12 Responses to "Bachchan Bitchin Bakwas, Again"

1. 

   aditya_k   January 16, 2009 at 2:03 pm

   i did not get what he’s trying to say…..is he saying that had SM not been filmed in India it wouldn’t have been as appealing?

   SearchIndia.com Responds:

   In his own crude way, Amitabh Bachchan is trying to put down the movie.

   Bachchan SR is perhaps trying to do four or five things here – a) hijack the discussion from the entertaining movie to a non-debate about depiction of poverty and misery in India/elsewhere b) trying to portray the critics of the movie as nationalists and patriots…as if those who like the movie are not patriots c) trying to get some cheap publicity by riding on the coattails of Slumdog Millionaire d) subliminally imply that since a westerner has directed it, it’s getting so much attention. e) Overall, the tone comes across as a cheapshot attempt to put down this fine movie.

2. 

   satya   January 16, 2009 at 2:58 pm

   I think he didnt like the fact that some british guy making a film in india and showing real india to world and walking away with all the awards.

   He probably wanted boyle to cast his family in the movie.

   Big B in Anil kapoor’s role.
   son Abishek Bachan as jamal and bahu aish as Latika.
   ———–
   SearchIndia.com Responds:

   You write above: He probably wanted boyle to cast his family in the movie.

   Big B in Anil kapoor’s role.
   son Abishek Bachan as jamal and bahu aish as Latika.

   That God exists is proven by the absence of the incompetent buffoons oops Bachchans in Slumdog Millionaire.

3. 

   knopflerforpresident   January 16, 2009 at 5:08 pm

   The reviewer/blogger sounds immature in his reaction to Bachchan’s comments. Sounds like a little kid throwing a tantrum. “dodo”, “green eyed monster”? How dare you diss a movie I liked???

   C’mon guys, grow up and give us something to work with here.

   By the way, a bunch of people who have more in common with McDonalds than anything Indian (except perhaps our love for “abroad”) really can’t expect to be taken seriously when they review Indian film. Or anything Indian for that matter.

   And Bachchan had a somewhat of a point. Get over it white guys, India is no less third world than you are. In fact, until we get George Bush into the BJP or bring down the financial system OR invade a country (take your pick as to which one) and massacre its civilians, I feel pretty developed right where I am.

   But unintellectual slashing makes people mad (like me), who comment and generally waste more time on your drivel (me again), which keeps the ad money coming in doesn’t it? Smart. And hey it beats resorting to becoming a porn site! Who cares if you come across biased and stereotypical? Its all part of becoming more American anyway (hey this stereotypical thing is actually fun!).

   Slash on! Once you’re done, go review a Michael Moore film. Or Southpark. Yeehaw.

   SearchIndia.com Responds:

   1. You write above: go review a Michael Moore film

   Only a bonehead would accuse someone of an immature reaction and then go on to disdainfully dismiss Michael Moore with the fury of a rabid Republican mongrel or treat Moore as if he were a pariah.

   Whether you like Michael Moore or not, the fact remains he’s made a remarkable contribution to the documentary genre of films. How would you know that.

   Here’s the review of Michael Moore’s Sicko. Here’s an excerpt from our review:

   By making Sicko, Michael Moore has done a yeoman service in highlighting an entirely avoidable American Tragedy occurring daily for tens of millions of people in this country.

   2. Amitabh Bachchan had very little to say except to put down the movie.

   You are interpreting stuff in his comments that he mostly surely never even imagined. It is laughable to even think that Bachchan SR conceived of your rationale: In fact, until we get George Bush into the BJP or bring down the financial system OR invade a country (take your pick as to which one) and massacre its civilians, I feel pretty developed right where I am. What baloney.

   If you look at Bachchan’s rationale after the controversy erupted (perhaps he wanted all the attention), it’s a pretty effete response.

   3. You write: The reviewer/blogger sounds immature in his reaction to Bachchan’s comments….How dare you diss a movie I liked???

   No one took offense to Amitabh Bachchan’s inherent right to criticize a movie or anything else for that matter…it’s the content and context of the criticism that’s at issue here.

   But of course a grasp of such subtleties would be beyond your ken.

   4. You write: Who cares if you come across biased and stereotypical? Its all part of becoming more American anyway

   When did you pick up your Ph.D in drivel-logy. Like much of your fevered comment, the above sentences make no sense except in the misfiring synapses of your upper-storey.

   5. You write: And hey it beats resorting to becoming a porn site!

   We are not one but what the hell is wrong with being a porn site (Trust us, looking at boobs is any day better than looking over your babble).

   6. You write: keeps the ad money coming in doesn’t it?

   You schmuck, if the ad dollars were to roll in like you imply, even zombies like you would be running blogs.

4. 

   the gora   January 16, 2009 at 9:23 pm

   I don’t get why Bachchan would make such a boneheaded comment. If anything, this movie would serve as a chance for “Western” audiences to be curious and learn more about him from the way he figures into the movie. I’ve had several friends ask me after having seen the movie wanting to know who he is and if he is a big deal and I just tell them to look him up on Wikipedia or Google. I’m sure there must be others out there who have Googled him since seeing the movie, or are searching for a copy of Zanjeer, etc. The same goes for anything else having to do with the questions/plot, such as the cricketers, the Indian poets, The Three Musketeers, etc. He should be thanking Danny Boyle rather than making some backhanded remark.

   Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, bonehead Bachchan.

   SearchIndia.com Responds via iPhone:

   Watched Zanjeer a million years back.

   Original angry-young man movie.

5. 

   neo   January 17, 2009 at 12:42 am

   its just a case of sour grapes.

   Bachchan was not in the movie so the movie becomes bad and against India for him.

   Knopflerforpresident, by the way Bachchan spends half year abroad shooting movie and other half he spends inside his house and going out in his AC car with his chamchas.

   So he can’t be expected to know much about India. If you live in india watch news. About 60%mumbai people live in slums. So Danny Boyle showed the real India which is not the kind of India you see in bollywood.

   Maybe bachchan became angry because the film showed sarcastically the Indian people mania for him. Maybe he actually thinks he deserves that

6. 

   Harry Butt   January 17, 2009 at 11:10 am

   I heard that Danny is mighty pissed now.. he is going to change the scene from the kid
   getting autograph
   to
   wiping whatever is on his body and throwing it at AB.

   SearchIndia.com Responds:

   Funny. 🙂

7. 

   knopflerforpresident   January 17, 2009 at 4:57 pm

   Lol, what are you talking about? You don’t seem to have grasped what I was trying to say at all (surprise, surprise).

   1. I was suggesting a better use of your time, not putting down Michael Moore! Sheesh.

   2. Who on earth is thinking that Bachchan conceived of/would conceive of MY rationale??? Once again, you missed the point entirely. My statements were directed towards this site’s overdone abuse of… well everything! I mean come on, your good reviews (taare zameen par, pursuit of happyness) seemed a lot more informative (and professional) than the reviews of the flicks you hated. In the latter you just bitch. There lacks the level of critique that is imperative when you’re in the line of reviewing movies or any other form of media.

   Personally, I think the Bachchan family is stuck up and can’t seem to let go of past glory. But the industry IS getting more intelligent (take anything that Amir Khan directs nowadays (NOT acts – Gajini was pathetic)) and you seem not to give it that due. Come on, can you honestly say that there has been NO improvement in Bollywood in the last few years? I can name a few movies that seem to cater to an intelligent audience rather than just the masses: the above mentioned taare…, Jaane Tu, etc.

   3. AGAIN, just trying to point out your lack of concise criticism. By saying things like “go slash your wrists” (from todays Chandni-whatever post’s title) you give the impression that you are opting for sensationalism to compensate for the lack of intelligent subject material. This is exactly what most of Bollywood does – flashy pointless dance sequences to make up for the lack of plot, acting ability, etc. So, while you were bashing their lack of class (class which Slumdog Millionaire had in truckloads) I was sitting here thinking that you guys were just as bad!

   Doesn’t seem like I’m the subtlety-challenged one here.

   4. Biased and stereotypical – precisely what your posts seemed to be. And, in most parts of the world Americans (most, not all of course) seem to personify these traits. Hence, my second statement. Capiche?

   5. Granted – nothing wrong with that. My apologies to any porn aficionados out there.

   6. Ha ha. Nah, I like my day job. But as long as you guys stick to writing bollywood-quality reviews, anybody could do it!

   Neo – I couldn’t agree more. As educated Indians we ourselves can’t claim to know what it is to live like the masses. So, a Bachchan certainly would have no clue. It would be as if a bunch of American’s started writing Bollywood movie reviews! From America no less! Classic.

   Oh, and I see that not one point of your response actually addressed the lack of professionalism in your posts/reviews. Nice!

   SearchIndia.com Responds:

   1. You write: I see that not one point of your response actually addressed the lack of professionalism in your posts/reviews

   Since our blog oozes professionalism in every post and response to the comments, there’s no need to address the rants of cranks screaming for attention by some contrarian yelling nonsense.

   As they say, Certain truths are self-evident. Gandhi was a pacifist, Stalin was a paranoid monster, SearchIndia.com is one of the most professional & objective blogs out there.

   2. You write: But the industry IS getting more intelligent

   What planet do you live on.

   For the most part, Bollywood & its younger sibling Kollywood are getting worse.

   Decent Indian movies are still few and far between. Garbage and theft are the order of the day.

   Just take a look at some recent trash oops movies to come out of the Indian sewers: Drona, Dostana, Ghajini, Villu, God Tussi Great Ho, Aegan ad nauseum ad infinitum.

   3. You write: I can name a few movies that seem to cater to an intelligent audience rather than just the masses

   And pray WTF is an intelligent audience – you and your tapeworms.

   The last time we checked, India was for the most part masses.

   4. You write: My statements were directed towards this site’s overdone abuse of… well everything!

   Are you completely out of your mind? Forget your calumnious retort of overdone abuse, This blog never engages in abuse or condones even minor abuse or trash talk.

   Our raison d’etre is fair and balanced look at All Things Indian and More.

   Of course to the unschooled mind, criticism is undistinguishable from abuse. All we can say is that your only salvation lies in education.

   5. You write: Biased and stereotypical – precisely what your posts seemed to be. And, in most parts of the world Americans (most, not all of course) seem to personify these traits.

   Biased and stereotypical are the last things you can accuse us of. If you look at the 50 trillion cells in our body, you won’t find even one with a hint of bias.

   As for your comment on Americans personifying these traits, that’s a perfect example of stereotypical nonsense.

   6. You write: By saying things like “go slash your wrists” (from todays Chandni-whatever post’s title) you give the impression that you are opting for sensationalism to compensate for the lack of intelligent subject material

   Effective communication lies in driving home a point in clear and unmistakable prose (not like the rambling drivel in your first comment).

   To engage in sensationalism would be to underestimate the intelligence of our readers.

   We rarely even use photographs on this blog since one of our missions in life is to do our little bit to save the dying tradition of reading (No, no we are not asking people to completely abandon tit-gazing, which has its manifold benefits 😉 ).

   Again, we don’t misunderestimate (as our idiot President George W.Bush is wont to say) our blog’s readers or commenters by resorting to sensationalism. The right word for the subject is the uncompromising credo we live by.

   7. You write: I was suggesting a better use of your time

   Should the day come when we are forced to rely on suggestions from pompous nincompoops, we’ll troop over to Home Depot and buy a long rope. Until then, shove it up.

   Now try hard to write at least one interesting word in your next comment.

8. 

   singgakutty   January 17, 2009 at 10:03 pm

   i think wat big b wants is the rest of the world to have a perception that in india, everybody sing and dance on the street, no poverty, everyone is happy etc

9. 

   joeantony   January 18, 2009 at 11:53 pm

   Ah, I never known Big B can be so stupid, the movie portraits a mumbai slum of 15-20 years ago from now… and I think even today we do have these slums… you can see them well when the flight lands .. they are just adjacent to the airport as the story depicts…

   Its the problem of whole bollywood, which always tells the story of the rich mumbaikar, living in a luxurious apartment having a hi-fi miniskirt girlfriend and riding a bimmer or scoda ah… Big B wants only those kind of movies… such a moron…

   SM is a masterpiece, forget the context and the content, the picturization, dialogue delivery, casts, screenplay, music everything is done at perfection. So technically SM is way ahead of all so called bollywood cartoons… I think Big B likes only some cartoons like LS2050…

10. 

    StrYngLad74   January 20, 2009 at 4:55 pm

    “Its just that the SM idea authored by an Indian and conceived and cinematically put together by a Westerner, gets creative Globe recognition. The other would perhaps not.”

    Say what you will, SI, but Bachchan Sr. nailed this one on the head with this statement. If this movie was directed by Manish Jha or Murugadoss (hypothetically speaking, of course), there is no way it’d have received the recognition it did. Your dislike for the old man combined with your overwhelming love for that overrated flick got into your reasoning. Now that I see, movies you dislike are often target of your rants. I must admit though that your rants are a funny read, compared to the usual dour reviews that I read, but they’re rants nonetheless and do smell of a little bias (c’mon now, admit it 🙂 ). On that note, Knopfler’s response was quite appropriate and your retort towards him would classify among the [Trash Talk] category that you often use for censoring rants from irate posters here.

    Be classier, SI!

    SearchIndia.com Responds:

    First, the facts. Slumdog Millionaire is universally acclaimed (OK, almost universally acclaimed except by a few petulant whiners) to be one of the finest movies to come out of India in recent years. SD is a gazillion orders of magnitude better than the trash that flows out of the augean sewers of Bollywood and Kollywood.

    1. Au contraire, we think your intense dislike for Slumdog Millionaire forces you to take indefensible causes like Bachchan’s drivel. Perhaps, this is how Nathuram Godse’s attorney felt as he fought a futile battle to save Gandhi’s Hindu fanatic assassin from the gallows.

    Let’s look at some of the words you’ve used in the past and now to describe SD:

    mediocre, most over-hyped offering from India since “Lagaan”, bulls**t of contrived plots, over-hyped mediocrity, mediocre product, The movie TRULY rested on the adult characters, and they failed to deliver, now I know that the Golden Globes judges smoke something weird too, overrated flick….

    As if all of the above indefensible assaults on SD were not enough, you hurled yet another gratuitous insult at the movie – Even “Ram Teri Ganga Maili” and “Taare Zameen Par”, both commercial BOLLYWOOD movies, are better than SM in execution and compelling storytelling…

    We think you are incapable of a rational, unbiased, unfrothing look at Slumdog Millionaire.

    No one denies that Matrubhoomi or Taare Zameen Par were good movies, but SD was visually a far more compelling movie with a more gripping story.

    And the last time we checked, cinema was a visual medium.

    Of course, SD has inadequacies (what doesn’t in life) but to pick up a few stray elements and slam it as a mediocre product is to betray an ignorance of the meaning of both mediocre and bias (you repeatedly use the word mediocre to characterize this movie….We counted at least four times your use of mediocre but since Math has never been our forte, others with better Math skills may up your mediocre tally).

    Sure, taste is subjective. SD may not be the finest movie by your lights. That’s perfectly fine.

    But to repeatedly dismiss Slumdog Millionaire as a mediocre offering and disdainfully attribute its success to a Western hand at the tiller is as laughably silly as calling Einstein a schmuck.

    Setting aside our usual atheistic inclinations for a moment, in this instance (i.e. SD) we’d go as far as to say Vox populi, vox dei.

    2. You write above: Say what you will, SI, but Bachchan Sr. nailed this one on the head with this statement

    Of course not. With that remark, Bachchan Sr hoisted himself with his own petard.

    3. You write: If this movie was directed by Manish Jha or Murugadoss (hypothetically speaking, of course), there is no way it’d have received the recognition it did.

    Forget Thief-doss oops Murugadoss, Slumdog Millionaire was so good that even if a kossu (mosquito) had directed the same movie would have received the same acclaim (notice our use of same movie).

    In some rare instances in life, True Class rises to the top irrespective of class, color or race.

    SD is one of those instances where the movie would have made it big even if whacko inmate #B33920 or even inmate #04475–046 had directed the same movie.

    4. You write above: Your dislike for the old man combined with your overwhelming love for that overrated flick got into your reasoning

    Disagree with your dislike & overrated characterizations.

    We don’t dislike anyone here – not even our Mallu gal Nayantara.

    As we’ve said in the past, blood flows in others’ veins. The milk of human kindness in ours. You probably knew that already, didn’t you?

    5. You write: your rants are a funny read, compared to the usual dour reviews that I read, but they’re rants nonetheless and do smell of a little bias (c’mon now, admit it 🙂

    Bias? Apdi inna yenna (what does it mean). Never heard of the term before. A word not found in our Merriam Webster’s (perhaps someone tore the page thinking it’s not applicable to us. 😉

    And did we hear anyone say Slumdog Millionaire is an overrated flick.

11. 

    StrYngLad74   January 20, 2009 at 11:30 pm

    1. Au contraire, I can counter-argue that your IMMENSE LOVE for SM is making you rant endlessly and making you blind to the fact that we can have our own opinions. If you noticed, most of us who didn’t care much for SM have been very focused in our response and picked out the reasons why it wasn’t worth the hype. You call us “petulant whiners”, I call us “informed observers with a mind of their own.” I certainly didn’t buy the hype on “28 days later” (another Boyle film) and I didn’t buy this movie’s hype either. OVERRATED, PERIOD!!!

    On that note, “Ram Teri Ganga Maili” is indeed a good movie, and better than over-hyped SM. Let me guess, you haven’t seen it, right? The very fact that you find a Bollywood mainstream film being considered superior to your “BESTEST FLICK OF THE YEAR” as atrocious, is rather funny to watch. What I’ve noticed

    1. You’ve not seen the good stuff that has come out of Bollywood (admitted it might constitute less than 5% of the total output).
    2. You have absolutely no clue of the plethora of films from Indian Parallel cinema
    3. You make comparisons between foreign parallel cinema and Bollywood (how just is that, may I ask?) just so you can take a swipe at Vijay, Ajith, Bachchan Jr., who are admittedly bad actors. Yes, we know it by-heart now. Can you move on to something refreshing?

    Bottomline: For someone claiming to be a fair and unbiased site, you seem to have a strong love affair with movies you like and a strong dislike for actors and movies that you don’t. You say “We don’t dislike anyone here – not even our Mallu gal Nayantara.”, but I haven’t heard anything good about her that contradicts your statement. You too, like us casual visitors to your site, are fan-boys in your own right.

    And yes, Slumdog is an overhyped, mediocrity. Chomp on that! 😉

    SearchIndia.com Responds:

    1. Not surprised to see that you haven’t been able to contradict our key point about your vehement rants against SD…dubbing it mediocre ad nauseum ad infinitum.

    2. No one denies you the right to your opinion, however laughable or indefensible they may turn to be.

    It’s your repeated slamming of a decent movie like SD as mediocre and following from that the support for Bachchan Sr’s point that SD is in the limelight because it’s directed by a Westerner that we take issue with.

    3. Let’s not engage in hyperbole here.Plethora of films from Indian parallel cinema? We haven’t stopped laughing. Parallel cinema is struggling for funding in India and here you are talking of plethora. Most definitely not, considering that the universe of Indian Parallel cinema itself is so small.

    4. We don’t always make a comparison between foreign parallel cinema & Bollywood. Are Gran Torino, Slumdog Millionaire, Appaloosa, Hancock…foreign parallel cinema? No.

    5. We are unlikely to change our mind on Slumdog Millionaire and unless hell freezes over you are unlikely to change your opinion on what you have repeatedly dubbed a mediocre movie.

    So, let’s move on.

    Since both of us have more than had our say on the topic, debate on this issue is closed between us (unless there’s some fresh angle or perspective).

    (Sorry for the delay in processing this comment….just fell through the cracks.)

12. Pingback: Eloi and Morlocks » Ego Trip or: Why People Learned to Stop Being Shy and Embraced the Net

You must be logged in to post a comment Login