Happy Wednesday!!! It’s Kirron Kher’s birthday today, and I am celebrating by hiding out at the lake house having a lazy lonely day. Still working all day, but it feels lazier at the lake house.
I’ll start!
Reading: Not much! My brain is atrophying. I need to get back to Ponniyin Selvam.
Watching: Because of previously mentioned brain issue, I am trying to schedule a time to get together with my friend and watch an old movie together. Last time we were gonna watch Jubilee and watched Dil Aashna Hai instead. This time, to heck with it, we will just plan on watching something fun and crazy and whacky.
Thinking: I have now successfully acquired all but one of my birthday coupons! I’m leaving nothing on the table, it’s worth driving 20 minutes to get one free cookie, so far as I am concerned.
Listening: It’s Kirron Kher’s birthday!!! So, obviously, “Maa De Ladla”
Now, question for you! Pretty simple one, is there something we should watch instead of Kashmir Ki Kali?
dontcallitbollywood 
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I finished Gumraah, and it was quite good. Not as good as the original, but really nice . I’m surprised. In the beginning I wasn’t convinced by ARK’s acting, but later I liked him a lot. And OMG he is so handsome, and has a double role, one character is a good boy, shirt and sweater type, and the other a sexy bad boy , so there is ARK for every taste here. And what is very important : the director knew what he got and made a lot of close up of ARK’s face. Another very good aspect of the movie: Vedika Pinto. It’s only her second movie and she was so good. After 5 minutes I already wanted to be friends with her and when she was in trouble I wanted to kill the villain with my own hands. So yeah it was a nice watch, not perfect but good.
Today I watched Half Girlfriend with polish dubbing and it was strange. I didn’t have to read the subs so I could focus on the faces and yes, Arjun acts bad in some scenes. But the good part was that I understood many things better e.g It hit me how toxic Arjun’s mother is just from the beginning. The way she treats her son, the things she says could have made terrible, casteist and trash man of him. I’m happy Arjun played the role, because even if he is bad, he has has this sweet charm that makes me wanna cheer for him.
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Ooooooo! A good cute ARK rom-com!!! we always need more of those.
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It’s a crime-thriller but there is also a romantic part in it.
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Just watched a couple of things and I couldn’t decide if I liked either.
I finished Jogi, which was indeed sad and suspenseful but the ending makes sense. And it’s an important topic and I’m glad it was treated in an Indian movie. But around 2/3 of the way through I realized every male character was wearing a sweater vest and I couldn’t unsee it.
Then I watched Raangi, which I kind of liked but the plot goes kind of all over the place. Trisha is really interesting (I’ve never seen her before), but at times the camera focuses so much on her butt that I, a straight woman, noticed. It’s also kind of pro-Gaddafi, so that was a new perspective. They also do this weird thing where you can see/hear the character speak another language but they layer Tamil on top of it. Like the person will start speaking English and all of a sudden I’m hearing Tamil and English very faintly underneath it. It’s an interesting choice and I’m not sure it works–I think obvious dubbing always pulls you out of movie. The main actor who is supposed to be Libyan is actually Tajik so maybe they did that because he can’t speak Arabic that well? He also can’t really act, but he sure is cute.
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I watched Crash Landing on You because one of my bookclub co-horts was obsessed with it and I am desperate to have a conversation in person with someone about any film that isn’t American. I loved the depictions of North Korea, of course I don’t know if they are truthful, but I like to think they’re close.
I’ve read two books recently translated from Chinese. Cocoon – about the after effects of the Cultural Revolution set in the early 90s. It was good and full on depressing. And then I read The Monkey King Journey To the West the translation from 2022. The Monkey king was originally published in the 1600s. From reading the two books it seems like Chinese people were a lot happier in the 1600s. And I think about this because I am also watching the Geography of Bliss on Peacock which visits the least happy place, Bulgaria. And it seems that it isn’t communism so much that destroyed Bulgaria’s happiness, but the specific aspect of spying on neighbors to the point that trust diminishes and large joyful gatherings of people stop. But unlike Bulgaria China does have large joyful gatherings now, or at least a documentary (The Story of China) shows large joyful gatherings in 2017ish. And I wonder how the culture is doing. It is still under Communism, but at the same time appears to be healing. And that is a lot to judge from some books and some TV shows, but I can’t help wondering.
I’ve also read O Ye Jigs & Juleps! That says it was written by a 10 year old in 1904. I have a hard time believing it wasn’t cleaned up quite a bit when it was published in 1962, but it is funny and cute and it is always good for me to know how much Yankees were hated. And I’m in the middle of Anything Can Happen, a true story about an immigrant coming to America between the first and second World Wars. It’s great.
And the 11 year old just walked in and wondered why I’m on the Don’t Call It Bollywood site if I’m not even playing the movie! He is used to the watch a longs…
But the truth is I got onto this site simply to share this throwback photo of SRK that his daughter posted to Facebook. It made me smile.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=812329220256016&set=a.586825526139721
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From some interviews, I saw of North Koreans(that defected) reacting to Crash Landing on You, many aspects are pretty accurate. Have you finished it by the way? If you have, I just want to say I love the series wholeheartedly even though there are some minor issues I have. It’s just so swoony and romantic, it is definitely a series which has a Bollywood emotional trajectory.
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I DID finish the series! The last three episodes kinda annoyed me because there were SO MANY TEARS. I started to get annoyed by the main characters and only wanted to see the side characters. But I should be honest, I started watching the series over a year ago and stopped because I couldn’t develop strong attachments to the main leads. I had a particular unfondness for the guy. He was just a statue. I overcame my distaste for the female lead, but I’m still not super fond of the guy.
I loved that the end message of the film was an acceptance of love and life outside of the traditional family setup. THAT was refreshing.
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I really enjoyed CLOY, especially the North Korean soldiers and the second lead couple’s story. I think we had a discussion here about similarities with Veer Zara. I too was not much interested in the main couple, they’re too sweet and noble for my taste, especially if I’ve to watch that for multiple episodes. Now they’re married in real life though and that makes me happy!
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I had no idea that got married in real life! That is fun.
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There are a lot of tears in the last episodes 😄. It’s like the ending stretch of K3G.
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The first time I saw SRK’s face twitch in reaction to an emotion was in JHMS when Anushka said he was lonely. And I thought it was genius. But now that I’ve seen all his films the whole shaking face crying thing no longer seems so brilliant. But he’s gotten better. His subtle face twitch is JHMS is definitely prefereable to the ending stretch of K3G!
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I am so glad you are reading and enjoying both O Ye Jigs and Anything Can Happen! I love those books.
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First teaser trailer for The Archies. Looks interesting! As bright and fun as this looks, somehow I wish the colors were a little more saturated, at least a bit unless this will take on some serious things with the whole ‘protest’ there, too. It might look at the not-so-nice things about the 1960s, but who knows? There is the possibility. At least the music goes retro/vintage.
Yea, I imagined something like the fun but not overbearing saturation of this, with the commentary as well. It would fit if it is an overall fun and cute film, but it could be just the vintage/retro vibe they are going for, except that it reminds me more of ‘A Death in the Gunj’ because of the de-saturation than a colorful comic which I grew up with.
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Thankn you thank you thank you for the trailer heads up!
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Trailer of Heart of Stone was just released too and Alia plays the villain.it’s Gal Gadot vs Alia Bhatt. I feel like this might be as close to a fanfic come to reality as we might get. Besides Ghosted but that didn’t have an Indian actress.
I’m so excited to see Gal Gadot go against Alia Bhatt! I believe (and I know you feel the same way) you need an amazing villain to balance out the hero(ine). I am so excited for this movie!
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Oooooooo!!!! This is so FUN!!!! Also, I just checked the Internet to confirm, Gal Gadot’s grandfather fled the Nazis. Just like Alia’s!!! What a cool bonding thing.
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OOOH interesting factoid! My sister and I have been fangirling over this trailer since yesterday. I mean it is a female heroine vs female villain in an action film – what could be better?!?!?!
Also, Alia looks so young and sweet that having her be the main villain is just amazing.
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