Happy Saturday! I was going to organize my file cabinet today, but then my friends invited me to go to a pumpkin patch with them, so I’m doing that instead. Yaaaaay!
Things to talk about!
Gadar 2 is announced! Is anyone excited about this? In many ways, I love Gadar 1. But it just feels like lightening in a bottle. I don’t believe they can pull it off again. Especially if the main goal of Gadar 2 is to help launch the director’s son.
Little Things! I was going to binge it yesterday, but I forgot how STRESSFUL it is, so I only managed to do two episodes before I needed a break. Is everyone else in the same boat?
Pumpkin Patch! I’ve never been to one, what is your advice? What is not to be missed?
dontcallitbollywood 
Some time ago I read that Sunny wants to re-launch his son Karan. He was terrible in a lovely way in Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas (it was like watching your own son during a school play – you know he is terrible but you find him cute anyway). Maybe Gadar 2 will be his second chance? Or maybe Bobby’s son is ready to start his career? Or Sunny wants to have a hit again?
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Could be!
On Sat, Oct 16, 2021 at 2:00 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Little Things is such a BRILLIANT show. Every reaction, every dialogue is so well thought out. I can binge it but I don’t want to because there is so much think and say about each episode. Should we discuss 2 episodes at a time? If not, I can just take notes on each episode so I can put it all in the comments at the end.
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Oh also, I’m sure most people have already figured this out, but Little Things has audio in full English and the Hindi (aka Hindi-English-Marathi). Not sure if that makes a difference for anyone but wanted to make sure people knew that.
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I’m on board with this. Not binging it because I don’t want it to end! If we discuss it a little at a time it will stretch it out and I can through my stages of grief with my peeps, and we can support Margaret through the stress.
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Yes! I need support! Such stress!
On Sat, Oct 16, 2021 at 9:29 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I’m down for 2 episodes at a time! Either I will watch all of the episodes and then go back and put up posts broken down into 2s, or I will review 2 at a time as I go. Depends on my emotional/intellectual bandwidth! It’s just SO brilliant!
On Sat, Oct 16, 2021 at 2:14 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Yay! Ok, looking forward to this. I will try to keep up and discuss. Thanks!
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I will try to keep up with the watching/writing!
On Sun, Oct 17, 2021 at 10:07 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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My experience at pumpkin patches – 1. Let kids pick out expensive pumpkin for purchase. 2. Buy hot drink if available. 3. Take a ton of photos 4. Pay for additional things like a bouncy house entrance if they have one, or the chance to throw a beanbag at a hole. 5. Go home wondering where all your money went. So how did your pumpkin patch experience go?
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That was it! I went with my friends/housemates and one of their friends and her 5 year old boy who had SO MUCH ENERGY!!!!! He didn’t sit down once for 6 hours, and all he had to eat was a stack of cheese. HOW????
We did follow a rule of not paying for any of the extras, but the entrance fee was $22 so that alone was too much money. We watched him do the free bouncy thing, did a tractor ride, many petting zoos, bought hot cider from concentrate, and then he got to pick out his pumpkin as the last activity so we didn’t have to carry it around all day. Most exhausting and difficult part, spending half an hour trying to find the car in the massive parking lot.
Also, I made my friends promise to come back with me in December for the Christmas Farm Experience that is also hosted there. I suspect it will be identical, but with trees instead of pumpkins and hot chocolate instead of hot cider.
On Sun, Oct 17, 2021 at 2:41 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Was the pumpkin included in the $22 entrance fee?
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No, I do not believe so. I hope not at least! If it was, they got my $22 and got to keep their pumpkin, which is just ridiculous.
On Sun, Oct 17, 2021 at 6:34 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Also it sounds like there were 5 adults and one child. So the patch got $132, but only one person got to use the free bouncy house. Those pumpkin patch operators understand the market. This is the opposite of my life, where I would go with 4-7 kids to pumpkin patch and their parents would happily bail. But I would only take guest kids to patch where I didn’t have to pay for bouncy house tickets.
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Oooo, this is a good point! The adults just stood around and drank over priced hot cider. Although we did all go down the Big Slide. Because it is a Big Slide.
On Sun, Oct 17, 2021 at 6:44 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I stayed up late finishing Salaam-e-Ishq last night, it was a rental and it’s sooo long, and now I haz regrets, because it is Monday morning and there is not enough coffee in the world. Very silly movie, I ended up fast forwarding through chunks of the second half and I never do that! I just really didn’t care about the white girl plot. I enjoy watching Akshaye, but his plotline was also annoying. I hated Anil and his stupid choices – how do you cheat on Juhi Chawla?? – and I was mad at the writers for making Juhi’s character such a limp rag of a saintly wife. Basically watched John being beautiful and suffering (or running, positive directorial decisions to have abundant John running shots, he is gorgeous in motion) with Vidya bringing the only real acting performance. And most of Salman and Priyanka, because even though that plot was silly and over the top it was interesting to see them together at their peak. Except then she had to give up all her dreams and ambitions to choose true love with him, barf. Gender stuff, mostly blech, much patriarchy. It was interesting to see so many Muslim characters leading the story, though, it feels like a long time since we’ve seen that.
On a totally different note, I read this interview with Andrew Garfield this weekend and whoa, it’s way deep. Feeling vindicated because I’ve had a running argument with my son that Andrew Garfield was the best Spiderman. Now he’s doing proper acting stuff, including starring in Tick, Tick…Boom!, Lin Manuel Miranda’s directorial debut adapting an autobiographical play by Jonathan Larson, the creator of Rent. Wanted to share this funny part:
“Q: How did ‘Tick, Tick …Boom’ originally come to you?’
A: One of my best friends in New York is Gregg Miele, and he’s the great body worker and massage person of New York City – he works on all the dancers and singers on Broadway and beyond. Lin was on his table one morning and asked ‘Can Andrew Garfield sing?’ And Gregg, being the friend that he is, just started lying, basically, and said, ‘Yes, he is the greatest singer I’ve ever heard.’ Then he called me and said, ‘Hey, go and get some singing lessons because Lin’s going to ask you to do something.’
…
Q: You’ve performed in plays like Angels in America and Death of a Salesman, but in this film, Lin surrounded you with a lot of musical theater ringers, and even some of the smallest roles and cameos are filled by major players from that world. That had to have been a daunting space to step into.
A: I remember a very specific moment when we were in music rehearsal. Alex Lacamoire was at the piano walking us through the songs – he’s Lin’s musical arranger and producer – and I was with Robin de Jesús and Vanessa Hudgens and Josh Henry and Alex Shipp. You can imagine how I’m feeling! They’re all just pros, they know exactly what they’re doing, they’re making notes. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to die.’
Then it comes time for me to get into the song and I’m just trying to get through it. I remember Alex Lacamoire going, ‘Woo, Andrew!’ And then everyone behind him, like Josh and Vanessa and Alex and Robin, were like: ‘Yeah, baby, that’s it baby! You got it, baby!’ I go beet red and five minutes pass, and I’m just like, ‘Hey guys, sorry.’ I start crying, and I say, ‘I don’t know if I’ve ever been this happy in my entire life, to be surrounded by the most supportive liars I have ever known.'”
And this is where it starts getting deep:
“Q: The way you play Jonathan, as this theatrical person who feels so deeply and urgently, it’s almost like he needs to break into song because normal life doesn’t cut it.
A: Everything is up at an 11. Even when he’s making love, it’s at 11! Somehow he knows that this is all going to end, that this is all so ephemeral, and I think he was acutely, painfully aware that he wasn’t going to get all of his song sung. And I think he was also agonizingly aware that he wasn’t going to get the reflection and recognition that he knew he was supposed to have while he was still breathing.
On the last day of shooting, what I understood is that Jon had it figured out. He knew that this is a short ride and a sacred one, and he had a lot of keys and secrets to how to live with ourselves and with each other and how to make meaning out of being here. Once he accepted that, he could be fully a part of the world, and then he could write Rent. I don’t think there’s an accident in that. That very visceral knowing of loss and of death, that’s what gives everything so much meaning. And without that awareness, we will succumb to meaninglessness.
Q: What meaning did this story give to you?
A: Every frame, every moment, every breath of this film is an attempted honoring of Jon. And, on a more personal level, it’s an honoring of my mom. She is someone who showed me where I was supposed to go in my life. She set me on a path. We lost her just before COVID, just before we started shooting, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. So, for me, I was able to continue her song on the ocean and the wave of Jonathan’s songs. It was an attempt to honor him in his unfinished song, and her in her unfinished song, and have them meet.
I think that’s part of the reason I didn’t want this movie to end, because I got to put my grief into art, into this creative act. The privilege of my life has been being there for my mother, being the person who gave her permission when she was ready. We had a very amazing connection, and now an audience will know her spirit in an unconscious way through Jon, which I find just so magical and beautiful.”
I mean, my heart!
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Thank you for sharing excerpts of this interview. I can’t wait to read the whole thing. Also, I too feel vindicated because I agree that Andrew Garfield is the far far superior Spiderman. I am in the minority, but I actively dislike
Tobey McGuire as Spiderman.
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BOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Them’s fightin’ words! I freakin’ LOVE Tobey Macguire spider man.
On Mon, Oct 18, 2021 at 11:33 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Ha! I had a feeling you would say that. I would normally feel bad, but knowing what a trash of a person he is in real life, makes me feel okay about my opinion.
Ooh but you are also right! Drawing a parallel from your post about how the industry takes care of itself. His career trajectory can be compared to that Subhash Ghai’s in that he went from being immensely popular but always a bit creepy to people having had enough and they just quietly stopped giving him work.
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Team Andrew!
The younger generation, by the way, is all about Tom Holland because all they know is the Marvel Universe movies. He’s not so much my type nor my idea of Spiderman, but I can’t get mad about it since I saw the legendary lip sync battle with Zendaya.
Because any dude who will do a front flip in a corset, in the rain, live onstage and on TV, deserves his loyal fan following.
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It is soooooooooooooooooooooooo long!!!! It’s clearly inspired by the Love Actually/Happy New Year/etc. movies. And like them, it is way WAY too long and has some stories you just don’t care about. But Vidya and John are awesome.
I know it’s the smallest part of the interview excerpts, but WOOT! VAnessa Hudgens!!!! I love her. Christmas Switch is a acting showpiece!!!!!
On Mon, Oct 18, 2021 at 8:55 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I somehow knew you would pick out a detail of that musical theater part that I didn’t know much about! I’m very excited for this movie.
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