Fair enough. I would encourage you to however watch movies by Bimal Roy, Gurudutt, Hrishikesh Mukerjee (lists can be found by doing a search). These were truly makers that cared about the tale they sought to tell. And they told it with great clarity and aesthetic. Its unfortunate that these guys last made movies at least 30 years ago.

Of the newer lot, there are some that dare to be different(i know a tired cliche), yet being the eternal Bollywood optimist, I say this.

Waise Bhi Hota Hai, Jhankaar Beats, Maqbool, Lagaan, Dil Chahta Hai are some of the better movies made in more recent times. It is also unfortunate that for the number of movies being churned out from the indian subcontinent, the number of memorables can be counted on fingertips. Blame it on audience tastes, lack of courage on the part of filmmakers, business reasons or whatever, but this is where things are. So most of us tend to sieve through the garbage and rejoice any nuggets we may find. 'We are like this only'

I think it's unfair to say that it is impossible to get an objective review of Hindi films from Indians.............I think a lot of the posters here are not in either of the camps that you have described. Personally speaking, I prefer to rate each film on it's individual merits.

I agree with you that the director's sloppiness, poor male acting, flamboyant wardrobe are amongst the things that make a bad film. A perfect example of the three mentioned above is Devdas - which you have said is one of the only decent films you have seen. Being a Bengali, I know exactly how sloppy the director has been, especially with the Bengali pronunciation in the film. Shahrukh Khan had far too many of his own mannerisms in the performance to ever be Devdas, and I don't think you would have ever found such expensive clothes in a Bengali household - especially that of a courtesan! Not to mention the fact that the film is a complete bastardisation of the original novel.

HMMM...No?

What exactly do you mean by poor male acting? I can agree if you said bad acting by some overrated stars, both male and female. May be we should import some talented male actors into India to act with the talented female actresses.

AARKAYNE: The old Bollywood movies are much better and more professionally made, but I'm mainly interested in contemporary Bollywood movies - especially ones made after year 2000, since most of the Bollywood films from 1970s to 1999 seem dated....Ive seen Laagan and Dil Chahta Hai: Laagan is good but way too long to ever watch again (it's got Dances with Wolves syndrome) and Dil Chahta Hai seems to be the main recent movie that intelligent young adult Indians relate to - a better than usual Bollywood story, but still seems typical and not quite good enough for non-Indian standards...and I've seen some of the North American Indian movies, which are of course different than Bollywood movies, but not in a good way since these have a totally amateurish production all-around. It seems that the only current Indian directors that have the potential to retain the essence of India, yet jump out of one-dimensional Indian movie-making mentality, and make original movies are Mira Nair and Gurinder Chadha. That's not saying much because it's a good chance that these two directors will still continue with chick-flicks (no action or sci-fi movies). There seem to be new Bollywood directors that are doing a tiny bit different storyline and believe that they are doing something groundbreaking - having lesbians, having kissing, having young man-old woman love story - but this is not groundbreaking, not original, etc. to anyone outside of India. An original film which would stray away from a country's typicalness is the type of film that Bollywood has yet to make - USA making Matrix, France making Brotherhood of the Wolf, Russia making Nochnoi Dozor (Night Watch), Poland making AVALON (although it's a Japanese production), Thailand making Tears of the Black Tiger, etc.. - basically movies non-typical of the country's style of movie-making. Where are those Indian filmmakers??? There aren't any so it seems...

BHASKAR: I would say that the people that post in here are obsessed with DVDs, just like me, and may spend too much money on DVDs we don't actually need! ....even with DEVDAS's flaws and Sharuk Khan's personality, I think that DEVDAS is the best typical Bollywood movie in recent times

SPIKE86: The Indian actresses are much better than the Indian actors in Bollywood movies. The Indian actresses, most of them, do a much better job of "acting" than their male counterparts. The only really bad actress that I have seen is the actress in MURDER. Even Bipasha Basu has some acting potential...But the male actors, on the contrary, are over-acting amateurs...there are very few - Sanjay Dutt, Amitabh Bachchan, Ajay Devgan - to name a few, could handle some more intelligent and better written movies. But they aren't getting any...

I was unaware of DHOOP (Om Puri) film/ TV-drama until I watched the tail end of its TV broadcast today. Is it a film or a TV movie ?? It sure is great for Home Video. IMHO, Dhoop is even better than Kabzaa.

The following is not really a spoiler but I'd like to pose a question:

What should be the punishment when caught demanding bribe ??
Lose your job, that gets you may be a few thousands of rupees yearly where as you already made crores of rupees from bribes ??

The punishment should be on similar lines as for people caught travelling without tickets on Punjab Roadways buses:
1) Fine equal to 10 times the amount demanded as bribe
Also:
2) Mandatory non-bailable jail service of one week per thousand demanded as bribe
3) Removal from job