Happy Wednesday! Boy it is hard to get through a whole week of work without a random holiday in the middle! Thank goodness I am going on many weekend trips in the upcoming weeks to cheer myself up.
I’ll start!
Reading: Still reading the super fun mystery series set in a retirement community in Florida! Highly encourage you to check it out: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074CDRD1Y/?ie=UTF8&%2AVersion%2A=1&%2Aentries%2A=0
Watching: I have tragically finished every current episode of Raven’s Home. I’m trying a new Disney show Sydney to the Max, but I’m not totally in love with it yet. I could try watching “adult” stuff, but I’ve got a cold, it’s dark outside…I’ll go back to watching deep high quality stuff when the sun comes back. Although on the adult side, I may have a crush on the Dad in Sydney to the Max. He bakes! He hangs with his daughter! He makes dorky Dad jokes!
Thinking: My cold! It was one of those that sat in my head and throat invisibly, and now it is bursting forth into the world with a running nose and sneezes and everyone is giving me sympathy while I am feeling better on the inside. Why can’t you always be as visibly sick as you feel?
Listening: It’s AR Rahman’s birthday week! I posted my first favorite Rahman song on Monday, today my favorite of his newer stuff!
dontcallitbollywood 
Reading: Louise Penny’s latest mystery in her Inspector Gamache series, A Better Man. Also old Seventeen magazines for my book.
Watching: Besides the War tweet-along (thanks!!), I also watched The Zoya Factor (nice light fare) and am current watching Shakespeare Wallah, available free from my library’s streaming service. Shashi!!!
Thinking: Trying not to think, actually. Because living 8 miles from the White House can be too darn close.
Listening: Lots of classical music and non-newsy podcasts. Also Ta Nehisi Coates’s book We Were Eight Years in Power, in small doses, because it is very disturbing even though it is beautifully written. (See: Thinking, above.)
So far I have avoided the various blights that have made the rounds here. Knock wood.
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(remember, no politics! Happy Place!)
Zoya Factor is such a nice smiley movie! And feels kind of in sync with re-reading Seventeen magazines. It feels very teenage fantasy fulfillment.
If you have to get a cold, this one is a pretty good one to get, sooooo mild. Only today I woke up with a terrible sinus headache, which is no fun.
On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 6:22 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Reading: Twilight of the Belle Epoque by Mary McAuliffe. Interesting account of the rise of the term, French cultural history, politics and people and how they created what we know now as the Belle Epoque period in France along with the Paris we know today. It tells of all the artists, architects, thinkers, writers and motived and reasons for them doing what they did in the period and it feels like a combination of all autobiographies in one which I love! Can’t wait to start to read the other two (Twilight of the Belle Epoque and When Paris Sizzled). It’s really good and detailed and I love it!
Watching: Film songs, musical stuff…not much else.
Thinking: The world’s troubles, while trying to have a good day at the same time. Today is my dad’s birthday (today) and also mine (my b-day is tomorrow) and we are celebrating with Chinese Hot Pot and Korean BBQ in a restaurant in Helsinki. Usually we go to an authentic Thai restaurant, but now we want a little change.
Listening: Film songs, musical stuff…not much else.
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Correction, reading DAWN of the Belle Epoque. Thinking too much ahead when I wrote.
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Happy birthday to your Dad! And to you a day early!
That book sounds really interesting, like a novel with a bunch of characters, only it’s real. And it’s a trilogy!
On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 6:39 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Yep! It’s like reading an authentic miniseries in book form and it’s great! Tells both the good and the bad, but in an interesting way and all the chapters are separated in to years, so you get it bit by bit. Unfolding history before your eyes, if I can describe it like that.
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And thank you for the congratulations!
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Carol and I watched the Zoya factor. Aside from what we thought about the film itself, we noticed that the color quality was waaay off. We watched it on Netflix and in some scenes they almost looked like it was a video game. Did anyone else notice this. It was very disconcerting. Aside from that I thought Sonam was more wooden than usual and the plot was too silly even for us. But the color/filter thing was so off-putting.—Molly
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Huh! I saw it in theaters and didn’t notice anything that off. There were a lot of scenes where they had clearly used color/light correction, that slightly heightened look, but nothing that was off. Sounds like maybe a Netflix issue? Weird!
It’s based on a book and I think (based on the little I can gather from wikipedia) that the book weighted the plot a little differently so there was more time for the build up of her as this good luck charm which is where the actual “plot” comes in, instead of just being this quick silly thing.
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My watchlist from the last few weeks:
Frozen 2 and I loved it. I lost count how many times I have cried. I hardly watch animated movies, but this one was special.
The Rise of Skywalker – i didn’t hate it, it was ok, but where are all the romances? At least there were so many Oscar Isaac’s scenes I could enjoy.
Band Baaja Baaraat
Christmas movies:
Holiday Rush
Pride, Prejudice and Mistletoe – not recommended
Christmas in Love – this one was the best, maybe because I like Brooke D’Orsay
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I started Holiday Rush and couldn’t get through it. Next year, watch Almost Christmas instead! Missed Christmas in Love, hopefully it pops up somewhere I can reach it next year. And I will continue to avoid Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe.
So glad someone else watched Frozen 2! It was good, wasn’t it? I rewatched Frozen 1 afterwards and I think Frozen 2 holds up and is a valid continuation of the story.
Still haven’t seen Rise of Skywalker, considering it for when I visit my sister next. Not sure now.
On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 1:47 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Don’t tell me you want to miss the close-ups of this face:
I also found Kylo Ren sexy this time.
Definitely money well spent 😉
Frozen 2 was great. I liked it even more than the first movie. I went to see it with my nephews the day before Christmas Eve, and in the beginning I kept thinking that maybe I should have stayed at home and help with chores. But after some scenes I was so involved I forgot everything and I realized I haven’t been so interested in a movie for a while. Elsa was badass and sexy and strong. I might have a crush on her now.
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One second, let me find my Frozen fanfics for you:
And in the comments on this post: https://dontcallitbollywood.com/2019/12/14/saturday-small-talk-baby-photos-albie-dog-photos-a-christmas-sweater-and-frozen-2/
On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 2:34 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Finally back to the old grind after my 11 days in the US. Trying to catch up on a pile of work while battling jet lag that is causing me to be virtually comatose between around 1 and 6 pm every day, otherwise known as a time when I either teach or have a meeting.
Thinking: I love Deepika. Just, in general.
Also thinking: you should really do a poll on the most annoying orthography in a film title in the history of Hindi cinema. Was it “Life in a . . .Metro”? (Why is that ellipsis there?) Or “R . . .Rajkumar”? (OK, I know why it’s there in this case, but for the longest time I thought it was supposed to be “Ruh, Rajkumar” like how you would say Rajkumar if you stuttered). Or the ever popular Heyy Babyy? Or something else I’m not thinking of?
Watching: Manikarnika. I probably wouldn’t have watched this except I was on a plane. I’m almost in the “Kangana’s public image makes her films impossible to watch” camp, except I’ll probably watch Judgemental Hai Kya. Also, this is yet another of the films I watch on planes that I fall asleep during and have to rewind repeatedly until I completely lose track of what’s going on (cf. Fitoor), so it’s probably not fair of me to make a judgement, but I’m pretty sure the last 25 minutes or so is just a really long bloody violent battle. And if you’re annoyed with Kangana’s public image, this is a movie about a scrappy woman who battles against all odds to be the best queen ever and save her people, so.
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“I Hate Luv Storys”? Just throwing that into the mix. And Mere Brother Ki Dulhan irritates me irrationally because there is no reason for it to be “brother” instead of “bhai”. The two words are identical! Why Hinglish it up?
Did you catch the bit in Manikarnika where Kangana gives a big speech about how of course she speaks English personally even if that surprises people? Kangana, you do not make it easy to separate your real life from your films!
I also love Deepika! But I’m not gonna see Chhappak, I don’t love her that much. I’ll stay home and watch Photograph instead. Ooo! Maybe go grocery shopping and make soup! It’s a party.
On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 8:35 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh my God, I momentarily forgot about the English part, but yes! That made me want to jump out of my economy seat in irritation!
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It was just so stupid! And not historically accurate, or relevant for the character, or anything. Complete insertion of Kangana herself into her fictional world.
On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 9:01 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Watching: I rewatched Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani after talking about it last week. I still like it and I’d forgotten how great the songs are. However, two things I noticed now that I have more context with Ayan and Ranbir. First, while the script and characters are strong, the balance is just slightly off kilter in a couple of places in the final edit, slightly tipped to Ranbir. Like in Badtameez, he’s leading the song and his dancing is fabulous, but the camera lingers on him a touch too much. It cuts to Deepika and Kalki but rushes back to Ranbir almost before they’ve finished their moves. And the final shot of the film is a huge close-up of Ranbir’s face. WHY? Following the logic of the story, *spoilers* his character journey was from being selfish and isolated to realizing that by focusing so much on his dreams he was missing out on love and friendship. The final scene is him walking away from his dream job to propose to Deepika, so why would you not end with their embrace instead of zooming in for a close-up of his big face where she is cut out of the shot? *end spoilers* Second, even though Deepika and Kalki are able to give the impression of a deep friendship through their performances, the film gives almost no time to showing it. Unless I’m forgetting something, I think they don’t have a scene together with dialogue besides that opening encounter in the supermarket (great scene). How much more depth could the two of them have added to their characters with one or two more scenes, ideally talking about not men?
Also watching: pleased that my second attempt to get my kids into Malcolm in the Middle seems to have hit at the right stage, they’ve decided the older one is Malcolm and the younger one is Dewey. Which makes me happy, because then I get to be the mom and she’s hands down one of my favorite TV moms ever.
Reading: took me a while to get through it, but there were some interesting parts in this post on culture and how streaming has changed the things we have in common.
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/the-goods/2019/12/17/21024439/monoculture-algorithm-netflix-spotify
– ‘Streaming “forces a little bit more evangelism”…The feeling digital media induces is, “‘It’s my job to get them to watch it so we can talk about it.”‘
This is true! Though it often doesn’t work, which makes us seek out other ways to talk to people who are watching the same things. (Like here!)
– ‘Scorsese complains about the homogenization of “market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, revetted and remodified” content. Yet in terms of representation and access, for people who aren’t Martin Scorsese, this change feels like a step forward. The range of widely available mass media no longer represents the vision of only one demographic group. The retro-monoculture of Goodfellas, or Friends, or Seinfeld, is just one choice among many. But what do our other choices look like?’
The good side of this moment. I used to have to drive across town to the Vietnamese grocery with one wall of movie rentals to find movies like Supercop and Wing Chun. It was an adventure but rare and limited. Now we have worlds at our fingertips. The gatekeepers have lost a lot of their power to shape our shared tastes and stories.
– As part of a discussion of recommendation algorithms: ‘We thought the long tail of the internet would bring diversity; instead we got sameness and the perpetuation of the oldest biases, like gender discrimination. The best indicator of what gets recommended is what’s already popular. …“The feedback mechanisms are reiterating a certain homogeneity of consumption.”’
This was interesting because it talked about how stifling it can start to feel when the songs you listen to or the shows and movies you watch all sound or look the same. This combined with the overload of options can also cause us to make snap judgments based on the categories we’ve been trained to recognize and the thumbs up/thumbs down ratings behavior we’re encouraged to engage in for ‘personalization’. This then creates incentives for producers to make more stuff that feels the same as the categories the algorithms are already feeding us, since this is the easy route to the biggest accessible audience.
– ‘Art’s deepest impact comes when it is least expected. In contrast, algorithmic recommendations lead us down a path of pleasant monotony: a looming monoculture of the similar. To resist it, we should embrace obscurity, difficulty, diversity, and strangeness as just as important as recognizability or universality. …Otherwise, any new, surprising content that enters the machine of digital monoculture will quickly have its innovative quirks stripped and copied, scaled up and repeated until they become cliches.’
Interesting to chew on, though I don’t know that I agree with all of it. Choosing the quirky instead of the familiar feels like trying to game the computer, which still feels like accepting its terms. I think you can choose how and when to get your recommendations from the platforms vs. seeking out other humans. But it’s good to be aware and I find myself training my kids to opt out of auto recommendations (especially on YouTube, harborer of evils!).
– ‘Instead of taking the place of linear television’s monoculture, the streaming-media internet can, at its best, be more like a digital permaculture: an ecosystem of smaller platforms and bigger; smaller projects and bigger; and artists both famous and not, all sustaining each other.’
Ending on a hopeful note.
Bringing this back to Indian film, from what you’ve described, on one hand the monoculture is still alive because there are still a limited number of ways that most people watch films, in the theaters or on broadcast or satellite TV. On the other, as the streaming platforms become more important sources of funding, they shift the incentives. The good side of that is experiments like Made In Heaven or some of the smaller films that are viable now. The negative is the potential for reinforcing the tendency toward copying existing trends, using familiar actors, staying safely inside easy to identify categories. More generic and marginally good enough fluff like Drive. Though ultimately I still have faith the artists will adapt and figure out how to subvert the new system to their own ends.
(Stopping now. Sorry this got so long!)
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Splitting my response, YJHD first!
You are making me want to rewatch it too! What I remember is that the ending felt off in some way, and that I was irritated we didn’t get more Dips and Kalki. But I couldn’t put my finger on why I felt like that. I know there are a lot of Dips-Kalki interactions on the Trek, especially when Dips sees how ARK is breaking her heart and comforts her, but I bet you are right that they are non-verbal. So irritating! These great actresses creating a relationship out of nothing because the script isn’t supporting them. I remember the ending felt rushed and wrong somehow, maybe it’s what you say, that we end with Ranbir? And it’s not just in the last shot, he and Dips split at the wedding and then we follow him, not her. It is about his journey back to her, not what she was going through. Have you seen Wake Up Sid? That film is clearly a double character journey story. Now you are making me think about how this film SHOULD be a two lead film, and yet Ranbir is just slightly more important.
Although, just to play devil’s advocate, I would argue that Dips is more the lead of the first half while Ranbir is the lead of the second (same structure as DDLJ). Except, wait a second, actually Dips is the lead of the first half but Ranbir is a stronger second lead to her in that half than she is to him in the second. If that makes sense.
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We’re seeing things more from her perspective as the outsider in the first half, but in terms of screentime it’s pretty even Ranbir and Deepika. He gets the first song (Ghagra), then Subhanallah and Balam Pichari with them both together. The second half opens with Ilahi, Ranbir in Paris. Cut to the wedding, he’s offscreen for maybe five minutes and we get some good Kalki and ARK time, and then Deepika’s speech and Badtameez (see? no Kalki-Deepika). Wedding hijinks, Deepika-Ranbir scene, Ranbir-ARK fight, then Dilliwaali Girlfriend. From that point on I think he’s in every scene, right through to the final close-up.
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Oh yeah, Ghagra in particular felt added on. Great song of course, but the script was demanding an intro song for Deepika at that point since she is our primary POV person.
On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 10:24 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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WordPress is down so I can write posts, which means I can respond to this very interesting comment (finally!).
-I agree that streaming forces evangelism, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that is “new”. I remember having similar conversations around DVDs and obscure TV shows. It is new since cable/VHS I would say, since before people just watched what was on the 4 broadcast channels or at the local movie theater.
-For me this ties into the last point. I used to have to recommend Indian movies to folks based I what I knew the local library could give them, now there are so many films available right there on Netflix for them to watch.
-Drives me crazy! There are so many good Indian movies on Netflix, and what does everyone in my family watch? “Chopsticks”. Which is no doubt fine, but they are only watching it because Netflix recommended it for them because Netflix doesn’t want to pay for streaming of the other fine options. Oh right, that’s the other part. You can complain about the algorithm not working, but it actually is working perfectly because it’s designed to steer you towards cheap content that will make you happy enough, not good content that you will love and will cost them more. And in a larger sense, that same content is produced based on previous analysis of viewer habits that leads to bland familiar stuff being what is made by the company, and then promoted by the company.
-My hope is that eventually this blandness becomes un-profitable. If people see and love Bahubali, and then Radhrumadevi autoplays, they will be shocked and probably never watch another Indian film. But if people see and love Bahubali and then Jab Harry Met Sejal autoplays simply because it is also Indian and has high viewer ratings, then people will keep watching. Quality, not content, should be the guiding line.
-Maybe. But it seems awfully unlikely as the streaming giants move more and more in the direction of smaller libraries with bigger profiles versus large libraries with lots of variety. I’ll be interested to see if a new model comes up that would allow artists to connect directly to their audience without needing to go through a streaming giant. But then I fear it turning more into the “self-publishing” book model where great books are never noticed since there is no publishing company infrastructure to sustain and promote them, not to mention authors no longer coming close to something like a living wage without the advantage of a publishers advance, and the start up cost for a film is just SO MUCH bigger than for a book. If I make a film for $30,000 and release it on youtube at a cost of $1 a play, am I ever going to find the 30,000 people to watch it that I need to make back my costs? And how long will it take?
-My biggest concern with Indian film is that instead of it becoming a fractured culture, it is falling along one fracture line. The wealthiest part of society is receiving massive amounts of entertainment right now, from Made in Heaven on Prime to films like Good Newwz in theaters, while the 90% remaining are limited to satellite television options, or nothing.
On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 12:09 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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My professional life involves some analysis of algorithms so I’m interested in that line of this discussion. You suggest that “quality, not content, should be the guiding line”. How do you think that should work? I’m guessing the current system works by how many people who liked this also liked that. But since everyone likes Baahubali (true!), then there’s no pattern in what people “also” liked. So would you suggest another massively popular movie in the same language, like DDLJ, or another massively popular movie in the same fantasy/adventure genre, like Star Wars, or another movie that got very high ratings by those few who viewed it, like JHMS?
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I’d say just keep it simple. Like combine the standard lists of “100 best films”, along with rotten tomatoes ratings, along with Netflix user ratings. And then if I search for “French Films” or “Shahrukh khan films” or whatever, it brings up those first.
On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 10:28 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I think this is basically what they do already – they have the equivalent of bestsellers as their top line “Bollywood” category. For something like Bahubali, the next thing you’re presented with is biggest hits, regardless of genre. Other options one step down are historical epics or same language or same actors (not as a named category, but I’ve noticed this pops up). Over time as they see your behavior and ratings they might try to make more specific recommendations, maybe even factoring in other data from other things online. The thing that works against the algorithm being purely in service of the users is they give a certain amount of merchandising as an added incentive in big licensing deals, so that leads to films from those catalogs getting guaranteed placement. Of course, that ends up irritating your viewers if it becomes obvious, which is why more of the platforms are now touting human curated collections. (Unclear, though, if these are as valuable as people want them to be. Amazon famously did an A/B experiment early in their huge growth in online bookselling, a John Henry contest between the human editors and the algorithm, with the result that they fired all the editors.)
For the record, I find search and browsing on Netflix pretty good. Amazon Prime, at least on my Roku, is awful.
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On original content and recommendations: I don’t think they steer you to their content over license deals because they’re trying to save money. I think they do try to build audience for their homemade stuff because it makes for loyal customers since you can only get it there, they have total control over whether it’s shown anywhere else in the universe, it attracts new members, and yes, they don’t have to pay out royalties. But if they pay a lot for a popular catalog they want people to watch it, that’s why they paid to get it in the first place. They don’t come out well if they’re pushing you to watch obscure back catalog or cheaply made crap you don’t like. Ultimately they want you to pay your monthly fee forever, and be happy so you’ll tell your friends too.
On library size: digital platforms want all of the content, especially if they only have to pay out when someone watches it. It’s not like they have to pay warehousing, there’s no marginal cost. The Indian market is competitive. If the catalogs are shrinking or moving around, I’m guessing it’s because they’re going someplace else.
Now I’m super curious to know what movie you would make if someone handed you $30,000.
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I would make a terrible movie if someone handed me $30,000! But I could take a year off work and write a fabulous book.
On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 10:42 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I forgot to say I saw a kannada romantic movie Krishna Tulasi. It’s about a blind man who works as a guide in Mysore. One day he meets a lovely girl in the bus and starts talking with her. Day after day they start to know each other and fall in love. But then – the twist. She is also blind! And he doesn’t know. She also doesn’t know he is visually challenged. There is even a scene when an old woman ask the couple if they could help her cross the street, and they do it, because they don’t know none of them can see. I was so tensed and thought: Thank God it’s not a tamil movie because who knows how would this scene end!
Later the guy discovers the truth and leaves the girl so she can find somebody who can see (obviously he doesn’t tell her his reasons). Fortunately there is a happy ending.
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This is INSANE. And I kind of love it and want to see an over the top sappy Hindi remake with Harsh Kapoor and Sara Ali Khan.
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Marjaavan is on Prime now! Let’s celebrate.
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I’m watching the movie now and it’s a perfect example of “so bad it’s good”. Everything is ridiculous and I’m enjoying it to the fullest.
Also , I have only seen the first 25 minutes so far but there was at least 20 mentions of Allah, Hindu gods and Jesus. Religon is in every scene, but in a good (and over the top) way e.g there is a little Hindu temple right beside a mosque and Jesus’s sculpture. Everybody does his prayers in peace, Muslims are friends with Sid who is Hindu, the villain thinks Hindustan is only for Hindus and is punished for that.
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Aw man! And I already schedule Photograph for this week! If I knew there was an over the top melodramatic bad romance available, I never would have watched the slow artistic no songs good romance.
On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 12:47 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Jeff Bezos is visiting India for 3 days next week starting on January 15th. There is supposed to be a big Prime event and strangely enough SRK will be having a fireside chat with Bezos there. I’m not sure Netflix would be so happy about that even if their contract doesn’t expressly forbid it. I’m intrigued. Is he planning on moving out of Netflix eventually?
https://www.cnbctv18.com/business/jeff-bezos-to-kick-off-3-day-india-visit-on-january-15-to-review-india-ops-and-meet-industrialists-5038501.htm
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How interesting! SRK seems to be on the forefront of these international meetings, didn’t he talk to the head of twitter at some point too? So in a vacuum, him volunteering for another big event around a major global website makes total sense. Even if it’s not for a Red Chillies deal, just to raise the profile of Indian film globally. But yeah, I wonder how Netflix would feel about it? Maybe they are counting on anything that raises Shahrukh’s profile benefiting them since they hold his movies?
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SRK had visited twitter’s headquarters in California many years ago. The CEO, Jack Dorsey, was in India last year and he visited Mannat. I don’t think it was a professional thing because they just met up at home. Sometimes SRK will invite other people over for a party but this time he didn’t.
The Bezos thing is odd because it’s a Prime event where the chat will be happening. By default, it will promote Prime. I can’t see how Netflix would like that. If it was a separate thing, it wouldn’t matter but this is specifically Prime branded. What is more odd is that Prime already has a series called The End coming up with Akshay Kumar so why not just use him? Prime and Akshay promoting each other makes perfect sense. SRK and Bezos does not.
Anyway, since this is being reported by CNBC, I assume they will air the Bezos/SRK chat next week so we will have something new to watch. You’d have to be a fool not to air it. Oh well, at least he gives us stuff like this even if he refuses to make a movie.
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Looks like you aren’t going to see Chhapaak and that may be a good choice! I saw it today and was very disappointed. I thought it was an important film and successfully gets across it’s message in a very matter of fact PSA kind of way. I really enjoyed Raazi, but stopped watching Talvar and Drishyam both half way through. There’s something about Meghna Gulzar’s direction that bothers me, I think. Honestly, I think there is no art to it. It’s just boring. In Raazi the pace is problematic but the performances of Alia Bhatt and Vicky Kaushal and others carry that film to the finish line. In Chhapaak, Deepika’s performance was so minimal to be almost completely unimportant by the end (where the script lets her down again by trying to tell the audience who Malti is as a person way too late in the film…and also makes us uncomfortable watching Deepika portray a teenager, too). I’m glad the film was made and that Deepika also made a political statement both on-screen and off. Also, Vikrant Massey was completely wasted (and seemed to struggle with how the character was written) and the romance suffered because of it.
So I also watched Uyare when I got home from watching Chhapaak today and liked it much more. There are major weaknesses in the script, but the character development and performance of Parvathy’s lead character, her father, and even the boyfriend villain are quite believable. This also played like a “special message” tv movie at times, but I was moved to shed tears a couple of times where Chhapaak left me surprisingly unmoved.
I did also cry throughout Little Women (which I saw last night) and they were tears of joy and sorrow. Brilliant film and I went in thinking nothing could displace the Winona Ryder version which has always been a comfort watch movie for me.
Also watched Laal Kaptaan today (one of those Sundays!) and really liked it. Deepak Dobriyal was great in it and the western epic feel it had was great. Plus the music was some of the best I’ve heard this year. Like Kaalakaandi and Baazaar, a very underrated Saif Ali Khan film and yet again he makes a surprising choice and if he doesn’t hit it out of the park, it’s at least compelling viewing. He and Kareena are at the top of their game right now. Both are making smart choices (alternating commercial and experimental films) and they both are looking more confident and sexier on screen than ever.
Saw Drive with SSR and Jacqueline the other night and I was surprised it held my attention. I watched it as a joke but the attractiveness of the leads and the silliness of it all actually held my attention. I never want to see it again, but it reinforced my feeling that SSR is one sexy guy and Jacqueline has a winning screen presence.
So I guess I’m back obsessing about Indian films again! I saw many more in the theater this past year than ever before, but I also lost a bit of my passion for them to…but I slowly feel it coming back. Might go on a bit of a Malayalam kick now…
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One thing Datablue suggested (having watched a lot of Meghna’s father’s films) is that they are very objective films. The camera doesn’t draw you in with their emotions, just tells the story. Which I loved with Talwar, since it is essentially a true crime story. And with Raazi, her camera and Alia’s emotional performance kind of balanced each other. But i’m not sure how a story like Chapaak can be told well without being emotional.
Agree about Uyare! They successfully conveyed the whole journey of an acid attack survivor, her life before, the increasing danger of her abusive relationship, and so on and so forth. the finale was RIDICULOUS, but I had a real commitment to the character which carried me past that.
So excited to see Laal Kaaptan! I feel the same way about the really interesting work Saif is doing lately, hopefully Jiwani Jaaneman is a hit and inspires people to go back and look at his other recent stuff.
Very happy to find you obsessing again 🙂 You can check out my post on the best rom-coms of the decade if you haven’t already!
On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 11:06 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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What is your guilty pleasure movie like its soo bad but you can’t stop watching it!??
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