A plead to TV channels

All The Best opened to theatres a few weeks and received fairly good reviews from critics and entertained the general masses. I happened to see the review given by Rajeev Masand on TV before I actually saw the movie, something which I usually tend to avoid. He made a mention about some interesting characters the film had - but he also mentioned about a don who is mute but speaks to his henchmen by means of tapping a spoon on glass. It doesn't take any time for a Hindi film-buff to figure out the character is either copied from, or is a tribute to Prem Nath's character in Karz.
However, Rajeev Masand failed to realize that and praised the makers of the film for creating such wonderful characters.
I should have known he wouldn't know a thing about Rohit Shetty's remakes; after all he lavished heavy praises on Golmaal Returns but for any of us, it was a blatant rip-off of a Hindi classic (now forgotten among the youth) - Aaj Ki Taaza Khabar.
Similar instances where both people and critics failed to identify the original would be the love story in Ghajini. Everyone spoke about how the film was copied from Memento and people here spoke about how the Tamil version was better than the Hindi one, and that it was yet another case of Hindi films being remade from Tamil films, but no one ever realized that the Tamil version itself was copied, half from Memento (but let's not get into that) and the other half - the love story, from another now-forgotten-classic Pasand Apni Apni.

I've already spoken about how shameless writers/producers/directors/musicians must be for directly lifting themes without acknowledging the original source in the first article on this blog.
The other thing on my mind is of course who made ignorant people critics and what can one do to become a film critic/analyser, but let's leave that for some other day.

I think it's very sad that people no longer know enough about the classics being produced in our country. There are plenty of films which have made India proud in the global circuit, which people today know nothing about. Well, those films can be found by any researcher on DVD and will probably be watched.
But what the other gems, like the ones I mentioned about earlier in this post? How will people even come across their names, let alone finding them on DVD?

Looking back, I think I was lucky to have grown up at a time when TV channels used to show good and quality films, irrespective of the year they were released and whether they were black-and-white or colour. However, the last few years have seen a very bad change in the attitude of TV channels.

Today, all the movie channels are just interested in beating their competitors over the rights to a new movie being released, however crappy that film might be, and showing that movie very frequently. If the channel had to show only good movies, these would not even be considered.

I wonder when Star Gold decided to change it's mind, thus forgetting the sole intention for which it was started. In fact, I've just lost all hopes on this channel. Even the new films they show on this channel are usually the terrible ones.
Zee Cinema is no more the same as it was several years back. For a brief while, they had a festival for Raj Kapoor (only the colour ones though) and Subhash Ghai. Post-that, they went back to their boring ways.
Staying with Zee, I think Zee Classic is one terrific channel. Sure, they show a few terrible movies in that as well, but for the most time, we are exposed to good cinema from as early as possible till the early 90s. However, why can't they choose to be available on regular cable or other DTH providers other than Dish TV? I think film-buffs will be extremely grateful to them if they do.
There are few channels, like SET Max, which choose to show old movies only late in the night, when the entire nation is asleep and a few fools like me are awake from 2 in the night to 6 in the morning just to watch a good flick.
Set Max still shows old movies at primetime (8 PM - 12PM), provided they are Amitabh Bachchan's, usually when they have the Ab Tak Bachchan fest going on. So far, they've held festivals for Amitabh, Shahrukh Khan and Mithun Chakrabarthy.
I just want to ask the creative heads behind Set Max that if they can hold fests for these three great actors, can't they hold similar fests for say, Dharmendra or Sanjeev Kumar? Heck, forget lead actors - they can even hold a fest on Mehmood for that matter! Surely their films are no less in quality or quantity!
Having said that, given the vast collection of timeless classics that SET Max has, they can show a good movie (old or new) following one another and still not feel the need to repeat a movie until a couple of months at least.
Well, atleast we should be thankful to SET for showing us good movies on SAB TV. SAB was much better until a year back, when they would show one old, good movie everyday in the morning and repeat it at midnight. The nights I've spent awake till 3 in the morning during college to watch these movies will remain etched in my memory forever ... now of course, they show 2 different movies on Saturday and Sunday, but none on the remaining days of the week :(

It's a very sad situation these days on TV ... they make it a point to show each and every new film that releases at the cost of older ones. The young generation of today will be totally cut-off from the classics made earlier. Imagine a whole generation and generations following them knowing people like Upen Patel and Koena Mitra (i.e. the generation of today - they will soon be forgotten in three years from now) and not knowing about Rajesh Khanna, Dev Anand or Raj Kapoor!!! Well, they were stars, so people might be familiar with their names, but what about the acting legends like Balraj Sahni, Ashok Kumar and certain character actors like Om Prakash and Pran, just to name a few?????

TV channels should realize that for every Blue, The Train (Emraan Hashmi's version), Kuch Meetha Ho Jaye, Bade Miyan Chote Miyan, Tom Dick And Harry, Dhamaal, Dhol, Rakht, Aitbaar and Aksar, there's a Baawarchi, Dost, Jewel Thief, Guide, Awaara, Abhinetri, Victoria No. 203 (Navin Nischol version) Shagird or An Evening In Paris being sidelined.

Would the owners of these TV channels want their children growing up on movies like Blue rather than Guide?

Most of the people can't afford buying DVDs and VCDs of good movies (no matter how inexpensive they may be). They pay for cable / DTH and deserve their money's worth for it.
I think it's high time TV channels realize the responsibility they have in not only developing our taste in cinema, but also in the promotion of classics, our culture, innocence among kids and above all, clean and healthy family viewing!