It's different

I'm not talking about that ad where Javed Jaffrey tries his hand at humour and ends up making a mockery of Tomato Ketchup. Actually I only want to single out the mockery part and put it into perspective.

One of the things I have become good at is watching bad movies. You see, watching good movies is easy. It's almost natural. But watching bad one's is an art. One that needs to be mastered and can only be achieved through vigorous practise and phenomenal mental conditioning.

For those of you who don't know, I can speak Telugu with reasonable level of fluency. I also speak Tamil, given that I have spent the best part of my life in Singara Chennai. Due to some arbit rule devised by some old men at Central Board for Secondary Education, I can also speak Hindi. It's very utilitarian, but I can get by.

The fact that I can speak these three languages basically implies that I am capable of watching movies in these three languages. And in the true spirit of every jobless soul out there, I do watch movies in these three languages.

Between these three languages, I can confidently state that I have a six sigma coverage of all the bad movies that are ever released. And I use six sigma in the statistical sense. For those of you who are more informed, in the normal distribution curve, three deviations on either side of the median covers approximately 99% of the area under the curve. For those of you who mistakenly think I am a nerd, all I am saying is - I watch a lot of really shitty movies.

Given that I watch this outrageous number of sad movies, it is only natural that my mind has been preconditioned and can handle pretty much anything that celluloid can throw it's way. Over the years movies have gotten worse, there are now more number of heroes and heroines who are intrinsically capable of delivering bad movies. Practise only helps them graduate from bad to worse - Try watching Kaalai by Silambarasan. Not to mention the whole bunch of actors who are, for some inexplicable reason, led to believe that they make good directors.

In spite of all this, I can put with the bad movies, I can put up with the whole new generation of bad actors, I can put with everything except for one thing.

"It's different"

The one constant selection of words that I hear from pretty much any actor before the release of every movie.

"This is not the usual romance or action movie. It has a bit of everything. There is comedy, there are some good action sequences, there is some romance, of course with sentiments and the songs are a super hit"

"It's different"

I have such a gut wrenching feeling right now, if I start puking now I don't think I can get myself to stop. If anyone associated with the film industry uses these words to describe anything made on film, they should be beaten up, broken down and burnt alive.

It's like "different" is a new age euphemism for "sucks". I vote for "different" to be officially declared as a new genre of movies.

Nowadays I find it easier to sit in a theatre with the preconception that a movie will suck and be surprised as opposed to expecting to see a decent movie and be disappointed. This way, I can prove that you live longer because you face fewer disappointments in life and you have reason to believe that your line of thought is correct.

I am no movie critic. I am no professional. But, what I am is a movie goer. And if I think a movie sucks and so do my fellow movie goers then it doesn't really matter what the critics and the professionals think now does it ?

Having said all that. I still watch movies that are "different". When the occasional movie that is NOT "different" does come along, it makes the experience all the more pleasurable.

Now, who's with me ???