rulinian‘s heartfelt post about Return of the King sweeping the Oscars deserves an Oscar of its own. Best Fangirl Rave to rulinian ! Huzzah!
That said, and the awards over and done with, and the collective fanboy-girl community sated, let us now – for a brief part of a post – look at our own Indian Oscars – the Filmfare Awards, shall we?
I will admit that once upon a time, I would look forward to watching the Filmfare awards live on TV. Fact is, Filmfare was the only event you could see AR Rahman performing live ( anyone remember the time he did the Fire theme onstage? ), not to mention other stalwarts of the Indian “scene”, including Baba Sehgal ( Phillum Phillum rap Hey Hey ), Shiamak Davar ( the guy who cursed choreography in Indian movies to an eternity of the toned-jazz-dancer-oin-bodysuits-prancing-around syndrome ), and all the other wannabes of that age. Then you had different actors and actresses dancing to the charttopping songs of the past year. And then you had the actual awards, which would be fun – because I would quarrel with my sister over who’s going to get the next award. ( This rivalry of ours was pretty standard – she would root for all the “family” movies, and I would vouch for the “other” types. Like Dilwale Dulhaniya etc against Rangeela, for instance )
Flick an eye over the list of winners for this year. The Best film, best actor and the Best Director has been won by Koi Mil Gaya. Neat, isn’t it? A film that takes its basic premise from ET and Forrest Gump, its key sequence from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the key music from Kraftwerk‘s Trans-Europe Express, and features a lot of mindnumbingly cheesy effects, characters and situations walks away with such awards.
Look at the other awards. You have Jaya Bachhan winning the best Supporting actress award for Kal Ho Na Ho, for a role in which she alternately sheds tears, prays to guardian angels, and sheds some more tears. Best Supporting Actor to Saif Ali Khan for doing something, I suspect, he does in real life. Play the fool, in case you didn’t get it.
You have something called the Best Filmfare Power Award. Whatever that means. Shah Rukh Khan & Amitabh Bachchan win it, which makes it pretty clear that Filmfare tries to keep Pretty-Boy Shahrukh happy by giving him something just to make up for him not winning the Best Actor award. The Best Motolook Award to Saif Ali Khan, for looking like Saif Ali Khan in a slightly formal dress. Best Filmfare Special Award ( Best and Special in the same title, right? ) to Kareena Kapoor for Chameli. My best guess would be they didn’t want to subjected to one of Kareena’s pouts. Or maybe Pritish Nandy pulled some strings.
The music awards are the only ones that seem sane. Thank God someone like Himesh Reshammiya didn’t get the best Music. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Kudi Ghooma notwithstanding gave a very fresh musical sheen to Kal Ho Na Ho, even with the cliched situations that form the basis of the songs. I heard Jism very recently, and Shreya Ghoshal did a very good job with the vocals.
Another catastrophic decision from the Filmfare committee – best action for Qayamat. Ahahahaha. Has anyone seen Qayamat? I have. The action scene are all based on the following laws – (a) Bombs shall explode very Photoshopically, and (b) With every Photoshopic bomb explosion, Ajay Devgan will fly in slowmotion and wallop five pesky villain-buggers. A corollary to those laws would be (c) Ajay Devgan’s expression shall not change throughout the explosion-followed-by-walloping.
Munnabhai MBBS was one movie that got it’s due share of honours. The cynical part of me says that this was only because it was released towards the end of the year, and following the rule by which the Filmfares are given, the newest films make the most out of the nominations.
Proof of Twistedness of the Filmfare Awards#1: Teen Deewarein, in my opinion the only non-Ram Gopal Verma film that was watchable in 2003 got something called Best Story. Not Best Screenplay, mind you, best Story. Something like saying – oh, that was a nice idea – here, you deserve something for that.
Proof of Twistedness of the Filmfare Awards#2: Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon was not even nominated. A brilliant performance by Rajpal Yadav, a great storyline, good direction, and none of it mattered, eh?
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I had very strong reservations about watching Ab Tak Chhappan, which is very odd because all Factory-made films ( Ramgopal Verma’s production house is called, very cheekily, The Factory ) are all not-to-be-missed in my humble movie-going schedule. Part of it was because of the disappointing storylines of all Indian cop-movies. ( The sleekly-begun Khakee meanders off to a 70’s style Bachhan fist-fest by the second half ), and partly because I was sceptical about what a film can say about a police Inspector who is an Encounter Specialist without reading (er, screening? ) like a documentary.
A pleasant surprise! The film manages to blow away cop-drama cliches without straying into documentary territory. I loved Nana Patekar’s acting – a far cry from his over-the-top screeches and yowls. The shift in demeanour when he gets a call from a superior officer. The matter-of-fact way in which he handles his job. The way he carries on a conversation with a Dubai don seems a little far-fetched, but the dialogue makes up for it. Brilliant!!
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This was in the offing for a long time, but adgy‘s poll, and his analysis of the results convinced me. I watched John Woo‘s The Killer last night, in one sitting. I think I saw it too late in my life, I could see the ghosts of a million Hindi movies that came after it. Maybe foetuses, not ghosts. Chow Yun Fat is cool, all right. He’s best described by the guy playing the cop, Danny Lee – “He looks determined… without being ruthless. He’s different from other murderers. He doesn’t look like a killer. He comes across so calm… acts like he has a dream… eyes filled with passion.”
But I still think Bruce Campbell is cooler. Hah!
