Tag Archives: Uncategorized

Tuesday Tamil: Aadu Puli Attam, Even Lessor Tamil Films of the 70s Were Brilliant

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This movie is so good that it tricked me into thinking it was a Balachander.  But no, apparently this was the level of camerawork, characters, and acting that was just standard back then!!!  Oh, and Kamal Haasan and Rajni Sir are super fun to watch opposite each other in their youth, that’s another plus.  The plot is not quite perfect, but it’s still pretty darn good.  No Moodru Mudichu, but that’s a very high level to set.

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Monday Malayalam: Sahayathrikakku Snehapoorvam, Cute Set-Up and Failed Execution

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See, this is what happens when no one is commenting, I get depressed and watch random not very good films.  Although Kunchacko did his best to cheer me up.  But that was countered by the heroine Kavya Madhavan, an actress I was really liking until I looked up who she was and learned she is (maybe) a terrible human being.  But even so, I have to admit she did a wonderful job in this film.  This very uneven film.

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Christmas Means Hope: Why I Find That in Hindi Film

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I wrote a silly thing for Sunday using Christmas traditions for fanfic.  And I put up a fanvid post, and I am doing a Christmas Card giveaway.  All of that is kind of silly and superficial, it may seem as though I don’t take the holiday seriously.  Or maybe I do, but I don’t find anything in it that can overlap with my Hindi film love.  And that’s not the case, so I want to write some posts about why Christmas is so important to me, and how it wraps itself around every part of my life, including the films I watch.

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Baatein With the Baadshah Episode 1 & 2: Baadshah is in the Title, but it’s all about the Women

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First of all, blessings on Hotstar for making this available, and blessings on Shahrukh for agreeing to do something now, during my all time lowest view periods when I really really need content.  Now, on to the discussion!  Of the first two episodes, with Alia and Deepika.

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New Youtube Video! How Release Dates Effect Film Performance

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Mostly I wanted to do a video to play with my new toy, moviemavengal gave me a lapel mic as an early Christmas present.  I think it works pretty well!  The video is too sunny and my head isn’t exactly centered, but by golly the microphone is perfect!

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Silly Sunday: Christmas Themed! Lights and Trees and Mistletoe and SRK

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Happy first Sunday of Advent!  Naturally, I had to do a Christmas themed post (to match my Christmas themed TGIF post).  I briefly considered doing unmarried mothers in honor of Mary, but then I decided to think small instead and use the random small items of Christmas as jumping off points for story ideas.

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New Tiger Zinda Hai Song! Very Romantic

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Very romantic in a particular way, with Salman putting together and surprising Katrina with wonderful things.  Which makes me interested in their character dynamics a little bit.  Especially because I just re-watched Ek Tha Tiger and it fits nicely with how their relationship was established in that.

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Dil Maange More: My Heart Wants More Films Like This!!!!

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This is a perfect little light movie to watch on a Saturday morning while folding laundry.  Doesn’t really deserve a Friday Classics review, but I can’t help sharing my joy in watching it!  Especially since it is on Netflix now, so the vast majority of you can watch it too.

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Starter Kit: Actresses, Part 3, Soha to Lisa

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I’m continuing to crank through the small time actresses, the ones who only need a few movies to fully understand their careers.  Because it’s a lot easier than trying to deal with the male stars and their longer careers, or the handful of super successful actresses (sorry Rani!  I’ll get to you someday!) (last small time actress post here)

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TGIF: Happy Christmas and World AIDs Day! Women (and a few men) in Red

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Happy Friday!  My goodness this has been a frustrating day.  The second I get in to anything at work the phone rings and I have to stop.  Whether it is blogging or sending an email or doing accounting stuff for work-work, I just don’t have long enough to be able to focus on it.  I am writing this right now at about 2pm, we’ll see if I am able to finish and publish this thing before midnight.  Anyway, Red!  For AIDs and Christmas!!!

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Friday Classics: Jaane Tu….Ya Jaane Na, The Magic of that Moment When You Don’t Quite Know Yet, But You Kind of Do

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We were just talking about this in the comments yesterday, how exciting it was to see Imraan when he was first launched.  Which got me thinking about this movie in general, and how good it was, and how strange it is that no one involved in this promising first film really lived up to their promise.  At least, not yet.  There’s always hope!

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World AIDs Day! How is it Addressed in Hindi Film?

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Amitabh just reminded me through twitter that it is World AIDs Day today.  And I also got an email from the very very good local AIDs clinic in Chicago (donate to them!  They do good stuff), and I thought it might be interesting to look at the few times Indian film as acknowledged the AIDs epidemic in the country.  It’s about the same amount as American pop culture has acknowledged it, but more musical! (this is an updated and reposted post from last year)

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Indian History on Film: My 4 Favorite Films to Watch Instead of Padmavati

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Padmavati is almost definitely certainly not coming out tomorrow (I have learned to not really count on anything with Indian film releases, but it does seem pretty certain).  So, if you are jonesing for a cinematic Indian history fix, what can you watch instead?

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Learn Hindi From Film Songs for Hindi Movies

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My continuing series!  Which is half tongue-in-cheek and half serious.  If you truly are only interested in learning Hindi in order to better appreciate the films, these are the words that will help you.  If you want to actually learn Hindi to read books and talk to people and stuff, this is useless.  It’s very rare to need the word for “unfaithful” in common conversation.  At least, not my conversations, I don’t know your life. (first post here, second post here, if you want to learn even more words!)

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Starter Kit: Actresses, Part 2, Neetu to Diana Penty

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I already put up one random actress post based on the first people I remembered off the top of my head. This time I want to bring together a whole bunch of random smaller actresses that I can cover quickly.  With some fairly random suggestions of films you could watch to get an idea of them, since all their films are kind of the same, one film is as good as another.  This should kind of fill in the background players of the industry, the minor artists who help bring it all together. Continue reading →

Box Office: Padmavati is Needed to Unite the Global Market

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Huh.  One of those weeks that makes you realize the NRI audience really is not the same everywhere.  In fact, it made me dig up that Karan Johar quote when he broke down the audience. (figures courtesy of Renttrack by way of Bollywoodhungama)

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