Happy Wednesday! Since last I posted, I rearranged my apartment, planted hydrangeas, took a lot of long walks, finished book 1 of Ponniyin Selvan and moved well into book 2, just generally lived life. Sorry for not posting because I love you all and missed you! Not sorry for not posting because I got so much done in life-life while I was off.
I’ll start!
Reading: Ponniyin Selvan books! Still so very fun. And romantic! The love story between the Karthi and Trisha characters is just as good as in the movie, plus way more scenes between them.
Watching: So, Dina and I were going to watch Jubilee on Friday, and then we decided to watch Dil Aashna Hai instead. She had never seen it! And I could watch it over and over and over again. So we were both happy with our choices, and sometimes I just don’t WANT to think.
Thinking: This month is so busy! My cousin is visiting this weekend, I’m having a yard party next weekend, weekend after that I’m going to the zoo (okay, so that’s not the biggest thing), and week after that my sister and nephews are visiting. But at least I have a nice re-arranged apartment and yard with hydrangeas to enjoy while I do all the stuff.
Listening: This is a bit of a tangent, but did you know “You’ll Never Walk Alone” is considered an anthem for Liverpool? This blows my MIND!!!! Because of course I know it as the classic finale number from Carousel. Just curious, who out there knows it as a Liverpool thing and who knows it as a Rodgers and Hammerstein classic?
Now, question for you! Totally missed Karan Johar’s birthday this week! What is your favorite Karan Johar movie song???
I ask this question, and now I don’t even know if I can answer it!!! I guess maybe “Mitwa”? I really love “Mitwa”.
dontcallitbollywood 
So nice to see you posting . I’m happy you did so much for you and the house but I miss seeing you here 🙂
Watching: I watched an old Mammootty’s movie Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha. It was good and engaging. The story is based on medieval ballad from North Malabar. It’s about the life of a legendary warrior Chandu Chekavar from 16 century. What I loved is that it’s so full of emotion. Now biopics and historical films are so boring because it’s only dull patriotic speaches and fights. Here, there are a lot of fights but the most important things are the family and the relationships. I add bonus points for the fact that every actor was a cuddly (shirtless) warrior type, and that there was a song in the middle, sang by one of the girls who fell in love with Mammootty, saying how beautiful and muscular his body is.
And now I’m trying to watch Tu Jhoothi Main Makkar, but it’s been like 3 days and I’m only in the middle! The movie starts very well, I loved the first scenes, because they are well made and funny and have this “real cinema movie” feel. But after 30 minutes, the movie looses all the steam. I love the views, the costumes, but I’m not very interested in the story. Oh and the strange thing – it’s the first time in my life that I find Ranbir like hot. And even Kartik Aryan looks more handsome, I don’t know what is happening.
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Oh! have you watched Ponniyin Selvan yet?? Definitely a historical about relationships. I know I am hit and miss with my recommendations for you, but I am pretty sure on this one.
I’ll be curious to hear your reaction once you finish Tu Jhoothi. I suspect you will hate it as much as the rest of us did 🙂
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Tu Jhoothi Mai Makkar was the only movie I walked out of the theatre about and I still don’t feel bad about it. I just felt life is too short to waste time on a bad movie.
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This doesn’t make me want to finish the movie
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I have Ponniyin Selvan on my list, but I’m afraid it will be boring.
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It’s all about talking and relationships and complex loyalties. You have to pay attention and remember who is friends with who, but then there’s a big payoff!
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Watching: I am debating on whether to watch Raabta or Yeh Jawaani Hai Dewaani as both are equally wonderful movies that I haven’t watched in a long time. I want to watch Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani cause it is the movie’s anniversary today but I want to watch Raabta as I want to see Sushant.
Reading: Hamnet which is about Shakespeare’s only son’s tragic death and the loss of a child. It is very good but so good that I never have time to dedicate to read the book as each chapter is like 30 pages.
Listening: I have been listening to a lot of Carnatic music recently as it was good focus music due to the tremendous amount of work I have been having and also it is beautiful. I just really did realise that I should be more in the Carnatic music scene as it really is so beautiful. I especially enjoyed this one.
Thinking: How nice it is to not have work and to be able to relax. I have finally finished most of my tasks so I feel very relaxed and want to take a long holiday to have a break. While that will not happen, it still is nice to have time to do things.
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I love Raabta sooooooooooooooo much! Maybe I should watch it?
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Congratulations on getting so much done!
Watching: Aar Paar (1954, I think). Didn’t love it as much as I usually love Guru Dutt films, but the music was great.
I watched Tu Jhooti Main Makkar too, and liked it much better than I thought I would – which doesn’t make it film of the century by any means, but does appear to mean I enjoyed it the most out of everyone here! I’m not usually a Ranbir fan AT ALL, but there was something nicely throwback about it, like “it’s all about loving your parents” type sentiments. And I watched Bheed last night – bleak, but good. I ruined it for myself a bit by attempting to watch with Hindi subtitles instead of English, while really not being familiar with that type of ‘Pure Hindi’ and therefore only half grasping some of the dialogue – it was much better after I gave up and went back to English!
Reading: “Confessions of a Forty-Something Fuck-Up”. I was very optimistic about it, thinking it was going to be a Bridget Jones of our era type of thing. It’s very much not; it lacks the humour and is very unironic and all about instagram-post-type self love. That’s all very well, but not enough to carry a novel. It’s not bad enough to stop reading either though!
Listening: I used to live in Liverpool, so I really only know ‘Youll never walk alone’ that way. I’ve been repetitively listening to songs from Aar Paar, but it’s getting to be moving-on time; I’m getting a bit sick of them.
Thinking: about summer! Sunshine! Wardrobe revamp! I love this time of year.
Karan Johar film song – I think, off the top of my head, ‘Tere Naina’ from MNIK. https://youtu.be/qYjPxdLIuk0
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Ooooo, I love Tere Naina!
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Reading – my book club is vicariously travelling to China and so I have almost finished Cocoon by Zhang Yueran. It takes place in China in the late 1980s and is essentially the story of two young kids growing up in difficult families with a mystery that ties them both together. It is so awesome to have a book from China by a Chinese author, published within the last 30 years, and translated into English, that is NOT anti-China. So many of the books translated are about the Cultural Revolution and if they are translated into English, China does not come out well. And honestly this book, which takes place after the Cultural Revolution, doesn’t paint a rosy picture of the country, but it doesnt color the place bloody. Some people are good, some people are bad, most people are inbetween. It’s a great book.
Thinking – I have not been doing well since January. My head injury somewhat improved with my eyesight but with that improvement came a loss of self confidence and a struggle against depression. It has really hurt the nonprofit I’ve been trying to start. And with the inlaws living with us on and off I’ve needed to work more as we’ve been going more into debt trying to pay grocery bills and car repairs. Today I forced myself to work on non-profit stuff and it was a bizarre experience of me trying to kid talk myself through small insignificant actions. Additionally I’ve really need to get this going as some stuff has come up in the community that is rough. Trans people are the punching bag in the country right now and some in my community are trying to exclude their existence from the schools. I’ve never really understood what it was like to disgust people for simply existing until two weeks ago. And there are young adults I’m close to, former students, who I simply can’t protect. It’s been hard. The 2nd year of our local Pride Festival is this weekend. The 8-year-old and I have tickets to drag bingo, and I’m terrified someone is going to come in with a rifle and kill us all. It is an extreme fear, but people are so weird right now, I can’t pretend it isn’t there. It is only a small number of people who are so weird. How can a such a small number of people affect our lives to such a great degree?
Listening: Gonna Be (500 miles) by the Proclaimers – 6 months ago I got the 14 year old hooked on the song and we were both in the grocery store when it was playing recently. I thoroughly embarrased him dancing in the aisles.
Watching: Not much. Got the in-laws into Arrested Development, the funny version of Succession (spouse is into Succession, mean people hold no attraction to me). Drove some Hitch Hikers 15 minutes up the road so they could hike to snowed out trails in their cute matching little black shorts and little white shirts. They were from the Netherlands. They asked me if I’ve ever been there and I wanted to say, “No, but I did see it in my favorite SRK film”. But I didn’t say that, I just said “No.” (BTW I did show them some non-snowy routes they could take).
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Oh Genevieve, I’m so sorry! You’ll get through this, you’ll feel better and be able to do things again. So long as you are still embarrassing your 14 year old, you are doing everything important.
I’m so glad you are in a book club, and so glad you are enjoying the book you are reading. The book reminds me of some movies I have seen from China. On the one hand, because of censorship, they can’t address politics directly. But on the other hand, it’s kind of lovely to watch a story that is just about people in a situation without judging or trying to solve the situation. It just is what it is.
I have the exact same feeling about Succession. I can’t handle watching people being bad. I’ve started watching the sitcom Mom and it is the total opposite. Took a couple of seasons to find it’s feet (don’t start at the beginning), but ultimately it’s about a bunch of middle-aged recovering alcoholic women supporting each other as they try to be better people. Makes you feel like you can be a better person too.
Let’s see, other soothing “the world is a good place” things…The Inbestigators is on Netflix, it’s a lovely little show about kids solving kid mysteries in Australia (stuff like, who ruined the science project during recess). There’s also The Good Place, and Parks and Recreation. And of course, DCIB! When I remember to post 🙂 It’s all happy light stuff here, and supportive people who love you.
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I have a new TV, hurrah! It’s almost the same as my old one, but it has built-in apps for Netflix and Youtube so I don’t have to walk across the room, unplug the Chromecast, plug in the Chromecast again, wait for it to boot up and then try to hook up my tablet every time I want to watch Netflix on my TV, and again every single time I pause the movie, and sometimes when it drops the connection just because it feels like it. So now it’s much easier to watch movies, although I am Old and actually remember quite well having to stand up and walk to the TV every time I wanted to change the channel, and run to the bathroom during commercials.
Anyway, I celebrated by watching Thana Theke Ashchi. I was excited to watch it because it has two of Bengali cinema’s great actors, Madhabi Mukherjee and Uttam Kumar, and I didn’t know they’d been in a movie together. It was utterly disappointing, although it did mean well. It’s a portrayal of a rich Bengali family and how they (coincidentally) all had encounters with a poor woman that eventually lead to her suicide. First, it makes no sense–Uttam is a police investigator looking into the suicide and the members of the family have done things like get Madhabi fired for no reason and turn her down for emergency aid, but those things aren’t illegal. Also, Madhabi is only seen in flashbacks so she and Uttam are in no scenes together. Uttam has very little screen time considering he is UTTAM, and Madhabi plays an uncomplicated victim character who isn’t very interesting. And it has the dumbest twist. Just a stupid stupid twist. However, turns out Uttam and Madhabi have other movies together, or at least one, so maybe that will be better.
On the fence about Tu Jhooti, but reading this it sounds like life is too short. I really don’t like Shraddha, possibly more than I dislike Ranbir.
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Congrats on the new TV!!! I’ve tried chromecast and smart tvs and rokus, and chromecast is the WORST!!! Although still the only way to watch einthusan, sigh.
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I wasn’t even able to use it to watch einthusan! Even when my membership was “lifetime” and not “whoops we just changed it to three years and yours just expired.”
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For Uttam-Madhabi, see if you can find Chaddmabeshi. It’s Hindi remake, Chupke Chupke, is one of favorite movies. I don’t remember much of the Bengali one as I’d watched it a long time ago, but the songs are amazing.
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I did see Chaddmabeshi and thought that the story sounded familiar! It sounds really good and I’ve never seen Madhabi in a comedy! I hope I can find English subtitles.
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I just discovered that Satyaprem Ki Katha, Kartik and Kiara’s upcoming romance movie is directed by the same guy who directed Double Seat. Double Seat is one of my most beloved films. I must admit – I’m excited, even if my head keeps telling me to have my hopes low.
The first song from the movie came out few days ago, and it’s good. There is even a MUSTARD FIELD and the mountains in it!!! It would be absolutely perfect if not for Kiara’s fake face. She doesn’t look like a girl in love, but like a model who thinks: I must smile and look romantic. I can’t stand her, and at this point I’m not sure if I don’t like her because she is bad, or I find her bad because I don’t like her. Why didn’t she retired after the wedding?
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You are so mean to Kiara! I still really like her, but then I haven’t seen all her movies. Maybe after a few more watches, I will find her as boring as you do.
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I think I have seen only one her film, and maybe the worst one – Abbas-Mustan’s Machine. It was bad and she wasn’t good , but it was one of her first roles so I don’t judge her. My problem with her is that she looks and acts the same all the time. Her wedding, her promotions, her trailers, she has one facial expression. I’m so excited for Satyaprem ki Katha, I want this movie to be good and earn money and I try to be very positive, but then I see her face and I want to slap her and say: Girl, start acting, add some emotions for God’s sake!
What I also noticed is that she acts and looks here exactly like Parineeti in Namaste England era. I couldn’t stand here because she was all like “I’m too pretty to act, one my smile will be enough for entire movie”.
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Netflix announced a new Imitaz Ali’s movie Chamkila. The music is wrtitten by A.R Rahman, and Diljit Dosanjh (without the turban!!) plays the main role. I’m intrigued.
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Me too, but looks like we have to wait until next year. At least the music should be good.
I don’t think I would have recognized Diljit if they hadn’t put his name there, although he is also wearing a short haired wig and no turban for parts of Jogi.
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