Wednesday Watching Post: What Are You Reading and Thinking and Watching and Listening To the Day the Letterman Special Finally Gets a Release Date?

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Happy Wednesday! I don’t know about you, but I am ready for the weekend already. Mostly because I get to see War again on Friday, which will make me very very happy.

I’ll start!

Reading: Nothing! I’m having one of those dead brain weeks when I can’t seem to read anything. Oh, except for SRK’s “Ask SRK” tweet series surprise yesterday. That was fun!

Thinking: Should I flip my apartment? Currently the little room just off the kitchen is my cozy hang out TV room, and the big room by the front door is where I have the dining room table (and piano and pedal sewing machine and antique desk. My relatives have got to stop dying and leaving me large heavy furniture!). But I could flip it and have more space for the sofa and chair and stuff by making the big room into the living room. And then I could enjoy the bay window too. But then I would lose the coziness of the little kitchen room. I just don’t know! Oh, and this would also involve moving all of my thousand pound furniture, so maybe not worth it?

Watching: I finally watched Scarface! Not the weird new one, the real one from the 30s. It is quite quite good, and very disturbing. And I am super proud of my film viewer cred for watching it. In other news, I am almost done with the Lewis mystery series, and am considering starting either Endeavor or Poldark. For those of you who have seen both, what’s your vote?

Also, of course, the SRK Netflix series announcement, yaaaaaay! I’m gonna be up soooooooo late on the 24th. Oh well.

Listening: Obviously the War soundtrack over and over and over again. Because it is the BEST.

Question for you: Okay, you know the moment when Tiger first sees Hrithik in War and it is so emotional and passion filled that you have to look away from the raw emotion on their faces because it almost feels to intimate? Or, for a classic example, you know the Gazebo scene in KKHH? What times have you had to look away from the screen because the moment between the characters felt too private to watch?

For example, another moment that felt like too much to watch is when Hrithik starts singing in this song:

52 thoughts on “Wednesday Watching Post: What Are You Reading and Thinking and Watching and Listening To the Day the Letterman Special Finally Gets a Release Date?”

  1. So happy we are finally getting the Letterman show!

    I don’t know why but movies, unless those scenes are done well, don’t bother me with their private romantic scenes and in War I couldn’t look away.

    Bur for me this play somehow hits the spot of the romantic scenes being so private, romantic and overall swoon worthy with their prose that I have to stop the video a lot of times before continuing. Doesn’t help that the guy who pays Cupid is cute.

    Highly recommend watching the play if you are ever in the mood for an good (not yet perfect) play with good prose, interesting characters, good humour and a nice twist on the tale as old as time. But the perfect version is the Kindle version of this which is revisioned, edited and has a lot of good content!

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    • Yes, live theater sometimes feels so much more private than movies! And I will have to check out the Kindle version 🙂

      On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 6:41 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • The play is seriously underrated even though its a good one. Granted there’s only the 2009 Workshop version on Youtube while the edited revisioned 2014 New York production was never filmed, but there are pictures floating on the internet of it.

        I acted Psyche’s “thirty days” speech in an acting class myself and the teacher was curious how I found because everyone else was doing Ibsen, Shakespeare or something or other. Also, there’s a bunch of HoYay in the Kindle version with explanations on behind scenes as well. A quick read also, since its a play.

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  2. I don’t look away! Never Ever! I look may look away at violence, I may get bored at explicitly shown intercourse, but I’m watching movies for those close interaction between people. (Still, there is something that can make me think “please stop this and make it natural” – it’s when there is the use of extensive slow motion just for the effect…it propells me out of movie.

    I love watching interactions in a theatre, too. There are these vibrations coming from the stage and getting reflected by us, the audience which are received by the actors on stage…it’s an intimate and vibrant exchange between actors and audience than isn’t possible in a cinema hall. (Slight exception is when I crawl into the movie…)

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    • Oh I have to look away! At least on the first watch, it’s too much for me. But on the second watch when I know what is coming and how it will happen, then I can watch straight through.

      On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 7:13 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • Oh I could not do that! I can watch an emotional scene at home, alone, on my tiny laptop or phone screen. But on the big screen in front of people? Too much!

        I wonder if this is learned behavior? When I get too much into an emotion I tend to be embarrassingly transparent in my reactions. Maybe after all those times I was loudly sobbing/sighing in movie theaters I internalized the lesson to look away?

        On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 10:51 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  3. So excited to be getting Letterman/Shah Rukh soon!

    Signed up for a month of Hotstar to be able to watch 9. Was looking forward to re-watching Ezra too, but they’re showing the Hindi dubbed version. Grrr!

    Endeavor gers my vote. So good. I’ve been a big Roger Allam fan since he was Javert in my London cast recording of Les Mis in the 80s. And the lead is a very good actor, who also happens to look like a character from a 60s/70s Rankin-Bass Christmas cartoon.

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    • I am currently watching Inspector Lewis, and I think I might skip “Morse” entirely. So I would end up watching the final series of the trilogy, and then go back to the beginning for Endeavor, and never watch the big that everyone else knows. It feels wrong, but I have no interest in Morse at all and Endeavor has all those pretty period costumes.

      Hotstar hasn’t had nearly as many exciting new releases lately, I wonder if after the Disney sale they are kind of in a holding pattern? Anyway, you can watch Classmates! The movie that made Prithvi a star! Or just rewatch the romantic parts of Ranam a million times.

      On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 9:01 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • Lol. You know me so well, Margaret. I downloaded Ranam on my phone from Einthusan just for that purpose. 😆

        I used to watch Morse, but it has NOT aged well. No worries about skipping. Or watch the first couple of episodes, that will give you an idea where Eandeavor is heading.

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        • Lewis hasn’t aged super well either, but at least at heart it has that Columbo effect of “rumpled low class detective sticking it to the rich folks”. Although the last episode I watched was about The Internet and Bullying and Young People, and that did not go over well. Promise me I will never be that out of touch with new trends!

          Oh, and also, you need to catch up on SRK posts. The one from Monday is all text!

          On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 12:19 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  4. Endeavour is fabulous! But then Poldark is so good too. Make your choice depending on the mood you’re in. Endeavour is stand alone episodes while Poldark is an ongoing story, more soapie but fantastic windswept cliffs and yummy Aidan Turner. Both are great for costume, mood and set of their particular era and wonderful characters.

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    • Hmm. Sounds like Poldark might be one to save for the next time I’m not planning to leave the house for days. Big rain storm, bad cold, whatever. But Endeavor could fit in as my “thing to watch while having dinner” viewing every night.

      On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 10:28 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  6. Oh I’m very glad you saw 1932 Scarface. Paul Muni was incredible in that film. Even though it’s almost 90 years old it still packs a whallop. My husband and I had that same unsettled feeling after seeing it. The amorality and depravity of the character who was a walking id with endless appetites and no conscience. Seriously one of my all time faves and I’m not particularly a fan of gangster movies. Now you need to see Public Enemy with Jimmy Cagney which has a lot of gay content and the r*pe of the lead character, it is seriously out there. And I need to see Little Caesar so I can complete the triumvirate of pre-Code gangster films starring phenomenal actors.

    I’ve been tweeting about War all week and getting a lot of funny comments. I haven’t had this much fun with a movie in a long time. It’s reminding me why I fell in love with Indian movies and the online community in the first place.

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    • I feel the same way about War! After all these movies where the discussion was all serious and controversial and stuff, it is great to have one that is just silly fluff and encourages silly happy fluff discussions. It’s the same way I feel about SRK Month, and I have this tiny twinge of regret that the Letterman special is coming out during this month because I have so enjoyed just dealing with light silly content instead of real content.

      And yes Scarface was disturbing! And a nice reminder of how bad and how terrifying the 20s-30s gang wars were. We tend to idealize the past and think it couldn’t have been that bad, but it really was bad. Interesting that it was a lightly fictionalized version of Capone, made just shortly after he was arrested. Only of course the film version inserted a nice satisfying gun battle outcome 🙂

      Oh! Question! If you remember Scarface well, can you help me figure out if he was supposed to have an incestuous relationship with his sister or not? Because it was WEIRD!

      On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 10:57 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  7. I can’t watch Humpty and Kavya’s first kiss/love making scene from HSKD without bawling my eyes out, mostly because it’s too intimate and pure and wonderful that it feels so private I shouldn’t watch it.

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    • Yes! That is one of my top “actual real feeling sex scene” examples. Indian film has so many terrible sex sequences, and that movie handles it just perfectly, the right thing for that moment in their relationship (Alia’s way of saying “good-bye” to him and to her freedom), and such a sweet and tender moment between them. Which of course is all why it feels icky to watch it.

      On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 11:18 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • ALSO the tension before Bittoo and Shruti’s first kiss in Band Baaja Baaraat. Not so much the kiss and the sex itself, but that build up is exquisitely crafted and performed.

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        • YES!!!! Agree a thousand times. Which, as I have said, is why that movie bothers me so much. The relationship is built so carefully and so well right up to the kiss. And then after the kiss, it falls off into “now they are horrible and I hate them and also don’t believe in them” for me. To the point that it ruins the early happy parts.

          On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 12:49 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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    • But we can just ignore that! As I hope Hrithik does.

      Anyway, in my unhealthy urge to make fantasy into reality, doesn’t it seem possible that the Kangana thing will have left Hrithik unable to trust any woman therefore opening him up to a romance with Tiger? That would be the happy ending we all deserve for dealing with the Kangana drama!

      On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 2:12 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  9. This week I finally watched Prithviraj’s and Siddharth’s historical film Kaaviya thalaivan. I try to not have my hopes high to not be disappointed, but this film has those two great actors, A.R Rahman’s music, it’s about art, has beautiful costumes and stuff so I thought I will like it, but unfortunately I found it flat. Maybe because they put too many things in the story? Actors life, from being poor to acknowledged (friendship,relationship with the guru, the question who should be treated better: raw talent versus the one who worked more, jealousy inside the group etc), love story with the princess and in the end fights for independent India. I was like: OMG just focus on one thing!

    After this not-very-satisfactory but quite good movie I needed something absolutely random and B-grade and so I watched 2014 film called Unforgettable. Yeah, I think I will never forget the scene when a guy who used to be blind, recognized (from afar) the woman he loves but has never seen. He once (by accident) touched her face and that’s why he could recognize her on the street. I knew it won’t be a masteriece but I wasn’t expecting this kind of stuff.

    Listening: I’m obsessed with this song. So beautiful. But I’m sad that I can’t watch the movie because seems that stupid Hotstar (not available in Europe) has the digital rights 😦

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    • Naturally I immediately looked up Unforgettable. My goodness it looks bad! You should watch Lafingay Parinday for comparison since they have very similar plots.

      For the other movie, did you look up the director? I looked at his previous critically acclaimed film Angadi Theru and OH MY GOSH!!!! It is soooooooooo dark and romantic and extreme. Maybe that is the one you should have watched?

      On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 4:13 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • I would rather rewatch Unforgettable than watch Angadi Theru or some other “tamil romantic drama”.

        I’m sure tamil filmakers are like:
        -Let’s do a romantic movie!
        -Yeah, but we need a little drama and a conflict in the story
        – How about making entire life of our protagonists miserable and in the end, when they find a little hapiness, BUM, they will have an accident and have their legs amputated?
        -I would prefer at least one of them die in the end, but ok, we can make a happy movie from time to time.

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        • HA! YES!!!!! That is it exactly. Except for Mani Ratnam, he can manage to sneak out some actually happy romances, but only by tricking the audience into thinking they are sad through how he films them.

          On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 2:34 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  10. Ugh, 9 looks good but we STILL do not have Hotstar in Japan, I just checked.
    I’m sort of watching Unbelievable on Netflix which is that series about rape detectives. My goodness, it is grim. I’m sort of sucked into now and I want to know what happens, but I can’t wait for it to be over. It’s worse than Delhi Crime.

    There are a million movies about Durga Pujo–Ray did, I think, two?–but I wussed out and watched Kahaani again because I knew I would like it all the way through. Do you know what that gesture Parambrata makes when Vidya accidentally touches him is called? Looks like you’re starting to make the sign of the cross, only you’re Hindu? Touching the forehead and then the chest or maybe the other way around? It pops up all the time in films with various meanings (for example, Rajkummar does it when picking up his phone in Trapped, to ask it not to die) and I thought it would be interesting to read about.

    I have an unfortunate tendency to be pulled out of the moment by kissing scenes, and to start thinking “Wow, Shahrukh and Katrina are kissing” or whatever instead of believing it’s their characters. Once exception to that was Lootera, the scene at the end where she’s asking if he ever loved her. I’m not sure if there’s even any kissing in it, just the intense intimacy of two people in extreme circumstances whispering their love for each other. I didn’t exactly have to look away, but it seems like a really private moment.

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    • I also watched Unbelievable and it does have a happy/hopeful ending, so that’s something. Just keep going until you get there.

      I’ve got nothing for the hand gesture, hopefully someone else here will! I’ll also ask my desi co-worker. I tried to research it but just got a lot of stuff about Mudras, which isn’t the same.

      Totally know what you mean about kissing scenes. And I blame the actors, because I think they also are thinking “wow, I’m kissing _____” instead of being lost in their characters at that moment. The exception being the kiss at the end of JHMS which is way more character than actor. Agree about the end of Lootera. The movie builds so well to that moment, the raw emotional honesty of it, far more intimate than their actual pre and post sex scenes earlier.

      On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 9:33 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  11. I ended up seeing War yesterday and I liked it. I thought it was a fun action movie but also kind of forgettable. I don’t feel excited about possibly seeing it again in the future like I do with other movies I enjoy in the theater. One thing that I finally get is Tiger’s appeal. Somehow this happened to be my first Tiger movie and it finally made sense why he was so popular during his first intro fight scene.

    I also rewatched Julayi starring Allu Arjun after we talked about it the other day. This is one of those movies I’ve seen multiple times but I haven’t seen it in a while so I was worried that I might find it boring or outdated now but it totally holds up! This is one of those early 2010 Telugu action-comedies that made me fall in love with movies and they aren’t really making movies like this anymore. The big stars are either making social message based movies or period/rural action movies nowadays. Coming back to Julayi, everything is a perfect mix. It’s hilarious, has a fun romance, great songs, and an interesting plot with memorable villains. I forgot how good Allu Arjun was in these kinds of roles. It’s been a while since he did a fun role like this.

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  12. Most definitely Alia and Varun sex scene in Humpty. I love it so much that I rewind it and watch it over and over again. Another one (besides the one you have already mentioned) is in Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar when Aamir realizes he is in love with Ayesha. It is so simple yet so intimate.

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    • Oh, I forgot to answer your question about what are you watching and thinking this week. I just rewatched Befikre. That movie makes me so unnaturally happy, and I really really really can’t stand Vaani’s face, so that is saying a LOT! It is just so wonderful, and everything epitomizes “pyar dosti hai” so much more than Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. Also, the performances are just so sincere. It is also one of those movies where I so appreciate the farce but also get something new that is fun, sweet, and new every time I watch it. I am so sad that most people did not appreciate this movie and Aditya Chopra is likely never going to make something like this again.

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      • Wow, you are right! If I think about Ranveer’s reactions in this movie versus in, say, Lootera, they are equally real and deep. It’s a light farce, but the actors don’t treat it like a farcical performance, they have some real emotions there.

        On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 2:39 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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        • Also, I just came up with another moment that seems so private that it is mesmerising. Sid and Pari blouse tying scene in Hasee to Phasee. It is so fraught with desire, it makes me blush, and yet, I can’t look away.

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          • YES! That moment is so intimate it almost doesn’t feel like it fits in the film.

            On Tue, Oct 15, 2019 at 7:58 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  13. Have you seen that two Hindi movies about balding are coming out right after each other? Bala comes out on Nov. 7th and Udja Chaman comes out on the 8th.

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    • YES! I saw them both on my timeline and thought it must have been mistake. I guess it was a mistake on some level, but a strange one.

      On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 7:12 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • I was confused at first as well until I realized it was two different movies. I’m probably not going to see either movie when they come out but so far, I think I like the trailer of Ujda Chaman more than Bala.

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      • I was expecting something else, it looks like yet another movie about violent guys from slums and reminds me of KGF. Not my type at all, but I think it will be good (for those who like this kind of cinema)

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        • We may differ here, but I am mostly disappointed because Nivin is still more on the round side than I prefer.

          On Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 2:13 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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