newsgroup: alt.movies.indian

Following in the wake of the high-profile Hong Kong movie steamship, Indian (a.k.a. Hindi) cinema is coming on strong. And it has all the cultural peculiarities that are making Hong Kong flicks a hit with movie-goers who want something different. For instance, while Hollywood products typically run in the hour-and-a-half to two-hour range, Hindi movies are often two to three hours or more. And the popular ones are almost always musicals with lavish and surreal dance numbers that can break out at nearly any point. The music behind the dances can be anything from Indian classical to Sub-Continent rap to (my favorite) modern Indian cinema music which is a complex and seductive collage of western pop forms (everything from surf rock to jazz to Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western soundtracks - sort of a non-pretentious John Zorn sound). And like Hong Kong fans, Hindi cinema fanatics are, well, fanatics. If you've gotten the Bollywood (a joke term for the Indian film industry) bug or are just curious, you can meet and chat with other like-minded movie adventurers in alt.movies.indian. Aside from the usual debates and discussions about popular Hindi films, a hot topic is the possibility of thousands of older Hindi films coming into the market now that DVD (digital video disc) seems to have arrived. For any collector, this is a dream come true. And for the novice, you'll be able to see what all the fuss is about, with good pictures and sound--something sorely lacking in current Indian videos.-R.K.

Subject: movies

Geography: India, global

Format: newsgroup

Language: English

Cost: no cost