Basmati Blues (Musical Hell Review
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- Опубликовано: 2 май 2021
- Do you love Bollywood? Then you'll hate this.
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A young, attractive career woman with a dead mother backstory, who has barely set foot outside her home town and suddenly finds herself in a very different place? This isn't Bollywood, this is Hallmark!
They did say Diwali was like Christmas, so it all fits.
The ghee stains were mothers'
@Lady Marmalade Or Lifetime
Am I the only one who thinks that Brie Larson/Captain Marvel isn’t even that attractive?
Not to mention the misandristic Captain Marvel fandom would justify Ramona Flowers’ (on the topic of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World starring a much better character played by BL) loss towards Amy Rose instead of debunk it on Death Battle by ScrewYouAttack (by lying like “Yanderes always win” yet they’re too scared to admit it because of course they would lose what little reputation. They may have even though they get more praise than they deserve) and hate on better MCU films (which is pretty much all of them, Thor 2: The Dark World to the least extent) no matter how much more they exceeded on action and characterization.
@@kieranstark7213 I have no idea what you're talking about, but you might want to find a video that actually has something to do with the MCU.
I will always find it amusing that Hollywood loves making these super-smart main characters, and yet always makes them completely dense when it comes to even basics of the field they're supposed to be an expert in.
This is what happens when dumb people try to write smart characters.
Christ, even the end credits of the Aladdin remake was a better representation of Bollywood than this
Makes sense since Guy Ritchie has worked with South Asian creatives in his short-lived attempt at comics (Gotham "son of Deepak" Chopra's Virgin Comics)
Aside from that Ritchie being a Brit he has more access to Bollywood media...all he needs to do is to pop in to the nearest takeaway or off-licence
That’s what I was thinking.
At least it has one thing that the other WDASLAR (Walt Disney Animation Studios live-action remakes) don’t that is much better than the movie itself.
Take a wild guess what it is.
This is about as much a love letter to Bollywood as Doug Walker’s review of the Wall was a love letter to Pink Floyd.
Damn that is a well targetted blow for the jugular
I've seen reviews about that review - it was a complete and utter trainwreck, and Fennah deserved better than to be associated with it. It's like Doug Walker didn't even actually watch the movie or pay attention to the songs' context at all
That blow hit harder than a cannonball to the femur.
OH SNAP
I saw you copied my comment
I’m okay with this
If you take the plot point of Linda knowing that the rice was sterile all along in a more believable direction and make Rajit the lead, you immediately have a much more interesting film and fix a lot of the problems. It would start off as a white saviour narrative mixed with a romantic comedy only to veer very sharply off both sets of rails when the quirky white saviour leading lady turned out to be one of the bad guys. She knew exactly what she was doing all along and she was just really good at faking sincerity for the cameras.
That would not work since the lead in US movies needs always be American didn’t you know?
However the lead could have been black to make a lot of people critique less (even if the cultural problems would be there anyway just as much).
I wouldn't say "immediately"; changing motivations that much would make the film utter nonsense if you didn't also change its narrative structure. But yes, restructuring the movie around the unfortunate implications it stumbled into would make it a lot better without having to change many plot points.
@@timothymclean I mean, yeah, obviously you don't give the villain a rom-com happy ending. Maybe I should have phrased it better
Lol thought she was gonna say all the creators weren’t Indian or something and yet it was so, SO worse with “hadn’t even seen a single Bollywood film”
Like, even the people who shat out Mulan 2020 had at least seen Mulan
I have a Bachelor's degree in environmental science and 'hey, GM crops being sterile so poor farmers have to keep buying from the megacorps is a pretty big downside' is absolutely a thing that you get told about. There's no way this woman has a doctorate, worked on developing this fake Golden Rice, and doesn't know that this is a bad thing. I could buy her having a redemption arc from 'corrupt capitalist who couldn't care less' to 'meeting the people she'd be screwing over and living among them finally gets through to her that she's the bad guy here', but that's not what this movie is, nor is it a story I think these people could tell in a way that wasn't also very insulting.
i mean, isn't that the standard deal for American farmers who use the product too, rich or poor? why would this be a surprise to anyone? it's how this business works, all around the world.
The movie wanted to make the white audience feel better by making the protagonist innocent and unaware. It's what the boy in the striped pajamas does also, where it pretends that Nazi children are not also Nazi's.
A love letter to a genre by people who have never seen the genre? Who decided that was a good idea?
That's CLEARLY going to bode well for this movie!
This is a love letter to Bollywood Movies as much as Nostalgia Critic The Wall is to Roger Water’s personal story
It always pays to get people who know other countries and cultures!
The same execs that think it's a good idea to keeping giving musical projects to a director that seems to actively dislike musicals (looking at you, Hooper!)
@@baalgodofrain How did I know someone in the replies was gonna reference that?
Just watching the clips of this made me feel so gross that I went to give more money to the GiveIndia covid relief funds.
@Bryan Roy The Power of Patreon.
After several episodes up to now, I love the overall implication that even demons in Hell have zero tolerance for cultural appropriation & various forms of racial insensitivity. Like they may work for the Prince of Darkness, but even THEY have standards.
God isn't just The Man, He's The Man of Men. (For some reason He prefers "king of kings".) Of _course_ Hell would be opposed to the powerful reducing the downtrodden to easily-consumable stereotypes.
@@timothymclean What the HELL does that mean?!
@@colleen4ever I have no idea
@@colleen4ever I think he's trying to say God is racist
I agree, it is an interesting idea, and the thing is, when Diva passed judgement on the movie adaptation of The Wiz, when the Scarecrow (played by Michael Jackson) first appears, she asked her bailiff if there were any jokes she could make that were not predictable or in her words, “tasteless, even by our standards.” To which he said no. So this is not that unfamiliar to those who visit her court regularly.
At the “Do you speak English?” line I had the stop and groan..... loudly
I said "are you fucking kidding" out loud when the horse happened.
@@jasonblalock4429 Oh good, I'm not the only one!
I mean assuming everyone speaks English too is an issue. Saying hi doesn’t mean you can speak fluently.
@@sarasamaletdin4574 It is an issue in countries where English isn't one of the two official languages, along with Hindi. I think even the roadsigns in India are in both Hindi and English. Whatever-Brie-Larson's-character's-name-is travelled to a foreign (to her) country and didn't even find out something as basic as which languages most people speak there, first?
Why is Rahjit apologizing?! "I've been terrible to you" No, you've been annoying to her or justifiably angry. She tried to make your entire community into sharecroppers.
I don't know, it was kinda crappy that he started a whole crop-growing alternative competition against her _without_ her knowing about it.
As an Indian myself, these films infuriate me so bad
Also, I always thought you didn't tackle bollywood musicals because they were covered by a Hindu Demon. Musical Naraka, perhaps?
Musical Narakam 🤔
Zain You're a Good man .
I don;t think this one counts AS a Bollywood musical!
I don’t know what’s more infuriating.
BWB (Bollywood Blues) or the insults Native Americans got even in present day America like “Indians” (it’s like calling real Indians indigenous), “Aboriginals” (to describe Native Australians”, “sambo”, “savages”, “third-rate”, “how”, happy slaves/residential schoolers”, etc.
@@kieranstark7213 i think seeing Utkarsh Ambudkar wasted is just as bad
Riding on a literal white horse???? YEEESH
I was done at that point.
And aren't those white horses of the curly-eared breeds on top of everything a type of ceremonial animal for Punjabi people? You see them in weddings and parades, they're called 'nukra'. That's like... idk, compare to any other religious imagery just in for aesthetic. Really weird.
She probably was able to take them all down cause they were too busy staring and thinking, "What the hell..."
Alternate Title: Every 14 Year Old White Girl’s Social Justice Power Fantasy.
And this week on "movies I have never seen before, yet will hate because of this review"....
Sounds like me whenever I watch a Nostalgia Critic review, or one of Animat's Classic Reviews for a film I've never heard of (Like The Phantom Tollbooth) or have heard of but never saw myself until recently (such as Perfect Blue)
As far as Bollywood goes, the only one I watched is Bride and Prejudice, which was a pretty good modern adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. It had some really good musical numbers.
Wait, Brie Larson was in a Bollywood musical?
Lord have mercy.
Dude, that is such a good movie! Really got to see that again!
That was a decent movie, since unlike this abomination, it was actually made by people who have experience with making Bollywood movies!
I've seen a few I've really enjoyed. Prem Ratan Dhan Payo is a great comedy where an actor plays the body double of a king who was seriously injured in an assassination attempt and heals a lot of the king's poor family relationships. Part of this involves winning over the princess whom he has a major crush on.
Baahubali is a fantastic epic with gorgeous sets, costumes, and gloriously over the top action. A young man keeps trying (and failing) to climb a mountain much to his mother's dismay. After he performs a religious ritual in his mother's place to save her trouble of carrying water from the river to the altar, a mask falls down the waterfall to him. He is intrigued by the owner and finally succeeds in climbing the mountain and discovers a kingdom ruled by a tyrant, and his own connection to that kingdom.
Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is a romantic comedy where a man marries his professor's daughter as the old man's dying wish after he suffers a heart attack at her wedding on the news her fiancee was dead. The replacement groom is a sensible and quiet, boring guy who wants to do right by his new wife, but she's suffering deep grief and seemingly has nothing in common with her new husband, which causes a bit of a rift. She signs up for a dance class and he, wanting to know more about her to win her over goes to the dance class in disguise.
Bride and Prejudice was directed by a British of Pakistani extraction...she also made Bend it Like Beckham and Blinded by the Light
Bride and Prejudice is a wonderful movie, but I think it's incorrect to call it Bollywood. It's a British movie made in the style of Bollywood, similar to parts of Slumdog Millionaire. I think the qualification is important because even though the cast has many Indian actors and the language is mixed, it was publicly funded by the British Arts ministry for a British audience. I'm not sure if it even got an official release in India.
To me, Bollywood is specifically Hindi-language productions that come out of Mumbai (both publicly and privately funded) with Indians as the main audience (even if this means they have to be subtitled for different parts of India). Some of my favorites that are more recent are Dil Se..., Lagaan, and Rowdy Rathore. I really do recommend older Bollywood though because newer ones have a tendency to be more "macho." Older ones (especially pre-90s) tended to have more interesting and active roles for women.
Ah, Ms. Larson and her "I Was Young And I Needed The Money" phase.
I thought the title read Batman Blues, and after seeing this video I wish we had that instead.
"Am I Bluuuuuuueeeee? Am I Bluuuuuueeee? Are these Tears in my Eyes telling Yoooooooooou?"
@caitlyncarvalho7637 People have been criticizing Dune and the Chocolate Factory for years because of those exact reasons. In fact, it's been a major discussion of both books for decades since their release. At least Dune's defenders argue that, when taken in its totality, Dune is a warning sign against the sort of white savior imperialism that detractors claim it is. No one really makes too many excuses for the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory stuff. If Wonka dodges it, it's because we don't know how they're going to handle the Oompa Loompas.
That washing feet scene and the waving of the candle (the coconut seems like a fancy candle holder) I think was a welcoming. I remember a video of an Indian family doing a similar ritual to welcome a new puppy to the household. It was very sweet! It’s sad to see it got framed in a “look how weird this is” way rather than a “we’re about to learn about day to day things in India!”
I got more in-depth knowledge about a culture that’s not my own from _My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding._
Rice 9 is presumably a reference to Ice 9 from Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. Which just raises the question of why the company would deliberately give it such an obviously evil name.
Presumably the same reason they named their company -"mogul"- "Mogil".
I thought it was a reference to Zero Escape: 999
Or it could just be their Plan 9! See what I did there?
I mean, there's a real protein shake on the market right now called "Soylent" that no one seems to question...
Even Raj's Bollywood-themed fantasy where he confesses his feelings towards Bernadette in The Big Bang Theory made for a more engaging Bollywood musical than this. 🙄
Oh shit, the movie only dates back to 2017? Yikes, I assumed it was going to be older.
So close to being a 10-sinner but surprisingly, just missed the mark.
Oof.
I mean, as Diva said, it was *filmed* in 2013, but even then, that’s way too recent for writing this awful.
@@LaFemmeFictionale Oh wow, so cool that I got a reply from you! Yeah, a four-year earlier filming window makes no difference at all here. By the 2010's we should've entered an age of better writing and culture handling, but in the case of Basmati Blues, marks were still missed.
I know there aren't many actors who could salvage this script. But honestly casting Brie Larson is...well, it's a choice.
I like Brie Larson but she is not Lily Collins or Amanda Seyfried who can pull naivety off. She seems too intelligent to be doing or saying half the shit the script makes her say and do.
As someone working in PR and communications: Wouldn't one of the first objectives for a scientist going to India to convince the locals of their rice be... getting to know the culture they are going to be travelling to, just to avoid any cultural insensitivity and stuff? Like, this just feels like a no-brainer.
The tourist advertising bit was gold 🤣🤣
Bride and Prejudice might be worth taking a look at. It's definitely not perfect but it's a fun Bollywood/Hollywood crossover that is such a beautifully dated mess.
"Why would you make a love letter to Bollywood movies, if you've never even seen one. HOW do you make a love letter to a genre that you've never seen a single movie from? What could you possibly even love about a movie you hadn't seen?!"
"Well... the box office profits, obviously..."
Geez, no wonder Brie Larson decided to be a mentor to a teenage South Asian superhero to make amends for this schandeh.
1 dislike is from Mega Evil Malicious Villainy Inc.
"I'll have you know that our brand name was _extensively_ workshopped! We're cornering the market in overtly ominous lairs and lair accessories."
MEMVI. What an exotic acronym.
Oh dear. My fears were CORRECT! This film DID treat Indian culture with as much respect as The Love Guru. Also next up is a remake. Oh no I'm getting live action Disney remake PTSD.
At least Love Guru didn’t try to promote itself as a “love letter” to the culture. They all knew what terrible crap they were making 😂
@@averyeml Touche
@@Rabbitlord108 And Diva made no reference to this movie having constant penis jokes, ableist prejudice against people with dwarfism, gross-out gags or weird excessive horniness. Which are also points in its favour against the Love Guru.
@@Lawnie Also true 👍
Even The Cheetah Girls had a better Bollywood inspired movie.
It´s so rare that I had to cringe so much during a review.
And as someone who has seen over a hundred indian movies, no, this is NOT a love letter to Bollywood.
I'd also like to point out the uncomfortable signals I was getting from William Patel. It doesn't help that his first name is Christian. Bollywood has had a nasty history of stereotyping Anglo-Indians, Christians and "Westernized" people. The women were often portrayed as nightclub dancers, sex workers or vamps and the men were either the smug evil businessman or the comical drunk. And this stretches into real life with many of them being repeatedly told that they aren't "Indian enough" and Will just dropping his entire country for money just rubs salt on the wound. While this isn't a Bollywood movie, that stereotype has ended up here
(Also, What the here!? Which part of India is this set? In the scenes Larson's character arrives in India Victoria Terminus is featured. That's in Bombay. But there's a lot of Malayali and Tamil stuff as well? But Kerala and Tamil Nadu are hundreds of miles away from Bombay? If it's set in South India, why is Sita doing Bhangra? A Gujarati dance? They really didn't do their research and it's making my head hurt)
Bilari is in the northern part of the country--logically Linda would have flown in to New Delhi (I know, logic and this movie have nothing in common...)
@@MusicalHell Seems like someone needs to give them a Geography lesson
@@musiccubed2650 Especially since India is a HUGE country!!
I looked up Bilari, and it's in Uttar Pradesh, a state in Northern India, and its official language is Hindi, with Urdu being an additional official language. Mumbai (Bombay) is in Maharashtra in Western India and predominantly speaks Marathi, and it's a little over 892 miles away from Bilari. Though Bhangra originated from an area of the Indian part of Punjab. I agree. They did NOT do their research here. I just wanted to confirm.
@@PhoenixAura81 I never responded to this but yes you're correct about everything but one thing. Mumbai/Bombay primarily speaks Hindi. My parents lived there and while Marathi was definitely around the area. Hindi is used in day to day speaking
feel like I need to point out that the "must buy seeds every year and cannot replant from what you grow" is the standard in America. That's in all the purchase contracts for Monsanto. There was even a guy that got sued for planting leftover corn from what he bought to use as animal feed for the winter. If you eat corn in the US that is a GMO, you're eating corn grown under those rules.
That's true, and it's not necessarily a net negative for the farmers--many prefer the flexibility of being able to choose which crops they plant from year to year. But again, this silly series about bad musicals reviewing even a sillier movie with a surface level "traditional farming good, GMOs bad" message is not the place to discuss the complexities of the agricultural industry.
RRGGGGGGHH! Just hearing the dialogue and plot synopsis of this movie makes me feel sick! One of my personal pet peeves is when movies make the most half-hearted efforts to depict ANY foreign culture. (Even the cliché of going for the obvious choice of setting a film in Paris for clearly no other reason than recognizabel aesthetics, and going straight for the generic romanticized depiction of it, instead of trying to give the audience a real appreciation for like like 'Ratatoullie' or 'Midnight in Paris'.) But it's ESPECIALLY sickening when it's done with this sort of attitude towards eastern cutlures, when they're painted as backwater tribes content with their lifestyle, instead of actually trying to SHOW the lives of the people living there, as well as their real values and struggles! (Also, let's no forget the things that THEY would frown upon us for, such as consuming animals whom they largely consider sacred.)
Regarding Linda's part-"white savior" complex, I can't help but feel that this is something that 'Zootopia' (which I have frequently had on my mind throughout 2020) did this correctly with Judy Hopps, without her falling into the "white savior" trope (or rather the "PREY" savior trope, if you will). Namely for two reasons...
1.) It is established early in the movie that Judy won't be welcomed into the city of Zootopia, just because of her bright optimism and good intentions.
2.)The movie makes the case that Judy's ultimately-harmful ignorance isn't to do with her being subtly biased so much as it is to do with her believing herself to be incapable of bias of any kind, thanks in large part due to what society buy-and-large paints bias to be, versus what it actually is! (And that her ignorance ends up being the Trojan horse that Bellwhether uses to spread the concpiracy of "Predators are biologically predisposed to be savages".)
Bleh....this movie just makes my skin crawl. It's basically saying 'Why was that such an easy sell for the Indian community? Because simple brown folk like pretty words and fancy technology, ooooo!' Like fuck people, can we get out of 1930's mentality for two seconds? I'm at least happy to see progression in other movies and books and such, but still, the fact this got made at all is still gross.
Gentlemen, this is the Hunger Games control room! You can't fight in here.
It sucks because Brie has a decent voice, just look at her as Envy in Scott Pilgrim.
She was a singer.
"Rice-9?"...like "Ice-9?"
*groan that can be heard from space*
Someone thought they were a genius for that one.
Have these writers never been to Lancaster? Bc I mean rural India is hardly the only place in the world with animal pulled carts
Seeing some of these scenes from this quirky and light-hearted movie is giving me whiplash because of the fact I've only been watching dark, serious, depressing, disturbing stuff since the start of COVID...
15:00 Donald Sutherland, you're too good for a film like this.
Every actor/actress have a black goat(or 2..or 3..or well) in his career .
Every time you said 'Rice Nine', I could only think of Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle and 'Ice Nine'. I'm absolutely sure it wasn't just a coincidence in the film.
You know...it's times like this where you really do want to give India an apology.
“Sorry we poorly co-opted your culture and painted our white protagonist with the same brush as British colonialists; have some Moderna on the house...”
Their claim its a love letter to Bollywood sound the same as Nostalgia Critic claiming his review/parody of "Pink Floyds the Wall" was a love letter. God this thing itself belonged into musical hell.
I haven't finished, but all I'm going to say: you can't write a love letter to someone you don't know. I think I've said enough.
The misguided confidence of making a "love letter" to anything if you have no exposure to it (let alone any kind of understanding of it) is....weird. How can you write a love letter to something if you've never seen it, and probably don't know what you love about it?
Yea. It’s like making a love letter to comic books or manga even tho you’ve never read one in your life
Not to mention did they have a single person on the creative team who identified as Indian? (checks IMDB) Nope, all white.
I'm guessing they slap it on later because they believe it's a catch-all term that can excuse what they've made, but I'm probably completely wrong.
@@Inlelendri I wouldn't even go that far. They slapped the Love Letter label on to make it sound appealing to people who like Bollywood.
Anyone else have Hot Fuzz flashbacks every time they mentioned "The Greater Good"?
The Greater Good!
@@thegreatstoneddragon9432 Shut it!
19:41- You'd think the company would have educated her in the cultures of India BEFORE she left so she wouldn't make them look bad. Just sayin.... 23:13- Plan 9! Love it!
Excuse me miss Diva, but I have a question.
How does one make a loveletter to something they do not know and therefor, do not love?
Another good found pacusions (sorry for spelling) example is my little pony Equestria girls. At the start of “helping Twilight win the crown,” it’s starts with Pinkie banging a tray, then rarity joining with cups, followed by apple jack clapping and banging on the table she’s at, flutter shy starts clapping and then rainbow dash claps her hands as stomps her feet just before spike turns on the music.
I'll never get enough of your perfectly pointed criticism. Your vocabulary choices and delivery of the facts make it all the better!
As someone who is Indian myself, I am utterly disgusted by this movie, they say that they doing a love letter it Bollywood when really they are just cramming in a bunch of stereotypes and a white savior protagonist in one horribly written movie. 😡🤮
Moral: Don't try make your own version of bollywood movies.. It's obvious that they don't have any idea of indian cultural. Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek please forgive us.
Hollywood, please keep your hands stay way from different cultures that you don't understand, please. Specially from animes.
Speaking of which that upcoming Another Round American remake. After the Danish film wins an Oscar.
The disappointing news.
18:30 One thing I can say in this movie's favor... I don't think I've ever had such an intense reaction of shock to a fictional betrayal before!
Basmati blues is a tribute to Bollywood in the same way jaws is a documentary about sharks.
I can honestly say I wasn't expecting a Diva rant about agriculture today. But I'm certainly not complaining!
All this made me do was want to go find a legit Indian restaurant (or at least a South Asian grocery store) and get me some real basmati rice
Ooohhh going after Captain People...who's a naughty diva then?😅😅😅
Love your reviews. I would love to see your take on that fuss over "Music",specially over the Golden Globes and Razzies over that!
Too bad Sam Beckett didn't leap into anyone that could've saved this movie.
So this is about as authentically Indian as the film "Leap Year" is authentically Irish. Gotcha.
Oh, so it's La La Land, but with Indian people
So the white savior rides in on a white horse. Subtle.
This movie is basically Emily In Paris, but for India.
I'm sorry, Diva, I can't get past the half-way mark in this half-assed musical. However, I did fast forward to the last few minutes, Loved the clip from "Plan 9..." and the sentence seems reasonable.
This movie is a love letter to bollywood films in the same way Identity Crisis is a love letter to the Silver age
22:40 Wow, she's literally riding a white horse to save the day!
Biggest offense of this movie, is that they cut Scott Bakula out of the songs. Scott Bakula has a wonderful voice and is a wonderful talent. Shame on you movie for not using obvious talent.
Wait wait wait - RICE-9? Is that a nod to Kurt Vonnegut's Ice-9 from Cat's Cradle?
About the White Person in India bit.
My brother got to work in India for a month due to the school he goes to sending out its pupils all over the world (I also went there but stayed home due to personal reasons).
For him there were 2 things that shocked him and basically nothing else:
1: The Street he lived on had more people than our home town. Especially on Ghandi's Day it was so packed he could think all the local cities had emerged on that one street.
2: Whenever he was in a cab the driver drove like a madman (according to him) and he said that the only times in his life where he feared for his death was the travels to and from work.
I want to add that this is a man who have never left Europe and have only consumed western media. He litetally did not have the reaction of the main character when he saw that India was full of... *GHASP* Indians.
After seeing Basmati Blues, I would rather watch Green Book more than Basmati Blues. Also say what you want about Green Book, but at least Green Book had an identity to be remember, at least the film makers of Green Book knew what they were doing and at least Green Book is a more well made movie. Basmati Blues is a forgettable mess of a movie that felt like a film version of a memory erasing blue pill that made you forgot it came out in 2017 or even existed while the filmmakers of that movie who didn't know what they where doing while making it.
So, wait, a story about a woman who wants to help farmers but knows so little about farming that she doesn’t see why sterile crops might be a problem was filmed by people who apparently know so little about India that they didn’t realize that an entire season might interfere with their filming. Hm....
This is like Eat pray love, but bad (and with music, of course).
Good sentence for all those involved.
If you are looking for a REAL love letter to Bollywood, no need to look far - Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire comes to mind (especially the colourful end credits set to Jai Ho)
Oh yeah. That was lovely on all levels.
Also I got introduced to Bollywood through the movie Bride and Prejudice which as it's based on Jane Austen in kinda a perfect gateway for western audiences.
Or literally any movie set in India from Merchant-ivory productions
I thought Indians didn't like that film.
Brie Larson can actually sing well. And she’s a good actress.
But I really don’t think this was the right role for her. She’s just the wrong choice to play a character THIS naive. Someone like Anna Kendrick might have been a better choice.
This feels like a Role that Amy Adams rejected.
Yay! You're finally getting to the 2001 South Pacific! (Emily Clark has promised to do the same, but it seems to have been delayed.)
Me: Yay a new video‼️
Next case: South Pacific 2001
Me: 😬
In regards to the next case, I admit I haven't seen the 2001 remake. I know that the original 'South Pacific' was one of those musicals whose heart was in the right place, but was still not immune from the condescending 1950s depictions of Asians that permiated American media at the time. It would be quite something if the remake somehow managed to be worse in terms of depictions (as much as it would be for the animated 'King and I' to do so)!
It IS worse, believe me. It;s worse., They completely forget when the movie took place in for starters and people;s attitudes in that time period. Not to mention there;s a grutuitous sex scene that was NOT in the original!
the fact that there are tamil letters in that crowd shot with the villagers and mogil means that it's a southern state that this takes place in and in a tamil-speaking village. if this movie is meant to be a love letter to bollywood, it's managed to even get THAT wrong because bollywood movies are not the monolith term for indian movies. bollywood is specifically for HINDI movies. tamil films have their own name: kollywood. and honestly, while they follow similar conventions and tropes from time to time, there's definitely a noted difference in bollywood tropes and kollywood tropes. SIGH. as a (non-indian) tamil, i'm cringing so hard at th is.
The film was shot mainly in Kerala and Mumbai, which is an explanation but not justification (I'm sure "it all looks foreign,nobody will know the difference" was uttered at some point).
12:31-Can anyone guess what the screenwriters' favorite type of weed is?
Marijuana AKA the kind that Snoop Dog smokes everyday.
I had no idea that this movie existed, and I don't blame Brie Larson if she doesn't want people to know either!
Originally, I assumed it was going to be a movie from at least a decade or two ago. I was shocked it only dated back to 2017 AND starred Brie Larson. Big automatic yikes right there.
D. rose it actually premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2015 and likely was filmed around 2013 or 2014, so.. the decade ago comment isn’t WHOLLY inaccurate
Trina Q Ironically, Larson actually included footage of her time in India in a RUclips video she uploaded a few months ago. The most acknowledgement we’ve gotten from her
5:40 Well it’s either her or Peter Griffin, but a cigarette company called dibs and already gave him his own musical number that though is a parody is less annoying than this.
"Smooooke!" "Are ya smoking yet?!"
This is gonna be very interesting! always great to watch MH
10:54- He just said 'Hi' to you! In English!!
About Brie's character knowing Rice-9 was sterile.. The writers were smart enough to remember that she helped develop it, and she would HAVE to know this. But the writers weren't smart enough to remember that she's the scientist.. SHE should have explained to the farmers it was sterile, not the businessmen! They're just there for the transaction!
I rarely feel sorry for movie stars and Larson *did* take the gig...but yikes.
Oh, and that one song sounded more like fake Motown than disco to me, at least in the snippet we heard.
What I hate about these traveling to a different country is that the person never seems to do any prior research. like I've never been outside the states and if I was forced to go to India you bet your ass I'm going to be researching taboos,common phrases and laws of the land. I don't want to be made a fool or Worse go to jail.
The made-fir-tv movie of South Pacific is next? Oh, this is gonna be GOOD!
And speaking of good, Diva, ya did it again! I admit, I never heard of this movie, but this was another great vid!
Instead of Bollywood's love letter, call this Bollywood hate letter. Insult to anyone who has a braincell.
"They Eat With Their Hands"!
Uh, Yeah, Almost Everyone DOES THAT Half The Time! Its Nothing New! I'm Not Indain But I Agree! This Flim Is An Insult!
This month's damnation is cool and creative. I approve.
LOL I was doing some cultural art studying on Indian fashion, and I also happen to be a HUGE fan of the food, music and culture overall (but I wouldn't call myself an expert), and damn me if even that amount was more knowledge I have on Indian culture than whoever made this crap. I mean, yeah, I'd have reacted with sheer fascination traveling to India and all, but even I know that's NOT how you should direct a non-Indian person's reaction upon arrival. I'm not even Indian and I felt insulted by how LITTLE they focused on the overall culture of such a beautiful and colorful world. It's even more insulting that the musical numbers are stale crap at best.
Oh seeing Tyne Daly in this hurts my heart.
Everybody's got to eat.
Between her and Utkarsh Ambudkar being wasted is a sin of itself.
Alternate title: Every 14 Year Old White Girl’s Social Justice Power Fantasy.
Great episode, thanks for really getting to the root of this. Maybe one day we will see more disney channel movies in musical hell. Did you do High school musical 1 2 and 3?
diva made a review of the first high school musical in a collab some years ago
I think 'Rice 9' is a reference to Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. One more important piece of art sullied by the touch of this movie.
I never was a fan of Bollywood before! btw thoughts on reviewing the 1966 made for tv movie musical adaptation of Alice through the looking glass?!
Isn't the evil corporation's plan exactly what actually happening with Monsanto?
My thoughts exactly!!!!
Poor brie, I suppose this movie must have been a pain in the a.. to do.
Happily, after of this she made Room.
Why is Captain Marvel doing in a fake Bollywood Musical that's more insulting to Indian people than The Love Guru?
My guess would be because she was early in her career and needed the money.
Maybe you could start out with bride and prejudice, that was my first bollywood movie