Is Bollywood Backsliding?
Last night I saw a Heyy Babyy mainly because I have seen great potential in actress Vidya Balan in previous films Parineeta and even her smaller role in Eklavya...granted it was meant to be 'light' entertainment, but it was the kind of film, I think that used to make Indians cringe when Westerners saw them:
Granted India's average age is much lower than ours, their market often includes illiterate/barely literate villagers, but I don't think this film was aimed at them - such films are usually much more family oriented. This was just bad, sophomoric crap, and even Vidya was flat and uninteresting. I sat there empathetic to that 'cringe' feeling many Indians probably get, since I have been not wont to praise Indian filmmaking in the past. Granted most films are duds for my finicky taste in both Hollywood and Bollywood, but there has not been, in my opinion one really worthwhile film since Lage Raho Munabi - Eklavya was ok - but not really the epic it wanted to be, Salaam e Ishque was about the biggest waste of talent I have ever seen, even the trying to be serious Guru - though it had a good soundtrack felt uninspired - after all, how interesting can a film be about a polyester manufacturer?
Was the brief period starting with oh Laagoon (even though I hated that, peppered by movies like Devdas, my beloved Parineeta, Veer Zara, Black and Swades and even fairly good comedies like Hum Tum, just a temporary bubble and not its back to bad business as usual? Let's hope not - there are too many good actors and actresses - like Vidya Balan, Khan(s) Shah Ruk, Saif, and composers like Raman and playback singers like Shreya Goshal, Alka Yagnik and so on.
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