'Safe'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
megan makes a very good point! Wikipedia sez Kuch Kuch Hota Hai is 3 hours long, which I think is pretty typical for Bollywood.
Ooh, and while researching KKHH on Wikipedia, I found a list of winners of the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment. You might find a few good kid-friendly titles on this list, flea.
Bride & Prejudice might be a good gateway Bollywood for the kids at least, since you'll have a good handle on the story going in.
Thanks, I was looking at Kuch Kuch Hota Hai myself! As long the as original mother dying isn't graphic, that sounds okay.
As for the attention span & length thing, the kids are really funny to me. If they are engrossed in what they are watching, they can watch for ages (Casper could literally sit and watch Avatar for 6 hours straight if I'd let her, and Dillo is only two and a half and will happily sit for nearly 2 hours for Totoro). But (unlike me) they also seem fine with watching something for an hour, and then finishing it the next day. And Dillo is young enough that a lot goes over his head, so he spends half the time we're watching a movie playing trains.
I still have yet to see Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, which is pathetic and annoying because it's one of the biggest Bollywood hits.
My favorite Bollywood films are Lagaan (which won the Best Foreign Film Oscar) and Awara Paagal Deewana, which is the Bollywood rip-off of The Whole Nine Yards. It's pretty hilarious.
Heh, Lagaan is 224 minutes long. Well, it is about a cricket match...
As long the as original mother dying isn't graphic, that sounds okay.
No, I think it's handled with a pretty light touch. She dies very early on, not graphically at all (of cancer or something similar, I think) and is mostly present in the movie through the letters she has left to her daughter. It's got nothing on Bambi, or even Finding Nemo, for that matter.
Heh, Lagaan is 224 minutes long.
The reason I love it is because it doesn't feel 224 minutes long! When it was over, I was totally surprised to discover it was nearly four hours long. I don't think I would have wanted to watch it if you'd told me that beforehand.
Well, it is about a cricket match...
And that's only the last hour!
I concur with Lagaan. I really loved it. I don't think it is graphic, but I cannot remember the movie well.
I only remember doing a lot of fast-forwarding during Lagaan, don't stone me. I found it to be one of the most excruciatingly painfully slow movies I have ever half-watched. There was the song-and-dance, but it seemed infrequent, and in between there was too much dryness (no pun intended).
Isn't there a short scene where a man or a dog or a horse (or all three) get beaten by Paul Blackthorne's character?
One of the most fun Bollywood films I've seen is Bunty Aur Babli, which is kind of a Bollywood take on Bonnie and Clyde but with (natch) lots more dance numbers and a happy ending. From what I remember, the violence was all very slapstick-y, and the sex was either nonexistant or replaced by a dance number involving waterfalls.
Phir Bi Dil Hai Hindustani is another I'm fond of, but it gets surprisingly dark in the second half and probably isn't good for young kids. Better to just watch the song I'm The Best in both female and male versions online.