more lessons from Nollywood

24 Things we've learnt from Nollywood (was sent this list by a friend)

1. Every problem you have is spiritual.
2. In every romance movie, someone must die.
3. It is possible to hit a person without actually touching them!
4. Anyone who gets hit by a car dies immediately.
5. Poisoned food always tastes better.
6. The best way to make money is by visiting a 'Babalawo' / joining a cult/ sleeping with rich men.
7. One of a pair of twins (identical or not) is born evil.
8. There is never an end to your suffering, except death!
9. With a pastor ... all things are possible.
10. A movie can be titled anything... such as:
*The boy is mine,
* Face me, I face you,
*Two rats,*Spanner,
*Calculator,
*Igala,
*Ijele,
*Igodo,
*Igudu
*Shigidi
11. A movie has not been made if at least one actor/actress has not-'shelled', twisted his/her lips to speak wrong phonetics'.
12. You are in love... you want to take your girl out, the best place youtake her to is...
*Mr. Biggs/Tantalizers: where you'll most probably see an ex while feedingeach other.
*The beach: where it is imperative that you ride a donkey and carry herplayfully.
*Or the best: take her to buy some new ugly clothes.
13. An Igbo movie has been made if ...
* You visit a 'Babalawo'
* A fleet of cars is shown off at regular intervals for a total of half ofthe movie time.
* Kanayo 'O' Kanayo is in the movie. Pete Edochie is also there too!
* To get rich it is mandatory you join a cult14. Gun shots and fireworks sound the same!
15. Sometimes the title has absolutely nothing to do with the movie andother times, once you read the title and see the poster you know it all!!!(Also the soundtrack gives you a headache because it just narrates thewhole story repeatedly - so much for suspense and intrigue.)
16. A love story has not been produced if it does not have one or two ofthe following actresses-
* Stella Damassus
* Stephanie Okereke
* Genevieve Nnaji
* Omotola Jalade
* Rita Dominic
* Kate Henshaw-Nuttall
17. The police are extremely 'efficient' unlike their counterparts in reallife.
18. An actress can wear the same hairdo for more than a year and even inlonger flashbacks.
19. It is permissible to wear very dark shades at night!
20. When you are shot in the chest, it really doesn't matter; your headwill be bandaged. Same for your legs.
21. When advertising a movie, you really should shout because... people aredeaf?
22. When you are extremely poor, you will still be able to afford- verygood furniture, T.V., but you won't be able to send your kids to school.
23. Most especially in Yoruba movies, your gateman must be inefficient andcomical. He MUST dress like a freak, be rude to all your visitors and nevermind his business.
24. The bad guy always dies or gets caught by the police





This stuff has been flying around the blogosphere for a while but it first came to my attention in Life, The Guardian newspaper’s Sunday supplement and it was credited to laspapi.blogspot.com. It cracked my ribs to no end so I decided to expound on it with my relatively minute knowledge/exposure to Nollywood.

· Every problem is spiritual: if it is in a Yoruba movie, you either go to a ‘babalawo’, an ‘alfa’ or a white garment church. It’s only in English/Igbo movies you get to go to a Pentecostal or surprisingly the Catholic Church.

· The conversation is extremely lacklustre, and in other cases bogus/out of place/verbose.

· All lovers must go to the beach/an eatery/a boutique and while they are cavorting and ‘playing love’, the soundtrack is a sappy Celine Dion/ Westlife love song. Have these Igbo merchants heard of ‘copyrights’? "Copy gini"?

· Someone is to travel aboard a plane but we only see a plane taking off without seeing when the said person goes on board.

· There has yet to be made a Nollywood movie that does not impart some sort of moral or the other.

· No matter where you are shot, you must bleed from the mouth.

· You can’t have a street scene without the whole neighbourhood appearing in your movie

· Any movie that has ritualistic/cultic undertones/overtones is not complete without either Kanayo.O.Kanayo and/or Pete Edochie.

· You don’t need to be a genius to predict the way a Nollywood movie will end.

· Film is a business form in Nigeria and not an art form.
{respect though to Eddie Ugboma, ‘Tunde Kelani ,Ola Balogun et al}

· An actor can play the same role in different movies over and over again {when dem no be Dracula}. Case in point: Mama Gee {Patience Ozokwo?}, always the wicked mother or mother-in-law. Obviously there is no word like "typecast" in her dictionary.

blogophile

The most blazingest Nigerian blogs out there for me right now are the following
www.wordsbody.blogspot.com –This here, is Molara Wood’s blog. I discovered it from The Guardian newspaper which is actually one of my favourite newspapers in Nigeria. (Word to Jahman Anikulapo and the venerated Dr. Reuben Abati) Her writing style is just succulently robust and I’m glad she’s got a finger on the Nigerian literary scene both at home and abroad. Check out her short story at www.percontra.com. It’s called "Gani’s Fall."

www.laspapi.blogspot.com - I can safely say that Wole Oguntokun made me start my own blog. I’m relatively new to the intricacies and technical mumbo-jumbo of blogging, but his blog has made me delve further. And in fact it took me a while to know that laspapi and the writer of "The Other Side’ is one and the same man. I have not had a chance to watch any of his plays and I have only seen a poster and a programme of it in Unilag but I am stricken by this man. Just from his blog. The blog is mostly about his travails (?) as it concerns the staging of plays for a not-too-theatre-conscious Nigerian public (or shall I say Lagos public?), his introspective and sometimes hilarious musings and his wickedly truthful delivery on relationships which comes across as very useful advice to ladies. See The Girl Whisperer. The photos are also very, very welcome. Ah!

www.naijablog.blogspot.com- STOP PRESS: This blog is not by a Nigerian! I saw this blog from Ms. Wood’s page and ever since I have been a fan of Jeremy Weate. His point of view is extremely refreshing not to say anything of balanced. Especially for a non-Nigerian. These are the same qualities that make me deeply affected by Abati’s editorials in The Guardian.
Mr. Weate makes me look totally ignorant though I'm quite glad to give him that right. He reminds me of a character from Walter Mosley's book "Cinnamon Kiss" whom was said to "know things that most people didn't know they didn’t know", so anytime I need a fix of knowledge (as I am a knowledge junkie see www.mentalfloss.com) or I want to find out things I should be Googling, I dive into naijablog.blogspot.com like a rock fan would into a mosh pit.

www.uknaija.blogspot.com- This is the only blogger on my list that I can’t put a face to but his blog says he’s "a Nigerian man with an interest in reading, writing, food, music and travel…in the UK". The preceding entry is a British man blogging in Naija while this entry is a Naija man blogging in the UK and they share a lot of similarities. This blog here shows a man living away from home but still concerned about the home front and how he interacts and navigates through other men’s lands. This man makes me hungry for books more than ever with his voracious appetite for literary fiction. That same sense of ignorance assails me when I read through uknaija.blogspot.com but I guess I will get there. I just have to up my ante. (note to uknaija: please don’t let me get near your library/study/bookshelf etc. or I might just become a biblioklept :-)
This blog can do with more pictures though, other than that, I am coasting with uknaija!

Waoh! I finally have a blog!

But this is not my first post,only a prelude to the introduction of things to come so let's keep this simple and short for a start.I am just fizzing like Andrew's Liver Salt in water just to know that 419isanart.blogspot.com !

Let the party begin!