Bollywood: The Show Must Grow On

I really really liked that Indian movie where a boy falls in love with a girl. I just can`t remeber its name. God! now I will be itching all night until I recall its name. Can someone help. Oh great cinema bollywood by the way.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

the bollywood industry used to make some really good films. note the past tense. now only independent indian film makers like kaizad gustad or whatever his name is or NRIs like Mira Nair make good films; about once in a decade the old studios/big name directors tend to make a good film which is then endlessly copied...
even the industrywalas are saying the industry is almost bankrupt, a tiny %age of movies make a profit, there is a dearth of ideas, most plots are straight rip-offs of hollywood films and to top it all of it is financed largely by the bombay underworld and the likes of dawood ibrahim and company (the best indian ever from bombay--although now he has a pakistani passport and citizenship so i guess he is pakistani now...oh well); anyway the underworld connection is the most interesting thing about bollywood right now. what with sanjay dutt and those tape recordings, rakesh roshan being shot and just living (they should have shot his talentless son instead and done us all a favour), nadeem shravan, shah rukh khan etc. getting death threats, monica bedi emerging on the arms of another Muslim gangster in UAE or somewhere...gosh they should make a film about THIS..maybe people will start watching it again...
the only saving grace of bollywood at present is amitabh bachchan..and the bevy of supermodels they keep on churning out hoping one of them will be able to act...
i suppose that`s good too cos it keeps the pakistani cricketers occupied. last i heard a certain former miss world had the hots for the rawalpindi express...(with his current form she`s probably the last maiden he`s bowled in a while...)
**
vaisay despite all this it is sort of addictive like cigarettes (not that i smoke)...this is what growing up in a household where indian films were always on does to one...
..anyway not name dropping or anything but one of my good indian friends is a close relative of sanjay dutt--so i get all the real gossip which goes on in bollywood..hehe..
:-)

i think i will watch mughal e azam again; it reminds me of when india was ruled by us..:-)
yalgaar ho!

urstruly

God! now I will be itching all night until I recall its name.

even though you have been consisitently unkind to poets...we cannot see you spend the night itching!...

the movie you were looking for is Three Walls or teen deewaraiN by nagesh kukonoor...fits your bill...and does not have a single song either!

rgds,

t

Dear Urstruly # 1,

Hope this finds you and family and neighbours with shukar of Almighty in tip-top shape. We received your letter about not recalling movie with plot about one boy falling in love with one girl. That movie was made when Great Great Grand Ammi jaan (who used to seak like a parrot, remember) was born.

Nowadays, urstruly ji, Bollywood movies are usuallyabout bright young NRI girls with doctorates in interstellar medicine and rap falling in love with TWO boys, one each from India (urban) and India (pind).

Please correct your correcting glasses.

sincerely,

`` aapkaa``

seems to me chowk has a lot of old fogies hankering after the golden era of hindi cinema...
stop moaning about the past you guys!! all new films aren`t bad... hasn`t one of you
seen Lagaan or Dil Chahta Hai? or Monsoon Wedding, Mr and Mrs Iyer, Hum dil de chuke
and so on?
speaking of which, don`t miss Koi Mil Gaya... it might have been inspired by ET but still
it`s a pretty good entertainer...

and Naqshbandi..# 3

go watch Hrithik`s performance in this and come back with egg on your face...

and urstruly # 1...

wow, wasn`t that clever of you! have you remembered or are you still itching? sure it wasn`t some lollywood film you were thinking about?? oh wait, those never have the `boy falls in love with girl` theme, right??

Bollywood is supposed to be making a film in Pakistan, that would be interesting to see, how they portray Pakistan and its people...

Indian cinema has had its vicissitudes which were perhaps greatly influenced by the competition from Hollywood. In the 80s and 90s, movie themes were trite and there were a lot of films that seemed to be ditto copies of hollywood blockbusters. However, in my opinion, indian cinema has now outgrown that phase. Recent films like Ankhein, Darna Manaa Hai and 88 Antop Hill show that Indian cinema possesses the diversity and originality required to keep interest in Bollywood alive.

We should perhaps see Indian films without the spectre of hollywood lurking around. There is so much to appreciate.... the wonderful music that goes with all sorts of situations, be it romance, tragedy or comedy; the rich poetry and language that adds to the profundity of the plot and the characters; the brilliant dance choreographies, the colorful dresses and so much more. Recently, bollywood is also catching up in the technology department, I have seen some movies with CGI and excellent camera work. Watching a good bollywood movie unfold on the screen is really an unforgetable experience. Now, if only I could say the same thing about Lollywood :)

...Writing isn`t a game with me. Neither is it ``a job`` as it is with many of my friends in ``the trade`` who work from 10 to 4 with an hour off for Beaujolais and biscuits. It is my life. Now snicker all you wish, that happens to be the plain and simple of it. And it not only offends me, it disgusts, short tempers, and enrages me to see people playing at being writers....

...When I was younger...I wrote from the gut. This led to all manner of clever riposts from my contemporaries who compared my effusions with the more advanced stages of gorge-buoancy. Since then I`ve tempered my semantics and relocated the source of my work. It comes from the heart and the soul and the head and the index fingers of my right and left hands which are the only ones (poor slobs) that ever learned to type....

There is no use writing anything that has been written before unless you can beat it. What a writer in our times has to do is write what hasn`t been written before or beat dead men at what they have done.

...All you have to do is write true. And anybody that writes for the fat man with the cigar, behind the big editorial desk, is a cheat and a liar and not worth the type fonts to set him up....

...To hell with the swimming pools and balling the starlets and impressing everybody.... Because, you see, I`m nothing. I`m nothing at all without writing. Without truth, my truth, The only truth I know, it`s all a gambol in the pasture without rhythm or sense. It`s empty. God gave it to me (so help me, Deist or no, I believe that!) and I can`t cheat myself or you or them or anyone by not doing it the best way I know how.
That`s the heart and head of the writer, to set it all down before they put him down the hole. To get it all out the right way, the best way, the truest way you know how.
Do you feel it?
Do you know what I mean?

Harlan Ellison: Truth and the Writer, 1961

Anuradha,

I have seen all of them except Mr. and Mrs Iyer... I really want to watch it.
Here are some of my favorites (I don`t if they fit the Bollywood label though but they are Indian movies)

1) Hollywood Bollywood, or is it Bollywood Hollywood...

2) Perfect Murder

3) Monsoon Wedding

4) Bend it like Beckham

5) Earth 1947

6) East is East

7) Fire

8) Kama Sutra

I do not know of any other film industry which is so far removed from real life as Bollywood. But I also do not know of any which affects its people as much as Bollywood. Here, life truly imitates art, whether it is the latest fashions in clothes, hairstyles, jewellery, or young people`s manners and mannerisms. Go to any Indian function or even wedding function and they will be performing songs and dances from the Indian films; kids in colleges romance each other on the pattern of films; even in temples they sing bhajans from films often written and sung by non-hindus.
Yes, Bollyood is like no other `wood!

Urstruly#1
You are out of date. These days, films have even boy-meet-boy and girl-meet-girl scripts.
Of the three recent films I saw, Mr and Mrs Iyer (V. good) is about a married woman who pretends to be the wife of her fellow bus passenger to save his life in a communal riot; Bhoot (okayish) is about a ghost that torments a housewife and Ajnabi (bad) is about two vacationing couples doing the Indian version of wife swapping.

Asif naqshbandi:
I think you are a bit partial to your namesake who made Mughal-e-Azam. In my book, it is not even one of the greatest films, let alone the greatest. I would give ten Mughal-e-Azams to get one Umrao Jaan, Bandini, Jaagte Raho, Sahib Bibi Ghulam and many such films. In music, Mughal-e-Azam was not even as good as its predecessor, Anarkali with songs like Jaag dard-e-ishq jaag and Yeh zindagi usi ki hai.
But in sheer hype and marketing, there has been no film before or since Mughal-e-Azam. Asif even shot the film with two different endings; after the film had a successful run with the first version, the second version was released to give the film a second wind.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Good for you, Manto :)
do watch Koi Mil Gaya too... Hrithik is amazing in it... anyone who says he`s talentless doesn`t know what in hell he`s talking about... did you see him in Fiza? add that to my
little list... also Satya... if anyone could see Satya and not be moved, I wouldn`t know
what to call him...
and Kaun? that was some horror flick
and Duplicate... no brain feast that, but I really enjoyed it... then there was Maachis, Sarfarosh, Kachhe Dhaage, and last year Ajay Devgan`s `Legend of Bhagat Singh` ... beautifully made film... wonderful music..
then there were those small budget but completely delightful children`s movies like
Makdi and Chota Jadugar...
and probably so many more I can`t remember... not bad for the last few years, huh?

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

re: bollywood movies
I have seen some perceptible changes in the quality of bollywood movies in the last few years. What many seem to lack is a good story line. Some of them continue to torment us with dance sequences. It is true that few bollywood actors know how to dance (exceptions: Govinda, Prabhu Deva from South). Rest of them are pathetic. This trend of what i call as a ``PT drill`` was started by Jeetendra and is being faithfully followed by many others. A number of extras with the hero seem to be doing a PT drill. Why can`t they draw inspiration from Indian classical dance? Why do they have to copy Hollywood? I still regard the dances by Vijayanthi Mala in a movie Amrapali the best ever dance sequences in any movie. All those were based on Indian classical dances. There is something basically wrong with the mindset of bollywood movie makers who are copying the west left and right. Look at the clothes the characters in these movies wear. Am i to believe that India today has become so westernised that most females are going around in skimpy clothes?
I saw a movie some times ago. I am forgetting the name but the story was derived from Mahabharata. It was story of 2 brothers Arvasu and Parvasu and sages Raibhya and his blind brother. The real story was changed but the plot was very good. Why can`t bollywood make similar movies? Each little side story from Indian epics could be made into a movie.

There is literally no storyline in most movies. Bollywood has not experimented with serious themes (with some exceptions of course). Even when a movie was taken on that great character from Indian history viz Ashoka, it was with a love angle. Santhosh Sivam`s cinematography was breathtaking but his talent was wasted in that movie. Until a time when Bollywood can make serious movies like Benhur or Ten Commandments, it will not be taken seriously. South Indian director Mani Ratnam has been making better movies. One of his recent movies that i saw some months ago was ``Kannathil muththamittal`` (or Peck in the cheek), which was about a Srilankan girl who becomes a victim of Tamil militancy and is adopted by Indian parents. Nandita Das gave a sterling performance as a Tamil militant. That is the kind of movie i am talking about. Something that makes you sit up and take note. I will have to check out the one Anuradha is talking about (the one with Hritik Roshan). Most of the movies listed by Manto will not qualify as Bollywood movies. Most of those movies were by directors who are outside of Bollywood.
But despite all this, despite the fact that Bollywood songs are not of the same calibre as the Oldies, some movies are no doubt good. I saw a recent one by name Jhankar Beats, which i thought was hilarious with good music . Fun to watch.
Sridhar

Manto: There was a letter in Jang applauding the ban on Indian channels. The same author also asked for a ban on Pakistani channels such as Geo, the same you said actually present much more entertainment, because they spreas obscenity.

I think the author was maybe related to Asif Naqshbandi :)