Bollywood heroines not as good now? - Page 3

Originally posted by: dedh

You say "nostalgia", I say "genuine talent, charisma and beauty" - show me a contemporary 21-year-old actress who would be able to pull it off like Madhuri:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZCStaATkpA

Exactly. This is Sridevi in the 1977 Tamil movie 16 Vayathinile-translates to At 16 years old roughly.. Now the film was released in 1977, Sridevi was just 14 years old and she played a very heavy role of a 16 year old woman who fell in love with an educated man, who only wanted her for pleasure, then he leaves her-because she does not give in and then the travails she faces after that. kamal hassan, Rajnikant were in the movie and Sridevi held her own despite being only 14 at the time. Kamal got national award, sri also got some sort of award, not full national award-at 14.

That kind of thing was what I was talking about-heroine who can hold their own , beautiful, charismatic . She was only 14 and such a powerhouse even back then. I just don't see that nowadays with actresses-though they all seemed to study in the NY School of acting and come with degree in acting!

Originally posted by: Maroonporsche

You buy into this also ? ET Tu 😆

It’s upto to the people acting in the movie to make it good.

So you also invoke Shakespeare to defend nepotism 😆

Originally posted by: tapori

So you also invoke Shakespeare to defend nepotism 😆

I just think good films or more importantly hit films are made through the efforts of all. Same with the bad ones

Originally posted by: desertsun

For a long time we had a great crop of heoines, who looked beautiful and could act-Madhubala, Meena Kumari, Saira Banu, Waheeda Rehman, Nutan, nargis, Hema Malini, Vyjantimala, geeta bali, Sharmila Tagore, Sridevi, jaya Prada, Madhuri Dixit, Zeenat Aman, Parveen babi, Raakhee, Dimple Kapadia, Jaya Badhuri, Smita Patel, Rekha.

Maybe I have reached my mom's generation and oh old is good, new is trash-but just wondering-I really did enjoy the actresses before me too. Just the new ones of not that caliber? Maybe that old movie magic is gone?

You're not the only one. These days I find myself skipping back to the oldies rather than see the next best thing coming out on the OTT. Those old time actresses you mentioned had presence. But Saira Banu did take a few movies to find her stride. just watch her early movies with Joy Mukherjee before she outpaced him in Shagird. Waheeda Rahman is the ultimate in natural acting. Even in the most dramatic movies, she brought a sense of "real" to the proceedings. Look at the difference between Zeenat's sexy rendering of Laila o Laila and Sunny Leone's. The latter had almost no expression. Ditto with Nora Fatehi.

Originally posted by: dedh

You say "nostalgia", I say "genuine talent, charisma and beauty" - show me a contemporary 21-year-old actress who would be able to pull it off like Madhuri:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZCStaATkpA

Madhuri's character is so sweet,young and passive in Ram Lakhan and people like her father and Amrish Puri runs roughshod over her.Force feeding her ladoos and humiliating her by seating her with the tawaifs was terrible. It's great to see her declare her independence and stand up for herself with this song. Dimple is terribly amused though from the look of her sideswept glances. So nice of her to drag Jackie Shroff to the function willy nilly because "Madhuri will be alone and we must support her". Women standing up for women.

In Ram Lakhan and Parinda (1989) she plays Jackie's sweet sister-in-law. In the same year she played his lover in Vardi where she had a hot scene with him. In Tridev which came out the same year she plays his little sister who turns up her nose and disapproves of him as a loser/troublemaker. That's some versatility. Sure lots of actresses have done it. But not in a single year.

The only one I'm excited about now is Masaba. She was so good in MM. So natural and charming. After a long time, a newbie has come with tremendous screen presence. Like a professional doing it for years wala screen presence. She should have started years ago but I guess she couldn't dream of being a mainstream heroine in India cause obvious reasons. Gonna say this for the first and the last time but thank God for Netflix. Atleast they finally did something right.

Nostalgia is powerful! Apart from a few fans here and there, not many want to see outdated mannerisms of 80s in the garb of charisma, ada and grace. Not saying today’s heroines are some very great or something but if you discard the recent trashy nepo products, I would prefer today’s ones both looks and acting wise.