dang, was i the only one taking this guy seriously? i should've known his arguments were too shabby to merit a response...

At least you tell him what we think.

The majority of Bollywood movies still suck. Why should I give the Indian film industry any credit? You see what is released each week. It's 99.9998 percent crap. I have watched a lot less since being disappointed too often with them. This doesn't mean I should stop watching them. I'm interested in politics eventhough G. W Bush and media are annoying.

I enjoy watching Bollywood movies, eventhough I know they suck. There is a term for that - it's called bad taste. And I have bad taste. And a lot of you should not be in denial that the fans of Bollywood movies have bad taste.


By the way, thank you for that website INDIA FM. No review higher than a 3 sounds pretty objective to me...

Welcome (again ?) toddly6666 - first of let me acknowledge the fact that bollywood ( and all its regional subsidiaries ) excel at making crappy films , its as if directors went to "Idiot school of Film Making "

You are right out of 950 films prob 5 films are good ( each year) and hence keeping the "good" film percentage @ 0.5 % ( prob the lowest in the world).

Infact i am going to give you extra credits for pointing out that "we" Indians have bad tastes (when compared with rest-of-the-world 'standard'), as much as others disagree let me acknowledge that across the broad spectrum of cinema-land , we prob have the poorest sense to judge/read a film .

On all these accounts i give you full points, but unfortunately there is only "so much" a white American can understand about the "Indian culture" - assuming your are just a film enthusiast not an anthropologist.

We are a nation that comprises of over 1 billion people with a mixed ethnicity, religion and a deep-rooted cultural heritage. My friend to pass judgment on the "common" taste of Indian people without fully understanding the 'culture' is naive at best and immature at worst - sorry that’s the truth.

I hope you understand that watching films in India is a totally different experience than watching film in the west, to apply the same "rules" is just not correct. Legendary Indian director Satyajit Ray - laughed off the critical acclaim he was getting from the west for his film Charulata - he was "least" interested in the west's interest but was rather looking forward to his fellow comrades to understand and appreciate his work. His explanation was only a "Bengali" can really understand the nuances of the lead character and trust me even after watching it multiple times lot of the “meaning” was just "lost in translation"

The simple way to explain the “difference” between east/west is that in the west the camera is seen as a logical “extension” of the photograph and hence inherently realistic in nature whereas in the east, cinema is seen as a ‘child’ of the theater and hence drama-based - a notion that supports over-the-top antics and the two dimensional character representation often found in bollywood.

So here is my request - as much as we welcome a "foreign" review, DO NOT pass judgment on an entire "race" of film watchers. What bothers me is not your "+ve objective review " of anniyan but the so called INDIAN and NON-INDIAN rating system. Instead simply say why you liked it as an American and defend your thoughts.

I am always "open" to the other view point ( and i am sure lot of folks on zulm do the same) but please keep it non-racial

Thanks

BTW - in case you are wondering , i thought Anniyan sucked and here is my

http://zulm.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7859&start=30


I really wanted to enjoy this one but either shankar or the DVD failed me and i think i am going to put the blame on shankar - i think in this case both the content and style took a beating.

Shankar's films are usually psuedo-socialist a.ka. he starts of with an interesting premise and spins a story around it. ANNIYAN is no different and hence it "starts" to intrigue you - the key difference between INDIAN and ANNIYAN is that in the later he focuses the blame on the 'common' man instead of the bureaucrats - a welcome thought I think. But thats where ANNIYANs strength stops unfortunately Sad , the execution is lacking thoroughly

- Improper song placement and bad BGM ( it sucked !)
- Fight sequences were out-of-synch (the big 'kung-fu' sequence is a waste i think) serves no purpose, the characters don’t "need" the scenes but rather they "run-into-them"
- the interrogation with prakash raj reminds me of the Indian scenes ( with father son)
- the way police appear as "normal" folks warrants an explanation - they say they want to mingle with the crowd but from what i remember they dont talk with even a single commoner !
- huge plot holes ( esp. ANNIYAN/AMBI receiving such media publicity , seems to be ignored after he gets released from the mental institute)

I can prob list numerous such thing that caused failure in my eyes but it think the biggest failure of ANNIYAN is not the "questions" it raises but the "solutions" it provides - we all know 'problem' exists in society and would welcome a more sensible solution to it. unfortunately shankar's solution relies on "fear" , he seems to expect that "fear" will control society, which I cannot accept. I think shankar is deeply mistaken on the social-framework on which societies are built - fear merely leads to hatred not social order .

Here’s hoping some-one-out-there gives a more sensible rendition of social problems and more importantly possible solutions to it.

And here's hoping for a better version of the DVD

DVDISOIL:

That's why I gave it ANNIYAN two grades, because I know a crappy Bollywood film is appreciated more in India than elsewhere - you just explained my main point of why I gave two separate reviews. I also did the politically-incorrect separations to get some good postings going. You do know that this Zulm forum has been pretty boring the past months. I do the same thing in other forums when things get slow...It's all about entertainment!

Remember:
1. A good movie from any country is considered good by anyone, regardless of difference of culture. I understand the style of a bollywood film and who goes to the theater to see it in India. You don't have to explain it to me. I've had it explained to me many times by my Indian friends. That has nothing to do with a movie still being poor. Anyone that uses the "different culture excuse" for rationalizing the purpose of the amatuerness of a Bollywood movie is deeply mistaken. I've seen countless movies from other countries which have a totally different and/or mystifying culture (Iran, Africa, for example), but they are good polished movies!

2. A Bollywood movie may be considered good in India, but not elsewhere...

It's simple as that...that's all I meant to say. I'm not trying to be a rascist British colonist. I like Bollywood movies eventhough they suck, just as I love the Mets and they suck. I loved them in the beginning, when I was in my "let's check out mainstream movies from other country" phase. And after a while of watching many of them, I became disappointed in them when I started watching Bollywood movies as normal movies. There is nothing wrong with a movie that is 3 hours, has drama and comedy, and is a musical - it's how it is sloppily done and not polished once released into the theaters that disappoints me. It's very flattering of you the way you interepret Bollywood films as "eyes of a child" filmmaking. I'm sorry but i've seen good movies with slapstick and over-the-top acting and it's done well. The "eyes of a child" filmmaking theory is also probably made aware by Bollywood filmmakers. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. They think that the audience wants crap and they make it for them, when in fact they may have potential to make a good movie. It's very sad....

3. I have no criticism of non-Bollywood films. There are many good films from India that aren't Bollywood.

4. A lot of the Bollywood films considered family films, in which you can take your whole family to see, have some serious violence in them. So it's almost the same standard as Hollywood films. It's okay to take your kids to see a violent movie, but a sexy movie is evil...That's a problem in India and USA censors....

None? Not one?

My point is what gives you the "moral authority" ( if i may use the word) to give these different rating system ??, what is that you know about the "Indian folks" to actually recommend one of their own products - I am really curios to hear it .

In addition - would you be rating movies from other countries similarly or is it only bollywood ?




I can only agree to a certain extent - i always divide movies into bad/average/good/great and among this lot, only GREAT movies and BAD movies can be universally recognized ( atleast most of them) , the rest really depends on "who" , "how" and "when" a person sees it. For case of this discussion i am going to restrict myself to "good" movies only ( i will not defend a bad movie and just don’t want to talk about it - i hope you agree with it also)

So as an exercise how you would rate the following ( both for Indians and non-Indians)

- Rangeela
- Daud
- Bhoot
- Paheli
- Darna Mana Hai
- Dil Chata Hai ( esp. this one - i want to see how you rate it for indians /non-indians)



I hope you understand the same thing works in reverse irrespective of the country . Point-in-case Fargo ( which btw i love) is simply not appreciated in india , so are films from Jarmuch, Croenberg, David Lynch etc. That doesn’t mean that the film is bad or the audience idiots - so how do you explain this ? . In the same fashion indian people just seem to love Titanic – now do you think that’s a great movie ??

I dont know how much you know about india - but back home folks often refer to the cinema experience as "time pass" <-- do you know what that means ? , have you ever used this term to explain your movie watching experience ?? - prob not , but ask any of your indian friends as to what is a "time pass movie" and you will get a smile and more importantly an answer, Unfortunately thats how most of audience see it.

Now who are the audience and why are so many “crappy” movies churned out again and again ?? – well one of the reason is that in india more people between 15-25 see movies than between say 25-65 , now what do you think a teenager and/or adolescent guy/girl will like - prob stuff that is equivalent to "Britney spear of movies " and statistics has it that there are about 330 million people ( more than US population !) who are in that age group . Now it doesnot take a rocket scientist to add these number up – all you need is an idiot who can operate a camera and wholla you have movie that has a reach of millions – now that’s a very interesting prospect from a business perscpective – don’t you think ?

Secondly the other group that sees movies are poor people ( with < 300 $ per capita income ! ) – do you think they have the time or energy to demand better movies, they are worried about tommrow’s meal than today movie. They are glad that they “saw” something on the screen that made them laugh. cry and sing all at the same time for < $0.25 $

Now the biggest culprits are the pseudo intellectuals ( usually the middle class in India) – they really don’t care , I mean they will complain all they want (including myself) but will not take a single step towards actually making it happen. They are happy to get good meal, education etc. – to the middle class Indian watching a movie is like taking a shit , they are glad they did it but will complain about the smell ! .



Well I consider US censorship to be primitive also but explaining censorship in India is a topic on its own and I will pass on that.

I'm sure there are many creative directors/actors/music directors everywhere in India, its just that because of nepotism and politics they don't get chances to make it to the big level.

Like Anurag Kashyap

DVDISOIL, well you seem to be a fan of Ram Gopal Varma - I praise him for doing stuff differently, but his different-from-the India norm films are still fair....


Bhoot: 6 out of 10 for non-Indians, because it's nothing special cliched horror flick...There are countless of cult classic horror movies from many countries which are loved by tons of fans of the genre, but Bhoot would be nothing to them...
8 out of 10 for Indians, since it's a mainstream pop movie that strays from the India film norm of not being a Bollywood film - it has no music, it is short, and it's dealing with the horror genre. So, it's good for India since it's being different.

Rangeela: 7 out of 10 for non-Indians, it's an entertaining and well-filmed Bollywood, but nothing special
I guess 8 or 9 out of 10 for Indians, it's a nice movie

Daud: 7 out of 10 for non-Indians, but I like Sanjay Dutt - he's my favorite Bollywood actor, so i have trouble being objective with his movies.
7 out of 10 for Indians....just a fair entertaining action movie

Darna Mana Hai: 8 out of 10 for Indians, since it's another different and original horror type film...change is good!
7 out of 10 for non-Indians...just another typical horror/fantasy film that's been done many times....

Paheli: ya know, Im surprised I totally forgot about this movie actually, I would say 8 out of 10 for non-Indians and 9 for Indians...Farah Khan is great..i forgot to mention her in my favorites in Bollywood. Although I didn't buy Sharu Khan in this movie, I still like him a lot more than pre-Devdas times. The less cocky and obnoxious he acts, the better...

And now Dil Chata Hai, the mother of them! The movie of the generation X of India! The bollywood movie that all Tweens and Thirty-year old Indians can finally relate to. It's a good movie...once. It's one of the few relationship stories that I like out of the Bollywood flicks. But I feel it's worth watching only once, and plus, I wasn't too crazy about any of the music scenes. I go to my shittiest Bollywood movies on DVD just to watch good music scenes, but I unfortunately can't go to any music scene of Dil Chata Hai. Very well done polished movie for India. It sort of reminds me of the Chasing Amy/Swingers of India, but it's only good watching once.
10 out of 10 stars for Indians.
8 out of 10 for non-Indians.


So, there ya have it, you listed some well-done Bollywood movies and a few mainstream non-bollywood flicks, but nothing that special for the rest of the world...Out of your list there, the only good movies which are still good (due to the fact that movies get dated fast. When movies get dated - it proves whether a movie is truly good or not, are DIL CHATA HAI and PAHELI.

Where are the filmmakers that represent the normal class - the intellectuals? It shouldn't be separated into either Bollywood or art-house. Where is the middle ground - In India, there must be a Darren Aronofsky, Richard Kelly, Bryan Singer, David Fincher, Christopher Gans, Kevin Smith, Judd Apetow...where are the stylish wierd directors in India? Any Terry Gilliams, Jeuneut, Lynch, Cronenberg, Burton?? There are directors in other countries that are similar to different genres. But where are they in India? There can be any type of genre existing in a country that can exist to the masses. All the stylish and wierd directors I mentioned have done obscure movies not made for the masses, and they have made movies for the masses. So, once again, I don't want to hear the excuse of "Indians go for this type of movie only." There have been countless of creative/great movies in a country that flop and make no money due to the low-taste masses, but they still make the movies. So where & who are they in India?

That's what I'd like to know.

And I found your review of Bhoot rather generous...

Suketu Mehta's "Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found" has an interesting section dealing with VVC'S Mission Kashmir (which Mehta co-wrote). it talks about how they had to dumb down the screenplay and make compromises (like including that fantasy sequence at the end) to allow the film to have a chance at being a box-office success. it mentioned that VVC's previous film to MK (Kareeb) bombed at the box-office and he felt in danger of not being able to direct another film. i'm not exactly sure how this relates but...i thought it was interesting.

also, the book mentions that VVC punched out a famous film critic who panned MK, after that critic made a rude comment to VVC's wife. Khalid Mohammed?

Any response to this one ??



Any response to this one ??




Am i missing something or your ratings between "indian" and "non-indian" really not that much different ?? - i mean most of the movies you have rated seems to be only marginally different and an one point difference is really a subjective one rather than an objective one ( atleast i think so )

btw i am not a "big" fan of RGV but merely selected from his filmography because he prob touches on the most wide variety of genres in india.



I really dont have an answer for that - i just hope they exist "somewhere" and that its only a matter of time before we find them

DVDISOIL:

I'm sorry i didn't answer your questions before:

You said:
My point is what gives you the "moral authority" ( if i may use the word) to give these different rating system ??, what is that you know about the "Indian folks" to actually recommend one of their own products - I am really curios to hear it .
In addition - would you be rating movies from other countries similarly or is it only bollywood?


Well, I do review a lot of Chinese, Hong Kong, Japanese, Thai, and some European films. And yes I do the same thing sometimes...There was a new movie last year in Russia called NIGHT WATCH. And it's a huge special effect science fiction/fantasy/action movie. I wrote for non-Russians that it is an awsome movie as is, because usually Russian movies are amateurish, dreary, non-commercial and focus on misery - it was at a level that everyone interested in the genre can enjoy. And for Russians, it's a huger movie because it brings back Russia Cinema to the top of its game because Russian film industry has been dead since the 1970s...so I do the comparisons once in a while...I would say Russia and India are not third world countries but they are developing countries and they both have similar movie history. Both countries had great movie industry with good movies pre-1980s...

You said:
I hope you understand the same thing works in reverse irrespective of the country . Point-in-case Fargo ( which btw i love) is simply not appreciated in india , so are films from Jarmuch, Croenberg, David Lynch etc. That doesn’t mean that the film is bad or the audience idiots - so how do you explain this ? . In the same fashion indian people just seem to love Titanic – now do you think that’s a great movie ??

Doesn't matter, Fargo and Titanic are both great movies - I love both. Both are samples of good filmmaking. My objectivity issues deal more about a film being obviously "amateurish, incomplete, not edited or finished, poor acting, story all over the place, not directed well, filler." It's not that Indians may think Fargo is a bad movie, it's because they don't get it or connect to it. They will not see those two movies as poorly made movies.
The same can't be the same for a movie like Khakee. It's not that the non-Indian audience doesn't get it, it's that the movie actually sucks. There is nothing not to get in bollywood movies - they are universally understood. There is nothing vague, obscure, or complex in them as in a Lynch, Jarmush, Croenenberg film. A typical Bollywood movie is a perfect example of a poorly made movie made by a filmmaker just out of film school, eager to get his product out, instead of polishing it. A Bollywood movie can be universally seen as an amatuerish production. Indians may Fargo, but there is no way that they could say that it's an amateurishly made movie...

You Said:
Am i missing something or your ratings between "indian" and "non-indian" really not that much different ?? - i mean most of the movies you have rated seems to be only marginally different and an one point difference is really a subjective one rather than an objective one ( atleast i think so )


The margin is close because you just listed some of the few decent Bollywood movies out of the thousands. If you listed movies like ANDAAZ, KHAKEE, SHAKTI, NO ENTRY, etc...you would see the big margin: 8 for Indians, and 5 for non-Indians...

First off "toddly6666" - let me acknowledge the fact that the more i discuss with you the less and less you sound like a foreigner, but rather more like a frustrated Indian cinephile - i really don’t find a difference between your viewpoint and mine . So what this does is puts me in a situation where i am "defending" the very trait of bollywood cinema that i "oppose" !

I mean you want me to list ANDAAZ, KHAKEE, SHAKTI, NO ENTRY, etc - there is NO way i will do that, for its those very movies i/we are fighting against

Let me be honest and say that the first time i saw your "Indian" and "non-Indian" rating it rubbed me the wrong way ( perhaps others felt like that also) but then I am realizing that you meant it well, all your are doing is critizing a system thats fatally flawed - while you critic it from outside , we do it from inside and any +ve criticism should be acknowledge ( i just hope our film-guys are reading this !)

That said here are my responses




Thats a very interesting point - i always considered indian film industry to be a shadow of the Russian system ( atleast during its hey days) , i mean serious film directors in india regarded Sergi Eisenstein at a much higher esteem than Griffith and you could see that in films from Bengal and kerla .

I guess you have two different rating system and you have your own rational for it – though I don’t agree with it nevertheless I will have to respect it. My problem is not with the way you rate bad/stupid movies but how you would rate "good" / "great" movie, from what i see you pretty much rate them like an indian ( except a few anomalies - BHOOT and Paheli ) and hence imo the dual rating system is redundant for most parts at least .

Coming back to your original post - Anniyan is really a bad film ( just to confirm i watched that movie yesterday - in my regards I still think its a total "time waste" ) but you seem to think that its a good movie and an even better movie for Indians and that baffles me. But then it hit me - i did the same thing for the Korean Flick "Save the green Planet" , which my Korean friend thought was the "worst" film of the year while i thought it was a very good and more importantly "fun" film ! , perhaps its the very same difference-in-opinion that me and my Korean friend have that we now share with Anniyan – I guess my indian eyes saw it differently than your American eyes.

Perhaps this is a very personal thing but I would be very hesitant or at least feel awkward to “recommend” say a Korean film to a Korean or Iranian film to an Iranian and even an American film to an American – at that was my point !

It would be interesting to see your review of the Tamil film Khadal. In addition i would like to checkout ( i know these are old flicks but i dont have a contemporary example !)

- Pyaasa ( imo prob the most Indian of bollywood films )
- Ardh Satya
- Charutlata
- Cloud Capped Star