Weekend WatchAlong: Dil To Pagal Hai! 4pm Chicago Time! Let’s Get DANCEY!!!!

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An afternoon watchalong! Radical! And Dil To Pagal Hai, a movie I find dull, but SRK is charming and the songs are okay, so I will survive.

Dil To Pagal Hai

It’s on Prime, and available for rent at all the places. My second least favorite Madhuri-SRK collaberation (Koyla, Anjaam, Gaja Gamini, Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam, Dil To Pagal Hai, Devdas), but undeniably a hit and important in the great Shahrukh Khan story.

At 4pm Chicago time, I will put up an “And PLAY!” comment and then we will all comment along from there.

591 thoughts on “Weekend WatchAlong: Dil To Pagal Hai! 4pm Chicago Time! Let’s Get DANCEY!!!!”

    • Because she wanted to see how they looked on her. No mirror outside / frowned upon for a woman to look at herself in a shop in that India. Also they don’t want to show her undressing and actually trying clothes 😛

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    • It’s actually a major political issue, which is Blech. The right wing is against it because it promotes love, and westernization, there are regular vandalism attacks on stores advertising Valentine’s Day stuff.

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    • Did/does your family do Valentine’s Day things? Mine never did for religious reasons, and I used to think it was kind of a Catholic cultural thing like St. Patrick’s, but since I’ve moved to the Northeast it seems like a lot of people of different backgrounds to Valentine stuff.

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        • Ah, I had meant the question for Genevieve and her west-coast US people. But it’s interesting to know that it’s not just a movie fiction putting all of these Valentine’s things into Bolly films : )

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          • We make eachother family cards and have muffins for breakfast. It isn’t romantic. Kids at school exchange cards with everyone in the class, but they are mass made or purchased. Only becomes romantic in the second half of high school, and even then we were buying flowers for our best friends.

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      • Huh. I grew up/live in the midwest and it was and is definitely A Thing. You had to give cards to everyone in your class at school, and couples would have special date nights and exchange presents. Although not an occasion for a special party necessarily, really just a couple thing.

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        • Hmmm. It definitely had a more religious character where I grew up–not in that it was a religious observance per se, but that people did or didn’t do Valentine’s along religious lines. Mostly Catholics, some Episcopalians and Lutherans. Other Christian denominations didn’t want anything to do with saints and of course we Karaites were off in a corner doing completely different things ( ; I imagine there would be a lot of outcry there if it were a thing in public schools.

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  14. So this movie was mostly a showcase for Shiamak Devar, up and coming young choreographer/dance team person. But this song is 100% a Farah Khan piece! I don’t even have to look it up to be sure. Only Farah is this into balloons, and this good at making SRK look good.

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        • I dooo enjoy Lata’s voice but …. she sounds so much older to me in these later films that it never matches the young actress in age

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          • but to disagree with myself…. it is kind of like you are getting two different performances for one: young and older

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          • What’s really spectacular is the few late in life songs Lata did for age appropriate characters. Do/don’t watch Luka Chuppi from Rang De Basanti. Do watch it because it’s amazing, don’t watch it because it’s heartbreaking.

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        • She doesn’t sing BADLY at this age, but her voice definitely doesn’t suit for Mads’s or Karisma’s ages. I don’t know why music directors didn’t just offer her more songs for older characters/montage songs by this date.

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          • I feel like Lata’s final performance for a heroine of that time might have been Preity for Veer-Zaara but I could be wrong. The age gap was painfully obvious in that one but it was also considered necessary at the time coz of the bond she had with the late composer (Madan Mohan) whose tunes they were using in that film (to honour his life’s work. All of them were largely unreleased tunes at the time).

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  17. “How did she get a balloon?”
    “I don’t know, these movies do not make sense at all!”
    “They are kinda fun even if they don’t make sense.”
    “I don’t know, they are too long. They need to turn every Bollywood movie into three one hour episodes.” – The 11 year old says as he continues to watch.

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  25. I have to say young Akshay does have a kinda sexy nerd vibe. Nowadays I don’t see any of the sexiness, but when he was younger it was definitely there.

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    • I already put my comment above, but I think it was perfect. Perfect as a character touch, that he is a little scared and worried and serious about it, not laughing it off. And perfectly acted because he gives us all that in his face.

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      • Sigh, he is a great actor. Even in the movies that aren’t my favorites, but I do like this movie, I love all the dancing, I just don’t like the Madhuri & SRK pairing.

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  36. Hey I just realized that Akshay’s relationship with Madhuri mirrors SRK’s relationship with Karisma. They both play jokes on the female, and she hates it. Those are the “immature” relationships.

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  39. Now that we have reached Title Song, I want to acknowledge all the other movies that played with these same one sided friendship love dynamics!!! First of all, KANK, in which the heroine DOES marry the guy who feels more like a brother but she loves his family, and the hero DOES marry the best friend who seems a good match. And then it goes wrong in a few years because you can’t build a solid relationship on one sided love.

    And then there’s Kal Ho Na Ho, in which Saif puts in the time to gently turn their teasing friendship into romance instead of just trusting it to work out.

    Oh, and Ae Dil Hai Mushkil! Which landed on “friendship itself is actually awesome, don’t be a creep about being in love with her”.

    What else?

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        • He was dreaming of his own Maya to come, wanting something more than what he had. So he made this ridiculous movie, and put his frustration with his own friendship romance into the movie.

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          • Aw, that’s such a sweet interpretation. And he met Rani when he was producing and she was performing!

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      • Maybe just a general maturity in terms of the effort it takes to make a long term healthy relationship? I really Kal Ho Na Ho’s version that says a longtime teasing friend is actually a great choice for a life partner, so long as you are also at least a little bit in love with each other. Versus the old school idea of “either you have an arragned marriage, or you fall in love at first sight, nothing in between”

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  48. See, this is where SRK’s character is so much more mature than Madhuri’s! He knows long term it doesn’t matter if he makes Nisha happy by seeming to return her feelings, it’s better to be honest. Madhuri is naive enough to just try to make Akshay happy.

    Or, is this a whole gender statement? Madhuri is trained to please others always because she is a girl? While SRK as a boy is more comfortable with unpleasant truths?

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