Happy Wednesday!!! And Happy My Father’s Birthday!!! And one of my closest friend’s birthdays! And one of my sister’s closest friend’s birthdays! And also, Mickey Mouse!!! Isn’t it funny how some days you know loads of important people with birthdays, and most other days you know no one?
I’ll start!
Reading: Not much of anything, although I did spend the weekend sorting through ten gabillion books to decide what to keep. So I guess I am reading “the title and description of many books before deciding whether or not to keep them”.
Watching: I watched Chopsticks with friends last night, finally. It’s cute! Could be better! I will probably review it. Oh, and I am also still binging so many true crime documentaries. Patty Hearst, who knew how BONKERS that story is?
Thinking: When did I get so old that I couldn’t spend a weekend sorting books into boxes and then carrying boxes of books, and then moving the three now empty bookshelves including one floor to ceiling one, without making my back hurt so much I can barely move? It’s not fair!!!! I love rearranging my books and moving my furniture around, I thought I could keep doing that my whole life no matter how old I got. Also, Advil! Who knew? It makes your back feel better!
Listening: We probably aren’t watching OK Jaanu this weekend, but just talking about it made me remember this song:
Now, question for you! In honor of my father’s birthday!!!! Who is the hottest father in Indian film?
Ashutosh Rana Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, no contest.
dontcallitbollywood 
then its everybodies birthday …..happy birthday to those name mentioned…may our days be long
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So nice to read you on your father’s birthday (who doubles, triples, quadruples it with – hopefully- nice people).
I just wish him (with you & your mom) a really happy day 🙂
Hmmm, you’re right…with the pain in your back…well, maybe, you should accompany your work with a string of ShahRukh movie songs… (I made the experience that any pain during all the renovating – and physically challenging – work just vanished into the air).
Hottest father in Indian film…Raees? G.One? Harry (okay, I joke 😉 )
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I will accept Raees, but G.One and Harry weren’t fathers!
On Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 7:00 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Hi hi, I know….b u t G.One became a substitute for a father and Harry would become a father, so I just went for the person who is/figures like/could be a father (a little joke 😉 )
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Oh no, what a question. I have too many options. First place is Fat Shashi in those movies he did with Govinda, especially Sindoor. With a second place medal for Amitabh in Sarkar and Govinda in Kill Dil, and a third place for Sunil Dutt and Kabir Bedi (otp) in Kurbaan.
All I can watch is detectives and Govinda dance numbers, may my brain rest in peace.
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Hey, at least you are watching stuff in different languages! I am still on my true crime binge, and I’m not even willing to spread out beyond English language shows!
On Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 9:20 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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lol sure, if the language is Govinda’s hip movements.
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omg it’s finally happening
https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/bollywood/shah-rukh-khan-begins-filming-his-next-pathan-see-photos-7056234/
https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/11/shah-rukh-khan-.jpg
https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/11/WhatsApp-Image-2020-11-18-at-6.04.32-PM-02.jpg
https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/11/WhatsApp-Image-2020-11-18-at-6.04.32-PM-1-01.jpg
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Not with that hair!!!! I honestly hope this is fake just because I don’t want him to be filming with that hair. I want him to be going to a pre-production meeting with that hair, and then have it cut, and then start filming.
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Ashutosh Rana is a fine choice. I would add Renji Panicker in Godha as the runner-up.
True Crime Warning – don’t watch American Murder: The family next door. I saw it one morning and was depressed FOR DAYS. I knew nothing about this murder. Didn’t have idea who is the killer and how it ends and OMG it was horrible.
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I already saw it! And it didn’t depress me because I have no heart (or children), but also because I really enjoyed seeing how incredibly competent and caring and doing things exactly right everyone else was. Her friend called the police almost immediately, the police recorded everything from the start and pretty quick figured out something weird was happening, and even that random neighbor waited until the husband was out of the room and immediately told the police “this guy is being weird, you need to watch him”. And then the interrogation was just lovely to watch, very slowly and politely leading him to the inevitable confession.
On Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 2:19 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh yes, the police and friends did their job very well, but this husband – what he was thinking? Such a idiot.
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Watching The Casketeers on Netflix. It is about a funeral home in Auckland, New Zealand – what they do, the people who run it and people who use their services. The owners are Maori so I think I am becoming more aware about death in a different culture.
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Oh, that sounds really interesting! I may have to check it out after I finish my True Crime binge.
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Reading Hunted by the Sky by Tanaz Bhathena. The author is Canadian Indian and created a magic fantasy land that resembles India more than it does any Western nation. The part that really makes it feel Indian to me (other than all the food and words and names) is that the protagonists, who are falling in love, are always mad at each other because they are falling in love. I keep thinking of Kajol, and her look of love, that is just about the same as her look of anger. But it isn’t just Kajol, so often you know the characters have fallen in love in Indian film because suddenly they look terrified (I just watched Yes Boss so I’m immediately am thinking of Juhi and the coconut scene). And I understand that fear, while love can be scary anywhere, it is especially scary in a land of arranged marriages and strict social rules. The book club to discuss it is tonight, and I’m already teased about never being able to go for an hour without mentioning Indian film, but this time it is going to be totally warranted.
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Yes!!! That love and fear dynamic is so real. And I was thinking about it in comparison with American culture, and it seems like we have addressed it by constant messages of reassurance/normalization. Like, you have to actively fight against the fear with middle-school dances, and Disney Channel movies, and parental reassurance, and all these things that are telling kids “it’s okay, it’s normal, you can feel this way”.
On Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 5:17 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Can’t disagree with Ashutosh!
Watching: wanted to thank filmikudhi (I think?) for recommending Kandasamys The Wedding forever ago. It took me a long time to feel like watching it, but it was the lighthearted new romcom with low stakes and dueling mothers-in-law that I needed in this moment. The dude was a little too mama’s boy for my tolerance level, but a nice enough chap that I could get past it, and the overall message was not pro patriarchy. Plus the South Africa setting is just enough different to feel fresh.
In case anyone likes this kind of true crime: there’s a really well done Spanish series out on Prime called Patria that looks at what it was like in the Basque Country during the prime years of ETA killing people in the name of nationalist independence. The story focuses on two families whose kids grew up together. In one family, one of the kids becomes an ETA militant, and in the other family the father is killed by ETA (not a spoiler, it happens at the beginning of the first episode). The structure is really interesting, it revolves around the moment of the killing, out and back through time, filling in details gradually so you see both how the characters got to that moment and all the repercussions spanning decades afterward.
And Netflix finally served up a Turkish recommendation, Turkish Dance School, which I started watching because of Kainaat. Just barely started – so far it’s def not politically correct treatment of mental illness or suicide but it is funny and charming and the lead actors are beautiful.
Thinking: saw the trailer for Tiny Pretty Things, it looks great and makes me happy that good things are happening to these authors.
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I think your description of the Spanish true crime show gets at why I am finding them so addictive right now. It’s not “ooo, look at the blood and violence”, but this moment of things breaking down is a great starting point for considering humanity and society and just life in general. Like, I watched a really interesting series on Ted Bundy that focused on the women around him and that moment of social change for women that was so tied into his crimes.
On Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 6:07 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Do tell how it was! As much as I’m into Turkish shows right now, I haven’t watched any of the ones on Netflix. The best ones aren’t on there sadly! The two shows which got me hooked are Dolunay and Cesur ve Guzel, if you look them up and find the storylines interesting, I can tell you where to watch.
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Turkish Dance School was…I’m going to say it’s a gender flipped Happy New Year without the heist plot. It’s broad comedy, very silly, but light and with some legit funny scenes. You just have to be OK with a deeply unserious treatment of psychiatry and suicide as a meet cute. I wandered away and back over a few nights. I liked the female lead, Demet Ozdemir. Did some digging and I suspect there are some other movies that might be more up my alley, I’m going to try a couple and let you know if I love any of them. Not sure I’m ready to commit to a series yet :). But thanks for talking up this industry, I’m super curious to see what productions Netflix comes out with now that Turkey is on of their new focus countries.
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Yeah, a series is a commitment with movie-length episodes! And their comedy has been hit-and-miss for me.
Oh that actress! She was actually in the 1st series I watched and found her character so annoying that I gave up after a few episodes and that would have been the end of my foray into that industry. But I liked the male lead and took another chance with his other project and that got me totally hooked!
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I’m still overloading and I’m going to a remote conference at night! But I finally slept enough and feel much less like slapping random passers by.
Happy birthday to your dad!
The hottest Indian father is Pankaj Tripathi in whatever movie he’s in. I know he was the father in Bareilly ki Barfi and Gunjam Saxena and it seems like he was probably a father in some other stuff also.
I am now an hour into Dev D., so slowly working my way through every possible Devdas. I like that (1) the whole thing is solidly Devdas’s fault and (2) he gave Chandramukhi a backstory. Speaking of which, she chooses the name after Madhuri in the SRK version, so meta! Isn’t she going to realize pretty soon that she’s in a Devdas remake though? (Dev has just drunkenly crashed into her bedroom, so I’m waiting to see how it works out).
The great Bengali actor Soumitro Chatterjee has left us. This is really the end of an era; I don’t know any other Bengali actors of the classic period who were still working. I think he may have been the model for the stereotypical Bengali hero embodied by Parambrata today: sweet, intellectual, handsome, a bit unfocused perhaps. (And I’m wondering why him and not the more “alpha” Uttam?) In his memory I’m hoping to watch the classic Barnali, in which he is paired again with Sharmila and it winds up much more happy than in The World of Apu.
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You need to watch Ludo if you like Pankaj!!!! He gets so much to do and has a wonderful time doing all of it.
YES to Dev.D!!! After watching all of them, I would put it just behind Bimal Roy’s version. He really gets that Dev is to blame for all his own miseries, and that Dev is not some nice smelling romantic figure, but a really gross addict. Oh, and Chandramukhi isn’t a “tragic” sex worker, but a sex worker who is there for a reason and safer in many ways than she was in her previous life.
I was hoping you would tell me who this guy was. I saw the twitter tributes and stuff, but the name meant nothing to me.
On Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 9:48 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Soumitro was Satyajit Ray’s muse kind of, worked in 14-15 of his films. He’s the brother-in-law in Charulata, adult Apu in Apu trilogy. Ray wrote a series of detective stories with ‘Feluda’ as the investigator, he created Feluda in the image of Soumitro and also directed two films with him starring as Feluda. These stories are rites of passage for almost every Bengali, so if nothing else, they know Soumitro as Feluda. But he was so prolific, worked with the best parallel film directors of that era, did theatre, wrote poetry, he was shooting for a film before contracting Covid! But I love him best in a series of delightful romantic and comedic movies he did with Sharmila and Aparna Sen like Barnali, Basanta Bilap, etc. Young Soumitro might have been the first Bengali actor I crushed on.
Have you come across this picture before? Shashi, Jennifer, Madhur Jaffrey and Soumitro at Berlinale.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EfSPDSFXgAAfhC5?format=jpg&name=medium
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Reading:A Midsummer’s Night Dream.Did Shakespeare get possessed to create something so idiotic?He never appealed to me,but never realized he could be that bad.
Watching:Charulata,in memory of Soumitra Chattopadhyaya.He had such a cute boyish charm,reminded me a lot of young Shashi.
Thinking:The lack of sensitive male leads in films nowadays.Way too many alpha studs(as in character,not the actors).
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I love Midsummer Night Dream!!! And it’s definitely not supposed to make sense, it’s all about the comic lines and “what fools these mortals be”.
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Did you see the rumor that SRK as Raj and Salman as Prem are appearing in cameos in Aamir’s Laal Singh? SRK has already shot for it apparently.
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I believe no rumors! NONE!!!! But it would be cool, if true.
On Thu, Nov 19, 2020 at 3:00 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Listening – the soundtracks to Bandish Bandits and A Suitable Boy are kind of on loop.
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I feel bad, I haven’t seen either of them.
On Thu, Nov 19, 2020 at 6:54 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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