Beth Loves Bollywood

My not-wholly-positive reaction to this film is partly an issue of my own expectation management. I realllllly wanted to like it; as its director-writer Amit Masurkar has pointed out, movies about movies pay little attention to writers, even though various industry types like to give lip service to the importance of story and there'd be nothing to produce, act in, or promote if there weren't scripts. How could a small, non-YRF-type film made about struggling film writers be less than hilarious and pointed?

Unfortunately, this is a film full of male assholes being assholes and then whining about how hard it is to succeed in a male-dominated world. DO SHUT UP. It's another instance of the young, relatively privileged male experience being assumed universal and apparently without any acknowledgment of other perspectives (which is how I felt about the otherwise adorable Big Hero 6 too, incidentally). Whether this is realistic to the world the film is portraying or not, it sti…

For every point I want to raise about PK, a counterbalance also presents itself. Maybe that explains the runtime. Anushka Sharma and Sushant Singh Rajput's romance is sickly-sweet, yet in the gloss is clear evidence of their physical relationship. A kitten and a puppy are unnecessarily manipulative, but Anushka's crumpling face in moments of disappointment and loss feels bang-on. A devout father's decades of obedience to his guru are shaken too easily, but his revelation leads to satisfyingly improved parenting. There is only one real woman of importance—again, for no necessary reason—and another exists solely to provide the hero with a tool he needs to navigate earth, but the heroine does get to talk about work with a female friend and relies on her for success on the job. Sanjay Dutt's character is homophobic in a way that indicates he has no concept of actual homosexuality (we've all seen men hold hands on the streets in India, writers), but he's otherwise …

≤100 words each on the weird (even for me) assortment of films I've seen in the last two months. Gotta get the writing motor going again.

Lukochuri 1958
Kishore Kumar has a double role as twins in this Bengali film about the sisters they love,
twin-related mix-ups (surprise), parental approval, and the world of Bombay filmmaking. There are other good performers too (like Mala Sinha), but it's 100% his film. The best moments are the digs at the film industry
and this brilliant, loony song that the non-industry Kishore does while impersonating his singer brother, making a point about the lack of quality in today's films and music.
And lest you forget this is a Bengali film, the eyes of RabTag are upon thee even in Bombay!

Thana Theke Aschi 1965
I don't know how to say anything about this story of death, interrogation, and knowledge without spoiling it, so just know that you should reserve judgement of it until the very last frame.
If you don't speak Bengali (or don'…