I’m not a southern film expert, like, AT ALL. But I do know enough to suggest 5 films that might help you to understand why Rajini Sir is such a big deal, and what he means to people. Because I just went through that journey myself and these are the 5 films that helped me. And apparently his next film is going to be big BIG (since just the first look poster got a cross-language release), so now is a good time to study up.
Continue readingPopka Superstar claims that Jackie is not stomach turning when naked. I claim that he is. Now, for a fair and objective decision if this is ageism or Jackie-ism, I am going to list out the other actors of Indian film of the same age so we can compare bodies.
Continue readingYaaaay, a classic director! Better than that, a classic director whose films are readily available online (thank you Rajshri Tamil official youtube channel, blessings on you and long may you reign).
Continue readingObviously, today is Star Wars day. And so I am reposting my Star Wars fanfic post. And I am adding on regional cast ideas (mostly because Prithviraj has to be Han Solo if there is any justice in the world)
Continue readingBox office day!!!! Yaaaaaay! And we get to see if 2.0 has staying power, and if Kedarnath has opening day power. And then answer to both is…..sort of! (as always, figures from bollywoodhungama)
Don’t believe the hype! 2.0 did very very good, but still not as good as many other films of the past. The box office is still sliding. At least, the international box office. From what I am seeing, the Indian box office truly was record breaking. (as always numbers from bollywoodhungama.com)
As I already said in my No Spoilers review, this move is surprisingly good! Well, “surprising” to me, because I usually don’t like Shankar, and the trailer made it seem like just shallow action. So, I recommend watching it if possible without having read spoilers. But if you don’t believe it can really be that good, read the spoilers and then go see it anyway. Oh, and I should say it isn’t a total “anyone will love it” movie, so if you don’t like action science superhero films, you probably won’t like this.
This is my favorite way to be wrong. A movie I wrote off as terrible based on the ad campaign and so on turns out to be great! Boo for my predictive abilities but YAAAY for the WORLD!!!!
I already put up my part 1, which I am sure was not fully accurate and certainly not complete. But it is my stab at somehow pulling together what little I know into a cohesive whole, in the hopes that it starts a conversation and I can learn more from you all.
Well, I did it! I finally finished my Rajinikanth biography! Now I just have the Savitri, Hema Malini, and Shashi Kapoor biography on my to do pile. Plus various other film books that aren’t star memoirs. Anyway, now I am ready to very tentatively try to put together some kind of narrative of Rajinikanth’s life, based on the movies I have watched (far more than I realized!), and this book, and information I gathered elsewhere
Fun fun! Song songs! I don’t know how these movies will be, but the songs are really lovely. Too bad it’s after Thanksgiving so I am not allowed to listen to anything but Christmas music until the 26th (allowed by myself, I have very strict rules for me).
It’s a Mani Ratnam movie, so the directing is just all around excellent. But more importantly, Rajnikanth! It’s my first Rajnikanth movie (not counting Ra.ONE, because why would you?) and I have to say, he does impress!
Well, that was a bad movie! But absolutely worth the $30 it took to buy the last DVD copy available in the world. It was definitely an interesting experience and now I can tell you all about it, so you don’t have to waste time tracking down your own DVDs.
I already put up my part 1, which I am sure was not fully accurate and certainly not complete. But it is my stab at somehow pulling together what little I know into a cohesive whole, in the hopes that it starts a conversation and I can learn more from you all.
Well, I did it! I finally finished my Rajinikanth biography! Now I just have the Savitri, Hema Malini, and Shashi Kapoor biography on my to do pile. Plus various other film books that aren’t star memoirs. Anyway, now I am ready to very tentatively try to put together some kind of narrative of Rajinikanth’s life, based on the movies I have watched (far more than I realized!), and this book, and information I gathered elsewhere
My sister’s visiting, I’m feeling lazy, and it’s World Elephant Day on Sunday. So that’s as good a reason as any to look at people with elephants, right?
I already put up the No Spoilers review. You can read that if you want to avoid spoilers, this is the place to come if you have already seen the movie and couldn’t follow the plot, or want to talk about it, or just want to read what I thought. This is also the place to come if you read the no spoilers review and don’t think you will ever want to watch this movie but still want to know what happened. It’s not the greatest film, so that is a decent possibility and I won’t judge you if that is your decision.
I made a big fuss (okay, a modest fuss) about how Carol should see the Tamil version not the dubbed, and then I ended up at the dubbed. Oh well, it was either that or wait until Saturday. So instead I did a dubbed version at a midweek show which means I will be yawning and fussing through work tomorrow.
Happy Tuesday! Did not mean to make this another Sridevi week, I was looking for something intelligent and intense and on youtube with subtitles, and I landed on this film. And then later learned it was Sridevi’s second major role.
Greetings from the airport! Where I am all energized from the Kaala teaser! If Rajinikanth can still do fight scenes at 60, I can definitely handle dragging a suitcase through the airport.
This is the last Sridevi daily review. Not the last review, I am sure I will continue watching her movies, but the last special review. As I said in my earlier post, I don’t want to feel that I am dragging this out, that her death is over-shadowing her life, and so it’s time to move back to a regular blog schedule. But first, ChaalBaaz!
I put up a post yesterday related to Sridevi’s death about how there is a recent association in Indian popular culture between “skinny” and “healthy” and also “beautiful”. And then the comments section just went wild with people talking. Mostly people from the west, where the weight issue has been the dominant issue in appearance for years. But I started to feel odd talking about this on an Indian film blog without acknowledging the fact that in India it is in fact skin tone that is the dominant issue.
And now the tweets have started. Which is expected. Always the first reaction after a death. In this case, they are interestingly similar and interestingly wide-ranging.
Lots of first looks! Which are always kind of “how is this news?” but sometimes slightly interesting. These were slightly interesting ones.
I saw Kabali! It was SO GOOD! Okay, the second half lost track of itself a little bit, and there were some character bits that could have been better, but overall it just had so much more depth and excitement and energy than the other movies I have seen lately!
