Everyone is an expert!

After reading this some people might think that I am a snob but I don't care because I feel very strongly about it. So here it goes...

'It's the best movie of all time'

'This was definitely the best film of the year and should win the Oscar for the best picture'

I am sure you must have heard similar lines being spoken quite often by people around you (some of you may have actually said so yourself). I find it ok if these lines are spoken very casually but it is blasphemous if the speaker is quite convinced and is willing to debate about it. I am not referring to someone who's a film critic or someone who watches loads of Hollywood movies. I am talking about the average joe who watches 10-15 Hollywood movies in a year and has probably not seen a single movie of a period before his / her birth.

I have met loads of people who make this mistake of giving their 'expert' opinion on the above subject matter. My question to these people is 'Have you seen enough movies released during the year to say that a particular movie was the best of the lot?' or for simplicity's sake 'Have you at least seen all the nominated movies to form such an opinion?' I am sure one can easily guess that in most of the cases the answer will be 'no'. How can then one make a statement like the ones above!

Just to illustrate my point, while watching the Oscars a few days back my flatmate made a comment that Slumdog should win the award as it deserves it. This comes from a guy who, given a choice, would probably rate any Adam Sandler movie as the best movie of the year (Just to make it clear, I too, am a huge fan of Sandler). This guy sees all the lowly rated comedies of the year and thinks that they are the best. He thinks that Mark Wahlberg is the best actor out there and has made the best movies around. What do you say to a guy like that!

Most of us Indians have been bred on a whole lot of stupid Bollywood movies (I am not saying that all of them are stupid) and haven't seen enough Hollywood and other language cinema to comment on these movies. Yet, people think it is intelligent for them to comment! I am not lamenting that people shouldn't give their opinion about a movie. There is no problem if someone says that 'I didn't like the movie' or 'It was boring' but to make statements like the ones above is simply not acceptable.

Everyone might think that they are connoisseurs of films. I, too feel the same but I will leave it up to my readers to decide whether I am one or not. To help you decide here are a few facts about myself:

1. I have seen 700+ Hollywood and Foreign Language movies

2. So far, I have seen 39 movies released in 2008

3. I have seen 72 out of top 100 movies on IMDb and 142 out of top 250. That is as of today - the list is very dynamic esp. the last 20 slots

4. I have seen 29 foreign language movies which include German, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, French, Swedish, Chinese and Italian

5. I have seen the following number of films in each decade:

1930 - 11

1940 - 16

1950 - 26

1960 - 27

1970 - 43

1980 - 67

1990 - 168

2000 - 381

What do you say...