2007 Hindi film awards

The year 2007 ended on a brilliant note with the release of "Taare Zameen Par". It started off with a highly successful film in the name of "Guru". We had the hutke movies like "Chak De India" rake in a lot of moolah as well. At the same time we had typical masala movies like "Om Shanthi Om" and the comedy flicks like "Welcome", "Heyy Baby", "Partner", "Bheja Fry" and dare I say "Cheeni Kum". We also had duds like "Nishabd" and "RGV ki Aag" from the usually reliable Ram Gopal Varma. Even Yash Raj films came up with a dud like "Jhoom barabar jhoom". There were the critically acclaimed commercial failures like "Ek chaalis ki last local", "Dharm" and "Manorama six feet down under". There were those that were neither critically acclaimed nor were they ever poised for commerical success "Eklavya" is one I can clearly remember.

Let us look at who takes away the honours for the 2007 Hindi film awards as decided by me!

Best art direction: Omung Kumar (Sawariya)

Best dialogue: Sanjeev Dutta (Life In A... Metro)

Best story: Sanjay. M. Khanduri (Ek chaalis ki last local)

Best editing: Aarti Bajaj Kashyap (Black Friday)

Best screenplay: Sanjay. M. Khanduri (Ek chaalis ki last local)

Best choreography: Farah Khan (title track of Om Shanti Om)

Best cinematography: Sudeep Chatterjee (Chak De India)

Best lyricist: Sayed Quadri (In dino from Life in a Metro)

Best music: Shankar - Ehsaan - Loy (Taare Zameen Par, TZP henceforth)

Best playback singer (male): Raman Mahadevan (kholo kholo from TZP)

Best playback singer (female): Shreya Ghosal (Barso re from Guru)

Best background music: Shankar - Ehsaan - Loy (TZP)

Best child artiste: Darsheel (TZP)

Best actor in a comic role: Vinay Pathak (Bheja Fry)

Best actor in a negative role: Pankaj Kapur (Blue Umbrella)

Best actor in a supporting role (male): Aamir Khan (TZP)

Best actor in a supporting role (female): Tisca Chopra (TZP)

Best actor (female): Tabu (Cheeni Kum)

Best actor (male): Abhishek Bachchan (Guru)

Best director: Aamir Khan (TZP)

Best film: TZP

OVER HYPED,OVER SOLD,OVER THE TRASH HEAP.

First and foremost, this is not about the concerted effort that went in vain of a team that works together to make a movie, which bombed at the Box-Office.

More often than not, they have risen up to deliver blockbuster hits at the next attempt and prove the detractors wrong most of the times.
This small note is NOT about them.

This is about that half-baked ideas, executed , realized and under cover of the most deafening publicity onslaught and media overkill,thinks of hitting the Constant Movie Fan unawares,and take his money and run before he/she even knew what hit him/her in the first place.

This is about the arrogance of a self-appointed few who think they can smother you in the loudest marketing spiel and deceive you into buying that seat in the Cinema to watch whatever they deem fit to show you.

This small note is about a handful of those half-baked ideas,which came as ..well,exactly half-baked movies onto the Silver screen and died cruel deaths in the arc-lights. So,here goes,my dear Constant Viewer,the top nominations in the Microwave category.

Salaam-E-Ishq. Well,you can forget the fact that Nikhil Advani had a readymade script available with him,complete with the whole visualisation of the movie readymade,in other words,a Hollywood Production called Love Actually.Maybe the heady feeling of Kal Ho Na Ho's success took a little while to wear off.But Salaam_E_ishq proved to be more than a sledgehammer blow to the face.Even 12 multi-talented actors couldnt save this from gasping and sputtering without a tight "inspired "script.

Jhoom-Barabar-Jhoom. First rule in the Great Big Book of Bollywood Common Sense is this...
A song never saved a movie. I repeat , A song never saved a movie.Amitabh Bachchan wasted,Preity Zinta dazed and the rest of the cast walking through an experience best described as catatonic.In the apt words of Adi,the biggest movie fan on this side of the Cauvery,it should have been renamed as Doom Barabar Doom.

RGV ki AAG.Words fail when it comes to RGV ki AAG.Being maverick is one,being experimental is passe',but being in abject denial of an average movie fan's sentiments when it comes to Sholay is colossal stupidity.Moral of the story..If you think you are creatively way up above all,you might be standing all alone ....with a dunce cap.

Cash.Okay,its not the first time a Diamond gets lost in Bollywood.Agreed its a thriller caper set in South Africa,and you have a dream cast on screen to find it.But,Mr.Anubhav Sinha,with all due respect,doesn't any movie need a coherent story first?

Lagaa Chunari Mein Daag:Another plum cake on hyperthrust.Every single cliche' in Bollywood,down to even the 80's dialogues came pat,in cliched sequence after sequence.Parineeta was also a woman's journey,but a worthwhile one.Pradeep Sarkar went way ahead of himself with this one.Where,wish I knew.

No Smoking.Anurag Kashyap's surreal outing on a cigarette,John Abraham,Siberia and a Bathtub.
maybe the intentions were good,but the end product had you in pieces.Enough for a visit to your personal Shrink.

Saawariya.Everything about it is so magnificient,big and loud that its scary during its pre-release hype.And butts head against king khan's OSO.Hey,there's always space for one more movie in the Constant Fan's Heart.provided,you tell a good story.Not,an extended jewellery ad disguised as a movie.

I repeat once again,there are no fixed yardsticks to measure success in Bollywood."Success",by itself is a broad term that covers many aspects,some even riding on the opposites. A commercial success at the Box-Office maybe the pits when it comes to creativity.And you can conveniently blame it on the shallowness of the Viewer's tastes.
The arguments go on.
Into another year.
hopefully,without the duds.
Hopefully.

THE BOLLYWOOD LEXICON... A BEGINNER'S GUIDE

As a viable, commercial avenue for the creative outlets of talented craftsmen, the Indian movie industry spells success, fame and fortune (in eye-popping zeros, if you please).

The Hindi filmdom, which overshadows its fellow regional movie productions like a BIG brother, has naturally become the preferred choice and destination for everyone who wants to touch the sky and reign among the stars in the shortest possible time (casting couch be damned).

Sadly, in this huge rush (for want of a better word) to grab a share of the pie-at-the-end-of-the-Bollywood Rainbow, the first casualities are discretion, sensibility and plain old commonsense, all of them wilfully sacrificed on the Altar of Fame.

So, it is with a bemused grin, chuckle or groan that you watch on television the cast interviews at the time of a movie launch, a soundtrack release or a movie preview. You stare in abject fascination at the similar 'language' being mouthed by all of those wannabe starlets and stars.

What makes it all the more enjoyable (I cringe here) is that all of them, more or less, sound the same.

So, here is a light-hearted attempt at compiling the 'keywords' that make up the basic language structure of apna Bollywood.

You may be familiar with some, and a stranger to most, but rest assured, it gets more enjoyable with each passing day.

1. A DIFFERENT MOVIE: The stress here is on the word 'different', as in, "It's different because compared to my other movies, I'm making an honest attempt to emote/act here, but it isn't working, as usual, and my director ain't buying it either!"

2. A LEARNING EXPERIENCE: This is another expression fit for the Intensive care ward of the English language. When used in an interview, it normally means: "Frankly, I haven't the faintest idea of how to go about acting out the character and had to learn everything, right from how to tie my shoelaces properly to the fact that movie scripts are written in Hindi and not as SMS text."

3. A BRILLIANT DIRECTOR: The use of this expression is normally followed by a frantic rolling of the eyes, salivation and minor frothing at the mouth (in extreme cases). Seasoned interviewers can be seen bracing themselves after this keyword is used, normally keeping their index finger on the emergency-services speed-dial button on their cellphones buried in their jackets. Just in case.

The expression is used to indicate abject servility, as in, "You have no idea what it means to be working after vegetating for two years post my debut movie. I don't care if it may be a blink-and-you-miss-role, but it is a role, dammit, and I can afford to buy a pack of real cigarettes after they paid me the advance amount. That man is God. There is nothing I wouldn't do for the next production, believe me. I don't know what his last movie was, but as far as I'm concerned, he's brilliant, just for the fact that I get to work in his movie."

This is followed by more rolling of the eyes, and as the Interviewer pulls out his rosary frantically, the paramedics rush in.

4. FUN ON THE SETS: Usually heard amidst throaty giggling and elbowing between the cast present at the interview and more often than not may mean: "The things that we did in the make-up van would surely have made our Sunday School teacher flee his grave (God rest his soul). You just can't blame us alone, after all. Most often, the DVD player at the sets would refuse to work, which kept the scriptwriter from finishing his sequences based on that 'angrezi picher'. How long can one sit around in the sun with full make-up?"

And so on and so forth.

Your contributions towards enriching and nurturing the New Age Language of the Stars would be highly appreciated, my dear Constant Viewer.

After all, these efforts would contribute to the wholesome well-being of the Stars and, thereby, the Industry.

Can you imagine a week without a Friday opening?

This helps.

Believe me.