A commentator recommended this to me as a underappreciated Salman movie, and I am so grateful, because I LOVED it! It is the particularly Indian combination of subtle real emotional discussions and totally over the top visuals.
I was just searching through my email for something else, and I ran across the many many many things I had to say after I watched Mirchi for the first time last year. Mirchi was my first “real” Telugu movie, not counting Bahubaali. And I loved it, and it also inspired many many thoughts in my head. So, since it is a lazy summer weekend, I am going to be lazy and just copy my emails, and split my thoughts into 2 posts over today and tomorrow.
Jatt and Juliet is the first Punjabi movie I started, and the first Punjabi movie I ended, but there was a 5 year gap in the middle there. I rented it right when it first came out, after hearing all the buzz about how it was setting records and breaking out of the regional market. And then somehow I just didn’t get into it, and I turned it off half way. But I re-started it last night, and made it all the way to the end, and turns out, I love it!
I finally saw Action Hero Biju! I missed it in theaters, so I was waiting for it to show up on einthusan, and it finally did! Well worth the wait. Very satisfying and soothing.
Not sentimental for my life as a gangster in 90s Bombay, I wasn’t actually a gangster in 90s Bombay, but for where the film industry was in the early 2000s when I first found it.
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I think this movie may not have been made for me. Because I don’t “get” sports, and I’m also neither a father nor a son. And yet, I enjoyed it! Even without the deep level of understanding I would have if I could better relate to the character emotions, I still liked it!
The movie and the actor, not the actor nickname and his real life father. Although really, we have to talk about both, because one doesn’t make sense without the other. Oh, and also Rosie Thomas, my all time favorite Indian film scholar (tied with Anupama Chopra and Tejaswini Ganti) (oo, I just noticed while adding those links, Chopra’s Sholay book is now available on kindle! EXCELLENT!!! And Ganti’s Producing Bollywood! Oh, that is so TEMPTING! Can I justify buying them a second time just to have a different format?)
I already put up a quick spoiler-free review, now it’s time to get in depth and deal with what really happens! Time for spoilers!
(if you want another non-spoiler perspective, check out moviemavengal’s review)
Such a disturbing movie. Like, not sure if I can go to sleep tonight kind of disturbing. Very disturbing. But also very high quality.
Rang De Basanti! So brilliant! So complicated! So different! I could write a post just on why Madhavan was cast. But I am going to start with this post, and not worry about putting in all my thoughts, and then leave the door open to write more later if I feel like it.
Ustad Hotel was like the second Malayalam film I saw. First Bangalore Days, then Ustad Hotel, then Ohm Shaanti Oshana. At the time I saw it first, I had nooooooooooo idea what was going on for long stretches of the film. But now I have seen like 30 Malayalam films in 6 months, so I know everything!
This is another one of those movies I like and no one else does. No one even asked me to put it on my to-do list, but I am doing it anyway, because I was traveling last week and need to write about something I know really well, even without re-watching it.
I already did a quick post on Bangalore Days a while back, but I just re-watched it and noticed a bunch of new stuff, so I am putting out a new post and you can’t stop me! Ha!
That’s allowed, right? A second review of a movie I have already written about, just because I watched it a second time? Although, how would you really stop me? It is my blog, I am all powerful in this small little universe.
(if you want to read my first reaction, that review is here)
I am actually traveling this week, but I took a chance and checked the showtimes, and Housefull 3 was playing at a mall 200 feet from my hotel! It was fate! I had to see it!
Yash Chopra is so good! Even in Aaina, one of his weaker films, his brilliance stood out. And then Darr was just fantastic. But I honestly think Lamhe might be his greatest triumph.
(if you like Sridevi movies, I also did a post on English/Vinglish and Chandni went up today)
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I watched this movie aaaaaaaaages ago, mostly because I like the one song from it so much. And also Mohnish Behl. And then I just quickly fast-forwarded through it this morning to refresh my memory. It’s good! A little on the nose, but it doesn’t hurt to be on the nose about these issues.
I already posted a spoiler free review, discussing the major themes and meanings of the film. Now I think I am ready to get into the nitty-gritty details of what happened and why it was like that.
Do you think Raj Kapoor ever met Orson Welles? I hope so, for Orson’s sake. Raj could hang out in India and talk to Guru Dutt and Vijay Anand and Hrishikesh Mukherjee, and have people who could actually understand his level of genius. But Orson was all alone off there in Hollywood.
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I saw my second Malayalam movie in theaters! Thanks to moviemavengal’s review. And I gave up on pronouncing the title at all when I bought the tickets and just called it “the Malayalam movie at 7:30”. Thank goodness, the ticket guy was able to figure it out from there. (It’s not that Malayalam is such a hard language, it’s just that I’m terrible at languages. The handy Hindi movie abbreviations are my saving grace!)
This movie made me so nostalgic! I remember 12 years ago my college roommate came back to the dorms and told me the whole plot while she unpacked all the food her mother sent her back with. And then I never actually got around to watching it myself in all the years since then, for no particular reason. Until today!
I watched Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro! FINALLY! After years and years of people telling me I should. Of course, I didn’t have a copy with subtitles available to me until just a year ago, but that’s still 12 months when I could have watched Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, and I did not.
I finally watched Ennu Ninte Moideen! After people telling me and telling me that I should see it. It was SO FRUSTRATING! But I’m not sure if I was frustrated because that’s how the filmmakers wanted me to feel, or if I was maybe a little more frustrated than they expected.
dontcallitbollywood 