Monday Morning Questions, With a Question for You! What Couple Do You Want to See?

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Happy Monday!  Time to ask questions.  You to me, and me to you.  Because I’m doing an incredibly tedious job at work and I want a distraction.

As always, you can ask me anything from the personal (“what music do you listen to in order to stay awake doing tedious jobs?”) to the specific and factual (“what movie is coming out this Friday as a reward for finishing the tedious jobs?”) to the general discussion (“what is the best music to listen to when doing tedious jobs?”)

The only rule is, you have to let me answer first!  If someone asks a question and you know the answer or have something to say, just wait a bit, once I start the discussion you can jump right in.

 

And now, question for you!  Courtesy of Meenakshy from the comments last week. What couple do you want to see together onscreen that has never co-starred before, an what kind of movie?

My answer was Abhishek and Anushka Shetty in a cop drama, a joint north-south task force, Abhishek is cool and laid back, Anushka is ambitious and hot tempered and pushy.  They don’t get along, and then they start to trust each other and work together, and solve the case, and also fall in love a little.

 

Now, what do you want to see?

108 thoughts on “Monday Morning Questions, With a Question for You! What Couple Do You Want to See?”

  1. Ohhh! Happy Monday! It’s the Presidents Day weekend and it sucks that you are stuck working when it’s a day off. #Prayers
    Question: I saw Bairelly Ki Barfi (still on my Lenten fast but I decided to give up watching movies in the theatre) and I really loved Kriti Sanon; honestly I have become a fan (never thought I will say this after watching her in heropanthi or in anything ever). I was wondering if having Parineeti do her role, would have made the character and movie better? I can honestly see Parineeti bringing a different perception to Bitti, but, what is your opinion?
    In answer to your question, Sidharth MalHOTra and Kriti? Rumors suggest Kriti is going to romance Sid in Ek Villain 2 ✌🏽

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    • I think Parineeti would have made it a different movie, but a less interesting movie. Parineeti can play strange and strong and confident, but her appearance is still the traditionally pretty one. With Kriti, something as simple as having her be the same height as Ayushmann, and taller than her father, immediately made you sit up and take notice. Also, Kriti is slower to smile, Parineeti’s face seems like it is always about to smile (which I like about her), but it would have made her character less off-putting, while Kriti is supposed to be someone most people don’t like.

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      • I think we can no longer ignore the fact that Pari decided to become a fatshaming bitch post her own fatshaming episode and subsequent weight loss. Also, she sucked in Golmaal Again. Like she had a set of weights dropped on her head and forgot how to act. Smh

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        • Well, you just inspired me to google what “smh” means. Learn something new everyday!

          I have hope that Parineeti is still finding herself. Maybe she is in a transition period and will calm down once she gets over the excitement of the weight loss and being considered for roles again. I’m having a bit of a feeling of that girl who can’t say no in high school and let’s her school work drop, because she is so excited that the boys are actually interested in her after feeling like an ugly duckling for so long and she is overwhelmed by that feeling. So give her a year, maybe she will realize that all of these joys are kind of shallow and that she needs to work on her inner self as well as outer.

          On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 9:18 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • She got stuck with the image. The good girl next door image. Without the spark that you see in Kriti or Alia. She’s been really forgettable in everything that she’s done recently. That’s not good for her at all.

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    • Oh and I never responded to your unseen couple answer! I think Kriti and Sidharth could be great together. I think he does best in a romantic pairing when he is the follower and she is the leader. Which is kind of what Ek Villain 1 had, and definitely A Gentleman, and even SOTY, Alia was the one who approached him over and over again. And Kriti is conversely much better as the leader than the follower, she was so dull in Dilwale just sitting around waiting for Varun.

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    • I love it! They can both be New York widowers who meet in a cooking class because their spouse used to do all the cooking and they are tired of take out. They are both terrible at the class, so the teacher puts them together and they decide to try to learn to cook on their own and start trading off Saturdays at each other’s houses experimenting with recipes. They both impress their kids/grandkids with a Thanksgiving dinner, which was the goal, and then Meryl invites Amitabh to come as her date/support to an event where she is getting an award (she is a college professor who is beloved by her students) because she doesn’t want to go alone. Amitabh notices how everyone is pitying her and talking about how sad it is to see her without her husband, and starts playing up being her boyfriend. They both enjoy this came, and at the end of the evening end up kissing. Both of them are conflicted and guilty afterwards, knowing how much the other one loved their spouse and feeling like they crossed a line and may have lost the friendship. But then Meryl’s spunky young research assistant and Amitabh’s snarky older desi housekeeper both encourage them to take a chance and just talk to each other, and they rush to see each other at the one place they know they will be, the fresh foods market on Saturday morning and declare their love for each other. Flasforward to next Thanksgiving, where there is a glorious combined family celebration, all the grandkids playing together and the kids teasing and joking together, and the meal a combination of Indian and traditional American.

      On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 8:22 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  3. WOW!!!!! Can it be a current day romance??? Big B and MS have a meet cute on a flight at Heathrow where they fight over a seat. They keep giving each other nasty looks through the journey and have a bit of a spat again at the airport when they land in Australia.

    The people that have come to pick them up there barely get them away from each other in time. They drive away flipping each other off from inside their taxis.

    They grumble to their companions about their horrid Co passenger and they’re still in a sour mood about it when they arrive at their destination a few days later. Turns out, they’re both at the same place- a sheep farm!! They’ve been hired by the owners. She’s a vet and he’s a specialist shepherd.

    The owners are a bunch of kids who inherited the farm after their parents and grandparents were lost at sea during a fishing outing. and they have no idea what to do and the sheep keep dying. They found these two through Google and hence they’re here. For four months. And they can’t leave because the kids can’t afford any other specialists!

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    • Yes! I can definitely see Amitabh and Meryl as two crotchety solitary animal types. Amitabh got a degree from Oxford in animal husbandry or something, and then returned to India to live alone and remote with his sheep, he never married or even thought about it and hates people. Meryl is a similar type, inherited a farm in Vermont or something where she raises sheep and makes her own yarn and writes books on it. They both only agreed to this because it is a really unique breed of sheep on this farm, the uncle who died somehow managed to breed and domestic a kind that is usually wild or something like that. So they hate working together, but they are both determined to stay because they want the knowledge.

      On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 9:28 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • But the farm is in Australia. Amitabh is the jet setting sheep expert who is both the grumpy, bachelor who lives on his own terms and she is the decorated, respected doctor that gets invited to speak at dos and she researches a lot and is highly sought after. Maybe she married and divorced young and her kids are grown up and settled and she’s enjoying her post active career phase. The sheep aren’t anything amazing but the disease they’re dying of is a mystery and she’s interested in the case. He gets called because he knows how to run a sheep farm and these kids ranging from the 18+ oldest brother and sister and a bunch of younger siblings with the youngest around 6, find these two through the Internet. They have limited resources and in their minds, these two can help them save the farm and prevent the state from breaking up the family.

        Big B and MS hate each other’s guts and they’re always at loggerheads- she has the booksmarts and he has the streetsmarts. And they mentor these young kids and in the process find love!!

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        • Obviously finding love over a sick little lamb that they both stay up all night taking care of, fall asleep leaning on each other, and wake up in the morning to discover their experimental treatment worked and the lamb is fine, and then embrace each other in happiness and somehow end up kissing.

          On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 11:57 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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        • And it’s creepy and dark and weird! Because that was your goal. But unless it is a similarly creepy and dark and weird story that acknowledges and uses the oddness of the jodi, I don’t want it!

          The only way I will accept them is if they are forced into marriage, and Prabhas feels horribly uncomfortable and guilty being around this much younger woman. And that’s like the whole first half of the story. Until something happens and they slowly start to fall in love. Maybe keep it simple, Alia is pregnant and HAS to get married, Prabhas was the sort of “big brother” best friend type to the father of the baby, the father died and Prabhas feels responsible so he marries Alia and does everything to help her and take care of her with no expectations in return. And then, like YEARS later, they fall in love. Heck, let’s get the baby all the way to starting school before Alia is able to set aside her feelings for her first love and Prabhas feels like she is his equal and doesn’t feel bad admitting that he has feelings for her.

          On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 11:36 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • Add Dips to the mix & make it a formal remake of Silsila? Siddharth could be Shashi Kapoor. He will look good as a pilot. I liked your Prabhas-Dips story better. Clean & romantic.

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          • Yes! Except not exactly the same as Silsila. Prabhas and Dips have a lingering thing, which Alia kind of knows about but understands since Prabhas just married her out of obligation. Then Dips decides she wants an arranged marriage, tells Prabhas that she can’t keep living this half life, and then sends him a letter 6 months later saying how happy she is with her husband and she hopes he can find the same kind of happiness in his marriage, it is possible to forget your first love.

            On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 11:54 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • You understand we don’t mean Sid M, but Southern Sid, right?

            On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 12:14 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • Does the comment of “he would look good as a fighter pilot” also make more sense? And he wouldn’t be with Dips, he would be Alia’s sad dead boyfriend who sets this whole thing in motion. I could definitely see Sid with Alia.

            On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 12:26 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • Yeah, but he’s got that baby face!

            Heck, that even works with my version, Prabhas and Sid are friends, but Sid has always been the “good” one who never dated or did anything wrong and feels so much cleaner and younger, while Prabhas is the wild “bad” one.

            And for your other concern, we could have a real reason Alia has to be married, beyond just social concern. Maybe like her NRI family wants to take her back to America, she is underage, and she promised Sid that she would raise their child in India? So she needs to marry Prabhas for the Visa? And then by the time she could legally become an Indian citizen and divorce him, they have fallen in love.

            On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 12:43 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • Those seem like unnecessary complications. And see, you can’t not imagine prabhas as anything BUT wild and dark when it comes to a pairing with Alia 😂

            If we do the marry to keep the baby in the family thing, it would be like Alia is so shocked and so heavily sedated that it doesn’t even register with her that she’s been married off to the oldest brother whom she’s barely even met. She’s so deep in her grief that it doesn’t even matter to her. Life looks like a farce when you lose someone you love so deeply.

            The marry the friend thing out of obligation makes very little sense considering her family could get her married to anyone else. Unless ee specifically want to drive home the point that women are useless if they’re no longer virgins and nobody would want a marry a woman expecting her dead husband’s child. I really don’t want regressive ideals being held up. If the story can work, with their amazing acting and them emoting complex thoughts and feelings, with just the compelling emotional decision that the entire family thinks makes sense, it could work. It could be like they’re both assured it’s a marriage only in name. But then there are rituals thay require a husband and wife to participate together, the child needs medical care and he has his name written in the father column and they fight over it etc and slowly they make their way to love through an understanding of each other’s misery.

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          • Yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking! Not that no one else would want to marry Alia, but that she doesn’t want to really-really marry anyone, she wants to just live her life with the memory of her dead love. So Prabhas is doing her a favor by being a cover to protect her from having to marry someone who would want her to actually be a wife to him. And there’d have to be some reason that she actually has to get married, family pressure or Visa or something. But then over time they are drawn to each other and feel guilty because the marriage is supposed to be in name only. Kind of how Mouna Ragam played out in the second half.

            On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 1:01 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • Well, you should! earliest Mani Ratnam movie. And I didn’t really spoil it, so it will still be a surprise to you how it plays out.

            On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 1:07 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • Ooo how about the classic trope/social fuckery from the north Indian culture where a brother is supposed to get married to the bahu should she get widowed. It’s more fucked up when the bahu is the older bhabhi but I guess it can work if Prabhas is the older jeth who remains a bachelor for whatever reason and his much youngest brother dies and his wife Alia is expecting at the time and the Middle brother is already married with kids so the family marries off Alia and Prabhas.

            It would be like the weird Iranian film we were talking about a while ago. And yes, there’s no scenario in which such an age gap isn’t creepy.

            UNLESS, he’s like a college professor, all serious and dignified and she’s the peppy student that crushes on him, pursues him and gets him out of whatever the hell it is that made him so serious. Come on that would be SEXY!

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          • I was thinking about that trope, ala Silsila, but I wanted to put in a bit of a twist to it by making them friends-who-are-like-brothers. That way, Prabhas isn’t just older, he is also lower class and just plain different than a person that Alia would be expected to fall in love with. But she is pregnant and HAS to get married, but also doesn’t want to marry someone where she would have to pretend her ex boyfriend doesn’t exist, so Prabhas is the best option. Maybe her family finds out and throws her out, she goes to Prabhas for help, his first thought is to help her find another better husband, or just support her without marrying her, but then he realizes she would be exiled from society as a single mother, and would be miserable if she had to marry someone and pretend to be happy while she was still grieving, so he marries her instead. With the understanding that she will live as a grieving solitary widow in his house and he will give her his name and support but no love. Oh! I know where I saw this! Thalapathi, that’s the kind of marriage Rajinikanth ends up having sort of.

            On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 12:11 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • I think this reinforces some very bad mores within Indian society and I’d rather it was more of a family pressure thing than a societal pressure thing. Like the family doesn’t want to lose the unborn child of their dead son so they make his widow marry the oldest son instead of letting her go with her parents and be married to someone else.

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          • I cannot conceive Aalia pregnant. She is too tiny to carry another human being inside her. How about this-Aalia is a young girl who traumatically lost her bf & meets her brother’s friend Prabhas-a psychologist for counseling. He treats her & she gets better-only she starts seeing traits of her dead bf in Prabhas & starts being possessive about him. Prabhas has a steady fiancé(Dips?) and understands Aalia’s disorder. But Dips is insecure. In the original Malayalam film, Aalia would kill Dips in a fit of hysteria but let’s change it to Aalia getting cured & meeting DQ at the airport.

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          • You are totally right about the Malayalam original. And then after Alia kills Prabhas, she is taken away catatonic, Deepika sadly goes on to live her life alone, and there is a very pleasant light song playing over a gorgeous rainswept landscape.

            On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 12:30 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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    • No!!!! NO NO NO NO NO!!!! I am already squicked out by Alia and Ranbir, and Prabhas is even older. Big brother-little sister, definitely. Romantic, NO! Too weird!

      On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 9:29 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • Poor Alia, she isn’t actually that much younger than Dips, but she has such a young face and feel to her that Dips can act opposite people where Alia would feel just “wrong”.

        And yes, I love the idea of Prabhas and Dips! She is tall for one thing, and also has a sort of inner dignity that I think would be interesting opposite Prabhas’ innately casual feel onscreen. And she’s also southern, so it wouldn’t be a reach to have them as a couple from the same place. Maybe some sort of arranged marriage last minute change thing? Like, Dips was supposed to marry a great catch NRI type guy, she is an educated upperclass doctor type herself and a classical dancer and all sorts of valuable things on the marriage market. Prabhas is the “loser” of the family, barely graduated college after multiple tries and unemployed now and drinks with his friends in the evening. But then Deepika’s groom runs out on her, and Prabhas has to step up and marry her last minute to save the family honor. Deepika is grateful, but Prabhas knows he isn’t worthy of her, they awkwardly start to get to know each other after they move to Dubai where Deepika has a good job, Prabhas explores the city while she works and makes her dinner at night and does the laundry and then takes her out for fun adventures that he has carefully planned whenever she needs a break from work. And of course at some point there is a fight scene and Prabhas bravely defends her and then Dips patches him up once they are home. They start to fall in love, but Dips gets worried and thinks he is growing away from her when he turns down her subtle advances, and starts getting mysterious phone calls and stuff. She is about to leave him, he follows her to the airport and declares his love, and also explains that he felt he wasn’t worthy of her until he had something of his own, that’s why he avoided her advances, and that’s the mysterious phone calls, he was investing in a restaurant in Dubai which has finally opened and taken off. And now he wants to propose, again, and ask her to share his life by choice, not by desperation.

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      • My story isn’t about love. It’s about hate. Prabhas and Alia romancing like they romance actors their own age WOULD be totally creepy. But in my story, the age difference is OBVIOUS and explicitly stated. It’s not creepy when older male actors aren’t pretending to be 25.

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        • Yep, that’s what I said, creepy and weird as was your purpose. I just wanted to see if it would be possible to do it NOT creepy. And I think the key is what you said, not have them pretend the age difference doesn’t exist, have Prabhas play his real age and Alia hers and both of them be uncomfortable about it.

          On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 12:02 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  5. Watched this cheeky Kannada movie ‘Humble Politician Nograj’-it’s streaming in Amazon Prime. It’s a social satire set in Bangalore-where I live. So the settings, caricatures & incidents were all too real. It’s a super fun movie.

    Love the Amitabh-MS romance!!
    I would love to see Hritik Roshan & Vidya Balan do a married couple where Vidya has to put up the constant curiosity of bagging an out-of her-league, glamorous husband. Initially she uses her wit to play cool but will get frustrated after a while & leave him. He will follow her & try to win her back. Won’t they make an adorable mismatched couple?
    Ok, the shipper in me wants to know what Margret thinks is the relationship status between Anushka Shetty & Prabhas?The intrigue is killing me.

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    • I love your Hrithik-Vidya idea! I could also see Arjun Rampal-Vidya. It’s also such a relatable thing, especially if they play their real age. Men often just age better than women, so a couple that starts out equally attractive ends up being uneven. They married when he was skinny and shy and she was pretty and curvy. And then 20 years later, he has aged into being dashing and handsome and confident, and she has aged into being mousy and dowdy. We could see time passing, Starting with a happy young romance, doing everything together, building a life. Then him finding more and more satisfaction and confidence at work while she is running around after the kids, but they still have the happiest time of the day when they come back together in the evening, and she is happy and proud of her handsome husband and happy for him. And then her going to work parties with him and starting to feel more and more uncomfortable as she watches his younger glamorous female colleagues fawn over him and she just stands awkwardly in the corner with no one to talk to, until she stops going to the work parties altogether, even if he begs, and he feels sad and lonely like she doesn’t care about his life, and she feels increasingly unattractive and unworthy. Finally, she is mistaken for his mother when they are out together, and that is the last straw.

      And then I’m not sure what I want to happen after that. Maybe he starts emailing her online pretending to be someone else who saw her at the market or something and fell passionately in love at first sight, which helps her feel beautiful again. Or maybe he arranges for a friend who is a modeling agent to pretend to want to hire her, only then she actually does end up being amazing at the modeling job and the friend starts to fall for her, and Hrithik goes insane with jealousy as he sees all of India talking about how sexy and beautiful his wife is and begins to understand how she felt.

      On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 9:48 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • I feel like this movie is turning into The Thrill of it All, though. Maybe he understood how she felt all along and was just frustrated because to him she’s obviously sexy and beautiful? And so instead of some insane-with-jealousy payoff the trick is for him to realize how he’s being viewed, and getting uncomfortable with that? Say he becomes the corporate spokesperson and gets sucked into modeling, he feels progressively more creeped out by the whole thing, no longer respected at work because he’s just the good-looking face. Meanwhile she quietly gains confidence by hanging out with the “young modern” women in his office who do a minor makeover (really just getting her to wear clothes from her younger days she already owns) and generally welcome her into the glamour world? Or something. Not quite sure how it would work, but I want them to eventually meet in the middle.

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        • Maybe they have a big fight at some point, she says that he doesn’t realize how people look at him and how it makes her feel, he thinks she is imagining everything. And then post-fight, she gets her minor makeover and gains her confidence back, and he begins to realize the benefits he has been getting by being handsome and that she isn’t imagining things.

          On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 10:20 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • I just realised that in my excitement of having seen a fun film, I answered your Wednesday question on Monday itself. Now, are you going to answer the question that I put in my original post? I have a feeling you missed seeing it.

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          • I did! Such a flurry of responses to your Monday Question suggestion, it got lost in the mix. Answered now.

            On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 11:59 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • I’m trying to think of an actor that is both shockingly handsome and a good actor and my mind is a blank. Arjun comes closest. Looks really are a curse for a man! They never have to learn how to do anything.

        Although, if we go cross industries, Jon Hamm and Vidya?

        On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 11:52 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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    • I got so excited over Hrithik-Vidya, I missed the rest of it!

      For Prabhas and Anushka, I was torn between a romantic relationship or, similar to what we were talking about with Kajol and Shahrukh, having gone through such an extreme filming experience that they had a special non-romantic closeness. From what little I have heard, it sounds like Prabhas is normally a little shy and reserved, so perhaps it is rare for him to feel close to a co-star, but the Bahubali shoot was so exhausting that he loosened up. I could also believe that, in the same way, they fell into dating and fell in love because it was such an intense situation and it would have been easy to do.

      However, now would be the time to announce their engagement, past time really. During the Bahubali promotions it would make sense to keep things quiet so as not to over-shadow the film, but now they have both moved on to other projects and there would be no reason not to say something. Plus, they are both now well-settled in their careers and getting older, the timing would be right to get married. So as more and more time passes without an engagement announcement, I am finding it less and less likely that they are anything more than friends.

      On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 9:48 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • It’s not that Prabhas and Anushka have not announced an engagement, they both have repeatedly, together and separately, before and after Bahubali, have denied that they have any kind of romantic relationship at all, and are just very good friends. I really think this obsession of some fans to ignore what the people directly have said explicitly several times is proof that they are completely detached from reality.

        And the friendship between Prabhas and Anushka started way, way before Bahubali, as again stated by both of them.

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        • Well, there have seen several couples -Surya-Jo, Ritesh-Genelia & several others who denied the relationship before getting together. Anushka Sharma’s spokesperson denied that she’s getting married two days prior to the wedding.Maybe fans are hanging on to that. But I do agree on the obsession & unhealthy curiosity that surrounds their marriage-which is likely to last till one of them gets married.

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          • Rachel from ‘Friends’. There was an episode where she is shown terrified of telling her daddy that she got pregnant by Ross. So she plans that she will let the baby grow-up & then the baby will tell the grandpa about it’s existence. So maybe Prabhas & Anushka’s secret kids will grow up & then tell the world about them being together.Lame joke..I know!

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  6. I love the Hrithik-Vidya rec, too. Abhishek and Anushka would be stellar and I love that plot! Vicky Kaushal and anyone (just saw Love Per Square Foot on Netflix and he’s very pretty and a solid rom-com hero).

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  7. Since it’s my weekly Madhavan obsession time, Madhavan and Vidya. They were in a couple of cute commercials few years ago, and man they were really cute together. (Even better than their romance in Guru IMO). Would love to watch them in a cutesy romantic movie as husband and wife.

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    • As soon as you said Madhavan and Vidya, I pictured them as husband and wife. Somehow they just feel more like that than like a couple that is just meeting and falling in love.

      I’d love to see them in kind of a comic crime type movie. Like, they both worked for years and did everything they were supposed to do as a responsible middle-class couple and their lives are kind of boring. And then Maddy is fired and learns his company raided the pension fund and everything falls apart. They try to get their money out from a building company they invested in, it’s super shady and the guy refuses to give them their money, they are both frustrated, and Vidya suggests why not just take it? She talks Maddy into going along with it, they run a con and manage to get their money back. And then they just keep going, all the people who bend the rules and take money from the trusting hardworking middle-class types, everyone they had to bribe or overpay over the years, they work together to rip them off. And, needless to say, they also rediscover their sex life and everything exciting and romantic and fun with copious amounts of roleplay. Until finally they come up with the biggest plan of all, to somehow get the pension fund back from Maddy’s corrupt boss. It’s all very stressful and dangerous, but they succeed, and the happy ending is the two of them and their kids (who ended up being part of that final con) moving to Goa to live happily in a beach house, while all of Madhavan’s ex-co-workers get mysterious checks in the mail replacing their pensions.

      On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 10:47 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • Exactly, they seem the married but still in love type! And love the idea, sort of like Bunty aur Babli, but more mature. And after Tumhari Sulu, Vidya would be perfect as the fun enterprising house wife.

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        • Exactly! Bunty Aur Babli, but if their lives started where the film ended, they are married and dying inside because their life is so boring, and suddenly they find an outlet. And like Tumhari Sulu, Vidya is the one who takes the lead and is a little wilder while her husband follows along behind.

          On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 11:29 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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    • Me too! They are perfect together, but Maddy said lately that they were so intense in those ads that now they can’t do a movie together. But I still hope.

      OMG while I was writing this Maddy answered my tweet. I wrote that 8 episodes long series is too short and he should do something like romantic mexican telenovela with 300 episodes. Who’s with me? And he answered: I am

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  8. Mmmm. I love this topic. Is it possible to mix time periods? Ones that just sprung into my head were:

    Shah Rukh and Vidya–I know she’s said she doesn’t want to work with any of the Khans, but she radiates sex and wit in the same way he does, and I think they’d be amazing. I’m thinking a “Secretary” like movie, but with gender roles reversed. Sorry, but that’s where my head went.

    Shah Rukh and Ashley Judd; Shah Rukh and Mira Sorvino; Shah Rukh and Marisa Tomei. Gorgeous brunettes, right age range, they can hold their own against him in any genre.I’ve said before that Shah Rukh reminds me, in all good ways, of Bogey, so I’d love to see him with Lauren Bacall or Kate Hepburn.

    Ranbir is someone I’d love to see with 50s/60’s era heroines. Shirley MacLaine, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Rosalyn Russell. Something about him seems to fit in that era.

    I’m sure there are lovely cross-country pairings with Western actors and Hindi actresses. Who would Laurence Olivier pair well with? George Clooney? Harrison Ford? Spencer Tracy? Sorry–no younger guys have really grabbed me.

    And a question of my own. Is anyone planning to see Pari? It looks so good and scary, and I think both Anushka and the guy from Kahaani will be amazing. But I’m scared!

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    • Shahrukh and Vidya: She is a powerful sexy actress (herself, essentially). He is the secretary/manager she has just hired. At first she doesn’t notice him because he seems so quiet and efficient, but then she starts to see his dry wit and how perfectly he is arranging/controlling her life and gets intrigued. She wants to crack open his privacy and is increasingly frustrated by how carefully he maintains the “ma’am” kind of distance with her. She starts obsessing over him, ignores her sexy available young co-stars to run after him, gets increasingly blatant in her advances, he is never insulting or ungentlemanly but also never really responds to her. And then I’m not sure what happens, but the end bit is Vidya discovering that Shahrukh has been in love with her for years, he was the assistant at her managers office but she never noticed him, he realized that she is so used to men who say “yes”, the only way she would notice him is if he says “no”. Only know that he has gotten to know her for real, he is more in love with her than ever, and also thinks she deserves better than some man who is tricking her like this and so he is leaving her forever. Which is when she realizes she was in love with him not just because he was unavailable, but because he knew how she liked her tea, and respected her as an actress, and could make her laugh, and so on. And so they get married and the public at large can’t understand why the woman who could have anyone wants this boring guy, but in their private life they are passionately in love with each other and happy.

      You know who I’d love to see from the cross-industries tall gorgeous brunette list? Shahrukh and Minnie Driver. She’s a single mom, he’s a divorced doctor, neither of them know how to date or handle the idea of “romance” since she married her high school sweetheart who then died, and he had an arranged marriage which ended in divorce. But they keep seeing each other because he is the new family doctor at the clinic she goes to, and her kids’ are accident prone. He needs help and encouragement from his nurse to realize that he and Minnie are really vibing, she tries to borrow dating tips from magazines and ends up just embarrassing herself, they go for a first date and both try to do what they think “dates” are like, and then end up just giving up on the fancy restaurant and going to the video arcade where she teaches him how to play video games and he gets cutely obsessed with winning. But conflict starts when his older sister comes to town and wants him to marry another “nice” desi girl so he can finally have kids, and Minnie’s mother-in-law visits and she starts to feel guilty about falling in love again. They decide to end it, as better all around, but then Minnie’s mother-in-law notices how miserable she is and finds out from the kids that she had been dating and ended it and realizes what happened and gives Minnie her blessing to live again, and Shahrukh finally speaks up at his “first meeting” with an appropriate woman, tells her she seems perfectly nice, but he is in love with a widow with two kids who is white and he is going to marry her or no one.

      I know what you mean about Ranbir. The boyish type with the aspirational sexy woman who ends up cutting him down to size. Not a cold sexy, but a warm happy sexy. I’d love to see him in something similar to Ajab Prem Ki Gazab Kahaani, maybe he is the naughty flirty boy type who is supposed to just keep his older brother/older friend’s girlfriend company while he is out of town, but then he ends up falling in love with her.

      Lawrence Olivier and Waheeda would be perfect. George Clooney and Vidya. Harrison Ford and Kirron Kher. Young Spencer Tracy with Nargis, older Spencer Tracy with Waheeda again.

      Normally I’d see Pari as part of me “every new movie” rule. But I’m out of town that week, so I may have an excuse to get out of it!

      On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 11:14 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • Let me just throw in Ranbir -Tabu!!!

        I started putting together a prabhas tabu/ramya fanfic where he’s the young father who loses his wife to a car accident and he’s gutted and he has to raise the baby boy on his own because his family is pressuring him to get remarried and he doesn’t want that. But he can’t handle the baby and it keeps crying all the time. One day the older socialite lady next door, Tabu/Ramya knocks on his door and complains of the noise but sees that he’s struggling so she offers to help. The help turns into more help, she has him get out of the house and offers to babysit, she couldn’t have kids of her own so she likes being part of the baby’s life but one day he kisses her and though she wanted it she withdraws and tells him that she can’t be unfaithful to her husband who’s been so very nice to her all this time. Ranbir can do this! And do this well! Although, is he shorter than tabu? Because if he is, the older lady has got to be either madhuri or sri devi! Heck, where’s neelam when you want her!!!

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        • Oh, I like this!!! Except rather than guilt over her husband, I want Tabu to have general older-woman guilt. She feels like Ranbir should be with someone young and vibrant and keeps trying to disinterest him in her, even tries to set him up with one of her younger friends. It turns into a bit of a farce, both of them pretending to have a relationship with someone age appropriate and making a show in the shared elevator or noises through the shared wall. But then the baby gets sick, it brings them both back together, Tabu blames Ranbir for running around and dating and letting the baby be sick, he says he was just doing what she told him to do, and finally it comes out that neither of them was really dating anyone else (Tabu was pretending to date her gay best friend, Ranbir was being a cover for a young woman who is in love with someone inappropriate and used to meet him in Ranbir’s apartment), and they realize that they should just stop caring what the world thinks and love each other.

          On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 12:23 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • My story ends with Ranbir, a much much older Ranbir, meeting a much much older Tabu for coffee and him inviting her to the new grown up baby’s wedding. Indicating that though she didn’t leave her husband and eventually he too found the heart to love again and get married again, he never forgot the acceptance and friendship tabu had given him and they’ve remained friends who have great respect and deep feelings for each still. It can be a dignified old fashioned romance.

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          • I think in that case I need more background for Tabu’s marriage. Maybe she and her husband could never have children and that pain drove a wedge between them. And just as Tabu starts to become close to Ranbir, her husband out of the blue suggests adoption and admits that he misses having a child as much as she does, and feels like it is his fault that he couldn’t give her a baby and he thought that is why she turned away from him and started living a separate life, and she admits that she always blamed herself and thought he was tired of her because she was old and never gave him a child. Oh, and the young woman she saw him meeting and knew he was having a relationship with was a woman from his office who he arranged an open adoption with. So Tabu truly was falling in love with Ranbir, but returned to her marriage not just out of a sense of duty, but because it was really getting better and her husband was making an effort.

            Oh oh! And the years later meeting can be at some kids event! Their children are competing in the same debate competition or something, Ranbir remarried and has another smaller child, Tabu and her husband have turned into doting older parents of their adopted daughter, no longer filling their lives with shallow society things because they are happier with family dinner nights.

            On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 12:41 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • Mmm, I was thinking more like she just gets attracted to this young father clearly torn up by his wife’s untimely death plus she’s longed for a child of her own for so long that the moment she finds herself being the primary caregiver for a child she feels like she IS a mother. Her husband is Ajay Devgn who’s been super supportive and loving and there’s nothing wrong with their marriage. She just gets attracted to this guy. That happens. You can do that without cheating on your partner.

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          • I just don’t want there to be NO improvement in her life thanks to Ranbir. That’s too bittersweet for me! If the experience of being a psuedo-mother results in her and Ajay adopting and their marriage getting better, I would be okay with that. If the basic premise is that she finds more fulfillment in spending time with Ranbir’s baby than in whatever else she was doing with her life, than I want her to find that fulfillment still somehow.

            On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 12:52 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • I like endings that have the characters end up with a deep and profound understanding of each other and life. Handing them an obvious happy ending feels made up. All great films leave you with a hint of nostalgia and a bit of longing.

            Nothing has to be problematic within her marriage. She just got attracted to this guy and attached to his baby. As we learn later, she kept in touch but as a friend, philosopher and guide. She didn’t need a child of her own or in her own house to be fulfilled as a woman. She had love to give and the baby got it from her as a trusted friend of his father.

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      • I like the Shah Rukh and Minnie idea and plot. She is awesome. I was one of the 6 people who watched The Riches with Minnie and Eddie Izzard and I was so sad that it was cancelled.

        I like most of the Shah Rukh/Vidya set up–they’d be great with those characters and that setup. But I’d add more pervy stuff. Vidya, frustrated by Shah Rukh’s seeming coolness, sets up a scenario where they are forced together, and he can’t control himself anymore. (The sort of thing that would be gross sexual harassment in real life but can be, umm, interesting in movies.) Then, after a night of mad passion, he leaves, feeling that his “guy who says no” schtick has failed, and generally confused. But she can’t be without him, can’t work without him. Somehow she convinces him that what she feels for him is real, and not a control/chasing after Mr. No thing. They agree to marry, and that the only time they will play games with each other from now on is in the bedroom.

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        • I think we just found the title! “Mr. No”. And how about, he is driving her back from a location shoot, the car breaks down in the middle of a rain storm, they at stuck together in a remote hut, he submissively suggests she take her clothes off (because he doesn’t want her to catch cold), and it kind of goes from there. The next day, he is already dressed and proper and has the car fixed by the time she wakes up, refuses to talk about anything that happened, just drives her to the shoot, and she comes back to her make-up room to find a farewell note from him explaining the whole thing and how he feels guilty for playing games with her and he will go off with the memory of one wonderful night together and she should be with someone more “worthy”, because now that he really knows her after all this time together and he realizes what a wonderful person she is. So after pretending humility and saying “no” all this time, now he is actually sincerely humiliated and humble and truly doesn’t want her to be with him. And then Vidya can have the same realization that it wasn’t just his game, she actually grew to like him.

          She tracks him down and pretends to be furious with him, and he is conciliatory and sad and agrees with everything she says and admits he would do anything she asks, including sleep with her again, because he is that in love and can’t say “no” any more. At which point she reveals that she is in love with him, and is still in love with him after he said “yes” over and over again, so clearly it is more than just his game and her feelings are real. And then your agreement that they will only play games in the bedroom from now on.

          On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 3:31 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  9. Not that I wish to see a not before seen couple on screen. But, I want to see Nani play an eccentric and ominous manipulator play the cupid between a couple of plain hearted introverts for his own advantage/benefit which ultimately helps this couple turn stronger indirectly. Would like to explore this more in a corporate setup. Anyone interested to explore this idea further?

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    • I love the idea of Nani NOT being stuck in a hero role. In the few things I’ve seen with him, I found him far more interesting in the non-romantic parts of the script, where he was able to just be an odd interesting character. So yes, him as the sort of third party manipulator rather than part of the romance is really interesting.

      On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 11:26 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • Speaking of Nani, his maiden production venture Awe! has released and it too is a non-romance. Check the trailer and let me know your views:

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        • Oh, that’s playing near me! If my weekend wasn’t so crazy busy, I would try to check it out.

          On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 9:11 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  11. Whats your thought in this, A movie named Mohanlal starring Manju Warrier and Indrajith Sukumaran. Where Manju Warrier plays a huge fan of Mohanlal. Mohanlal and Manju Warrier had acted in lots of movies together.

    Here is the trailer

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    • Sounds fun! Although those movies that acknowledge a movie star in the real world always make my head hurt, because than you get into “so, in this universe, is there an actress named ‘Manju Warrior’ who happens to look just like this character?”

      On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 12:55 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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    • Yes! And everything they said also matched with everything I had heard previously about Aamir. He gets super super close with his co-stars in those “once every two years” films he makes and he stays close with them, even his 3 Idiots crew, they are still tight. And he is a dedicated and perfectionist mentor trying to bring everyone up to his level. And he is involved in every step of the production process (I loved them talking about how the final decision was obviously given in Aamir’s living room. They didn’t even mention that as odd, because it was obviously his decision).

      Oh, by the way, search Koffee on the site, I did a review of almost every episode from last season, if you want to see more on what I thought and read comments on what other people thought.

      On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 9:57 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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        • And also, Ayan Mukherjee? I just looked up my coverage of the episode, that was the part that seemed odd to me, he listed off Jackie, Karan, Ranbir, which were unexpected but logical, and then also Ayan Mukherjee? Totally puzzled me.

          On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 10:40 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  13. Yesterday I was going to say I would love to see Maddy and Tovino in a movie together, but I try to limit myself, because I know that I write too much about him lately. Fanny thing is that today I discovered that they will be in a movie together!! YAY Gautham Vasudev Menon is doing Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya 2 and Maddy is supposed to do a role Simbu did, and there will be Tovino in this movie too. A.R Rahman will do the music.

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    • I’m more, “YAAAAAY! VV2!!!!” Because that plot was left super hanging. And secondly, Madhavan would be very good in that role as the slightly older and more mature version of the character. Do we know if Trisha will be back?

      On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 11:50 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • I hope so, but I don’t know. Gautham speaks about it in this interview, I had only few minutes and watched only the last part when he talks about Maddy:

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  15. Pingback: Silly Sunday: FanFic We Wrote on Monday! | dontcallitbollywood

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