The Second Annual HIndie Awards
An Introduction
For weeks now, I've
been closely following the Awards season and road that will lead to the Academy
Awards. Every point at this time of the year, my rage grows. Not at the
nominees of the Oscars and the Academy (for missing some obvious worthy films)
but rather at the system of awards in place in Bollywood.
There's no denying
the pathetic lust as well known director Mahesh Bhatt would put it, Bollywood
has for the Oscars. Yet the reason for it remains unknown, so let me shed my
two cents.
The Hindi film fraternity has a fascination for the Oscars because despite being THE OSCARS,
those only awards that would really matter even from a Hindi film awards
perspective. Bollywood unlike regional Indian cinema, is obviously unwilling in
most cases to make the kind of movies that could win them National awards.
India's got to wait in line, cause Leo's been begging for that Oscar
This in most part
leaves most Hindi films in the year, even the best ones to scramble for awards that have to
little to no meaning at all.
Hindi film awards
are presented by media outlets, rather than let's say a film board like The
Academy. The makers of these award shows are more interested in which stars
will show up, who will dance and what awards they'll have to hand out to every
single person that attended.
Awards from most
Bollywood shows mean squat, their just a haphazard way for the industry to
provide relief through mutual masturbation, and for these big corporations and
media houses to make tons of money. It's sad, but it's true.
And the Award for Least Expressions on screen goes to...Katrina Kaif, Nargis Fakhri...sorry Jacqueline Fernandez...oh who cares, they're all expendable
Not to say that the
films that are good don't deserve awards, it's just at the end of the day on an
awards night; it's the awards that matter the least. Even in fair years like
2011 and 2012, award shows would be about low IQ jokes, dance numbers and stars
over films.
It's why it got me
thinking. What could be done to fix the Indian film award system?
There's no denying
that the Oscars are flawed, yet theirs is the system that works the best along
with the Globes and the BAFTA's etc.
So I tried thinking
of how the Indian film fraternity could co-opt the structure of The Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Then I realized,
that's the dumbest idea I could think of. Their two big plot holes to the
system.
The first is that
The Academy works on a basis of structural bodies for most aspects of the
Awards. Example theirs an acting body and so on. These bodies are filled with
lots of members from the fraternity, relating to the aspect.
First of all, the
Hindi film industry isn't as huge in terms of prestigious number of people who
can be members. Certain boards would be really small compared to others, such
as the writers guild which would be full of directors. This way the idea of guilds
and bodies would be negated.
Secondly is if the
idea of bodies would work for the structure, the fact that the Industry is so
tight knit and closed out; we'd have the same problem as we do with media
awards again. The Hindi film industries small closed out structure has a huge
reason; nepotism. It's such an incestuous bunch of people, that for any award
to be voted on there would be heavy biased.
If it were up to Bollywood, then their own star sons and daughters would win all awards...although to be fair Alia Bhatt (center) has actually been fantastic this year
So this was stupid,
but then I thought of something. Sure I want to in some capacity work there,
but fuck the Hindi film industry.
I'll use the other
part of my stupidly planned awards show for myself. The next part isn't really
an original idea, heck I used it with the Golden Globes.
Now sure the Golden
Globes aren't the best awards show format. Some would even say the division
between Comedies and Drama is a bit insulting to the former genre, because
Drama always ends up last on the show indicating it's importance over the
other.
Still I like that
the structure then allows for multiple nominees and at times it doesn't feel
like some of the best of the year were left out. The Globes also has a tendency
not to be as bait-y as the Academy.
So in vein of the
globes and my own Bollywood awards from last year, I created this structure;
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Best Picture
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Best Director
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Best Screenplay
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Best
Cinematography
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Best Editing
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Best Dialogue
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Best Documentary
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Best Actor in A
Lead Role Male
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Best Actor in A
Lead Role Female
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Best Actor in A
Supporting Role Male
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Best Actor in A
Supporting Role Female
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Best Newcomer Male
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Best Newcomer
Female
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Best Soundtrack
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Best Score
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As you can see, I
updated a bit. I'll be doing the main award numbers the way most Hindi film
awards do, so there's no vfx/production or costume design.
Secondly, last year
I had seven nominees for the major awards, so that stays here. The difference
is in each category, there can be a minimum of five and a maximum of seven.
The next big thing
is that unlike the Globes, I also divided the supporting categories between
genres.
Finally the big
question is my film award. Due to the two sides being divided, there's a chance
that not the top ten best Bollywood films of the year are featured.
To explain, all ten
best of this year could be from the drama genre. Thus the last three will miss
out due to the awards structure.
As such I will put
up singular posts for each of these awards like with my Underdog awards, but I
will also do a Tintin's top ten Best Bollywood films of 2014.
Only difference
being that in the top ten post, I will rank the films but only provide a
pros/cons list and score but no in depth explanation. Though I will review the
number one film of the year separately.
Also unlike the
Globes, where they always favor drama over comedy, I'll decide the awards for
acting presented on a best ranking system for each section. Such that if female
supporting drama is better than male drama, then it will go last on its
separate post e.g. Part 9.
'Nuff Said,
Aneesh Raikundalia
