Monday Morning Questions: What Do You Want to Ask Me The First Week in March?

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Happy Monday! I forgot I am hosting tonight and my apartment is kind of a doggy disaster!

As always, you can ask me anything you want from the personal (“still no dog name?”) to the specific and factual (“why are there so few dogs in Indian movies?”) to the general discussion (“it was Shraddha’s birthday yesterday, is she still a terrible actress?”).

And, I have a question for you! I reposted the Aashiqui 2 review in honor of Shraddha’s birthday, which is such a swoony teenage movie, and it made me wonder, what is the moment you all first fell in love with your Indian movie star crush?  Or, who was your first movie crush?

I can answer both for me! I fell in love with Shahrukh about an hour and 20 minutes in to DDLJ, the moment responds to Kajol asking if he is coming to her wedding by saying “no” and then shaking his head and backing away. He just plays that moment so perfectly, in love but not pressuring her, just letting her know, and suddenly dignified after being silly until then.

And my first ever movie crush was the hero from the original 1930s King Kong. Don’t ask me why, he was just dreamy.

42 thoughts on “Monday Morning Questions: What Do You Want to Ask Me The First Week in March?”

  2. What was the real box office of Kangana’s film? (can’t spell it and don’t have time to look up name right now) She had a success party and I don’t recall anyone calling it a success. Her violent anti- Pakistan comments about going to the border and shooting and her lashing out at Shazi (sp?) for having a cultural festival in Pakistan were over the top even for her.

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    • Based on the global figures, it only did so-so. Decent opening, then dropped off fast. Reading between the lines, looks like people turned out because it was a holiday weekend and looked like a big movie, word of mouth wasn’t good and the controversy made people lose interest, and it dropped off. If you compare it with Raazi, which was also a female lead patriotic historical with only one big name, it’s not even close. The difference being that Raazi looked good just from the trailers and then got amazing word of mouth after it came out. Because it had an actual good director with a firm hand who had a producer that supported her.

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  4. Good morning! My first movie crushes were Luke Skywalker and Han Solo (not really the actors, but the characters). Later a fellow geek friend and I flipped a coin to see who “got” Luke and who “got” Han, and I “got” Luke. Have followed Mark Hamill’s career with interest ever since. He’s a hoot on Twitter!

    Shah Rukh, I’ve told the story here a couple of times. I saw him on posters in people’s homes when I lived in rural Ethiopia in the early 2000’s. Was so intrigued by his arresting face, even in stills, that I looked him up online–on a painfully slow dial-up modem, I might add. Didn’t start watching his movies til 2015, but I didn’t forget his face or his name in the interval.

    Question, which you may have answered elsewhere. Is there any tradition of sci-fi movies in India? Not really counting super hero movies, or movies where gods and goddesses have super human abilities. But things like speculative, near future stories about tech or ideas and their impact on humanity? I can think of PK (which I’ve seen) and the Hrithik alien one (which I haven’t). If not, why not?

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    • First, for Han-Luke, this video:

      And thank you for such an interesting question! You got me thinking about it more deeply than I have before. Short answer is no, India doesn’t have a tradition of sci-fi in the way we do in the West. There are the occasional “superhero” kind of movies with a scientific origin, and there are movies with a scientific macguffin (everyone wants the sun-battery), and Shankar’s Robot movies definitely qualify as part of a science fiction tradition, but there aren’t really the massive world building philosophical question films as a whole genre.

      I would say it is because India didn’t experience the industrial revolution the same way the West did. There was no moment of “factories and scientific advances will save us all”, instead that same era saw a move towards “Swadeshi”, the idea that old ways are best and industry was tied to western colonialism. Which is absolutely true, the scientific advances in the West were destroying the rest of the world in a quest for raw materials. And then the “Atomic Era” in the West was the “Independence Era” in India, so they also missed the whole push towards a new wave of “Better Living Through Technology” because they were in the period of “Better Living Through Freedom”.

      I guess the bottom line is, Indian culture for various complex historical reasons (and philosophical, Hinduism says that we are currently living through the darkest period) looks to the past for a better live, while Western culture for various complex historical reasons (and practical, America doesn’t really have a distant past to look at) looks to the future. So in India, you have the Puranic style films looking to a past filled with wonders, while in Western culture you have those same films looking to the future.

      On Mon, Mar 4, 2019 at 8:54 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • Oh, I can’t wait until I can watch that video! 🙂

        Interesting points about techno-optimism and techno-phobia, both of which inform Western sci-fi traditions. I think of the great observatories and mathematical contributions of Indians, and I bet there’s a speculative/sci-fi literary tradition in India. Maybe it just hasn’t made it to the movies. Or maybe the superhero and stories of gods and goddesses fill a similar need at the movies.

        Interesting too about pessimism/fatalism. I recall an interesting YouTube video an Indian colleague had me watch comparing the way people think about time spans when they believe they have one life on Earth before whatever comes after, vs when they believe they have many many lives on Earth.

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        • This sent me down a pleasant rabbit hole of Amartya Sen–a rare economist who is also a human rights hero–and what he has said about the Industrial Revolution in India. It may be more fair to say that India’s industrial revolution was nipped in the bud by the East India company and then the Raj, who wanted a captive market in India from which to export raw goods and into which to sell British manufactured goods. But apparently people like Shashi Tharoor overstate the case a bit–speculating from little evidence on what a miraculous economy India would be today sans British colonialism.

          Anyway, here is a well-written review of Amartya Sen’s Argumentative Indian, which I highly recommend as a place to gain an alternate understanding of Hinduism as a philosophical tradition than the Hindutva picture.

          https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/jul/03/historybooks.features

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      • Watched Han x Luke. Nice! Got me thinking, if Luke had found love, would that have diminished his power, as a Jedi, and as a compelling character? Are there monk superheroes in Indian film? Renunciates who change the world, or the course of history? (Not counting Gandhi.)

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        • In Hinduism, absolutely! It’s filled with noble powerful celibate characters. But it really isn’t super common in films, at least not for the hero. Not counting the angry widower hero, or the perfect pure-until-marriage hero.

          There’s a whole thing with the “Brahmachari” characters. But they are less likely to be the hero, and more likely to be the friend of the hero. They loosely follow the Hanuman dynamic, the stronger wiser sacrificing friend who follows the hero and sacrifices his own desires for the hero. Danny Denzongpa plays this role A LOT for reasons I am not clear on. Could just be because he is really good at it. Oh, and I guess Zayeed Khan in both Raees and Zero.

          What is a not-uncommon plot is a romantic comedy about a “Brahmachari” being won over and falling in love. It’s treated humorously, not like they are betraying some great vow, but just changing their minds about a live choice. There’s a classic 60s Shammi Kapoor romance about a poor young woman who is rejected by her wealthy fiancee, taken in by a celibate who runs an orphanage (Shammi Kapoor), he gives her a make over and confidence to win over her fiance again, but of course they have fallen in love by then.

          And if you have a hard time remembering the term “brahmachari”, let me recommend this song in which our hero enthusiastically declares his celibate lifestyle the first day he arrives at his college campus:

          On Mon, Mar 4, 2019 at 10:08 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  5. Fun question!
    I felt in love with Maddy when I saw a gif like this years ago:

    https://goo.gl/images/3xqPZ1

    I didn’t know who is this, and from which movie this scene is, but I was like: WOW. Later I saw Rang de Basanti, and I didn’t know it’s the same guy and I fall in love again.

    I also remember exact moment I fell in love with Tovino. I was watching Godha, and there is this scene when Tovi is in Punjab, and Wamiqa’s brother comes to take her, and Tovino beats him. OMG when he throws the policeman on the floor, and gets up.

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  6. First Indian movie crush was probably Shahid in Jab We Met – maybe the goodbye scene right before the interval, similar to your DDLJ moment. That smile.

    First movie crush where I remember falling hard was Brad Pitt in A River Runs Through It. Peak Brad Pitt hotness, and that character is a heartbreaker. Went back to the theater so many times.

    Question: What is it that causes particular Hollywood movies to have an impact on the kinds of movies that get made in India? Not just trends like big exportable action movies with car chases, but a particular movie like Gravity that gets talked about in the industry and shows up as influence in different films a few years later? Do some movies have a bigger creative impact or am I just making that up? I was thinking over the weekend after talking with friends how the group of Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro, and Alejandro Inarritu have kind of dominated the best director Oscars of the past few years, and you can see their influence show up in multiple ways and places (space, monsters, imperfect action heroes).

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    • What an interesting question! It’s something that I can’t promise to have a definitive “this is it” answer to, but there are some things I can suggest as a theory.

      The biggest reason is of course if the film is a hit in India. But what makes a film a hit in India? I’d guess it is the visuals more than anything else. Because the language problems means the narrative and characters won’t come through as clearly to a Non-English speaking audience. Plus, the plot has to have something universal. So, like, a movie like Hidden Figures might struggle because it is about a particular time and place in American history. And then you can have a movie like Knight and Day get a remake in India because the plot will translate and move overseas easily even if it wasn’t a big hit back home.

      Beyond that, I really don’t know what makes some films and directors hit and others not. One thing that might make a difference is that the creative folks in India share influences a lot more. Like, you are more likely to have a casual hang out among all the top directors where they trade DVDs and talk about their favorite directors from other industries. What I love about Indian film is that those influences aren’t limited to just Hollywood. There’s also Korean, Hong Kong, other languages within India, really anything people are excited about might pop-up anywhere. Karan mentioned this kind of obliquely in an interview related to his release of Robot 2.0, that he befriended Rana Daggubatti partly so he could call him up and say “hey, what’s exciting in the south?” and make sure he doesn’t miss anything down there.

      On Mon, Mar 4, 2019 at 4:40 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  7. In case the site doesn’t recognize me: Braganza here.
    I have a question you might not be able to answer, although I went and looked up your posts about censorship. I was just reading an article in the NY Times about the former MPAA chair, who recently resigned after many years. She said that NO ONE wants a G-rating any more, even movies that are clearly for children, to the point that people will throw in a gratuitous “s***” so they don’t get it. This is definitely different from how things were when I was growing up. And I was thinking I’ve seen a lot of U/A movies lately, although that may be my personal taste. But it seems like most movies would want a U. Do you think the ratings affect the box office like they do in the States?
    First Hindi movie crush was Rahul Bose, in Chameli, the first glimpse of him when he’s looking into the rain and thinking about his dead wife, in a business suit. (He’s in the suit, not the wife). He just looks so . . . smart. And sad. And elegant in the suit. Unlike the heroes in movies I’d previously seen, he seemed like a grown-up.

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    • interesting ratings question! I don’t know for sure about India, but I suspect far fewer people are aware of ratings and how they function than in America. Which is honestly really healthy, the ratings system in America is so broken that I don’t think it can really be used in the way it was intended (to help parents decide what movies are appropriate for their children). There are so many PG movies that I think are still not child appropriate, and so many R movies that are. The decision should be based on what you know of this particular film, not just a rating.

      Oooo, Rahul Bose is a good crush. My first Rahul Bose movie was Jhankaar Beats, where he was charming and interesting but not smart or sad at all.

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      • Yeah, it’s interesting that our film ratings are more of a marketing tool now. In India, will an “A” rating tank a movie? (Probably not all the time, since that must be what something like Gangs of Wasseypur got, right?). I watched Yeh Saali Zindagi a long while ago, which I think is an attempt to merge a dark, Tarantinoesque sensibility with a more mainstream Hindi movie plot–it has a hitman and a bunch of gangsters and it’s a bit violent and scary, but there’s also a sweet pure love story and a tidy ending. Anyway, there are bleeped-out bad words throughout the movie and I wondered if that were an attempt to make it seem really dark but still get a mainstream audience?

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  8. Not related to BW at all but I’m really curious and so here goes – what is happening in the royal family in Britain? Is it just social media shenanigans?

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      • I thought you’d know cos you know everything 🙂 I don’t know either, just that twitter abuzz with feud between Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton.

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        • Well, they are very different people, aren’t they? Like, I wouldn’t necessarily expect them to become best friends right away. But then, do any sisters-in-law become best friends right away? Except Juhi and Rani in Paheli.

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  9. Movie star crush – Shahrukh, of course. I fell in love with him when he was Abhimanyu Rai in Fauji. IMDB tells me I was 10 at the time. There is something special/intense about a pre-teen crush that nothing else can match.

    My question for you: what movies would you recommend to introduce kids to Bollywood. I don’t mean children’s movies, but regular movies that I can have on in the background while my 4 year old is running around. I grew up with Bollywood and just picked up so much stuff even before I realized I was watching movies. Now that I live outside India, I want to give some of that same feeling to my daughter. So far, she has ‘watched’ Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi and Parichay. She is a bit of a sensitive soul, so probably not stuff with violence. I am not asking for PG movies in the American sense, more like movies that would play on Doordarshan and the whole family would sit and watch. Though, I have a very clear memory of watching Ardh Satya at age 4 with my parents and my mom shielding my eyes at certain parts – so maybe not exactly that either.

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    • What a fun question! Dil To Pagal Hai is the movie I have gotten the best feedback about for children. Which I guess I can see, it is all bright colors and lots of songs, and if they care about the plot, it is an easy one to explain (“both these girls love this boy”). Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, Raja Hindustani, Hum Hain Rahe Pyar Ki, Hum Aapke Hain Koun, Mujshe Dosti Karoge, Pyaar Impossible, colorful and about families with kid characters and/or animals. Hum Saath Saath Hain might be another good one. Ek Ladki Ko Dekha after it is available streaming. There’s also the classic fantasy films, Aan, and Rajkumari (I love Rajkumari). Bobby of course. Maybe some Shammi 60s movies, the lighter ones like Prince, An Evening in Paris, Brahmachari. If she liked Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi, there is also Mr. and Mrs. 55 which is really light, and Shree 420 which is mostly light.

      That’s, like, a WHOLE BUNCH of ideas! You can pick and choose among them, but I don’t think any of them have violence (beyond the super fake fairy tale kind), and they all have good songs and bright colors and Hindi dialogue.

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  10. The first question is easy: Hrithik and Aishwarya’s sword fight in Jodhaa Akbar and then the sword practice scene started my crush on Hrithik for sure.

    I always remember having my first teen obsession for Patrick Swayze, not just from Dirty Dancing (but, of course!), but also from the miniseires North and South. I had a huge poster of Johnny Castle on my bedroom door and I watched that movie so many times. I was so obsessed that when Swayze died my dad actually called to see how I was doing! I also vaguely remember, now in hindsight, a misguided love for Kirk Cameron. But other than Kirk, I definitely liked my share of teen heartthrobs but tended to like the more mature looking ones like Michael Schoeffling (not just from 16 Candles, but Mermaids, too), Judd Nelson, Jason Patric, and…can’t believe I’m admitting this one…Sylvester Stallone:) His fluffy hair and sculpted bod in Rocky 3 definitely made an impression on the teen me.

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    • I found the Rocky series in college and OH MAN, I had such a crush on Stallone. Because he was beautiful, but also brilliant, his performance and his writing for the first few Rockys are just out of this world. And then he got weird and less brilliant and less beautiful later, but Rocky I and II just slay me. Even III a little bit.

      Oh, and speaking of 16 Candles, you should comment on my To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before posts! Because no one else is, and you saw the movie, right?

      On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 8:38 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • I love Rocky I and II for being “serious” films, but Rocky III is probably my secret fave…I rewatched it recently with my dad, brother, and nephew and it is definitely a bonding film in our family.

        I have seen To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and it is a throwback to the Molly movies, but it was kind of forgettable for me since I’m not the target age for it? I found myself much more attracted to John Corbett as the father:)

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        • Oh, you are making me want to rewatch the Rocky movies! At least the first 3. Oh! Or Creed II! I still haven’t seen that!

          At the very least, I need your opinion on the To All remake post as to who should play John Corbett in the Indian version. I almost think Anil Kapoor, but I don’t know.

          On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 9:38 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  11. Did you ever see Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi? I just rewatched the first and then watched the sequel. I had fast forwarded through the 1st when I first watched it, but enjoyed it more the second time. Jimmy Shergill steals the second one…I can’t figure out his career at all. He’s always playing an over the top character but he does it in such a weirdly realistic and low-key way.

    Jass Gill was also quite cute in the sequel!

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    • I didn’t, I enjoyed the first as a very pleasant happy watch but couldn’t tell if the second was going to be better, the same, or worse. If it was the same or better, I want to watch it, but any worse and it’s probably not worth it.

      On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 8:48 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • I think it was kind of better than the first? One of my favorite Jimmy Shergill performances hands down. He and the other actor who plays the Pakistani policeman are the best part of the second and worth watching. It had more laugh out loud moments than the first one and some absurdist comedy that really worked for me. Like for many non-Hindi speakers, Hindi comedies sometimes don’t work for me, but this one did. Sonakshi is actually the weakest link here, but she still brings a little bit of the needed star power to elevate things. Her career trajectory is worrying me, but I love that she got a cool item number in Total Dhamaal.

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  12. You know my Bollywood origin story but specifically it was Pardesi Pardesi and the way that Aamir, Karishma and the dancers interacted that knocked me out, along with the beautiful music. And then I saw Dangal and was all hold up, this is the same actor? Wow! And off I went.

    For American films, first screen crush was Christopher Reeve. Apart from being shockingly handsome, as Superman he was funny and could fly. A total dream boyfriend for a 12 year old!

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  13. I think my first movie crush was John Abraham when I saw him in Dhoom. The last scene where he looks back and falls off into the sea (I think) is my favorite scene in the film. I even got into a couple of fights with a few guys from my class where we were having a Hrithik v/s John argument. I was probably in the 5th grade

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