Happy Wednesday!!!! I am feeling very allergy-ish today. Because it was sunny and things were growing, and now it is wet and things are stuffy and my eyes are itchy.
I’ll start!
Reading: Anne of Avonlea! Just started it, already better than I remembered. Also, of course, your brilliant comments on the Anne of Green Gables post.
Watching: Saw the Tamil Don, which was terrible, but a fun read if you like “Margaret hated this movie” reviews. Started the new season of Bosch which continues to be better than you would reasonably expect it to be. Oh, and of course we watched Tezaab for our watchalong on Sunday and it was AMAZING. As always.
Thinking: Why do some days make you want to just curl up inside and never go out? It’s rainy all day today, and chilly, and coming on top of two sunny active days I just want to do NOTHING. Thank goodness, I work from home, so I can. Well, except for Albie Dog. But he’s pretty depressed today too, so we are sympatico.
Listening: My friend is considering flying to New York just to see “My Chemical Romance” in concert. Who are these people? The band I mean? I feel like I’ve heard the name, but I have no context. I know y’all are way WAY hipper then me, tell me things!
Now, question for you! It’s National Museum Day, apparently. What museums do you most want related to the film industry?
I’ve got two choices! First, RK Studios should be turned into a museum. One of those living villages sorts of museums, people in costume playing characters from olden times. Wouldn’t that be AMAZING? You could wander around and stop at an editing lab and have someone say “I am a editor, I was born in a village and came to Bombay for work. I was apprenticed to an editor here, and eventually made head of the department. these are my tools, here are some of the films I worked on”. And they could all be in period appropriate hair and clothes too.
Second choice, Rajesh Khanna’s house opened for tours. Restore it to how it was at the peak of his fame, get some volunteer docents, let us learn all the cool house tour things like “this was the first round tub ever built in India” or whatever.
dontcallitbollywood 
I’d love an RK studios museum. Or any museum related to Indian film, really.
I’m watching rubbish TV, but have become mildly obsessed with this straight-forward cover version Andy Summers (of The Police) did of Piya Tose Naina Laage Re from Guide:
I just really like it, it’s updated and made into a pop song while changing surprisingly little.
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What rubbish TV?
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Agatha Raisin, again. The later seasons are kind of bad and chaotic but there I am, watching it.
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Yaaaaaaaaaaaay. Agatha Raisin!!!! I like the most recent season a lot, largely because they got rid of Boring Man.
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Yeah, they did, which is good, but I don’t agree with any of the ships so.
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Huh. Definitely an interesting experiment. . . I wonder how he first encountered the song. I feel like the choice of added harmonies under the original samples are not entirely “grammatical” for this musical context. Trying too hard to shoehorn a (Hindustani) semi-classical melody into functional tonality, perhaps? Ether way, I was glad to have heard it.
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A friend of his had the soundtrack in the 60s and he remembered it all that time.
Yeah it’s not perfect, but I like it for presenting a different way of mixing Indian music and Western pop. I wish there were more songs in this kind of style.
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Finally my will to watch movies returned and I saw some random things:
Rav Teja’s Khiladi – I watched it only because Unni Mukundan is in it. I was aware it has bad reviews. The first half was very ok, and I thought: Why people hated it so much? it’s good. If that’s bad Ravi Teja I can’t wait to watch a good one! As soon as I said that, the movie started getting worse and worse. Second half felt like 2 years long. But the worst thing is that Unni has like 5 minutes of the screentime throughout entire film. He has 5 seconds here, 3 seconds there (a true blink and you’ll miss it role) , and in every scene he is beaten! The only good thing in this waste of time film is Dimple Hayathi. I didn’t know her, but now if you ask me who is the sexiest indian actress I will say it’s her, without doubt. Also : Is Ravi Teja the less handsome lead actor in India? Definitely.
Puzhu – the opposite of Khiladi, small, very good actors, serious topics, female director. Mammootty was terrific.
Our souls at night – Only in the end I discovered it’s directed by Ritesh Batra who made The Lunchbox and Photograph. Like his other movies it was good, but very slow.
Wild Mountain Thyme – I saw it with my husband. I was sure it’s more my kind of movie, but ended playing with my phone while my husband was super involved and cried 5 or 6 times! What a strange movie!
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Of course I had to look up Dimple Hayathi. She was in Atrangi Re! She plays the fiancee.
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I didn’t recognized her! But yes, it’s her. I had my hopes very low when I first sam her in Khiladi, because I was sure it’s another pretty face without talent, but very quickly I started liking her because she was good, and dances very well. I don’t know why she isn’t in more movies. She, Nivetha Pethuraj (Paagal), Nivetha Thomas.. so many good actresses out there, but when you watch telugu trailers there are only Pooja Hedge and Krithi Shetty
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Wild Mountain Thyme wasn’t totally insane???? Should I watch it?
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Wild Mountain Thyme was strange. Everything that was in the trailer is in the first 40 minutes and then nothing happens till the odd and funny end. I was disappointed and wouldn’t recommend it but my husband loved it.
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Eh, I was going to watch it for the crazy but this doesn’t sound worth it.
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Hi Margaret,
I wonder if you plan to review Modern Love Mumbai from Amazon Prime, which just dropped last weekend? If so, I’ll comment on your review, and if not, I’ll post some thoughts below.
That’s my most recent “Watching”. Reading = “Calling in the One”, self improvement book from the mid 2000s. Listening = “Once upon a Time… at Bennington College” podcast, about Bennington in the ’80s and the 3 subsequently famous authors who were all part of the same graduating class.
P.s. so sorry about your coming down with covid. I’m glad you are progressively improving. I hope you overcome the long covid aftereffects quickly!
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Hi!!!! I was just thinking “I hope Reflects on Life comments again” and here you are!
Probably not going to review Modern Love Mumbai, just too much content to watch it all, so go ahead and give us your thoughts here.
What an interesting idea for a podcast! Is it more of a thought experiment editorial kind of thing, or is it in investigation? That is, are there interviews with other people who were there to try to build up a community around it, or is it more just telling the story focused on the 3 authors?
Fingers crossed, I am 100% over things now. I have had no symptoms of any kind for about 3 weeks, so I am cautiously optimistic that I am totally done with COVID.
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The Bennington college podcast is definitely a whole vibe, an ode to the ’80s, the ’80 literary scene, the ’80s liberal arts college scene, the ’80s at Bennington, and the story of the 3 authors, who at the time also had intertwining lives, like one dating another, etc. The 3 authors also came from 3 diff parts of the usa – LA, the South, and the Northeast – and what those influences brought to their work as well as their lives on campus. It’s definitely done in a podcast storytelling style, almost a mythology, but based on interviews with the authors and other classmates, friends, colleagues, and I think based on a Vanity Fair article on the same topic. IIRC Bret Easton Ellis was already famous from having first published in his teens. The other two – Donna Tartt and Jonathan Lethem – became established and successful later. Interspersed are prequels and sequels, from childhood to modern day. There is a lot of ’80s minutae (sp?) here that might be too minute for me, but in general it’s very interesting if you were a young adult in the ’80s. Also I feel like the ’80s was well documented in its present tense but has been well overlooked for analysis since. (“Stranger Things” notwithstanding). So taking an ’80s deep dive now is refreshing and long overdue for me.
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Maddy is in Cannes with Rocketry 😍
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The girlfriend and I meant to go into the Big City to see “Jayeshbhai Jordaar” this weekend, but Pawpaw took a sudden downturn so we stayed home. He’s already outlived the doctors’ predictions and has been more stable the past couple of days. I’m going to have to go back to real life/real job next week, probably to immediately turn back and head to a funeral : P
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I have been thinking of you and your girlfriend and her grandpa! Thank you for the update. Glad he is more stable. Sending you all lots of hugs!
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Yep, we’re all still here! Thanks for the good wishes ❤
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I would want a museum that makes you feel like you stepped inside a movie. Like maybe I’m Shanti Om? That would be meta. Or if there’s a Bhansali world that’s beautiful *and* you would actually want to visit.
Watching: many years behind the curve, but Mozart in the Jungle is wonderful. We didn’t have Prime back when most people were watching it, tried it when we ran out of other stuff to watch and we’re now going through 2-3 episodes a night. I always thought Gael García Bernal was a good actor but I’ve never seen him play such an appealing character before. He’s adorable. The central love story is a slow burn and likewise adorable. Meanwhile, it shows this world of working classical musicians getting up to all kinds of unseemly hijinks, but without trivializing the art and the dedication it requires. So good. Oh, and a new season of Outlander hit Netflix, so that too.
Thinking: I may have brought this up before, but pondering on how an amazing character can create a connection with the actor that changes how you feel about them and lingers through to other roles. I wonder if actors know when they find that kind of part, and if it’s up to pure luck for one to come your way.
Thinking also: how do we feel about SRK’s handling of Suhana’s launch now that it’s finally come? So many years of anticipation. Found it fascinating that he went with the actor to actor angle.
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OH! My sister just sent me a wikipedia article link, did you know the woman who wrote the book on which Mozart in the Jungle is based WAS MARRIED TO BILL NYE???? And apparently, quite a bad ex. Divorced after 7 weeks, then she broke into his house and vandalised stuff, it’s a whole thing. Anyway, keep an eye out for a Bill Nye cameo.
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I read this and was like, she can’t mean Bill Nye the science guy, that must be some classical musician I haven’t heard about. But it is…Bill Nye the science guy? And he had a terrible ex??
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Yes, Bill Nye the Science Guy had a terrible ex who is the person who wrote the best-selling book on which Mozart in the Jungle is based! This is all from Wikipedia but seems legit.
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Amazing. Gives him shades of romantic intrigue I would have never suspected. Now I’m picturing her like Ana Maria from the show.
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So what I take from this is that interesting people like to marry interesting people. But being interesting doesn’t mean you are sane. And being insane does not prevent you from writing a good book, whereas being boring probably would be good book preventative.
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In Berkeley they do these open house tours, where for a day or a weekend you get a map and can walk though all the Julia Morgan houses in town. And the town of Lone Pine has a festival where you can take movie tours and go to all the spots that were used in a specific film as well as general history. So I would like to combine those two styles of tours in Mumbai and be able to go into the houses used in the most famous movies, and perhaps have the movie tours that take you to all the places in Mumbai used in a particular film. Turn it into a Mumbai film festival week, and also have the studios be open and have their own special tours! They should all work together and create a festival to draw in international visitors.
I’m still reading the Naturalist in Nicaragua, and I’ve fallen in love with the author. I’m procrastinating finishing the book because then he’ll be gone. He died at 45 (in Colorado) of a fever and he doesn’t have any more books. And even though he would be dead anyway, because he was writing in the 1870s, it is like he is really really dead, because he only has one book. In his writing he’ll have some horrendous day traveling, but in the end it wasn’t a total loss because he snagged a new kind of beetle on the way home. He loved his beetles. I dont’ love beetles, but I love people with passion. And I’m sad his passion will end in just two more chapters. This man went to Australia and worked the mines, travelled the U.S., ran a mine in Nicaragua for 4 years, travelled all across Russia and Siberia and Asia, and he $##%%! loves beetles. And Indians, he really likes Indians, and mourns the civilization that the Spanish conquistidors stole from them, but in truth he likes beetles more.
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I wanna see famous people’s houses!!!!! Which would be sort of related to studio tours too. Something like, “this is the living room where the script for blah-de-blah was written”.
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Reading: Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating. YA romance about two Bengali Irish girls who fake date so Ishu can be elected Head Girl at their school and Hani can be accepted by her friends after she comes out as bi. I like it. The romance is getting sweeter by the minute, but Hani’s white friends are TERRIBLE! Totally in their ivory tower and cannot wrap their heads around the concept of bisexuality and Hani’s Muslim philosophies (no drinking, etc.) and just generally treat her poorly as a result. I want to protect her.
Not watching much, but I discovered Dosti from the RRR soundtrack and it is so stunning I might just cave and watch it. Also rediscovered Samajavaragama from AVMP or whatever the acronym is, and it’s also gorgeous if the lyrics weren’t super creepy.
Thinking: I am so over this school year. There are 19 school days left and everyone has given up, teachers and students alike. The kids are being even more annoying by constantly being on their computers, tuning me out, and as a result getting 35%’s (no exaggeration) on tests. And it’s hot this weekend in NJ and the building is going to heat up and I’m not looking forward to it. I feel like my Thinking sections are always depressing because I just complain about my job. Sorry.
My Chemical Romance is a punk rock band that was popular when the genre was more popular in the mid 2000s. I never really listened to them much, but I think they just came back after like a 10 year long hiatus or something. My friend who got married last summer is super into that whole genre, and there was an entire half hour towards the end of the reception where they played that kind of music. Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, etc. It’s not common to play stuff like that at a wedding, so it was pretty fun. This is their most famous song. I don’t think you’d like it.
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Your are allowed to complain about work! And yes, the last few weeks of school are The Worst.
Read Anne of Avonlea with us! It’s all about school!
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Jugg Jugg Jeeyo!
I think this will be the first Hindi film I’ve seen in the theaters since 2020.
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