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Bollywood Embraces Kazaa Movie Downloads
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Tue Dec 23, 2003 11:14 AM
from the and-they-make-such-cute-movies dept.
from the and-they-make-such-cute-movies dept.
MaximusTheGreat writes "While Hollywood tries to debate how to tackle P2P movie downloads, Bollywood the world's largest film industry has decided to embrace it. This could usher in a new era of legal movie downloads like iTunes for music, as Bollywood, the Indian film industry produces 1000 movies a year and outstrips hollywood by almost 3:1. Theaters worldwide sold some 3.6 billion tickets to Bollywood films last year, compared with Hollywood's 2.6 billion. In revenue terms Bollywood is already larger than the British, Hong Kong, Japanese and Italian movie industry and is growing at a very fast rate."
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No kidding, Spanky. (Score:5, Funny)
Hollywood has been slow to embrace downloads
Understatement of the year.
Re:No kidding, Spanky. (Score:3, Funny)
Understatement of the year.
Maybe ther's still using dial-up...
Bollywood movies are terrible, though. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Bollywood movies are terrible, though. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bollywood movies are terrible, though. (Score:5, Funny)
and hollywood doesn't make trash? man, i've got three words for you:
Parent
Re:Bollywood movies are terrible, though. (Score:4, Informative)
There are a number of great Indian filmmakers - of course, there was Satyajit Ray, one of the greatest filmmakers ever - but they don't enjoy the same beneficial relationship with Bollywood that American independents have with Hollywood.
Parent
Re:Bollywood movies are terrible, though. (Score:3, Insightful)
The Bollywood industry doesn't produce classics, or certaily have failed to export them (although a small film maker like Ray managed it). Out of thousands and thousands of movies, how many do you know? And yet, I imagine you could name some French, Australian, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese movie
C'mon you KNOW you were thinking of this.... (Score:5, Funny)
That screwy, ballyhooey Bollywood!
Where any office boy
Or young mechanic
can be a panic
With just a good-looking pan
And any barmaid
Can be a star maid
If she dances with or without a fan
Hooray for Bollywood!
Where you're terrific
if you're even good!
Where anyone at all from Shirley Temple
to Aimee Semple
is equally understood
Come on and try your luck
You could be Donald Duck
Hooray for Bollywood!
Hooray for Bollywood!
That phony, super Coney, Bollywood
They come from Chilicothes and Padukahs
with their bazookas
To see their names up in lights
All armed with photos
From local rotos
With their hair in curlers
and legs in tights
Hooray for Bollywood!
You may be homely in your neighborhood.
Still, if you think that you can be an actor
See Mister Factor
He'd make a monkey look good!
Within a half an hour
You'll look like Tyrone Power
Hooray for Bollywood!
Re:C'mon you KNOW you were thinking of this.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:C'mon you KNOW you were thinking of this.... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
But... (Score:4, Funny)
Bollywood (Score:5, Insightful)
my roommate in college (Score:3, Interesting)
2 boys, separated at birth, fall in love with the same woman, except one is rich/ powerful/ a cop and the other is poor/ a farmer/ a thief... they fight each other for the woman, and there is much singing and dancing throughout
he said that is basically every movie made in bollywood
Re:my roommate in college (Score:4, Informative)
Where are the testosteroned rivals, here ?
Parent
it was a joke (Score:5, Insightful)
but an indian can make fun of his nation's movie industry if he wants to, just like americans like to say hollywood is too liberal/ too gun crazy, when the truth is of course more complex
Parent
Re:it was a joke (Score:3, Informative)
I wish they did. It's ridiculous to say Bollywood has only 1 plot. Maybe, a second one accidently gets in here and there. (j/k)
Seriously, Bollywood movies suffer being built from a very limited number of templates. That's true in Hollywood only for those family feel-good goofy comedies and mindless action movies (but not ALL action movies suffer from this). Bollywood also suffers from ridiculous melodrama and absurd plot contrivances. Again, this prob
the outdated stereotype of liberals in hollywood (Score:5, Insightful)
so it's a contraction i was trying to show: either hollywood is too liberal in which case there are no war movies, all problems are solved without violence, and no one carries a gun (not true at all), or it isn't liberal
so hollywood clearly is not liberal
hollywood is what it is: an industry maximized to project to americans what they want to see, so whatever you call hollywood is twisting the truth of what it is
you cannot blame hollywood for sex and violence in their films, you have to blame the amercian public: that's what they want to see, they vote with their pocketbooks
hollywood makes movies to make money, not political statements
you can't move into hollywood, change how it works, and suddenly change humanity. humanity is in control of hollywood through their pocket books, not vice versa.
but certain segments of society think they can control hollywood and therefore change ugly sides of humanity, because they think that hollywood is somehow in control of what people think. that's a logical fallacy of not understanding how the cause and effect relationship between the movie and the audience actually works.
conservatives complaing about the liberal media went out of vogue as soon as fox news grabbed ratings, so your complaint against "liberal" hollywood is outdated and contrived
Parent
Re:it was a joke (Score:3, Interesting)
Er, have to disagree with you there, in the strongest possible terms, I'm afraid. If you're talking about mainstream Hollywood films, then I'm constantly shocked at the lack of "boobs and sex" in them, compared to, say, European, or even British, Cinema. I think it's getting worse, too. I'm sure that there used to be more nudity in hollywood films, say fifteen years ago. This is a worrying trend. Violence is ge
Re:it was a joke (Score:4, Insightful)
Tired of the lack of decent domestic films, I've recently filled my Nexflix queue with foreign films. Apropos, just last night, my wife and I watched Sex and Lucia [imdb.com]. We saw the unrated version, but had it been rated, I'm pretty sure it would have received a "X" rating in the US. I have no idea what rating it had in its country of origin (Spain?), but I imagine it would have been equivalent to the US's "R" rating. Having lived in Germany for a year in my youth, I know that Europeans have a much more balanced view of sexuality than most Americans.
The point is that while there was plenty of nudity and "graphic" sex (by US movie standards), it was presented so matter-of-factly, that it blended perfectly within the context of the film. Let's face it, people have sex, and they walk around naked (at times). In a US film, every furtive (or gratuitous) breast shot or sex scene is presented in such an eye-popping, oogling fashion, that you'd think such events were somehow not normal.
The filming was top-notch, and the story was quite the mind-bender. I highly recommend it. I just hope the rest of my non-domestic film rentals prove to be of such quality. BTW, can anyone recommend good films from Central and South America?
Parent
Re:my roommate in college (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:my roommate in college (Score:3, Informative)
Well, he's wrong :-)
If I were to list my all-time favourite top-five films, it would include one from Bollywood: Lagaan, whose plot (apart from the singing and dancing) doesn't look anything like what you describe. And FWIW, the tunes are simply wonderful. It's the best soundtrack I have.
It is, of course, true that Bollywood makes a lot of what Westerners would think of as junk. But then, so does Hollywood.
It will be really interes
Not gonna work... (Score:3, Insightful)
Outsourcing (Score:5, Funny)
They've done what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Either way, it IS a good step, and great news.
Damon,
Bollywood (Score:5, Funny)
Now... (Score:5, Funny)
goodness gracious me! (Score:4, Insightful)
For those of you not familiar with Bollywood flicks, you kind of have to watch them in a similar way you watch Hong Kong kung-fu flicks. You have similar cheeziness factors, recurring themes (boy meets/loses girl and singing and dancing in one, "you killed my father..." and fighting in the other), and so on. It's good fun actually...
Do demographics factor in? (Score:5, Insightful)
It almost seems as though Bollywood's perception is that their core Indian market won't be affected by offering the movies online-the original article quotes something like 1 million out of 1 billion people in India have Internet access. So from their point of view, putting movies online can't really parasitize their existing market because it isn't connected. So they can only win-even if somebody finds a way around any protection on the movies, it still can only increase their customer base to reach people they haven't been able to in the past. In other words, even if only 1 out of 100 people actually buy the movie rather than watch any cracked version, that's still 1 more customer than they would have had otherwise.
In contrast, Hollywood seems to perceive their customers as more connected Internet-wise, and so putting movies online will parasitize their existing market. Using the same 1 out of 100 people idea, Hollywood sees it as losing 99 rather than gaining 1.
I'm not saying either or both is right or wrong, it just seems to me to be a difference in how each sees their core market.Re:Do demographics factor in? (Score:3, Interesting)
For the lower class, movie tickets are dirt cheap. But this cheap ticket gets you standing room only, right in front of the screen, with thousands of other cheap ticket holders.
If you can afford it, expensive tickets land you a seat in the balcony, where you don't have to rub elbows with everyone else.
By this design, the movies are more of a soc
This won't work (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not saying this is a bad idea...I'm just saying it won't work with Bollywood movies.
Only one problem (Score:5, Informative)
But on the other hand maybe movie distribution will become the killer app for broadband in India :)
How to cut costs in Bollywood? (Score:5, Funny)
The article is misleading. (Score:4, Informative)
This indicates revenue of a million a movie; that's a paltry sum which no American movie house would bother with.
"Bollywood's global annual revenues, estimated at $1.3 billion this year, are small change compared with Hollywood's $51 billion." --Business Week [businessweek.com]
This shoots down the other misdirection in the article. Sell all the tickets you want, Bollywood. You're still pulling less than 1/39th the cash that Hollywood takes in.
A lot of people watch these movies. I have seen a few. To a film, they were insipid. Do yourselves a favor and avoid the musicals at all costs.
But don't worry. They're not going to take over the film industry.
Things You Would Never Know Without Indian Movies (Score:5, Funny)
Introducing Things You Would Never Know Without Watching Bollywood Movies
I bet that they do well with this. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ever seen a Bollywood movie in a theater in the US?
Supply meets Demand and there are some people who like these movies here in the US where they can't (easily) see them in theaters.
I'm sure that lots of folks will take advantage if this if for no other reason than to have something from their culture for their children (born here) to watch.
Good luck to them!
Finally someone understands (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is a thriving industry (The Indian and Pakistani film groups) offering their goods online to make them available to those who live in geographical areas that would not normally be accessible. It eliminates videotape piracy which is rampant in this marketplace and allows fans access to the content. Why have the Bollywood chiefs picked this up and the American and British Music Industry dropped the ball. Was it pressure from their distributors? Lack of knowledge of the internet? No method of micropayments?
I would really like to know why it took a hardware manufacturer to bring in a system of legal digital content delivery (Apple and iTunes).
It also is good to see one of the largest and most productive media producers embracing digital video distribution. This completely jumps the gun on Hollywood and leaves the North American producers playing catch-up.
Fantastic News (Score:3, Interesting)
And while we're at it get hollywood doing the same. Sunday I wanted to watch about schmidt but not badly enough to go to the video store. They have taken a few quid off me if I could have downloaded it there and then. P2P isn't at threat it's a distribution method. With or without DRM there are plenty of people willing to pay for the convenience of media downloads.
VCDs are still there... (Score:3, Informative)
Bollywood tips (Score:3, Insightful)
Bollywood Stats (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, Bollywood does not make 1000 movies a year. Indian film industry does make 1000 movies a year. The difference is that Bollywood (based in Mumbai earlier known as Bombay) is focussed primarily on Hindi movies. However, this constitutes maybe a third to a half of the 1000 movies a year. There are other languages / locations which make movies by the dozens and that make up the rest of the numbers. Most of the Southern states, which incidentally do not have Hindi as their primary language, have factories chruning regional language films. Tamil, Telugu, Malyalam and (I think) Kannada movies are made to the tune of 50-100 per year. There are other languages contributing a smaller share.
Irrespective of whether the movie is Hindi, or one of the regional movies, they all do have similar formulaes. 95% of the movies adopt romance / action formula, with maybe less than 5% movies trying to do something different.
However, Hindi movies are the ones which are known globally historically and people get the mis-impression that all Bollywood is Indian Movies (which is right), and all Indian movies are Bollywood (which is wrong).
Re:India (Score:3, Interesting)
Not unless they figure out how to think as one nation [blogspot.com] instead of several chauvinistic states. Oh, and get rid of the pork-bellied [indianexpress.com] ruling class that has held the country back so far.
Re:India (Score:3, Insightful)
How does wasting the resources to acquire nuclear weapons help to become a intellectual or financial power ?
Re:India (Score:5, Funny)
I think in another 50 years that India will be beside the US in terms of being a world superpower. In a hundred it will be the most powerful nation in the world.
And in 200, it will conquer Texas for its petrol... Yeah!Parent
Re:India (Score:3, Interesting)
The single biggest factor that made America great was that America found the right amound of economic and social freedom to allow entreprenuers to innovate and grow their businesses. This was the result, in large part, from inheriting the individualism alive in
Re:Nukes? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm hoping that you're kidding, but in case you're not...
http://www.csi.ad.jp/ABOMB/data.html [csi.ad.jp]
Re:India (Score:3, Funny)
India is a (troubled) democracy. The reason they shoot 1000 movies a year is because of primordial capitalist soup breeding there.
In China you would have just one, government-approved, red-flag-covered-boobies feature
Re:India (Score:5, Informative)
israel is a "world power" because it is completely propped up with american handouts. the state of israel is the single biggest recipient of american foreign aid. thrity per cent of all u.s. foreign aid money goes there. thirty percent! that's $3billion a year.
not hard to be a "world power" with those kinds of freebies.
oh yeah, here's my source [ccmep.org]... and here [miftah.org] and here [csmonitor.com]
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Re:India (Score:3, Offtopic)
Re:Bad plots (Score:4, Informative)
S
Parent
Re:Bad plots (Score:5, Insightful)
1. EXPLOSION!
2. GUN FIGHT!
3. Advertisement
4. EXPLOSION!
5. GUN FIGHT!
Parent