Hey
Hollywood is astounding. Bollywood is glamorous. Kollywood is our passion. In the same vein we have desiwood - the wonderful desi movies that are low budget, capturing lives of desis - the Indians who come yearn and finally land up at the oppurtunity rich United States. Most of these movies are low budget, with a low-profile star cast, simple themes, targeting purely the NRI community - and turn out to be - well, awesome.
Hyderabad Blues is one of the first movies from desiwood. Directed by Nagesh Kukkanoor, it portrayed the return of a desi back to Hyderabad after few years of life at Atlanta. The film was amazing inspite of appearing as if it was shot with a handycam. Indians are Indians wherever we go. Our love of movies just cannot end.. Once the potential of this NRI-movie-industry was realised, a spree of movies followed. Many of them turned out to be huge disappointments - like the much awaited Hyderabad Blues 2.. But a few of them turn out to be too impressive and sometimes even crowd pullers in the USA. Bend It like Beckham was a box office hit in the UK and US. Its director Gurinder Chadha has followed it with Bride and Prejudice....
Now, consider the following scenarios:
- a boy in the East and a girl in the West coasts chatting on phone everyday about everything
- a married Andhra housewife who is bored to death in her house
- three software engineers in the bench staying in a guest house and applying jobs
- orthodox parents with a big heart visiting their son at America
- laid off IT consultant who hates his desi boss
- long named Andhrite bodyshopping bachelor looking for a desi wife
These are typical scenes that most of us from India working here at the U.S. witness as a matter of fact. And these are typical scenes from the movie FLAVORS, a movie that I rented the second time in 4 months. The movie has a collection of the lives of typical desis from the Indian towns of New Jersey which come together on a marriage for cinematic purposes. The movie has no strong storyline, infact NO storyline at all; it is not about ABCDs; it doesnt boast of a ShahRukh Khan kind of star cast; the heriones dont wear skimpy dresses; there are no bomb blasts and hostages; and there is no four letter swearing words used repeatedly.
But I could relate to almost every scene from this film and thoroughly enjoyed it.
People almost always complain that Holly/Bolly/Kolly wood movies never show reality as is and are always hyped up storylines featuring larger than life scenarios far away from a realisitic world. And those people who do not want to watch over-exaggerated, foul-mouthing, adultery based, rain danced filled movies, try watching some of these very realisitc products of desiwood. And you will find that desiwood cinema has much more to offer than any of the streotype 70mm commercial motion pictures.
So my desi friends, if you want to enjoy watching yourselves on a movie, watch desiwood movies - watch Flavors.
Chao..
Hollywood is astounding. Bollywood is glamorous. Kollywood is our passion. In the same vein we have desiwood - the wonderful desi movies that are low budget, capturing lives of desis - the Indians who come yearn and finally land up at the oppurtunity rich United States. Most of these movies are low budget, with a low-profile star cast, simple themes, targeting purely the NRI community - and turn out to be - well, awesome.
Hyderabad Blues is one of the first movies from desiwood. Directed by Nagesh Kukkanoor, it portrayed the return of a desi back to Hyderabad after few years of life at Atlanta. The film was amazing inspite of appearing as if it was shot with a handycam. Indians are Indians wherever we go. Our love of movies just cannot end.. Once the potential of this NRI-movie-industry was realised, a spree of movies followed. Many of them turned out to be huge disappointments - like the much awaited Hyderabad Blues 2.. But a few of them turn out to be too impressive and sometimes even crowd pullers in the USA. Bend It like Beckham was a box office hit in the UK and US. Its director Gurinder Chadha has followed it with Bride and Prejudice....
Now, consider the following scenarios:
- a boy in the East and a girl in the West coasts chatting on phone everyday about everything
- a married Andhra housewife who is bored to death in her house
- three software engineers in the bench staying in a guest house and applying jobs
- orthodox parents with a big heart visiting their son at America
- laid off IT consultant who hates his desi boss
- long named Andhrite bodyshopping bachelor looking for a desi wife
These are typical scenes that most of us from India working here at the U.S. witness as a matter of fact. And these are typical scenes from the movie FLAVORS, a movie that I rented the second time in 4 months. The movie has a collection of the lives of typical desis from the Indian towns of New Jersey which come together on a marriage for cinematic purposes. The movie has no strong storyline, infact NO storyline at all; it is not about ABCDs; it doesnt boast of a ShahRukh Khan kind of star cast; the heriones dont wear skimpy dresses; there are no bomb blasts and hostages; and there is no four letter swearing words used repeatedly.
But I could relate to almost every scene from this film and thoroughly enjoyed it.
People almost always complain that Holly/Bolly/Kolly wood movies never show reality as is and are always hyped up storylines featuring larger than life scenarios far away from a realisitic world. And those people who do not want to watch over-exaggerated, foul-mouthing, adultery based, rain danced filled movies, try watching some of these very realisitc products of desiwood. And you will find that desiwood cinema has much more to offer than any of the streotype 70mm commercial motion pictures.
So my desi friends, if you want to enjoy watching yourselves on a movie, watch desiwood movies - watch Flavors.
Chao..
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