Oh boy, this was such a fun story! All this juicy stuff about process and production and funding and those cool things I like so much more than boring personal dramas.
Continue readingI have avoided doing a full 101 on Kangana, because I follow a firm rule of “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”. There are loads of people that I can look at and hate the sin but love the sinner. With Kangana though, somehow her “sins” are so tied up with her person that I have a hard time separating out “sin” from “sinner”.
Continue readingOkay, I did the bright side of the delightful surprises of 2019, let’s look at the disappointments! The movies or casting or whatever we were kind of excited about and then it didn’t pan out.
Continue readingWell, this makes me happy! The movie whose genre and style I like (happy family romance) beat the one whose genre and style I don’t like (historical violence), plus the movie I think is generally better made won out, plus the movie with people in it that I like better, plus plus plus! (numbers from bollywoodhungama)
Continue readingI watched the Luka Chuppi video before work, but the other two I have to go by descriptions and comments because I didn’t see them until later. Please watch them and tell me more about them! And also, that is why this is just a little post, not a big post.
Continue readingAs I said in my post last night, I find this whole thing a fascinating intersection of a whole variety of issues. So I am going to keep writing about it until you are all sick of hearing from me. Anyway, this post is just twitter updates.
Continue readingPersonally, I find this story fascinating. You don’t have to, either because you are just tired of it, or because you like to watch movies but aren’t interested in how they are made, or just because you don’t think it is that important or worth discussion. But I find it fascinating, and so I am going to indulge myself with another post, and putting up a bunch of videos for you all to watch, and hoping that there will be someone else here I can talk to about it all.
Continue readingThere is no youtube link for the lost footage, so you are going to have to leave my site and go to bollywoodhungama. But then, they are the ones who tracked down this footage, so they deserve the clicks.
Continue readingThis is my third post on this movie, after one that dealt specifically with the worst bits of propaganda in it, and my general No Spoilers review. And now I will dig into the details of the plot. Feel free to read this even if you haven’t seen the movie, it’s a familiar story so there’s no big surprises.
Continue readingWell, I saw it! Despite freezing temperatures, far theaters, and not being particularly interested in the film. And it was not very good. Oh, and MKP just gave me a link to an interview with Krrish!!!! Which points to the same things I noticed, so I wasn’t imagining them. Interview here: https://amp.scroll.in/reel/910912/kangana-ranaut-wanted-everything-to-herself-manikarnika-co-director-says-in-tell-all-interview?__twitter_impression=true
Continue readingI’ll do my usual actual reviews, but before I get into the themes and style and blah blah, I want to pull out separately the three elements that struck me as particularly dangerously egregiously in support of the extremist religious community in India.
Continue readingNot usual to do a news post on a Wednesday night, but I just could not resist the Manikarnika story. You know how addictive I find that whole disastrous soap opera.
Continue readingThis film continues to be weird and rough and broken. And yet, it is still supposed to release in a month! Headline is, there was a Grand Trailer Launch about 5 hours ago, press and stars and all, and then the trailer hit youtube and industry folks tweeted it. And then the trailer was pulled from youtube by the studio and is no longer available and no one knows why. What the heck????
Continue readingHappy news round-up day! I mostly just want to talk about Prenaa Arora, because I love talking about her. And I want you all’s (y’all’s? y’alls?) opinion on it. But there’s also another fun “Manikarnika is a disaster from which none of us can escape” quote from set, and a “oh Karan, don’t even pretend this isn’t nepotism” story about Janhvi.
Lovely, for Gandhi Jayanti we get a big war film. Which is pretty common actually, or at least an action film, it’s a family holiday and action films can bring in the whole family. Plus, patriotism!
I finally found out how to spell “coup d’etat”! Thanks to a comment, because spellcheck and google certainly weren’t going to help me. As my German teacher used to tell me, French is a silly language where nothing is spelled the way it sounds. To the degree that I can’t even get close enough to google it.
Always so much news on Saturday! Which is nice, because it is easy to write these posts and then I don’t have to think of anything new.
Oh there is FUN STUFF today!!!!!!! Talk about contract disputes and filming hierarchies, my favorite! Oh, and also terrible gossip that lets us feel like better people than celebrities and gives that little “zing” of excitement from conspiracy theories.
Well, this is a nice little promising collection of stories on upcoming films! Everything looks good today.
Oh dear. Kangana is not very good at not talking, is she? Sometimes reading these quotes I just want to reach through time and space and slap my hand over her mouth and tell her “STOP. TALKING!”
Some interesting little stories today! With some interesting things to think about in terms of Big Questions of Indian society and film and fun stuff like that. And also, little petty questions like “what the heck is happening on the Manikarnika set and why are they trying so hard to cover it up?”
Happy News Round-Up Day! There is, as is often the case, very little actual news. But I can still entertain myself by thinking about what is behind the particular kind of fake or empty news stories we are being fed.
I have 20 minutes before the kids get here, so I am going to write a news report post real quick, and then dig a croquet set out of the attic so they can hit each other with mallets. Or possibly actually play croquet, but that seems unlikely.
Happy Monday! So much news to catch up on! For instance, Amitabh went to the hospital, which is always an exciting experience for the international news media. Poor Amitabh, can you imagine if every time you went in for a routine procedure, your picture was headlines everywhere in the world? So stressful!
So many news items about upcoming movies! Mostly how they are being released early, or released late, or starting filming. Just a lot of date talk, really. Which isn’t very interesting on the surface, but is super super interesting when you dig in and think about what those dates mean. And this is just part one, I am breaking it into two parts so we can more easily keep comments focused. Part two here
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