I don’t like this song teaser system because I feel like I should put up a thing for us to talk about it, but then I end up saying the same things about the teaser that I want to say about the full song and it is all just confusing. Luckily this time I can tuck the teaser in at the end of a post about an actual song.
Two problems with Alia. First, she can’t dance. It’s just painful watching her with Tiger. If she wasn’t being promoted as a big special star in this song, she would be sidelined more. But she is the big special star, so poor Tiger has to dance alongside her the whole time instead of breaking free and doing a solo.
And second problem, for her own star persona purposes she wants to be very sexy and groundbreaking. Pole dance, negligee, and so on. The idea being “watch this song/movie, it’s Alia like never before”. But I don’t think that extreme sex is a good fit for Alia, or even for the song. I am distracted by her trying so hard to be sexy and can’t enjoy the song.
You know what occurs to me watching this? I wonder if Jacqueline Fernandez was the original actress planned. She can do pole dancing, it’s her special skill. And she has worked with Tiger before in Flying Jatt. And she can keep up with him in this kind of a dance, and is naturally sexy in a way that would make wearing a negligee feel normal and not distracting. It even kind of feels like one of their Flying Jatt dances, “Beat Pe Booty”.
It is of course completely reasonable for Alia to do a cameo in SOTY2, it’s not like Karan is shoving her in where it doesn’t make sense. She was the lead of the first film, it’s a nice little nod to her former character. I think Varun and Sid are rumored to be doing cameos as well. Just, NOT IN THIS SONG!!!!! If she popped up for 30 seconds in the middle of some other song, any other song, that would be fine. But this is just a very bad fit. And I resent it more than usual because this is otherwise a very good song.
Now, Bharat teaser! We only get 20 seconds, but it all feels perfectly natural and normal for these two stars. If Tiger and Alia felt like a slightly out of tune piano, Salman and Katrina together in this song feel like a perfectly tuned orchestra.
dontcallitbollywood 
Tiger will always be Tiger and, like with Salman, that’s fine with me. I hope somebody doesn’t convince him to “ACT”. I agree with you about Alia. Fernandez would have been a much better pick but she might have played a bit old next to Tiger. I know she isn’t old at all, but she gives off a mature, experienced vibe. And she’s a natural. Alia TRIES, which defeats the purpose.
BTW, getting back to Randeep, which has nothing to do with your post: now that I’ve changed my opinion on his person, I re-watched the kidnap film he made with Alia and he was very, very good. I also paid close attention to his portrayal of LSD in Baaghi 2. Didn’t believe him there; too quirky and too many mannerisms. I think he needs good direction to shine.
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Yes! That’s it exactly, Alia always feels like she is trying when she dances, instead of just having fun. It makes me dread her dance numbers.
On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 9:26 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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The same physicality which made Alia so effective in Dear Zindagi, Udta Punjab, and Gully Boy–lots of spark and toughness in a deceptively “cute” package–also limits her ability to do any sort of femme fatale bit. As does her limited dancing ability, as you say. Hopefully she’ll grow into being confident enough to know what kind of roles she isn’t suited for.
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Maybe she knew this was a bad idea but did it anyway because Karan asked her? But yes, it just doesn’t work for her. And you point out something, it’s not just her cuteness, it’s her intelligence/strength. I just don’t believe her as a casually happy sexy type, I feel like she is thinking too much. She’s super sexy in 2 States and Humpty Sharma and Raazi and movies where she is doing a sex scene with someone with their minds involved. Heck, even in Kalank her sex scene with Aditya was great. But this, just a sexy dance with no thought to it, doesn’t work with her at all.
On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 9:32 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Alia is shooting herself in the foot by doing things that don’t suit her at all. First Kalank and now this. She looks like she’s 14 years old most of the time. It’s disturbing to even see her doing these sexy moves and pole dancing with a himbo like Tiger. Major ick factor. It shows up all her deficiencies. Everything is not for everyone and she should know herself better as an actress than to do this. The next disaster will be Inshallah. I don’t care about age differences generally speaking but Alia doesn’t even look like a full fledged adult most of the time. For her to be paired up with someone that looks as old as Salman is really creepy especially because he has such an uncle vibe now with all the extra weight and bloating. I’m disturbed seeing her with Tiger so I can’t even imagine the gross factor that’s going to be there with Salman.
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Yeah, it’s not a good idea. Maybe this is going to be her “mistakes” year? I’m also nervous about the Rajamouli movie, because a southern film either means she will have a really good part that will require a lot of new skills she may not be able to master, or a lousy part that will make her look weak. And there’s Brahmastra too, if that ever releases, where again she will either be struggling with fight scenes and things that don’t really work for her, or will be minimized to just the “love interest” role.
She is a really good actress and has a great range, and I think she can handle any part, but only if she really buckles down and works at it, and filming 5 movies at once is not going to let her do that. If she wanted to take a role as a sexy femme fatale in a film noir and spent 6 months preparing, I think she could knock it out of the park. But it’s not the kind of thing she can just show up and do an item song and make work.
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I’m not sure she can pull off anything sexy because she just looks too young. She doesn’t even have a Lolita thing going. Just looks like a kid who is wearing short grown-up clothes and doing weird moves. Watching her in this is second-hand embarrassment.
If she wants to do a femme fatale role, maybe she should wait a few years and grow up some more first. I don’t know what’s the hurry. There is no need to do 5 films a year either. She won’t have anything left to look forward to if she finishes up so many genres and directors this early on. Not only that, people are already getting fed up of Alia overexposure. It would be so much better for her to cut down and do 1 or 2 movies a year and really focus on those roles. She’s a good actress but nowadays I’m noticing all the same acting tricks like the squinty eyes thing that she does. Keep it up and people will start noticing the acting similarities in every role and consider her limited.
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Been a regular reader of your blogs in the last few months…keep up the great job!
Being an avid Alia fan…I am disappointed!!!
Like someone said above, she looks uncomfortable and too young to be doing the so called seductive moves…moreover she seems to have lost too much weight which has really affected her bubbly sweet image- is this for a role?
I love her acting and usually can’t look away from her…but she is just everywhere…!!! And its only the first quarter of 2019….the brilliance of Alia in Gully Boy was watching her after Raazi- a diametrically differrent flavor!
Is there a reason why she is in a spree of signing movies? Is the ranbir-Alia ( not a fan!) marriage on the cards soon, with the Kapoor bahus giving their careers a backseat?
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Welcome! Thank you for commenting!
I am thinking of the “Kapoor Bahu” issue too and really hoping it isn’t true. Neetu had a similar spree of films and then stopped dead and switched to marriage.
I’ve been noticing that Alia looks less baby fat like too, but it could just be age? I’ve known people who hit 24-25 and suddenly their body shifts.
I forgot about Gully Boy! Yes, if Alia had only done Raazi and Gully Boy, and maybe Sadak 2, I would be very happy with her career. But there is just way too much going on with her right now.
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I actually watched a Kalank interview with the cast where they were all given food to eat while the interview happens and Alia literally did not touch a single thing and was talking about her keto diet or something, I think she might be at that point of extreme dieting to lose the baby fat – perhaps in an attempt to look more womanly? Either way, she looks great but she still looks like a child. Definitely not the kind of person who would look good next to Salman, Tiger, NTR or Ram Charan (for the Rajamouli movie). I’m actually surprised that Rajamouli went for her – it’s most likely an attempt to get Bollywood audience (like what Prabhas is doing with Shraddha and Neil Nitin Mukesh for Saaho)
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I’m watching an American TV show right now with Anna Faris. She has a face like Alia’s, is 40 years old and could still easily play 12. I think no matter what Alia does, she is just gonna look young until she suddenly looks old.
On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 8:53 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I just saw this song and it made me so uncomfortable! I love Alia. I think she is a fantastic actress. I appreciate how hard she works and wants to expand her horizons by working in different genres. I can also appreciate that she wants to experiment as an actor and probably can’t say no to KJo. But this song… NOOO! It just felt so dirty and inappropriate watching her in it. Also, I feel like Alia is usually great at creating chemistry with her co-actors, but here she didn’t seem to have any chemistry with Tiger.
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Yes to the chemistry! I have never really found Tiger to have chemistry with anyone, which is fine, some actors can do it and some can’t. But this song really really needs either smoking chemistry between the two leads, or two people who are sexy on their own. I think Alia can do great chemistry, but she can’t really do sexy all by herself.
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I agree. In terms of the dancing abilities, I felt very similarly watching Hrithik and Kareena in their earlier movies, but at least they had crackling chemistry. The other big difference between Kareena and Alia is that Kareena seemed as cherubic as Alia does (even in her early days). So, Alia’s OTT “sexiness” is still a bit icky to me. But Kareena has evolved so much as a dancer, so I have hope that Alia will eventually do the same and I maybe as Alia gets older she can pull off some of these roles.
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Kareena also always seemed to have confidence on the dance floor. Somehow I feel like Alia always feels a little worried when she is dancing.
On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 2:38 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Since everybody is swinging pro/con Alia here, I want to add my Kalki comments which really belong in the “Actors I Dislike For No Reason” section. Kalki’s story intrigues me. She’s French, but was born and raised in India to devotees of Sri Aurobindo. She speaks several languages, attended college overseas, and returned to India to become an actress. She’s proficient, profuse, and the recipient of many acting awards. At times, she is quite good. Then why don’t I liked her? Maybe it’s all the Hindi dialog coming out of that so-not-Indian face. Or the Audrey Tautou cuteness, endearing to the point of nausea. I think I saw her dance in a film once and she looked uncomfortable. There’s something about non-Indian actresses in Indian movies that grates on my nerves. Basically, directors sprinkle them around to convey sense of place, not to be anything real. I’d welcome a REAL cross-cultural romance like the one in Basmati Blues with Brie Larson and Utkarsh Ambudkar, and the sweet but unrequited love story between Aamir and the British gal in Lagaan. Maybe there are more I don’t now about. If so, please add to my list which gets longer every day. But getting back to Kalki; my beef with her might be that she’s basically Indian but next to Sonakshi or Madhuri, or Taamanaah, she’s Howdy Doody.
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To me, Kalki doesn’t seem to really fit anywhere. Not so much because she is white, but because of her acting. She reminds me a lot of Radhike Apte actually, only she arrived a few years too early. She does artier movies that play overseas, English language films set in India. And she does the occasional role in a mainstream film. But there isn’t a good place for a heroine who is a little less gorgeous and glamorous and a little more odd, or at least wasn’t when she was starting out. Radhike and Sanya seem to be finding their way now, even Bhumi, but Kalki is too familiar to start over as the heroine in those low budget interesting films, so she is kind of betwixt and between.
For some background, there have always been “white” actors in Indian film. Two of the first big stars of Hindi cinema were Jewish-European heritage. Amy Jackson and Katrina Kaif are both white British folks (Katrina officially has a desi father, but she does not speak Hindi and seems to not have had any connection to Indian culture before moving there) who found a place in Hindi film. Tom Alter was one of the best Euro-Indian actors, the child and grandchild of missionaries, his family had been in India for 3 generations. He had a wonderful stage training and half the time his roles in movies were playing regular Indian folks who happened to have pale skin. He had beautiful Hindi pronunciation, better than a lot of the Indian-heritage stars working today.
I’m curious to see what happens with Kalki. She started as a teenager and still had that very very young look for a long time, but now that she is looking older and less innocent, I’m not sure what will happen to her career.
Oh, and for movies with good roles for white ladies, there’s one I will be reviewing tomorrow, Iyobinte Pushtakam. It’s a Malayalam film that integrates the heroine’s skin color into the colonial era plot, and treats her seriously. The actress is the daughter of an Indian dancer and an Australian artist, raised in India, but with looks that could let her play European or Indian as needed. You can watch the movie on hotstar, or einthusan.
On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 2:28 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Thanks. I’ll try to see it. Sounds right up my alley. And as to Utkarsh. Is he Indian? I think so. Aside from Brie, Donald Sutherland, Scott Bakula and what’s her name from Cagney and Lacey? all the actors in Basmati Blues were Indian. It was made there with an Indian crew. According to the Americans, filming was a nightmare. Mmmm…
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Thanks for steering me towards that cast list, it is very interesting! All the desi actors are American actually, except for “Mrs. Patel”.
On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 3:06 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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That was incredibly unsexy. I don’t know if I can blame Alia only, Tiger is not doing it for me either in this, and 1. Besides being charming, I think he’s attractive in a trashy gym bro hook up way 2. Considering said trashy gym bro hook up vibe, you’d think this song would suit him and it does not at all. 3. I really, really hate the sets and lighting, it’s all so clinical and plastic doll looking. And the song is fine, it’s so unfair. Maybe If they’d leant into the whole “this lady is so playful but clumsy about lurve the hero has to lug her around” thing it might have been quite a different song.
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I think the music and moves were perfectly designed to make Tiger as sexy as possible. But then throwing in Alia as his co-dancer and using that big set kind of spoiled it. I think you might be right,t he sexiest part to me was when he was throwing her around int he beginning,a nd he’s got the muscles to really do gun lifts and stuff if they leaned into that.
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It’s a really weird choice to think “this is a song about sex, let’s make the setting really big and impersonal instead of intimate”. I’ve seen Govinda songs where he kind of steers the heroine around like a shopping trolley and he makes it into a joke a little, so you can do the same but lean into the Dirty Dancing aspect of it.
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LOVE the phrase “gym bro hook-up”!
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lol thanks!
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I might be in the minority but I think Tiger is worse off in the song. he literally doesn’t care about his costar or about chemistry. Just wants his flips and splits. I feel his dancing is getting repetitive because they’re not situational. It’s like his movies exist so he can dance. Also, this video gives me “Love mera hit hit” vibes, only that song had soooo much more chemistry between the leads.
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Umm I was talking about the SOTY song and not Bharat song
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I figured 🙂
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I have never found Tiger good at interacting with his co-stars. The one exception being Amrita Singh because she WILL force you to acknowledge her. It’s fine in his big hero action movies, because the hero doesn’t really interact, he is just the hero. But how is it going to work in a romance?
And yes, totally agree with your criticism! no chemistry, songs aren’t situation, it’s just to show off Tiger’s moves. Same with his fight scenes, but at least with the fight scenes he needs a decent scene partner to make it work.
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Don’t wanna be mean but Alia’s golden outfit looks like a onesie 😦 And whats with her – she looks emaciated!
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So far I’ve noticed that she is losing the baby fat but still has a nice natural body. At least, that is how she looked in Kalank. I really hope she doesn’t go farther than that. If nothing else, traditional Indian clothing looks terrible on women who have no curves, it would make her a lot harder to costume!
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Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! Like with Arjun Kapoor, he’s still finding his acting chops but when he’s dancing, I can’t take my eyes off. That cybertronic body (actually, I prefer a more natural physique) and his dad’s unhandsomely compelling face absent all the dissipation, demand my attention. I watched the SOTY nvid a few times intending to concentrate on Alia, but that was impossible. My attention kept straying to him and his awesome, machine-like yet still natural movements.
And speaking of Arjun: Tiger Shroff has improved since his debut; the Big Boy not so much. He was good with Ranveer and Sonakshi but it’s been steadily downhill since then. Alia was no help and the movie with Karina Kapoor Khan made me cringe. A follower commented that he’s getting lazy. I agree. Maybe it’s Malaika’s fault.
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Hmm. Maybe Tiger=Shraddha Arjun=Pari? I found Arjun and Parineeta super impressive in their debut films and the few right after, but then they just don’t seem able or willing to put in the work any more. I haven’t really found Tiger or Shraddha impressive, but they work very very hard and they are incrementally improving film by film.
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I could not even finish watching that SOTY2 song because of all the second hand embarrassment. Dressing like Beyoncé in that golden bodysuit makes it worse when Alia is pretty much on the opposite side of the spectrum when it comes to natural sex appeal and dance skills. All this recent discussion of Alia made me realize that none of the movies that I think of as being good Alia movies (Highway, Udta Punjab, Kapoor & Sons, Dear Zindagi, Gully Boy) are Karan Johar movies. While Karan has been a great mentor in terms of providing her with exposure, he does not actually seem to know what roles will suit her. There are the two Dulhaniya movies that he produced, which while good, don’t really showcase Alia’s talents as other directors seem to have done.
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Small correction, Kapoor & Sons was a Karan movie. Although he talked about how he was hands off on that one, trusted the director to do something different from what he would do.
But otherwise, yes! I was just thinking about that with our discussion of SOTY1 and Highway. SOTY really didn’t show off what makes her special, I barely noticed her in it. It was Highway that brought out what made her different.
On Thu, May 2, 2019 at 8:09 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I totally agree that I love the song but I don’t care much for the actual video. First of all, I don’t understand the point of this song in SOTY2. So far all the songs that have come out, I could say they were an equivalent to a song in SOTY (Disco Deewane = Jawaani, Radha = Mumbai Dilli), but I can’t say the same for this song.
Is it just me or does Tiger not have chemistry with any of his co-stars? I know I’ve only seen like a couple Tiger movies but I never thought he had great chemistry with anyone. He and Alia definitely don’t have chemistry.
I am sort of disappointed that Varun and Sid don’t have their own special appearances in SOTY2. It would have been nice to see them in it as well.
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Not just you, I think someone else already made a similar comment about Tiger just not having chemistry with anyone.
Oh, so long as you are here, what’s the deal with the new Mahesh Babu movie?
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I actually have no idea about it. The trailers look interesting enough but they’re not super exciting to be honest. The director is the same guy who made Munna with Prabhas and Oopiri with Nagarjuna so he has a pretty wide range of types of movies. But Maharshi seems to be closer to Munna. I’ll watch it as soon as possible but I have no idea what to really expect.
By the way, my friend who saw Jersey said that it was amazing. I wasn’t able to see it and I doubt that it survived the onslaught of Avengers Endgame, especially with Maharshi as well next weekend. But apparently Jersey is definitely a movie to look out for.
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Shoot, I could have seen Jersey. I was going to, and then my friend canceled and I just couldn’t get myself to go all the way out to the movie theater alone.
On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 8:53 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I’m sure it will show up online soon enough 🙂
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I saw the song and I really don’t see anything weird in it? To me she looks her age but I think the reason why she looks young in the industry is because most of them have more mature looks than the average person. For example, Deepika was like 20/21 during the filming of OSO but most girls of that age look much younger than she did in that film and could never look right next to SRK. Its not that she looked old really but simply mature. She had a mature look. Being talk helps a lot too. Sonam has a more youthful face to me but she’s tall and that makes her look mature and able to be paired with actors much older even when she was only 21-23. Priyanka was also only 20 during the filming of Andaaz but she didn’t look like 80 percent of 29 year olds (to me). She also had that mature look. I don’t think Alia is an oddity in real life- most 25/26 year old Indian girls look like her age to me. If you see pics of her with her non film friends on instagram, they all look the same age. It’s simply that she’s an oddity in the industry for looking her age because the common thing is to look mature and be able to act opposite older actors. I think Shraddha was around 24 when she did that movie luv ka the end or something in 2011 and the way she looked in that film was similar to Alia too- basically she looked her age and would have looked weird with any older established male actor. Compared to the previous actresses I mentioned who have mature, statuesque appearances. I think Ananya Pandey will kind of have this problem too of being only able to act with actors who look similar to her in age because she looks her age and doesn’t have that mature look. Whereas Sara, Jahnvi can act opposite somewhat older ones
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Tiger is the opposite to me. He looks older than his age.
It seems like actresses usually look older, and actors younger, so they meet in the middle both playing college age. But Tiger looks soooooooooo old, mostly thanks to his body-building.
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