Hmm. Let’s see if I can do this. I really want to help the People of the World to be able to like what they like, and not like what they don’t like, honestly and openly. And also work through my own difficulties in that area.
Continue readingThank you Maria! You asked in a comment who Abhay Deol was and where he had been and it made me realize that I haven’t done a Deol family Hindi Film 101 yet!
Continue readingCan I just say how proud I am of all of us for keeping a respectful tone on these posts? Even when we disagree with each other, we do it with the assumption that both sides are just trying to learn and be the best human beings we can be. I have pretty much stopped replying to comments, because I don’t need to, you are all having deep intelligent conversations on your own without my needing to leap in and make sure things stay civil.
Continue readingOh boy, another big controversial post! Or maybe not, no one is even commenting on yesterday’s post. Perhaps Salman just isn’t that controversial any more?
Continue readingOh boy! The big controversial thing that is the first/only thing people think of with Salman! How fun for all of us to discuss it, and perhaps later be sued for libel.
Continue readingPart 3! And I might, finally, be ready to move on to Salman’s own life instead of just establishing his background and childhood. But probably not.
Continue readingSorry, this is more stuff that happened before Salman became famous. But it’s important! These early experiences are what define us as a person. You can’t understand Salman without understanding his family and background.
Continue readingI just did my Hindi Film 101 on Katrina, and it got me thinking about Salman and the need to do a series on him, instead of just dancing around the details of his life. So, here is my start! Starting with his father Salim.
Continue readingI hadn’t even considered writing this post until a few days ago when somehow we started talking about her. Which is a sign of how mysterious she is, that her past is such a vast emptiness we all somehow forget it even exists. We think of her as boring bland Katrina instead of considering the amazingness of her life and existance.
Continue readingWe’ve been talking back and forth a lot lately about the issues with Karan’s public image and how it does not reflect who he is outside of the limelight. At least, I don’t think so. And I wanted to go through the actual facts of his career, not how he presents himself but what he has accomplished behind closed doors, so we can take a look at Karan the Artist and Karan the Businessman. Most of this post is simply listing out and counting categories of films from Dharma productions.
Continue readingFun post! I get to complain, and then you all get to complain back at me. It will be like when I talked about subtitles, but worse.
Continue readingSo many news stories today! I’m gonna start with the two big think-y ones, the ones with massive legal implications, a rape case of a minor actor/band member (trust me, you haven’t heard of him and will have no emotional response because of fandom), and the same old Blackbuck case. And after I get this long deep boring post out of the way, I will move on to Imraan Khan getting divorced and fun stuff like that.
Continue readingThanks for Catherine (by the way, Catherine, I owe you a greeting card! Email me your address and I will send it off) and Whitney bringing this up in the comments because I think it is a super interesting topic to consider, especially in the Indian context.
Continue readingI guess Viviek just did another scummy thing using the Aish-Salman story? Not surprising, he has been breaking boundaries and making public what should be private for the past 16 years. The Viviek press conference was the start of the road that lead to what we have now with Kangana spewing hate at the world and the media gobbling it up, and believing it. NOTE ABOUT COMMENTS: This post is purposefully about 2003 and the aftermath. So ideally, any comments will place the whole situation in context of the original situation, Viviek and Salman and Aishwarya, the media, private and public divides, and abuse.
Continue readingOh boy, I get to recap the whole Hrithik-Kangana thing again! The only good thing is, I was team Hrithik from the start (go me!) because Kangana’s story was always just WEIRD, and his wasn’t. So I get a little ego-boost each time it comes up again. But that is literally the ONLY good thing. Otherwise, it is all stressful and exhausting and strangely repetitive. I would much rather go back to Kangana’s weird work issues than digging up her work-personal issues.
Continue readingThere is just barely enough between Jackie and Tiger to patch together a 101. But still worth doing! For Jackie in particular, he is an odd odd man.
Continue readingI started out writing a different post, but halfway through I discovered something really interesting when I looked at the reviewer aggregate information on Rotten Tomatoes. The state of Indian film reviewing is way more f’ed up than I realized.
Continue readingThis is the 106th anniversary of Indian film. I already put up a post about the start of it all, Dadasaheb Phalke, but I want to keep going. And after Phalke came the start of the other little studios, like Wadia Movietone.
Continue readingI wrote this post for Dadasaheb’s birthday, but it also works for the anniversary of Indian film.
Continue readingLet’s see if I can do this, directly respond to another writer without feeling like I am being nasty. Hey, Anonymous Author! I am going to be nice and start a dialogue, not mean. You can read this without worrying about feeling attacked. Oh, and everyone else, I am going to try to expand the conversation that Anonymous Author started and bring up some points he seem to have missed.
Continue readingThis is not a “oh boy, these are the next stars to launch!” post. This is a 101 post, it’s just the basic names and general ages of the children of celebrities, so when I (or other media outlets) casually refer to “Hrehaan” or “Nyssa”, you will know who we mean.
Continue readingI’m back! I kept thinking I had already finished this, and I think that is just because I already wrote my Karna post, and like Duryodhana, I felt like once he died, why go on?
Continue readingNo real reason for this post, except that I suddenly remembered I had purchased a year long access to JSTOR (very expensive, thank you donors here for funding it!) and could probably find a useful ethnographic paper on this topic. Which I am guessing will interest you all, because who doesn’t find incest interesting? Oh, and I also know there are all kinds of regional variations I am missing, I really hope you add on in the comments. This is more of a discussion post than a 101 post.
Continue readingLet’s see if I can do this! Maria in the comments said she has a hard time understanding what “debutante” means in descriptions of casts. And it sent me down a road, and I think what I am going to try to do is give the very brief highlights of all the working actors in Hindi film today.
Continue readingI’m pretty sure I’m not the best person to write this post, and fairly sure I don’t know what I am talking about. But I’m frustrated that no one else better than me is even trying, so I’m going to take a stab at it.
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dontcallitbollywood 