Shoot The Messenger ????

Well you see the producers have veered to the opinion that their movies are flopping because the media writes bad reviews about their movies. And due to this the poor oh so gullible audience stay away from their movies. What a great piece of reasoning being done here. It is like telling the doctor is at fault since he has admonished you for not taking care of your health, or the cop is at fault for catching you committing a crime. It would be very funny, but the point is the producer´s, director and star´s attitude that their movies should not be criticized smacks of arrogance and high handedness. It´s the job of the reviewer to take a critical look at the movie. It´s not my contention that the film media is entirely blameless. Many of them shamelessly promote their favorite stars and actors, and objectivity is missing. Half-truths, lies and poor quality of research is the hallmark of many movie magazines, which have turned into the unofficial PR agents of the stars. In fact there are some worthies who predict whether a movie would be a hit or not. Compared to reviewers in US, who analyze a movie from top to bottom and are very critical, the reviewers back home are much more benign. But that´s not the point here. What these people forget is we are living in a democracy where we have the freedom of speech, and everyone has a right to express their views however objectionable they may be. What the producers seem to be missing out on is the fact that most of the movies coming out from Bollywood are rotten to the core, and they would have flopped at the box office, good reviews or bad reviews. It is this they should be analyzing.

The hard and honest truth is Bollywood has been producing junk in large quantities recently that it stinks from top to bottom. Instead of attempting to clean up the junk, and set their house in order, they are asking the people who point out this fact to shut up. Sure the people will shut up, but what Bollywood doesn´t seem to realize that unless it starts pulling up its socks and get its act together nothing can save it. The whole attitude of Bollywood reminds me of the old Hindi proverb ´Naach Na Aave Aangan Teda´ (I cant dance since the floor is not straight). So unless Bollywood comes around to recognize the fact that the people here are fed up with the usual trash being churned out every Friday, no amount of good reviews and PR work will help.

http://www.planetbollywood.com/Features ... 82833.html

:vsneaky:



Edited By arsh on July 08 2002 at 12:12

Well if it stops copy many films from South Indian cinema (which is too melodramatic for universal audiences) and follows the path of originality and quality screenplays (Company, Chandi Bar, Sarforosh, Lagaan) then it has a good chance of making more brillient films audiences would want to see!

They assume that because a regional South Indian film is a hit that it would work on a national-international scale. This is not the case. Regional films are made to cater the needs of its own minor community. Majority of them are social films and act as bias/properganda messages to keep thier culture alive.

When the Hindi films adopt them and re-hash them into big budget features you are left with a film that has seven songs, and an empty screenplay which forgets the original messgae of the film which might not appeal to much wider and more metropolitain audiences anyway.