As a middle-class Indian, I know the importance of spending money judiciously. A look, however, at the money squandering happening in the name of cinema is worrying me about some people’s (read producers’) mental balance.

I am writing this piece after my senses were brutally assaulted by some recent movies. In fact, this is serious writing coming from a movie buff who is tired of watching movies. Regardless of the genre or the ‘wood’(Hollywood, Bollywood, Tollywood, etc.,) they belonged to, majority of these movies lacked intent or logic. Some of them duly faced outright rejection from the public. I am not referring to movies that failed to click at the box-office, but movies that lacked soul and were produced only for pure business reasons. There is nothing wrong in seeking profits from a movie, but degrading the art for money is certainly unpardonable.

The fact that the list includes movies that were produced by reputed studios and veteran producers hurts me more. Rajinikanth’s Sivaji was made with a whopping budget of more than Rs. 60 crores, the most by any South Indian movie till date. The movie, though raked in huge money at the box-office, is a perfect example of relegating art. The producers (AVM Studios) were sure that Rajnikanth’s presence would recover the investment within a couple of weeks and hence didn’t bother when the director spent majority of the budget on erecting mindless, gigantic sets for some pedestrian songs. The settings would have gone unnoticed amidst the lackluster story and screenplay if not for the huge pre-release promotion. Kamal Hassan’s Dasavataram too falls under this category.

Producers of Hindi movie Blue had spent about Rs.100 crore, the highest for any Indian movie, to offer 150 minutes of mediocre drama. The much hyped underwater graphics were no better than marine shows on the Discovery channel. The movie sank without a trace and was aired on television just after a month of its release.

This certainly is not the kind of output that is expected after spending huge money, cutting a number of trees to construct huge sets and posters, and putting in hundreds of hours of human effort. This shows the producers’ utter disrespect for the nature, audience and importantly, money.

India’s corporate giant Reliance had spent about half of the Rs. 35 crore budget on Telugu movie Saleem without bothering about the storyline, the director’s ability and the market potential of the protagonist. The result was a huge dud. The recent Balakrishna’s movie Simha, which has been declared a huge hit, is a cocktail of his previous films.

Sitting through Warner Bros’ Clash of the Titans was more than painful. Except for a couple of brief wow! moments, the movie had nothing new to offer. The Gods wearing cricketing gear like pads and gloves were reminiscent of artists in village stage shows. Similar is the case with Marvle Studios' recent release Iron Man2.

The list is long. There are hundreds of such movies made and released every year across the globe. While Hollywood seems to have exhausted of new stories, the Hindi movie industry is struggling as it tries to ape the western style of movie-making. Dhoom 2, Prince, and Tashaan are examples of typical soul-missing cases where the directors were too Hollywoodish. Another category which includes movies such as Dil Bole Hadiappa and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi took us back to the stone age.

On the other hand, the South film industry (Telugu and Tamil especially) is slowly coming out of the routine formulaic mass masala entertainers. Of course, it still dishes out run-of-the mill stuff. Ninety percent of the movies are recycled and fall under the masala category comprising gory fights and lousy songs. The stories typically follow song-fight-comedy sequence.

Though I was feeling irritated and betrayed a year ago, I still watched movies with a hope that there would be some soul searching from the producers and directors. Huh! Nothing much has changed in the last year with only a handful of movies seemed genuine efforts, again not based on the box-office success.

We accept that movie making is a big gamble, but people dare to churn out run-of-the-mill stuff and project sub-standard piece of art as masterpieces in order to make big bucks within the first few weeks of the film release. It's high time for producers and directors to realize that big names alone cannot create wonders at the box-office. This lack in seriousness is the reason behind increase in piracy, reduction in theater occupancies and lower returns for distributors.

There are still some thoughts left which I will put forth when I get really pissed off again.

Good night!