So, we’ve all watched “Hawaaiyan” a million times now, right? And we’ve all gotten into the footplay thing in the middle? Or is that just me? In order to celebrate our new shared foot fetish, let’s look at a whole bunch of bare foot photos.
Obviously, today is Star Wars day. And also a day when I am super busy at work and can’t really focus. But I can do a “speculative” post without any problems! I get so caught up in my little imaginary worlds, that nothing can shake me. So, let’s do a mini Star Wars fest! (updated version of this post here)
(this is an updated post from last year) To celebrate this strange Valentine’s in the middle of the week, here are some strange love songs in the middle of movies that really shouldn’t have love songs. If you follow a strictly Only Romances rule, you may never even see them!
Another Kabali post! Combination of box office, industry news, and human interest! Because this movie is so big, it is effecting all 3 of those areas!
Well, Dishoom is the one that came out today, but so long as we are talking about that, might as well talk about Te3n and Sultan too.
Last night, Shahrukh basically acted as India’s foreign finance minister. And it looked a lot more fun than when the royals were here and he acted as India’s British ambassador.
Happy Easter! And of course, there is only one appropriate way to celebrate.
Isn’t that funny! I was just emailing with a friend about this film, and now Amitabh tweets that today is the 45th anniversary! With apologies to my friend, I am going to go ahead and raid our email exchange for all the random things I thought about it, so I don’t have to re-think them all.
Ghayal Once Again (which has been talked about for months) goes up against Sanam Teri Kasam (which I never heard of before today) this Friday! Who will win! Who will lose! I will make a guess but I have no idea if it is correct!
But I do know the random trivia related to these films which I am about to drop on you is correct and, I think, interesting!
Which of these stories is most important? Duh! Amitabh! I mean, politically and an actual effect on the world, probably Aamir. But as to cosmic importance, it’s Amitabh. It’s always Amitabh.
I did it! I got all the way through the first half of Quantico, watching just in case there is a moment that directly relates to or reveals something about Priyanka’s Indian career. And there is not! But I will be back in March (or whenever), just in case at some point she breaks character, faces the camera, and tells us all about what she really thinks about Kareena Kapoor, what the big fight with Karan Johar was about, and if Ranveer Singh actually hates her as much as he seems to in interviews (and vice versa).
So far, it’s just been a bunch of stuff that those who watch her Indian stuff already know: she is totally willing to do sexy scenes and kisses, her hair is great, she definitely has a new nose, and she has weird chemistry with powerful older men. Oh, and she can’t act (duh).
What I didn’t realize before was how much she is willing to sell out her identity in order to make it overseas. I know that she isn’t the one writing the show or producing it, but she claims she had her choice of scripts and concepts, and this is the one she chose? One that turns a Christmas episode into a New Years one because they didn’t want to deal in anyway with whether a Hindu and a Muslim would celebrate Christmas? One that, last week, dismissed her Om bracelet as a symbol of her personal identity, rather than a sign of her being a practitioner of the 3rd largest religion in the world? One that argues we should avoid violence against the Muslim community because it will turn them against us, not because it is wrong?
In his interview last month with Vogue India, Shahrukh Khan was once again asked why he has never taken a role in an American film, despite being the most popular international star:
“I hope everyone who ‘goes across’ does very well. We’re the biggest filmmaking country in the world and it’s time we were outbound. Yes, if there’s a film with the right role for me, I’ll do it. But I’ll be honest; I’ve never been offered such a film….They should be [afraid of me]. They have to offer me something that doesn’t disrespect my audience of 1.2 billion. I’d never disrespect that,”
Not just Shahrukh, but all of the major stars have given some version of this explanation. Aamir, Salman, Amitabh, they don’t want to work overseas unless it is something that respects them, and respects their audience.
So the biggest thing I learned about Priyanka from my death march through this show is that she doesn’t respect her audience, and she doesn’t seem to respect herself much either.
So, I am a huge huge sucker for a good fanvid, have been for years. Going all the way back to when I was in college and I would take a break from studying to browse around and try to dig up a new SRKajol vid.
After over a decade of loving these things, I think I have figured out 3 categories of fanvids, specific to Indian fandom.
First, there is fanvid that expands on the themes of an existing artwork, for instance this fabulous one from Alina Yuvvraaj:
Or these, from lalilly:
Then there are the fanvids that expand on the particular awesomeness of a particular star. Like this, my all time favorite from Zizi K:
Or this one from Alina Yuvvraaj again:
So, both of those kinds of videos, based on a particular movie or a particular star, you can find in any fandom. Where I think it starts to get unique, is in the next two categories.
First, there are the videos based on a particular mood. Since Indian film follows the Rasa theory, where the goal is to evoke a particular mood at a particular moment, rather than a cohesive mood through out one narrative, a wide variety of films might have particular scenes that flow seamlessly between the borders of their individual movies.
Like this, the moment when you are in love without realizing it yet and happy (from half a dozen different movies with the same moment). By Zizi K again:
Or this, which evokes the specific mood of “young and drunk at a club”, by MRSEMRAAN:
Or this, which has the very specific-to-Indian-film emotion described right there in the title. Women who are sad, and the men who love them from MRSEMRAAN again:
And then finally, there is my favorite category, the totally made up full narratives that go across multiple films and, occasionally, all the way into real life footage. This is really unique to Indian film, because Indian film is uniquely cohesive film to film. The same jodis play the same characters going through the same narrative beats over the over again. And even into real life, in interviews and publicity tours, they interact the same way. And who knows, maybe it is even related to the reincarnation in Hinduism! According to some versions, even Ram and Sita were reborn multiple times and lived out their story over and over.
Anyway, one of my favorites, which seamlessly moves between real life and film. Almost convinces me that Kajol really is eating her heart out, from MissCinemaObsessive:
and then I watch this from lalilly and feel better:
(see, they’re just friends after all!)
Or this one, where she actually does get him, even though he is himself and she is village-Kajol, from Zizi K:
Or this, where it’s not just SRKajol, but SRKajol vs Kajol/Salman and Kajol/Saif, from LUANSU (LUANSU was also the first fanvid maker I found, back in college):
It’s not just SRKajol, I literally screamed with delight when I found this one, hitting up the scandals old school! And using all film footage to tell a real life story, very impressive! From TheMelicrazyy:
And this leads into the bonus subcategory, fake storylines pulling together multiple films, but with stars who never actually acted together! Because actors and their characters are so consistent across films, and all films are so consistant with the kind of scenes they include, you can actually craft a narrative revolving around people who have never been onscreen together (my favorite of these is the Abhishek/Kajol/Rani “Teardrops on My Guitar” that was briefly posted like 6 years ago by Nouf89, and then pulled down. My white whale! If someone out there has it, please send me a copy!). But these are nice too. From rmskch:
(this is so impressive! Remember they have only been onscreen together for less than ten seconds in her friendly appearance in KANK)
And I had never even considered these options, from 3bit89:
(none of these three has ever costarred with each other in anything!)
So, did I do this right? Are there the same number of categories as promised in the post-title? I think so:
dontcallitbollywood 