"One, two, three; take" - My take :)

First of all, apologies for the bad title, couldn't come up with a good one even after racking my brains hard...

If books get written about, can movies be far behind?

I'm not a movie buff. Not the avid cine-goer who watches every movie released, but more the just-a-movie-now-and-then type.

My biggest doubt : why are most movies "inspired" by some other movie?? Why are they always "based on", "inspired by", "influenced by", but never just copied or borrowed?

One of the reasons I'm not too keen on watching movies - I don't like movies where the heroines are just eye-candy. Who "act" (if you can call it that) dumb, the only time you get to see them actually doing something is during the dance sequences... There are very few movies I've come across which have women in good roles. Or atleast passably good ones. I don't know who is to blame - the writers , or the women desperate enough for their claim to fame, to agree to be a bimbette. (Sorry, I know too many strong women, that I just can't take it when the female characters act like dumb dolls)...

And the lines they speak.... The heroes speak lines like "This is how a woman should behave", "Good women should be 'modest'"... And our beloved 'heroines' (an irony, this word. the heroines I know in real life are not dictated to), just meekly obey the hero, and change themselves in accordance with dear hero's words. Women, whatever happened to your individuality?? Don't you have a mind of your own? Why do you want to be dictated to?

Another interesting aspect of the movies, if you ask me, is the portrayal of this thing called "love"... The hero sees the heroine in a crowded bus, and falls 'in love'? Or, more commonly, the heroine initially hates the hero, and so the hero takes it as a "challenge" to "make her fall in love with me"... And if the hero and heroine are constantly at loggerheads, it definitely means that they are in "love"... "I'll make her/him love me, give me a week" ?????????? And guess this takes the cake - "I've decided to love her. So I'm going to make her love me". How does one do that? Why does a villain (who often looks much better than the hero, an irony again) always come in the middle, and help the hero or heroine realize their "true feelings" for each other??? And how dumb is a suicide attempt (or a drama like that) to "make her fall in love" with you? How does the hero, who has seen the heroine once in a crowded bus in Chennai, find her in a church in Mumbai???? How does the hero always arrive at the right moment to "save" the heroine, even if he's somewhere in the US of A, while the heroine is in some remote village in South India?

The cloth(e)s the heroines wear are another issue altogether (the heroes are usually more fortunate in this, except for the 'out-of-this-world' (read scary) costumes, mostly in song sequences). I've heard too many people , while watching movies, wondering if the producers were so broke that they could only afford half-a-metre of cloth for making the heroine's outfit!!! I don't want to say anything more on this (it'd then be longer than half the clothes they wear!!)

Song sequences - I find them good and bad. (Though if you ask me, I wonder why many heroines don't feel cold wearing tiny summer clothes on snow-clad mountains, while the heroes are better wrapped-up... ) I have no wish to elaborate further on this right now...

Fights, I don't have to mention :) The hero is usually the winner - depending on the villain's popularity and role-length, the hero comes away completely unscathed, or gets a tiny bruise that can't be seen under a microscope. While the villain, who is seen lifting weights and gymming, collapses on a single hit (or more, depending on the movie) by the hero. How does the hero single-handedly take on so many men? And always win? Even when he's not equipped with anything but his hands, while the villains have weapons of every kind, from a pocket-knife to the most advanced machine-gun? Why is it that the villain can never hit the hero with a machine-gun, while the hero shoots the last bullet of a tiny revolver (at a distance of more than 100 metres) (and on the move!!), and the bullet is right on target??? And how is it that the hero can take on 15 men, and beat them, all before his half-cigarette burns out?

Comedy - some of it is genuine, and I'm grateful for that. But crude jokes, racist ones are not funny. Seriously. Fat people aren't a joke, please. It is seriously not funny when you make jokes about appearances, physical features or colour. And the most pathetic jokes are when you have to actually try and make people laugh. Double-meanings aren't always funny. And no, cross-dressing isn't funny. Neither is calling people names. Or falling down. Or having flour fall on your face from a box on the shelf above you. I have seen some genuinely funny movies, and movies where the comedy is indeed comedy, and at the same time, makes you think about the seriousness of the issues involved. Sorry, I have also seen some of the stuff that now goes under the name of "comedy", and now I shudder every time I hear this word, and if some movie falls under this genre, I try to avoid it.

There are many aspects to a movie. I haven't mentioned them all. And all the above words are my personal opinion. I know that movies are for entertainment, but then, it's a cyclic process - movies do influence people, and people do influence movies. And I prefer getting positively influenced by good movies, rather than movies that glorify violence, which promote stereotypes ("men know best, women should know their 'position'" UGH!!!!!!!); movies which show that you must 'fight' to get your way, which preach that suicide is the 'easiest' and 'only' way out; and a whole lot more. And hoping that positive movies do get made...

(I can already see a debate brewing, so I better start preparing my defense!!! This is only my personal opinion, based on many of the movies I've seen, and as I've already mentioned, I'm not an earnest cine-fan, nor do I claim to be an authority on movies - most of the above is based on Indian movies - Hollywood would need a separate post :) )