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A Paean to Bollywood
Jan. 31st, 2012 07:41 amYou know what’s awesome? Bollywood movies. Okay, some of the specific movies are terrible (Dhoondte Reh Jaoge, Dil Se...), but the ones that are amazing are AMAZING BEYOND THE KEN OF MAN. Dostana! Wake up Sid! Dil Bole Hadippa! The last one includes the exclamation point within its very title, signalling that it is a festival of joy and light.
By American standards they can be over-the-top. But you know what else is over the top by American standards? Tropic Thunder. The Producers. Glee. All of which are amazing! Exaggerated the characters and the plots may be, but they’re exaggerated in the service
Glee and The Producers even share with Bollywood films the random song-and-dance number thing! Singing, dancing, bright colors, dramatic plots and happy endings: how are any of these bad things? It's like we feel bad that our entertainment is entertaining!
(And anyway there are Bollywood films that lack all of that. I recently watched one, The Blue Umbrella, which I thought was totally boring, but it's gathered critical acclaim so to each her own, I suppose.)
And it's nice to know at the outset that I will either LOVE or LOATHE the movie I'm about to watch. It feels like such a waste of time to watch a movie and feel lukewarm about it - that's TWO HOURS I'm never getting back!
Whereas if I watch a movie and it makes me SEETHE WITH RAGE, at least I can get a good journal entry about it.
By American standards they can be over-the-top. But you know what else is over the top by American standards? Tropic Thunder. The Producers. Glee. All of which are amazing! Exaggerated the characters and the plots may be, but they’re exaggerated in the service
Glee and The Producers even share with Bollywood films the random song-and-dance number thing! Singing, dancing, bright colors, dramatic plots and happy endings: how are any of these bad things? It's like we feel bad that our entertainment is entertaining!
(And anyway there are Bollywood films that lack all of that. I recently watched one, The Blue Umbrella, which I thought was totally boring, but it's gathered critical acclaim so to each her own, I suppose.)
And it's nice to know at the outset that I will either LOVE or LOATHE the movie I'm about to watch. It feels like such a waste of time to watch a movie and feel lukewarm about it - that's TWO HOURS I'm never getting back!
Whereas if I watch a movie and it makes me SEETHE WITH RAGE, at least I can get a good journal entry about it.
