Happy Saturday! If you want real content, I put up an intensive post late last night (here). If you want silly content, you can check out my TGIF. And if you just want to chat, you can stay here.
So, let’s chat! Kiara Advani has been cast as the new lead in the Hindi Arjun Reddy, opposite Shahid Kapoor, what do we think about that? I think I am glad she is getting work, but also not sure if she has the right look for a shy young inexperienced med student.
Abhishek is going to be the lead of Breathe season 2, what do we think about that? Are you like me and your only concern is making sure Amit Sadh comes back as the co-lead?
And in other news, it’s pumpkin season! What should I make today? I am thinking roast pumpkin, pumpkin/chicken stew, and maybe pumpkin bread if I get ambitious. Oh fall! I love you so!
dontcallitbollywood 
There is no Breathe without Amit Sadh. I’ll not watch it if he isn’t in the sequel. I’m curious how they want to continue this series. Maddy’s character is no more, so they need brand new story.
Other news: A lot of bollywood stars are in Italy now for Ambani’s daughter engagement. Am I the only one who thinks that making engagement party in Italy, and bringing people so far only for this is stupid? They have too much money and free time I guess. I can understand coming here (or in other romantic place) to marry, but only for engagement? And bringing people who aren’t even your friends. Now everybody has a photo in the same place with the same bored face (except Anil, who looks goooooooood). Vanity fair
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Completely agree about the engagement party. Only way it makes sense is if they want the wedding itself to be small so they are doing it up big for the engagement. But that seems very unlikely, doesn’t it? Also, I thought the appeal of Italy was that no one went there so you could get married in dead secrecy. That’s been blown up now, and it just looks kind of tacky, doesn’t it? Like the Ambanis are imitating Aditya Chopra and Anushka Sharma instead of doing their own thing? On the other hand, kind of a silly inheritance, Yash Chopra invented the modern big Punjabi wedding in his films, and now his son has ended up inventing a new kind of wedding by accident, just by looking for an out of the way place to be married.
On Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 12:01 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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He looks fantastic (love the cut of his tux) but I like him better with silver hair.
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And here are more Ambani photos, including Nick Jonas looking great in Indian attire and Juhi looking adorable as usual:
https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/bollywood/isha-ambani-engagement-italy-priyanka-chopra-nick-jonas-5369439/
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Thank you so much for the link! I devoured it.
Nick Jonas must be so tiny! Not just short, but tiny. Because Priyanka is really small and delicately built and Nick looks even smaller next to her.
I think Jhanvi’s dress is terrible and terribly inappropriate. Black, which is bad luck for a wedding/engagement (I know no one else cares, but I was raised old-fashioned and it makes me flinch every time I see it). Plus too long and sweeping for her age. And, most of all, I think the see through skirt is both inappropriately sexy for a family event and a youngish woman, and just plain unpleasant looking.
Juhi looks great, Sonam looks really great.
Oh, and maybe the big engagement is because her wedding is scheduled at the same time as her brother’s and she wanted one day all about her? It’s a bit of a reach, but it makes sense.
On Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 12:51 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh black is considered inappropriate for any kind of auspicious ceremonies in my family as well. I couldn’t even buy a black dress for my birthday.
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Oh good, it’s not just me! And this was such a very black kind of black dress. No colorful highlights and with that long skirt and all.
On Sun, Sep 23, 2018 at 8:12 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I think I’ll like Kiara Advani in the Arjun Reddy remake and she will look good opposite Shahid, I think. Doing a streaming drama series is just what Abhishek should be doing…it’s doing wonders for Saif, too, and they’ve always been on the same level stardom-wise. Still need to watch the first series and this will give me a reason to do it.
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I think a streaming series is just about right for Abhishek too. Let him get comfortable doing work he likes, settle in and realize that he is past the young hero kind of roles.
On Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 3:19 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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The Ambanis have so much money, they don’t know what to do with it. Buzz is they want Beyonce to perform at the wedding??!? Destination weddings are in, but I’m guessing they will have to have the wedding in India so they’re doing the engagement outside India.
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But doing this engagement party at Lake Como is soooo unoriginal. They could do this everywhere in the world, and chose the same place where a lot of people already married/have been.
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Haha yeah they are very original.
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Beyonce is going to be so confused by all this!
On Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 3:30 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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From other italian-indian news – few days ago a casting for extras in new Prabhas movie started in Pisa and I haven’t been so jealous for years! I want to be this random white woman in the background 😉
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I feel like you would be really excited to find out that Kunal Kapoor is in Devadas. https://twitter.com/Nani4u143/status/1043698507167629312
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I am very excited!!!! And also depressed, because that means there are now 3 movies I have to somehow squeeze in next weekend.
On Sun, Sep 23, 2018 at 12:19 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Kiara Advani is too good looking to play the plain Jane girlfriend of Arjun Reddy. Even as the daughter of a police constable in Bharat Ane Nenu, she was too posh looking. The freshness of Arjun Reddy was the relatively unknown faces that made the story seem very raw & real. With such known faces, I can’t imagine how close the audience will feel to the characters.
Coincidentally Tamil Arjun Reddy teaser was out today. The Hindi casting feels too old & Tamil casting feels too young…Vikram’s son looks good in the non-beard portions.
there’s even rumour of a Malayalam remake. Why, why can’t we all just watch Arjun Reddy & be happy.
In other news, Kajol has commented that no actress can make 500 crores like Salman & hence the pay parity is expected. She insists she’s a feminist but I’m wondering how accepting status quo & explaining it away as ‘business’ makes her a feminist. Also off late Kajol puts in the weirdest appearance in her interviews with over the top facial expressions, gestures & animated voice. It seems she’s in her K3G character throughout.
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Being honest, I thought Varma trailer will be worse. It’s not bad, but I will never understand why they do those copies (even clothes are very smilar in some scenes) instead just dub the original movie.
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Giving it the positive spin like Margret, the only good coming out of watching a remake is that you realise how good the original was. Seeing Bangalore Days in Tamil was like an eye opener. I realised how good the original cast, editing, music & direction was. Same happened again when I watched Kshanam & Baaghi 2 in a span of a few days. The original, in any language holds its own appeal & Arjun Reddy is a pretty tall order to live up to. The Tamil one looks very boyish. But the heroine looks somewhat apt looking like a regular Tamil girl.
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To each Indian filmindustry its own ‘Arjun Reddy’…okayyyyy.
I’m with you, MKP, concerning the positive look at remakes *grin*
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I haven’t seen/read the Kajol interview, so I can’t comment on that in particular, but generally speaking I think she is right. Pay parity between men and woman is the final step in a long journey, and the industry isn’t there yet. At least, not at the very top level. Ranbir and Alia should be paid the same amount because they are given equal roles in their films and are equal draws. Salman and even the biggest actress can’t be paid the same, because Salman is one of the biggest box office draws. Which is part of the reason he isn’t actually “paid” any more, he is a producer and gets a direct cut of the profit, a more realistic way of rewarding his contribution. Which some times ends up meaning he is paid less than the heroine, for instance when he has to repay the distributors out of his own pocket he ends up losing money on a film, while the actress who was paid up front still gets to keep everything she has.
I haven’t actually seen figures on pay parity/disparity so I don’t know if it is a problem or not in Indian film. The top actors (Ajay, the Khans, Akshay) are producing now so they aren’t getting a straight salary so they can’t really be used as part of the equation. But I would be surprised if Rajkummar got paid that much more than Shraddha for Stree. And the Dharma multi-starrers coming out, I can’t imagine Vicky Kaushal is being paid more than Kareena Kapoor or Sanjay more than Madhuri.
On Sun, Sep 23, 2018 at 1:22 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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It’s a given that no reasonable, sane actress is expecting money in the Khans’ spectrum. But to take Salman Khan as an example for comparison is diluting the entire issue of pay gap that maybe existing among stars of equal draw. Varun Dhawan was mentioning how he tells Alia to raise her asking fee cos she’s a bonafide star now. Considering Alia works almost exclusively for Dharma, that means even her mentor Karan pays her less than say Varun. And to have her contemporary like Varun ‘advise’ her to ask more shoes how patronising the men really are. If tomorrow a movie headed by an actress makes 500 crores & Salman’s movie makes 1500 crores-the situation will still remain the same. Again I don’t have knowledge of the exact figures & as an audience it doesn’t matter to me anyways. I’m taking an exception to the position of previlage that Kajol is talking from which helps her to explain away this as an unreasonable business thing-She could have given any number of other examples when she had faced the same issue in her hay days(she had equal role as the hero in any movie she featured in)which might have looked better when she’s calling herself a feminist.
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