Bollywood
"Bollywood" means Indian movies. It rhymes with "Hollywood," get it?
Evidently India churns out movies faster than Medicare churns out policy corrections. (For those of you out of the Medicare loop, that's very, very fast.) 1,000 movies a year, they say. That works out to roughly three movies a day, according to my space-age calculator. While that might seem impossible, I have to vouch for it: The Indian movie theater next to my office shows three movies at a time, and they change the lineup every day.
How on earth can they make so many movies? The answer is that they do exactly what Hollywood does: They make the same movie over and over. I love looking at the billboards for these movies as they come and go. The Hindi titles are meaningless to me, and yet it's so painfully obvious what each movie is about. Here's what I mean:
"Shaadi Karke Phasgaya Yaar": Sweetheart girl-next-door falls for dangerous guy who doesn't play by the rules!
"Elaan": Group of hot young devil-may-care warriors battles evil super genius!
"Swades": One charismatic teacher refuses to give up on disadvantaged students/sports team/prison group!
Also, just so you know, Bollywood is just the tip of the iceberg. There's Tollywood (Tehran) and Lollywood (Lahore, Pakistan). And of course, Dubai is aspiring to be Dollywood. Google even informs me that there is a Mollywood and a Kollywood, but honestly, I think they're only doing it to seem cool, like Tehran.
Evidently India churns out movies faster than Medicare churns out policy corrections. (For those of you out of the Medicare loop, that's very, very fast.) 1,000 movies a year, they say. That works out to roughly three movies a day, according to my space-age calculator. While that might seem impossible, I have to vouch for it: The Indian movie theater next to my office shows three movies at a time, and they change the lineup every day.
How on earth can they make so many movies? The answer is that they do exactly what Hollywood does: They make the same movie over and over. I love looking at the billboards for these movies as they come and go. The Hindi titles are meaningless to me, and yet it's so painfully obvious what each movie is about. Here's what I mean:
"Shaadi Karke Phasgaya Yaar": Sweetheart girl-next-door falls for dangerous guy who doesn't play by the rules!
"Elaan": Group of hot young devil-may-care warriors battles evil super genius!
"Swades": One charismatic teacher refuses to give up on disadvantaged students/sports team/prison group!
Also, just so you know, Bollywood is just the tip of the iceberg. There's Tollywood (Tehran) and Lollywood (Lahore, Pakistan). And of course, Dubai is aspiring to be Dollywood. Google even informs me that there is a Mollywood and a Kollywood, but honestly, I think they're only doing it to seem cool, like Tehran.
posted by Eric at 6:42 AM
2 Comments:
I'm still waiting for the independent film called "Monetize This!"
Production is held up on that movie because in addition to paying for admission to the theater, there is to be an additional $5 charge to see the last 10 minutes.
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