Bollywood@2009
Late 80s and 90s was the worst time for Indian cinema. Indian movies lost the idea of having a theme in it. People like Salman Khan, Govinda, Shahrukh khan, Sanjay Dutt, Sunny Deol became top actors. Most of them didn’t have any clue of acting. Shahrukh who ruled the industry for some time was merely a joke as far as serious acting is concerned. I do like Shahrukh Khan’s movies, but thats just because its usually a light movie, not because it has some nice theme, or nice acting. People like Naseeruddin Shah, Nana Patekar, Amitabh Bachchan, Shabaana Aazmi were missed. Songs were made basic necessity. Old movies used to have songs as well, but they didn’t come out of blue. Those songs used to move the movie forward. But songs like Kurta Phaad Ke were there for no good reason.
I see a new trend in Indian cinema now. Actors like Kay Kay, Irfan Khan, Rahul Bose, Konkana Sen are proper actors. Their movies may not be “commercial” movies as such, but their movies always have a theme, and more importantly a serious acting. These actors make me like Indian Cinema again.
Update : I have talking about Bollywood, not Indian Cinema as such. Apologies for mixing the terms. Bollywood means just Hindi/English movies, not south/east indian movies. I do not know much about South/East Indian movies.
Yo. Cool work on the website btw.
Regarding movies in the South:
Kannada movies: Crapware, mostly. The music sounds like what Tamil movies did 5-10 years ago.
Telugu movies: Crapware, usually. They have movie ads instead of product ads in TVs filling during the commercial breaks. Plenty of them are junk anyway.
Malayalam movies: Some of them are good. Note that most Indian movies that manage to get International recognition for being genuinely *good* (art-sense or for simply being a good film) are Bengali and Malayali. Common themes such as the modern-day, independent woman is a welcome theme which seem to complement the mature Keralite-society.
Tamil movies: I don’t know. No comments. >_>
But, yeah. Rare gems from our country’s film scene are rare.
Thanks!
For Malayalam movies, are you talking in terms on percentage or actual numbers? I thought a lot of South/East Indian movies would be good considering they always win the national awards.(in numbers not in percentage)
Number or percentage? Unsure :/
All I _can_ say is that the average Malayali film tends to be rather mature compared to the nonsense the neighbouring states churn out one after the other.
@Naresh V
Got it
Looks like you haven’t watched Ghatak, Ghayal and Damini. These are three awesome movies among many many more of Sunny Deol and they DID have a theme.
I never liked Sunny Deol. The movie Damini was decent, but as actor Sunny Deol never appealed to me. I wouldn’t include him in Govinda category because he didn’t act cheap, but he didn’t act as well. Fighting is not acting.
Hehe. Define acting D:
There’s a “good” comedy actor, a villain, a rebel, a lover and so on. And specific actors are said to excel as one or more of them. Sunny Deol and there’s this one actor in the Telugu industry who puts up a similar act – appear all covered with blood and put up a ultra-butthurt serious face whenever his sister or someone close is raped by the villain. And, ya, often these “sister”s of the hero is solely there in the movie to get raped. There. Popular Indian cinema D:
Agreed. Thats what Sunny Deol is all about. He pulls hand pump from ground because his wife is kidnapped.
Cinema at its best was the time when films had a meaning well the golden period is passed in oblivion.
I wouldn’t go that far. I still see some hope in Indian Cinema. I find most of the Konkena Sen and Rahul Bose movies having some meaning.
@rohitj
You didn’t start your post with what you like and what you don’t. Your post declares that Sunny Deol was a bad actor, something that a very big majority of people will disagree with. And yes I’m not talking about fighting either. Thats a separate attribute, I’m talking of acting. If you’ll see carefully the intensity he brings to the scences of anger and despair, I’m sure you’ll change your opinion.
@anon
So you agree that Sunny Deol is all about fighting scenes/fighting emotions.