Looking back at Bollywood in Posters

Excerpted from Bollywood in Posters (Rs 2500) by SMM Ausaja, published by Om Books International, with the publisher's permission.

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In-Flight Movies Abhishek and Aishwarya should not watch

Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai are currently not acting. This comes as no surprise to anyone, because that’s not something they really ever do. To be more specific, they’re not acting because they’re out on vacation, celebrating their wedding anniversary. Wherever they’re flying to, here’s a bunch of movies we hope they aren’t showing on the in-flight entertainment system;


Sholay
Because it stars Amitabh Bachchan, which will remind Abhishek that really, there’s only one real actor in the Bachchan family, and history shows that suicidal men are dangerous on airplanes.





Prince
Because it stars Aishwarya’s ex-flame, Viviek Oberoi and that might make her uncomfortable. Well that, plus it’s a really shitty film.







Pink Panther 2
Because Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan is in it. And nobody should have to watch an Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan movie. Not even Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan.








Kuch Naa Kaho
Because both Abhishek and Aishwarya are in it. If they watch it, they’ll notice the utter lack of chemistry between them, and they’ll re-evaluate their entire marriage as a result.








Dostana
Abhishek and John make a better pair than Abhishek and Priyanka Chopra. So wait, Abhishek and a dude make a better pair than Abhishek and a former Miss World? Oh. Wait.


If you think this is a funny (in a mean kind of way) piece, you can find more HERE

IMITATION: THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY

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I saw Ramesh Sippy's Sholay, the 1975 Bollywood classic, for the first time this weekend, and I couldn't help but be struck by the wholesale ripoff of the "McBain family massacre" sequence from Sergio Leone's 1968 Once Upon A Time in the West during Thakur Singh's second major flashback sequence. It's not just "shades" of Leone's masterful, horrible scene, as Dinesh Raheja suggests in this recent appreciation of Sholay, but an utter, shameless copycat. Granted, it didn't seem outrageous once you'd sat through the broad but hilarious take-off of Chaplin's Great Dictator during the prison scenes - but it was hardly a subtle homage.

Stealing plots is apparently a venerable tradition in Hindi cinema, and it continues to this day, as this Guardian article details. Two major Indian releases - Awara Paagal Deeweena and Raaz - apparently bear more than passing similarity to, respectively, The Whole Nine Yards and What Lies Beneath. An unreleased film, Kaante, apparently bears more than a passing resemblance to Reservoir Dogs. Actually, I'd love to see a Bollywood version of Tarantino, and from what I know about the director, I think Tarantino would be delighted and flattered.

While some Indian directors regard the practice of copycat filmmaking as shameful and ultimately destructive to Indian cinema, Raaz director Vikram Bhatt responded slyly to the accusations: "Once you understand and accept that an idea has existed before you did, then you look at the whole aspect of 'copying' in a different light." An amazingly witty comeback, and one that manages to combine postmodernism and reincarnation in one seamless, cynical sentence.