Koi...Mil Gaya

Weird. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Bollywood Cinema Club, a show where we take a look at Indian cinema every other week. I am the host of the Culture Cast, Christashue, the show where this show spun off from, and on this episode of the Bollywood Cinema Club, I am joined by my good friend. You've heard him here before plenty of times. He's a frequent guest.

He's quickly becoming an Indian cinema scholar. That might be a bit of a stretch, but who knows, maybe in a couple of years we could both be considered that your friend and mine. DC Titan's executive producer Richard had I'm getting better. I'm beginning to recognize the actors, the names, the you know, bit by bit like the I feel. I do feel like I'm becoming familiar.

Hey, And you know what, that's a good thing, because on this episode of the Bollywood Cinemaclub, we're gonna be taking a look at a film that stars for Thique Roschan, who you and I talked about all the way back in Doom two so many months ago, and at this point almost probably at this point, almost a year ago, we're gonna be talking about a little film that he did in two thousand and three, directed by his father, Coy Milgaya, otherwise known as I Have Found Someone. So. The film is directed by Rakesh Roshan and it stars Hthique Rochan and Prete Zinta and Herthique Rochan plays row heat Metra, a man who was dropped on his head before birth caught an intellectual disability, all of this stemming from his father's obsession with aliens.

I'm not the plot of this movie is something at the just just to It's a hell of a setup, high concept, one might say, and where it goes from there we'll talk about. But along the way we meet Johnny Lever and a whole just a whole bunch of people, including a cameo from Rakesh Roschan, who I'm assuming you realized who he was at the beginning of the movie because he looks just like for Thique Rochon but without hair. The guy at the beginning of the movie who played his dad in the movie is his actual father. Also, the director of the movie got it, so I did not make that connection, but he kind of he looks he like looks like him. In the face.

He has the same nose and the same eyes as for Thiq Rochon. He doesn't have the same dancing ability though, best I could tell, because we'll be talking about that. But Richard, tell me a little bit about your thoughts on cooy milguy, God, where do I begin this movie? I can say that this movie grew on me. I I liked it.

My enjoyment of it was in inverse proportion. Oh no, no, I guess in what is the metaphor I'm going for. The longer the movie went on, the more I liked it. So so if we graph it, I was moving right along if the if the runtime moves upward, my enjoyment moved upward rather than as it went on. I liked it less.

It was not that there is that confusing. I was as confused as I was by this movie. Well I wasn't. I mean, like, the movie's not confusing on a plotless it is strange. I think I think the word I would use is it's a strange movie because it meshes together two seemingly disparate things, a movie that would be in a lot of ways considered.

I think I pitched it to you Forrest Gump meets et and right pretty much is with he Groshan's character is developmentally disabled, no fault of his own, no fault of anyone's really. I mean, I guess you could blame his father, but that again, there's a thing that happens that causes him to be the way he is, as opposed to you know, Forrest Gump, where he's just born that way. I mean, ro Heat is born that way. But again, things happen. Well, there's a car accident, right, It's not like he didn't get dropped on his head, but he was.

But he was dropped, but that is what happened. The doctor says, like, your baby had a brain injury from being in the car that flipped over right, right. But it's not like he was born and they were holding him. No, No, it was literally over a dog, right, No, literally like in yeah, he had a brain injury in his mother's womb. And it all stems from his father's obsession with aliens because their car gets buzzed by aliens.

At least that's the way I interpreted what was going on at the beginning of the movie. Well, you know what's now that I think about. I mean, there's gotta be a lot of people. I mean, that has to happen all the time, Like just a pregnant person is in a car accident or falls or something, and it's like, oh, yeah, just the physical injury has affected the development of the fetus, and it's going to be reflected once that fetus is born. So it's like, so yeah, although I can't say that I've ever I can't call to mind anyone I know or any event where it's like, oh, yeah, that happened to my cousin or something.

I don't know. I can't even think of another fictional analog for what this movie is claiming how this character gets to this point, because again, in most of the movies where there's a character who's developmentally disabled, like Forrest Gump, it's just well, he's just born this way, or Sean Penn and I am Sam, it's like he's just born this way. In this I mean again, in this movie, it feels like, I mean, look, obviously there's a reason they do it the way that they do it so they can undo it later in the movie, and having him be born that may way, I think may have felt a little morally strange. We're fixing you again, like when when we think about people that have developmental disabilities, that it's not a matter of fixing them.

There's nothing to fix. And that's why this felt like it needed to be like something that happened that that can be corrected. It's a very like very thin Razor's edge here of this movie. Like it's why, I mean, it walks that Razor's edge at the beginning, setting this up like rather Well, I think I wasn't offended. Maybe I should have been, but I wasn't.

Oh, I mean, look any at a certain point. Look, it doesn't happen a lot now, I'd say in the last ten years. Well, I would say anything post tropic thunder right, Yeah, yeah, put a name to where it came from, right, Like right, it's it's like the that's sort of cultural viewpoint of the developmentally disabled as somehow enchanted. Right, it's a popular trope and rain Man, rain Man, and I mean and Forrest Gump and you know, on and on and on. I mean, but there were so many movies but this, I do think Forrest Gump's from I do think Forrest Gump, having just seen it, Forrest Gump addresses it better.

Than I remember. And again Forrest is just slow, like you know what I mean, Like they make it seem like he's just slow and that's all it is. Like this movie, he's clearly there's clearly more going on. Well, they the way they say it in these subtitles is that he he can never progress past a particular age in terms of in terms of not only intellect, but also emotionally. He's never going to emotionally mature past the level of like an eight or a nine year old.

That's what they say in the movie. So, which is why he's a literal grown adult in a room with children, right, and his group of friends are all, you know, ten years younger. Yeah, well I was gonna say ten years younger. But help me out here. How old is he in the movie?

Like physically? How many years before was he born? Is he eighteen? What he didn't they didn't say. They didn't say like ten years later, fifteen years later.

It just jumps to now he's an adult. So I was actually gonna ask you kind of what I felt like he is like eighteen? Maybe? I mean, look, I think a lot of things in this movie work because of how goddamn charming Rii groshan Is, and I think, though he looks a little old to be playing the role that this movie cast him in. And I say that only because it really should have been someone who was closer to eighteen to twenty one.

Well it see, and I get mixed up because we're watching these movies new to me, and some of them feel very modern. And then it's like, oh, this movie was made in twenty thirteen, like Doom I believe was twenty. No Doom two because Doom one was like early two thousands, and then he was in Doom two. Yeah, he was the he was the villain and the second one who survives. He's the only one that survives, the one with the one with the girl at the cafe right in my years ago, Like that was two thousand and six.

Easy enough to find out how old he was twenty seven when he was twenty seven when they filmed this movie. He was twenty seven. This movie came out twenty years ago, and he's forty seven. Right now, he's four, he's forty seven. This is not helping me.

What year is it? Excuse me? Excuse me, he's forty nine. So he was twenty nine when Koy Milgaya came out. He was born in seventy four, so he was thirty.

That's my point, like he looks like an adult, and I again, I don't think I can't drag the movie for it because it's Rafique Roshan. You're going to cast a big name actor in a role like this, because Shara Khan has done it, Amir Khan has done it now with La sing Chada, and you could even say p K where he plays an alien. But Groshan is just he's ten years too old. And that's because because again he looks like a grown ass adult in this movie and he is meant to be. But I would have a hard time believing that an adult is in a school with children until he's thirty, right if he was eighteen, I kind of believe it.

Well that that sort of feeds into a general like like, okay, so how old is is pre what is it pretty? Or Preetty? What's her prete zinta prete zinta? Then you wonder, well, how old is she supposed to be? And how old is Raj supposed to because Raj definitely looks late twenties.

Pretie's inta at the same time as Herthik Roshan. She's twenty eight and he's twenty nine when they're making this movie. Okay, so and and they're playing characters that are supposed to be closer to like twenty one problems best I can interpret. Yeah, and and those other guys like the like the the little the gang that travels around with Raj the character played by Bedi yepd he he definitely looks older. Yeah, so anyway, but that all having been said, okay, we we've we've sort of the age.

But they his performance, like everything else, kind of grew on me. This is a weird kind of performance. It takes a minute to sort of settle into as a viewer. For me, it takes It's like, okay because it's a little cringe worthy just conceptually right now. Now, was it Amir Khan who who played the character in Doom three?

Yeah, the brother, the slow brother? Right, yeah, oh that's okay, So Amir consad at three times best I can tell. Then for the Forrest Gump movie PK and then yeah, man, I forgot that that was part of that movie. Geez Louise, Yeah, so you know, and in both movies, it's it's approached in a kind of, I want to say, a warm way. It feels like we're supposed to feel engaged and protective and empathetic with the character, and I'm not.

Now Amir Khan pulls off a trick because he's playing two roles, so you're comparing his performance as a mentally disabled person literally right alongside his performance as a you know, heroic adult in Doom three, so you can sort of watch what he's doing and how extreme he's getting. And I thought it was a fairly controlled performance. Even though the character is a bit contrived. This one is even more so. I mean, this one is we are We're spending a lot of the early part of this movie sort of celebrating the world of children and a childlike point of view in the world.

So he's playing his role right next to nine year old children, which may like a little again, a little cringey, a little I don't know if I'm okay with this. It kind of worked for me. Well again, eventually it did because I sort of settled into okay, stop being you know, okay. I guess maybe it seems like our buy in moment was a little staggered yeah, but I kind of expected that, Like this is the kind of movie where there may not be a moment where you buy in and you get to the end of it and you're like, oh my god, what a what a mess? Because mind you, this movie is one hundred and fifty seven minutes long.

So if you don't buy into what with thrift Heat, if you don't buy into what Christhi Groshan is doing more or less in the first forty five minutes, you're in for another two hours of this. Obviously, there's kind of a twist later on in the narrative that may or may not change how you feel about what he's doing. But a large portion of this movie is him having a playing a character who is intellectually disabled, but again not to the point of someone like a Sean Penn and I am saym like, right, it's this is this is more like what Amir Khan is doing in Doom three. It's really restrained and this is in O three. This is in O three.

That's what's the crazy thing, Like this movie feels like it was made with more modern sensibilities regarding how you treat a character like this in your film well, and yet at the same time, it's so heavy handed in its everything. I kind of feel like it has to be though, like it feels kind of like a I mean, look, let me ask you something is et heavy handed? Not as heavy handed as this. You don't there's a point where ET is lit up like Jesus Richard. Right, But I've been talking about I'm talking about music, editing, I'm talking about what's on the page.

I mean we're getting a lot of time of him on a scooter. I mean again, picture a movie if you had Will Ferrell playing I guess it's not the same thing because because obviously we'll, like I'm thinking of Elf, that's not a good example. Like if you let it might be. I see what you're getting at though, child like wonderment. Embody.

If there's a young actor you know, who's you know, in their late twenties early thirties right now, who is considered sort of a lead, leading actor, And I know there are, I just don't know them because I'm hopelessly at Miles Tell Miles Teller. Okay, picture Miles Teller in a movie right now where where he's literally riding around on a scooter with a bunch of kids and they're and the filmmaking is shooting it like it's a kool Aid commercial, Like they're not trying to show like a naturalistic view of this guy sort of hang out with these kids. It is like a commercial, just bright, bright sunny day and he's blinking and looking up at the sky and singing about the birds, and all the kids are singing and he's, you know, sticking his jaw out and you're just like, oh, come on, this is a lot.

You know, he's kind of doing the you know, and he's squinting up in the and it's like we're we're free as birds and mugging. The mugging is mugging is a little much, but the movie is mugging. Is mugging. The movie's mugging, and those kids are mugging like they're not there. It's like, okay, kids, smile and don't ever stop unless you're laughing in hysterics, right, but you're never less than grinning like a jack lantern.

And I get it. It's like, look, I don't expect subtly and naturalism from the majority of the films we're watching because that just doesn't seem to be sort of the dominant language of Indian cinema, okay at this point and by the people we're seeing. So so I'm not surprised when when it's like, why doing nine when you can do a thirteen on a scale of one to ten of anything, action, romance, tragedy, you know, music. I was i to say, how many of these movies have we seen together? Now?

And you were expecting subtlety brother man, Well, I mean we saw that one that uh uh uh Papaka Vishmana. Oh sure, but that's but that's but that's South Indian Okay, okay, all right, see and I haven't this is this is straight up, this is straight up Bollywood. It's a Yashraj film. They are they're the babble. I mean, they're the they're the ones who produced the Romantics.

That's that's Yashraj. That's Ude Choprah's families. They're they made all the Doom movies. Like, that's that's them. This is them now.

I mean his name was was all over war right and for Thique Roshan is a family friend of theirs. Because in the Romantics they talk about how Thique Roshan was doing dance competitions with Aditya Chopra when they were like thirteen. Aditya Chopra is yash Raj Chopra's son, one of the two sons, the other one being Ude Chopra, who's yeah, who's Ali in Doom. So it's like everybody but like this is this is the mainstream movies of the time. Pushpakavimana is like, I don't know how you would describe it because we don't have something similar in the United States, where it's like it's a part of the country that makes movies for that part of the country, and that part of the country is into those movies, and it maybe those movies don't migrate to the other coast.

It's like an East coast and West coast. Had there was like if there was somewhere on the East coast that was like Hollywood, like Hollywood and you know on the East coast, that would be the closest that we could get. But again, people are watching everything like that. That just kind of isn't the case because Telugu and are in a different language as well, Like this film is in Hindi, Telugu and Tamil. Films are in Tamil and Telugu, which are a different language.

So yeah, we just didn't see it because in push puaka Bimana, know, it just happened to not be any any dialogue. Well, and so I am slowly, very slowly and without a lot of outside study, I'm trying to just experience these as I'm sure artifacts, and just like, okay, what did I think of it? But I'm slowly getting the greater context which I don't have, and you're explaining it to me now, But I'm sort of like okay, and you know, okay, I know that actor, I know that person, but you know, you know the industry of our country. I mean, it's it's it's its own thing. I mean, just imagine all the intricacies they of here there and and you know, again like I don't know the industry either.

I just know what I've looked up and learned and read and everything else, because again, I'm no more part of it than you are. We're part of a different industry here. Obally we're part of it. But yeah, it's it's hard to place what and where and how this fits in with everything else that's going on at the time, because again we don't I do know what was going on at the time. But it's not necessarily obvious because I you and I could talk about what was going on in the States in two thousand and three that was like Born Identity, that was like the year that was around the time Born Identity came out, and like revitalizing franchises and making them more serious and darker.

That's like three four. So we're at a different time in our cinematic history in the United States where things are starting to be a little bit more serious and dark and grounded in reality. And I'm bringing I'm bringing to it a context of my own aesthetic, which is twenty five years older than you, right, but obviously very Western. And then and then at the same time, though, so I try to sort of relax that contextual you know, whatever does I'm bringing in sort of Oh, but then what's funny is that these movies are so influenced by the West, and then it drags that back to the forefront, the notion. And I was the little reading that I did on Wikipedia about this movie, and I guess Rakesh ro sean uh, I don't know if he denied or downplate.

Oh, I'm glad you saw this. I'm glad you saw this because I was like, no fucking way, pal, you can't put There's one scene in this movie where it's like, if you didn't take it from that, there's nothing else you could have taken it from. Well, it's e T. And so much of this it's absolutely inescapable. You cannot It is either disingenuous or an out and out lie.

And it's fine, do whatever you want, but my god, there, you know, the entire sequence at the end is emotionally shot for shot. My wife walked in at the beginning of the movie and saw them writing scooters. My wife walked in at the end of the movie two and a half hours later and said, Oh, that's why they put scooters in the movie. Huh. I was like, oh, that is the sole reason there are scooters in the movie.

That is the sole reason is so Kathie Rochan can ride a scooter with an alien on the front, just like E. T. Yeah. No. When I read that thing about Riquesh Rochan, I was like, you gotta be fucking joking.

It's a lie. There's I mean again, not trying to throw shade, but like, there's no way there, there's no way. There's just no way. Like if it's not inspired by ET, then tell me what's inspired by I'll sit and listen, you know what I mean, I'll tell me then, No, nothing. I just came up with it out of nowhere.

Right, It's easier to deny what it isn't than say what it is, like, oh, it's not that I swear, but what it is I can't tell you, right. And not only that, but close encounters. There was a lot of close encounters in this too. Boom boom boom mom bom. I mean, it's like, fine, I don't that's not I made a decision not to just to hold that against the movie because look, I don't know if I don't know enough about India and film distribution and all that to know if ET was a big part of their culture ever, you know, I mean, I don't know if American you know, for the viewer, did they see ET in nineteen eighty two when we saw it?

Did they see it ten years later, five years later, twenty years later. Were there local audiences in India watching this going well, this is just like ET? Or did they have no idea what ET was? I don't know. So just as we culturally appropriate, you know, you know, a lot of our filmmakers in the last thirty forty fifty years have seen a lot more international cinema than the typical film goer and felt very free to borrow from that, knowing that their sources would probably remain hidden from most eyes.

Critics may know what they're doing, but audiences, it's going to feel new and fresh until someone says, why have you never seen a French new wave film? Have you never seen, you know, a Kursava film? So I want to mention to you because we bring up ET. So I will tell you the story that gets brought up with India and ET are brought up since you broke the topic. Satya jit Ray very well known Indian filmmaker.

You've probably heard of him. He's I mean, I think we covered one of his movies, Sharri Lata earlier on the show. He wrote a film called The Alien and Arthur C. Clark was had ET screened for him. And apparently Arthur C.

Clark was friends with Satya jit Ray and called him up and said, hey, you should sue Steven Spielberg because your script is essentially being plagiarized by Steven Spielberg to write ET Oh really. So the Alien was an Indian film that was made before ET. Mm hm oh now I want to see it Satyajit Ray. So yeah. So again there's an interesting kind of side story even with how is something like ET being received did India because again they're writing things that are not Look, it's not like it's not like nobody has heard of ET.

But again, to your point, what is the critical reception of a movie not made for the audience in a country? Well, yeah, and you know, and stuff. You know, as I get older, I kind of realize stuff just gets It's either out there or it gets borrowed, appropriated, remixed, and it's and it's being done with more and more transparency, which I think is good. Right, I'm with you from music that's like, yeah, we're using we're using a very famous bassline from a nineteen sixties song, but we're but I'm putting on a wrap track or a you know, hip hop or whatever, and you're like, oh, okay. And then and then a lot of a lot of people who experience the second thing first then are surprised later to go, oh, that's where that's from.

And we've talked about this before. It's like I'm trying to show my kids who are teenagers and in their twenties. You know, I'll show my fifteen year old he's never seen the Shining. I show it to him and he's like, Oh, that's where the family Guy jokes come from. That's where the you know, Simpson's jokes come from.

And I'm like, yeah, except this, So this is the thing. It's like, oh, right, but I've already seen, like I already know all the best parts of the Exorcist because I you know, there was a joke about it on you know, King of the Hill or something. It's like right, It's like, okay, all right. And then so yeah, so did did rakeshro Sean steal koim Ilgaya from Spielberg? Did Spielberg steal Alien away from Saiget Ray to make et?

I don't know, Well, do you want do you want part of the answer. Yes, sigit Ray's film, The Alien's unproduced. It was an American and Indian cross produced film. And the film was intended to start and I'm not kidding Peter Sellers and Marlon Brandon. Wait, but you're saying the movie got made or it didn't get me?

It did not get it was the script was written, which is the issue. It was a script that was floating around and say Ray was in the works with Columbia Pictures to make the film. It was going to be an Indian director directing an American film, American or British with Peter Sellers And oh, I guess Marlon Brando. But wait a second, Okay, how close could Alien have been to e t if the two stars were going to be Marlon bron revolves around a spaceship that lands in a pond in rural Bengal. The villagers began worshiping it as a temple risen from the depths of the Earth.

The alien, known as mister ong establishes contact with a young village boy named Haba meaning dumb in Bengali through dreams, and also plays a number of pranks on the village community in the course of its short stay on planet Earth. The plot contains embulent presence of an Indian businessman, a journalist from Calcutta, and an American engineer. It doesn't mean I mean, it doesn't sound overwhelmingly I mean, but it sounds more like cooimcaya more than anything else. I mean a quote dumb village boy like that. I mean, I if that's not if that is not a direct descendant, maybe not ET, but koi Milgaya can't exist in a vacuum without knowing about that, because that's right.

And yet at the same time, it seemed like everyone was saying, oh, you know, this was completely groundbreaking in two thousand and three because aliens really hadn't been in Indian films until this, And I'm like, really like there there wasn't a science fiction more or less. It just wasn't it wasn't really a thing. Wow, Okay, So which makes it even feel more like ET right, right, right? It really does. No, but there's there's plenty of ET in this movie, I mean, shot for shot, and also just emotionally sort of again kind of like like the soul of a child being able to accept the outsider right while the regimented adults see only danger and feel only fear.

Right, that's and I get that. Okay, then that's a theme and you can do whatever you want with it, and they they work with it here, and that's that's great. It's it's a little it's a little strange. I don't know, maybe there's just not a ton of like little kid stars, I mean, are there, Like, is there a tradition of twelve year old movie stars in Bollywood? Not in the same way that there are culturally in our country?

Yeah, like why why not? Just But what's interesting about this is you you have I mean in a way it's better than et because you've got a guy who is in an adult's body but is mentally a child. And before he discovers the alien alien, he discovers the alien woman, right, which I mean, we haven't even watched a romantic comedy the two of us on this show or on the culture cast. This first half of this movie is a romantic comedy, like yeah, to the to the nines. Pretty Zinta and Herthie Groschan are so cute together dancing in the rain, I mean, and he's got impeccable choreography.

I mean, Jesus, Mother of God, if only I could move on my feet the way that man is. But the first hour and a half of this movie is just the two of them falling in love. The alien doesn't show up until literally the intermission of the movie. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, And of course, and then it's you've got the bad guy, You've got just the bully. He's literally a bully, which is so funny because that is also a trope from movies about much younger people, right, Like, this guy isn't a bully on the grade school yard or even in the high school locker room.

He appears to be a thirty year old bully. I like that he carries a basketball with him everywhere he goes because later in the movie, when Ruthie Groshan and Pretty Zinta are in the club together, he shows up carrying a basketball, and I'm just like, what, we get it. He's a bad guy. I'm going to tussle with you right here, Like what the actual fuck? Yeah?

His weapon is a basketball. Yeah, and he takes that basketball to the face a couple of times, so, oh god, yeah, that's not good. Yeah. No, I mean and when you're wearing wire rimmed glasses, it feels like that's not gonna end. Well, right, did just so obviously?

I mean this, you know, we've talked about it before, and you and I kind of haven't touched on it, but touched on it in other episodes of the show. This movie really feels in a lot of ways like a tale of two movies as well, because the first half of this movie is, like we've kind of mentioned, a romantic comedy, and then the second half is more or less ET like that the conventional not the conventional storytelling aspects of ET, but the conventions that ET has. This movie has the same conventions of hide the alien, introduce your friends to the alien. The alien has powers that we get to see all of those things that you expect from an alien on Earth movie where it's funny and not you know, predator, which I mean that could have been fun for the Rohan friend boom the end.

But the second half of this movie it's very different. I mean, it's the same movie, but what he's into. Roshan aren't doing all the lovey dovey stuff as much because it's there's a different plot device moving it along, right, and it's not like the love story suddenly takes a back seat to the relationship between roheat And and jod Do and hang on, honestly, I've got to show you something, Okay, can you hang on one side? I'm ready. I was so charmed that that the alien's name was joh Do, because look at John Keel's first book, Oh man, that's wild.

Yeah, and he calls it joh Do because that's the word for magic in Hindi. And this is about John Keele traveling the Far East and unearthing mysteries of India and Egypt and the Himalayas. Hey, he knew, he knew. I'm gonna surely I'm gonna have to pick that up now. Yeah, No, it's fun.

That book is fun. So what did what did you think of? What did you think of the alien? Given that again this is a special effects movie. In the second half of the film, I am sorry, I had no problem with Jadu.

I was either he had a little fish face, you know, and he's kind of like I think that was probably like the having to make his face that long to get the mechanics in the face. Yeah, but that was fine with me. It was And I liked his voice, you know, his voice was like really low and kind of echoey. And it was fine because again, if taking the structuralist approach, which I always do, if you just break it down, Jaddu just shows up as a way to further the relationship between Rowheat and Uh. That's all it is.

It's like it's like he he will not be able to have his Flowers for Algernon moment right without a device. Now, in Flowers for Algernon, the device was a new chemical, a new you know, like a like a pharmaceutical breakthrough, right, And in the movie Awakenings by our favorite new director Penny Marshall, it was also it's like, oh, people can sort of like come out of the haze of dementia before drifting back in. For Homer Simpson, it was a cran up his nose there you go. I mean, I mean that was I mean, that's Flowers for Algernon is what inspired that the Homer is Smart Now episode. I mean that's copped one for one from that again, like yeah, well, I mean it's it's not a new thing.

But for listeners who don't know what Flowers for Algernon is. Cliff Robertson plays a development developed, mentally disabled adult who, in the middle of the movie, through a pharmaceutical breakthrough, is able to not only sort of mature intellectually, but become quite smart. And it sort of unleashes, you know, his intellectualism and what that allows him to achieve as an adult in adult relationships. Before the belated realization that this is not permanent, and he and then he withdraws again, and it's somewhat tragic and poignant, and so this was playing with those themes. It's like, it's like, is is Roheat's ability to mature physically and intellectually going to help or hurt his relationship with nichese right, and it sort of does, you know.

It's like, for a minute, it looks like it's hurting it, but then it ultimately never really does. It doesn't ever seem to be a threat. It seems to only help things. What's interesting about it is that he doesn't mature to adulthood in emotionally, emotionally, he's always the nine year old, right. He just gets he gets really smart and really strong.

But it's almost like those are weapons placed into the hands of a nine year old. He does not approach child a manchild. He does not approach his new abilities with a mature outlook, like, well, look now that I'm really smart, I should find a way to make some money and buy a house and stuff, right right, right right, It's like, no, I'm still gonna run around and have fun, and you know, let's get a basketball team together with all of my child friends, and then for like ten minutes the movie becomes flubber. Yeah boy, yeah yeah. There were a couple sequences in this movie that I feel like we could have done without.

That is one of them. Well you know this is when that happened, I was like, Okay, if there was any doubt left in my mind, this is a movie for kids, right, oh, you know, because they never get too gooey with the romance. You know, there's some kissing, but it's never like whatever, it's never went toungs. And then they're not jumping into bed. It's not it doesn't feel adult.

It feels very high school at best. Well, and you know, I mean even the songs like koy milgaya, like I have found someone, the the titular song, even that doesn't verge on the like the saccharin, it's still very kind of not say surface level, but like pleasing in a way that I think everybody could appreciate. Not like again like not like just not just adults, but like kids and adults be like, oh, I found someone. What that means is kind of we'll figure it out, but I have found you. And obviously then that kind of meta textually plays into the thing of ja do being found as well, so it's I found you right and and magic Ja Dou means magic.

The alien is magical, the magic of love, I get it. What it isn't is what you get in what we saw like in Doom where where through dance and music there's a real uh sexual erotic physical like you know, your body and my body create a heat together sort of lyric running and then it's like, oh and I'm seeing that on on the screen. That's exactly what is happening. This is this takes a step back from that, so it's like safe for kids, safe for parents. We're we're talking puppy love, you know, and that's what I mean.

There are some kind of thirsty shots Ofique Roshan, but that's about it. They're they're very yeah, plenty thirsty for old pretty well pretty Zinta. You know, we haven't mentioned Raika who plays herthiqu Roshan's mom. She's fantastic, she is, but she is the long suffering Yeah, like that is a performance with tears in its eyes. The top the thankless of thankless roles playing the brother.

Yeah, well, and it's not even, but it's the kind of mother. It's the long suffering, like I the tragedy of my life my husband died. My child will never be what I had hoped and wished for. But that great scene, I mean, her great scene is when she dresses down uh Nisha and Ray and their whole group of friends who have been mean to her son and basically saying, you know, how how dare you? You know what's going on with him, and yet you still would torture this this person who is not your equal.

He may be your age, but he isn't and you know that, right, And if you're gonna and of course she gets to that, you know the line you have to get to, which is if you're normal and he's not normal. But that all take not normal any day? Right? I love I love how they have to get there every time. We just can't fucking help oursel.

I was like, no, you get your Bingo card and you mark that one off, and it's like, okay, we're getting closer to a you know bingo, so so you know, but she was great. She was great. Did you like the Peter the Peter? I almost said Peter Coy just to be an ass but Peter k Peter Kaye, oh my god, I don't know how to say it. Coyote is that I say it?

Yeah, Peter, the Peter Coyote stand in Mukesh Rishi playing the inspector. He has that great he has that great face. He was in he was in a movie Heather and I did star Farage where he plays opposite Amir Khan, and he's so good in that. And I mean he's not given much to do here, just kind of be mildly. I mean, he's about as antagonistic as Peter Coyote is in ET, like mildly antagonistic.

But they don't replace the guns with flashlights in this movie like they like they would do in subsequent ET releases. But again, like even they even have like the trappings of that in this movie. It doesn't really jibe with the rest of the movie. It honestly, of all the things that feel out of place, that storyline feels out of place. And what's funny is in ET it doesn't.

But that's because ET is about the alien. I think you you kind of hit on it best. This movie has nothing to do with an alien. Like the alien is a vehicle through which our character. Her experience is a change that is then made permanent.

But it's not an alien movie. I mean it is, but it's not like, well this movie is also twice the length of ET that's fair. And with that, thank god, there wasn't more of those. You know, it's the government coming to get the alien. They did just enough to remind you that, Okay, it's the ticking time bomb of get the alien away.

Yeah, well the alien's time is going to be limited, and that's fine. There was a lot of interesting I do want to I just we were talking about RecA. I want to go back for a second. The one the most shocking and upsetting scene, frankly, and the whole thing was when she discovers that he's been using Dad's computer to contact the alien and she just wails on him, just slapping his face back and forth, and I'm like, whoa, ladies, she goes off on his ass hard, she just teeing off, bang and just maxim one. I mean it's that to me was the most disturbing.

And he's like, you know, cowering on the ground, crying and it's just like whoa. Okay, So that was upsetting, But there was only a little of that. Thank you. This is the first time I believe you've seen Johnny Lever as well. He played shala Ramsujuani, the man whose windows keep getting broken out.

Oh my god, he's an Indian comedian. By the way, if that's not readily to you. Yeah, I'm trying to think of the American equivalent, like like the you know, really over the top older actor I think of it. I was thinking of like certain performances by Eugene Levy. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like, Okay, he's he's on a whole well I was gonna say he's on a whole other level. He actually isn't. Everything in this movie is elevated tonally and emotionally. That that his performance really isn't all that off kilter for the movie. But it's really good.

I like, I mean, I like I like seeing I like seeing him in things. I mean, again, he's he's a he's a favorite of mine, just kind of showing up randomly. He shows up in Mahakal for a while, he shows up in this for a couple scenes again, and I think that further reinforces in my mind that this is a film for families, and it is a funny, more comedic film. I mean that's look, you know you mentioned this movie is twice the length of ET. It is, but I think I enjoy it more because it feels less prostolytizing than ET does.

Because that's honestly, by the end of ET, I always kind of feel a little icky because the movie knows so it does such a good job at tippulling at your heartstrings. It feels like by the end of it it could have it could have led a couple moments just not happen, but they had to do it just I don't know. ET always feels very emotionally manipulative to me. And look, I have no problem crying at movies, but ET is one that I don't like watching, and I don't watch it very often. My mom likes it, though I know she's a fan.

Yeah I haven't. I don't find myself going back to ET as much as some other ones. But but it's funny because I mean, that is a very legitimate argument that American audiences will will have toward a film. It's like, well, it was just so emotionally manipulative that, like I take points off in a way. And yet I don't apply that scale when I watch Bollywood movies because I feel like, oh, well, that's kind of the point, Like they're not even trying for naturalism or subtlety, So how can I take points off?

Like maybe watching American musicals from earlier in the past century, watching Rogers and Hammerstein movies, watching Sound of Music, I kind of take my foot off the gas of hey, you're not being subtle. It's like, I get it. It's Julie Andrews and a bunch of kids up against Nazis. It's about as close to Bollywood as we're going to get. You know, kids are cute, songs are great.

Just please let the good guys win, right And look, I mean in Bollywood cinema the guys don't always win, but everybody has a good time in the end. So and that and that, I mean, the entertainment factor does seem to be and obviously is a huge portion of this, because going to the movies is a thing that is not just if you if you watch The Romantics and you listen to shah ru Khan talk about it. He grew up in a lower middle class family and going to the movies is not something everybody did all the time. They would it was special occasion, it was a big deal to go to the movies. So if you're gonna go see a movie, it better be three hours, it better be every it better be two movies.

I mean, that's that's the fucking thing here. Like, I just I really fucking hate people complain. I'm not talking about anyone in particular. I hate when people complain about long movies in regards to Indian cinema because it's literally just two movies. That's all it normally is.

Because again, like if you understand the cultural aspect of what Indian cinema is doing for people in India, then it better be something. It better be substantial in a way where I leave and I've spent a portion of my day going to the movies, and that portion of my day is hopefully a memorable portion that I will return to in the future. But it needs to be something special, right And and maybe that's that's why the movies, some of the movies we've seen, have have tried so hard to be all things, to be musical, to be comedy, to be action, thriller, drama, so that if you if you do see just one film this year, you feel like you've seen five, right, exactly, exactly exactly. I never thought of it that way.

And but again, like it comes from it's a it's and again I'm not going to fault you for not thinking that way, because it's a cultural thing. I mean, so many of us, you know, we talk about going to the movies on Friday night all the time, like all the time. You I mean, you've mentioned it before when you were in high school. It's like that's the thing that we were going and doing, Like, oh yeah, you know, if you don't have expendable income, you can't go do it, even in this country. But again, in a in a continent of three billion people, you know, or whatever whatever the number is.

Now, like, not everybody's gonna have the income. So when everybody gets together to go do it, it better be this thing because I get and I feel like it's a I feel like it's a fault of my own that I don't I don't hold the movie going experience in the same way I did. Maybe that's a function of aging, maybe it's a function of the movies, but I don't either, just so you know, well, yeah, I mean but I know people my age who's still or a little bit south of me, who going to see a film in the in the theater is a significantly different experience than just sitting at home on your couch and watching it. And I and I've come to sort of like find them interchangeable to a large degree. I've so many movies I saw in theaters when I was younger.

I've only re experienced on television, and I'm just bringing my memories to it. But I was gonna say it's true, in high school, it would be nothing for me to see three new releases in the course of a weekend. I'd see them all, you know, right, So it wasn't and you know, there's always to figure box office by well, what what's the movie that people are gonna go see? But frankly, you know, when when we were kids in high school, we'd see all of them. It's just like, Okay, well, first I'm going to see that one, and then right, and then our second priority is this one, and then if we still just feel like it, we'll go see the third one.

And and and movies came out. It feels like every single Friday there were another two or three movies coming out that we were excited about. So so yeah, I don't know this. Uh. There was that one review of of koim Ilgaya where uh, which you probably read because we both read the Wikipedia page, where the person said, you know, you go in expecting to, you know, discover alien life, but what you really discover is your inner child.

I mean that's I mean, that's that's I think that's putting it rather aptly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there there was There was nothing. There were no real sour notes in this movie, although I will you know, what we haven't discussed is there's another trope in this movie that is even I think more unbelievable than an alien landing and hiding in someone's shed, and that is the wildly attractive woman who is also has a soul so deep and rich and pure that she can literally fall in love with a drastically developmentally disabled adult to the degree that you believe she would spend the rest of her life with that person simply because they are so pure, and the way they do it always is to sort of trade on toxic masculinity.

So it's like, okay, if I have a choice between Raj, who's all ego and who's a real brute. And if he's beating up on this kid, how long before he's punching me? Years of marriage and I'll add marriage and time and alcohol, and pretty soon I'm the one taking the punches. But you know what, forget that. I want a different sort of man.

But the only way I can have a different sort of man is to have a man who literally has never matured. That's the only way I can be safe with a man who is emotionally present and won't ever attack me physically and harm me. And it's this weird. I mean, I know that's not it literally, but emotionally, that's what we're seeing. That's a conceit.

That's the conceit, And it's been in other movies, but I always look at them, go is there that doesn't really seem to be any real life analog here? I don't. I'm not seeing only two choices, only two And that's I mean, that's the problem. It's like life is not as restrictive as the cinematic narrative that they're portraying here. She could literally move away and never care about any of them ever again.

Like I mean, realistically, if you want to talk literalism, like that's what could literally happen and that, but it doesn't obviously, because again, like you said, there's there's a little bit of a kind of ridicus not ridiculous, but a kind of contrived conceit at the center of all of these movies. It's not just this one. I mean, it's it's in I mean, for yeah, Forrest Gump. Man. Forrest comes a bad example because the character of Jenny is painted paint, but actually the character of Jenny is painted the way she is in that movie to to do the kind of opposite side of the coin, where it's a woman who can't overlook that fact and so she's always running away from it.

Right there were And you've seen it more recently than I have, and I know you covered it a couple of weeks ago. But I forget because in a movie like Forrest Gump, like this movie, everyone is playing a character and a symbol and a historical viewpoint. Like in Forrest Gump, it's like, ok, you represent sort of the lost generation of every state, age of the last you know whatever, twenty years And didn't you know that liberalism is bad and conservativism is good. Well, well, the woman who is the free Spirit pays me end Yeah, boy does she she does? You know, a lot of people pay in that movie.

But but yeah, I mean, you know, that's a movie that there's things I really like about the experience of watching Forest Gump. But I always have trouble kind of at the end going yes, I endorsed this film. Yeah that had him administration has spoken four more years of Forest Gump. I'm with you. I had a hard time coming to that same conclusion with that movie, but this movie I didn't because it feels like this movie comes from a purer place.

Yeah, yeah, and in a way that like, again, I know that might sound corny, cheeseball, throw whatever tag on it you want, but it feels like it comes from a place of like trying to tell us a love story that just happens to have a little blue alien in it, right. And it's also there's there's even a little bit of Nutty Professor in this where you know, where Maynard Krabs becomes Buddy Love and know the club scene towards the in the third act, yeah, right, right, right right, which which you know again, you know, I mean, I'm a huge Nutty Professor fan. The Jerry Lewis version, And but I did question. I'm like, because you know, according to you know, film trivia historythik Rochan lost weight to play the role of sort of a physically slight character.

So we would we would, you know, sort of we would accept that along with the notion that he hasn't matured, because we know what for Thique Roshan actually looks like right, and he's literally yoked like a motherfucker. It's the joke where at a certain point in in koim Ilgaya, roheat becomes really like literally he's like he takes the glasses off and it's like done, da da da. Yeah. Yeah, everything short of pulling his shirt open and revealing that he does flex his biceps. I mean he flexes his biceps and his biceps pop out of his shirt.

So well, okay, so we never see him in as far as I can tell, we never see him without a shirt on until he is right right more or less. So my question was, was that always just sort of costuming and camera work, and then he just took his shirt off and it's like, yeah, okay, now here's the body I've always had in previous films and subsequent films. Was there any sort of movie magic that added to this, I don't think so. I think it was just casting him and having him wear big shirts. Okay, okay, but I mean again, let's work.

I got shoulders, you've got shoulders. Well, and we're not. I mean again, like I think they do a pretty they do a speaking of magic. They do a very good magician trick of look over here while something else is going on over here, You're focusing on his performance, not really what he's dressed up. And because again the performance is so the performance requires your attention, because I think if you, if you deviate from it, you kind of, like you said, it needs you to buy in and it Yeah, yeah, I I you know, I obviously it's a it's a it's a concerted effort by the filmmakers to not sexualize the character until they can it right.

And even then, even the dance that he does when when he again turns into Ruthy Groshan and condence and and has you know, the you know, ripped body of a god. Yeah, but but even that is sort of a fun joyful, funny, you know dance routine where they're sort of you know, doing this weird sort of move and and he's and there's like there's little comic bits distributed through the dance, and and so you can you can accept that, Oh, suddenly a lot of girls are interested in him. And even then, I'm sort of like, oh, are we going to do this now? Is nische gonna see this and get upset and turn away? And you've changed?

I don't love you anymore? And it never really does that. I'm kind of glad because it would just make me more impatient with her. I think, right, well, and I don't think it needed to get to that point in the narrative like it was. That would have been an unnecessary contrivance.

I feel like, right, and she's schooled up. She knows what's happening by then, she knows about Juddou and she knows that. You know. It's like, I know how this is happening and why it's happening, and I kind of like how she endorses it. It's like great, Now, go to do the you know, the the Hero Championship basketball game, and and everyone in the audiences literally seeing superhuman behavior from everyone on the court and no one comments on it, and everyone just cheers because they win.

I mean they don't. They don't take any note of it. In Flubber either. There are people literally flying through the air and fluver like it's the same thing, like that had been speaking about Jerry Lewis right, because isn't he and Flubber? Are you waiting Jerry Lewis Jerry Lewis.

Jerry Lewis is in the original Flubber. No, No, it's Fred mc murray in The Absent Minded Professor. Okay, he does that for Disney. Yeah, and there was a you know, there was definitely some Disney feelings in this movie. Yeah, I mean it's it's pretty, uh.

I think it's a little bit more emotionally mature than a lot of Disney movies are, especially if you want to compare this to Disney movies that were coming out at the time. Yeah, I think that one basketball sequence has really really felt like, oh, okay, this is this is the end of a you know, Dexter Riley movie. Yeah. Yeah, that was That's the one part of the movie where I was like, I mean, I'm not saying ten more minutes is really that big of a deal when we're talking two and a half hours, But I mean I would have taken ten minutes less because that it's it's it's the most unbelievable scene in a movie where most everything is unbelievable as it is. Right now, I want to bring something up which is a little possibly controversial, but it became so overt in this movie in a particular way that I want to talk about it, and we haven't talked about it.

And it's something I brought to your attention that you hadn't even noticed. I'm glad that you were going to bring it up because I was about to bring it up, so you beat me to it. Yeah, it's rithik Roshawn's right hand, his thumb. Okay, I noticed it in Doom and I pointed and I mentioned it to you, and you're like, what the fuck are you talking about? And then you went back and looked and you were like, oh my god.

Because he has there's an element of his physicality. His right thumb is sort of a double thumb. From the that the sort of the middle joint onward, it sort of becomes almost two thumbs. Now, a couple of things this movie is done fairly early in his career. This movie does not hesitate to show it, and now the movie's directed by his dad, so a clear decision has been made early in the film, we're gonna show his hand.

We're gonna have shots that are literally about him shaking hands or using his hand and sticking his hand out to people, sticking his hand out to people, so you're gonna see it. So this is just we're not trying to hide anything. So it's out there. Great. What was interesting is that joh Dou had the same thumb.

Thank you for noticing it. Oh my god, it was so good. Holy shit, I like I was smiling from ear to ear when I saw that. I was like, oh man, they they went there, didn't they. They so totally went there.

And at first I was like, wait a second, am I am I just imagining this. I've just got the thumb on the brain. And then I really and then they then they absolutely again show jod Dou's hand in a way that makes it very and I'm like, wow, okay, okay, we're we're we're there's something's going on here. We're we're linking these two characters. You know.

Now, at no point do they suggest that Joddu is the figment of anyone's imagination at all. But it it's like, Okay, this alien was meant for this guy? Right? And did you did you realize that they did a spinoff series called Jadu all about Our Little Blue Friend Jadu, a animated show all about Johnny that was a children's series that aired on Nickelodeon in India. Right, well, well Nickelodeon India, which is a Nickelodeon in total Indian content and right right, including yes, but and you know that that that allows us to transition into I think probably the next thing we'll be talking about Chrish, a superhero movie that is a spinoff of this movie.

So what? And it's funny because I also read about you know how the letter K figures into a lot of his movies. But now is it a spin off with the same characters with he gro Sean? Is he? Is he in the spinoffs?

Yep? And is he? And he's playing roal heat I'm not gonna tell you, Okay, Justice, sweet am, I gonna watch so is that my next assignment on that? The next thing? I mean, that's the next thing we watch.

I mean that that's the thing. Like what's wild about this movie is this movie is such an interesting starting place, and then where they go from here I think makes it even more over the top and wild, because to give you a little bit of a little, a little taste, little, a little little tip of the tip of the tongue action, he is not only playing himself row Heat, but he's also playing Rohat and Niche's son. And is it directed by Rakesh? Yeah, oh my god, all right, I'm in and uh and so is Chrish three. And until COVID happened, Krish four was announced in for twenty twenty release, still in the making.

Now okay, So clearly these were popular. Money Boy mil Gaya was immensely successful. It won multiple National Film Awards, including Best Film on Other Social Issues, and it won Filmfare Awards. So yeah, it won Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actor per the critics, with Rithi Groshan as well. So yeah, it was well regarded and well received.

It was about two hundred and fifty million, and it made eight hundred and twenty three million. Yeah. Right, And and no one, I mean, in the reviews that I glanced at again, there was no one was like, oh my god, this thing is just eye rolling lee corny, and it's so Sacharin like there was none of that. Everyone sort of took it at face value, and it's like, yeah, really good performance. You know, he really he really proved he's an actor, because I guess at the time it was sort of like, Hey, is this guy's career going to take off or not?

And then this movie sort of bought him the next handful of movies that then bought him superstardom. Yeah, I want to watch Kaho Na pr High at some point, the movie that three it was three years before this where Prithik Rochan kind of made his debut. But this is I mean, this is the movie that kind of cemented him as someone to watch, someone to keep an eye on. And then obviously, like you were mentioning, I mean, he's part of the raw yaj Raj yash Raj films spy verse, which is now one of their kind of Marvel MCU equivalents. But I'm much more excited about that because I don't have to watch thirty fucking things to know what the hell is going on anymore Marvel Jesus Christ.

But no, this, You're right, this is the movie that, like cemented critique Roschan as not only just a pretty face but also a talented actor a like we I mean, we've mentioned it a lot, but this movie really only works in a lot of ways because Prithique Roschan is that good. He is that good. Even the scenes where it is cringey or contrived, his level of charisma carries me over that kind of initial abrasive hump of really yeah. It's like it's yeah, It's like a flavor that hits you in the first bite, as like I don't know if I want a full plate of this. Then you take a second bite, you know, like Okay, this isn't so bad, and then before you know it, you finish the entire meal and you mix it with something else and it's got a little and it adds something else.

Yeah, I mean it's he look, Chrithik Roshan, shahru Khan, Salman Khan, amitab Bakchon abishk Bakchon, Udei Chopra. These are all names of actors who I can't even think of an actor in the States right now working who I would cast in a movie to say this is our equivalent of any of these actors. They're the charisma and the expectation that is on their shoulders of the amount of people they have to entertain. Is so I think in a lot of ways inconceivable for us in this country because again, like I've said it before and I'll say it again, they're venerated amitab Bakchon. The fans of his come outside of his house every weekend to see him come out.

And he comes outside and greets his and then he just goes back inside his house. Tell me where that's happening here? Tell me. I mean, it's like it's it's a It's like we understand Indian cinema best we can. You and I have said that, but like we I don't think we'll ever fully appreciate the cultural importance of Indian cinema because we're just never going to be Indian.

Well, I have questions. So he comes out of his house. Yeah, and he and and like they all show up. They're already there. They know because he comes out the same time every weekend, and he and he it's like the pope.

He comes out waves you know, let's let's them see him. He acknowledges them, then he goes back in. Do they leave? I don't know? Probably is this like I would love that actually, if it was, like, look, here's the thing.

It's not. People aren't crazy, People aren't breaking into your house. People show up at a celebrity's house every weekend. They all gather. Then at twelve o'clock, the celebrity comes out, waves at everyone, says, you got are awesome, I love you, Go see my next movie, have a great day, waves at them.

They all get that moment, he goes back inside the house and they all slowly drift away, and by twelve fifteen his house is his house again. I would love that. The Sunday Darshan at his residence in Jalsa. That's what it is. He took a two year kind of break from COVID, but started it back up last year in April.

Yeah, dude, it is that. It is exactly that. There's nothing like that here, Like what fucking tell me, Like, somebody right in and tell me where this is going on in the States like that, because it's not because no actor, even the craziest asshole fans of the craziest assholes on the Internet like Kim Kardashian or other people who have people obsessed with them to a unhealthy degree, like Taylor swift beyond say people who are stands for them even they're not doing that. Well, I wonder is it the same for them, like when they go to are there. Do they fear for their lie in their own personal physical safety when they go to a restaurant?

Or do people I don't know, it's just sort of a different way of dealing with fame. Do people get excited but not go absolutely ape shit and attack them? Or I think it's probably a mix. I can't really those are just some things I haven't been able to glean. But again, I'm even I am going on.

I'm going on a journey just like the rest of us are, of learning more about the cultural intricacies of this right and so best I can tell, you know, actors in India are they probably do go out, but again they're probably like actors here. It's a little bit, you know, a little reserved, little cautious, gotta be, got to always be on your toes. But I mean the fact that Omitab is doing this every and had been doing this every weekend for the longest time, and then stop and he's doing it again, like it's wild. Man, It's wild. It is wild, but it makes me happy because like that that's a connection to the industry in a way that I don't even think, like if you say that to someone, it feels like the connection to the industry is so much deeper than even the one we have culturally as Americans.

Well, and it somehow feels less rapacious and less voracious. It is like like the level of consumption like Americans want, and there's also a monetization. I think, like there are people who are like, I'm not going to sign another eight x ten for you. You're selling them on eBay, right, I'm done. Like that happens, right, you know.

I think there are writers, they're like big genre writers who see the same people who show up at every one of their events and it's like, dude, this is the twentieth book I'm signing for you. Fuck you get away, you know, because it just feels like you're you don't even give it. You're not a fan. You know that I'm famous. You know you can make a few bucks, so you're showing up right now.

That's not the majority, obviously, but still it seems like, you know, I've got to get a picture with you. I need to steal something about your fame to hold for myself, which is kind of gross and too bad. So anyway, yeah, I again, I can't speak to some of that in Indian culture, but I can speak to the way they're there received as as as as I guess pillars of the community clearly, or pillars of society or cultural figures clearly. So so so until Chris Richard, what did you think of koiml gaio? Final thoughts?

I enjoyed it, h Like I said, it took me a minute to get on the same wavelength as the movie, but once I did, I found that my pleasure was doubled with everyone Raj included, even though he was the bad guy. I enjoyed the special effect of Jadu, and I enjoyed the little details. I'm I really enjoyed it. I'm trying to think of if I would like rush to show it to my f family or friends right now and see it again with them, I would say maybe, like, maybe not as much as Doom, just because some of the Doom movies are just so visually dazzling that it's like, yeah, it's pretty cool, right, But I did enjoy it, and I can and I can see why it's so popular because it's it wears its heart on its sleeve, and it's got a pretty good heart.

So I'm in. I give it thumbs up. I know, I'm sorry. That was a terrible part I did whoa okay, no, look, okay, yeah yeah. Three thumbs up, Richard, three thumbs I got that part of already made the note.

No no, yeah, no, I insist that you leave it in. I give it. I give it five stars out of ten. No, I give it. I give it four out of five stars.

I'm with you. I enjoyed it a lot. You know, it was a movie. When I kind of pitched it to you, it sounded like it would be something definitely worth checking out, just based on the high concept nature of the idea alone. And you know, a lot of these movies have a high concept and they don't even remotely get back to the base idea being you know, the base idea is interesting, but we don't do anything with it.

This movie does a lot with it. It goes a lot of places. Not everything is very successful, but most things are. Chrithik Roshan is fantastic, pretty Zintas. Everybody in the movie's well cast.

It's well shot, it's a good looking movie. I love seeing Indian movies that are shot elsewhere, often places that are very green New Zealand. I believe there was something about the locations that really struck me. Where they would it always felt like like they were perched on the edge of a cliff. Yep, yep.

And then later I read that I guess that was New Zealand. I honestly thought it was Switzerland because yash raj films in Switzerland are like peanut, butter and jelly at this point, so oh really, Okay, Well that's where he shot most of That's where he shot a lot of the like DDLJ and Hota Hi. Like a lot of the big movies came out of Switzerland. So there's a lake name for Yashah Chopra in Switzerland. Like it's it's a thing man like like yeah, yeah, so but like again, like it's you know, the movie is a it's a lot of things, but I think, like I think you put it best, it's a movie that wears its heart on its sleep and it's a it's a genuinely endearing movie in a way that I can't say a lot of these kinds of movies tend to be and these kinds of movies are more or less a dime a dozen at least the kind of thing it's talking about.

But I think it does a better job than most of them. So, which is, you know, saying a lot. So So until the next time you and I talk about an Indian cinema film, which is more than likely going to be Chrish At this point, where can people find you, Richard? They can find me on HBO Max Titans Season one, two, three, and Season four, Part one are available right now streaming. You can watch them anytime you want, and sometime in April of twenty twenty three, we're going to be releasing the final six episodes of the season and the series, and definitely check them all out.

I think I think we wrap things up really nice. So if you do happen to watch those, I'm on Twitter. Let me know what you think, and let me know what you think of Bollywood of Cinema Club. Yeah, let me know, because you can find me at weirdingwaymedia dot com, where Richard and I host a show together with our dear friend mister Mike White, and it's all about Rankin and Bess. I would say Christmas movies, but by the but at this point, baby, that's all bets are off.

Yeah, but so many other shows you can find, like Mike White's The Projection Booth, Father Blow's Dark Destinations and Twisted and Uncorked to women who are much funnier than Richard and I And that's not really that hard to be fair. As for me, that's where you can find me as for this show, Bollywood cinemaclub dot com. But like rate and review, wherever you get the show that helps us out the most. Richard, thank you so much for joining me. I'm trying to do it.

Do impression. I can't. His voice is to act pleasure. Yeah, am I pleasure and as always, will catch you on the next episode.