Happy Monday! If I am understanding this holiday correctly, it makes the end of the solar month that contained the Winter Solstice. Basically a big party of “the Sun’s Coming Back!!! The Sun’s Coming Back!!!” And with that in mind, it is dedicated to Surya. All of this is things I can get behind, so I thought I would share it with you.
As always, you can ask me anything you want from the personal (“how is Dog Hazel doing?”) to the specific and factual (“Who is Surya and why are we celebrating Him today?”) to the general discussion (“Is anyone NOT excited about the Sun coming back?”)
Now, question for you! Simple one: What upcoming movies are you excited about?
I think I am more excited about Rajiv Menon’s new Tamil film than anything coming up in Hindi in the next few months. A sad state!
dontcallitbollywood 
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OK — I’ll ask it. How IS Dog Hazel doing?
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She’s running out of energy, has started wheezing just walking across the room. And she isn’t really interested in food any more. But she still likes having her tummy rubbed and sleeping on a soft pillow.
On Mon, Jan 14, 2019 at 6:29 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I have a little different definition of “upcoming” – for me “upcoming” are all the movies I’m waitng to see in streaming. And so it’s Laila Majnu, Padi Padi Leche Manasu with Sai Pallavi, and Kedarnath, oh and Zero of course.
From “real” upcoming films, You’re right, there is nothing exciting in hindi now. Only Ek ladki.. in Feburary.
I would watch this romantic film with Kriti Sanon, Karthik and Pankaj Tripathi too, but it will be only in March. And some others movies like Mental Hai Kya etc.
From other industries, I’m curious how south Queen remakes will be. And I want to see Prithiviraj’s Lucifer.
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Don’t forget Namaste England! We are all counting on you to tell us how bad it is.
I completely forgot about Ek Ladki! Thanks for reminding me. And darn it, looks like it is opening the same weekend as the Rajiv Menon movie. Unless Rajiv ends up getting rescheduled again.
Margaret
On Mon, Jan 14, 2019 at 8:52 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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You are my lucky charm! I was waiting for weeks for Namaste England and now when you mentioned it, I discovered it’s on Zee. Bad news is that Zee don’t have subtitles (stupid Zee, I’m still waiting for subs for Laila Majnu) but the good is at least it was released 🙂
From other movies that take ages to release and I’m still waiting – Abhiyum Anuvum (Abhiyude Katha Anuvinteyum). Tovino Thomas first tamil movie. First it was delayed multiple times, then finally released, but flopped badly and now nobody even mention it. And I’m still here waiting because I watched this teaser, more then one year ago, and decided I must watch the movie:
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Yaaay! One step at a time, at least Namaste England is streaming. And I feel like, witht hat plot, you will be able to figure it out without subtitles if you have to.
On Mon, Jan 14, 2019 at 11:35 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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True. Maybe without subtitles it will look like better movie
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I’m still in a post Zero funk in terms of watching stuff. I think I’ll end up watching it (or at least some scenes) almost as much as JHMS , but I can’t until it’s streaming somewhere.
I watched/napped through Mersal yesterday. I enjoyed it–the napping was more a function of the weather than the movie. My first exposure to Vijay and one of my first southern films other than Bahubabli 1 and 2. Didn’t realize the music was Rahman until I read your review, but I liked the songs a lot, so that makes sense.
Hmm, can’t think of any questions about the solstice, so maybe I’ll ask about kites. Do you think the tradition of kite flying, and cutting other people’s strings, originated in East or S. East Asia and spread to S. Asia, or vice versa, or were kites independently invented in multiple places?
Love to Hazel. Just thinking that when my childhood dog was dying of cancer with no appetite, he would perk up for boiled chicken and rice right until the end.
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When my beloved childhood dog was dying of cancer, she kept her appetite but started smelling sooooooooooo bad that we all lost ours. For like weeks, it wasn’t just at the end. After she died, we had to send all the rugs out to be cleaned. So that’s my first thought always with cancer “smell like you are rotting from the inside”. But I’ve never experienced it again, so I guess it was just her.
Mersal is ridiculous. Pretty, fun, nice songs, but really silly. I sympathize with you napping through it. I would suggest Maari as another southern film option on Netflix if you want one. The music isn’t Rahman, but it is pretty good, and the plot is cynical in an amusing way and makes a little more sense than Mersal.
Just for kicks before I check wiki, I am going to make a guess and say that Kite flying originated in China and spread from there. Because of paper and stuff. Now, let’s see if I am correct!
Ha! Wiki says China! But the fighter kites came from India.
On Mon, Jan 14, 2019 at 9:30 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Sometime I’d like to talk about the promotions of Zero. Especially the tie in with AR Rahman’s YouTube series “ARRived”–sort of The Voice but the reward is to be the “voice of Zero”. Here’s the anthem SRK did with AR and the other judges (I think?):
At the same time they did this fun and cheesy field hockey world cup video:
***SPOILERS for ARRived if anyone cares***
So the winner is here, he’s happy that he’s won and will be “the voice of Zero”.
But I actually had to do some detective work to find what happened after that. I noticed lots of folks asking Rahman, SRK, and Red Chillies about it on Twitter. With no response that I could see. According to the winner’s personal Twitter, he’s the voice of Salman on Issaqbaazi, but he’s not listed as such on the wiki information about the movie. Such a puzzle.
I’m just wondering, what’s the benefit to each party of this collaboration? Did they screw it up by not following through, or did they already get what they wanted out of it, hence dropping the follow-up?
Meanwhile, the Jodhpurkar guy who sang Mere Naam Tu is also a protegee of Rahman, I think, and somehow associated with ARRived, but I’m not clear how. Is this because Ajay-Atul are close with Rahman, or because of the tie ins, or other?
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I’m wondering if maybe the youtube series itself fell off and didn’t do as much as expected. I don’t remember hearing about it anywhere, including things like BollywoodHungama, and there wasn’t a ton of twitter promotions. It’s branded as a “youtube original”, maybe it was just a cashgrab from youtube and they didn’t really care about anything else?
Rahman seems to discover a lot of new singers, I have the impression that he just likes working with new voices.
On Mon, Jan 14, 2019 at 5:17 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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