Happy Monday! I am hosting the church quilting group tonight and debating which is more important, a last minute vacuum or a last minute “wear out the dog” trip to the dog park. I only have time for one and right now I am leaning dog park.
Now, question for you! We’ve been talking about how none of the Student of the Year 2 songs really have a chemistry between the three stars on any level, nothing to draw you in to their relationships. What are the worst least chemistry couples you have ever seen onscreen?
I am going to resist the urge to put up the Madhuri-Vinod Dayavan song again, you have all suffered enough. Instead I am going to put up my favorite song from Josh, one of my favorite songs in general, which is ruined for me because I absolutely cannot buy Aishwarya Rai and Chandrachur Singh as a couple. So SOTY2 could be worse!
dontcallitbollywood 
One of the worst things about Josh ( which took me waaay too long to realise was no ones name in the film even though they being Christian all had western names) is that the ONLY chemistry is between Shah Rukh and Aish who are unfortunately brother and sister. The rest of the cast is sooo bland. Which brings me to SOTY2 and the “new crop”. I don’t give a fig about nepotism but why are all these “kids of “ newcomers so devoid of charisma? The Alia, Varun, Siddharth crew were oozing it. They WERE like the stars of old. This bunch: not so much. And DO NOT get me started on how flat and unappealing Tiger is. He can jump around, but he cannot evoke any emotion. What is happening. Sara Ali Khan is great in interviews but just okay on screen. I hope that if Suhana is like that, her Papa steers her in another direction.
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Have you seen Kedarnath? I found Sara okay in Simmba, but really remarkable in Kedarnath. We’ll have to wait and see if she can pull that off when the role is less written for her.
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I just posted a huge long comment and it didn’t post!
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Is it up now?
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Katrina and Govinda in Partner. Eww.
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Yeah, that just didn’t work. And I can buy Govinda with young attractive women, just him and Kat didn’t make sense.
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Also, as a fellow dog parent, my dog trumps everything on my list.
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Good question today, because I just finished watching an old movie with Vinod Khanna and Sridevi and there was zero chemistry between them. They play husband and wife, but there wasn’t even one spark. Maybe because the movie’s title is Pathar Ke Insan – Man of stone
Btw in this movie I found, what in my opinion is the worst hindi song/video ever. So many bad and inappropriate things in just one song.
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Ugh, just the thought of Vinod and Sridevi together makes me uncomfortable, even without having seen the movie. And I’m not sure why, they are the right ages and stuff, but it just feels “wrong”.
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Sorry Anonymous. I enjoy your posts but believe that Tiger and Harshvardan Kapoor, star babies to be sure, work hard and are improving. Sara Ali Khan has a bright future if she doesn’t fall back on her recent laurels, and I’m waiting for Ishaan Khatter’s next film. He was very good in Beyond the Clouds and opposite a lackluster Jahnvi in Dhadak. (Please excuse misspellings)
As to an EW song, I can’t recall all of them, but the ones that show clearly 45+ Salman Khan romancing Sneha Ullal (whatever happened to her?) in Lucky: No Time For Love, made me wince. She was older in real life but in the film she was supposed to be a schoolgirl of 15 or 16. And it wasn’t like Dear Zindagi where there’s chemistry between Alia and Shah Rukh Khan but not the sexual kind. Salman and Sneha actually fall in love and end up together. As a rule, age differences don’t bother me at all. But when the gal (or guy) is underage? That skirts child abuse territory.
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I love Lucky! But only if I work very hard on believing the characters are the ages they are playing, not their real ages. I think Sneha is supposed to be studying for her graduation exams, so maybe 18, and Salman is supposed to have just finished college. But of course Sneha feels like she is 14-15, and Salman does not look 22 AT ALL!
Have you seen Sanam Teri Kasam? It’s a favorite around her, same directors as Lucky but very age appropriate and chemistry filled couple.
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Oh yes, Sanam Teri Kasam is beautiful and the chemistry is soooo good in this film.
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Sanam Teri Kasam tonight, if I can find it.
I ought to know that the marriage age disparity can also be cultural. My mom was 16 when she married my 33 year old dad. She was living in a veritable shack in the poorest section of Rabat when my grandmother took her to the clinic run by the Italian equivalent of Doctors Without Borders. My father removed her tonsils and she fell head over heels in love with him. He was a widower with 5 small sons to care for back in Italy, so when my grandmother, seeing an opportunity, proposed marriage with her pretty teen age daughter, he jumped at it. Worked out quite well. I grew up with five handsome, protective brothers, and lived in Morocco, Italy and New York City with parents who were happy for 35 years until Papa died.
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Awww, that is such a sweet story! If you can ever get Hotstar working, you’ll want to watch Premam, Bangalore Days, and especially Ohm Shaanti Oshaana. They are all wonderful movies and, coincidentally, they also all deal with a similar age difference. between the couples.
On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 12:54 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Margaret, the sacred games 2 cast reveal video just dropped 12 hours ago. Might be worth its own post?
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Thanks for the tip! It fits well with a news round-up I was already writing.
On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 12:59 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh no! Kalki! What happened to Radhike?
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Not gonna tell you! But like I said, they wrote off or underserved all the female characters.
On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 1:40 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I’m easing into Hotstar. I want the $99 package without the sports option but the prompts are not letting me get to it. Frustrated with Netfilx and Amazon which have subs, but dribble in films too slowly for me. (How many times can one watch Toilet?) And don’t get me started on YouTube. TONS of movies there I long to watch, but when you click, it’s a different film, or the trailer, or a thousand vids. And try to find subtitles. I’m still hoping to come across Vikam Vedha and Badla with subs. Oddly enuf, many of the non-Hindi films have them; the Malayalam, Bengali, etc. But they don’t advance your understanding of the film or are just hilarious; “I come that Brother man, when you do. Is it?”
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Yeah, you have to be careful with youtube and make sure the user account the videos are posted under is an actual legitimate account. Lots of fakers out there hoping to trick you.
I don’t understand the Hotstar prompts completely myself, but luckily I am grandfathered in from when they first launched in the US and only had one level.
Badla should hit Netflix soon, so you have that to look forward to! And if you click the link below for Vikram Vedha and then pay for it, it will work. Irritating you have to do a one time payment, but at least it is a small amount. And that is probably why it is so impossible to find everywhere else, they want to make sure to steer folks to the paid option.
On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 1:35 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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There are a lot of movies on youtube with subtitles translated automatically and these are completly useless, but there are good ones too. In hindi mostly old movies (the one with Vinod and Sridevi I saw today was on youtube and had perfect subs)
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I’ve not seen a lot of movies with actors other than SRK but the Sneha/Salman pair was definitely pukeworthy. I normally don’t care about age as it’s all fake anyway but that was was really stretching it. It looked so creepy and I’m expecting even more creepiness from Salman/Alia now.
For SRK – the pair with Katrina does not work at all. He normally has good chemistry with everyone so that was surprising. What was Yash Chopra thinking with JTHJ? I don’t know how a single person would have rooted for that couple. To make matters worse, you had Anushka/SRK as the contrast. Truly baffling that they didn’t realize how absurd it looked to have him choose Kat. Anand Rai used that mismatch and made it work for his movie because they were not supposed to be together.
Not as bad but still bad.. SRK and Madhuri. This is another NOPE as far as I’m concerned. She looks too mature for him and ends up making him look younger and goofier, not in a good way. Always seems like a big sister or babysitter type so when they do love scenes it is cringeworthy. And again it was Yash Chopra at the helm with DTPH where the ending leaves you baffled. In both his movies, it’s like people are told this is the destined pair and even though it looks and feels totally wrong especially since it’s being contrasted with a pair that works much better.
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Yes to SRK and Katrina! I love them in Zero because they aren’t supposed to be romantic together, and I get the same feeling with Tiger and Ananya. I’d be fine if he was playing her big brother, that might even be cute, but romantic? It’s just not there.
What’s funny to me is that Madhuri and SRK have loads of chemistry in personal appearances. And I even liked them together in Koyla and that marriage movie. But DTPH and Devdas just don’t work for me. Maybe it is all about how the characters are written for them? If Shahrukh is playing young and in love, it’s no good, but if Madhuri is playing some kind of damsel in distress and he is the strong man, or if she is the wife and he is the husband, or some other way of making them equal (like they are in real life where Madhuri is slightly more retiring), then it works.
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Do you know there are FOUR Sanam Teri Kasam’s on Amazon? I started watching the one with Saif Ali Khan, waiting for it to get better, moved on to the one with Harshvardan Rane for which I had to join Eros. (Was with them for 2 years, then the service went wonky and I cancelled) There’s a Krishan Kumar STK, and one with somebody called Reena Roy that looks like a clunker. Which is it? I finally gave up and finished the Rowdy movie with Vijay Sethupathy which I’d started the night before. I REALLY like his acting and he has a wonderful, mobile face.
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I’m sorry! It’s the Harshwardane Rane one that is so popular here. On the other hand, you got me to look up the Vijay Sethupathi Rowdy movie and it looks good, I may have to check it out.
On Tue, May 7, 2019 at 6:40 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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It is good. Vijay plays a sweet Mama’s boy. She’s a cop and wants him top be one; he wants to be a rowdy. The scenes with his hearing-impaired love are adorable.
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