Via BoingBoing, we find Bollycat, “the chronicle of plagiarism in India’s Bollywood movies”:
Bollywood, India’s movie industry, churns out over 800 flicks a year. But with all those numbers it’s hard for them to keep up with the creative work. So a lot of movies turn out to be ‘inspired by’ movies from all over, especially Hollywood. And at the rate they are going with good and hit movies, very soon we’ll be seeing a copy of “Plan 9 from Outer Space”.
Let me come right out and say it: Bollywood sucks. I’ve watched a few films, and they’re formulaic tripe. I know people who, in some hip, ironic way, really dig the Bollywood, but I can’t get into it.
That said, being something of a cinephile, it would’ve been great fun to put this site together. Check out, for example, “Hum Tum”, the Bollywood equivalent to “When Harry Met Sally”.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
I agree with you. Inspite of being born and grown up in India I have no problem in saying that Bollywood Sucks big Time. 90% of all their movies are crap, bullshit, trash, garbage, junk … They are copycats who not only copy from Hollywood films but Canadian, Australian, French, Spanish and even Chinese & Korean Films.
well i would agree with you – even though i’m indian and have been brought up on a diet of mindless bollywood flicks.. but the truth is their cinema’s changing immensely now.. they’re making really good movies and not all of them are hollywood copies.
besides – hollywood’s gettin into remaking and copying films big time too. check out king kong or the last kiss or the ring, which are all copies of foreign movies.
the truth is – india’s a developing country, they’re much too dependent on the money involved. when they make good movies although critics appreciate them but the audiences don’t and when they incur losses, get broke, they have no welfare money to back them up ofcourse.
u prolly haven’t seen any of the really authentic and good indian movies because they dint do so well and thus werent distributed abroad.
In any case, people’s mindsets are changing and bollywood is definitely the in thing.
I recommend watchin Monsoon Wedding and Paheli – 2 really ‘original’ movies that are quintessential bollywood.
Glad you liked Hum Tum..it’s adorable.
And sorry for the hu-uge comment..peace!
It is important to point out that Monsoon Wedding is far from quintessential Bollywood – being a no-song, little dance film – that is scarringly similar in subject and structure to the Dogma film Festen (Celebration) by Thomas Vinterberg which came out 3 years earlier.
Yep, Bollywood sucks big time. Not just the movies but the whole media circus it generates and the brainless fans who lap it up. I don’t get it all. Is the massive Inidan population so clueless!
Sigh… nice to get that off my chest. I have seen a couple of Tamil movies that I liked. Something more original there and culturally relevant. More focus on real life in India and Tamil Nadu than those crap HIndi films which romantacize everything. And I love the music of A.R. Rahman–how such genius can be associated with the likes of Bollywood escapes me?
I shouldn’t hold my breath, but I’m waiting for India to start producing cinematic masterpieces like China. They had their period of mindless, formulaic kung-fu crap, but it finally evolved into something really beautiful and artistic.
I could’nt agree with you more. being indian I have watched a lot of this tripe. Bollywood caters to an audience which is largely illiterate or barely litearate. Hence the bright colors, songs, simple plots, flat characters etc. The sad fact is that Indian cinema has been destroyed by Bollywood and its pandering to the lowest strata of taste.
thats why you don’t watch formulaic films…Watch Black Friday, Eklavya, Omkara, being cyrus, khosla ka ghosla and those types of indian films (I refuse to call it bollywood)…Bollywood is known for musicals and boy meets girl story lines but their is more to it than the stereotypical view. Things are changing. Films like kalyug, matrubhoomi and guru are also good.
1) Bollywood movies, in general, suck – they are formulaic, plotless, racist, nationalist, sexist, poorly produced and are largely based on or around ideas that writers have stolen from other movies.
2) The quality of the movie has nothing to do with making enough money to feed India. Bollywood is already rich – it’s just greed making movies now.
3) Yes there are some good movies made by bollywood, but the ratio is somwhere close to 100 bad movies to 1 good one. I’m not about to watch 101 movies so tht I can find the good one.
4) If bollywood wants to uplift its tacky image it needs to go back to the basics several decades ago, where commiting something to film cost money, required talent and didn’t need a song that transports the characters to switzerland every 2 minutes.
Yeah, being Indian and all that is good, but the music and film of my culture is absolutley horrible. I mean the music sounds all the fucking same and they have the same vocals but a different asshole. And don’t get me started on the films, they’re VERY VERY CHEESY. Unoriginal plot, it’s always boy meets girl, then they dance like fools on the street while some shitty song plays. Then a slight problem happens but they all get fucking back together. The humor sucks and it’s very cheesy, I mean they’re fucking over 20! What are they thinking!? They jokes would probably appeal to 5 year old children..
Couldn’t agree with you guys more.Although I’m not Indian(I’m from Romania actually) I can honestly say I’m fed up with what Bollywood has to offer.Because Romania used to be under communist rule western movies weren’t allowed in the cinemas hence came the Indian movies which people ironically watched because of what they considered to be “beautiful costumes,the singing and dancing”.
I once tried watching a Bollywood movie once but 10 minutes into it I felt like WTF is going on?????This makes absolutely no sense.
I’m not saying all Bollywood movies are crap,there might be one or two out there actually worth watching but sifting through a ton of garbage to get to an ounce of gold in not worth your while as far as I’m concerned.
BOLLYWOOD REALLY DOES SUCK!! THEY DONT EVEN REPRESENT INDIAN CULTURE BECAUSE INDIA IS SUCH A HUGE COUNTRY WITH OVER ONE BILLLION PEOPLE AND SO MANY DIFFERENT CULTURES AND LANGUAGES AND RELIGIONS. BOLLYWOOD MOVIES PROMOTE HINDU NATIONALISM AND ARE USUALLY RACIST AGAINST ANY NON-HINDUS LIKE MUSLMS, SIKHS, CHRISTIANS ETC. BOLLYWOOD SIMPLY SUCKS AND IN REALITY, INDIA IS SUCH A POOR NATION BUT THEY ARE ALWAYS DEPICTING IT AS IF ITS SO SPIRITUAL AND GLAMOROUS WHEN IN FACT, HALD THE NATION CANT EVEN AFFORD THE BASIC NEEDS. AND ALL THAT DANCINGG?? OMGG I WONT EVEN START ON THAT CRAP!
Bollywood really sucks. They are the best examples of crap, Melo Drama. Infact only the Hindi speaking crowd in india & abroad watches this shit. On the other hand i seen some folks comparing bollywood with hollywood i would say it’s foolish. Let’s compare bollywood with the kollywood, mollywood or tollywood they have the better stuff infact. Bollywood can never become hollywood & exceeding hollywood it s***s hard. No foreign would like to weatch this garbage. sharukh with his 6 packs abs sucks a lot. In india i can say bollywood is racist & fundamental & biased towards other great regional movies from kollywood etc.
I get so embarrased when someone mentions Bolloywood. I had the flu one time and my parents happen to be watching a cheesy, corny love story with all of the bolloywood cliches. I felt sicker then I originally had. I acutally went to the bathroom and threwup.
I’m Indian and can’t wait for the day when a new generation of creative young individuals will write and produce to at least stay competitive in this highly global entertainment business. One knucklehead defending Bolloywood said I should have some repect for the most produced genre of films. I said so is porn so what.
No excuse for not wanting quality movies. I dont buy the illiteracy crap. the films are in hindi arent they. Indians have to demand quality and I dont think they do. I can understand Indians in Indias falling for this nonsense, but what drive the people abroad to watch this mindless, insult to intelligence crap.
its not that bollywood sucks overall, it just really sucks right now. i used to watch all srk movies 5 or 6 years ago but for some reason its not the same anymore- the songs and dances are so lame now- u can harsly call them indian, the choreography is so PATHETIC PATHETIC had 2 say it twice for emphasis -take krazzy 4 for instance, and the new people suck bigtime!!!!!!!!!! i really hate srk’s hair right now had to say that its been annoying me for so long he looked WAY WAY WAY better before-someone fire his hairdresser, and get rid of all the stupid new ppl he’s been acting with all year. finally i got that off my chest- feel way better now
I”m a South Indian who used to watch Bollywood & least the regional movies here. But late until i’m 16 or 17 years odd then i realized that my intellect & creativity has gone down drsrtically. Since then now i’m 28 it’s been 11 years from now i stopped watching this Bollywood crap. In this mean time i watched many of the Hollywood, French & German movies & a typical western audience ( in india ) like me are thankful a lot to the western people. I some times feel weird that how come the bollywood movies currently have the stories like showing western people ( in abraod ) dances for the shitty bollywood music & the most funniest part is that the cuerrent bollywood is targeting the western audience. Western audience please beware of this Greatest Indian Shit!!!. Bollywood is the worst film Industry i’ve seen on the planet. Films from Tollywood , Kollywood shows real pictures in strories ( though many at times crap …… But i feel for the stories in india ( tollywood, kollywood especially movies from Kerala are good ). Any how i’m going to watch only the international movies & would make my children too as i want them to be intellectuals & not like S**t holes like the Bollywood audience in India & abroad ( 95% NRI’s ).
Hollywood & European Cinema : Pls maintain the record you have & bring in some more really good pictures as you laways do.
My sincere thanks to Mr.Darren ( you caould be my pal Mate …….
I hate Bollywood as well. Sure, there are some great films that come out of there (Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa, Raj Kapoor’s My Name is Joker, and Lagaan spring to mind), but overall, the films are even more contrite and formulaic than Hollywood chick flicks are. At least a chick flick runs around 2 hours or so. Bollywood takes around 3-4 hours.
I love long movies, but I always say “I love long movies, except Bollywood ones”.
yea i agree with what Hailallwestern_Indian says.There seems to be many categories of people here.those who watch bollywood crap knowing tht its crap but not accepting it.those who watch both b’wood and h’wood and like the latter etc etc.and the regional films are much better.they stick to their strengths(which is acting and not extravagant sets by the way) and many films have been critically acclaimed.as Hailallwestern_Indian says kerala films have been doing very well .but now they are heavily influenced by tamil and telugu films.take for instance the film ‘manichitrathazhu’ which was a movie almost perfect in all respects.but when the vultures from the other industries got wind of the success of this movie it was brutally murdered ,raped and humped by the tamil,hindi and other ****wood’s of the country.meanwhile there is a silent revolution //(wat do you think young people in colleges do in their free time which is all the time??watch previously unheard of movies with excellent ratings on imdb of course.there is a raging trade of movies (pirated,ripped etc) among the youth nowadays and the majority of the exchanged movies are from other countries) // in the country with regard to awareness of foreign films and its not hard to find people who u hardly expect to watch movies at all being fans of french,german and other films .so i guess unless bollywood pulls up its socks (which it seems to be doing)pretty soon,its going to lose out in the long run.
It’s true. Bollywood has little depth. But Indian cinema has another face where period movies are made. Movies with good intentions. It’ll take some time for bollywood to mature.
bollywood sucks, what more can you expect from a shitty country where people eat cowshit
bollywood=boring
bollywood sucks, what more can you expect from a shitty country where people eat cowshit
Inspite of being born and grown up in India I have no problem in saying that Bollywood Sucks big Time. 90% of all their movies are crap, bullshit, trash, garbage, junk … They are copycats who not only copy from Hollywood films but Canadian, Australian, French, Spanish and even Chinese & Korean Films.
That’s why you don’t watch the typical bollywood song and dance films….Watch films from the Indian parallel cinema or hindi language films that don’t have typical song and dance…Here are a few
A Wednesday
Mumbai Meri Jaan
Taare Zameen Par
Black Friday
Eklavya
Dor
Rang De Basanthi.
those are good Indian films…Ignore the bollywood masala stuff if that’s not what you like.
Well I was born in india and lived there for 13 years. I moved to canada around 6 years ago. I would agree with the OP that bollywood sucks… Its the same freaking thing over and over again. Everything ends with a wedding and song. I mean its all romantic comedies. Don’t get me wrong, I love good romantic comedies when done right. They always mess up big time with the overdramatic scenes, fake actors and baloney music.
Its interesting that the music suffers so much there, its all done in the same fucking scale with no creativity from other individuals, only a select few. India has been blessed with the extraordinary classical music scales/ragas, why are they degrading it? Western music goes from country types to the metal types, why don’t we have variety in india?
Problem is the country is run by a select few powerful people which pisses me off
I agree with Tan, Indian classical music is very complex and amazing, it’s such a shame that Indian film music is such crap. I hate Indian movies and tv shows with a passion.
bollywood music sucks bigtime…it has nothing to do with indian music
im punjabi and loved bhangra music, the intelligent creative stuff that came out of the minds of musicians based in UK,
but then bollywood teamed up with lame folk singers in punjab and lamer djs to give us folkhop, which is todays punjabi music, the kind you find in india, abroad (remixed by some dj) and in bollywood movies
they turned bhangra into a tacky folkfest
pure bullshitttttttttttttttt
This is sooo funny. So why is bollywood still acting blind after blogs and websites like this exist. Are they that stupid and stubborn to change and improve which they’ve been long overdue since 1990’s? I think it’s time the brown people In Canada, US and UK take down Bollywood which is such a disgrace and start making some real movies. SRK stupid name suks major, wat’s funny is I heard people in india celebrate his bday and treat these bad actors like gods. Get real bollywood you suck and its time to wake up from your nap. Slumdog killed box offices for a reason, it was REAL, unlike the illegally copied movies bollywood makes and the worse movies are the ones pulled out of the directors a**. STOP embarrassing us on the western part of the world.
hey everyone kinda late to post but who cares yea hate bollywood mostly low quality productions so in essence quantity dominates over quality I would say out of every 800 movies they make only 5 per cent are half decent if not decent at all I’d rather use that money to improve India’s infrastructure and all that
Bollywood’s success depends largely on ignorant people who need escapism. There are millions of such people in India who will gladly buy a ticket, and so there’s no impetus to improve, modify or re-think what can be achieved on screen.
Indians in the west feel repulsed by Bollywood, because it reminds them of what they hate about India, namely, the glorification of appearance over substance, and the apparent celebration of creative stagnation.
Bollywood sucks.
New Bollywood sucks!! I remember my parents (who were born in Nigeria) would state how they would line up to watch the latest movie from rekha, or hema malini, or dhamendra. The streets would be crowded with people trying to get into the movie theaters. However, sadly as time went on Bollywood has slowly integrated American culture and values. They thought flashy, more flesh, and less talent would be the driving force. However, Bollywood producers and directors forget that their tradition and the way they portrayed their love through song and dance was what made people memorized. That even when their action movies didn’t have all the glitz and glam it was the actors talent and passion. Bollywood exposed Indian culture that most people would never have the chance to see. Bollywood is a wonderful industry, however the road it is heading down it is not to soon that the flame that made them unique will soon be extinguished.
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