Happy Thursday! Ugh, not a great week for me. Very stressy and rainy and yuchy. But! Hearing from y’all always cheers me up! Even if I don’t have time to reply to your comments. So, Wednesday Watching!
I’ll start!
Reading: Hugh Jackman is getting divorced! Which means he is FINALLY available for my imaginary matchmaking! If he’s Queer, I want him for Karan. They already met years ago at IIFA, it could happen! If he’s gonna be with a woman though, I’m blanking. Kat’s married, Preity’s married, Sush is with her nice dude, who is available that is age appropriate?
Watching: Lots of Star Trek, because it is so soothing and logical and calm. And also this because HUGH JACKMAN IS GETTING DIVORCED!
Thinking: Blurgh! We have to get the pipes fixed in our house, work has somehow been harder every week than the previous week for, like, 6 months, I am constantly battling low level fall illnesses (allergies, headache, just plain wet and cold), and all I want is ONE DAY when I can stay in bed and watch Star Trek and pretend I am on a space station where only Big Horrible bad things happen and no one ever has, like, a cold and plumbing issues.
Listening: On the plus side, I’ve started listening to random shuffle songs in the car and I forgot how super soothing Malayalam music can be:
Okay, question for you! What is your “I just want to escape” viewing pleasure?
OH! I thought of someone for Hugh! Malaika! If she and Arjun really are broken up. Think of the DANCING!
dontcallitbollywood 
Thank you for puting Wednesday Watching post. I missed them 🙂
I’m so sorry to hear you are not doing well. Stupid pipes and work.
For me “I just want to escape” viewing pleasure is Indian cinema in general. I rarely rewatch films, I prefer to hunt and discover the new ones . It feels so good when I find something interesting. Last week for example I watched absolutely random Marathi film “Get Together”, I have never heard about earlier. I didn’t know the actors or nothing but the poster was so cheesy and description so vague I knew I must watch. It was a great decision because I loved it. It was like the authors watched 96 and wanted to recreate it but didn’t have money for the rights, so they had to change some things and hire worse actors. The story was good (and there is a happy ending!). I liked the school part even more then in 96. The boy who plays the young protagonist was great. Unfortunately his older counterpart wasn’t that good, and let’s no talk about the heroine, she was TERRIBLE. The movie would be awesome with better actress. I want somebody to buy the script and remake the movie with real actors.
I also watched telugu movie Samajavaragamana, and it was hilarious. I haven’t laughed so much in a long time. Very funny, even for a white person like me.
And I saw Viday Balan’s Neeyat. It’s Agata Christie’s style “people forced to stay in a lavish castel start dying one after another, and detective Vidya must find the culprit” kind of movie. Not the worst film, but I’m sure I’ll hardly remember it at the end of the year. Forgettable.
The last film I saw is Writer Padmabushan. I feel I should love it because I love Suhas, but it was too calm and slow. Suhas was super cute, especially when he was dancing but the movie bored me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Out of all of these, I kind of want to watch Neeyat the most! I want to see Vidya solve a murder, that sounds perfect for a rainy day!
LikeLike
It’s a good choice for a rainy day. The movie is not very long, the actors have fun and there is Shefali Shah cameo and she looks absolutely beautiful and badass.
LikeLike
I saw Neeyat, because I couldn’t stream Samajavaragamana. I really liked it! So fun, such good actors. I just enjoyed myself without getting bored or distracted for a period of time. Probably helped that I had some afternoon coffee before watching though. I did think that Vidya’s jacket would be a plot point because she was wearing it so much inside, but no, she was just wearing a ridiculously large jacket inside while others were in strapless evening dresses for an absurdly long period of time.
LikeLike
OMG this jacket! I almost quit watching because of it. It’s still very hot here in Sicily and watching a person sleeping/sitting next to the fireplace in a sweater, winter jacket and gloves annoyed me.
I even wrote a tweet about it:
LikeLiked by 1 person
I just saw than Rocky aur Rani Kii Prem Kahani is available on Prime 😁
LikeLike
Thanks for the heads up…it appeared for purchase in India a week ago on Amazon India and I was so worried that it would be much longer before we got it streaming! I did watch it again on Einthusan in the meantime:) Guess I know what I’m doing this weekend!
LikeLike
I was also worried it will take weeks but today I saw it was available. There is written: “early access” under the poster and I was afraid it won’t play, but it did.
LikeLike
Yay, thank you!
LikeLike
I’ve recently discovered Star Trek Picard. It’s less soothing than the other installments, but it has a very big plus:Seven of Nine. She’s somehow even hotter as a badass of 50 than as a babe of 25. And she has this on/off relationship with another female character that makes me feel very validated. It feels like a belated gift for teenage me, who was a clueless Voyager fangirl during its original run. And for slightly less clueless twenty-something me, who went looking for Janeway/Seven fanfics online.
I also managed to watch Tu Jhooti Main Makkhaar on Netflix, but I never even managed to get into the pairing. And having been spoiled about the very end, I thought it was just possible to read the airport scene as the whole family rushing to declare their love and not to abandon them. That would then at least tie in with the song.
LikeLike
I very much want to watch Picard! But my household is painfully trying to get through Discovery first so we can watch in some sort of order. 5 episodes of discovery left, and then Picard as a reward!
LikeLike
Is it confirmed that Malaika and Arjun split? There have been rumors for weeks, rumors often have at least a grain of truth but is it over before it is official? However, Malaika would be GREAT for Hugh Jackman, I agree, even if I don’t know Hugh Jackman that well. My hunch says it would be right, and I’ve been putting a lot more faith into my hunches lately.
Reading: lots of stupid romances, recommendations for better romances would be appreciated. So far Margaret has batted 100 with romance recommendations. Nothing with the Ton in it please. I’m okay with sex, but really read romances for sexual tension more than sex. In true me form I’ve started guessing author’s political persuasions based on the two dimensional male ideal they describe.
Watching: I have watched a great many english comedic romances. They are not usually good. I have rewatched JHMS because it really is one of the BEST romances ever made. I will say that there was this not great romance on Netflix for teens, Love at First Sight, which really highlighted the importance of familial relationship in creating love, which I kinda loved. I mean I didn’t love the movie, but I loved it’s focus on family. I will take all Indian movie recommendations. I have seen pretty much all the movies recommended in Margaret’s earlier blogs, but I haven’t seen much from before the 1990s.
Thinking: I’ve been subbing at local elementary schools, and today we sprayed blue chalk on kids as they ran a race for “field day” and I felt it was as close to Holi as I would ever get. It was fun, the kids, second graders, loved it.
I am taking a more active step in trying to work though my brain injury. I’m now laying on top of spiky mats to physicallty stimulate my body to get nerves to reconnect. I should do acupuncture but until I get paid for this past month of subbing there is no way I can afford it. But I’ve been subbing a lot, so acupuncture should be in my future. I can’t remember if I mentioned it (memory issues are a problem), but my emotional perception has increased as my logical abilities & memory slowed down. And yesterday I saw the step mother of a girl I watched from the ages of 18 months – 5 years (before her parents were divorced), and I realized that the step mother saw me as a threat. It was a one minute interaction about how the steop mother is now teaching Dance Team and how cool that was, and I can now pick up exactly how she feels about me. And yet it comforted me because then I knew that she really does care about the girl I used to watch. And while this newer emotional perception limits my overall social interactions, it is also kinda cool, and I know for mental health I should limit it, but then part of me doesn’t want to.
LikeLike
Welcome to my world! Of emotional perception I mean. It is, indeed, cool while also limiting.
Well, I’m just gonna put up a “recommendations please!” post for fun light romances for you! I am sure the crowd will have ideas, and my list is gonna be WAY too long to be contained in a comment.
Very sad about your brain injury journey, but also intellectually interested! Please keep us up to date on how all the various treatments end up working.
LikeLike
Finally saw Jawan last weekend. So intense, so much plot! Thoroughly enjoyed Shahrukh, glad it’s doing so well, but not really my cup of tea. I think they can make five different movies with each plot thread in this and I would watch all of them, but it was too much for a single movie. I like that the messaging was strong and blunt, which I think is usual for Southern films. Nayanthara was so good as the no-nonsense, badass cop, I kinda wish Shahrukh and her shared a cat-and-mouse relationship throughout instead of getting together. Deepika has gotten so good at portraying warmth, love and tenderness just through her looks, so nice to see!
I’m continuing to watch classic films to fill massive gaps in my knowledge, especially of pre-70s films. I know the stars, know and love so many songs, but watched so few films from that era! I’ll list and summarize the ones I think you or others may not be familiar with.
Mera Saaya – Sadhana and Sunil Dutt are happily married, she dies in his arms after an illness, but then her look-alike arrives claiming to be his wife. Good mystery, both of them get to play different shades of their characters and that haunting title song permeates throughout the movie.
Johny Mera Naam – Fun Vijay Anand thriller with Dev Anand and Pran playing brothers separated in childhood, Hema Malini playing a cool and glamorous member of a criminal gang in gorgeous costumes, awesome climax. And there’s a side character playing a triple role which is a first for me.
Rewatched Kaala Patthar and Jewel Thief. Had mostly forgotten the plots which worked out great for Jewel Thief! I know Kaala Patthar is all about labor rights but I love the Rakhee-Amitabh and Shashi-Parveen romances. Rakhee-Amitabh have almost the same story as in Trishul and Shashi-Parveen are so fun and flirty while also dealing with serious issues.
CID and Solva Saal – I never got the appeal of Dev Anand until I saw him in these black-and-white movies and now I understand why. Those affectations and mannerisms he put on later are anything but attractive. Here he’s more natural, allowing the charms and good looks to work. And Waheeda! I really have to see as much of her as I can. Solva Saal is a romcom working mostly because of their chemistry and I see why they did so many films together.
LikeLike
YES! I had the same reaction to Dev Anand!!!! When I watched CID, I went “oh, I get it now”. And reading film history, people talk about him at the time as this irrisistable specially handsome person and it didn’t make sense to me until I saw that.
LikeLike
It really irks me in things like this song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD_UK0Noszg
One of my favorite songs and Waheeda gives a masterclass in performing heartbreak in public. All Dev Anand has to do is react convincingly but he just has a mildly amused expression!
LikeLike
Solva Saal is such a sweet movie. I love it so much and its so predictable and light. Plus Dev Anand is so handsome at that time.
LikeLike
Yup yup agree!
LikeLike
I watched Jaane Jaan, the new Sujoy Ghosh thriller with Kareena on Netflix. It’s a good one and I hope someone else watches it so I can discuss. Kareena’s very good in this and is at that interesting position in her career that I wish for so many of her female contemporaries.
LikeLike
If someone is looking for a nice, engaging movie to watch, Netflix recently added a Polish movie Forgotten Love. It’s based on a book. The previous version of the story, from 1982, is one of the most loved Polish films ever. It’s something we always watch when it’s in tv. I was nervous when I heard that Netflix is going to remake the film, because I was sure they will ruin it. Well, I’m happy to say, they did a very good job and the movie is good. They changed some things but it’s still a good and interesting story about love and family with a pinch of amnesia.
LikeLike