If you’re a country with a minor film industry, it’s probably pretty clear what you produced in the year that’s Oscar-bait, but I’d imagine India, Hong Kong, Germany and France would have a lot of contenders every year. Apparently every county with any sort of film industry submits one choice, and the Oscar committee winnows it down to 6-9 nominees. The film has enough appeal that India submitted as their official entry for Best Foreign Language film for this year’s Academy Awards. In case you’re wondering about the title, the deaf lead is named Murphy but vocalizes it as “Barfi” because he can’t speak well, and barfi is also the name of a sweet Indian confectionary (oooh onomastic symbolism!) I choose Barfi mostly based on its astonishing 9.0 IMDB rating, (with over 10,000 votes) which, despite its unfortunate name to American ears, is a wonderful comedy/tearjerker about a mischievous deaf guy and his unrequited love. I know a bit about the formula: 1) usually longer than your average 95 minute US film 2) generally have an intermission 3) almost always have at least one dance number, even in a drama (but not a thriller) 4) feature young beautiful actors that can sing and dance ,with a romantic subplot that is full of sexual tension but rarely features even chaste kissing 5) are generally subtitled in English because India has something like 3 gazillion regional dialects and not everyone speaks Hindi, but most moviegoers will speak either Hindi or English, and if you speak neither, you can at least enjoy the singing and dancing and costumes.įor my first trip to the Cinema there was nothing American I wanted to see playing at the time I was heading to the city center, so I figured I’d see an Indian film. I had seen maybe 3 Bollywood films start to finish before I came here. I saw Looper last night, which I liked, but so far, my scorecard is 1 US film, 2 Bollywood films. However, Judge Dredd is in its second week despite tanking in the US. Long artsy films don’t seem to play here I had hoped to catch “Samsara” (the film by the makers of Baraka) before I left Seattle, but I had too much to do. You spend 3 weeks with one TV station and no home internet and see how YOUR standards change before you judge me.) (Which means I’ll be paying to see shameless Glee rip-off Pitch Perfect first run. Though they are showing that new Clint Eastwood drama that looks so dull I won’t bother, and I’ve pretty much decided that at FJ$6.50 a screening (about $3.25 in USD), I’ll see just about EVERYTHING that comes around that I have even a passing interest in. In the month I’ve been here I think there have been two Hong Kong action films screened and exactly 0 UK or European films. Since I’ve arrived late in the year (early September), I can’t tell you now how many of the year’s Oscar nominees will have played here, but my guess will be about half. It shows a mix of Bollywood films and big-budget American films. It has 6 screens but often spaces film showings (especially children’s movies in the morning and violent Hollywood action films at night) so that it’s showing 10 films per week.
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