National awards 2008.

The National Awards of 2008 were announced a week ago. Yes, they announce the 2008 awards in 2010 — and that is still early by their standards.

I thought the WTF moment was Priyanka Chopra picking up the Best Actor (female) for Fashion, until I heard Kangana Ranaut won the Supporting Actor (female) for the same movie. I remember reviewing Fashion and I wasn’t exactly impressed by the acting.

I have a theory — every year a couple (just a couple, mind you) of National awards are handed out to popular cinema. We know intense lobbying goes on for the National awards and it has had its share of controversies. I don’t know if this is by design or a product of lobbying, but an award to a popular actor/actress makes the awards relevant and popular in mainstream media. It is ironic.

I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but come on — there were more effective performances in 2008 than hair on Anil Kapoor’s body — before he went all metrosexual and got them waxed. I don’t know exactly when he got them waxed, but I remember noticing no chest hair in Taal. He also had a cap on in Taal, making it his least hairy performance ever. I am surprised they allowed him to get rid of his hair. It should have been declared a World Heritage site. Oh, and who had the courage to agree to do it for him ? And how exactly was it done ? Traditional wax, or a lawn mower ? These are deep, profound questions that need to be answered by the National awards committee.

Wait, did I just digress ?

Award the Bachchans !

Before saying anything, I must admit that I am a big fan of the Bachchans and this might heavily bias my posts.

As we know, Priyanka Chopra has been awarded the Best Actress trophy for Fashion in every single award function, including IIFA. This has not gone down well with Mrs. Jaya Bachchan, who stated :

I don’t have any objection to her [Priyanka] winning the award at IIFA. But I wonder why Aishwarya’s fine performance was ignored. I think she richly deserved recognition for her work.

Of course, Mrs. Bachchan acted out these lines and given her recent acting escapades, it is mere speculation that she said the exact same words. Now critics are going to point out that Mrs. Bachchan hasn’t even seen Fashion to make a comment, but therein lies the greatness of the Bachchan parivar (family), which is one of the last 3 remaining parivars in India, after the Gandhi parivar and Sahara parivar.

So understandably, this ignorance by IIFA has made me livid with anger. At the very least, IIFA should have recognized at least two Bachchans for awards. How else can the family show their closeness and bonding on stage ?

Now rumour has it that they felt Aishwarya was plastic in the movie. Wrong. If anything, she was wax, and wax, as we all know, is a greener and more organic alternative to plastic. With the increasing importance of environmental conservation, I am apalled at this decision of IIFA.

In fact, let me go a step further. I demand a Best Actor trophy for Abhishek Bachchan in Jodha Akbar. I know the skeptics are always going to say that he wasn’t even there in the movie. But to think of it, he wasn’t in it means he did not act in it, which is a far superior performance than bad acting ! So there you go.

I just hope IIFA rectifies its mistake next year, by giving a family pack of awards to all Bachchans henceforth, including the yet to be born baby.

To quote Varun Gandhi, “If any person lifts a hand against the Bachchans, or thinks they are weak, there is nobody behind them, then I swear on the Amar Singh that I will cut off their nails”.

Fashion.

I seriously wonder how everyone who reviewed Fashion missed out the most ridicuous fact, that it is racist !

The lead character is happily drinking, merrily smoking tobacco and dope, gaily sleeping with the only non-gay men provided in the script. But why does her world have to come crashing down when she wakes up next to a black guy !! How racist is that ! (or is it his way of saying that India’s moment in the world has arrived. With the US being led by a black guy and clearly brown > black, we are the supreme masters of the world.)

With heavyweights like Madhur Bhandarkar, Priyanka Chopra (yeah she is fat and if you don’t believe me, I still wouldn’t recommend the movie) Kangana Ranaut (Please do something about her accent ! It ruins all her acting !), you would expect a decent movie.

It would have been damn good if it wasn’t boring, cliched, full of forced emotional sequences (exactly the kind that would amount to blasphemy in a Karan Johar movie), inexplicable behaviour by the characters and a few other flaws.

P.S. : Even with all its acerbity, the last sentence was not plagiarized from a Khalid Mohammad review.