About Us: Bollywood!

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Matt & I are big Bollywood fans. Bollywood is the name for the Hindi-speaking Film Industry in India. And all major Bollywood films are musicals! Not kidding, they're all musicals. It's awesome.

We watch the Bollywood music video shows every weekend on a local channel. And a couple times a year we travel to Artesia, where the Indian Movie Theater is, to see the new releases. (They even offer samosas at the theater!)

There are more releases in Bollywood per year than in Hollywood, so we don't keep up with absolutely everything. But we do keep up with their big star vehicles.

Now, I will inundate you with videos.



Shah Rukh Khan has been the biggest movie star in Bollywood for at least 15 years. I think he's the best movie star in the world. He's not traditionally good looking (with a big nose and his signature flopsy hair), but when SRK (as his name is often abbreviated) laughs, you laugh with him and when SRK cries, you cry with him. Like millions of Indians, I am a big fan.

This first video, which I warn you is a little long, is one of the most famous musical sequences in Bollywood history. It is from the film Dil Se (1998), which is actually about a man who falls in love with a female suicide bomber. Coincidentally, it was one of the first Bollywood movies that both Matt and I saw, before we even knew each other. The music is by A.R. Rahman who recently won two Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire.





Om Shanti Om is a really super great movie that came out two years ago. It is full of Bollywood film history, so it's not a good film to start with because you won't get all the references. But this song, "Dhoom Taana" is actually a good intro to Bollywood film history -- showing films and film styles from the various decades. The lead character, played by Shah Rukh Khan again, is watching a film in the theater, and then becomes part of the songs in his mind.





I'm really tempted to post Dard-E-Disco, from the same movie, also starring SRK, which is a joke song mocking the new style of Bollywood musical sequences (instead here is a link if you happen to be particularly interested). These new sequences are more Western in dance style and overtly sexy. Dard-E-Disco, which translates as "Pain of Disco" is very funny when you know what they are making fun of. SRK even shows off his six pack even though he never usually does shirtless scenes like a lot of the other Bollywood actors.

Alternatively, I shall show you some thing in the style of what they're actually mocking. Dhoom 2 (sequel of course to 'Dhoom' which we've actually never seen - Dhoom means 'have a blast' in Hindi), is one of my favorite movies (we saw it twice at the Indian movie theater). It's not a good movie, it's a big over the top blockbuster, but I enjoy watching it's slickly made ridiculousness.

It stars Aishwarya Rai, who is a former Miss World. She is one of the most internationally known Bollywood stars -- you may have seen her in Revlon commercials or movies like The Pink Panther. Note the amusing number of costume changes...





It's worth mentioning that Aishwarya is not usually as thin as she is in this video. She had gained weight for a previous role (the Hollywood cross over film Bride & Prejudice) and while losing the weight for this role ended up losing too much. This is the thinnest I've ever seen her. Indian movie stars, who I think are blessed with amazing DNA in some cases, are not generally as thin as American movie stars. (For instance, here's Bipasha Basu, who I think is the hottest woman ever. And she's a size 12, which for a movie star is a lot. That video is from Omkara which is a retelling of MacBeth).

But back to Ash (as Aishwarya Rai is commonly referred to), I could show you any number of musical sequences in which she is dancing in traditional Indian style, while wearing a Sari. Surprisingly, I can only show you three movies ever where Ash stars with SRK since he vowed to never work with her again after an incident where her boyfriend at the time showed up on set yelling and screaming and interrupted filming. Amusingly though, SRK is still friends with the screaming boyfriend -- he just won't work with her again.



The super hot guy who appears briefly in that video with Ash is Hrithik Roshan. Sigh... Matt has given me permission to leave him for Hrithik if the opportunity ever arises. But Hrithik married his childhood sweetheart, so I think we're safe. Hrithik is known as the best dancer in Bollywood (Here's the last movie he did. Not actually his first circus themed dance scene though, strangely enough).

There will certainly be some Bollywood songs at the reception. When the song "Pehli Nazar Mein" from the movie Race came out I said to Matt -- good thing we're not getting married right now, or I'd have to change this to our first dance song. So when you hear this slow song in Hindi -- you'll know it was almost the one.

One constantly amazing thing about Bollywood videos is that they regularly manage to get very very busy places looking very very empty. The most amazing is Time Square with no one in it (for the song "Hey Shona" from Tara Rum Pum , but I've also always been impressed by Saint Mark's Square with no one in it (from Bachna Ae Haseeno).

A funny thing about Bollywood (the big films anyway) is that they never kiss onscreen (and of course a sex scene would be absolutely out of the question. They do what we always refer to as "suggestive nuzzling". In Dhoom 2 mentioned above, two of the lead actors do kiss and they were sued for indecency (for kissing in a movie!). It was a big deal at the time.

Someone asked us recently to recommend some Bollywood films, and it was honestly quite hard. I guess it depends what you are looking for. They have comedies and dramas and silly blockbusters like anywhere else. They actually remake a lot of Hollywood films (sometimes even better than the original! I'd say 'Partner' is better than the film it's remaking 'Hitch').

And I could show you videos all day -- how amusing Abhishek Bachchan is, the hotness of another Miss World winner Priyanka Chopra, or Bollywood's best female dancer Madhuri Dixit.

But I will leave you with this song from "Jab We Met" -- a movie which is essentially a remake of "It Happened One Night". This is a wedding song and it's not in Hindi, it's in Punjabi. In Bollywood films, there are often these fun Punjabi songs in wedding scenes.

This song stars Shahid Kapoor, who is also known as a great dancer. I always refer to him as "Boyfriend" because he actually looks a good deal like Matt! Matt often has similarly flopsy hair and you should see Shahid with glasses on. Shahid is definitely Matt's long lost Indian cousin.





Hope you enjoyed your Indian adventure!