On top of that, the charges against American feelings of superiority are not done well enough to force the American audience to think about them. So I think the movie will not go over well here. Nor may some NRI’s care for the glib stereotypes about them.

More importantly, there are all sorts of complications in basing the movie on “Pride and Prejudice.” The original story is a clear-cut class commentary and with this cross-cultural recast Chadha has to deal with the additional race/colonial issues inevitably brought in by the white hero initially looking down on the Indian heroine and her community. Complicated to do that and retain the simplistic “feel-good” romantic movie she was going for, and in fact I believe she failed to do so. (It is always difficult to analyze the often conflated influences of race and economic class.)

Finally, yes, I think that we are in a phase where Americans do go to Bollywood movies to see “exotic” women and “simple” people enjoying themselves. They think that all there is to a Masala movie is singing, dancing, and weddings. The fad may be digested quickly and forgotten, or gradually the view of Masala movies over here may be deepened as time goes on. In this moment, I see condescension being involved in Americans’ approach to Bollywood. The ones who like the movies see them as simple fun produced by and for a simple people, and the ones who don’t like the movies look down on their differing narrative conventions, oblivious to Hollywood’s own often simplistic narrative conventions.

I saw the preview for B & P, and call me judgmental, but it looked like a steaming pile of doo.

I thought Nitin was tha bomb in those American flag thong underwear. He seemed to be packing some heat too!

Martin Henderson adds nothing to the movie. Marsha Mason and that chick from the Gilmore Girls are in it to.