Happy Wednesday! I still haven’t decided which movies I am watching, but I am strongly leaning towards Dear Comrade on Thursday. Because it opens on Thursday! So much easier!
I’ll start!
Reading: a bunch of stuff on South Asian languages for yesterday’s post. If you want more on the topic from how I attacked it, I recommend (once again) India After Gandhi and Sexy Said’s Orientalism.
Watching: Longmire! Because I am secretly 70 years old! It would be a great Indian remake, mostly because it is about how a middle-aged man is just the awesomest, and there are an awful lot of middle-aged male actors who like being told they are awesome. But also because it is just a nice well put together show with good performances and beautiful scenery and tight dialogue. Oh, and because it is on Netflix and therefore easy (that’s the way in which I am still acting my age, one of those lazy millennials who only watches stuff that is easy).
Thinking: How the heck am I going to manage 3 films in one week? If I go to Dear Comrade on Thursday, then get my parents to take the dog, I can do Judgmental Hai Kya and Arjun Patiala in a double bill on Friday on the way up to my parents’ place for the weekend. Or I could do one on Friday with the dog, then leave early on Sunday and do the other. Or maybe do one of them Monday night? This is really hard!
Listening: Dear Comrade soundtrack, since it is the one film I KNOW I will be seeing (thank you Thursday Telugu release dates!). It’s not bad, but this is the only song that has come close to jumping out at me so far.
Now, question for you! Similar to my “which movie should I watch this weekend?” question, I have the opportunity to see not one, not two, but THREE separate brilliant all time great artists who are performing near me this fall. Because I am a lucky lucky spoiled person. Anyway, of these three, which do you think I should really seek out?
Gulzar
Rahat Fateh Ali Khan live in concert
Or Hariharan live in concert?
The thing is, I kind of don’t want to see any of them? Because they probably won’t have back up dancers or a light show or anything really, you know, FUN. But then, that is a shallow shallow way to live and I should probably force myself to see at least one of these three “Greatest Living Indian Artists” that are available to me.
dontcallitbollywood 
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I always think is Hariharan as Hairy Haran.
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I’m watching Mueller testify in front of the House Judicial and Intelligence committees on my last day of vacation after my very long work trip. Do I know how to have a good time or what? Some day I’ll get caught up on Shah Rukh Summer and other goodies here.
If it were me I’d go see Gulzar. I may be a philistine, but there are only so many qawwalis I can take.
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Totally agree about Qawallis! You are supposed to listen to the repetition and slowly come to a deeper and deeper understanding of the words, entering a beautiful meditative place. But I just get bored. Also, no back-up dancers. Boring!!!!!!
For Shahrukh Summer, I suggest checking out the hair and clothes posts, and also the three thought posts. Those are the really good ones, the others are okay but more just lazy filler.
On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 9:08 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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That is what I am watching too. I kept time tonight for watching Cake but did not want to miss my chance to finally hear him speak.
Got a new book from the library. It is a English translation (One Part Woman) of a book by Perumal Murugan. He went into an exile due to protests following much after release of the book. He has since come back from his exile and has published Poonachi Or The Story of a Black Goat, which I plan to read next.
Thinking – When will I get the IRB approval so that I can begin data collection for my study.
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Cake is super good! Looking forward to you watching it and responding.
And I will keep a good thought for your approval. Meanwhile, I get to do textual analysis don’t need any funding at all (except for the $100 a month for movie tickets and rentals), yaaaay!
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Thanks for keeping my study in your thoughts. BTW I am in India until December. In case you need any movie DVDs from here let me know.
I will watch Cake tomorrow.
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Kjo has announced that he’s remaking Dear Comrade. I’m so done with Bollywood right now. Biopics, remakes, rehashed songs, remakes of old films – where is the creativity?
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Well, there are 4 new original movies coming out this weekend and next weekend. But of course they aren’t getting much promotion or coverage Grrr!!!!! And I suppose they could also turn out to be terrible and derivative, but I am trying to be optimistic.
On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 9:58 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I’m optimistic about Judgemental Hai Kya, let’s hope for the best.
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I’m having a weird movie hangover. I can’t bring myself to sit down for a new movie or even rewatch a whole one I’ve seen before. The most I can handle are songs. Ah well, I guess I should just throw up a YouTube playlist and run with it.
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Totally been there. And then I hit these stretches of just wanting to gobble them up like candy. Blogging was supposed to regulate my intake, but it hasn’t worked, I am still feast or famine.
Picking up on our recent discussion from the language post, let me also recommend youtube videos of people reciting poetry in South Asian languages. Amitabh has some amazing videos reciting his father’s stuff, very beautiful to listen to and hypnotic to watch. And without the commitment of a movie.
Or of course this:
On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 11:42 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Durning my 3 weeks long holiday I managed to watch only one movie – old italian musical drama Canzone appassionata (Passionate Song). Do you know it? It was like Hate Story but in black and white and with stunning dresses.
And now in one week I’ve already watched 2 movies:
-Kalank, and it was a disaster, the more I think about it the more I dislike it. I read some reviews now and some people think Varun was good as Zafar. I think those people watched some other version of the movie because I found him terrible. And can we talk about this creepy zoom on Alia’s face in the end? I still have goosebumbs.
– Luka Chuppi – it was funny, and had some very good parts but all the main problem was so fake. I mean, haven’t Kriti and Kartik’s characters watched Dil, Mujhse Dosti Karoge or Bunty aur Babli? And my biggest problem: Pankaj Tripathi, who he was for the protagonists? I’ve spent all movie wondering why he lives in this house.
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Poor you, two failure movies!!!! Maybe it’s time to finally watch Gunday as a palate cleanser?
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Now it’s time for Virus, or Ishq (malayalam one not the one with Aamir and Ajay) when I’ll find some time and if won’t get distracted by another bad movie.
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Oh, watch the Ishq with Aamir and Ajay! I love that Ishq. And so long as you watched 2 bad movies already, you might as well complete the trilogy with a third.
Or you can watch Cake, the Pakistani movie I just reviewed. I think you might really like the love interest.
On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 4:10 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I read good things about Cake, and your review too, but as soon as MPK said it’s like Kapoor and sons I lost all interest. What can I do, I’m more “Half-girlfriend” type of a person 😉
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But the romantic lead is a sensitive quiet beta type who is soft and sweet!
On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 4:21 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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OMG! Same to same about Kalank – why so many close ups of Alia? Like no matter who is is speaking or emoting, Alia’s reaction shot was the most important thing. And Luka Chuppi too. The first half was pleasantly funny but the conflict in the second half was so fake. And I think Pankaj Tripathi was Karthik Aryan’s sis-in law’s brother (or some complicated thing like that)
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But if Pankaj was sister-in-law’s brother, why he lived with her in her in-laws house? And the other, little guy, who was he? A friend? Another brother? It was so confusing!
But I really loved Kartik’s older brother character. I wanted him to elope with some unsuitable woman.
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The ending where Alia practically asked the audience if they liked the movie or not made me so angry that I replied with the negative response. Also that line about love destroying people made me want to throw something
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All this movie doesn’t have sense. I still don’t know what they wanted to tell with this story.
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I’ve recently watched both Raavan and Raavanan and comparing the two films has turned out to be a really interesting lesson on how editing and cinematography in addition to acting and directing greatly impacts a film. On paper it looks like it is the same film but if you actually watch it there’s a huge gap in quality and complexity all because of the small differences that were made which is incredibly baffling to me because it’s all made by the same group of people (some scenes have such a different effect that I ended up wondering at times if they were purposely trying to make the Hindi version look bad). Also Aishwarya suddenly gaining the ability to deliver a strong, nuanced performance when she does not need to use her actual voice will always confuse me to no end.
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How interesting! It sounds similar to watching the Netflix versus Google edit of Zero. Same movie, slightly different edit, whole different experience.
And oh my gosh I agree about Aish! I watched her in Jeans and Kandukondain Kandukondain and she was fine, I didn’t learn to hate until I saw Mohabbatein.
On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 3:43 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh I could write pages about this! The Hindi one is so wrong. The casting, the dialogues – everything! Vikram was wonderful in Tamil but terrible in Hindi. Why couldn’t Mani Ratnam just cast someone else? Prithviraj was great in Tamil with him being slightly cruel too. And the poetic dialogues sounded fine in Tamil (I’m not a native speaker so maybe I missed something there) but in Hindi it was all over the place and to top it Aishwarya’s sing-song dialog delivery and Abhishek’s performance which might be the worst in his career. The role was really too much for him – I never understood why he has these weird fits in between.
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I could honestly write pages about this too! I know that Mani Ratnam wanted to do some meta experiment where the whole Ram, Raavan actors switch but it’s a horrible idea! The casting for the Tamil version was absolutely perfect. Prithviraj looks like the typical young, dashing hero who starts out being all distraught about his wife but as time goes on you see him grow progressively more sadistic and desensitized and it’s absolutely chilling. Vikram was all physically imposing and gruff looking but there was a warmth and sensitivity in his performance that ended up bringing out the character’s humanity. Aishwarya’s whole pristine, unattainable beauty was in both but in the Tamil version her performance was emotionally nuanced and displayed a vulnerability that was missing in the Hindi version. The complexity of all of these characters went missing in the Hindi version which really ended up harming the film. Vikram who was fantastic in Raavanan was so emotionally closed off in Raavan, losing the growth of the character. Aishwarya gave one of her typical performances where she only seems to express annoyance in the most arrogant way effectively. And I feel like Abhishek was trying to do some weird OTT comedic performance the entire time and never brought out any compassion within the character. The Tamil version was absolutely teeming with emotion and energy and I got absolutely none of that in the Hindi version.
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If you want to take it one step further,watch Aayutha Ezhuthu/Yuva and compare.Same film,same director but so different. Vivek Oberoi and Kareena Kapoor hamming it up as yippee youngsters v/s Siddharth & Trisha’s naturally flowing energy.The casting of Om Puri as villain & Ajay Devgn as student leader itself undid the film.A good thing Mani Ratnam stopped with bilinguals.
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Yeah I’ve been meaning to watch Aayutha Ezhuthu/Yuva for a while now but I never got around to it! I knew that Aayutha Ezhuthu is regarded as the better film but I thought that people generally thought that Yuva was alright? I understand the intent of making bilinguals but really so much gets lost in translation! I remember getting incredibly angry about Begum Jaan because of how watered down it was in addition to some other questionable changes that made everything so much worse.
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Watched Baar Baar Dekho last night and my main takeaway is that Sid is the not-Shahid. Lovely to look at onscreen, strong physical presence, same sweet smile that lights up his eyes and transforms his face, but nowhere near the acting chops or ability to connect with co-actors. The songs are really good, the songs coming up on my playlists was the main reason I got curious to watch in the first place. There were some clever bits of writing like the repeated exchanges where he’s trying to tell other characters he’s unstuck in time and they misunderstand him as talking about life (“There are years I can’t remember” “I know, time flies, sometimes you look back and wonder how you got here”). But overall agree with your initial reaction that the leads weren’t strong enough performers to bring human emotions into the high concept structure.
Oh and Gully Boy over the weekend with family – husband and kids and two teenage nieces visiting from Spain. I really liked it, the only weak bits for me were Ranveer rapping, couldn’t quite buy him when he was onstage though I thought he played the offstage life scenes well. Alia was strong, and Safeena is a great character, so tricky and duplicitous but she wins you over anyway. It was interesting watching with the teenagers. They were very invested in Ranveer’s character through the first half but he lost them when he hooked up with Kalki. They were on their phones from about there to the end.
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Yaaay, someone else who watched Baar Baar Dekho! I love your analysis of Sidharth. Back when Shahid started, he felt kind of like Sidharth does now, he had a super baby face and his acting wasn’t really there. But now that you have me thinking about it, even in his earliest roles he could really connect with his co-stars and make you feel something. Sid just feels to model-y somehow, like he is lost in a relationship between himself and the camera instead of himself and his co-stars.
Really interesting take away from the time with the teenagers. As I remember it, the hook-up with Kalki happens in the middle of this whole crazy night of adventuring with rich people. For me, the whole thing felt combined, he was losing track of where he came from including his relationship with Alia. Any idea if the teens checked out just because he was cheating or if it was because of the whole thing? Or at least from your side of things, did the cheating alone bother you or the whole idea of partying with the rich folks?
On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 6:07 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I personally saw it as part of the character journey of temporarily losing himself before he found his way back to the people and things that matter. The teenagers, however, decided he was a cheating bastard and apparently no longer cared what happened to him based on the amount of attention they spent on the film after that. Young people, very pure and certain of their moral judgments.
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You know what would be a great movie? Young people being confronted with the impurity of their parents and being forced to come to terms with it. Like, I want to see KANK Part 2, watch all those judgmental little kids grow up and learn their parents had an affair. Come to think of it, maybe that’s what we are getting in Sadak 2. I would love that, if we get to see the younger generation deal with the reality of who their parents were when they were young and bad.
On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 8:03 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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isn’t that Badhaai Ho, kind of?
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Oh yeah!!!! Prissy little twenty-somethings unable to handle adults being adult together.
On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 9:17 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Thinking:I was all set to watch more Prithviraj this weekend but I feel I should acknowledge the 30th death anniversary of Uttam Kumar in some way. Maybe I’ll rewatch a favorite.
Watching: Koode! I really liked it with the arresting first shot of Prithviraj through a toilet, all of the sadness which is unspoken and the movie does not use for cheap emotional pay-offs, and the performances, especially Renjith as the dad. I really like a good actor in a repressed Indian dad role:Irrfan, Rajat Kapoor, etc.
Also watching a YouTube channel called Beautiful Homes, which combines my two big interests: Interior decorating and Indian film. It’s videos of people’s houses, in India, both regular (-ish) people with nice houses and movie stars. Not really established people who have palatial compounds, but people like Monica Dogre whose homes are nice but aspirational. So, not really a movie, but it’s nice to relax by looking at Sushant Singh Rajput’s gallery wall.
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Finally, more people are watching Koode! I saw it opening night and was all set to talk about it and then no one else watched it 😦
Agree about not going for the cheap emotional pay off. We never have a big confrontation scene or an emotional speech, it just is what it is and everyone is trying to make the best of it.
I’ve become addicted to HouseHunters, it’s like that but with more drama and judgement of others. After Wake Up Sid and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, my one small hope for Brahmastra is that at least it will have really great interiors for us to look at.
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I am discovering the fun of rewatching old movies which gives an idea of how much change there has been in the director’s style,intent,filmmaking and more importantly how much I have changed as a person.The trigger was re-watching 22 Female Kottayam in TV and I couldn’t help wondering how much of a feminist Aashiq Abu was,even 7 years back.Keeping aside the revenge theme,the central character,even when she is a naive girl ,declares proudly that she drinks,is not a virgin.The movie passes no judgements over her friend who has a sugar daddy or on the sugar daddy himself as an amoral man.I remember being outraged at all these, in my first watch.In contrast to the sugar daddy,the(anti)hero is shown as a caring,one-woman man initially who later tells her in a very disparaging tone that you are just a woman.I can appreciate the setting of the climax much more now where he is spread out, topless(it helps that Fahadh has a well defined upper body),his source of entitlement gone,and at her mercy.Every dialogue from him is an attempt to regain power but dialogues from her is calmly explaining why he is wrong to even think he has power over her.Such a typical male-female conversation.
No wonder Aashiq Abu could create a movie like Virus which is hailed as India’s Chernobyl,even by the audience from Delhi and Mumbai.In contrast I see Karan Johar,the most famous filmmaker in India, reducing himself to a mere moneymaker who bets only on remakes and franchises.So much so that he is ready to jump on the Telugu remake bandwagon before the movie even release lest he loses out on another Kabir Singh.Good for Vijay Devarakonda, who could use that endorsement for further hyping his movie.I will be curious to know how you liked Dear Comrade.
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Planning to see Dear Comrade tonight, I’m curious how full the theater will be! I’m seeing it in a theater that doesn’t usually show Telugu films, so it might be empty because no one knows this movie is playing there, or it might be full because it playing there indicates a high interest in the film.
On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 11:50 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I forgot to say how jealous I am for all those events you can choose from. Chris Young just around the corner, Alejandro Fernandez from time to time, bollywood shows and now Rahat Fateh Ali Khan. I’m not great expert in qawwalis but I love his voice and would definitely go to see him if he played in my city.
I’m only curious what you got if you purchase VVIP ticket.
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I assume the VVIP ticket gets you backstage? Which I don’t necessarily want, it seems super uncomfortable to hang out with the performer knowing that he is only hanging out with you because you paid a lot of money.
On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 7:49 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Today English Vinglish will be shown in italian tv, in prime time on Rai1 (main channel of public tv). I find it exciting.
And also I just read Photograph (Nawazuddin Siddiqui & Sanya Malhotra) will be in italian cinemas next month. I’ll do my best to watch it.
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That’s great! So glad you get to see more movies, and also that Indian film is spreading.
On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 12:04 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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