Well, this is the gossip cycle that will never end. I don’t know why I am surprised, this is how it happens, right? The gossip comes out, and then everyone reacts to it, and then everyone reacts to the reactions. And I am part of the problem, because it is just barely on the line of affecting the industry and the big messages of stuff so I feel like I should talk about it. Oh, and also Pa Ranjith might make a Hindi film, yaaaaay!
Everyone Talks About Priyanka: Kangana, Shahrukh, Bharat Team
I am so sick of analyzing this stuff. Bharat wants PC to look bad, PC wants herself to look good, everyone else is either trying to stay above the fray or insert themselves into it. No one cares about Nick Jonas. That’s kind of it. I’ll give you the quotes and let you get to work digesting them in the comments. Today’s stories are here and here and here.
(Look, I made a cross stitch pattern! In case you need one)
First Kangana. Who has essentially nothing to do with this story. But has come out with a quote confirming the engagement, just as the PC team seemed to be walking it back. It’s Kangana, so your guess is as good as mine as to why she is saying this. Directed soft confirmation from Priyanka, actually being surprised by the question and trying to respond without actually saying anything. Inserting herself into the story for her own image. Or, unfortunately, possibly a little confused and saying things that aren’t true.
I spoke to Priyanka the other day and I congratulated her. She responded in a very… She seems excited and very happy. If such an event is taking place, I’d love to celebrate with her because she is lovely and she deserves all the happiness. She is a very dear friend. I get very happy and excited with weddings and engagements.
And Bharat/Salman’s crew continues with their own leaks. Either coordinated and trying to face save and blacken PC, or legitimate leaks as they try to figure out what the heck is happening. I’ll give you the quote and the framework Bollywoodhungama gave it:
A close friend of Salman Khan describes Ali Abbas Zafar’s ‘Nick’ tweet as a face-saving device. “He wanted PeeCee to come out smelling like roses from the exit controversy. So he did this little mischief which completely backfired because PC didn’t leave Salman’s film for marriage. She left it for a film with Chris Pratt.”
And finally, poor Shahrukh had to dig up some kind of nonsensical answer-not-answer when asked about it at the Vogue awards show, same place Kangana had to give her response. Really, everyone should have just called in sick and stayed home bingeing Netflix and eating Cheetos until this story blew over. Anyway, Shahrukh dug out something to say just to get it over with. It’s nonsensical enough to not really say anything, but also maybe kind of implies he thinks this story is fake and is just a wee bit irritated by it?
“Even I am getting married. I’ll send them my wedding invitation card. Also, do come for the Mehendi.”
Nasty Katrina Leaks
Now, here’s the slightly unexpected part. Someone out there in the world, at BollywoodHungama or one of these camps, is putting out nasty nasty stuff about Kat. She was second choice, she isn’t as good as PC, implied that she took the role because she was desperate, that kind of thing (link here). I mean, SHEESH! Why???? Kat is the one clearly blameless person in this whole mess. PC left the film in the lurch and Kat stepped up and helped out. Maybe it’s a terrible movie, maybe the filmmakers were mean to PC and that’s why she left, but it’s still decent of Kat to step in. Anyway, here’s the quote that made me go “WTF???” so you can see for yourself:
Apparently, Salman only had to call and “inform” Katrina of the change. And, she was on. But now that she has said yes to a role earmarked for Priyanka, Katrina Kaif would have to work really hard on her dialogues and her body language.
Perhaps, some serious Hindi lessons from Priyanka Chopra?
I’m up for a good Kat bashing as much as anyone, and yes she doesn’t speak Hindi and so on, but she wasn’t the one who walked out of the film last minute necessitating a recast! And she wasn’t the one who picked her name as the new star!!!! And she certainly shouldn’t be blamed for being quick to say yes and help out old friends.
John Abraham Sarfarosh Sequel
YAAAAAAY!!!!! This news makes me happy. I really like Sarfarosh, primarily because it was just a very well-crafted film. The integration of the flashback, the slow reveal of who each character was and how they fit together, the balance between the needs of duty and the needs of love, all just beautifully handled.
The rumored “Sarfarosh 2” won’t have Aamir, and probably won’t be a direct continuation of the story. Because the original story was about Aamir taking down the group that inspired his joining the police force in the first place, and rediscovering his first love, and those stories are definitively ended. But if they choose to keep the same title, it makes me think that they are promising the audience the same kind of film, a slow building procedural, a lot more cerebral than Hindi police films usually are.
And that is exactly the kind of movie I want to see John in. A thoughtful serious intelligent leading man role. And also, in a police uniform surely? For at least part of it?
Pa Ranjith is Coming to Hindi!!!!
I am so excited about this! I’ll start with a small reason, his films are definitely ones where the real message and story is hidden in the dialogue. And finally he will be making a movie in a language I understand enough to get that hidden message!!!! Instead of sitting there going “wait, what did I just miss?”
A much bigger reason is that Pa Ranjith is a strong powerful political voice for revolution and change. And now he is getting a new platform and will be introduced to a new audience. The producers are the ones who made the Sunny Leone web series, and released Beyond the Clouds, so they seem willing to accept controversy and release his vision with minimal cuts.
And then the medium sized reason is that Pa Ranjith is also an amazing director who will force the Hindi film industry to up its game if they want to meet his level.
So, all around, YAAAAAY!
(Check out the English subtitles. Pa Ranjith essentially wrote a hymn to revolution and snuck it into a major wide release mainstream movie)
dontcallitbollywood 
I don’t like how you are always against PC and Kangana for standing up for themselves but yet you support murderers, women beater like Salman khan who also making fun of rape please just leave the biases, do you know how corrupted this industry is especially for women you have no idea what goes on behind the scenes and how they mistreated her so she had no choice but to walk out how is that her fault
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Priyanka knew who and what Salman was when she signed the movie in the first place. If she found him so distasteful why was she willing to consider the movie at all? The decision to leave was clearly because she got a bigger movie, which is a perfectly valid reason to get out but why not be upfront about it instead of all this drama with a Nick engagement?
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But where did Priyanka say it was the engagement? It was Ali who suggested that right.
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I don’t know if you’re familiar with how American gossip media works, but People magazine is considered the “respectable” outlet. They are the ones who confirm stories with publicists so when they print a story it’s assumed that it’s been sanctioned by the star even if the story doesn’t feature quotes from them. People ran a story confirming the engagement right after Ali’s tweet appeared, along with a story that Nick Jonas shut down Tiffany’s so Priyanka could pick the ring. So even though Priyanka hasn’t been directly quoted in the press someone on her team confirmed it with People or they wouldn’t have run the story.
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So you’re basing it on some “gossip media outlets” which is invalid in itself they usually twist things up and are known exaggerate and there is no 100 percent proof it was her, why not just wait until PC HERSELF confirms the news and even then if she is getting engaged why not just be happy for her I don’t see what the problem is?
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People Magazine is well known in HW as the magazine that directly prints what celebrity PRs give them. All marriage/birth announcements happen in People. Nick and PC’s PR spread all the engagement stories themselves. Whether it’s real or whether they’re just publicity hungry, who knows.
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The Indian media, especially the frivolous uneducated BW media, has no respect or even sense. It’s like when they asked Anushka to react to the Padmavat trailer at some awards show or event and she got annoyed. Why should everyone be harassed with questions about Priyanka and Nick? It’s none of their business and I’m sure they don’t care at all. It’s completely irrelevant and ridiculous. When you have the ability to question them for 5 minutes, ask them about themselves and their own work and life.
Kangana and Priyanka are both two peas in a pod. You cannot believe or trust anything they say. She wanted to act like she was close to “HW actress” PC when PC is the same woman who was liking posts of Suzanne Khan during the Hrithik/Kangana fiasco. (Also remember Suzanne is supposed to be one of those people who were supposed to have boycotted PC.) This is the same woman who pretends to a feminist but gave excuses and laughed when Salman Khan made creepy rape jokes. Kangana says anything she thinks will be beneficial to her at the moment and garner her publicity. It means nothing. Same as PC herself.
SRK’s non-answer is about as best as he could do to keep himself as far away as possible from this annoying story. Anything else would have generated more publicity and scrutiny.
The Kat bashing article is also disgusting. I don’t think Bharat team would put it out because it genuinely makes the movie look more and more like a disaster. This is PC’s Indian PR team. Not sure why she can’t ever let anything go without sticking the knife in for no reason. You got the other movie you wanted so leave Katrina alone.
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Oh no, now you are giving me flashbacks to Padmavat! YES!!! It was the exact same thing, the thing happened, and then everyone had to have an opinion on the thing, and then everyone had to have opinions on the opinions, and it was like some horrible beast that ate up the news cycle for weeks and weeks so that nothing else could come crawling out.
This Vogue event I think was supposed to be about women in film or something? And secondly about a soft present of Suhana? And instead it just turned into these questions no one could escape. Would have been a great time for Kangana to slip in something about her next movie, but of course that isn’t allowed when everyone is just talking about one thing.
I would probably just stay home in sweats and try to avoid the whole thing if I was celebrity. Which is why I would be a terrible celebrity, because I would keep avoiding difficult situations instead of trying to capitalize on them.
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Priyanka’s team is throwing Zafar under the bus. People magazine confirmed the engagement along with the shutting down Tiffany’s story, and they are very careful to get real sources before they come out with an article. So why undermine her supposed friend? Or do you think it’s the producers who are pissed off at him for having tweeted a nice excuse for her in the first place.
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I think it was just very poorly planned all around. Someone somewhere suggested the engagement excuse and Ali ran with it. But then there was a realization that it doesn’t quit work, and there is a scramble to figure out what is happening, if there is no engagement, or if there is an engagement but it won’t stop her working.
Maybe this is just the end result of playing two sides at once, the Indian industry and the American? Eventually the story you are selling one is going to conflict with the story for the other. In India, PC is all about Bharat and needed a story to get out of it. But in America, she is all about working and getting more and bigger parts and a higher profile and so on. The Bharat tweet kind of lined up with the People story, but not quite, and as time goes on, they are getting farther and farther apart.
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That’s a pretty catty statement on srk part LOL, funny but still catty. Had it been anyone else getting engaged he would say something like wishing a lifetime of blessings to the newly-engaged couple. By either casting doubt on the veracity of the engagement, or by minimizing its import, he is subtly influencing public opinion.
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That’s a pretty catty statement on srk part LOL, funny but still catty. Had it been anyone else getting engaged he would say something like wishing a lifetime of blessings to the newly-engaged couple. By either casting doubt on the veracity of the engagement, or by minimizing its import, he is subtly influencing public opinion.
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And perhaps Fanning the Flames of those who might see Priyanka as a victim
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I am sure you are right. But I am also projecting a little and wondering if Shahrukh just snapped without thinking because he is so sick of this fake story. Kind of like I did in this post. After all, Shahrukh and I are one.
Oh, and the other more likely scenario, he can see the way the wind is blowing just as well or better than we do, and doesn’t want to look foolish for having offered premature congratulations. He isn’t exactly denying it here, but he also isn’t going out on a limb the way Kangana did.
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SRK’s reply confirms the SRK-PC rumors if anything. If there really wasn’t anything, he should’ve said “wish her all the best” or something around those lines. This reply is just bizarre.
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He was showing how irrelevant and stupid the question is. Like SRK says many times about most things/people – “I don’t think good about you. I don’t think bad about you. I don’t think about you.”
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https://gadgets.ndtv.com/entertainment/news/netflix-baahubali-before-the-beginning-rise-of-sivagami-original-prequel-series-1893960
Have you seen this yet?
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Yes, Netflix is trying to make sure I never sleep again. How can they keep greenlighting serieses when it is all I can do to stay on top of new movie releases????? EVIL!!!!
On Thu, Aug 2, 2018 at 9:50 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Lol
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YES. YES AND YESSSSS!!
I was so sad that I wasn’t able to see the one in Amazon because it was exclusively to India.
YESSSSSS!!!
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There was no Prabhas-not in flesh & blood. So you didn’t miss anything. Plus the dialogues sounded very contrived. It was kinda stupid.
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But it wont have Prabhas in it 😦
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That’s the saddest part
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Who’s in the Bahu prequel? If not Prabhas, they’d better cast, if it’s not already rolling, somebody pretty compelling as the young Sivagami to get me interested. Maybe Sonakshi Shina; she has the gravitas. And Harshvardhan Rane as some hunky warrior dude. There has to be one (or more) of those for me to bingewatch.
I subscribe to a number on Indian cinema fan mags. Most are just respectful fluff. No real dirt; well some, but it’s clearly speculative; light rehashes of scandals like Salman, Kangana, and poor Suraj Pancholi. Even the fan sites on You Tube are lame. When you watch the films, you get the impression that the Indian press is no better than a pack of hungry wolves and the police are marauding, bloodthirsty goons. Is this true? Never been to India.
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I think, and I am sure other people will jump in to provide more info, that the really vicious Indian press are the cable news channels. And maybe the non-English press we can’t read?
There’s also the odd way that stories will be alluded to without things said straight out. Like with these Priyanka stories I’m pulling out, the Shahrukh quote is because of all the rumors about them from years ago, but you don’t have to come right out and talk about the rumors, you just ask Shahrukh about her and print his quote. And that is enough for the public to fill in the gaps, and for the stars to feel hounded by these rumors.
For the police, I am a bit at a loss for that. There is the idea of “encounters”, as in “I was walking down the street and I encountered a criminal and shot him”. Which are more accepted in India than in America or in many other places, that the police will sometimes just shoot criminals in cold blood. And it is more likely to offer a bribe to a police officer to get out of a traffic stop or something like that than in America or in many other places. But beyond that, I don’t know.
On Fri, Aug 3, 2018 at 11:39 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Cops are bureaucrats here. With guns. There are ‘encounter specialists’ who basically kill the most wanted criminals. Usually small time gangsters. Because big time gangsters have big time lawyers.
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