This is a really really good movie. And also a really really sad movie. In a kind of gently hopeful way, but still very very sad.
Continue readingFemale Films Week: Neerja! Prepare to Cry and Cry
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Tag Archives: Neerja
My Top Ten Ugly Crying Indian Films
I suddenly got one of my random Kannathil Muthamittal urges last night, and it made me think that I haven’t done a ten ugly crying films post yet. Of course, ugly crying is a deeply personal thing, so these are my ten, but they won’t necessarily be yours. Feel free to share your particular triggers in the comments! Oh, and they are almost all Hindi, but that’s just a coincidence, don’t feel limited by that.
Box Office: Raazi Rides Again! And 102 STILL Not Out
This is a good week! Recent release doing very well in the second week, older release surprisingly still holding steady, and an assortment of other not so good movies still feeling in some of the screens. (as always, figures courtesy of renttrack by way of bollywoodhungama)
Box Office: Padmavat Drops Down Under
Well, this is a boring week. Padmavat continues as you would expect based on last week. Bhaagamathie too, everything is kind of predictable. Except for Australia! And New Zealand. What is going on with those kooky Kiwis and Aussies? (figures courtesy of bollywoodhungama, as always)
Happy Birthday Sonam Kapoor! A Baker’s Dozen Reasons that I Love You!
Happy Birthday Sonam! So many birthdays in early June! But that’s no reason to ignore Sonam. She blew me away in Neerja, and then she blew me away again with her intelligent interviews on the status of female stars and female lead films in the industry. (this is an updated and reposted post from last year)
Two News Items Too Big To Ignore: National Film Awards and New Shahrukh Stills!
Long time readers may have noticed that my news round-up posts have been less common lately. I am sooooooooo busy writing up Hindi Film 101 and answering Monday questions and all my other new-ish features that I haven’t had as much time for news. But today there were two big things that I just can’t ignore! Both of which I learned about through twitter (I do still follow @iamsrk and @karanjohar and all the other big newsmakers of the industry)
Happy Women’s March Day!
I’m not posting today because I’m taking the train downtown to be in my local Women’s March. If you aren’t in America, this is a protest march organized for the day after Trump’s inauguration. A million women are descending on DC (2 of my friends are going, including a grandmother from my church quilting group) and every city in America is having it’s own version. Anyway, while I’m busy marching around or whatever we will be doing (I haven’t been to a protest in years, not since my parents took me when I was a little kid to the anti-Gulf War ones, so I don’t really know what happens), I thought I might as well schedule a theme post to go up so you can share the experience.
Readers Choice Awards 2016
I gave you a few extra days, but I think everyone has now had more than enough time to respond to my voting post here, and it is time for me to tally and summarize the results! Which took me much longer than I expected, Math is hard! Although, there is one thing that became abundantly clear as soon as I started reading them over. Neerja really was the film of the year.
Best Film of 2016: The People’s Choice is My Own!
I still haven’t tallied the final votes from my polling post on my 2016 film awards (still time to vote! I’ll be tallying and putting together the results post late tonight), but it looks like there is a strong trend in one direction for the Best Film choice, and it is the same movie that I keep returning to…Neerja.
Happy birthday Shabana Azmi!
Happy Birthday Shabana Azmi! Did not realize you are the same age as my mother! Here are 18 reasons I love you, in honor of being born on September 18th!
New Production House On the Horizon! Strange Name, Good Business Plan
“Ellipsis Entertainment”. Really? Trying saying that outloud. Doesn’t your mouth kind of stumble over it? It looks good, and it’s a nice idea, that the leave out the unnecessary bits, and I am assuming their logo will be some variation on “…”, but can you really say it ten times fast?
Happy Birthday Sonam Kapoor! A Bakers Dozen of Reasons I Love You
Happy Birthday Sonam! So many birthdays in early June! But that’s no reason to ignore Sonam. She blew me away earlier this year in Neerja, but that’s just one of the many reasons I love her.
Happy Mother’s Day! Some Songs to Help You Celebrate!
Happy Mother’s Day! An Indian filmi holiday if there ever was one! Except not, because why have a special holiday if everyday is Mother’s Day? I’ll be putting up a few more posts on the same theme today, but to start off, have some songs!
Watching Khoobsurat after Neerja
I watched Khoobsurat for the 4th time last night (I missed it in theaters, but have seen it 4 times on DVD after a friend told me I HAD to watch it). It’s just as good as it ever was, but it’s also a whole different experience watching it having just seen Neerja. In all sorts of ways.
Global Box Office: As expected, Kapoor and Sons Does Well
Kapoor and Sons opened in Pakistan! What the heck? A movie with a gay main character is allowed to play, but Neerja isn’t? I guess it really is about patriotism, not religion. Or else Karan’s clever avoidance of actually using the word “gay” (or boyfriend or homosexual or anything else specific) paid off.
Weekend Global Box Office: Regional Wins, Hindi Sinks
Everyone is pretty much in agreement that the big story of the global box office this weekend is that Punjabi films are breaking records. But the flipside of that story is of course that Hindi films are doing TERRIBLE.
Global Weekend Box Office Report: Poor Jai Gangaajal
Well, this is just sad! In every country except New Zealand and Australia, Jai Gangaajal did terribly and Neerja in its 3rd week beat it both per screen and by screen count. (Full info available here)
45 Years of Anand: My Many Random Reasons to Love this Movie
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.
Neerja Box Office Update: What should distributors learn from this?
Bollywoodhungama not only provide the global figures for the weekend today, they also provided a handy comparison for Neerja against other films of the same type. No, not historical based on true story dramas, other female led pictures.
Neerja Week Two Box Office: 2 Good Signs, and One Bad
Going into it’s second weekend, Neerja is poised to do even better than it did during it’s first. And not just because of good word of mouth.
Neerja: Full Weekend Figures, Beats Airlift Per Screen
Well, “steady”. With the understanding that the box office is always going to drop off a little after the weekend. But it didn’t drop off nearly as much as it could have.
Neerja: Part 2! Through to the Ending! Very confusing, and very sad (Spoilers)
I posted the first half, up to intermission, already. The second half is a little harder for me to remember in detail, some pieces kind of blurred together, or were purposefully repetitive. But I will do the best I can. And if I missed something important or put it in the wrong order, say something in the comments.
Neerja! Up to intermission, full and detailed summary (Spoilers)
I already put up two regular Neerja reviews, one with spoilers and one without. But now it is time for a full summary. I don’t know if I will really be able to do it justice in a description, but I will do my best!
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Neerja Overseas Box Office: Per Screen Average is Shockingly good
The overseas figures are published in detail, yay!!!! And, as always, thank you BollywoodHungama. Oh, and the figures are so above average, I actually checked my math twice.
Neerja Box Office: Quality is Recognized, Huge Growth Over Weekend
BollywoodHungama has the figures for the first 3 days, and they are really interesting. Both inside and outside India.
dontcallitbollywood 