This movie made me so nostalgic! I remember 12 years ago my college roommate came back to the dorms and told me the whole plot while she unpacked all the food her mother sent her back with. And then I never actually got around to watching it myself in all the years since then, for no particular reason. Until today!
My book is out today! Woo! Available digitally or in paperback.
Here is the paperback link on Amazon.com Here it is on Amazon.in. And here is the general page for the digital edition (available through Amazon, iBooks, and others)
I think I’m going to celebrate by putting up an 8th picture of Shahrukh on my wall and having pie.
My publisher is helping me set up a watch along of K3G in a couple of days. If you want the live and fresh experience of my take on a film, check it out on twitter at my account, @mredlich21, or starting at 8pm CDT time on Thursday the 2nd (that’s 6:30am Friday the 3rd in India and I am embarrassed to tell you how long it took me to figure that out) follow and join in with the hashtags:
This movie, unfortunately, dealt with an issue that I know way too much about to really enjoy. That “unfortunately” isn’t for me, as I will explain I’m actually remarkably fortunate to have had so much experience with it, but it is unfortunate for the film. Which I wasn’t really able to appreciate on its own merits.
Yes, he has gained a little weight lately, but I think it looks good on him! And 43 is a nice solid age. To celebrate, here are 18 reasons I love you! One for every year since Kuch Kuch Hota Hai came out.
In case this is your first time finding my blog, and you have questions, here are some answers!
1.Is this written by an Indian/South Asian/Desi person?
No, I am not Desi. I am a miscellaneous white person from America. But I have been watching these films for over a decade, and reading all the gossip news and news-news out of India that whole time as well. And I have 2 degrees in film. But there is still so much to learn! So if you notice a mistake in a post, or want to add information you think I missed, PLEASE mention it in the comments!
2. What all do you write about?
I write about lots of things! The main categories are in the menu, you can just click through to see all the related posts. My Film Reviews are in depth analysis of particular films, my Film Summaries are scene by scene descriptions of films (usually new films still running in theaters). Box Office is box office data and analysis. Filmi News You Can Use is general star gossip and industry news. Star Birthday Posts are in depth career history and discussion in honor of their birthdays (a good place to go if you want background on a particular artist). Videos are just for fun, if you want to look at a bunch of fun fanvids and song videos, I put up posts sometimes of videos I like that all share a random theme (Bhang songs, Slashfic fanvids, etc.). And speaking of fun, check out the TGIF section! Or, if you want to learn more about me/general background info on the industry, look at the Monday Morning Questions. And finally, if you are new to the films and trying to figure out who is related to who and who used to date and all that stuff, check out Hindi Film 101.
3. How can I get started with your writing/this site/Indian film?
Buy My Book! I wrote a quick cheap ebook to provide an introduction to Indian film for those who are completely new to it, or long time fans who may be curious about the history of the industry, or the technical details of why you see what you see onscreen.
Or, if you want to try my writing first before you commit, check out My To-Do List and click the link for a film you want to learn more about. That’s the best way to get a sense of how I write and what I write about.
4. Why do you write so much about non-Hindi Indian films?
Because people like it! My Malayalam posts started getting a lot of traffic, and comments, and requests to cover other movies from that industry, so that’s what I went with. But I am ready willing and able to write about anything film related.
If you want me to write about some other industry, Bengali or Punjabi or French or Brazilian or Nigerian or Nepali, just tell me! Put a comment on the To-Do List post, and I will add it to my list. I can’t promise that I will get to it promptly, but I will get to it eventually!
5. Are you a massive Shahrukh Khan fan?
Yes, I am a massive Shahrukh Khan fan! Thank you for noticing! I’m not going to apologize for it or try to hide it, there is a huge bias in all my coverage of the industry because I think he is perfect, and the most important industry figure today. Feel free to try to convert me to Aamir or Salman or Akshay or Amitabh in the comments, but it’s not going to work! I’ve been with Shahrukh for over 10 years now, and I have never wavered. Yes, even after watching Happy New Year.
My book is coming out! Very exciting! It’s like this blog (even has the same name), but with more detailed background about the film industry, and about me. So, if you want to learn more about the first Indian film producers and directors and the history of stardom, or why the heck I am so obsessed with Indian film, you should read it! You an order it at the link below.
If you are interested in trying to get an advance copy, you can fill out the form here:
http://goo.gl/forms/x74yr9HlUi
I love this holiday! I have so many potential post topics I can bring out! Now, let’s talk about the best dialogue scenes for mothers!
Baaghi is really not a good movie. But it is a very fun movie! Mostly because it takes all the good bits of a bunch of other films and leaves out the boring bits.
(part 1 here)
Happy May Day/Labor Day! For an industry that is also dismissed as being frivolous and full of fantasy, Indian film really has a lot of songs about work!
I already wrote two reviews, so now it’s time for my full summary! Which will be easy for this one, because it’s basically song-fight-song-fight-song.
(part 2 here)
Thanks to Amitabh’s twitter, I just learned that 4/29/2016 is International Dance Day. I had a half moment of thinking someone was punking him, but a bit of googling confirmed that it is actually a thing! Created by the International Dance Council, a UNESCO partner group. Which means it is enough of a thing that I can celebrate by posting the best, or at least my favorite, dances! Well, some of them. Good news is, this is apparently an annual thing, so I can come up with a whole different list next year! Continue reading
News Round-Up! Yes, the continuing first week of Fan is the most important entertainment news in my world/India, but other people also insist on existing and having things happen at the same time.
I was just writing about DDLJ, in my multi-multi-multi part DDLJ series, and E reminded me in the comments about how interesting Humpty Sharma is as a re-imagining of the film, which kind of made me want to talk about that a little. And then I started to think about why Humpty Sharma works for me, and why a handful of other movies similarly remind me of DDLJ, and why others (including every other SRKajol movie), do not.
(moviemavengal just put up a similar post while I was writing this one! Great minds think alike. I co-sign on almost all of her choices.)
I just got home from Fan, on the way home I texted everyone I know “SO GOOD! An actual good movie! Like, Queen good! You must all watch it.” That’s kind of the important part of the review here, but if you want more, keep reading!
(check out moviemavengal’s review here)
Continue reading
I already posted a spoiler-y review and a non-spoiler review, but just in case you left before it ended, or arrived late, or went to the bathroom in the middle and think you missed a scene, here is the whole thing described as best I can remember. Or, you know, you can skip watching it entirely and just read this. But frankly, the movie was disappointing enough I would recommend neither reading nor watching, if you can manage it.
I saw Prem Ratan Dhan Payo in theaters twice and bought it on DVD the day it came out, but I’ve only watched it 1 and a half times since it left theaters (the half is because my sister already watched the first half while I was at work, and then we watched the end together). But you know, I think I may like it even more on DVD than I did on the big screen.
Happy Easter! And of course, there is only one appropriate way to celebrate.
I posted a quick review without spoilers yesterday, I usually post another with spoilers discussing the plot in detail. But in this case, there is so little plot, I might as well combine the spoiler-y review with the summary and get them both out of the way.
After going back and forth, I finally decided to see Rocky Handsome opening night. It was good! Well, it was okay. It was confused, is what it was. It was a really good East Asian style action movie, but with a couple of songs grafted onto it. And John Abraham. And Shruti Haasan who, thankfully, only had one line of dialogue.
I already posted a very long post which covers about the first two thirds/three fourths of the film. And then I stopped so I could do the last twenty minutes in which everything EXPLODES all at once.
I’ve already put up to reviews, one short spoiler-less one and one that goes into detail about the character development and so on with loads of spoilers. And now I am going to see if I can manage my usual extremely detailed scene by scene breakdown. Not sure how it will go with this film, because it is so loose and experimentally structured.
(Final part of summary, with ending, here)
I am so enjoying this Kangana-Hrithik story. It’s the perfect kind of celebrity scandal where it crosses the line from “they’re just like us! Oh, now I feel bad about their problems” to “This is something that would never ever happen to a regular person and I feel no guilt about watching it.” Oh, and there is some minor industrial non-gossipy news happening as well.
(Another favorite part of the Kangana-Hrithik story, thanks to Krrish 3 there are a plethora of really odd looking pictures of the two of them)
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.
I’ve been slowing down on my Malayalam posts this week because I’m catching up on American TV. Well, “TV”, the Netflix series House of Cards. I find it very soothing. Especially when I have to write about something emotional.
dontcallitbollywood 