Happy Wednesday!!! So far, this year has been pretty good for me. Nice New Years, manageable post-holiday work days, fixed Dunki which makes me happy, and scheduled Albie’s annual Vet appointment at a convenient time.
I’ll start!
Watching: I just started “Dark Winds”, the new television adaptation of the Jim Chee-Joe Leaphorn books. It’s really good, and the books are really good, and it’s also kind of an interesting thing culturally. They are books set in the American Southwest on American Indian reservations. They go deep into the location and the culture and all of that stuff. And they are written by a White man who has lived in the region for years. Isn’t that interesting? It’s like me! Someone who is an outsider to the culture, who doesn’t pretend to be an insider, but whose work is all about this other culture.
Reading: The Queen of Denmark abdicated to save her son’s marriage? I find this story confusing, but also very juicy.
Thinking: I gotta start our annual DCIB awards posts!!! What can they be about this year?
Listening: The Dunki soundtrack is really good
Now, question for you! How do you defeat the January blahs? My method is the DCIB awards, nice and distracting.
dontcallitbollywood 
Happy New Year! I am back to work, but already anticipating my quick escape this weekend to a scrapbooking crop in Lancaster, PA (scrapbooking and cross stitching are my main two crafting hobbies). I guess that and seeing Merry Christmas in the theaters if I can here will help me beat the January blahs.
You know I love my rom-coms, so definitely needs to be some rom-com awards in the DCIB awards, though RARKPH is the obvious winner of any award in that category! I watched it again with my mom over the break and she was turned off by Rocky’s character in the first half (which is the most perfect rom-com…she just didn’t get Ranveer’s charm), but liked him more in the second half and even shed a tear. This movie wins over everyone in the end.
Watching: Haven’t watched much since I think I mentioned seeing Thank You for Coming here (which I really liked) and Wonka (loved far more than I thought I would). Also saw Paddington which was slightly disappointing for me since it’s been hyped so much…the sequel is better apparently. Also saw The Holdovers over the holiday and absolutely loved it. One of the characters has the same last name as me and they even mention my hometown at one point. I love when that happens in the movies!
Also saw Family Plan on Apple+. Forgettable but fun. And saw The Noel Diary under duress because my mom turned it on and this is one of the worst films I’ve seen in a while. So poorly acted and directed and it was by the same guy that did some really great films in the last few decades. Weird.
Otherwise, I’ve been watching lots of end of year roundtables and best of videos on YouTube.
Reading: Finished reading Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley’s Three Holidays and a Wedding, a holiday romance/chick lit novel. Really fun and highly recommend and there’s some cute Bollywood rep in it as one of the lead characters’ grandfather is a former Bollywood director and there are several name drops in it and they watch KKHH together at one point.
Thinking: About my pop culture New Year’s resolutions like trying to watch more non-Indian Hollywood movies. Read less romance and more generally from my physical TBR shelves.
~filmilibrarian
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I should make some pop culture New Year’s resolutions. Maybe I need to do a DCIB Book Club to start myself thinking?
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Paddington 2 is definitely better and more enjoyable. I love the movie a lot so I don’t want to overhype it and make the movie seem less impactful. However I definitely felt the same way about the first Paddington because even though it was well made it did not touch me. The sequel though has Hugh Grant as a delightful narcissist and convicts in pink prison suits. If thats some persuasion, then hopefully it’ll convince you
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Wonka really made me appreciate Indian Movies’ willingness to dub songs. It isn’t that the Wonka actors were bad singers, but they weren’t good singers. Why do American filmers insist on creating musicals with actors who aren’t great singers? Doesn’t the music part count? It wasn’t always like this. Natalie Wood’s singing was dubbed in West Side Story, and it is a better film because of it. And also, most people can’t even tell.
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Watching: I watched Dunki and went on a Pride and Prejudice marathon. Dunki was not so impactful however P&P was as usual amazing. I confess while I like the movie a lot and feel its a good exploration of the romance that Austen hints at. I still love the BBC series infinitely better. I do think Joe Wright’s style would suit Persuasion better (as its more swoony and romantic in my opinion) and I am dying to see a good adaptation of Persuasion.
Reading: I am trying to finish Possession which is so hard as it is really very boring. So I’m taking a break and continuing the Pride & Prejudice exploration. Its so fun and I love the book so much. I’m spending all my free time reading and its so nice to read again with so much veracity.
Thinking: How sad it is that the holidays are over and to work again.
Listening: I am listening to this Kpop song which is a collaboration among famous idols called ‘Time after Time’. I feel like its a korean version of an english song as the tune seems familiar but it does not seem true.
I think the biggest tip is to try to make plans for the new year and the ideas you wish to do. I always am the most optimistic during Jan and my enthusiasm fades away by December because I feel I have so many plans.
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I love those two P&P adaptations pretty much equally but it’s so much easier to just throw on the Joe Wright one when you need a quick fix! A new adaptation is inevitable…I just someone would make one asap.
I hear you on the Persuasion adaptation. The Dakota Johnson one was such a wasted opportunity…I need to rewatch someday to see if it improves on the rewatch. I loved the Sally Hawkins adaptation (except for the icky ending), but to date the Amanda Root one is still technically the best.
Possession is such a hard slog, I agree! Read it years ago and recommend just skipping the pretentious poetry. The movie is much better:)
~filmilibrarian
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I agree with you on that. The Joe Wright adaptation is perfect whenever you are tired and need something to cheer you up quickly. Plus the BBC one is impossible to find but I have a DVD thankfully.
The Amanda Root Persuasion is nice but I still feel the casting is not very good. I feel someone like Rooney Mara would be a good Anne as she can do a change of countenance very well. Also I’m so happy I can share my views of Possession but it is really the constant diary entries + academia which as Mrs Bennet would say “are trying on my nerves” (Sorry I am in the Austen Mood!).
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I just finished another Christmas movie, and man how I loved it. It’s like the most low cost movie ever with very basic plot and terrible beginning, but the chemistry between leads was great( I can be biased because one of the characters is my type in 1000% (nice, gentle , Italian looking with glasses) and I felt in love with him instantly, so maybe the chemistry was in my eyes)
The trailer spoils entire movie:
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I’ve been trying to watch Kho Gaye Hum Kahan, but watching young adults post instagram pictures on their phones feels more educational than fun. And only one of the three leads is entrancing. I got 45 minutes in, only and hour and a half to go…
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Dang it! I had high hopes for this one–not super high, but thought it would be fun. But it sounds like not my thing either.
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I watched this last night and you know that feeling when you get through a movie thinking it was really good/different and then almost immediately I was like it really wasn’t for me in the end. It was a well made film and I can see why Gen Z would enjoy this one. I did think that the social media content was handled realistically, but was super preachy. I didn’t care that Siddhant’s character’s stand up comedy wasn’t funny since this really isn’t the point of the movie which is much more introspective and slow. I thought Ananya was the strongest actor of the three strangely. There is a perfect scene where she reacts to the influencer character blowing her a kiss that made me realize her potential because her expressions are perfect. Everyone saying she should only act in more realistic contemporary stories are right. Siddhant still has a way to go for me before I will think he is a true star. He may end up in the Karthik Aryan category for me…avoid if possible…never understood why he was so beloved in Gully Boy. Adarsh and Kalki were very strong as usual. But what’s with the actor who played Rohan in this film…he’s absolutely a terrible actor and he was terrible in his one moment in Rocky Aur Rani, too. Please make him go away!
~filmilibrarian
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Who is this Rohan guy? I googled his photo but I don’t remember him from RARKPK.
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I have had an orgy of watching since I had a two-week vacation.
First, the “cheering show” of Pushpa and Sye Raa. “Cheering show” turns out t be a theater employee passing around a box of tambourines for us to use during the movies. It was really fun! We tambourined during the dances and the fight scenes and everyone got into it. Extremely subdued by Indian standards, but I really enjoyed it. I liked both movies as well, although Sye Raa got a bit difficult for me to follow.
Then, I decided to start the first episode of a bunch of serieses I’ve been meaning to get to: Scoop, Dahaad, and Mumbai Diaries. I didn’t realize these were all going to be pretty dark! For some reason I thought Scoop would be a lighthearted look at a young newspaperwoman and it is not. So, I’ve seen the first episode of each of these, and about half of the first episode of the new season of Made in Heaven, because I fell asleep.
Also on New Years I decided to start my year right by watching Saptapadi, most fun of all Bengali melodramas, now available again with subtitles on Youtube! If anyone wants to watch a non-intellectual Bengali film from the 60s, this is it.
And then I started on a rewatch of Little Things, and I’m halfway through the second season.
Also saw Sajini Shinde ka Viral Video, which is OK, and I like the fact that Nimrat Kaur is something other than a patiently supportive wife, but it was edited very oddly. It’s honestly hard to figure out what’s going on.
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I watched 12th Fail! Its so good and reminds me a lot of old hindi films. I would really reccomend all of you to watch it as everything about the film is so so good.
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Reading: I am reading the program of a Bollywood / Indian movie exhibition from PARIS! A friend went to Paris over the holidays, saw the exhibit, and brought me back the program and three beautiful bangles that are too small for my hands so that I may have caused permanent damaage to my hand/thumb joint putting them on and now I will wear them forever because there is no way I am going through that pain again! But at the end of the program they have a little guide to help you find the Indian movie you would want to see – and of the 4 possiblities offered, TWO are SRK films. So yeah, basically to the outside world SRK is 50 % of Indian movies. (The movies were DDLJ and Chennai Express).
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What are the other two?????
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Ghajini (2008) and Mahakaal (1994)
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And I did get the bangles off in the shower today. And it only hurt a little. So does that mean I CAN wear them, or should I give them up too a smaller handed person?
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What I have been told many times is that bangles are supposed to feel like you can’t get them on or off. You have to, like, bend your thumb joint in and wriggle to get them in place, and then do the opposite to get them off. the end result, for me, has been that I just don’t wear bangles!!! Or if I do, I wear the ones that have little fasteners so I can loosen them to take them on or off.
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Ghajini would be among the last movies I would recommend as an introduction to Indian film! It reinforces all the bad stereotypes: Bone-jarring segues from dark and violent scenes to fun and light scenes, twinkly cute heroine, ripped off from a western movie. Not to mention someone getting beaten with a pipe. I wonder what the thinking was behind that.
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It was recommended for people who like thrills, weekends in big cities, photo reports of destinations, and the movie Memento. I have never seen it, having seen Memento I don’t feel the need to see the same movie in a different language.
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The soundtrack is really good. And they drastically change the plot (although not the central gimmick). But what is MOST fun is watching Aamir Khan in fight scenes punching up (literally) because he is so tiny tiny and is playing this Big Scary Muscle Man.
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Anonymous was me, reprehensibly writing a comment when my students were working on something and being punished by forgetting to enter my name.
I actually saw it in my early Indian movie watching days and did not hate it. I think it ends differently from the original Memento, which I have not seen.
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