Thoughts

Just a few random thoughts:

1) Remember just a week back I did an overexcited post on X-Men: First Class? Well, I am much less excited now because it seems that Mathew Vaughn or Marvel Comics or whoever it is in charge of advertising the film has lost their marbles. I mean the whole film is practically out in little video clips on Youtube... or atleast all the fun action bits are. I don't understand, why would they do that? And not just X-Men, but also Hangover 2, Kung Fu Panda 2 etc. I have only been watching the X-Men stuff so that I don't feel cheated out of my movie-going experience for the rest as well (also because of my less enthusiasm for them). Just now I saw that this year's Palme d'Or-winning Tree of Life also has clips out, except that sort-of makes sense because of the type of film it is and the demographic it appeals to. It definitely is not a film that can be understood in a few clips, and it won't be watched by everyone and that actually makes it a clever advertising strategy. But it's a very rare exception.

2) I was reading this Q&A post at Anomalous Material and the comments made me feel a bit...well bad, that people really don't like Bollywood. This is a surprising thing for me because I am constantly ridiculed for my preference of' "those English films", but as of late I have come to watch quite a bit of foreign cinema and it seems absurd to me that I would not stand up for my own country's very iconic movie industry. There are some great films in there, but as I discussed with my father once (the only really sensible movie-related conversation I've really had with the man), most of it has been condensed into the same action-romance bullshit that became famous in the late 70s. Add to that the incessant copying of Hollywood films and ideas, while adjusting it to the rigid mores of the Indian society, and you end up with a lot of tripe. Nowadays a new trend of "modern" films have emerged, in which everything has a dance number shot in Dubai, and there is a lot of talk about sex and homosexuality, but in the end it is all treated as a joke.

But in all of this garbage, some great films have been made by filmmakers who dare to do different things, or do things differently...

3) Which brings me to my third and final thought, or rather question- should I do a Bollywood Film Marathon??  I have planned numerous marathons in the past which never came through- the Harry Potter one which got too tiring (but most probably will be done still, you never know), the Winona Ryder one after watching Black Swan which I couldn't do because of the impending exams, the Disney Princess one leading upto the Royal Wedding but I didn't have a laptop to watch them, and ofcourse my Woody Allen one, which I've literally been planning for ages and was gonna do soon but I can't seem to locate some of his earlier works. 

So Bollywood anyone? I will obviously have to find some of the films from places because the television shows the afore-mentioned tripe 99.99% of the time... but I do have a nice list in mind for someone who was practically born in an Indian cinema theatre(my mum's words, not mine)  because I have been watching Bollywood films since I was very very small. This might be a total hit-and-miss thing, and my gargantuan self-esteem might not be able to take it, but I have been feeling very patriotic lately.

4) Also also also...do read this absolutely wonderful post by Stevee at Cinematic Paradox, if you haven't already. It talks about horses and films!

Soooooo... these were some of my thoughts... how about yours?