I’m just cruising along with these character posts! Partly because, as I said before, they are more sort of discussion starts than the end all-be all. Every single moment of character development has been covered in the scene by scene posts, this is just gathering together some of the more interesting thoughts in one place. (full index of all Bahubali posts, including the other character posts, available here)
Another Bahubali post! A short one, more of a beginning of a discussion if you want to keep talking in the comments, than the definitive comprehensive take on things. (to see all the Bahubali posts, check the Index here)
Now, on Rahman’s birthday, I will call him “the Greatest Composer Since RD Burman” and it will be an equal compliment. The two of them are up there, all by themselves, on the list of popular film composers. For his birthday, I will give you 55 reasons to love him (mostly songs)
Good news! I found a post I did for Eid last year, so I can join in the celebrations after all. Better late than never. As I said last year, I am 95% sure all these songs are appropriate. But if a miss-translated a lyric or something, and one of them is more secular than religious, let me know right away so I can pull it out of a post where it doesn’t belong.
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Happy Pride! Not a lot out there for representation of Queerness in Indian film, but I will highlight what I can.
There isn’t a terrible lot of it (although it will be added to by today’s post), but I thought, for Pride, I should give us all some options for our Queer fantasies.
Happy Pride! For once I am NOT in charge of the service at my church, which is around the corner from the parade (our kids have a lemonade stand out front, we rake in the money), so I do not have to go down to the loud crowded hot unpleasant parade area. Instead I get to celebrate by reposting the same fanvid post I put up last year. Thank you slashfic fanvid makers! You are just the best people, and on Pride Sunday, I salute you!
Continue readingKepzandme alerted me to it being SRK’s 25th anniversary in films today, 25 years since Deewana came out. I am sure everyone in the world is doing 25 songs, 25 scenes, 25 films, kind of posts. I’m not going to bother trying to add to that. Instead, I will do something only I can do, and put in my personal 25 best memories, in no particular order.
On the Monday Questions post, a couple of people asked me why I don’t write more about classic films. Well, it’s because no one reads those posts! Not a big mystery. People want to read spoilers for new movies in theaters, and news items that mention Shahrukh Khan. If this blog was called “what Shahrukh is doing every minute of every day and also this is the ending of that new movie you saw advertised”, I would be infinitely popular. But I would also be both bored (not that interesting to just list off plot points in a movie) and exhausted (Shahrukh does a lot of stuff!). So let’s see if I can manage to put in one more post topic that is just for me, and no one will read, but I will enjoy writing.
Welcome back to another Bahubali Theme Post! Now that I’ve gone through the big themes I could think of (Dharma, Male and Female, the Elements), time to really dig in and look character by character. And why not start where the films start, with Sivagami. (yes yes, I will use the character names for these posts, because it’s not about the finished film and the actor’s portrayal, so much as the characters conceived in the screenplay) (full index of all Bahubali posts, including this one, is here)
No subtitles though. Which, following my theory from yesterday, means that Shahrukh used to love me and was telling me through subtitling his videos. But now no longer loves me and is breaking up with me through NOT subtitling his videos. WHY SHAHRUKH???? WHY???? I’ll change for you! I’ll do whatever you ask! Just take me back!
Really quick post, just so we can all discuss. And so those of you who need this information ASAP can get it. New JHMS teaser! I am still cautiously optimistic. Although slightly less so than I was after the last two teasers.
Happy Tubelight Monday!!! Only 4 days left until the “real” Tubelight day. Or maybe 3 if we are lucky and there is a last minute Thursday release in America. So, let’s talk about Kabir Khan and Salman and their first collaboration, Ek Tha Tiger.
Happy Father’s Day Again! My weekly fanfic post this morning (it’s really good! You should read it) exhausted me, so this will be a quick-ish post. But it is Tubelight week, I can’t let the day go by without acknowledgement.
Happy Father’s Day! I am celebrating by doing nothing! Probably. I might go out to lunch with my parents after church if they want to. But we have all had very exhausting weeks, and his Father’s Day wish may be to just go straight home and take a nap instead. But I am excited at the idea of doing a Sunday speculative post that is fatherhood themed! Such a rich source of film plots, that is very rarely used.
Happy Tubelight Week again! Let’s talk about the film I was immediately reminded of when I saw the first Tubelight trailer, the classic Dr. Kotnis. Well, and the real person Dr. Kotnis.
Accessbollywood.net does the real work of keeping this list updated, if you want a day by day update, subscribe to them. But if you want my opinion and recommendation on every single one, read on.
Another podcast! And another week when there was no movie to see in theaters, so we watched a DVD! Another Nivin, Jacobinte Swargarajyam. Because I know it would be unlike any movie Dina had ever seen before. And I was right! (you can read my original review here)
Whenever I say “Chinese”, I have that knee-jerk moment of “wait, is that right?” Because of course you don’t know if a person is Taiwanese, or Taiwanese who prefer to be called Chinese, or ethnically Chinese but from Cambodia, or just straight up American/British/Norwegian/Indian, whatever other country they were born and raised in, despite a Chinese appearace. And then with languages, there’s the whole Mandarin versus Cantonese thing, and with films there’s the whole Chinese versus Taiwanese versus Hong Kong, and so on and so on. But in this case, YES! Chinese! I am talking about attractive men who were born and raised within either Hong Kong or the People’s Republic of China, and who openly identify as Chinese and nothing else. Because it’s Tubelight week, and Salman Khan is teaching us all about peace and openness. And also I had about an 18 month period of being really really into Hong Kong cinema.
Happy one week before Tubelight comes out! And welcome to my week of coverage. If this is your first time here before a big release comes out, what I usually do is a loosely related post every day for a week before. Stuff like, the director’s last film, or a similar film from the same star. Just sort of discussion topics and background reading for stuff that might end up being relevant for the final film. And for this film, let’s start with the co-star, Zhu Zhu!
Boy, it’s been awhile since I did a real news round-up, isn’t it? Partly because the releases have been going boom-boom-boom for the past few months, so with my weekly southern reviews, and new movie news, and then Bahubali, there just hasn’t been time. But this week it’s kind of slow, I don’t have another review ready yet, might as well do a quick news round-up.
Well, this is one I’ve been avoiding! Because I know feelings run high on it. And I know that, as a non-Indian, I have no right to talk about another country’s politics. So I am not going to talk about politics, I am going to give as impartial a perspective as I can on the progression from Motilal to Jawaharlal to Indira to Rajiv to Sonia to Rahul. Because as I discovered yesterday when looking at the posters for upcoming films, we are about to have a spate of Indira-era period pieces, and to understand them, you really need to know about not just Indira, but what came before and after.
The Ramadan promo parade continues! Tubelight is taking it easy, Salman just tweeting set photos, Shahrukh is doing the same with Jab Harry Met Sejal (blech, still hate the title). Leaving the field clear for the hardcore promos of first looks and teaser trailers for other movies.
I was just re-reading my SPOILERS review for Raabta and I realized I missed a big point, so I am going back to add a footnote. When Jim Sardh walks home with Kriti and it starts to rain, they start to sing a song to each other. And it was such an interesting choice, I just have to talk about it.
dontcallitbollywood 