of spice and mehndi

prologue - i was watching a UFC fight just now, and after a one fighter came back from a bad spot to seal a victory, the announcer in the heat of the moment described him as 'overcoming diversity.' i'm still chuckling at that, as we speak, metaphorically speaking.

and now for our feature presentation.

my first weekend back in cali i was looking for things to do such that i could truly expess my love for things done. i was wandering about fandango, checking to see if there was anything interesting playing, and i remembered that there's an indian movie theater across the bridge in fremont. i had only been to fremont once before, right around the end of school on a voyage to bombay gardens, my current favorite indian restaurant, now and forever. fremont is something of a mecca for south asians in the bay area, unless you're muslim, in which case i guess you have the mecca thing covered.

i had been curious about this theater for a little while, but back when school was going on i didn't really have time to seriously think about anything except neuroscience and pinworms. i'll recount the pinworm story in the future. its grotesque and hilarious. anywhey, right around (again) the end of school i got completely turned on to bollywood movies after seeing DDLJ in hindi class, but i left for dc/nj pretty soon after finals, so i didn't have anytime to indulge that sweet tooth. now that i was free of all academic, social, and geo-political baggage, it was time to rock.

and rock i have. in the past few weeks i've seen Paheli, Maine Pyar Kyun Kiya, Dus, Fida, Lakshya, and rewatched DDLJ. I downloaded Sarkar and will probably see Veer-Zaara and Mangal Pandey by this weekend. That's a crapload of movies (a crapload = 8 individual units)! Way more than the American movies I've been watching lately. I did see Hustle and Flow and the Aristocrats, which were both "friggin awesome" as the kids say. But besides that, Bombay has been providing me with rich, entertaining nourishment.

the question is "Why?" why art havve i forsouth thyne hollywoode movies? its honestly not some sort of cultural elitism, some strange new phase of my life where all of the sudden brown = good and white = bad. although for the record, brown does equal good.

just so you know.

in other words, its not that i suddenly think one form is better than another, as if indian cinema is superior to american cinema. i'm not about to complain about how dumb and simplistic american movies have become, because.. well i'll get it to it.

no, the shift is simply in what i'm looking for in movies these days - essentially how i want to be entertained. with bollywood movies (i can't speak on various other types of indian movies ie. tamil, telugu, etc) i would say that in general the charisma/popularity of the actors and the quality of the music and set pieces is on a scale equal to the quality of the given plot. certainly, bollywood has a bit of a reputation for overuse of archetypal stories and characters (love triangles, lovers torn apart by arranged marriage, strict/controlling fathers). and while i wouldn't simplify the matter into style over substance, it seems that with bollywood movies the story is often only as good as how it's told. and increasingly, i've become more interested in the how.

take the movie dus. it's action movie sort of along the lines of a tom clancy political-thinger crossed with uh. i dunno. die hard? something along those lines. and for all practical purposes, its honestly not very good. i don't want to use the big P word because you know i don't like to swear, but i have to say, its kinda poopy. it is. the plot makes no sense. terrorists want to blow up canada. why? no reason. who? some guy. where? canada. but how! the how is pretty cool. the music is great and the actors are stylin'. so while its not the greatest movie ever, i enjoyed the two and a half hours becuase i was paying attention to other things.

another example might be dilwale dulhania le jayenge. sure, you can rail on it for beings kinda cheesy and corny, but damn shah rukh khan friggin owns this movie. the dude is just so charismatic and hilarious in his expressions and delivery that it's a lot of fun to watch. and the music in the movie is simply lovely. so sure there's no sizzling original script but its a delightful and engaging experience on the strength of the people and the production. and that makes me happy.

two caveats. one, plot is still integral. an A-list movie with a shitty plot and average music will make for a crappy movie, and this happens plenty of times over in bombay: big budget movies that flop hard. movies with an awesome plot and low production values will still kick ass. no big surprises there.

second, i've sort of portrayed this phenomenon as uniquely bollywood, but plenty of american movies go for the style over substance thing as well, usually action movies. those movies usally end up really abysmal and unwatchable, however, at least to me. so again, what's the difference? i can't say for sure. i'm sure a significant part of it is that i can also zone out and listen to the language and feel like i'm learning, whereas watching a movie like armageddon you really feel like you're unlearning important things.

so that's quite a bit to consider, and at least begins to explain why i'm compelled to cross the bridge on the weekends. perhaps it would have been easier just to throw up a picture of rani mukherjee, and let my nonsensical rambling devolve into nonsensical babbling. you know how it is.

epilogue: i'm no longer chuckling about the UFC thing. becuase it's ten hours later. my internet connection has died, and with it, a small piece of my childhood.