Happy EASTER!!!!! Not many posts today or yesterday, because I have been very busy doing Easter stuff. So I thought I would report on that to you, in my usual song-filled way.
There were 3 interesting industrial news stories in one day, which I want to use as jumping off point to discuss how money and art intersect in Hindi film. The first two are short and kind of set the stage, the last one is the very interesting one that relates to the whole history of how film finances work. (this was originally posted as a news round-up, but it really makes more sense as a Hindi Film 101)
Oh boy! My favorite juicy scandalous fascinating addictive news items! That’s right, INSIDE INDUSTRY BUSINESS STORIES! Let’s get into contracts and star rates and all kinds of fun stuff like that! No joke, I really do find these stories way way way more fun to talk about than, like Anushka-Virat wedding news. Maybe you do to! And even if you don’t, you can just not read this! That works too.
I should be able to scrape up a dozen, right? I didn’t bother last year, but then last year I hadn’t seen Daawat-E-Ishq yet.
Boy, after not much happening in October, the birthdays are coming fast and furious in November! Anyway, I can’t ignore Tabu!
The tagline was “Love Him. Hate Him. Judge Him”. And I do all those things! Except the first one. I judge Azhar to be a truly terrible move in every single possible way, and also I hate it.
I mentioned in my 1,001 post that I was getting a couple hundred visitors a day, but it was less impressive than it sounds. See, I can tell what those visitors are reading, and most of them are not here for my glorious prose and brilliant thoughts. And I thought, as a gift to you, my readers, I would lift the curtain a little and explain why I post what I post, and why you read what you read. And at the very end, I tell you what my top 3 posts of all time are right now.
I already put up a detailed post about how Neerja in particular is doing (short answer: Spectacularly! Long answer: Spectacularly considering the complete lack of faith in it shown by distributors), but what about the non-Neerja films? How are they doing overseas?
I still haven’t seen Deadpool, because I am swamped by Malayalam films. I wasn’t sure if I ever would bother with it, at least before it hit DVD. But then moviemavengal told me it uses an Indian song in the opening scene, and I was all in!
That also made me check out how it is doing in the Indian box office, just in case that Indian scored opening was part of a move on the Indian market.
Bollywoodhungama has some inside rumors about Fitoor to go along with their box office figures from the weekend (which are dismal). But in a bigger sense, they bring up the question, what does this mean for UTV as a studio? I am wondering, what does it mean for all the studios? Is this a sign of a change of times?
I already posted a quick spoiler-less review, and another spoiler-full review. Now it’s time for a full summary! Which will probably be my shortest one yet, because this thing was like one third musical montages.
Very very early box office figures are out, showing both Fitoor and Sanam Re had a slow opening, but Sanam Re was ever so slightly better. It remains to be seen what will happen in the next few days, and what the worldwide figures will look like.
I saw Fitoor! Opening night! With 20 other people! It was not a good film. It was also not a very good political statement. And it kind of felt like the main goal was more the political statement than the film. But it turned out to be a pretty simplistic political statement and a pretty bland film.
I saw Fitoor! Opening night! There were, maybe, 20 other people in the theater! Not good. I’ll be curious to see how the box office shakes out. I’ll also be curious to read the reviews. Because I was expecting some subtle political statement, and oh my gosh! It’s just an anthropomorphized debate on the Kashmir Question!
So, there are two interesting news stories making the rounds. One is an important sign of shifting industrial desires and policies. And the other is a sign that I WAS RIGHT! Ha-HA! HahahahahahaHA!
So, the first Fitoor trailer is out, and it is very very pretty.
And very very location based. And very very “fiery young sensitive middle-class men!” None of which are bad things, but they are very Abhishek Kapoor-y. Which makes sense, since he is the director. And it has that pretty pretty gloss that I’ve come to associate with the official Disney co-productions (as I mentioned in my post on the first look). And, as I also mentioned, I expect it to be an “official” adaptation of Great Expectations based more on feel and look than on plot, just like Khoobsurat was a remake of Princess Diaries.
So I dug up a copy of the trailer for the most recent Hollywood version, and yep! Definitely more Ethan Hawke than Charles Dickens.
But what I am more interested in is the possibility of a political message being buried within it. there are three reasons I think this is just barely possible.
