Filmfare Awards 2011- Hits and Misses

I LOVE watching Filmfare Awards. In the era before I had Hub TV from Starhub (which was until last year) I used to watch the award ceremony every year on a Sunday night till 3 am- even though I had office the next day.


Thanks to Hub TV (and my friend Alpna who convinced me to get it) I recorded the Filmfare Award last week and watched it araam se pretty much the whole of today.


I remember watching the awards since I was a child...at that time the whole ceremony was not broadcasted on Doordarshan. It was only after cable TV came into our humble homes and there was more than one channel to watch, were the awards ceremony shown on telly in its full glory.

Flashback 1992- it was my FYBcom (first year bachelor of commerce of the uninformed) exams the next day. But I stayed up to watch the awards till past midnight. It was all worth it! Because Aamir Khan's Jo Jeeta Wahi Sinkandar won the Best Film. It was a disappointment then, as its now, that Aamir did not come for the awards ceremony. I remember jumping up with joy that his film won, even though he lost to Anil Kapoor who won best actor for Beta. SERIOUSLY?!


Another year, another award ceremony...but its still as much fun!


The hits this year...

1) 'Udaan' making a clean sweep taking home the 7 Filmfare Awards including Best Supporting Actor (Male), Best Film (Critics), Best Story, Cinematography, Screenplay, Best Background Music and Best Sound Design Award.

Though it was very sad that best debut male award went to Ranvir Singh for Baand Baja Baarat. The person who deserved it most was Rajat Barmecha who played the abused child in Udaan. Spectacular performance! Guess he should have offered to dance at the function like Ranvir Singh did. Other strong contenders were both the stars from Tere Bin Laden- the movie should have got some awards. It was seriously funny and witty.

Same goes for Best Debut Director which went to Manish Sharma again for Baand Baja Baarat- when it should have gone to Vikramaditya Motwane for Udaan. It was good that Ronit Roy got his due (his best performance till date- ever), and Udaan also won the Best Film in the Critics Award. Which means it would not win the Best Film in the Popular Award category. Except for a few occasions, that is the usual trend


2) Rishi Kapoor winning the best actor for Do Dooni Char again for the Critics Award. Vidya Balan won the Critics Award for Best Actress (or as its now called 'Best Actor- female)- which again meant that she would not win in the Popular Award category. But in any case, this year, it simply had to be Kajol! There could be no other.

3) Seeing Madhuri Dixit! Sigh! She is simply the best. She completed 25 years in the film industry! 25 years of looking gorgeous (even though she had terrible dress sense and no sense of style for most of her career), giving us awesome movies that showed her range of talent (from Hum Aapke Hain Kaun to Prem Pratigya, from Parinda to Mrityudand, from Tezaab to Dil to Pagal hai and the list can go on...) She did item numbers when they were not even called item numbers with the absolute hit being 'Ek, Do, Teen' from Tezaab and 'Hum ko aaj kal hai' from Sailaab. No one and I mean absolutely NO ONE can wear a navari and look as sexy as she did in that dance sequence. And who can forget 'Chane ke khet mein' from Anjaam. Only Madhuri can do that fabulous step (and Saroj Khan of course who choreographed most of Madhuri's best numbers).  It was a delight to watch her on stage with Shahrukh. And even to simply see her gorgeous smile when she sat in the audience

4) IK and RK- too funny! Simply entertaining without being crude. All their acts were hilarious but I loved the SRK and Sallu act the most. Their chemistry is superb. Wish they would do a film together soon! I hate remakes...I strongly believe that one must not mess with history (SRK was not even half the Don that Amitabh Bachchan was), but too see a remake of 'Andaaz apna apna' with Ranbir and Imran would be quiet a treat :) (as long as Farah Khan does not direct it)

5) Sonakshi Sinha's performance was actually the best of the lot. And she does have something to her. Her eyes can definitely do the talking and she has that rustic Indian woman beauty that likes of Deepika and Sonam lack. Both of who were inconspicuous with their absence. Guess after the bitchy bithcy session on Karan's couch and all their flop movies last year-they thought it was best to stay away. Sensible choice ladies.

6) The legandary Gulzar saab's acceptance speech where he said a short verse and so humbly thanked Vishal Bhradwaj for 'keeping my songs young'.

7) Amitabh Bachchan receiving an award for completing 40 years in the industry. Words cant describe what a fabulous actor he is. And what never ceases to amaze me is the humility that man possesses and professes


A small request for both Madhuri and Amitabh- please speak in Hindi for your acceptance speech. Its is Hindi movies you are getting the awards for after all. And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE work in a film together. (Amitabh and Madhuri have only shared screen space once in 'Makhna' song from Bade Miyan Chote Miyan)

The Misses...

1) Best supporting actress award for Kareena for We are family. I nearly threw up! It was obviously in exchange for her dance performance- which was also so boring and repetitive. Same songs, same steps, same expression....YAWN....The award should have gone to Amrita Puri from Aisha- stupid film, but lovely clothes on Sonam and too cute performance from Amrita who played small town girl in snooty Delhi society who calls Polo "ghodo waali hockey". LOL!
 

2) Priyanka TRYING to do dance like Madhuri. And I can't emphasize TRYING enough. First of all they had crammed too many songs in that one dance sequence. And yes, Mads has the best dancing songs in the history of cinema...but still...and Priyanka could do absolutely no justice to even one of the songs. It was an insipid performance when the numbers were so lovely. Not to mention, you can't do a dhak-dhak when you don't have boobs!

3) Katrina's expressionless face in the audience and random kisses she blew- once when Kareena was dancing- rather fake. Though her outfit was stunning! And she did look like a million bucks

4) Ash's fat face and bored looking expression- the less said the better. She looks like she is 50 years old! L'Oreal anti aging creams not working for you?

Who looked stunning...surprisingly Prachi Desai (good job getting a stylist sweetie) and not surprisingly Malaika Arora Khan.

  

Who looked like she needs to lose weight and find some films- in the process- Preity and Rani



















And then the ones who looked lovely, but predictable

 


















For once K Jo and SRK both deserved their awards. My name is Khan though long...was a very touching and inspiring movie.

Overall a treat as always...and reminds me why I love Hindi films so much....now if only Aamir starting attending the awards...it would be perfect :)

The pain is the same

At a lunch party this week, once again the ‘tiger mother’ topic came up. One of my friends referenced a blog where a mum wrote that the kind of mother one is can be largely dependent on the social strata you are in. Take yourself a few rungs down in income, career and education, and perhaps you will be more of a tiger mother than you are now. As much as I would like to think that I would never be anything like a tiger mother, I am a more of a ‘follow your heart and do your thing as long as you are not harming anyone’ kind of person. But that point stayed with me.

Yesterday I watched this absolutely fabulous film- Do Dooni Char- a beautiful touching, yet humorous, portrayal of middle class Delhi teacher (played brilliantly and so realistically by Rishi Kapoor- my second fav movie of his now after Kabhie Kabhie) and his middle class family. It will tickle your funny bone and pull your heart strings, both at the same time. It showcases the daily grind and issues faced by middle class families in India as they fail to make ends meet with increasing consumerism demands. Side-bar- It was an absolute delight to watch Neetu Singh back on screen. She is the best! And am so glad she did not make a comeback with a glam-sham Karan Johar movie, but instead chose this one.

And this evening I finally managed to watch Dhobighat. I will need to dedicate a whole post to talking about that movie. It was simply divine! The reason it makes its way to this post (while still retaining a whole post of its own too) is that Dhobighat also bought into limelight a similar issue of class ideologies and what happens when the 2 worlds converge.



All this made me wonder...how different are we from each other? And I came to the conclusion that people’s emotions are exactly the same. You cannot classify love, hurt, pain, passion, longing, homesickness into working, middle and upper class.

When ‘Duggal sir’ in Do Dooni Char finds out that his son has been betting on cricket and making money, he makes him distribute all his winnings to street children. There is no shouting, yelling or any sort of punishment. Yes there is hurt, and there is a realization on how parenting teen kids can be a daunting task. It’s no different from how you or I would feel. We may react in different ways- depending on our temperaments and means-but the feelings don’t change.

A teacher living in a one bedroom apartment in Delhi suburbs and we living in high rise condos in district 9 and 15 in Singapore- are both helpless to protect our children from societies growing vices.

When in Dhobighat ‘Yasmin’ was making a video diary of her new life in Bombay to send back to her brother in UP, the pain in her voice when she missed her family was just what I used to feel when I first came to Singapore. She was in Bombay trying to get used to the big city life while enjoying all it has to offer, but she pined for her home. It took me back 13 years...I too had a made an audio diary of my life in Singapore for my family and friends- I told them of my new experiences here and I reminded them how much I missed them and longed to be back to my Bombay, back to them.

There is a big social divide between Yasmin and me. I have the means to fulfil my desires of being closer to my family. She did not. That was the only point of difference. The pain we both went through, the longing of wanting to be back home was exactly the same.

We forget this. We forget that all that all that separates us from them is that we have the means to change our situation. These means are usually monetary and sometimes social leverage. We forget that with kind of incomes we earn and careers we keep, we are a very small percentage of the society at large.

When it rained continously last weekend, we all cribbed how it prevented us from going out. Going out to spend more money and buy more thing we don't need. For most others it means that they will have to find innovative ways to prevent their make shift roof from leaking, or spend hours trying to get the rain water out of their houses.

When there is a power cut in urban India, we can barely survive those few hours without our TV and air con. And we forget that millions of people still don't have the luxury of electricity.

Quoting a dialogue from Kal ho na ho- “Apni nazar se dekho toh tumharein paas bahut kum hai, kisi aur ki nazar se dekho toh bahut jyada”.

Let’s try not to take these privileges for granted- because that's exactly what they are- privileges. Given to us by God Almighty and can be taken away anytime...Let’s remember that the pain is same.