Happy Saturday! I am laying in bed with my foot elevated 8 inches above my hips thinking about how the heck I am going to get my morning coffee. That should keep me busy for a few hours at least, and in the meantime y’all can chat.
Things to talk about!
First, have we discussed the completely unexpected Priyanka Chopra Jonas Crocs brand ambassador role? I only know about it because I am on the crocs mailing list, I don’t think it was promoted to the Indian press or anything. What is UP with that???? What is the overlap between PC’s presumed audience and the presumed audience for Crocs? And why is the photo shoot so strangely boring and 1990s shoe catelogue looking?
Next, Dil Bachara! Anyone watched it yet? Anyone planning to watch it? Anyone like me and never planning to watch it because the story was depressing enough already and now is super super depressing, and also it’s a first time director and only an hour and 45 minutes and generally sounds like it might not be that good?
Rana officially announced his wedding date, August 8. Join me in using the power of positive thinking to make Trisha interrupt the wedding so that he leaves the nuptial fire to go to her in a big dramatic filmi moment in front of live TV cameras! WE CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN!
dontcallitbollywood 
Wish you a fast recovery Margaret! Regarding Rana, it would have been cool if cousins(Rana and Chaitanya), both married Tamil Actresses!
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Oh, I hadn’t even thought about that! And then Samantha and Trisha could have formed an alliance against all the proper rich girl brides in the family.
On Sat, Jul 25, 2020 at 8:17 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Sometimes the best time is before surgery or something like it, so enjoy that lounging and just resting 🙂 Speaking as someone who had an operation in my throat and I had to eat ice cream for a couple of days or to a week (I forget).
Planning to watch Dil Bechara when it comes to einthusan. Maybe not immediately, but at least at some point.
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Good tips! Right now the pain pills are making me feel pretty sick. So im more saltines and trying not to move than ice cream. But i have high hopes for tomorrow!
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I meant to write “after” instead of “before” XD
But yeah, maybe tomorrow when your body is a bit more used to the pills to just treat yourself with sweets or just some nice foods or treats each day, it does feel like a comforting prize afterwards 🙂
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I just had a bowl of rainbow sherbet, and it was super yummy
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Thoughts on the whole Kangana debate and also Tapsee Panu?
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I can’t take Kangana, i have avoided all coverage
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I heard mixed things from a friend who watched Dil Bechara yesterday. Said Sushant was the best thing about it but overall not that great a movie and wouldn’t have gotten this much buzz if there wasn’t so much surrounding it. I’ll probably watch it later and hopefully report back.
Not Indian film related, but did anyone else listen to Taylor Swift’s surprise album that came out yesterday? I devoured it alone in my room on a cloudy dreary day and it was haunting and heartbreaking and magical and I cried.
Don’t really follow too much about South Indian film stars, but we have to manifest good things happening on August 8 because it’s my birthday.
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Oh that’s right! I knew there was a reason August 8 stuck in my mind.
Not surprised about Dil Bechara, I’ve been worried since it was announced. Just didn’t sound like a good package.
Oh! That’s what i was looking forward to! My sister told me about it but i forgot. Must check it out!
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Dil Bechara is free on Hotstar with no subscriptio needed. I started to watch but right off the bat was taken out of the story because they both looked way too healthy to have cancer. Plus the tone was off, it was so strenuously cheerful because I think the whistling past the graveyard tone of the original didn’t translate well to India. Sushant was very handsome and charming but not convincing as a teen. I gave up on it pretty quickly, especially because the whole time I was watching it I kept thinking about how his death has been exploited and used as an excuse for serious nastiness. It’s also just sad to see a smart, talented handsome young man and know that he was so unhappy he killed himself.
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Apparently some people are saying that he was murdered and want a CBI investigation. Also how do you feel about what kangana did and accusing so many people
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But I think there already is/was an investigation? just because suicide is a crime?
And I have decided to ignore Kangana completely because she does not deserve attention. I haven’t even read headlines about her latest crazy.
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This is what I was worried about! The remake rights purchase was announced ages ago, and right then I thought “how will this work?” If it’s just doomed lovers, than it’s hardly new or original in Hindi film. And if it’s the snarky sarcastic black humor version of the original that worked, how will that work in Hindi film? And then they cast people who looked way too old, and brought in a first time director, and just a whole bunch of bad signs. And then filming was delayed over and over again for like 2 years in a way that said “the backers don’t like the rushes and keep pulling their funding”.
Last thing I saw about Sushant was confirmation that he had been hospitalized in the past for depression. So, yeah. It’s just sad, he was sick and there was no reason behind it but him being sick. My parents went to a funeral for a suicide once, similar to Sushant, in her twenties with years of struggle with depression behind her. It was a Catholic service and the priest described her as dying of the fatal illness of depression. I like that way of thinking of it. Some people get cancer and get treatment and kick it and survive, and some don’t. And depression is the same, it’s a potentially fatal illness that you should fight and get treated and do whatever you can, but sometimes it kills people, because they are sick.
On Sat, Jul 25, 2020 at 9:34 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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It kills people a lot. Almost 20% of people with untreated depression commit suicide. I wish the online conversation was about that. Instead the right wing has hijacked his death. Lots of political threats being made against Bollywood actors and Karan Johar and the Khans specifically. I know this is a happy spot so I won’t get into it too much but I’m legit scared for anyone who is muslim or gay like Karan. The covid epidemic is bringing out the bigotry and it’s being exploited by the government.
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Yes exactly the focus should be on mental health it’s still a stigma. Also I feel like she has political people backing her up and funding her or else how is she able to get away with it or at least soon she might join politics, the way she’s talking and made itt a Muslim vs Hindu right vs left seriously makes me so mad!!
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I watched Dil Bechara and I figured I’d come back with a comprehensive review.
Personally, I liked it. Sushant was great, truly the best thing about this movie, even if Alisa is right that he looks kind of old to play a teenager and both he and Sanjana didn’t look very sick. Sanjana also did a really good job. My big problem was with the storytelling. It follows closely to Fault in Our Stars so anyone who knows the original can trace things from this movie back to it, and it generally follows the same progression. But they took some creative liberties, adding things to make it more palatable and taking some important details out that made some events make no sense.
SPOILERS
The one thing that didn’t bother me too much was Sushant making a homemade movie and casting Sanjana as his heroine. Just an excuse for them to fall in love. But in the original TFIOS, the pair are obsessed with tracking down an author whose one novel ends in the middle of a sentence and asking him about what happens after the book ends. Here, it’s an incomplete song/album which is kind of ridiculous and doesn’t make a lot of sense logically. In both, they have a correspondence via email with the author and go to Europe to meet him, but in TFIOS, when they get there, they find out his publicist was pretending to be the author and emailing them so when they meet the real author he has a breakdown and yells at them for being sick kids. There’s none of that in Dil Bechara, just some random guy who sits with them at a restaurant and doesn’t say anything and then Saif Ali Khan, the musician, yells at them. I feel like they had a scene with the publicist and edited it out, so Saif’s breakdown is really out of left field and also the background music is super jarring. And then Sushan’t cancer comes back and he gets really sick with 20 minutes left in the movie, Sanjana writes a eulogy, which is first mentioned with ten minutes to go, it’s really bad, and then Sushant dies and there’s like 2 scenes and then the movie ends. It’s a little surreal and too on the nose because the last scene is them watching Sushant’s movie that he finished before he died, complete with a fourth wall break where he addresses Sanjana/the audience, but the last 20 minutes, which was supposed to have the most emotional impact, felt really rushed and I didn’t cry nearly as much as I expected to. Considering the whole movie is only an hour and 45 minutes long, they really could have kept those important scenes in and stretched some of the emotional stuff to really make an impact. Instead they stretched the cutesy beginning and rushed the actual emotions. They kept some of the nuances from the original–Sushant keeps unlit cigarettes between his teeth–but it doesn’t circle back like it does in the original to actually have any emotional meaning to the story aside from it being a nod to the source material.
END SPOILERS
This movie really could have benefited from a better editing team. It’s a really nice showcase of Sushant’s talent and an unintentionally great send off, but I can’t hold it against you for sitting this one out.
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I watched Dil Bechara and came away feeling little sad. In the final parts it is very difficult to seperate reel and real.It was no longer about Sushant’s character but about the talented,full of life guy who passed away so soon. Heartbreaking to watch those parts. I loved the actress,she has a great presence and looks lovely. Hope to see more of her. I liked all the supporting characters too. Also after a long time ,I heard songs for the first time & went back to hear them again.
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Yeah, sounds like I should keep skipping it.
On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 11:41 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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You should check out the songs though
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