Bollywood Horrors!
The Gutter’s own Beth has an essay in Bollywood Horrors: Religion, Violence and Cinematic Fears in India (Bloomsbury, 2020), a fancy academy book edited by friend of the Gutter Aditi Sen (who also has an essay inside). Go, Beth!
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Go To Bollywood
In the world of underappreciated Indian films, Youtube spelunking often leads to treasures. Years ago, while looking for cabaret songs by one of my favorite 1970s and 80s stars (Rekha, seen frequently on The Gutter), I happened across a number from Chehre Pe Chehra, an adaptation of…. Dr. […]
Because we need a good romcom in the depths of winter: Khoobsurat
A Disney-backed production with a big budget and competent cast and crew does not really qualify for a spot in the cultural gutter. But even in 2020, despite its global audiences and massive output, Indian cinema rarely figures in international discussions of popular culture, let alone “cinema” and […]
Tum Mere Ho
It’s been far too long since we last discussed an Indian snake movie on the Gutter, so today I bring you Tum Mere Ho (Hindi, 1990). In essence this is a tale of star-crossed lovers sandwiched in what Indian cinema calls a mythological, a story about deities, displays […]
Bombay Blofeld: Shaan
What if James Bond went to Bombay in the late 1970s and wasn’t so much a secret agent as a stylist and interior designer for a particularly aesthetics-oriented villain? The plot of Shaan has very little to do with any of the Bond films that I can remember. […]
Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi
For those of us who did not grow up watching Bollywood films (and maybe even for those of you who did, depending on how closely an adult monitored what you were watching when or after this film came out), there is a particular threshold that each of us […]
The Cultural Gutter 