Happy Wednesday! Halfway through the week! And this weekend I get to get my eyes checked and I can’t WAIT!!! Get to solve my headache mystery, and then get to come home and order cute cute cute new frames online.
I’ll start!
Reading: A Discovery of Witches! Which I enjoy, but the heroine is a little Mary Sue-ish, isn’t she? Also, my friend who recommended it to me abbreviated the title to “How are you enjoying Disco of Witches” and now I really want to read about/see a disco of witches.
Watching: My parents are trying to get me to watch Professor T. with them, a Belgium series, and I don’t love it. Too deep, too stressful, too not-cozy. But they refuse to try Murder She Wrote again (the FOOLS!), so I don’t know what we are going to do. Oh, and tonight I host Friend Movie Night and I think we are going to watch Ek Ladki Ko Dekha To Aisa Laga because it is sooooooooooooooo happy.
Thinking: So many things! Should a buy a kit and start mounting my completed puzzles on felt because they are so beautiful? What should I get my nephew for Easter? Should I start seeing movies in theaters again now that my parents have been vacc’d and there are a bunch of interesting new releases?
Listening: It’s Shraddha’s birthday! Let’s listen to her sing:
Now, question for you! It’s the Baskin-Robbins “33 Flavors” holiday, what is your favorite flavor of ice cream?
This is hard for me! Because I tend to guy by moods, I don’t have a stable favorite. But I guess if I think about what is the one flavor I would always be happy to eat, mint chocolate chip.
Follow up question, what movie star best represents your favorite flavor of ice cream?
Mint chocolate chip, hmmm. Not Shahrukh, it’s too cool and sweet for him, he’s more bitter and rich. I think maybe Shashi Kapoor? Cool, sweet, pleasant, not demanding.
dontcallitbollywood 
Have you seen Netflix’s list of upcoming releases? I’m super excited because there are so many movies and series, and almost every one has somebody I like. E.g Haseen Dilruba has Vikrant, Tapsee and Harshwardhan Rane, Bulbul Tarang has Sonakshi Sinha, MeenakshiSundareshwar and Pagglait have Sanya Malhotra, Sardar Ke Grandson – Arjun Kapoor and Rakul Preet. There is also a movie with Madhavan (!), Abbas-Mustan movie with Bobby Deol and Arjun Rampal and I guess series or something with Harsh Kapoor. Oh and The disciple I have been waiting for months was confirmed.
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I can’t make heads nor tails of those trailers. Lot of people I like but I have noooo idea if there’s anything for me.
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Yeah, these trailers are confusing. I tried to add the link to LetsOTT thread to my first comment but it didn’t work. They wrote a tweet about every movie/series with a little plot and cast.
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I see the summaries for a bunch of them now but not all. The Tapsee (and Vikrant Massey?) one looks great.
Kartik Aaryaan looks weirdly good with long hair but also teetering on the edge of Charles Shobhraj.
Still can’t find chunky Arjun, Maddy, or Harsh’s one.
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Harsh:
Maddy:
Arjun:
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lol it’s like they set out to make a bunch of movies designed specifically to not interest me.
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Also, thanks so much, Angie!
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One thing is sure – the casts are better then the plots.
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This is AMAZING! It’s like you hacked Netflix.
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This is exciting! Will probably watch the thing with Maddy although I’m wondering what “suffers from chronic objectivity” means. The most exciting thing I think I was able to glean from the seizure-inducingly fast edit is that there’s going to be another season of Little Things? If so, yay!
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Angie – thank you for recommending Suraj Pe Mangal Bhari! What an unexpectedly delightful movie! If you find other hidden gems, do let me know!
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Decoupled, one of the Maddy ones, looks promising. Yay, new seasons of Little Things and Masaba Masaba. Bollywood Wives is back too. I can’t tell about Taapsee, I like her but the description of her character is not appealing.
Look, here’s the trailer for the films. Even more confusing.
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Oh yay! I am so excited that there will be a new season of Little Things! I was worried it had been canceled.
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I’m just adding that The Serpent is also coming to Netflix, apparently!
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Yes! I checked the little “alert me” box. I am so happy, it’s a story I always wanted to learn more about but at the same time didn’t care enough to read a book. Thank goodness there’s a movie version now.
On Thu, Mar 4, 2021 at 1:08 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I’m watching the Slapstick Festival, though already woefully behind because of work. But they have a great streaming set up where you can stream things for a number of days, which makes it a lot more doable.
I’m interested in the talks, because they seem to be partly academic film analysis and partly professional and focused on practical details of constructing comedy. But I could be wrong.
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You are so cool. I’m doing jigsaw puzzles and watching Columbo with my parents.
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I’m also listening to Tori Amos, it’s an unexpectedly intellectual week for me. But soon I’ll be back to Govinda and Murder She Wrote.
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I hope so! you are making all of us look bad!
On Thu, Mar 4, 2021 at 1:04 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Sick in bed, rewatching “Bajrangi Baijaan” ( :
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Perfect sick day movie!
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I have one day of reprieve and I have gone back to being stupidly busy! Ugh! But it was sunny today and I watched Suraj Pe Mangal Bhari and that was so unexpectedly delightful that it made me so happy!!! Not that the two movies are anything alike, but it reminded me of when I think Ms. Braganza and Angie recommended another hidden gem – Shaadi Pe Zaroor Aana.
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UGH! I am so glad at least you got one day of reprieve.
On Wed, Mar 3, 2021 at 5:41 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I’m happy you liked the movie 🙂
And yes, Shaadi Pe Zaroor Aana, Suraj Pe Mangal and Happy Bhaag Jayegi, have different plots and cast but are very similar somehow. The same feel. I would add Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi to the group also (although it has some problematic scenes)
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Reading: I just started a book called Something Like Gravity about a transgender high school student falling in love for the first time. Some trans people who read the book had problems with it, but I really like the writing so far. It’s just emotional enough for me.
Watching: I’ve been all over the place the last few weeks. Initially, I was going through the backlog of everything I had marked on Netflix to watch later. I watched an Amanda Knox documentary, which I loved, a short documentary on speed solving Rubik’s Cubes, which was so much more wholesome than I expected it to be, and then Dolly Kitty, which I liked in parts, and then the more I thought about it, I didn’t like it too much overall. And THEN, Simon from Bridgerton hosted Saturday Night Live, and he did such a good job and I loved it so much that I decided to binge Bridgerton. So that’s what I’ve been doing for a while. I’m not done yet. I just started episode 5, so I don’t think I’ve gotten to anything too insanely sexual or problematic yet.
Thinking: My district went back to hybrid learning on Monday, so I’ve been getting used to that and thinking about how I can develop a new routine that doesn’t take that much effort or change. So far it’s going well.
Listening: Nick Jonas announced a solo album that releases in a week and a half. The lead single, Spaceman, released last week, and a new song, This is Heaven, comes out tomorrow. I’ve been a fan since the Jonas Brothers were big in 2008, long before Priyanka even came to the US, so I am very excited about these songs and have been listening to them nonstop.
My favorite flavor of ice cream is cookies and cream, hands down, so I’m trying to think of people that are overall pretty bland but have the occasional moment of excitement and intrigue. My first thought was Hrithik. Maybe Sid too? Janhvi, especially lately with all the Roohi promo? I don’t know.
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Yes! Your feeling about Dolly Kitty is the same as my feeling!!!! The more I thought about it, the more I disliked it.
Maybe cookies and cream is Shraddha Kapoor? Generally smooth and sweet and vanilla, but with occasional nuggets of goodness?
On Wed, Mar 3, 2021 at 6:09 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I haven’t really been able to focus on watching anything or reading, but as for the extremely important question of my favorite ice cream flavor that would be almost anything with chocolate and on the opposite spectrum, mango with chile!
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Are you an SRK fan? Because I feel like both chocolate and mango with chile could represent him.
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Of course!! Don and K3G were my first two “Bollywood” movies and once I got over the shock that SRK was both Don AND Rahul I knew that I must watch everything he’d ever been in 🙂 The project is still ongoing, but he is by far my favorite Khan!
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I vote against framing puzzles. My mother-in-law has a puzzle on her wall that they finished probably 25 years ago. There it is, on the wall. I feel like puzzle satisfaction should be an ephemeral thing, that’s the beauty of the puzzle. You spend all this effort to get it to its brief moment of glory before taking it all apart again.
Reading: this was a nice article about Kelly Marie Tran, she seems like a genuinely lovely person. Now she gets to be a Disney princess and Awkwafina plays the dragon, so that sounds fun.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/resurrection-of-kelly-marie-tran-on-surviving-star-wars-bullying-the-pressures-of-representation-and-raya-and-the-last-dragon
Watching: I started OK Jaanu since I missed the watchalong, but then I took a break to watch Master and The Big Day, and now I’m not that motivated to go back. I like ARK fine, though I feel like they play up his immature side a lot to make up for him looking like a movie star, but I’m having trouble forgiving Shraddha for not being Nithya Menon. (And WTF with the video game studio, that was the most ridiculous excuse for a workplace set I’ve ever seen.) Anyway, I’m sure I’ll finish it soon.
Listening: Master soundtrack, my new favorite. I put the jukebox on while I’m working, I like a bunch of the songs, but this is my favorite that I played for my kids:
I don’t even like the English language songs usually! IDK, this one’s got my number.
Favorite ice cream: coffee or mocha. Don’t remember who you’ve assigned to those in the past, I’m going to say Irrfan.
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You and my mother, no sense of adventure in home decor!!!! What I picture is on the funnest brightest really-artwork-but-in-puzzle-form puzzles, and just mounting them on felt, and then I can have a bright fun group of art hanging on my wall.
You should go back to OK Jaanu! So cute, happy ending, great songs. And not that long so it is pretty painless to watch. Although, yes, video game jobs and offices are SILLY. I think Mani Ratnam was trying a wee bit too hard to be cool. And then Karan wasn’t smart enough to drop that bit when he did the remake.
In the past I have made SRK dark dark chocolate with coffee bits, but I will accept Irrfan as well.
On Wed, Mar 3, 2021 at 11:34 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I finished Rab Ne! Yay! What a happy movie, and I particularly liked the songs as well the scenes of Amritsar. I will overlook the tattooed sumo wrestler.
Also watched another episode of Masaba Masaba, which I’m very slowly working my way through. This is the one with Mithila in it, and I laughed out loud at the reason she is late for the shoot (“A comb got stuck in her hair.”)
Also watched The Girl on the Train. I’d watched the original version, but they’ve added a second twist to this one, and also a bunch of songs and a lot of really over the top stuff. I don’t think it’s Parineeti’s fault, but it’s up there with Jazbaa in terms of nutty stuff they make the main actor do. Parineeti has to scream and whip her hair around in a bathroom, which she accidently records, the better to frame her with later. And she has to wander around for most of the movie with the universal (Indian) sign of a woman who is losing it: kajal smeared over half her face. Anyway, I’m happy she’s getting work, and also Kriti Kulkarni, who seems to be getting more and more work. I really like her. She’s got a calm, intelligent, Nimrat Kaur-like vibe.
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LOL yes for smeared kajal! I kept thinking- why waste the time to put it on if it’s always smudgy? Just don’t do make-up girl! And when I wasn’t thinking about the kajal I was like: what a beautiful hair Parineeti has. Why my hair isn’t like that? Maybe I should change the colour?
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Right? Just line your eyes with eyeshadow if you’re going to be falling down drunk later.
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Also, looks like Avinash Tiwari is going through the phase of his career where he’s always the jerky boyfriend. Buck up, Avinash! Rajkummar got through it!
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Yaaaay! Rab Ne! I forgot it has that Japanese part. Oh well. At least you got to see pretty Japanese scenery in the end credits bit.
I am increasingly excited about The Girl on the Train, I think I need to make a date with a friend to watch it and make fun of it together.
On Thu, Mar 4, 2021 at 1:04 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh yes, please do tell us your thoughts on the sumo scene. The whole fair makes me cringe, and they play the sumo wrestler as a big dumb bad guy (bc obviously no way SRK, let alone Suri, could ever actually defeat him) but at least they got a real wrestler and not just someone doing a bad imitation? Also, were the characters on the banners Japanese? I wondered.
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It’s not a real sumo wrestler, although he is doing a good imitation of real sumo moves. I can tell because (1) His hair is just in a bun, not in the characteristic “chonmage” style in which the hair is oiled and tied. (2) A sumo wrestler would never have a tattoo. (3) His loincloth is quite frighteningly loose. A real sumo loincloth goes tightly up between the butt cheeks, and it’s always white. (4) Not to body shame anyone, but sumo wrestlers aren’t just fat, they’re very muscular. This guy is a bit flabby.
One of the banners says “irasshaemase” (welcome) in real Japanese, but the other one is not Japanese characters.
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I misspelled irasshaimase like an idiot.
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We all noticed and didn’t want to say anything.
On Fri, Mar 5, 2021 at 6:56 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Transliteration typo. If you had written it in Japanese it would have been perfect.
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Thank you! I will go continue to cringe through this scene and occasionally hide under the blankets.
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I realized that watching movies help me not thinking about food, and so last week I have seen a few .
First Malli Raava (telugu 2017), the reason I subscribed to SunNxt. The subs didn’t work but I was determinated to watch it, and saw it with downloaded subs on the side. The movie was sweet and nice just like I thought. For a moment I was scared it will be just another boring school love romance, but not because we have also girl’s point of view. First the boy recounts how he fell in love, and later we see the same situation told by the girl. Why she was there, how she fell, why she liked the boy etc. I absolutely loved it!
Then I saw this strange malayalam movie Love. Really it’s not my kind of film, but I saw the trailer some time ago and was curious. It was good, very different form what I usually watch.
The Girl On The Train – I know people don’t like it but I enjoyed it. I was there for Avinash Tiwary and he delivered. Pari tried to act and do something, not like in her last movies when she was like: “I’m too pretty to work” and that’s enough for me.
Kutty Story – the worst from this week movies. I watched it because I heard great things about VJS part (+he also looks super hot).
The first short, GVM one was ok, very his style, but definitely not a must watch thing.The second, about a pregnant girl – nothing special. The third was absolutely the worst. I would rather rewatch The girl on the train thrice than watch this short again. It’s about a gamer who plays in some new game and meets there a girl. Obviously he falls in love love on the first sight with girl’s avatar. Then they play, and play, and play, and we only see their avatars fighting, finding coins and stuff. (I kept telling myself : Angie you can do this, there is hot Vijay Sethupathi waiting for you at the end of this tunnel) .Then one day the girl disappears without a word. He keeps playing for her, and later tells his story in some radio show. The girl hears it, and we discover SHE IS DYING FROM CANCER. I hate this short so much, and at the end I was so exausted I couldn’t enjoy VJS part!
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Watching movies does not help me not think about food, but doing puzzles does. Which is perhaps why I am watching fewer movies and doing more puzzles.
OMG, that video game movie sounds SO BAD!!!! Like, why? It’s a totally trite plot and predictable twist, the best they could hope for is coming up with something new for the “we just realized we are in love without meeting” part. Video games? really? When you could do something cool like “he sees her artwork in the window of a gallery and draws a picture inspired by it and leaves it at the gallery to be sent to her and then she sends him a picture back and they communicate only through images until she suddenly breaks off contact”?
On Thu, Mar 4, 2021 at 4:13 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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The worst thing and also what told me this short sucks is that he fell in love with her immediately after seeing her avatar. You know how those female characters in games are: voluptuous bodies, sexy warrior clothes, beautiful doll-like faces. And he – a grown up man, fell in love with this! and even told his friends he is in love with her, after one day! Is the guy who wrote this serious? I would be ashamed to wrote story like this in high school. But still with all my hate I think Suhasini Maniratnam’s short story in that other tamil anthology (Putham Pudhu Kaalai) was worse.
I decided I won’t watch any other tamil anthology ever. But just the day after, Netflix announced Navarasa, and one of the shorts has Siddharth and Parvathy and I don’ know if I will be able to ignore it.
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Wait, how can you fall in love with an Avatar? It’s not real! That’s so WEIRD!!!!
On Thu, Mar 4, 2021 at 2:05 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Did you get to watch Pitta Kathalu on Netflix? Telugu anthology again with mixed outcomes. The one directed by Tharun Bhasker (Pelli Choopulu) is worth watching. The cast and the music make the movie special.
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I just saw Indoo Ki Jiwani on Netflix. I think they spent their whole budget on the songs as the film was essentially conversations, but they were really cute conversations. And the actress had a very Hema vibe going. I really liked that the whole film was centered around the actress and the first half of the film had great chemistry, between the main protagonist and her friend. Less chemistry with the love interest, but it worked plot wise. Honestly it was awkward, cringe-worthy, and a joy to distract myself with for two hours. Oh, and Pakistani terrorists are hot.
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I was wondering if I should watch Indoo Ki Jawani but wanted someone else to watch it first and tell me about it. Thank you for the summary! I’ll probably watch it this weekend and continue to ignore The Girl on the Train.
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Margaret and other DCIBer who enjoy bad bad dance movies, Netflix just released Step Up 4 – The Revolution! It’s bad and yet we needed something mindless to watch last night and we enjoyed watching it and making fun of it so much! The actors were clearly picked because of their looks and the dancing skills, and not for their acting skills. Also, there is barely a plot but there is all kinds of fun dancing!
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Oh man, this is TOTALLY going to be my pick for Friends Movie Night next week!!!!
On Thu, Mar 4, 2021 at 8:54 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Ha! Fair warning: if you watch this you might fill your quota for bad dance movies and will never watch the Isa dance movie. 😊
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How nice of Amit Sadh – he knows today is friday and we need some TGIF material:
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Awwww, he is nice! Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but someday he is going to inspire me to do a “men holding phones” TGIF.
On Fri, Mar 5, 2021 at 11:00 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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