| INDIA TODAY - The most widely read newsweekly in South Asia. | INDIA TODAY - The most widely read newsweekly in South Asia. | CURRENT ISSUE OCTOBER 9, 2006 | | | | INDIASCOPE |  | | |  | | ROUGH CUT: KAVEREE BAMZAI | | | Anti-hype, the New Hype  Everyone who feels like barfing every time an actor pops up on television promoting his or her film, please raise your hands. And keep them poised for attack until Bollywood invents a new way to seduce audiences into theatres. Please, no more plugs disguised as serious discussions on the status of the Great Indian Wedding to feed off Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. No more debates on campus politics to tap into Vishal Bhardwaj's Omkara. And certainly, no more roundtables on whether Rang de Basanti needs an Oscar to validate the Indian film industry (er, it's not as if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is waiting to hand it over). For, I am happy to report that audiences can tell when a movie is good or bad by looking at the promos. Did it need a big fight by we, the people, on desi superboys vs western superheroes for parents to be dragged to movie halls by their Krrish-crazy children? A mock wedding premiere did not make Shaadi No. 1 a hit. Sly hints about Sushmita Sen's relationship with Vikram Bhatt were unable to propel Ankahee to success. The new buzz, my friends, is anti-hype. Let the movie release and do its own talking. Audiences are educated enough by the constant barrage of infotainment to make up their own minds. Which explains why a movie like Lage Raho Munnabhai can do better business in the second week than it did in the first. Or why Pyaar Ke Side Effects did good business at the multiplexes despite motormouth Mallika Sherawat not giving pre-release interviews. If stars have become careful of over exposure on TV, it's the same with audiences. Ideally they would like to see Aishwarya Rai hold forth on Abhishek Bachchan, rather than how Umrao Jaan, her next film, is about the unfortunate girl child. Or Preity Zinta should tell us whether she intends to marry Ness Wadia, not how wonderful Jaan-e-Mann is (we'll pay for the ticket, ma'm, and find out for ourselves). And yes, it's the same globally. It's a picture of Suri that makes it to the cover of Vanity Fair and on Katie Couric's first bulletin, not her dad Tom Cruise banging on about Mission Impossible: III. And again, it's Sean Penn's views on George W. Bush that make headlines on Larry King Live, not his role in the listless All the King's Men. So if Bollywood wants to get global, maybe they should start treating viewers the way their counterparts in Hollywood do-like adults, not gullible goofballs. Nobody knows anything? Not any more. | | | | Index | | | | INDIA TODAY - The most widely read newsweekly in South Asia. 
 |  |  |  | | South Asia's most influential and most read newsweekly presents the fifth Conclave India Tomorrow 2006: Bridging the Divide | | |
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