Songs to Make You Feel Warm and Cozy

In Chicago right now it is just cold enough to be chilly inside (even with long pants and shirt), but not chilly enough that the landlord legally has to turn on the radiators. Or in other words, “that time of year when you check the city codes to find out if your landlord legally has to turn on the heat yet and are disappointed to learn he doesn’t”. Anyway, instead of putting on a sweater, or having hot tea, or moving away from the windows, I am going to write this post. Because those other things are just too much work.

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In Honor of His Birthday Yesterday, and to Cheer Us All Up, Let’s Talk About Why We Dislike Ranbir Kapoor as an Actor/Public Person!

This is a happy place, and a generally nice place, so obviously we all wish Ranbir well as a human person on earth, we want him to successfully defeat whatever internal demons he has, we want him to be at peace, and we aren’t going to troll him or stalk him or torment him on social media or any of that. But, I think we are allowed to say bad things about his acting, his films, and the way he presents himself to the world, right? That doesn’t make us bad people?

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Shahrukh Birthday Countdown, Duplicate! The Strangely Endearing Ugly Child

This is NOT a good movie. Sorry to everyone (including one of my closest friends) who loves it, but facts are facts. On the other hand, there are more people than you would expect who love it! Something about this bad bad movie is just strangely lovable.

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Shahrukh Birthday Countdown, Pardes! The Movie That Really Gets Going in the Second Half

This is a movie where the first/second half divide is so start, that I tell people to just start at the interval. The first half is fine, fun, a bit silly (kabaddi game!). The second half has some great internal tension between duty and love in a fascinating way.

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In Honor of Yashji’s Birthday, a Discussion of Film Endings!

This is in honor of Yashji because I think we can all agree he had TERRIBLE endings! Big picture they were fine, the right people ended up together and all that. But the specifics of how they played out tended to be “and then a plane explodes for no reason” kind of randomness.

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Hindi Film 101: The Feroz Khan Family, Qurbani and Zeenat Aman’s Eye Socket

There are so many Khans around! Because it is a very common name/title in the northern regions where Urdu is spoke and men are tall and handsome and refugees fled in droves to Bombay in the 1940s. But there’s only one Khan family in Hindi film, all the other little Khanses aren’t actually related to each other. Isn’t that interesting?

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