Saturday, October 6, 2012

Nollywood...then (Part II)


The stories they adapt are unbelievable! It’s like they think we, the audience, are a bunch of illiterates- even illiterates will not sit down and take in the crappy storylines we are always fed with each time a new Nollywood movie comes out. I wonder when we will get to the level of producing edgy movies and story lines that are so fresh ‘out of the box’. We no doubt have very good screenplay and our actors have managed to strike the chord and broken legs with their mastery of the performing arts concept, but sadly, that is not enough to bring the ‘cup’ home deservingly.

It is so sad that Ramsey Nouah has been stereotyped as a lover boy in every Nigerian movie and Patience Ozokwor is a labeled impious mother in law or seditious wife. When will we get to the level where Patience Ozokwor will act as ‘Mamma Mia’ like Meryl Streep did or where veterans like Olu Jacobs, Justus Esiri and Pete Edochie will do their own ‘Bucket List’ like Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson? These are realistic storylines. When will we get to produce pragmatic college (university) movies where real youngsters are used not Rita Dominic or Chioma Chukwuka acting like ‘fresh out of secondary school’ girls? It upsets me more to see that Nigerian producers cannot even take a cue from our endless reality shows on dance and other stuff and make movies out of them.

We have wonderfully talented dancers in the Nigerian youth, yet the best one director came up with was Ramsey Nouah and Rita Dominic…two people with, perhaps no history of dance whatsoever! The movie was dense! I could go on and on about this thing, but then again, will they listen? Won’t they go ahead and lift the storyline of a Bollywood movie and do a sorry remake of it? We have access to the best media technology as it advances, yet some directors would rather record on VHS (the oldest form of video recording alive-cassette)…I want to be an actress…I want so badly to be one! But most times I cringe when I see how stars interpret their roles…it almost looks as if they don’t have a clue what the character is about. That gives me such a headache!

People have jeered at me to stop criticizing Nollywood and feature in my own movie so they can see how I’d fare, but that on its own is a different ball game entirely. I don’t want to act as someone’s younger sister or daughter of a single parent or all that crap. Puhlease! I am young and edgy and upbeat and I love ‘Twilight’. I guess I just told you the kind of scripts I am looking out for; I love ‘A walk to Remember’, movies that will pull families to the cinemas with hankies and tissues and so much love to go around. I was so moved by the fact that Goodluck Jonathan gave a huge sum into the movie industry and honestly as much as I want the wad to, at least pass through my purse, I pray a loud prayer that God should open doors for me and speak to the imagination of these directors and producers and cause them to find favor in the sight of sponsors and ultimately make Nollywood serious competition for Hollywood and then hopefully, MS word will correct nollywood to Nollywood and we’ll all live happily ever after. To God be the Glory…The end...or is it the other way round?

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