Happy Monday! I’m not at work, wooooo! Which actually means I might be slower to respond than usual, since instead I am driving along the highway and then (hopefully, if I have energy for it) cleaning my apartment and swapping out my summer clothes.
This is where you can ask me anything about anything, all week. Any time you think of a question, just swing back here. And if you want to post a link or bring up a random thought, you can do that here too. Until Wednesday, when it belongs on Wednesday Watching, and then Saturday when it belongs on Saturday Small Talk.
I’ve got a question for you this week, but first, Albie Dog! He went canoeing this weekend for the first time. As usual, his reaction to a new thing was “I don’t like this, this is scary-oh wait, it’s not that bad-oh this is kind of fun and exciting!” all in the course of 5 seconds. We should all approach life this way.
Now, question for you! Should I see Chichhore or Enai Noki Paayum Thota? I’m gonna shoot for both, obviously, but if it gets down to one or the other, or one first and the other second, which is most important?
dontcallitbollywood 
You sure you wanna see The Big Chill with Shraddha in the lead? Cause that sounds dire.
Bharat is on Einthusan and I started watching and wth is up with that opening scene where he hangs someone? That was so crazy and off-putting. I do love the chemistry between him and Katrina, tho. It’s easy for them to portray a long-married couple. (I am only about 20 minutes into it at this point).
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HA!!!! It’s totally The Big Chill! But with a massive flashback section to make it more indian film-y.
The Bharat opening is one of those that was weird but made sense in theaters, big cheers and applause and excitement. The crowd wanted an outlandish character intro scene even if it didn’t fit at all with the rest of the movie.
Kat and Salman are soooooo good together in this, at least i think so. Their relationship just gets better and better as the film goes on.
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I suppose Gautam Menon’s movie over one that looks like an extended version of Happy Days. Mentioned in an earlier post – I liked Happy Days when I watched it first but now cannot get myself to re-watch it. So my vote is for Enai Noki Paayum Thota.
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Have you seen Harsh Kapoor’s new tattoo? I don’t know hindi but from the comments I deduced he has his sisters names written on his back and I find it odd. Do you imagine being his girlfriend and seeing those names every night in the bed? I would be like: No you better leave your shirt on 😉
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Yeah, that’s weird. I have a cousin who tattooed the names of his kids on his arms and back, but that seems kind of normal, right? And not necessarily a turn off. This is a bit strange.
On the other hand, unsurprisingly, Harsh still looks beautiful in black and white.
On Mon, Sep 2, 2019 at 4:14 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Tattoos of kids names is something different. Especially on arm where you and kids can see it, enjoy your bond and love. But tattooing your sisters names in bold on your back? It’s like saying: Don’t touch. Sonam and Rhea’s property. C’mon who does this? ne of the stupidest tattoo ever.
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Yeah, I was thinking about it, and it would be sweet if there was family tragedy or something. Like, if his mother died and his sister’s raised him, or if one of them beat cancer or something. But so far as I know it is a perfectly happy family and a perfectly normal sibling relationship.
On Tue, Sep 3, 2019 at 5:05 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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LOL It’s not normal if a brother tattooes his sisters names like that 😉
And damn he just ruined Mirzya for me…
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But he didn’t have them in Mirzya!
Also, to make sure we follow this logic, in Mirzya knowing this his character was a child killer uneducated stinky stable boy has no effect on your crush, but tattoos of his sisters’ names kills it?
On Tue, Sep 3, 2019 at 9:02 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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He didn’t have them in Mirzya, but he had other very similar and important in almost the same place. Now everytime I will watch the scene when the girl visits him in the stable and discovers while hugging that he burned his tattoo, I will see Sonam’s face! And yes, my dislike for Sonam is greater than any stinky stable 😉
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I’m from Australia so forgive my ignorance but is that a lake or river you are canoeing on?
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lake
On Mon, Sep 2, 2019 at 6:23 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I hadn’t realized until reading your other RNBDJ post that Mohabbatein was the first time SRK and Amitabh were together onscreen. Thinking back, those were the scenes with the strongest chemistry. Guessing that, since there were a bunch more SRK-Amitabh pairings after that, at least that part of Mohabbatein was considered to be compelling? Have you ever done a look at SRK-Amitabh onscreen through the years?
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I think all the SRK-Amitabh movies were Yash Raj. So it is less about Shahrukh and Amitabh, I think, and more that Yash Raj/Aditya Chopra/Yash Chopra really liked and had a good relationship with both of them. Oh wait, K3G! Well, that one was more of a dream cast of generations of actors.
Hmm. I’ll have to think more about this. Mohabbatein was definitely a striking moment of old and new stars confronting each other and the casting was purposeful. But K3G and Veer-Zaara, not sure if it HAD to be Amitabh versus another actor of a similar age? Hmm.
On Mon, Sep 2, 2019 at 8:14 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Not a comment, but more of an update on kitten names. I have tried out more than I can mention and the ones that have stuck are Shanti for the girl and Siddhartha for the boy (Sid for short). My favorite Bollywood masala film ( and 1st SRK film) is Om Shanti Om, so Shanti works. Om did not make the short list! Siddhartha is not filmi though there is the lovely but charisma-challenged Siddharth.
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Thank you! Important update!
There’s also Southern Sid who is very kitten like in some of his early stuff. Here:
On Tue, Sep 3, 2019 at 11:27 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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He’s adorable! And very kittenish
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I definitely want to see Chichhore – I love the Big Chill and I enjoy Shradda. Gonna see if it’s here near me this week for a girls night out.
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Really? A girl’s night? I am very worried it will turn out to be yet another wacky dorm hijinks among male friends move. So sick of seeing dumb teenage boys drinking and peeing and stuff. Even when it’s well done, I’m still bored of it.
On Tue, Sep 3, 2019 at 12:28 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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The star cast is 3 men 1 woman, that’s whose doing the promo.
That tells you everything you need to know about which way this movie will skew.
The trailer makes shraddha look only like a love interest. I hope instead that her character has a story.
College is such a unique and memorable time in one’s life. I too hate how women are erased from this stage in movies (except as love interests) because it makes me feel like my own story is being erased.
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Maybe my problem is that college wasn’t a terribly wonderful time in my life? I mean, it wasn’t horrible or anything, just that whole freedom and discovering myself and forging lifelong bonds happened in the post-college working at a minimum wage job period instead. So I have no instinctive sentimental feeling for college, but I am a sucker for movies like Dear Zindagi with that sort of workplace friendship bonding.
None of this makes me want to watch Chichchore!
On Tue, Sep 3, 2019 at 5:04 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I just watched Carnival Row on Amazon Prime last week. It’s a lot like a star trek tv franchise or the Battlestar gallactica series – “on the nose” commentary about discrimination, power, politics, class, economics, prison, law and order, etc, made less obvious by using alien species – but set in ancient England anf using faeries and rams instead of outer space with klingons and ferenghi. In fact, maybe a little like Article 15, using a police officer investigating a murder mystery as the plot device but with on the nose sociopolitical commentary being its main purpose.
But interestingly enough, I thought the material was better than the actors portraying it. Layered gray characters with genuine arcs, but I wasn’t feeling it because the actors were bringing it, do I had to intellectually fill in the meaning and subtext.
Bringing it to Indian film, are there films where you thought “this would have actually been such a good movie if much better actors were playing the key roles”? Or conversely, “the acting really elevated the material, without these actors adding depth, meaning, and layers, this would have been an average film at best”?
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*…but I wasn’t feeling it because the actors *weren’t* bringing it, so…
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For your question, conveniently I am now trying to survive watching Nargis Fakhri in Rockstar. Oh my gosh, she ruins this movie! Well, a lot of things are bad about this movie, but Nargis is really really bad. There are stories that it was originally supposed to be Kareena Kapoor and I keep thinking that the film might have actually worked if Kareena was in the role. It’s a strange character that doesn’t make much sense but a great actress could find sense in it and make it work.
And for elevating a movie, hmm. I think Varun in Humpty Sharma is the first that comes to mind for me. Partly because whatever he did in Humpty, he didn’t do as much of it in Badrinath and suddenly the film felt weak. I know there are other examples, but that’s the first one I can think of.
On Tue, Sep 3, 2019 at 11:39 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I’m thinking more in terms of a good movie where the quality of the entire cast meant the script’s potential wasn’t neither realized nor elevated. October is the only example I can think of, only the mother was good, rest of the cast was flat.
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I haven’t seen rockstar yet but I can believe it re nargis, who is a model not an actress. I also read that someone then-buzzy like Diana plenty or vaani kapoor originally had the role but imtiaz replaced her with nargis last minute.
For me the most obvious single-actor spoil in recent times is Sonam in Ek Ladki. You have to believe in the romance in order to buy the family’s and community’s journey toward acceptance, especially in a small-town Indian context (where the romance has to be undeniable, and not just “questioning”). But sonam brings not an ounce of physical chemistry nor passionate romance to her pairing. She just looks/acts like she’s with her bff.
The pair actually reminds me of the film Kissing Jessica Stein, American indie from early 2000s. It’s the same dynamic between the pair, only it’s intentional (i.e. not bad acting), and it’s the whole point of that movie.
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Hmm. There have been two rom-coms I watched where I felt that way, Dulha Mil Gaya and Happy Bhaag Jayage. Both written by the same person, and somehow the lightness promised by the script just didn’t come through onscreen. Although I think that was partly the director’s fault as well.
Yaaay, Kissing Jessica Stein! I thought I was the only one who remembered that movie. It was really ahead of its time in terms of how it handled sexuality without simple categories, and so very interesting and non-judgmental. That is a movie I would love to see remade in India.
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