Sai and Shujath talk Cinema

Since the last couple of weeks, everyone on the web is being bombarded with lists of bests/worsts….which sound pretty much the same. So breaking from tradition, presenting some special awards you wouldn’t find anywhere.

1. “Rani Mukherji memorial award for best movie prostitute”: The first ever recipient of this award is Rani herself for her unmatchable contribution in this endeavour right from Mangal Pandey in 2005 to Laaga Chunari Mein Daag and Saawariya in 2007. Special mention for her role in Saawariya where she effortlessly outshone umpteen other prostitutes in the movie.

2. “Regret of the year”: This has to be a tie between Ramgopal Varma who regretted making Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag and the unlucky audience who regretted venturing out to actually see it.

3. “Sleepy Editor of the year award”: Aarti Kashyap for Salaam-e-Ishq. If she had slept at her desk a little longer, Nikhil Advani could have released six different films.

4. “Most Honest Movie Dialogue of the year”: ‘It’s a misttaakkeee!!!!!!’ - screams Himesh Reshammiya in his first feature Aap Ka Surroor. Most people mistakenly (but earnestly) believed he was alluding to his decision to act.

5. “Unluckiest Celeb of the year”: No one comes close to Chiranjeevi this time….First he gets blasted on stage for being honoured as a ‘Legend’, his only release this year also bombs, his dude brother gets caught in a marital legal tangle, his daughter elopes in public and blames him for the act and finally his father passes away.

6. “Luckiest Celeb of the year”: This has to be Shilpa Shetty - because one definitely needs all the luck in the world when one garners all the awards/honours one can dream of in a lifetime…. just because one happened to be the target of a “racial slur” from a shitty contestant on an equally shitty reality show.

7. “Weight Loss of the year”: If you were guessing Adnan Sami or NTR or Sonam Kapoor then you are wrong. This award goes to the invincible Yash Raj Films’ jinki poori charbi utar gayee with the junk they unloaded at the box office in the form of Ta Ra Rum Pum, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, Laaga Chunari Mein Daag and Aaja Nachle.

8. “Wonder of the year”: Again a tie between Emraan Hashmi who could make it through ‘Aawarapan’ without smooching any of his leading ladies and John Abraham who apparently is said to have used for the first time 3 different facial expressions in ‘Goal’ (can’t comment because I haven’t seen the movie)

9. “Supporting Pillar of the year”: Reitesh Deshmukh for playing the supporting role in every three hero film on the horizon…he continues the trend this year with Cash, Dhamaal and Heyy Babyy.

10. “Hammiest Performance of the Year”: Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjay Dutt for Shootout at Lokhandwala. Especially during the interrogation scenes between them…they seem to be asking each other - “Dude…what are we doing in this movie!”

11. “Super Achiever of the year”: This one too is a tie between Akshay Kumar who successfully delivered 4 hit films and Saif Ali Khan who managed 1 film and 3 different girlfriends.

In recent years, I’ve always found quite weird the fate of “good” films (considered worthy by critics and by people who’ve seen them irrespective of the box office status). Either they don’t work at the box office or end up being highly overrated. Coming to the latter, in the current year I can recall two such flicks - Guru and Chak De India. In both cases, pre-release buzz wasn’t too great and the openings weren’t earth shattering. Again in both cases a few days after the release one could find on all major news channels 30 minute shows dedicated to the “phenomenon” created by these films.

In the case of Guru it was about “finally….the Indian Biopic comes of age”. Another channel debated if “Indians like to watch only sanitized biopics?”. Whatever the topic of debate might be this whole post-release extravaganza only brought in more and more audiences to the theatres. And whether they liked it or not everyone went overboard in praising the film maybe because they didn’t want to sound dumb. Of course, lot of people started talking about the Oscars as usual. A similar thing was seen in the Case of Chak De with the film made a part of IIM leadership curriculum, SRK addressing a major leadership conference and of course the Oscar buzz. It is really hard to figure out if the cult status these films receive is simply because a lot of people watched it and loved it or if was the media blitzkrieg which hypnotized people to believe that they have to love it or risk being labelled uncool.

Last year it was Rang De Basanti and Lage Raho Munnabhai but I am hesitant to label the films themselves as overrated. I would only apply the term to the effect these flicks were supposed to have in society at large. A couple of other films in recent times which resulted in TV shows dedicated to them post release are Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna and Salaam Namaste - as if they were treatises on extra-marital and live-in relationships. Both were entertaining flicks and it looks like the audiences took them lot more seriously than even the respective filmmakers.

I don’t think you can recall such stuff happening 3-4 years back. Is it because the news-media wasn’t ubiquitous at that point of time….or is it because there were a larger number of flicks which were qualified as hits and so there wasn’t a chance for any single film to become a phenomenon. I don’t know the answer but I sure this trend will continue and that you’ll get to see and hear lots of “The ______ Effect” (substitute the next cult hit in the blanks). Note that excluded here some really bad films which go on to become hits….that’s another story.