Do our Awards need a face-lift?
(Scene from Trainspotting)
EXT. PARK. DAY
Sick Boy rests the gun down.
SICK BOY
All I’m trying to do is help you understand that The Name of the
Rose is merely a blip on an otherwise uninterrupted downward
trajectory.
RENTON
What about The Untouchables?
SICK BOY
I don’t rate that at all.
RENTON
Despite the Academy award?
SICK BOY
That means fuck all. The sympathy vote.
RENTONRight. So we all get old and then we can’t hack it any more. Is that it?
This memorable scene from Trainspotting left me with a question today.
The almost blinding effulgence of the glitterati, where one is more concerned about what costumes the ‘stars’ are gonna sport than the awards they are here for. The award distribution is a mere excuse for us to see stars at a closer, approachable distance, and see a conversational, ‘unstarry’ side of their persona. We see them wriggle with excitement, shrug with indifference, hide a spontaneous sneer, watch closely as their heart skips a beat. We really enjoy watching all that. And they know it, and the TV networks know it, and so do the advertisers and the sponsors.
“In a glittering dance of showbiz, the xxth Filmfare Awards were no less than a spectacle. The stars literally descended down on the memorable dreamy Mumbai evening….
Shah Rukh Khan, the reigning Baadshah of Bollywood collected his xxth Best Actor trophy that makes him the……”
Its time we remove the arclights and question the dream merchants, How long can this go on?
Isn’t it time we give these awards a rethought? Do we really want to watch a predictable give-away every year?
Agreed, our films are not showing signs of a huge self-improvement, but it is not too bad either.
Looking at this year’s releases, we have an impressive repertoire of diverse films, which cry out loud for a need of expanding the award categories.
There is a reason for that. Given the iconoclasm and idol-worship instincts, one would find it hard to digest a Ranvir Sheory or a Rahul Bose beating a SRK. So why not have separate categories for performances. The Academy is no great example either but they do have a structure in place, and are slowly including more and more award categories for greater and richer representation and recognition of all kinds of cinema.
Our industry celebrates mediocrity, and that point is well and voluminously justified now. There are no objections to it. However, it is up to us how we rise above that image and deliver ‘quality’ cinema. Though it night be out of context, but there have been some refreshing changes in the recent past in the so-deemed ‘pretentious’ film assembly line. Our films have lately been showing signs of a self-deprecation, which is entertaining as well. It only might be a matter of months before we become well-accommodating of both these streams and deliver cinema like it is desired to be comparable with any other in the world.
I understand that we do take potshots at the industry for making Hollywood imitations, and remakes, but if it can’t be stopped (given the commercial rewards), why not legalize it?
I can think of a few ‘new’ categories:
Best Actor in a Sequel/remake
Best Hollywood ‘Inspired’ Film
Best Chase Sequence in a Film
Best Copied Dance Number
Best Performance in an Item Number
Best Remake of the Year
Best Spoof of the Year
Best Letdown of the Year
Tushar Shukla
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Tushar
The categories are similar to MTV movie awards. They have category like “Best onscreen couple”, “best kiss” etc.
Well the suggestion is worth thinking. The categories have to be broadened to accomdate not so big films
-Punds
Punds
Ya MTV is doing some amazing stuff with lots of awards.But in the mainstream awards(or so called, established ones), all we see is ‘bhed chaal’. One film picks up all the categories(in a buy one get free kinda air).
And some of very important sections are relegated to “Technical Awards” which dont even have a nomination list available to the public, and are just given blindly.
Though all these awards claim to be ‘democratic’ , I doubt how truly just they are, cus the selections seem to paint a diff story…
- Tushar, I think the only awards I believe in are the OzCar Awards
Hey OZ, Amazing write up!
I never saw that one before.
Looking forward to a similar list from you again for this years releases.:d
Scene 1
Come home after a days work. Wife watching some Bollywood Award Function.
Me: What you watching?
Wife: Its the zeecine award.
Me: OK. U watch I will log on to the net
Scene 2
Come home after a dayes work. Wife watching some award fuction on telly
Me: Wat u wathing?
Wife: Its the Filmfare Awards
Me: OK. U watch I will og ont the net & try to find an award for the most logged on person in the world. Hoping its gonna be me.
Scene 3
Come home after a days work. Wife watching some Bollywood awards.
Me: Wat u watching?
Wife: Its the IIFA Awards & u know its being held in Holland
Me: OK U watch I will log on to the net.
I dont give a flying f**k about any awards. If there is any good movie to watch, I will watch.
Gawd, how many awards fucntions are there? And why do I get sense of deja vu when hI have watched some snippets of these awards.
Have lost count of the times same scene had taken place in my home.
Our Industry is very good at.. public ko choona laga-neh-mein, so there should be an award for The Choonawallah.
Only if we could “Fast-Forward” the “LIVE” awards..wudnt that be cool. So much of ass-licking even before the ceremony starts..and the way the technical awards are given is a pity. It would be a pity in this years function if the best F/X awards are given away to Krissh in a hush-hush and the best movie award to the same film celebrated…
On another note. OzCar..yep i remember something…damn that was the first post of Oz i had read.. and then the addiction started. OzCar’s were mindblowing… we would like to have half-yearly OzCar’s too..Oz bhai
lol, Muzzy! I can relate to your imagery.
Great Idea, HG.
Om, you are right abt them being so irritating, and especially those ‘jokes’ that sad, second rung actors turned hosts crack. pathetic. I wont be surprised if Krrissh picks up those awards.
and Oz bhai! the public demand says you MUST put OZCAR awards up in a fresh post on PFC! ^:)^
arre nahi yaaron.. SRK is a shoo-in for best actor for DON and KANK.. c’monnn! 8-} kyon nahi ho sakta? after all, if he could be nominated against #%#@%@!%%#$^@ HIMSELF for THREE DIFFERENT MOVIES ~X( why not next year too?? OOH! and i know! hrithik can get a lifetime achievement award!! or.. no wait.. will he split it with abhishek? u know.. for most flops before bounceback..?? ah, now there’s an award in itself!
and fardeen can be backstage getting ready for a mindblowing dance performance.. just as soon as he stops “gettin jiggy wit it” with will smith (for those who didn’t know, he threw will a ‘private’ party last year and invited the industry’s “who’s who” to it).. gee :-? i wonder why he threw that…
and yet again big B will take his stroll onto the stage and “humbly” accept a filmfare award catered especially to him, which they’ll call the big B award, for you see, nobody can accept this award but him..! or will they call it the bachchan award? that way he can graciously pass it onto his son.. %-(
to say filmfare awards are a joke is an insult to jokes.. at least jokes are funny.
nah, Prickthick will get an award for the best men with long hairs or two thumbs. or some kids special awards. or the best superman – who wears chuddi inside award.
man, he will darn many awards…
filmfare awards apart, oh i am sorry, striker!, jokes apart, i hope these people do get some award or the other:
ranvir(for any film)
Atul kulkarni, siddarth(RDB)
AR Rahman(RDB)
Rensil de silva
prasoon joshi
if you are thinking why all awards for RDB, frankly, thats the best film of the year me thinks. was just reading oz’s brilliant review on it and also saw a dumb-ass review by you know who(someone who thinks RDBs music is below par!)
http://www.desitrain.com/2006/01/29/rang-de-basanti-color-me-fades/
i also hope there is recognition for films like khosla ka ghosla n mixed doubles.
Don, in my view would be the second best. the film does deserve some awards.
but i have a strong suspicion munnabhai will again walk away with some non-deserving categories.
I wish we had a Razzies kinds awards(anyways all these popular awards have become more or less razzies with the name changed)
the best spoof would undoubtedly be apna sapna money money(catch it if you wanna see a complete deconstruction of bollywood)
best letdown would have lots of contenders like dor, fanaa, umrao jaan…
Prasoon Joshi – I am a fan of his work. His ‘Khoon Chala’ and ‘Roobaroo’ are inspirational!I do not want him to win any stupid awards; I just hope that he (wins)gets more quality works like this where his talent could be appreciated.
“Bollywood” movies is sort of (F graded) escapsim cinema and most of the awards go to those films. So we should have these awards: The Dumbest Movie Award, The Melodramatic OTT Movie Award, The ‘Faltuest’ movie which made billions rupees award.
HG:
Escapism Cinema?
Whats that:-w
I guess thats escapism within escapism…
Escapism Cinema – to get away from real world/reality/life… In which anything is possible.
Hi HG:
science fictions like Matrix etc?
heroic films like , Terminator, Die hard etc?
or mystic films like Ninth Gate?
Suspense thriller like Village?
come under that category of escapism cinema?
“to get away from real world….in which anything is possible…”
by that yardstick, david dhawan films will fit just fine!
Can Cinema ever be real? Is it not fictional in its very nature?
i’m not sure myself. all i know is that genre “Bollywood” is an escapism cinema.
HG:
please suggest which cinema is real or close to real life?
Hollywood? European? Iranian? Japanese?
What do you think makes Bollywood escapism cinema in your eyes?
well dude french and italian cinema is the most what you can call a bit realistic!!
i only watch Hindi movies and a few Hollywood movies/English movies, so i am not the right person to answer your questions.
however, it is quite obivous to say that genre “Bollywood” does not portrait realism at all;in those movies anything can happen – it has it’s own laws, hence it’s an escapism cinema, i think
Animated movie are sort of good quality escapism cinema.
Note: When I say “Bollywod” – I do not mean entire Hindi Film Industry; I mean the genre “Bollywood” – which is, inspired by hollywood movies, song, dance, masala, melodramatic, etc.. all compiled together.
Cinema is like a panorama for me, it can be anything-escapist or non-escapist.
But from whatever little I know from the films I have seen, italian and iranian films(fellini, de sica, makhmalbaf, mohsin mohamed, kiarastomi) border on neo-realism.
hollwood, apart from covering the all possible genres of escapism i.e.drama, melodrama,fantasy, comedy, tragedy, realism(serpico), naturalism(dog day afternoon), has also made brilliant film noir and documentaries.
bollywood cinema is not that detailed and defined in genre. its more non-hindi films that are closer to the genre game, ppl like adoor gopalakrishnan, kasaravalli, john abraham, ghatak, ray have played within genres to create beautiful cinema.
we cant classify european cinema in one category, it transcends genres-french new wave, german expressionism(sirk, fassbinder, wenders) and so on.