Yaaaaaaay, Trisha! Secretly very good actress of Tamil/Telugu/Malayalam cinema (I say secret because her acting is so natural, you think she is just being herself, and then you see 5 different Trisha movies and realize she is totally different in each of them), who I am VERY INVESTED in getting married to Rana Daggubati. Oh, and also Happy Monday.
Continue readingShoot, Thanksgiving is an America only holiday, isn’t it? Oh well, American culture so dominates the world, I am sure you all are aware of it at least.
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 readingHappy Friday! And Star Wars Day! Maybe no one else cares, but I think the whole Princess Leia look is a good start for a post, Best Braids!
Obviously, today is Star Wars day. And so I am reposting my Star Wars fanfic post
Meenakshy asked me a question on Monday about fans, and then I gave a way way too long answer in response, because that was what my Masters Thesis was on! Fandom and how Hindi film inspires a different kind of fan. Anyway, I thought I might as well take my answer and turn it into a post. (my thesis is here if you want more details and and original research related to this)
Well, Tiger is still going strong! Generally great box office to varying degrees worldwide. Everything else is in its shadow.
I totally forgot I wrote this post, and then some nice Cyrillic using reader posted a link to it on a message board which reminded me of it. And it’s brilliant! I agree with everything I said! And Star Wars is back in the news, so I might as well put it up again for us all to appreciate and discuss.
I tried to come up with something moderately meaningful for today, I really did. And then I gave up and decided to go with 8 coffee variations.
Obviously, today is Star Wars day. And also a day when I am super busy at work and can’t really focus. But I can do a “speculative” post without any problems! I get so caught up in my little imaginary worlds, that nothing can shake me. So, let’s do a mini Star Wars fest! (updated version of this post here)
It’s been a while since my last fanvid post, and I recently discovered that I have a fanvid maker in the comments! Which inspired me to dust off my youtube searching skills, and I have dug up gold! Hrithik themed GOLD!!!
I finally saw Star Wars! I wanted to see Saala Khadoos, but I couldn’t make the showtimes work, so I saw Star Wars instead. It was very Indian. Or maybe Indian films are very Star Warsian? Or maybe both kinds of films come from a deeper shared origin?
Notice how I put the really exciting picture at the top so we would remember why this really matters?
So, currently, the highest Shahrukh movie on the all time gross list for India is number 5. NUMBER 5!!! The shame of it! Ahead of him is PK, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Bahubali, and Dhoom 3. The whole list is here on wikipedia.
Now, you know what all these films have in common? They are all from the past 5 years. And the film at the top is usually from within the past 2 years. In America, we are used to that, the top grossers are always fairly recent, but in India that wasn’t always the case. Mother India set a box office record in 1957 that stayed in place for 3 years until Mughal-E-Azam surpassed it in 1960. Mughal-E-Azam held the record until Sholay beat it in 1975. Sholay held the record until Hum Aapke Hain Koun came along in 1994. Hum Aapke Hain Koun was toppled quickly by DDLJ in 1995. Then DDLJ lost it’s crown to Kuch Kuch Hota Hai in 1998. That record held until 2001 when it was beaten by both Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham and Gadar: Ek Prem Katha. Gadar held the record until 3 Idiots in 2009, at which point everyone breathed a sigh of release because they could start pretending Gadar never happened (very very problematic messages in that film). And then 3 Idiots held the record for a long time, by a big big margin, until it was finally beaten by Chennai Express in 2013. All Shahrukh fans cheered and celebrated and laughed in the faces of their Aamir-fan friends, or at least that’s what I did. Truly, it was a magical time!
(Shahrukh, take a bow! You earned it!)
And then about 2 months later, Dhoom 3 came out and Aamir was on top again. It stayed up there for a year, until PK came out, and then Aamir had the two top spots. PK is still up there, but Bajrangi Bhaijaan did really well this summer and came close to beating it. And Bahubali, of course, is a huge deal since it is the only non-Hindi film up there (although it was distributed by a Bombay based production house, Dharma, which is very important in terms of overseas awareness and national reach in India).
So, on the micro-level, this just means we all need to buy as many tickets for Dilwale as humanly possible in order to return Shahrukh to his rightful ranking. I don’t care if you are actually seeing Star Wars, you buy your ticket for Dilwale!!!
But on a macro-level, in terms of global trends, economics, and the future of the industry, what does all of this mean and where does it come from?
