Happy Monday! I have allergies like crazy, my weekend was way too busy, and it was one of those Mondays where I had to hit the ground running at work. Blargh!
Here is where you get to ask me any question you want from “tell me more about your allergies!” to “what is the one Yash Chopra film I should watch?” Just keep swinging back here all week as you think of new things you want to ask!
Now, question for you: Can you rank in order of personal preferences the Yash Chopra/Shahrukh Khan movies?
For me, it’s strictly chronological. Yashji really kind of lost his touch as he aged, the plots become increasingly wandering and confused, and his grasp on Shahrukh’s performance does as well. So,
Darr
Just a brilliant film, perfectly using Shahrukh as an anti-hero contrasted with the too-heroic hero Sunny Deol and fully questioning all romantic tropes.
Dil To Pagal Hai
There’s just nothing new to say about love triangles by this point in Yashji’s career, plus the SRK-Madhuri chemistry is lacking, and it is just so loooooooooooong. The hero and heroine don’t even meet until over an hour in!
Veer-Zaara
I find the plot completely frustrating in this one, and the old age make-up is terrible, but the SRK and Preity chemistry is excellent. If I can just enjoy their moments together and ignore everything surrounding them, it is good.
Jab Tak Hain Jaan
UGH! Plot is as frustrating as Veer-Zaara, but the chemistry just isn’t there, and Shahrukh is miss-cast (at least in the first half) and UGH!
dontcallitbollywood 
1. Darr – Perfect music and story-wise! Love it to bits!
2. Veer-Zaara – Yeah, it’s a bit old fashioned in its presentation, but I love it. So many classic songs! The best looking SRK from the 2000s era for me.
3. Jab Tak Hai Jaan – Loses second place because the plot is so easily fixable. Gulzar’s lyrics, A R Rahman’s music is splendid, SRK is hot and Anushka is a delight! Just…really needed a script check after the actors got on board.
5. Dil To Pagal Hai – The music is good, but boy is it a chore to get through at some points. I rarely listen to the songs from this one too.
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You can almost convince me to your reasoning. But that’s more about how close the last 3 are to me, they are almost tied in badness. Darr is on a whole other quality level than all of them.
On Mon, Sep 28, 2020 at 10:45 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Darr really is just so fantastic! And it’s one with the most twisted romance/obsession story of the bunch while the others are pure utter romances, go figure.
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I think Yash Chopra gets a bum rap as a “romantic” director. Really, I think, most of his romances were about deconstructing romance and showing the flaws inherent within it. It’s only in his later years that he lost that touch and started doing more straight up romances, boring!
On Mon, Sep 28, 2020 at 11:40 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Yea, but it is what most of this genration remembers from his movies. The latter full on romanric part. Say “Yash Chopra” and my first thought is “Chandni” not “Darr” or “Kabhie Kabhie”. Maybe the “romantic” title will go away in time…
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On an unrelated note, Accented Cinema is a YT channel that covers usually Eastern Asian cinema and makes analyses. But he also covered Sholay! It’s a great take for someone who usually doesn’t cover Hindi cinema or Indian cinema at all, still has a bit way to go, but I am still happy he covered this movie.
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I like them in the order you have listed. JTHJ just made my head hurt.
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Yeah, Yashji was definitely losing his touch by the end. Still lots of beautiful moments, but didn’t hang together as a whole.
On Mon, Sep 28, 2020 at 1:20 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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They could make it up to me with a next life sequel about Akira …
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Do you think they padded Jim Sarbh’s arms (and maybe chest?) in the flashback scenes in Raabta? I finished my rewatch and his lower arms especially look wrong, and he moves like someone stuffed a pillow down his shirt.
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But, doesn’t he always kind of move like someone stuffed a pillow down his chest?
I could believe it, because SSR was definitely pumped up gym body look, and Jim Sarbh had to match that, but without wanting to go to the gym. They could have gone the other route and hired a modern day Bob Christo, but probably better to hire an actor without the body instead of a body without the actor.
On Mon, Sep 28, 2020 at 2:16 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I mean… maybe? I will look into this. He doensn’t move much?? He usually stands around and sneers. This is a deep statement, Margaret.
He looks normal in the present day scenes, but in the flashbacks his forearms are hilariously big compared to his hands, whereas normally his hands are big compared to his wrists. I guess they wanted him to look more warrior king-y. Maybe it was related to the armour though and he needed padding to wear it and then they had to even it out.
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While talking about Jim Sarbh: the movie he was doing with Harshwardhan Rane will release tomorrow. Unfortunately on Zee5 😦
I’m so confused. I was waiting for this film, but there wasn’t any news for months and now suddenly they announce it will be available tomorrow. Without promos, without trailer, there wasn’t even a poster, only 3 photos. There is more: it’s a feature movie but also a 6-episode series.
What do you think? If the makers don’t have faith in this film, why make also a series? And if the movie is good, why this haste?
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You got me, Zee5. Uuugghhh. So is it a choice, like a film OR a series, or do you get a film AND a series?
I thought it was a normal big movie, this does look like they dumped it which is very odd. Jim was normal about it before so he clearly didn’t think it was going to be terrible but he hasn’t promoted it now. Maybe it’s a money issue and the distributors snatched it from the directors hands.
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A film and a series. Harsh also hasn’t promoted it. He only retweeted 2 or tweets and that’s all. I think that the crew didin’t know about this deal.
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Well, I won’t complain if I get more content, even if it is a completely bonkers way of going about it.
Yeah it looks this was pushed without informing some vital parties of it. Pretty bad. Looks like some sort of deal forced by money related stuff to me.
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Yeah, if they had loans out, they may have needed to make a streaming sale ASAP to pay them back instead of being able to wait for proper promotion nd release.
On Mon, Sep 28, 2020 at 3:27 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I wonder if they are just breaking it up like a series? So you can watch a 3 hour movie, or 6 30 minute episodes, however you prefer?
On Mon, Sep 28, 2020 at 3:20 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Seems that I don’t even know which month we are in. Taish will release on October 29th so next month and not now as I thought.
I found an article /interview with Bejoy Nambiar in which he explains why he made both a movie and the series:
https://www.filmcompanion.in/features/bollywood-features/taish-movie-zee5-bejoy-nambiar-on-releasing-his-new-project-as-a-movie-and-web-series-jim-sarbh-pulkit-samrat/
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I’m ranking them in the order of how often I have watched all or parts of the movie.
#1: JTHJ – military SRK is SEXY. Anushka is SEXY. And 5 year old really likes military SRK. So we skip the Katrina parts.
#2: DTPH – DANCING. Yes the chemsistry is awful. But the dances. Two of my most favorite dances ever in ONE movie.
#3: Veer-Zaara – It made the 11 year old cry. The prison scenes are almost comical, as is the “old” make up, but it is good enough that I’ve seen it all the way through twice and enjoyed it both times.
#4: Daar – I have never seen it all the way through, probably because it makes me uncomfortable.
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But, see, Darr is supposed to make you uncomfortable! That’s why it’s brilliant!
Otherwise, I can see your arguments. Have we discussed before the strange fascination of DTPH for children? I’ve heard of so many kids, like 5-6-7-8 year olds, who just adore that movie. Something about it is delightful for them, where I just find it boring.
On Mon, Sep 28, 2020 at 11:33 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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My favorite Yash is Veer Zara, which I know you hate. Like Genevieve I don’t like the makeup (they are mid-forties, tops, in the future, or present, or whatever the later scenes are. Maybe the intervening years were very hard, but COME ON). I don’t know, it’s got Hema and Amitabh and Gurdas Maan and Rani and it’s not JTHJ. And they put Madhuri in that heinous blue catsuit for DTPH. And JTHJ is the only movie in which I can’t stand Anushka; her usual happy independent persona is just so forced here, mostly because she doesn’t go more than five minutes without talking/singing about how happy and independent she is.
Did you see Arjun Mathur was nominated for an International Emmy? And so was Delhi Crime? I have no idea what an International Emmy is, but I was happy to hear that. There are all kinds of interviews with Arjun on youtube, and he has a serious quarantine mullet, but I’m glad he’s getting recognized.
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Yes! Emily mentioned the International Emmy in another comment. My big problem is what you just said “I don’t know what it is”. I did some research and so far as I can tell it is very much the poor relation of the “real” Emmys. And also kind of silly since the “real” Emmys totally nominate international content so long as it played in the US. Thanks to streaming, that is almost everything now. And they also nominated Four More Shots Please which I have heard universally dreadful things about, so I think they were doing a bit of a “what’s from India? We should get something from there” kind of nomination procedure.
On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 1:54 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Yeah, I was suprised to find this is like the 38th year or something? So they haven’t made much of a splash.
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Although I’m genuinely hesitant of ranking (I prefer to tell what I like or don’t like), I want to answer 😉
If I go with the way those five movies make me continue to watch them when I’m just looking for a certain scene/song, DTPH is the one i only look for the songs (which the kids like, too). Darr is the one where I skip the scenes with only Juhi and the Deol-macho-guy. VeerZaara, I like the story but don’t have to watch it.
Well, with JTHJ, it doesn’t matter where I start to watch, I always want to continue till the end. I’m in no way critical to any of the three characters as I can relate to them and find the performances adequate…I love the songs, I like the story arc (even with the memory-loss-accident), I like the romance and/or not-romance, I like the ShahRukh-Katrina connection and the ShahRukh-Anushka connection and ShahRukh’s way to “challenge God”.
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I thought I remembered you were our JTHJ partisan! Which I enjoy, because it shows how universal Yashji is. Any movie of his, will touch someone.
On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 6:29 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I’m happy that I’m one of many (including of some living in the US without any roots in the desi culture) 🙂
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