Happy Monday! My life is finally in order thanks to the 4 day weekend. If I had one of these every month, I would always be on top of everything. Phew! Now, with all my excess energy and time, I can happily answer all your questions.
You can ask me anything from the personal (“are you going to see 2.0?”) to the specific and factual (“what is 2.0?”) to the general discussion (“is 2.0 going to be good or bad?”).
And I have a question for you! Inspired by 2.0. What movie do you wish could get a sequel?
This is lame and predictable, but I still want Ra.One to have a sequel!!!! I know it made no money and I was one of the few people who liked it, but I want to see what happens next!!!! Do Kareena and Robot SRK every confess their love for each other? Do they have a robot baby? How do they explain all of this to the neighbors?
dontcallitbollywood 
If you had to rank the top 10 bollywood stars in America by box-office pull?
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Shahrukh, Salman, Aamir. If you look purely at what they can guarantee opening day, they are still the top. After that, Rajinikanth, Mahesh Babu, Vijay. They all get massive openings, but it doesn’t necessarily last out even the second day, so I am putting them after the Khans. And then I guess Akshay. And honestly, that might be it for real box office pull. Everyone else, it depends on the quality of the film.
On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 8:26 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I think that’s why they can’t have a Ra One sequel. Robot love freaks people out and its hard to understand Kareena NOT falling in love with the Shah Rukh robot…..
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They’d have to do some sort of “the spirit of Real Shahrukh inhabits him” thing which they almost did in the first one and then backed off. But agree, obviously Kareena would fall in love with Robot Shahrukh!
On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 8:57 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Does 2.0 look as stupid to anyone else as it does to me? I can’t imagine liking it.
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Agree, it looks pretty bad and given what’s happened with big budget releases this year I’m sure the producers and stars are having some sleepless nights.
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It looks pretty stupid to me. Lots of sound and fury signifying nothing. But then, I felt kind of the same way about Robot and that was a massive hit.
On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 8:58 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I did not watch Bahubali, boo. My husband is the worst about sitting through movies in one go and I have no idea when I can corral him again.
However, I did watch Amar Akbar Anthony and LOVED it! It was so funny and ridiculously over the top and the music was great but it also had a social message and it was just a delight.
My Christmas shopping for my extended family is finished but I still have to buy for my son and my husband who is absolutely impossible to shop for. This essay is painfully accurate: http://the-toast.net/2015/12/16/hes-just-so-hard-to-shop-for/.
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I am so glad you liked AAA!!! It’s such a happy silly movie. And it inspired dozens of imitators so there are loads of “it’s not quite as good, but it’s similar” movies you can watch. My favorites are Yaadon Ki Baarat and Hum Kisese Kum Nahin.
and BOO to your husband! I have people in my life like that too, care enough that they won’t let you watch it on your own, but not so much that they will arrange their schedule to watch ASAP. My sister mostly. Although now it has morphed into “you can watch the movie on your own but you can’t tell me anything about it until I watch it at some ill-defined point in the future”.
Oh, and I just remembered you were going to watch Sholay too! AAA is a great prep for that, the humor parts of it are very similar.
I am theoretically done with Christmas shopping. “theoretically” meaning I know the craft thing I am making for 9 people but I haven’t actually made it yet.
On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 9:07 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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This is so interesting to me, that Aamir has to take full responsibility as if he’d put out an adulterated food product instead of just a bad movie. Same with Race 3 and JHMS, the public obligations placed on the Khans are so weird to me from the outside.
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Yes! Especially with Thugs, where Aamir was not a producer (very unusual for a Khan film currently). With JHMS, Shahrukh produced it, so you could argue he had a greater responsibility. And with Race 3, Salman fiddled with the casting and even shoved in a song he wrote himself. But with Thugs, YRF produced it, marketed it, distributed it, everything. Sure Aamir had outsize creative input, but nothing that actually put him in charge. Except in his own mind, apparently.
I saw another article talking about the distributor losses. Usually with a Khan film, the star pays back the losses out of their own pocket (very weird, can you imagine Tom Cruise mortgaging his house to pay back distributors when one of his films fails?). But with Thugs because of how YRF structured the deal, it is actually small theaters directly who are taking the hit. Which makes any payback scheme far more difficult, since you would have to calculate the loss and pay it back for thousands upon thousands of individual theaters. Maybe that’s why Aamir is taking public responsibility because in this case it is the most he can do.
On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 9:50 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I read beautiful post about Laila Manju and Imitaz Ali’s symbolism and themes. Really recommend this one:
http://dichotomy-of-irony.blogspot.com/2018/11/laila-majnulove-is-madness.html
I just can’t wait to watch Laila Manju. Why, oh why there are no subtitles?!
How are your expectations for 2.0? Super empty inside but will be enormous hit? Or maybe not so bad and enormous hit? Or people are fed up with those empty movies so the biggest flop?
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I am leaning pessimistic on 2.0 mostly because of how Vishwaroopam 2 flopped. V1 was a massive record breaking hit in the same way and around the same time as Robot. But in the years since, the ideas got less exciting and original and the audience moved on. I’m thinking something similar may happen with 2.0.
On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 10:00 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I think the only force 2.0 has are special effects. If they are not good, nothing will save this movie.
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Based on the trailer, they look good but no more. Nothing that is something I haven’t seen before. Not bad necessarily, just not jawdropping and “wow, you must see this movie!”
On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 11:01 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I want a sequel to Dishoom with the same cast plus Parineeti! I doubt it will happen but it would be really fun if they did make it.
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Yes! that absolutely should happen! Really anything with Varun and Pari should happen, but Dishoom already set up their two characters perfectly, him as the naive action hero and her as the not-so-shy arranged bride is just begging to be made.
On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 3:24 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Yes! I was surprised that they were never cast together when they were starting out because it seemed like every movie either had Alia, Shraddha, or Parineeti in it. Now I’m wondering if the chance has passed. It seems like Parineeti is not as popular anymore and there is more competition from the new girls as well as actresses like Taapsee and Bhumi Pednekar.
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I want a sequel to Darr. In which Shahrukh wasn’t killed but was committed to a mental institution. During the intervening years, Sunny’s career took a nose dive after his battles with his boss’ son and his failure .has brought out his sadistic boor side. (I hated him in the original – he knew Juhi was being terrorized and he still pulled his little scare pranks on her.) Now, years later, an older and mentally stable Shahrukh has been released and is the only person Juhi can turn to. (And Shahrukh has lost his stutter while Juhi asks R-r-rahul for help.)
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I don’t know if I want a sequel to Darr exactly, but maybe a sequel/retcon. Not just that Shahrukh survived and went to an asylum, but that he wasn’t quite as extreme to begin with. His love song is cute, but it is right after the purposefully disturbing moment when he peeps on Juhi while she changes. If it was made more like, Shahrukh was the romantic young man whose gestures were too much for Juhi to handle at the time, and Sunny exacerbated the situation by making her more scared, and reacting with violence to Shahrukh. No kidnapping, no stabbing, just creepy phone calls and love gifts.
Now, in the present, Shahrukh is finally in a stable place, years out of the asylum and into deep talk therapy. His therapist recommends that as part of his therapy, he should meet with present-day Juhi and apologize and take responsibility. Unexpectedly, their meeting turns into a friendship, they have a similar taste in books and sensitive way of looking at the world. Juhi invites him home to meet her husband (as is the proper thing to do when you have an intense opposite-sex friendship), and Sunny is boorish and insensitive, doesn’t trust Shahrukh still, gets drunk and is aggressive towards Juhi. Shahrukh holds back and doesn’t do anything, but later gently says something to Juhi about how he is worried about her or wishes her husband treated her with more respect.
Shahrukh and Juhi build a friendship that never crosses the line into anything inappropriate (because Shahrukh is hyper-vigilante and careful not to repeat his previous patterns) but does include him encouraging her to have self-respect and value herself and not put up with the treatment Sunny gives her. Juhi even starts seeing his same therapist and they have a few joint sessions where they work through their previous interactions, Shahrukh confirms that it was entirely his fault and he was in the wrong, but Juhi comes to realize that her brother and Sunny exacerbated the situation by not believing her, by minimizing her fears, that Shahrukh was not the only man putting her in danger. Her growing strength comes to threaten Sunny until she finally flees the house in fear of her physical safety, and goes to Shahrukh because he is the only person she knows who would take her in and not try to make her go back to Sunny. Sunny brings in the police and their past triangle is brought out, Sunny suggests that Shahrukh has kidnapped her again, Shahrukh peacefully allows himself to be arrested because he feels he never truly paid the price for his past sins, but Juhi is angry. In the end, Juhi gives an impassioned speech in court about how Shahrukh made her fear as a young woman, but it was Sunny who made her fear for the rest of her life. That Shahrukh is now a different person, he could be “cured” from his delusions, but Sunny can never be “cured” because his aggression and violence are an innate part of himself, and she is done putting up with it.
Once Juhi is finally divorced, she talks to the therapist and slowly works through her feelings (over a time passing montage, lets say, she gets a job and her own place and visits her kids at boarding school and all that). She eventually decides that she never loved young Shahrukh, he was a monster. But this new mature Shahrukh is a different person, and she is a different person too after all those years with Sunny, and these two new people could have a real relationship. Only Shahrukh would never make a move to start that relationship because he still feels in the wrong. During this intensive therapy and personal growth period (lets say it’s been a year) she and Shahrukh have stayed close friends, meeting for coffee and dinner parties and going to gallery openings together and so on. And now that Juhi feels like she finally knows what she wants and what Shahrukh wants, she asks him to meet at the same place they met the first time for him to apologize and confesses her feelings. He feels from her at first, uncomfortable with what she is saying, but she follows him (the stalking returns, but different, she is the one chasing and she knows he truly returns the feelings). Finally she corners him in a cab and forces him to listen to the arguments she just went through with the therapist, convinces him that he feels completely different about her this time, that he loves her mind and her intellect and her spirit, not just her body, that he actually knows her. And then we cut to their quite registry marriage.
And then I suppose we could have a twist ending where after he has carried her into the apartment, he goes to his secret room and reveals he still has it covered in photos and all that and is just as obsessed as ever and in fact this was all his plan. But I’d rather keep it as a simple happy ending.
What do you think? Does that work for you?
On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 4:38 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I love it! And I really, really want to see that movie. But please, can Shahrukh give Sunny a good poke in the nose? For old times sake?
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Hmm. Maybe when Juhi calls him to help her get out of the house safely, he pretends to be crazy again just to spook Sunny. I don’t want him to “save” her, because I want her to save herself. But he could get her out of the house and then she can save herself later during the divorce proceedings. And Sunny could use the evidence of Shahrukh’s fake-crazy behavior as part of his effort to get Shahrukh arrested and force Juhi back to him.
On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 5:20 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Do you realize that you just wrote a Darr fanfiction?
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Of course! I love fanfiction, and no one reads my Sunday posts, but if I sneak it into the replies in the comments I know at least one person will enjoy it 🙂
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I want a sequel (trequel?) of Tanu Weds Manu. Few years after the last film, Kusum has become famous athlete and accomplished woman. She is visiting London for some championships , and she meets Manu there, who is in very bad form. Tanu is crazier and more insupportable then ever. The couple is close to divorce. Kusum feels sorry for Manu and they start to talk and go out together. After some time they have sex, and Manu thinks they will be together, but the championships are over and Kusum returns to India, leaving Manu alone and sad. The end.
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See, it’s bitterness like this that makes me nervous about what Aanand L Rai is going to do with the plot of Zero.
On Tue, Nov 27, 2018 at 2:41 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I don’t know where to put this but I wanted to mention that I watched Karan’s interview with Baradwaj a couple of days ago and baradwaj asked him why he thought big budget studios failed in India. Karan then mentioned as part of the response that he remembers one instance of someone drawing up a report as to how to budget Amitabh’s time on set. Like he must be on set at this time, shoot for this set of hours etc. But Karan was like are you crazy, the messages I send him is like thanks Amit uncle for coming out for the films promotion xoxo. And it just reminded of when you did one of those Hindi film 101’s in which you mentioned that the reason Amitabh was part of the great gatsby was that the team came down and talked to him as opposed to the people that thought they could just send him a script and the job was done. Which is why apart from the wonderful movies that are made, the way the actual hindi film industry works is really fascinating to read about. And thanks to your blog I’ve gained clarity as to how various issues including Nepotism is not as straightforward as the general public tends to paint it
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First, thank you for thanking me!
Second, thank you for saying the thing about how it confirms my arguments! I watched the interview and was thinking that, but wasn’t confident enough to say it.
And you should comment more! I like your comments.
On Tue, Nov 27, 2018 at 5:38 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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