Happy Birthday Rishi!!!! Did not realize you are the same age as my father. But mostly, Happy Birthday! An industry legend, who acted in your first classic film at age 18. And so I will give 18 reasons I love you. (this is an updated and reposted post from last year)
And now you get to distract me! I’m not sick enough yet where I get to take my pills, so I need to do something to kill time while I wait to get sicker. So I’m going to complain to you all about it for a while. Plus, watching videos and typing here, and my TV going across the room, is just going to make the headache worse faster, woo-hoo!
I already put up my no spoilers review, I encourage you to read that one, because this is a really sweet movie that deserves to be seen and not spoiled. On the other hand, we do mostly know the plot just from the trailer, so I guess in this case spoilers aren’t THAT bad. It’s not what happens, it’s how it happens.
Well, this was a delightful movie! I had high hopes based on the trailer, but then Toilet was such a disappointment with a really similar premise that I got spooked. But no! This movie is great! No reservations about it at all, exactly the sweet love story the trailer implied.
Well, that was a terrible terrible very fun book! I believe essentially not one word of it, but BOY was it fun to read! Oh, and it also taught me nothing about the film industry, just a lot about Anu (who wasn’t really in the industry for that long).
The content here is so-so. I had a better take where I didn’t lose my train of thought, and I didn’t accidentally say “Salman” when I meant Sharhukh. But, more importantly, my hair looks GREAT! I mentioned in the post earlier today that I have hair like Jaya in Silsila, and then I realized you may not believe me, so I wanted to put up proof.
Oh boy, second page of notes! I’m excited! And also some stuff I forgot to take notes on that I will just throw in there somehow. (index of Luck By Chance coverage here)
It’s not terribly exciting, but I thought I might as well tell you so you aren’t sitting around going “What’s wrong? Why isn’t she posting?” It’s just because I’ve got a ton of errands that I’ve been putting off so I am driving around in The World, instead of sitting at home blogging.
Truly, one of the all time best decisions of my life, right up there with the time I realized I could mix peanut butter and chocolate syrup together before I put it on the ice cream. I got to have a lovely evening on my couch with 90s happiness, instead of a dull evening in the movie theaters with 2000s angst and macho.
Well, there isn’t THAT much interest in doing this, but on the other hand, if I don’t do it I will have to clean my apartment, and there is even less interest (from me) in doing that. So, movie it is! Raja Hindustani, 10am Monday morning Chicago time (which should be early evening in Europe, and mid-evening in India), on twitter.
I know this is the film that invented the Angry Young Man. I know it is a Big Story about power and the state and so on and so forth. And that’s why I enjoy it and respect it the same way I enjoy any of the other Amitabh classics, Sholay or Deewar or Trishul or Agneepath. But the reason I love it just for me, is because Jaya and Amitabh are SO IN LOVE. Like, so in love that it is blinding. It’s not a surprise they got married as soon as they finished filming, it would have been a surprise if the DIDN’T get married.
This isn’t exactly a scene by scene, but it’s close to it. I’m not going to do the shot by shot line by line kind of thing, but I have pages and pages and pages of notes about the references in it. So think of it as the Annotated Edition. In an unwieldy number of posts, so it needs an Index.
Like I said in my first review, I got about 5 minutes into this movie and paused to get a pencil and paper. Because there is SO MUCH. Not like so much depth and soul (although there is that too, that’s what my other two reviews covered), but so much data. I know I probably missed at least half of it, but here is what I got from my 5 pages of notes. (Full Luck By Chance Index here)
I don’t care if no one else is interested in this, I AM!!!! Plus, it’s good for you few people who want a sense of where the industry came from and where it’s going. And it is basically the complete opposite of JHMS coverage, so that’s a nice little refreshing breather for us all. (1940-1955 in the last post)
I did it! I figured out how to add a title sequence with music to my youtube videos without breaking copyright laws!!! It’s a MIRACLE!!!! Only, I can only do it using the youtube editor tool that will only be around until September 20. Oh well.
Sorry! I usually put this up bright and early in the morning so we can talk all day, but I was so focused on finishing off my JHMS coverage once and for all (one more discussion post to go up and then I am DONE) that I forgot. Sorry sorry!
Here we are, at the end! I will be putting up a few sort of open discussion posts in a bit, because it feels like people still have things to say, but this is the end of the actual scene by scene. Hopefully as nice an ending as it was for the film itself, a moment of joy confirming everything we have seen before (full index of JHMS coverage here)
Well, here we are, the best part, which I have set aside in its own post for your re-reading ease. And my writing pleasure. And which also means that “Butterfly” gets it’s own post, Part 27, so we are BEATING BAHUBALI 2!!!! Be very proud. (full index of JHMS coverage here)
We are finally here! This is going to be another epic length post, I can just feel it. But it won’t finish everything. Because I have decided, the very very end of the film is going to get it’s own little post. Because I kind of suspect it is something you will want to be able to easily find and read and reread and reread as we suffer through the long long wait for Netflix (full index of JHMS coverage here)
Well this is an exciting box office week! Not in Hindi film, Toilet and Jab Harry Met Sejal are declining, A Gentleman is flopping (even though it is SO GOOD! People are stupid), Bareilly Ki Barfi is holding steady in it’s small way. No no, it’s the southern market that is FINALLY healthy again. Well, Telugu. Tamil is still on life support.
Welp, I did it, I finally watched Narasimham. And it was pretty much as expected. Not exactly what I look for in my Malayalam films, but Mohanlal was there, and so was Mammootty for a bit, and now I have seen Most Successful Movie of All Time, or whatever the accurate superlative is.
It’s been awhile since we did a tweet watch. And I get to have Monday off next week, which makes it easy for me! So, should we do it again? And if so, which film should we watch?
So excited about September 1st coming! Not because of Baadshaho (blech!), but because of my paycheck. And because of the 3 day weekend we get in America. I’m gonna clean my whole apartment! It will be so much fun. Getting the vacuum out and everything!
I have SO MANY thoughts! SO MANY! And you probably won’t agree with them based on what has already been said in the comments. But that will just make it more fun for all of us! (Full index of JHMS posts here)
If you haven’t seen this movie, or want to think about performances and songs and mise-en-scene, go back to my last review. This is for talking about what actually happens and what we think of the characters and what the point of it all might have been.
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