I was going to come up with something clever, but now, simple is best. Every male star in every industry is struggling to make a decent box office, and Alia and the Savatri biopic sweep in and break records without breaking a sweat. (as always, figures from renttrack by way of bollywoodhungama)
This is an actual excellent film, and a very fun watch. It doesn’t really matter if you know what happens, you can still enjoy watching it play out, but if you like being surprised and having edge of your seat thrills, maybe wait and read the No Spoilers review first, and then this one after you have seen the movie.
Well, this was a shockingly good movie! I highly highly highly recommend it. Also, I am now in love with Vicky Kaushal.
I can’t stop myself! I keep looking at Sonam wedding videos! And, thanks to the latest batch, I now have several competing “ships” that I am rooting for. And I am sharing them with you, in the hope of either getting companions on board the SS Relationship, or else getting a solid common sense mind to drag me off.
Moimeme asked me about Ranbir Kapoor and why he is still getting work, and some one else asked me what I thought about Pratalekha’s recent interview and how she struggles to get work. And then October came out promoted on Varun Dhawan’s name primarily, and flopped. And I think I figured out what the issue is, it is the problem of the 3rd film.
Well, this is a fascinating trailer! 2018 continues to look like a much better year for films than 2017. The old dinosaurs, Stars and Directors, are stepping back and new faces are getting a chance to shine. This film is a perfect match of a new actor and a new creative team behind her. Which came together to create a new story.
Happy Monday! I haven’t done a news post in a while, but I have been reading the news. Rest assured that all the various big stories have been processed in my brain, I just choose not to address all of them. These few here are the ones I find interesting.
Happy Friday! The end of Aamir/Alia abbreviated week! And, of course, they get to have this weeks TGIF post. But they have to share it between them.
It’s Alia’s birthday! Which I have somehow never honored before so I have to write this very quickly from scratch. Let’s see if I can manage it!
This was fun, I didn’t have to write anything this week! We wrote it all together on Monday in bits and pieces, I just had to pull it together and make sense of it for this.
A happy post! To balance the serious one from earlier today. And also because I looooooooooooove Yash and Roohi. Most serious and concerned babies ever!
Also, all women in pink! Because I want to see if I can make joyomama’s head explode in the comments (for those who don’t know, regular commentator joyomama is a fashion historian who writes about gender color preference). Oh, and also because I’ve gotten a couple of people pushing back against the standard TGIF. So no objectification and no men and no SRK in this one!
This is partly based on a joking back and forth I had with my friend, partly based on a news story Asmita linked to in the comments, and partly based on everyone’s least favorite “actress”, Shraddha Kapoor.
There’s nothing I find really exciting in the news, but there’s a lot of little things we can talk about. Mostly casting announcements.
First of all, blessings on Hotstar for making this available, and blessings on Shahrukh for agreeing to do something now, during my all time lowest view periods when I really really need content. Now, on to the discussion! Of the first two episodes, with Alia and Deepika.
No Shahrukh, so sad! But I can do my belated Halloween post with ghosts! Nice ghosts, because I don’t like scary ones.
Happy Sunday! I am about to go to church for a Sunday School committee meeting, followed by Sunday school, followed by the fall involvement fair, followed by the services committee meeting. And this whole time I will know in my heart that I am secretly the kind of person who has written a “Shahrukh Khan as a prostitute” fanfic.
There was a comment on last week’s post, by Asmita I think, about liking it when men are surrounded by strong women. Which sent me down this whole rabbit hole in a direction I don’t think she anticipated, and I have come out the other side with a simple plot in mind that can be applied to any hero. I am excited!
I don’t want to say that Raabta is better than Magadheera, or even as good. But it is a very clever reimagining which takes the same story but replace the from the southern industry (comedy scenes, action scenes, stalking romance) with the strengths of the Hindi industry (clever dialogue, cutting edge international setting, slightly more complicated characters). So, what other southern films could we do that with? Not that we SHOULD do it, but that we could.
Probably not a coincidence, right? Not like “ugh, another big controversy I am caught in! Hey look, I have a longform writing platform to discuss it. What a coinky-dink!” Probably more like “should I take this column offer from NDTV? I probably should, because it will be useful the next time I am inevitably caught in a controversy.”
So weird that Alia is 24 today! When I was 24, I had just lost my 3rd post-college job and started working minimum wage in a movie theater. Which is kind of like being a major movie star I guess? At least we were both making money of the film industry. Except I had more popcorn smell that never gets out of your hair, and she has more glamorous premieres.
I’m back! After I scribbled off my No Spoilers Review in the middle of the night, I am now awake (sort of) and am ready for my SPOILERS review! And in this case, I am going to say that you should read this whether or not you have seen the movie. There are already various think pieces going around that critique the film by taking elements in isolation, I want to critique it by taking everything in context.
Final trailer! And it is a mystifying one. I just cannot figure out how it fits in with the other bits of the movie that we have seen so far. Thank goodness I only have 7 more days until I can see the whole thing!
March is gonna be a GOOD MONTH!!!! Much better than February, where we have that Pakistani rom-com that looks pretty great, and Rangoon, which I am still not very interested in.
So glad that Badrinath Ki Dulhania is being made! And that the first trailer makes it seem like it will be yet another riff on DDLJ, but with a different focus from Humpty Sharma.
