Movie Reviews

Sarayu
Many things strike me as funny, and yeah, illogical. The thing which comes to my mind is reviews on movies. As soon as movies release, three or four people, working with newspapers, or freelancing, express their opinion, mind you, their opinion, and not the vox populi. They assign stars, generally one being 'BAD', two being 'FAIR', three being 'GOOD', four being 'VERY GOOD', and five being 'EXCELLENT' (or Citizen Kane, as that movie crossed all standards of ratings and stars.) Very much like kanjoos(stingy) teachers, who 'REFUSE' to give marks(just some of them), people who rate movies act like critics knowing every inch of filmmaking, aspects of camera angles, emotions displayed(acting like Sigmund Freud scrutinizing each facial expression). My point is, after every Friday, whether a blockbuster or not, people decide going for movies (Saturday Night Fever!) based on the reviews. 'That movie just got two stars, let us skip it.' 'That movie got a four star rating, let us just go!' I presume even movies portraying Anti-Semitism, World Wars and Russian Revolutions must have 'obtained' four stars, and yeah, so do the people just blindly go? Whatever happened to self opinion! What if, coincidentally, or purposely, the movie critic(or reviewer) is known to the movie-maker, are they actually coaxed to give good ratings? How can one person's opinion stop you from going and watching the movie? Just by reading the book's synopsis, can you get to know the content of the book? No! So, just by the highlighted stars, and their opinions (which involves the list of actors and their roles, how they acted etc.) can one actually decide to skip a movie? If, for some reason, one particular actor or actress is undergoing a bad phase, one 'has' to criticize their way of acting. If the world thinks the success at the Box Office depends on the actors, directors, producers, the storyline, budget and publicity, they are totally mistaken. The success of the movie is controlled by the hands of movie reviewers. People oblivious to newspapers read them every Saturday morning. So if a film grossed 200 crores, some part of it definitely belongs to the critics. Whether coincidental or not, the word of mouth regarding a movie always depends on the reviews. Have people lost the ability to think for themselves, and mindlessly call the critics' opinion theirs? That is their opinion...to equate opinions!!:-)