Happy first day of Advent! I already gave Albie Dog his Advent treat (video to follow), but I am saving mine until after coffee. And my nephew sent me a wonderful Advent greeting of him saying “Happy Birthday Jesus”. He’s big on birthdays right now.
I’ll start!
Reading: Catherine Aird murder mysteries, very soothing. Considering re-reading A Christmas Carol the way I used to do every December, but probably won’t have the energy.
Watching: I saw Om Shanti Om on the big screen! At the super funky cool old theater that has a super funky audience. And we were the only ones watching OSO the way it should be watched (hooting, laughing, singing and dancing). Everyone else was Very Serious about this Important Film. White people are dumb.
Thinking: This week is TOO MUCH. Grandpa’s viewing (family only) is on Saturday, the last shipping date for Christmas is Monday and I still have to handmake a dozen presents and wrap the store bought ones, and we have the WORST Christmas lights display on the block so I need to buy more lights and fluff it up, and I have to pick up my Friend Christmas Cards and then hand deliver them, and I was gonna make a Yule Log and cookies this year and I haven’t even found recipes, and all my Christmas sweaters are in the wash so no one even knows I’m feeling festive. Also, I haven’t used my elliptical in 2 months, and I’m not doing that thing where you move the 3 kings closer every day, I am just leaving them in the manger all month like a Lazy Person. And I still have 4 boxes I haven’t unpacked, and pictures I haven’t hung, and I never EVER vacuum. And, of course, I’m not writing good DCIB posts and I haven’t watched any of the new movies or even the new trailers. AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
Listening: Christmas carols, thank goodness, do make me happy:
Okay, watching question for you! What is your favorite Christmas carol? One that makes you happy even though you HAVE TO MAKE ALL THE PRESENTS AND DECORATE AND COOK COOKIES AND EVERYTHING ELSE AND THEREFORE WIN CHRISTMAS?
dontcallitbollywood 
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1998-11-04-9811050002-story.html
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My favourite is Jingle Bells (Laylid Eid) – the Arabic version (it sounds way more fun than annoying, which it is in English). Hiba Tawaji and the Rahbani Brothers (Oussama and Ghady) is so jovial and it is ALWAYS repeated at the end of her Christmas concerts. It is that good and popular!!
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This is so cool! I had never heard this before but I am now adding this to my must listen to every year list!
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Yay! She has a whole Christmas Album named ‘Halleluja’ and some Christmas singles. Hiba is so wonderful, I love her music! She does jazz, pop, funk, classical and her voice is divine. I think of her as the Mariah Carey of the Arabic world since she can do the whistle note and has the same vibe with her Christmas and classical stuff. 😀
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Also, she sings in both Lebanese and Egyptian Arabic (it’s a dialect difference, but it’s noticeable once you listen to her a lot), French and English.
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I know a lot of people who have an elliptical at home and none of them uses it so don’t worry.
What do you have in those 4 unpacked boxes? Maybe something you don’t need?
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Old files, medical and taxes and stuff. All I need to do is take them out of the boxes and put them into the file cabinet. And yet, I cannot make myself do it.
On Wed, Dec 1, 2021 at 11:48 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Boring stuff. I understand why you still keep it in boxes.
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But on the other hand, all I have to do is lift it out of a box and dump it into a filing cabinet. How has this taken me 5 months????
On Wed, Dec 1, 2021 at 2:20 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I’ve started watching Hawkeye on disney+ and even though I never really liked the hawkeye character, I’m enjoying the Christmas vibes of the show a lot.
Also I rewatched Knives Out recently and decided that it’s the perfect Thanksgiving movie.
Have you seen Aayitha Ezhuthu? I know it’s not the most popular Mani Ratnam movie but it’s one of those movies that I really liked when I was younger and I rewatched it and it held up pretty well.
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Ooo, Hawkeye is Christmassy? Then I may want to watch it too!
I saw the Hindi Yuva version instead of the Tamil. Ranishek 4EVA!!!!
On Wed, Dec 1, 2021 at 12:25 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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It’s set in New York City too so it’s extra christmassy!
But Madhavan and Suriya are so good! Plus a really young Southern Sid 🙂
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Thank you for holding up that mirror for me about all the things one could do that somehow end up “but I need to … why haven’t I… Aaaaa”. Just because it sounds so very familiar: You have probably considered that your emotional reaction, at the very least, might have something to o with your grief, right?
How about changing the game? I’m pretty sure you can still win at “this year, I will stop myself from doing every single thing I could do for Christmas”.
Oh, and my wife wants me to say hi to my second wife.
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Oh yeah! I’m not thinking straight and having a hard time focusing. And also, sleeping like 11 hours a night. Which is making me FALL BEHIND ON CHRISTMAS!!!!
Good news, I decided to take Friday off work, which takes a huge weight off. By Monday, back on track! All good!
On Wed, Dec 1, 2021 at 12:54 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I finally watched Return to Witch Mountain which has Christopher Lee and Bette Davis of all people as the villain team. I actually quite liked it. Sadly they have no chemistry. Also A Feast at Midnight which I liked but with both of these I don’t know if kids today would like them unless they had really weird taste. They constantly surround Christopher Lee’s character with all this sexual innuendo, why???? Anyway I thought I’d post this in case anyone needed super weird children’s movie recs.
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I should clarify A Feast at Midnight only has all the weird innuendo.
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I saw many movies in the last 2 weeks:
– Puaada (punjabi 2021), funny but definitely a “can skip” movie
– Doctor (tamil 2021) tamil black comedy, some nice ideas and hero but I’m not sure if I doing a comedy about kidnappers who abduct young girls for sex trafficing is a good idea.
– Phire Dekha (bengali 2021) Zee5 production. It doesn’t even have IMDB page. Strange film. Starts light, then has a “women’s life in Indian villages is hopeless” fase and then a over the top, last minute happy ending. Skip movie
– Sridevi Soda Center (telugu 2021). I watched it because people said it’s like Uppena, and I love Uppena. Well, it’s Uppena’s veeeeery far cousin. It’s too long, the love story is kinda boring (even sex scene isn’t very interesting) and about the heroine we only know her name, her nickname and that she has a father. But it has one thing I liked (apart from bearded Sudheer Babu) – it shows very well how toxic fathers can be and also how helpless they are if the daughter is intelligent and determined. Nothing more scary than a girl who knows what she wants.
– Parineeta (bengali 2019). I saw this movie year or two ago, but without subtitles. Now I rewatched it with subs and loved it. It’s such a Angie movie – vermillion hidden in holi colours, love, pain, revenge. beautiful and very real brother-sister relationship and a makeover. It has it all. The best movie of the month.
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I love that Angie movies are defined both by vermillion hidden in Holi and realistic sister-brother relationships!
On Wed, Dec 1, 2021 at 3:03 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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There’s a comedy about kidnappers abducting young girls for sex trafficing?!?!
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Yes. That’s the trailer. I wish I watched it before starting the movie:
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Parineeta looks like a Miss Braganza movie too. Rithwick Chakraborty is the best.
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That did NOT look funny. It also looked like there were no good guys.
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The Hero is a very good, selfless person. He pretends to be human trafficker to gain bad guys’ trust. He also has the sweetest fall in love song, full of secret gazes. My type of hero and of course I have a crush on Sivakarthikeyan mow .
All the other characters vary from very human to extremly bad.
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partial subtitles in previews make comprehension difficult. I’m going to assume the good guy is was the cute one.
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Well I saw Filmikudhi’s birthday movie – Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin – and I loved it. I’m very jealous that cute as button Pooja has chemistry with Aamir but not with SRK. And then I finished Dil – which only took two weeks. Now I need to finish Shakuntala Devi – I got on Vidya Balan kick after watching Sherni – but not kicked enough to actually finish movies.
I feel terribly guilty that I haven’t finished reading Falcon yet, interesting as it is I fall asleep while reading it. Speaking of sleep, have you taken a nap on your new couch yet? And speaking of guilt, I have to tell you a dog owner, that I have been taking a friend’s dog on walks. But today I went on a hike and DIDN’T take the dog, and then I saw the dog twice (kid swap and then backpack retrieval) and both times the dog tried to get in my car and I feel terribly guilty.
Also, I don’t think anyone will hold a grudge if you cancel the Friday watch-a-long. Perhaps filling your time up with obligations isn’t what you need right now? But then you know what you need the most.
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Ugh, I HATE Shakuntala Devi!!! The movie, not the person. It makes her daughter seem so so SO awesome, and I just don’t care.
I have been underwalking Albie Dog! Or rather, walking him at my convenience. Now that it’s colder, I’ve started just letting him out in the backyard to attend to his needs, and then taking him for a walk when I have time instead of right away.
I don’t want to cancel watchalong!!!! I’m canceling work instead, keeping watchalong and Christmas presents.
On Wed, Dec 1, 2021 at 9:53 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Love all these film suggestions.
I’ve been scraping the sites for good Indian cinema and not finding much lately. Last night it was Rajnikanth’s Annaatthe. What a dud. He’s clearly 70 with a lot of makeup, wig action, and prostheses, but he works hard and almost pulls it off. Unfortunately, the film lets him down at every turn. I gave it my attention out of respect for his reputation but it was a waste of time. I’ve been finding a good substitute, however, in Korean cinema, namely the films and dramas of Song Seung-heon, Korea’s SRK, mature, hot and talented. The 28 lush episodes of the historical drama, Saimdang, flew by, the heart-breaking film, Obsessed is X-rated but in a tasteful, Korean way, and Black has crime, romance and zombies. How can you go wrong?
I’m reading Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women, New York Times 2019 Book Of The Year. Wish I could write like that. And when my eyes get tired, I listen to Carl Sagan’s Demon Haunted World on tape. It was published in 1995, but is totally relatable in today’s contentious, truth-compromised world.
Loved your couch pix in the other post. And please don’t worry. Nobody can be and do everything. I stopped that years ago and my friends and family hardly noticed. Albie, however, is another matter. Yard is fine, but he needs his walk. The daily or twice daily walk is like his doggy newspaper. He smells what’s going on in the neighborhood, and gets to leave messages for his fellow residents.
Very cold here today, but I put Teddi’s sweater on her and out we went. Felt so righteous and good when we got back, I treated myself to a jelly donut.
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I can! I can be and do everything! I can send Christmas cards and handmake presents and bake cookies and decorate the house and do ALL of it! I am The Chosen One of Christmas Prep. And then on December 25th, I can just sleep all day.
On the other hand, I also really need the daily Albie Walks. I can see all the Christmas decorations around me, and smell the fresh air, and get away from it all. Thank goodness for dogs.
On Thu, Dec 2, 2021 at 12:09 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh, and Sooryavanshi came to Netflix so I watched the last half hour as directed and Ranveer is AWESOME!! but the ending sucks. Like really really sucks.
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Then I will skip it entirely!!!!
On Fri, Dec 3, 2021 at 12:22 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I forgot to say that I watched Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind. I’m only 17 years late to the party. It was strange but I liked it. And now I think if there are any indian movies inspired by Eternal sunshine. It’s such a interesting idea.
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