Time to talk about gender! I love how Bahubali 1 and 2 deal with gender. I do not like how Bahubali 1, in isolation, deals with it. But that’s just because it was only half the story. The two films have to be viewed together for the concepts of the male and female and how they are handling them to become fully clear. (my last theme post is here, and my full Bahubali list of posts is here)
Happy Sunday! Datablue mentioned re-watching Ocean’s 11 on the Wednesday Watching post, and of course that got me started thinking about how/why it should be remade in Hindi film. And then I started thinking about all the other multi-starrer options from American film that really should be remade.
I have written sooooooooo much on Bahubali, it’s kind of over-whelming. So to make it easier, here is one page that lists out every post written.
I wrote two fanfic posts on Bahubali, and in both of them I ended up giving Anushka and Prabhas a daughter, Anushka 2. Who has all the confidence of her mother with the fierce sense of duty and justice of her father. And then I kind of fell in love with her character, and ended up starting a fanfic for her and Rana 2 (the illegitimate nephew I decided to give Rana). You can read part 1 here.
This is just the most mystifying trailer! Usually I like to have several trailers or news items to talk about at once, but I can’t wait on this one, because I need to crowdsource understanding it. WHAT IS HAPPENING????
Another podcast! No big new movie this week, so instead I invited Dina over to my place for a movie night. Which gave me the opportunity to finally force her to watch a Malayalam film. Ohm Shanthi Oshaana, which also meant that she immediately fell in love with Nivin Pauly.
Happy Friday! I am having friends over tonight for the inaugural New Apartment Movie Night. I’m excited! The place is still a disaster, but they are good friends, so it should be fine. And to entertain them, I came up with a game! which I am now sharing with you.
What are those birds that eat bugs off of the elephants? Or is that an urban legend? What I mean is, I feel kind of like those birds, existing off of someone else, because Accessbollywood.net does the real work of keeping this list updated, and then I just swoop in and put in recommendations and descriptions.
Ramadan! ‘Tis the season for film promotions! Because there’s nothing actually coming out (except Raabta), so all we can do is get excited for the things that will be releasing later.
Welcome back to DDLJ watch! My new system is to pull all the screenshots, put them in order, and then write the post around it. It’s working so far, but then I haven’t gotten to any huge discussion points since I started the new system. (part 18 here, you can go back from there)
Well, this is fun! It’s partly a list of every Shahrukh Khan film, but more than that, it is a case study for how a career progressed in the 90s in Bombay. Lots of work, not a lot of hits. And then the 2000s came in, and it was less work and less hits (notice I was able to cover twice as many years in this post as in the last one)
This is thanks to two commentators, Filmilibrarian who reminded me about Victoria & Abdul, and Niki who sent me the Spyder teaser seconds after it dropped. Oh, and then Salman Khan who tweeted the new Tubelight song this morning.
Happy almost-June! And Happy Wednesday! I am so ready for this week to be over, moving all weekend really takes it out of you. Anyway, in the meantime, here is the place to talk about all the things we have been reading and watching and thinking this week. And, to get us started off, I have a question for you!
I finally saw Robot! I think it might be one of those movies that you miss out too much if you don’t watch it at the exact right moment. Watching it now, just a few years later, the special effects seem dated, the song sequences not so great, and even Rajni Sir’s performance is not as good as it could be. Remember, I am coming off of seeing him in Kabali, where he not only played his age, he played a layered real complicated version of himself. I mean, this performance is great, the best part of the movie for sure, but I kept thinking “why are you doing this when I know you could do so much better?”
This is just a random idea because I am in the middle of unpacking my Shahrukh DVD box and putting them in chronological order on my shelf. It’s kind of fascinating to look at his career as a case study of how an actor’s career progresses.
Well, I finally saw Oppam. Only 6 months late. Oh well, this is what happens when the theaters only give one screen to Malayalam films, and there are 4 (or 5?) major releases for Onam weekend. I saw Oozham, which was in a similar genre but not quite as good as this. Because Prithviraj is not quite as good as Mohanlal and Jeethu Joseph isn’t quite as good as Priyadarshan.
I am writing this in my new apartment on my new internet sitting on my old couch and facing my old TV, but with a new-to-me coffee table (rescued from the trash, where all the best furniture comes from). Also, a dishwasher! Anyway, I thought I would take a break from unpacking boxes to tell you how the move went, since I have been pestering you with posts about it.
Happy Memorial Day! I am celebrating by unpacking boxes while a watch a guy set up my internet (because I moved!). And, since I have already worked soooooooooooooo hard this week (12 hours of moving yesterday! And that’s without unpacking a single box, just getting them out and in again), I thought I would throw some of the Monday Morning Questions over to you (although you can still ask me any question you want, of course).
I looooooooove the Rocky movies. I came to them late, my father had me watch the first one with him when I was a kid, but then I really got into them in college. It was after my Indian period had started, but the Rocky series was one of the few American products that I could still enjoy. I don’t necessarily want them to be remade, because they are so perfect already, but it’s kind of a fun thought experiment anyway!
Last Saturday, there was a bit of a false alarm, I cut down on my posting because of my move, but I wasn’t actually moving, I was just spending the day knee deep in boxes. Today I am actually moving.
Sorry sorry, it was out a few days ago and I missed it. Blame Salman, not me! I follow him on twitter and everything, and this was not mentioned! At least, not mentioned enough, I was able to miss it. Salman! You’ve got to tweet this things like a dozen times to make sure they get noticed!
Considering that Anushka 2 (the daughter Prabhas 1 and Anushka 1 would have had if Prabhas 1 had lived) isn’t even part of the “real” canon, I have become remarkably attached to my concept of her. So I can’t resist giving her a little spin-off movie all her own. And this works as a sequel to either of my previous Fanfics, the first one or the second one. Also, I really really got into this one, so it is less a single movie and more a mini-series/novel. There will be multiple installments. It will help wean us all away as now that the Bahubali 2 scene by scenes are over.
I’ve done it! Whole thing! And it was SO MUCH FUN!!! Don’t worry, Bahubali orgy isn’t over yet, there will be a big over-arching themes post next week, and there is the start of what will be a multipart fanfic tomorrow. But this is IT for the scene by scene stuff. (part 25 here, you can crawl back through the archives from there)
Is this lazy? It’s not lazy. I’m about to finish all of Bahubali 2 scene by scene, why not celebrate with an entire Prabhas themed TGIF post.
dontcallitbollywood 