Happy Wednesday! I am almost back to my normal life. I’m doing work, I have groceries, I watered my garden, it’s all coming together. Except for one plant that is dying, but I’m gonna work on that after work today.
I’ll start!
Watching: I’m plugging through Star Trek: Voyager, and yesterday my upstairs friend and I watched Real Housewives: Ultimate Girls Trip. As you can see, I am really challenging myself intellectually.
Reading: I am actually challenging myself with reading! While I was visiting my sister, I started the classic graphic novel series “Saga”. It’s interesting and intense and kind of nice to read a comic book instead of a book-book or watching TV.
Thinking: Being home is really unbelievably nice. Little stuff like “oh look, there’s a charger cord right here where I need there to be a charger cord” or “My favorite shampoo is in the shower waiting for me right where I expect it to be!” or “Hey, it’s Albie Dog!” Although of course, looking after two small children while sleeping on a floor and never showering is also fun.
Listening: I was just remembering Nephew A’s favorite song when he was Nephew B’s age. And how INCREDIBLY INAPPROPRIATE it was.
Now, question for you! Tomorrow is Kishore Kumar’s birthday, favorite song?
I will once again pick a Nephew A favorite, “Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi” or, as he calls it, “The Babu song”
dontcallitbollywood 
I love the Saga series (and have the Funko Pops to prove it!). Reading that, Ms. Marvel, Batwoman (especially the Elegy series), and the newest version of Hellcat (Patsy Walker a.k.a. Hellcat!) was what got me into reading comics a few years ago. So glad they finally started the second half of the series, but I’m waiting to read the new stuff after it comes out in the trade edition.
Speaking of Funko Pops, have you ever discussed Bollywood and Indian cinema vinyl figures, etc. here? I know there are some Bahubali ones out there and there may be that Bollywood Barbie modeled after Katrina? Might be fun to think about what film characters/actors we would want immortalized in toys and figures, like Funko Pops. I know people make customized Funkos and sell them for loads on etsy! I’ve been waiting forever for the official Bridgerton Funkos, but there were some great customized ones on etsy.
I would want Ram/Ranveer and Leela/Deepika from Ram Leela, Salman from Dabangg, Ajay from Singham, obviously Ram and Bheem from RRR, Hema as Seeta aur Geeta, Sharmila Tagore in Evening in Paris (with a Helen one, too!). So many fun directions you could go with creating Funko Pops from iconic Indian film characters. Obviously you would have DDLJ ones, Mr. India ones (you can do “invisible” ones) and then you could have the leads in Sholay in the sidecar motorcycle. So many fun ideas!
LikeLike
There’s a Ra.One figurine that I really wanted! But I don’t know where they are now. Totally agree about an invisible Mr. India option!
LikeLike
I posted the previous comment before signing my name. Oops, out of practice! Didn’t know about the Ra.One figurine…was it only in the Indian market? I’m really surprised that there isn’t more official tie-in merchandise to Indian films, beyond the kitschy pirated stuff. The characters are larger than life to begin with and the possibilities are endless. Maybe we just aren’t aware of some of the merchandise because we are in the states. And Poo from K3G would be another Funko I’d want!
LikeLike
Also, I’ve really wanted a film companion mug with their logo for years, but they didn’t have it available when I last checked. Might have to just make my own!
LikeLike
The advertisement on my screen, under the Babu song, is a picture of brown broken egg shells stacked into the form of a penis (“What Happens When You Take Testosterone Supplement” – um, ya end up eating eggs?) – so his crazy face and downward looking eyes are very appropriate.
LikeLike
Yesterday I watched the first episode of Modern Love Mumbai and it was FABULOUS. Also, the main character was a servant, so right up my ally. But it was serious, and I didn’t feel like watching more seriousness, so I didn’t see episode two. Instead I saw the Owen Wilson & J-Lo newer romance movie and it sucked. But I finished it, so it either it wasn’t that bad, or wasn’t that embarrassing. I don’t like Owen Wilson, I have always thought he was extremely ugly, and now he looks like an ugly older man who got a face lift. I’ll take him in comedic roles but not in romance.
Last week I saw a Netflix movie, Perfect Pairing, that wasn’t good, but the main actress, Victoria Justice was phenomenal. If her costar had been equally as dynamic it would have been a good movie, but he was a log. I then looked her up and discovered that she was a tween & teen Nickolodean star. I watched two of her other movies and decided she only just learned how to act. I look forward to her next movie, and I hope she will pick better costars.
And a couple of weeks ago I went on a Aanand L. Rai kick and rewatched Zero, which I now think is a fantastic movie. It suffers from SRK, being known and loved, and turned into a little person, but when I get past that, his acting is fantastic, all the acting is fantastic and the story, Rai’s typical story of flawed people finding eachother, is great. I love that Rai’s characters are almost always flawed.
LikeLike
Thanks for your opinion about Zero…so happy about every positive comment I read about a movie I not only love but where l also feel a certain magic…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Favorite Kishore song? As in one?!?!
This is probably the one to which I most often relisten:
The lyrics here are so touching:
And I /do/ have a favorite Kalyanji-Anandji song, and Kishore /is/ in it:
–but I’ve got to stop there or I’ll get linkbanned ( ;
LikeLike
I’m reading a bunch in cars but mostly I’m running around cause I’m hosting an art show/singles mixer on Saturday and I am. So. Nervous. There are too many men, what if nobody turns up, what if the art doesn’t come on time. *shivers*
So I’m listening to a bunch of “sexy, confident women” songs. Think Aisha, Shanaya, Pooja, Bipasha, some Aish/Sunny Leone etc.
And I refuse to pick a favorite Kishore song! The man had range!
LikeLike
oH OH! Check out “Rockstar” from Humko Deewana Kar Gaye. I love that one as a pump up song.
Also, Good Luck! You got this!!! It’s gonna be awesome!!!!
On Wed, Aug 3, 2022 at 4:14 PM dontcallitbollywood < comment-reply@wordpress.com> wrote:
>
LikeLiked by 1 person
The announcement of the second season of Masaba Masaba made me realize that I never finished the first season of Masaba Masaba, so I watched one more episode and now I have one to go. It’s fairly pleasant and I don’t know what I stopped watching it. My hope for next season is more Neena.
Reading a very simplified version of Shakuntala in Bengali! So now I will understand Shakuntala references when they come up! Also, I am learning all sorts of words like “sage” and “curse” which I’m sure will come in handy next time I’m in Dhaka!
I will be very restrained and take two favorite Kishore Da songs, please:
and:
LikeLike
Oh, oops. Well anyway, my songs were Chingari Koi Bhadke and Rimjhim Gire Sawan.
LikeLike
Oh, lovely songs <333 Nine of of the ten times that I enjoy Rajesh Khanna, Kishore is responsible, I think!
LikeLike
I didn’t have luck with Indian movies lately (will write another long comment about it) buy I saw two American movies I enjoyed a lot.
First Spencer, about few days of Lady Diana’s life. I loved this film. It’s not happy but it’s so full of emotions and makes you feel all the stuff she felt. I liked it so much that now I’m reading Diana’s biography.
Te other movie is the opposite of Spencer – a silly Netflix comedy with Rebel Wilson Senior Year. It’s like one of those cute rom-coms from 2000 everybody loves but nobody makes anymore. Watch it if you want something silly and familiar.
LikeLike
I watched Haseen Dilruba and I don’t know if it was bad or not my thing or what, but I didn’t get it at all. I feel like it didn’t get remotely interesting until the second half, and then it just got weird. The last ten minutes were pretty good though.
Also started the Heartstopper show which is way more my speed and SOOOOO CUTE. I’m learning more while watching romance that you really have to understand why the characters fit together as a couple rather than rooting for them simply because they’re the leads in order for it to be a successful romance. Since Heartstopper is set in a high school, I feel like it doesn’t really have that. One of the leads is a rugby player and part of his arc is that he gets along better with the love interest than any of his rugby friends, and you definitely see how they’re different and the rugby friends are jerks, but you don’t really get to see how he acts around his rugby friends. A lot of the conversations the love interests had in the beginning were very surface level, and are only now getting deeper because they’re learning about their sexualities and actually sort of starting a relationship. Which I guess makes sense. I’m only halfway through so hopefully they’ll get closer. I still squealed every time they kissed. And since it’s based on a graphic novel there are little cartoon flowers flying around all the time and lightning bolts when they hold hands. It’s really sweet.
Listening to the new Beyonce album which has a few really great songs but out of 16 total, it’s overall just okay. I can recognize that it’s an excellently crafted piece of pop music, but it’s very “gay men in the club” kind of music which is not my thing. I can recognize that Beyonce is extremely talented but I can’t say I’m a huge fan. This is the one I’ve been gravitating towards of all of them.
Been thinking about my birthday since it’s on Monday. The weather has been so unpredictable lately that it’s hard to figure out what to do. It keeps going back and forth between rain and no rain that I don’t wanna commit to going to the beach or something, and it turns out to be a downpour. Annoyed with back to school and fall emails. Annoyed with extended family. Annoyed that a guy I went on a date with who was nice and tall and Jewish might not line up with a lot of my philosophies and I might have to turn him down. Nothing new to report in terms of books. Sigh.
LikeLike
Oh! I saw an ad for Heartstoppers and my first thought was “Look, a Courtney show!”
Totally agree about building up both sides of the romance! DDLJ is, like, the CLASSIC example of that. We see everything about these characters before they even meet and then it’s still a looooooooooong time before they fall in love. Also, I think that’s why some TV show romances work so fabulously, because you get a huge long series of episodes to get to know the two characters before they get together. But now we have no patience so the character romance has to be promoted from the beginning and there’s not as much time.
On Thu, Aug 4, 2022 at 12:23 PM dontcallitbollywood < comment-reply@wordpress.com> wrote:
>
LikeLike