Bollywood X-Closive :Bankruptcy of Imagination

Hi,

With all my fellow bloggers have at least one post related to Bollywood films, still I’ve not posted any. And I felt since most of my friends know Hindi, a post on Bollywood films would interest them.

I hate to watch Bollywood movies because they usually steal or rehash successful stories, throw in some big-name stars who usually can't act and then desperately pray for success. For me, a Bollywood movie refers to the song-dance-rape-fight formula movie in an Indian language starring a politician's son or a progeny of yet another Bollywood actor/actress.

Or else you have actors like Emraan Hashmi who targets heroine’s lips for most part of the film than the villians, kissing worse so as to enter into Guinness Book of Records for MOST NUMBER OF KISSES. Or you have actresses like Mallika, Bipasha who show more of their body and skin, wearing costumes that were stitched when they were studying Standard-I and act excellently in bed. The movies with them lose focus on the story and trained its lens only on their cleavage (as if you’d not enjoyed it) Or you have directors like Ram Gopal Varma who spoil the originals in the name of remakes or churn out films with same Story, same Dons, same Goons and beaten to death story and screenplay and the end product being big YAAAAAAAAAWWWWWNNN. Then you have someone promoting their son, cousin, daughter, relative, house maid, friend, car drivers into a film and making it a family tradition entering into film industry. Taking a good cast and making them all look bad is a pretty tough ask, but few directors handles it with ease. These insufferable films drag on even as audiences wisely exited the theatre early before the Interval. Bollywood clobber its fans with one trashy film after another.

If you have seen one, you have seen them all

I find the dances lewd, plots boring, actors ugly, dialogs repetitive and music too loud, and the presentation, simply lacking creative genius.

The stunts are unrealistic.  Having stupid movies with asinine stunt scenes, where a cycle rickshaw chases and outruns a SUV on a country road  

The Bollywood movie makers have no sense of realism whatsoever (Examples: rampant use of guns, rape, and pre-marriage romance)

The inner evil of a minister/politician is brought out by showing him with girls and/or wearing his khadi kurta and sipping on a glass of whiskey

 

A good guy sacrifices his life

The hero mourns the death of aforementioned good guy by holding the dead head on his lap and shouting out at the heavens.

The ugly inbreeding of talent has led to creative bankruptcy. 

Bollywood directors are getting better at the packaging, if only they'd pay greater attention to the story. Ok! Enough of blaming Bollywood films as if Kollywood, Tollywood films produces best films every year is what might be running in Blogger’s mind who love Bollywood. Besides this, I don’t like to watch bollywood films because I dunno Hindi (Lol!). Even I understand the title of the Hindi film after few days referring to my friends (Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna for instance) the only Hindi phrase I’m so familiar with is Tumara Naam Kaahe (Sorry if I’d typed it wrongly. This is my level of knowledge in Hindi) and my friends do drag me to any new films that is released in Theatres near by as they are such craze over it. Since they take tickets for me free and I’m simply stuck up in house without any useful works to do, I go with them for most of the new releases. Only for Chak De India and Jab We Met (which I’ll review later) I can understand what the story and screenplay is thanks to excellent performances and in-between English dialogs. I’m of a kind who makes up what the film and scene is about using the actors’ expressions. But sadly most of the Bollywood films I’d mentioned fall in the above category. I was extremely miffed by the “Dude, you must watch this, it will change your life” type of recommendations. You know how we like to predict the next line in a movie and get a huge laugh when we are right.

Despite winning wide critical acclaim, few films fail to make a significant impact at the box office, and do lukewarm business all over because of less promotion (Johnny Gaddaar is ample testimony that you can make a gripping Bollywood movie without any of the big names) and films do succeed in box-office and smash existing records thanks to gritty promotions despite disjointed, tracing-paper-thin plot with ho-hum performances by the lead actors  (Om Shanti Om, Devdas where Shahrukh, in the title role, appeared about as comfortable as a whale in the midst of Sahara Desert. Besides this I’m a Big SRK fan. Lol!! But that’s what Human tendency) Few films for which I have patented as the most potent weapon of torture (Tashan) for one’s adversary, to be used only when the maximum amount of sadistic pleasure is desired. I am still looking for that adversary. Anyone ready for the game? (Chris, PJ, Vin all wanted! Lol!!)

Few movies were also a learning experience. If the starting sequence of a movie shows a big joint family clustered together in the Pooja Ghar, singing Bhajans, walk out immediately. Or else, it might prove torturous for your sanity. And if you seriously like the kind of stuff this movie is made of, go watch any sitcom on Star Plus or you must be a relative of Ekta Kapoor. If there is a course in the acting institutes, titled “what not to do in a comedy movie”, probably few scenes from Priyadarshan’s to the students would suffice. They confirm my belief that comedy is not everyone’s cup of tea. Capital Punishment should be doled out to those who indulge in making a comic movie, without having the slightest talent for it. And few films claim they come out with different genre called Horror, Humor. But they failed to realize, Horror films are made as Humorous (Darling) and Humor films are more horror to watch (God Tussi Great Ho)

But I won’t miss the bollywood flicks which were critically acclaimed. I felt Iqbal was better than Lagaan (because of the length only Aamir. But it does deserve OSCAR nomination) I buy DVD’s of the film which I’ve missed and also those which I couldn’t relate to in theatres. Watching the films in DVD is better than watching in theatres as of me because I’ve the options of subtitles in both ENGLISH and Tamil (I prefer only if I found English subtitles are awkward). Also you can stop the film whenever you want and break the DVD in anguish (I did for Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag) which you can’t do it in theatres tearing the screens (have to count the bars)

Ok! Enough of tarnishing Bollywood. Is this means the reason why you are not reviewing any Bollywood flicks? No! I’ll review. But this is an introduction of how Bollywood films are made out from the stinking factory. To all Bollywood fans, this is no means to offend the industry (Thought of putting in header but since you will reject it as soon as you read, I’m putting at footer) because NO TWO PERSON CAN AGREE ON THE SAME LINE FOR ALL THE ISSUES. I like to critic the Tamil films which are even worse, but since my blogger friends more likely cannot see it, I’m reviewing their known language Hindi films (though I’m a Subtitle khaar). So check for reviews in forthcoming posts the films I’ve enjoyed and am bamboozled. Lol!

 

Thanks! Keep Visiting!