wasn’t the worst movie of the year, or even the most disappointing, but it was the one that was least to my particular taste.
Happy Lohri! Which is a Winter Solstice holiday in the Punjab, usually celebrated with a big bonfire! There are of course plenty of Lohri specific songs in Indian films, but they would be super hard to track down, plus I wouldn’t like all of them! Instead, to celebrate this Punjabi holiday, I am just going to post my all time favorite Bhangra/Punjabi songs, counting down from number 5 to number 1. There are a lot of them, because there are a lot of Punjabi refugees who ended up in the Bombay film industry. Because they needed jobs, and also Punjabis are HOTT.
(This is a Repost from last year, the top 5 are the same, but I added and removed some of the bonus songs) Continue reading →
I haven’t done one of these in a while, and Shahrukh keeps tweeting his Dubai ads like he is just begging me to mention them, so I might as well. Also, instead of seeing a new movie tonight I went to look at dogs again, so no new movie review. But dog photo at the end of the post!
dontcallitbollywood 