No real reason for this post, except that I suddenly remembered I had purchased a year long access to JSTOR (very expensive, thank you donors here for funding it!) and could probably find a useful ethnographic paper on this topic. Which I am guessing will interest you all, because who doesn’t find incest interesting? Oh, and I also know there are all kinds of regional variations I am missing, I really hope you add on in the comments. This is more of a discussion post than a 101 post.
Continue readingMonthly Archives: April 2019
SOTY2 First Song! Tiger Can Jump Quite High
Karan loves his remixes, doesn’t he? Well, he is a smart cookie, he pays attention to what works and what doesn’t, and the remixes seem to work.
Continue readingKalank Review (SPOILERS): First Love is True Love is Only Love
What an interesting love quadrangle! I really really like the central set-up concept for this film, and kind of wish it could have been moved out of pre-partition India and into a regular rom-com setting. And really, if you like romances, you should watch it. Don’t spoil yourself! Read my no spoiler review instead.
Continue readingKalank Review (No Spoilers): The Plot is Not What You Think It Is
Well, that was fun!!!! If it had released 20 years ago, it would be a solid hit and forgotten in a month, and then it would pop-up on TV occasionally and people would say “oh yeah, that movie!” I don’t know how it will do in today’s world at the box office, but at least critically I want to treat it as the nice unambitious pleasant fairy tale it aspires to be, not as the Great Noble Brilliant Movie that it wasn’t even trying to be. I suspect other reviewers might ding it for not being the Great Noble Brilliant Movie they thing it should be without realizing it never wanted to be that.
Continue readingTwitter Tidbits: SOTY2, Bharat, and a Jewish Horror Movie! For Passover!
Oh, I am TOTALLY reposting my Ezra review for Passover!!!!!!! I just decided, it is the perfect way to celebrate. Plus, now there is going to be a remake? So I guess it makes sense.
Continue readingWednesday Watching Post: What Are You Reading and Watching and Thinking and Listening to This Week?
Happy Kalank Day! I get to leave work at 5, take Albie Dog to the dog park and let him run for half an hour, then go home and give him dinner and me dinner, then drive over and pick up my friend and KALANK. So exciting! This day cannot end fast enough.
Continue readingDo You Think I Am a Good Writer? Spread the Word!
And this is your monthly “tell people about this blog” reminder! I get to see referral data, so I can tell you that my referral’s are very very low. Most of my traffic comes from people randomly googling stuff like “Badla ending explained”. And that’s fine, but it also kind of makes me feel bad that none of my little reader-friends are going out in the world and telling other people about me. Like I am your weird friend who is okay to hang out with at her house, but at school you pretend you don’t know me.
Continue readingUpcoming Movie News: Bharat, India’s Most Wanted, Saand Ki Aankh, I Am Disappointed in 2 of Them
Little flurry of first looks and trailers today, and instead of getting me excited for the upcoming movies, they ended up dampening my enthusiasm. Except, surprisingly, for Bharat!
Continue readingAnother Silly Remake! Light in the Piazza, with Madhuri and Shahrukh as Delicately Flirting In-Laws
I like to do at least one long post a day, and with the Kalank release messing up my review schedule, and the Kalank news domination messing up anything interesting to talk about there, I’m retreating to fanfic for my long form writing. It’s that, or just a lot of Albie Dog photos. Or not writing anything, but then the words build up in my head and make me sick, so that’s no good. I need my 4,000 words a day purge!
Continue readingDiscussion Post: How Did You First Find/ReFind Indian Film/A Particular Language of Indian Film?
I know I have asked this question many times before, but it is a fun one. And one that everyone should be able to answer, even if the answer is “I was born and it was there because my parents are Indian”. Although I am also expanding it, so if you spent your life watching Indian movies and not really thinking about it, and then as a teenager really really fell in love with one movie that got you seriously into the films, tell that story. Or if you have already told your Hindi film story, tell your Tamil or Malayalam or Telugu film story instead. Remember, I am giving away an SRK poster at the end of the month to the person who makes the most comments!
Continue readingShow Your Appreciation, Give a Donation!
Oh boy, it’s Donation Reminder Day! Isn’t that fun? I currently have 1,235 followers. And only 12 people who give me donations. So, 0.1% is carrying the expense for the remaining 99.9%. That doesn’t seem right, does it?
Continue readingNews Round-Up: PC is Better than Yoko, Malaika is Not Getting Married, and Rohit Shetty Might Remake Satte Pe Satte (which of these stories is true? Or none of them?)
I’m ignoring the story about Kalank raising ticket prices because it includes super depressing comments like “movies are for rich people”. Instead, fun stories! PC with her usual ridiculous PR, Malaika and the wedding happy-happy, and a remake I am genuinely excited about.
Continue readingMonday Morning Questions: What Do You Want to Ask Me Kalank Week???
Happy Monday! I get to drive to work through 5 inches of snow. For those of you who don’t live in temperate climates, 5 inches of snow on the ground in mid-April is really not normal. But it’s supposed to all melt by this afternoon, so that’s something.
Continue readingSunday ReRun: Dil Hai Tumhaara, So Odd It’s Good or So Odd It’s Scary?
Jimmy Shergill, Preity Zinta, Mahima Choudary, Arjun Rampal, a hideous statue and a terrifying puppet. Why would you not want to watch this movie?
Continue readingNext Friday Classic and Next Sunday ReRun: Joseph (Malayalam) on Friday 4/19 and Mubarakan (Hindi) on Sunday 4/21
Kalank is really messing up my scheduling. Landing on Wednesday means all of Wednesday and Thursday will be taken up with those reviews, and the whole schedule gets weird. So I’m doing a Malayalam film on Friday instead, and then a big silly Hindi movie on Sunday.
Continue readingHindi Film 101: How Do You Become a Hindi Film Star? Let’s Find Out By Looking at the Current Stars!
Let’s see if I can do this! Maria in the comments said she has a hard time understanding what “debutante” means in descriptions of casts. And it sent me down a road, and I think what I am going to try to do is give the very brief highlights of all the working actors in Hindi film today.
Continue readingSilly Sunday: More Classic Film Remakes! Too Many Girls, My Second Favorite Eddie Bracken Movie! And the Plot Karan Johar Should Have Used for SOTY2
Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is first, obviously. And if I had better taste, it would be Hail the Conquering Hero, but that movie always feels a little too sad to me. Anyway, this movie isn’t sad! This movie is silly and fun and college and delightful, and should absolutely be Karan’s next plot to launch new stars. Hey, it worked in Hollywood! This is the movie that started off the careers of Ann Miller, Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Eddie Bracken, and Van Johnson (he was in the chorus).
Continue readingSilly Sunday FanFic: Overboard! With Shahrukh and Juhi, and Prabhas and Anushka!
I posted this late Wednesday night, but it got very very few views. I am hoping that is because people just didn’t see the post, not because they hate it. I have TV again thanks to youtube, which means I am seeing Overboard on a constant repeat, the way TV tends to play it. And I am thinking, once again, how easy it would be to fix this and make it the totally perfect plot. And so long as I am doing that, why not set it in India?
Continue readingI Had a Nice Saturday, How About You?
Happy Saturday Night! I am having my usual exciting Saturday evening, sitting around the house enjoying not having anything I have to do.
Continue readingNew Kalank Song! I Guess Aditya and Varun Are Friends?
Well, this is a fun song! And an extremely blatantly “we aren’t even trying” historically inaccurate song. Yaaaay! I love when movies stop trying and tell us they aren’t trying! Way better than pretending to be trying but not really.
Continue readingSaturday Small Talk: Talk Amongst Yourselves While I Renew My Driver’s License
Happy Saturday! I get to spend the morning waiting in line and doing paperwork. I’m honestly a little excited because I have a whole bag of books and I don’t have to feel guilty for reading, because I’m still doing something productive (waiting in line).
Continue readingHindi Film 101: Feminism in Translation, India versus the West and Sexual Agency
I’m pretty sure I’m not the best person to write this post, and fairly sure I don’t know what I am talking about. But I’m frustrated that no one else better than me is even trying, so I’m going to take a stab at it.
Continue readingTGIF Cuddly Men and Poster Contest! Win a Cuddly SRK Poster From Me!
Ready to be shocked? One of my co-workers just returned to me her SRK themed Christmas present! To be fair, she is neither desi nor an SRK fan, so it was just a poster of a random stranger. But still!!!! Anyway, I don’t have anything I can do with it, so I am making it a prize for one of you to win in a Comments context. Whoever comments the most between now and the end of the month, gets a beautiful poster of the final image in this post.
Continue readingTrailers! Tiger and Nani, Both Playing Sports Heroes in VERY DIFFERENT Movies
Thank you anonymous commentator for alerting me to the new Nani trailer! And thank you Karan Johar to alerting me to the new SOTY2 trailer. Although, that’s kind of his job, so I don’t know if I have to thank him for that.
Continue readingFriday Classics: Pinjar, The Simple Personal Version of Partition and Violence Against Women
I hope a lot of you watched this movie. It is worth watching, and it isn’t immediately intriguing. The filming and acting style is oddly stagey and direct, and the topic is hardly appealing. And yet, it has a power that no other film quite does.
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