Happy Monday! And Happy Dhadak week! I will probably NOT be watching it. Because I don’t want to and, more importantly, I will be out of town next weekend. So that’s one question answered, what else do you want to ask me?
As always, you can ask me anything from the personal (“what movie did you see in theaters that you really really didn’t want to?”) to the specific and factual (“what is it about Dhadhak that makes you not want to watch it?”) to the general discussion (“should I see Dhadak anyway? Even if I don’t want to and would have to wait a week?”)
Only rule is, you have to let me answer first! The conversation just goes better that way. But once I answer, feel free to leap in with your own responses and join the discussion.
Now, question for you! A classic debate with a movie twist:
You are going to a desert island. What one movie, song, and actor would you take with you?
For me:
Movie: Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, endlessly rewatchable with a new detail discovered every time
Song: “Roobaroo”. I never get tired of it
Actor: Shahrukh! Not just because I love him, but because he is so super dedicated to entertaining his audience, I think he would give me a personal performance every night.
dontcallitbollywood 
I’m not too excited about Dhadak because I feel like I still should watch Sairat and I’m really not in the mood for 6 hours total of romantic tragedy. I tried watching Angrezi Mein Kehte Hain last night hoping for a light engaging dramedy with romance, but the first half hour was kind of boring and the young romantic hero did not do it for me at all. Also tried to watch Aashik Awara to see if I could get back to watching Saif films in order and though the romance was fine and Saif was so cute, I hated the rest of the movie…yet another 90s film that I just can’t get through. Definitely on a movie slump in general…nothing appeals and I’ve been reading more instead.
Do you ever experience movie slumps where you just lose interest and can’t even get through one?
Desert Island Keepers:
Movie:
some Indian romance for sure, either Jab We Met or Band Baaja Baarat, but for general films its always The Lion In Winter
Song:
Beedi from Omkara
Actor:
Ajay Devgn for sure, but not the Shivaay version…or maybe just his survival skills from that one.
Hrithik would just swan around singing and dancing all the time and be completely useless and Arjun is way too spoiled to deal with that kind of situation.
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I definitely have movie slumps, but blogging helps a lot. Watching a movie is more like a project now than something for fun. So when I am not feeling like watching something for “fun”, I can still feel like watching it for accomplishing something, if that makes sense? The feeling of satisfaction you get from vacuuming instead of the feeling of joy from eating your favorite desert.
I would vote for Jab We Met, way more depth to it on rewatching (at least that is what I have found)
I cannot stand “Beedi”, but that probably means I am missing some kind of depth to it, so maybe that should be my desert island song and I can listen to it until I “get” it.
I like your logic of who best to bring with on a desert island. Akshay might also be a good choice by those rules, in good health and smart and knows how to cook.
On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 8:39 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I think what you describe is what keeps me from watching movies sometimes. I have too many goals and not enough time. I try to keep up with all of the 2018 Hindi releases but then get sidetracked by other Indian films and the idea that I need to watch more non-Indian films and catch up on bingeable tv shows, too. Plus reading goals this year are keeping me busy! I do like when I finish a movie, I cross it off on my spreadsheet lists and put it up on letterboxd.com and there is a sense of accomplishment. But according to letterboxd the last movie I finished was Fukrey Returns. I guess finishing Sacred Games basically in 24 hours was my last achievement!
I don’t know why I like Beedi so much…maybe because it was the first time in watching Hindi films that I realized how just cool the music was and decided to start downloading it all and listening to it on my iPod. Plus you can’t go wrong with Sunidihi Chauhan and Sukhwinder Singh.
Akshay would be a good choice…less macho than Ajay for sure.
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Yeah, I feel like Akshay might be good at building a shelter and things, but also good at playing cards at night and making funny jokes.
For me, movies are “goals”, and books are for fun, and TV shows are totally brainless. And I have resisted switching that around, I took enough English classes and things that I could have easily made books into “serious” and analyzed them as I read and so on, but I don’t want to! Books are my guilty pleasure, I only get to read for fun after I have watched all my movies. And I kept my fingers firmly in my ears during the TV show discussions in school, because I want to keep TV as “fun” too. That’s part of the reason I like the binging format so much, easier to watch without thinking.
On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 10:13 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I have seen Angrezi mein trailer and I decided I must watch it, but now I’m not sure. Is it very boring? And how the older pair romance is?
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I only got through the first half hour. I usually like Sanjay Mishra and one of the romances is definitely him and his wife and must be how they separate because he is not a loving husband and then maybe get back together because he is shown how love should be expressed by his daughter and her secret husband and a customer at the post office where he works (Pankaj Tripathi). Probably not a bad movie overall, just wasn’t willing to wait for it to get really compelling.
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Your Roobaroo clip is the short one with the sad sad video. Too much for me. I go for the longer version without the video.
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I don’t have high hopes with dhadak.
And considering all the negative press it is getting I hope no one watches this epotist movie of egoistic, self centred snooty nepotist kjo.
Now coming to island
Movie hera peri /award palatal dewana
Can’t be bored with these movies and every time it’s a joyride.
Actor ranveer Singh his energy is infectious.
And he will keep me entertained.
Songs lagaan. They r my all time favourite songs covering songs from every genre
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I don’t mind Karan that much, but it does irritate me when films are remade in different languages, like it is giving you an excuse not to get outside of your comfort zone and try something from a different language/culture. At the most, just dub it like Karan did with Bahubali, so it can be enjoyed by those who can’t read subtitles.
Good movie choices! If I were going comedy, I might go for Andaz Apna Apna, but it’s the same idea, something with little nested jokes so you can constantly find new things to laugh at.
Ranveer might be too energetic for me, I’d want to sit there and relax a little, so long as I am on a desert island, I don’t know if I’d want Ranveer jumping around all the time.
Lagaan is an excellent soundtrack. If you had to pick just one song from it, which would it be?
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Kjo took a
Gr8 regional movie and trying to bollywoodizing it so that he can launch a new bunch of star kids is the problem for me.
Well I can’t choose 1 from lagaan.
1. Mitva o Mitva is a great fun number.
2.raadha kaise na jale is a fun tease romantic religious song on which we have danced a lot.
3 chale chalo is ultimate motivation song. I have listened it 1000 s of time for getting inspired.
4 love ballad has so soulful music it fills your heart with joy.
5. O palan haare what lyrics and sung by udit ji and lata ji.
6. And finally my favourite Ghanan Ghanan. What music by a r rahman and the picturization.
Also sung by 5 singers.
So it has songs for all different moods. Hence my favourite.
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I think if I were on a desert island, I might pick chale chalo. It would motivate me to build a boat and get the heck off the island.
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Also o palan haare where I will pray to God to give me steangth
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Hey Margaret! Did you miss me? Sorry I wasn’t around much these past couple of months. Summer began for me but I was too busy with the NBA playoffs and the World Cup happening. I’ve been reading your posts occasionally though 🙂
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I did miss you! I was just thinking “hey, what happened to Niki?” Stupid sports, competing with my blog.
So, have you seen any good movies while you have been gone?
On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 10:53 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I saw Mahanati and I loved it! I know you didn’t like it much but there was just something magical about that movie. My friend (who’s a huge dulquer fan) and I ended up watching a bunch of Dulquer movies after Mahanati. Other than that I also caught up on a bunch of Telugu movies I missed throughout the year
I saw a lot of the major hollywood releases that came out this summer like the Incredibles, Jurassic World, and the new Ant-Man movie.
One Telugu movie that I saw and really enjoyed was Sammohanam starring Sudheer Babu and Aditi Rao Hydari. It’s a romance and it’s directed by Mohanakrishna Indraganti who make Ashta Chamma and Gentleman. Here’s the trailer:
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I saw that trailer! I don’t remember what the movie was I was watching, but it wasn’t a Telugu movie and the trailer didn’t have subtitles. It looked cute though! And I always like it when Aditi gets work.
What Dulquer movies did you watch?
On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 11:29 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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It’s a cute romance! I really liked Aditi in it and I thought Sudheer was decent but he looked good next to Aditi. I think you would enjoy it.
I ended up watching Solo, Ok Kanmani, and 100 Days of Love.
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Yaaaay, I have reviewed all of those! And also seen all of them. 100 Days of Love was a nice little movie, but was also so similar to OK Kanmani, and not nearly as good, it ended up paling in comparison.
Solo was weird and I don’t know what to think about it, except that it was nice to see Dino Morea onscreen again.
On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 11:46 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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So what movie did you see in theaters that you really really didn’t want to?
And for your question:
Movie – I don’t know. Maybe Bahubali 2.
Song -Mizhiyil Ninnum from Mayaanadhi or Malare (both beautiful and addictive)
Actor – obviously Madhavan – smart, sexy, can talk for hours without being boring and he can plant vegetables. This man is perfection 🙂
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The first one that comes to mind is Dil Dhadakne Do. Which, come to think of it, was one of the last ones I watched before I started blogging. Now I have the protection of intellectual distance, I knew I wouldn’t enjoy Sanju at all, for instance, but at least I could enjoy the experience intellectually. Dil Dhadakne Do, I just was not in the mood for rich people navel gazing, but I was going with friends and they insisted.
At this point, if I don’t want to see a movie even with intellectual distance, that means it would be so unpleasant to me that I have to give myself a break and let myself skip it (Parwana, Dhadak).
On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 3:23 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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So, I started watching Sacred Games this weekend, and couldn’t make it through the first episode. Can you please tell me–is this a cynical universe where no one is actually good, they just sometimes do good things if it suits them? Are there any clear moral positions in this story? Because the whole uber-violent, shades-of-gray-beaten-down-anti-hero against supervillain-who-has-a-tough-origin-story has kinda been done to death in English entertainment, and getting away from those tropes is one reason I started watching Hindi movies. I really wanted to get into it because of the actors–I mean the bad guy from Bomkyesh Bakshi is in it!–but maybe it’s not for me.
I have to go with two movies, two songs, and I’m not sure about the actor. Movie 1 is my all time favorite, Harold and Maude. It’s funny, weird, with a good philosophy of life and an awesome soundtrack. Movie 2 is KANK–surprising myself, but it’s my favorite SRK “ensemble” movie, has multiple shades of SRK, three women I love to watch play against him, and a couple of really good songs. 2 songs are for 2 moods: The Rainbow Connection (as sung by Henson/Kermit in the original Muppet Movie) for most days, and This is Not My Idea of a Good Time by Garbage when I’m just pissed off and sulky.
Hmmm–actor. Overall I think an actor would be a terrible person to be on a desert island with. I’d go for an older (50s or 60s), semi-retired actor who is smart, funny, in good shape, hetero or bi (there’s not much to do on a desert island), and has taken up gardening and fishing in his semi-retirement. Is there a Hindi actor like that? I’m kind of envisioning Rishi Kapoor’s character from JTHJ.
I think Shah Rukh would just be so bored, restless, and in the throes of nicotine withdrawal that he would not be good company. And he says that he’s an urbanite through and through.
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Yep, cynical universe. They are being deep and modern and novelistic. Saif’s character is basically good, but not in the usual Hindi film hero kind of good, not even in the Byomkesh Bakshy kind of good. I liked Breathe because, surprisingly, it rejected that concept at the end of the miniseries, it is a redemption arc that takes our standard issue troubled cop through to being a smart tough honest hero cop again.
KANK is a good one for a desert island, great songs, and a narrative and characters and performances that get better the more you watch it. Also, it just occurred to me that my desert island would have to have an electricity hook up to make this work. Oh well, it’s my thought experiment island, I can make it anything I want.
I don’t know about the rest of it, but Suniel Shetty has world’s most amazing house in the country, and Madhavan grows vegetables on his terrace. So there’s two options for you! I think Salman has an organic farm too.
You are right about Shahrukh and nicotine! Well, I do want him to stop smoking, so that would be good. But on the other hand, I probably don’t want to be around him while he is stopping smoking.
On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 4:28 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Blurgh. Will skip it then.
Did a little research, will skip the “older” part and take this guy. He can tell me the story of Sacred Games since I won’t have seen it!
Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Uttar Pradesh
nawazuddinIf there is ever a tale of rags-to-riches and balancing the high life and the slow, then Siddiqui’s is it. If you spot the 42-year-old walking the red carpet at Cannes and hobnobbing with tinseltown royalty on one day, just a few weeks later, you’ll find him in a tee and comfortable shoes, tilling the soil or harvesting tomatoes in his farms in UP. “It’s very relaxing. When you’re doing difficult characters and you go there and drive a tractor, it really keeps you grounded,” he says, adding, “When I’m there I wake up early, by 5 am; it’s not a city where we can sleep in.” He is often accompanied by his family and, while his wife Anjali isn’t too interested, his children are curious. “They’re too young to work or help around right now, but let’s see when they grow up, how they look at the place,” he smiles. Siddiqui, who harvests rice, wheat, millets and a whole host of vegetables (which he sends home and also sells at local markets), is most excited by a new irrigation system he will be introducing in a month. “When I was in Cannes last year (for Raman Raghav 2.0), I visited Nice and met a few filmmakers and farmers. They told me about their centre pivot irrigation (an overhead sprinkler system that is efficient and conserves water). I will be doing that in my farmland, so others can also make use of it. If you look at our villages, we use so much water. Our generation will manage, but what about the next?” he asks. The actor is also clear that when he finally bids adieu to the screen, he will return to the land because “it’s in my blood, there’s no running away from it”. (http://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/2016/sep/16/Actors-and-their-trysts-with-agriculture-1520211.html)
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Excellent choice, except that Nawazuddin might not be that good of a conversationalist. There were some stories that came out last year that make him sound like the kind of guy who can’t get over how cool his sexual exploits are. Like, making stuff up about one ex-girlfriend and putting it in his memoir in a way that made it clear who he was talking about without her permission, and another ex saying that she broke up with him when she found out he was telling his friends intimate details of their life together.
On the other hand, there would be no one for him to kiss and tell to on a desert island, so maybe it doesn’t matter as much?
On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 4:44 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh, argh, I forgot about that. No, no d’bags or eff-boys allowed. He even sounds a little arrogant about his farming. The search continues…
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Boman Irani? He’s good at switching livelihoods and learning new skills.
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Just did my own research, looks like Dharmendra is also an option, very serious about his farm. That probably means both his sons, Sunny and Bobby, would have gardening experience too. And Pankaj Tripathi is planning to start organic farming soon, another way to learn about Sacred Games. Jackie Shroff has a 44,000 foot organic garden at his vacation home, which means Tiger is an option too.
I don’t know that Aamir has any farming experience, but I expect if farming was required, he would throw himself into it with a terrifying intensity and rapidly become the greatest farmer of all time.
On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 4:52 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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For the movie, I’d have to go with Om Shanti Om – it just has everything.
The song, well, I’d have to chose 2. One is the Mamma Mia version of “Take a Chance On Me,’ (see https://youtu.be/Wv16j_i2Pdk0.) The other is Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar On Me,” because, although I am old, I am a real hep cat and can get jiggy wid it! (Whatever that means. It’s also my phone’s ringtone. https://youtu.be/RaG8faaFUMM.)
For my island companion, I’d have to take Prabhas. He’s just so cute and cuddly and big and…in the event 20 or 30 evil thugs decided to invade our island paradise, Prabhas could handle them. And have enough energy left over for some barbecue.
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Prabhas is a good choice for repelling island invadors. Plus, we know he can do clever things with palm trees and build intricate machines.
And Om Shanti Om is a great movie choice, very intricate, lots of background gags, and big emotional moments that you can never tire of.
On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 5:10 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Hey Hey. Finally got rid of celebrating my 21st birthday alcoholic hangover; who knew Wine was so strong #OMG.
Its a new week and I AM 21! okay, sorry.
I am very upset My Story flopped; looked so promising. Apparently people are freaking about a kissing scene. Would you recommend seeing it? I was going to read your review, after I watch it, but is it worth it. Koode sounds promising. You should def. see it!! Anjali Menon movie ❤
Question: I am HUGE Nivin Pauly fan but whenever I watch Ustad Hotel, I become a HUGE Dulquer Salman fan, like Nivin who?. Do you experience this? After watching Ustad Hotel, I tell people I am a DQ fan. Is this considered cheating?
Movie: Ustad Hotel (SEE WHAT I MEAN!! What an amazing movie). Its the Ustad Hotel hangover. Bahubali 2.
Song: Fidaa songtrack.
Person: DQ; He has such an foreigner mallu accent. (i would pick Prabhas but he is like super lazyyy)
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Aw, if I’d known I would have made you a special birthday post!
Congrats on being 21! I am sure you are all grown up and wise now.
My Story isn’t unwatchable, it’s just not a good movie. If you are in the mood for romantic melodrama and ridiculousness, it’s not terrible. But it’s nothing special.
By my rules, it is ABSOLUTELY considered cheating! And I do the same thing. After I watch Bajrangi Bhaijaan, I feel all soft over Salman. And after Rang De or Dil Chahta Hai, I am all about Aamir. Although deep in my heart, I know I will always come home to Nivin.
I just looked up Ustad Hotel, and there are TWO follow ups this year! Anjali Menon did the script, and her Koode is coming. And the director, Anwar Rasheed, is making “Trance” with Fahadh Fasil.
Are we sure DQ is willing to work? And has any ability to grow food? I might pick Nivin over him just because he seems willing to learn and work hard.
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haha. thanks <3. i dont like asking for it; i rather tell people after it passed.
Ah!! Darn. For the next week, Nivin is my side bae #SorryNotSorry
Apparently DQ is a hardworking individual. Mammooty basically raised his son to be self made instead of banking of his father's popularity. *cough *cough looking at you pranav. He worked in a cafeteria when he was studying for his business degree in America; I mean. which star kid does that?!?! I doubt mohanlal, or jayaram, or SRK did that to their own son.
If you watch award shows, whenever DQ is up on stage, the camera is super zoomed on Mammooty and Mammooty could care less; sometimes he smiles, thats about it.
Truly a self-made man from second show to mahanati to his debut hindi movie. So yes, DQ can def. work :))
Pranav is doing another movie with Tomichan, the producer of Pulimurugan and Ramleela. *ROLLS EYES TO THE MOON**
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He went to Purdue! I’ve eaten in that cafeteria! It’s where my Grandparents went for college. Very big fraternity/sorority and football kind of school. Also, big ancient rivalry with Indiana University where Ranveer went. Ooo, now I kind of want them to bump into each other at some awards show on a game day and get into a big angry fight for reasons no one else understands.
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Haha. Here’s praying his debut movie DOES EXTREMELY WELL, and he gets nominated for Best Actor and Ranveer does too for the remake of Temper. #YESSSSSSS
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And they can show up wearing their school colors and no one will know why!
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omg omg omg omg. watched charlie today, and i just realized Dulquer named his daughter Mariyam, definitely after Kalpana’s character.
Kalpana died of a heart attack soon after the movie released but omg, it just clicked just now.
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