Lately I've had that much more extra time as naturally comes with the holidays. For some reason, I've found it impossible to find joy in using the time to finally watch movies - watch the movies I hadn't had time for before - preferring instead to choose reading over movie-watching. Other than the fact that I have always been a book over movies or television person, there hasn't seemed to be anything movie-wise that I've been excited to watch. And that's weird, because when I had no time or opportunity to watch anything, I had wanted to. Remember my preview posts regarding movies I wanted to watch such as Besharam and Lootera? I have the time now, but do I want to watch these movies? No.
I don't know what it is. Maybe it's that effect of novelty, in part; you know what I'm talking about, but to specify: that phenomenon of wanting something more because we can't have it. Ah, that.
I also have this problem with seeing a movie long after the initial thrill that comes with first exposure fades away. This is what is happening to me now with regards to watching Ram Leela. I wanted to see it for a very long time, since 1. it's a SLB film, and I am a SLB film fan. and 2. it stars Deepika Padukone, and I am a reborn and finally out of the closet Deepika fan. (NB. By 'out of closet' I DO not mean I habour anything more than celebrity-fan admiration for the actor.)...but now that it's been out on the airwaves for quite a while and it's not news anymore, I don't feel so inclined to watch it. Meh.
Admittedly, I do still want to because it stars Deepika. I recently revisited one of my absolute favourite hindi films, Break ke Baad, which stars another of my favourite actors, Imran Khan. If you already do not know this, I have had a history of fangirling pretty hard for both Imran Khan and Ranbir Kapoor. My fangirling the former, however, died away with the grudging yet inevitable admittance that his acting could be improved up, and that he couldn't dance to save his life (a fact, however, adorably made up for by his own witty assertion of this fact).
But back to Break Ke Baad - I could go on and on about this movie, and you would not understand why since all the reasons why I love it so much are very personal reasons, along the lines of relating quite quite a lot. My inner-self squealed with joy and grinned happily all throughout my rewatching of the movie. Fix thy eyebrows, and don't consider me weird, please. Well, you can, 'cause I am... but still.
But there I was, lying awake in bed, though thoroughly tired, since it was the wee hours of night, and I was smiling to myself, inside. I sighed with contentment and satisfaction, flush with loads of memories and all that good stuff. And I thought to myself: I need to watch more of these favourite films; which other ones do I love as much as this?; Jaane Tu Ya....Anjaana Anjaani,.......even my very first favourite, Hum Tum.
Then another thought occurred to me. What if this is what it meant to grow older? Older yet carried forward by time to another place where everything else externally has changed? Music, media, movies, actors, storylines, themes. More concerning, would I become one of the (gasp) Old Generation that was stuck in an older era clutching what would be then considered oldies to my bosom, refusing to get with the times?
It boggled my mind. I considered, absently, why exactly I like the movies I do. Was it because these people channelled the inner me? Obviously the biggest factor was that I related hugely to what I was seeing on-screen. Boy and girl are best friends, girl falls for boy, boy doesn't realize, heartbreak, thunder, lightning, dancey dancey, fight fight, love love, blah blah. Woopsidoo. Ok, obviously I'm a big fan of happy endings and romance and all, yet cannot bring myself to be all mushy about it while describing it. It's one of those things that should be kept for private moments in my opinion. Blehh. So anyways, as I was saying, yes I was all for romance and stuff, but the movies that REALLY made me swoon figuratively were those which were get-with-the-times, modern, practical and feasible. Ok. I'm not really explaining this to my liking, but whatever.
So these movies. They all seem to have this one thing in common: the younger gen of actors, i.e. my age group. Imran Khan, Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, Sonam Kapoor...
Then I asked myself: am I less inclined to watch movies now because they are not casting these favourite actors in these movies? And if so, does this mean that when they have become old and antiquated spectres of the camera, and are playing mothers and fathers and uncles and aunts, I will turn to my old and antiquated copies of movies capturing their flush of youth era, and refuse to really like anything that belongs to the newer generation? I hope not. I don't want to be one of those oldies who do that, I always feel I'm perpetually young.
But then I look at SRK and think, how the hell did I ever fangirl him in the first place? Then I look at the next hottie of the times, and think, holy moly Varun could be my younger brother.
Damn.
