Sunday, February 24, 2008











Note from the Desi Oscars

Looking through the reports of the 53rd Filmfare Awards this year.

First of all, please examine the above selection of pictures that Indiatimes decides to put up to sum up the awards gala. There's Akshay with the misplaced heartache. What's with Shah Rukh and Saif in those bath towels and face masks??? These two have taken their gay/effeminate innuendo that they started off in KHNH too damn far. Kinda like a bunch of kids who've discovered something that their parents won't yell at them about. And Rishi Daddy looks like he's trying to hold a belligerent Ranbir down before he punches someone out - most probably Bhansali. So it looks like it was a semi-nude, raunchy and almost violent night. Fun! Sounds like last night's dream gone wrong. Dear God - why can't we have a classy awards show, made for television? Even the shadowed Indie Spirit Awards (which Juno swept) emerge with more eliteness.

But well, to give the black statuette her due, most of the actual awards were fairly attributed, with the exception of 3 glaring misfits (outlined further below), in order of increasing wrongness. Taare picked up Best Film and Story, and Aamir bagged Director (doubt he attended though). TZP's Darsheel Safary got a highly deserved critic's nod. Rahman won best music for Guru, Prasoon Joshi for his penmanship of Maa in Taare. Life in a Metro bagged the bridesmaids awards (supporting actor/actress) for Irrfan Khan and Konkona - well deserved again. Fresh new faces - Ranbir and Deepika. On the money, so far.

Questionable? Shah Rukh winning for Chak De India. One of his co-nominees was Abhishek for Guru. Fine, this is a slightly questionable turf. But although Guru had some issues with characterization and screenplay - Abhishek's performance was rock solid within those constraints. Shah Rukh's character was flawless, and so was his performance. But the question here is, the Actor's award is for performance, not for screenplay. And by sheer performance value - I would have to say that Abhishek's Gurukant Desai was miles ahead of Shah Rukh's Kabir Khan.

Shocking? Kareena picked up Best Actress for Jab We Met. Great performance by Kareena, but in the face of Vidya Balan in Bhool Bhulaiyyaa, which from what I've heard was one of the most challenging roles of the year. Bear in mind that BB was a remake of 1993 Malayalam classic Manichitrathaazu (try saying that after 4 Patrons), in which Shobhana's performance bagged her a National Award. So not too sure how that one went down.

Downright Abysmal!!! Shaan winning Best Playback Singer for Jab Se Tere Naina (Saawariya). Versus Sonu's heart rendered Main Agar Kahoon (OSO). Say what? Say WHAT? Jab Se was, first of all, a deflated composition. Had all the air sucked out of it. The song had the flair of a flat can of diet soda, and negative hummability. Basically, it was made for Shaan - who adds his smiley voice to such compositions and makes them slightly listenable. Main Agar Kahoon was the anti-thesis of this. Brilliant composition, immensely well sung, hugely popular. Now that, people, is just plain wrong.


In other news, check out this awesome Sonu track from Kannada film, Mungaru Male. What a voice!

2 comments:

Zeenat Rasheed said...

Funny! I correctly predicted all three of the ones you object to! You can't trust the Indian public to vote :P

I agree about Abhishek having performed better in Guru than Shahrukh in Chak De India, even though Guru was directorially flawed. But Chak De had so much hype around it - I still don't understand why it was such a box office hit - that SRK was bound to win.

Personally, I think Kareena deserved it for JWM. She was actually pretty enjoyable and you could tell there was some skill involved in her performance. Vidya Balan was alright in Bhool Bhulaiyya, but it wasn't an award-winning performance. She did a convincing job being the bhoot-possessed maniac, but it was pretty cliche, 80's style acting that we've all seen before.

I would also have given the best singer to Sonu because Main Agar Kahoon is a masterpiece of a song. But there is something quite unique about Jabse Tere Naina as well. Maybe it's Shaan's smiley voice.. but it's got a very Chand Sifarish feel to it. It's familiar and well-loved, and probably had that going for it vs. the waltzy feel to Main Agar Kahoon.

Pfft. Filmfare are meaningless anyway. Just one big Yash Chopra orgy. I heard SRK and Saif took the whole gay thing way too far. Seriously, you only joke this much about being gay when you're in denial yourself. Bollywood is getting SO old. *eyeroll*

Don said...

Xinu, the truth is the songs like jab se tere naina and chand sifarish are all sonu songs. They should have been sung by sonu not by shaan. They were made for him. Such as ajab si, it was idiotic of farah khan not to give it to sonu. Shaan already had deewangi:the title track. And Main Agar Kahoon should have won cause it was the most beautiful and melodious song i've heard