Genre Conversations,
Genre conventions Bollywood films are mostly musicals and are expected to contain catchy music in the form of song-and-dance numbers woven into the script. A film's success often depends on the quality of such musical numbers. Indeed, a film's music is often released before the movie and helps increase the audience. Indian audiences expect full value for their money, with a good entertainer generally referred to as paisa vasool, (literally, "money's worth"). Songs and dances, love triangles, comedy and dare-devil thrills are all mixed up in a three-hour extravaganza with an intermission. They are called Masala films, after the Hindi word for a spice mixture. Like masalas, these movies are a mixture of many things such as action, comedy, romance and so on. Most films have heroes who are able to fight off villains all by themselves. There have always been Indian films with more artistic aims and more sophisticated stories, both inside and outside the Bollywood...