Prejudiced about the Bride

If you think this is a bald attempt to cash in on the seething resentment against Bride and Prejudice, well, you are right :-). I think this episode is providing some very interesting points of interest that I wanted to milk.

First it was BVHK's fist-waving (in full gory detail), then Navneet's lament and now Daemon's first-hand account that led to some speculation in certain quarters that the stomach upset that's kept him down could've been partially caused by the viewing. To cut a long story short, B&P (subtitled: Baap re Baap) is not coming off a hit among blogging circles.

I usually pride myself on having a decent radar that can spot such "turkeys". If you will lend me an ear, I will, in my best Holmesian impression lead you to the "singular" clues that pointed to this earlier in the story:

* NRI interpretations of Punjabi culture (admittedly the only such film that ever worked was Bend it like Beckham - but that's like saying we can always win after following-on)

* The presence of the Anna Kournikova of Indian films (atleast so far): Ms. Rai (not wanting to crib, but frankly, seeing Gurinder Chadha market this film with that as her primary USP was a sign).

* More tellingly, the presence of Meghana Kothari (of whose "cobra dance" I've heard a lot of and believe it has in itself to be be the next big "cult-ic" item - a JaDe item song perhaps). MK who? Remember Prem Aggan (known in some quarters as "Prem Ugh-an")? She played the female lead.

* Several songs by Anu Malik (who claimed here that people were being "completely bowled over by it". He must be a googly bowler).

Ok, enough aimless disparaging. Yes, I haven't seen the film. But seeing the amount of negative reviews, I feel I'm missing out on something. This is definitely the one film that people are going to huddle together and take apart. Even Shobhaa De hates it. That has stoked my curiosity like nothing else.

On a more sombre note - one more lost to the vast vacuous recesses of commercial banality?