Indian Cinema better clean up its act

After the wins at the Golden Globes and potential Oscar awards for the Indian part of Slumdog Millionaire including A R Rahman(pronounced Rehman you western dumbos), it's finally time for Indian cinema to straighten up itself.

Otherwise, it's going to be a financial apocalypse. Examples galore.

'Aascar' Ravichandran had to change his prior name and the company logo after the Oscar guys threatened to sue. Karan Johar was sued in London(when he visited there) for using a piece of music without permission in the mega flop K3G(did anyone even watch that film?).

Hollywood will not hesitate to sue for copyright at the drop of a hat, notwithstanding the cases already being brought up by some Indian contributors claiming credit for their content.

Film songs and storylines have long been lifted at an impulse, the most recent being Ghajini. Is the story so different that Murugadoss can deny it having no similarity whatsoever? The likes of Anu Malik, Pritam, SA Rajkumar, Devi Sri Prasad better be careful whose music they wish to put in films, it better be their own.

Already this victory is being heralded as being one for Bollywood; sadly in India we recognise Bollywood as being only the Hindi film industry.

I would be really happy if regional language films (Malayalam, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada) are also recognised(atleast the good ones). Mainstream Hindi is not the only place movies are being made; alternative films and other language films mentioned are way better than the KKKKKKaran Johar and Yash Raj run of the mill commercial noise.

Well, 'Indian' movies now will make people notice and atleast give a moment of thought toward non-English material.

Hindi, Tamil and Telugu cinema have always had the money; the Indian diaspora abroad ensure the commercial success of these films(Sivaji The Boss made it to the Top Ten in the UK). Now these films as well as well made material, those worthy of awards, will get more showings and, hopefully more awards.

I can see a future where an imitation movie will be sued right of its skin and quality movies start coming up.

Here is something to ponder about: online site Behindwoods, which mainly focuses on the Tamil film industry and occasionally on Hindi, released the Top Ten movies for Hindi for 2008, which was compiled with user feedback. I wonder if it is how it reflects the taste of non-Hindi viewers or an all-India audience, only 2 or 3 in that list were 'commercial'. All the others were sleeper or critical hits. That says a lot. Viewers appreciate good content. Eating bitter gourd with sugar doesn't make the taste very sweet - you can still notice the bitterness. An increasingly urban audience is willing to watch a well made film with hardly any stalwarts.

And that is how I like it.