Bollywood Bleg

Here's a Friday entertainment post to see how diverse in movie taste our readership is.

MrsDarwin and I recently attempted a foray into Hindi film. I have a certain interest in Indian culture, working with so many Indians at work, and we'd seen several Indian-made or themed movies made with a mainstream, English-speaking audience in mind. (Monsoon Wedding, Bride and Prejudice, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsmbObwStSQ) We'd seen the epic Lagaan -- nearly four hours about love, colonialism, and cricket.

However, the other night we mis-stepped badly while sitting up late with NetFlix instant play -- striking out with both the crossover Bollywood/Hollywood:

Which was simply flat, and a bit too much like an Indian-Canadian remake of Pretty Woman as a musical.

And then with the Hindi movie Race:

Which featured eye candy, music video style songs with even less relation to the plot than usual, and a plot whose swerves went far beyond hair-pin. It had a certain rogue-ish charm, but we remain mildly flummoxed by why we watched the whole thing.

So, clearly looking at the capsule summaries on NetFlix (and the number of stars from user reviews, which all seem to range from 3-4 anyway) is not the way to select quality movies. Do we have anyone out there who is familiar with Bollywood cinema and can recommend a top five or ten favorites? (I think we're looking more for the romantic comedy musical genre, than the seemingly endless number of hopeless epic historical love-story musicals -- a surprising number between Indians and Pakistanis. One can only be hopeless and epic so much of the time.)