The HIndie Awards 2015: Final Nominees List

The First Official

HIndie Awards

 

After a grueling 365 days and more, I've completed the task of watching as many movies as I could in the best of conditions to present to you the main ballot of nominees for this year's HIndie (Hindi Independent) film awards.

There's a lot of changes in the nomination lists to discuss. A lot about the movies that might have been awesome that I just missed. And about the nominees in question. 

Now just cause it's called the HIndie Awards, it does not mean that the films nominated in question will be Independent films or for that matter Underdog films. It's just a word I want to use for my awards, and its a cool word. 

This year in Hindi cinema, has seen quite a lot of bad. What I hate though is when an audience will cry about the dredge that Bollywood churns out, but never look at the good. 

They'll complain on the Happy New Year's, Jai Ho's and Bang Bang's that they saw, but never remember the Aankhon Dekhi's, Miss Lovelies and Highway's that they missed. 

There's such good films that I maybe felt a bit too generous, thus I created a new system of awards in lieu of the Golden Globes. This now allows me to nominate fourteen movies in most categories including now even screenplay (a new addition). Along with a bevy of technical awards such as for VFX, costume, production and ensemble acting.

Maybe I'm becoming like the Indian film awards I despise so much. 

Granted once again this year most are getting it right with the wins; Haider picking up quite an amount of trophies. 

But my problem is with the nominations and the extra awards they hand out. A recent award show for example gave awards for each genre and then on top of that for overall best and also tertiary awards for fashion and box office. 

So much so that undeserving people like Sonam Kapoor (Khoobsurat), Jacqueline Fernandez (Fashion) and Shah Rukh Khan (Happy New Year) won awards. 

I have problems with too many dance numbers and bad comedy but more so with the nominations and giving out of awards at this show. 

You could also accuse me of doing that here, but I'm trying my best to give awards to deserving films. 

Of course in my opinion.

So new additions: VFX, Ensemble and more importantly a divided screenplay award between Drama and Comedy/Musical instead of Adapted and Original. 

Once again all these apart from the technical awards will be about 5-7 nominees. 

Speaking of which. 

At one point I really felt that this divide and more nominees experiment was a flop. In fact I'm still not convinced. 

I'll explain though, after I unveil the nominees list. 

Best Motion Picture (Drama)	Best Motion Picture (Comedy/Musical)
Highway	Queen
Miss Lovely	Filmistaan
Haider	Aankhon Dekhi
Hawaa Hawaai	Dedh Ishqiya
Ugly	PK
Citylights	Hasee Toh Phasee
Kya Dilli, Kya Lahore	Finding Fanny
Best Director	Best Cinematography
Anurag Kashyap-Ugly	Finding Fanny
Vishal Bhardwaj-Haider	Miss Lovely
Imtiaz Ali-Highway	Dedh Ishqiya
Vikas Bahl-Queen	Haider
Rajat Kapoor-Aankhon Dekhi	Ugly
Abhishek Chaubey-Dedh Ishqiya	Highway
Ashim Ahluwalia-Miss Lovely	Citylights
Best Screenplay (Drama)	Best Screenplay (Comedy/Musical)
Haider	Dedh Ishqiya
Highway	Finding Fanny
Ugly	Filmistaan
Kya Dilli, Kya Lahore	Queen
Miss Lovely	Aankhon Dekhi
Best Actor in A Leading Role Drama (Male)	Best Actor in A Leading Role Comedy/Musical (Male)
Randeep Hooda-Highway	Naseeruddin Shah-Dedh Ishqiya
Vijay Raaz-Kya Dilli, Kya Lahore	Arshad Warsi-Dedh Ishqiya
Shahid Kapur-Haider	Sharib Hashmi-Filmistaan
Partho Gupte-Hawaa Hawaai	Sanjay Mishra-Aankhon Dekhi
Purab Kohli-Jal	Naseeruddin Shah-Finding Fanny
Nawazuddin Siddiqui-Miss Lovely	Aamir Khan-PK
Rajkumar Rao-Citylights
Best Actor in A Leading Role Drama (Female)	Best Actor in A Leading Role Comedy/Musical (Female)
Priyanka Chopra-Mary Kom	Vidya Balan-Bobby Jasoos
Rani Mukherjee-Mardaani	Parineeti Chopra-Hasee Toh Phasee
Alia Bhatt-Highway	Madhuri Dixit-Dedh Ishqiya
Patralekha-Citylights	Kangana Ranaut-Queen
Tejaswini Kolhapure-Ugly	Deepika Padukone-Finding Fanny
Best Actor in A Supporting Role Drama (Male)	Best Actor in A Supporting Role Comedy/Musical (Male)
Vineet Kumar Singh-Ugly	Vijay Raaz-Dedh Ishqiya
Manu Rishi-Kya Dilli, Kya Lahore	Rajat Kapoor-Aankhon Dekhi
Anil George-Miss Lovely	Inaamulhaq-Filmistaan
Girish Kulkarni-Ugly	Rajkumar Rao-Queen
Tahir Raj Bashin-Mardaani	Pankaj Kapur-Finding Fanny
Manav Kaul-Citylights	Anil Mange-Hasee Toh Phasee
K K Menon-Haider	Gopal Dutt-Filmistaan
Best Actor in A Supporting Role Drama (Female)	Best Actor in A Supporting Role Comedy/Musical (Female)
Neha Joshi-Hawaa Hawaai	Lisa Haydon-Queen
Tannishtha Chatterjee-Jal	Anushka Sharma-PK
Tabu-Haider	Seema Pahwa-Aankhon Dekhi
Shraddha Kapoor-Haider	Huma Qureshi-Dedh Ishqiya
Niharika Singh-Miss Lovely	Dimple  Kapadia-Finding Fanny
	Kalki Koechlin-Happy Ending
Best Breakthrough Actor (Male)	Best Breakthrough Actor (Female)
Best VFX	Best Ensemble
Best Production Design	Best Costume Design
Best Editing	Best Documentary
Best Soundtrack	Best Score
Ek Villain	Dedh Ishqiya
Highway	Ugly
Haider	Haider
Queen	Finding Fanny
Dedh Ishqiya	Miss Lovely

A few things as I said to clarify. 

Despite being a supporting role in a film just full of them, I decided to bump Tejaswini Kolhapure to leading for Ugly. This is because there was a lack of a fifth nominee in that list that felt viable, I could have pushed Parineeti Chopra (Daawat E Ishq) or Alia Bhatt (2 States/Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania) but their performances weren't that great to be warranted and for that matter they're already nominated elsewhere. 

The technical awards will come first. These are the awards with no nominees (Expect for the breakthrough performances). 

I hate that I couldn't balance nominees to seven or five, so for screenplay, direction and movie I forced myself to get a balance equation between comedy/musical and drama. 

Once again the big rule pertaining to performance awards. All the leading awards will have their own post (same with supporting), the first set will depend on which side has the best award. 

Example

If Randeep Hooda wins the leading drama award and he is better than leading drama (female), leading comedy/musical (male) and leading comedy/musical (female) say Kangana Ranaut. 

Then drama goes after comedy/musical. 

Separately if Kangana is better than Naseeruddin Shah, then Kangana goes last. 

As the last is mostly the respected one in the awards show. 

Anyways, you'll see one you see the posts. 

If there's anything more, I'll state it on the separate posts.

Also there's a few films I didn't see, so here's the list;

Suleimani Keeda: A slacker comedy, about film writers. This would have resonated so much with me. 

Rang Rasiya: A period romantic drama based on the life and paintings of Raja Ravi Verma. Randeep Hooda plays the titular character, and is supposedly brilliant. 

Children of War: Couldn't find a good print for this harrowing take on the Bangladesh liberation war. 

Titil (Unreleased) and Liar's Dice (Unreleased)

So that's it. 

The next time we meet, it will be for the technical awards. Also we wont meet very soon, I need a few weeks to settle down and also rewatch these films, so hopefully by February it's be HIndie Awards time (and in March-April it will be Underdog Awards time).

Up next: a stunning technical spectacle, a short but sweet tale of love and camaraderie and a top notch examination on India's B-Grade cinema...the Technical Section of the HIndie Awards

'Nuff Said

Aneesh Raikundalia

Tintin's Top Ten: Worst Bollywood Films of 2014

 

Tintin's Top Ten

Worst Bollywood Films of 2014

Oh God, has this year of Hindi cinema pissed me off.

It's produced some real gems and all time favorites, but as the good keeps on getting better...the worse just sinks to an all new low.

What's worse is that as with the growing theme of the decade, this year's worst are once again produced by the biggest stars in Bollywood. Whether it's to stick to formula, gain money and keep reign on their seats at the top of the food chain, or simply a mid life crisis forcing each big star to want to be soothed by a big ego movie revolving around their big selves.

So much so, that one thing is clear; below you'll see the correct list of worst films of the year. But you also will notice how low the scores are, this might be a slight biased because I just couldn't handle these terrible and I mean very terrible films.

It just pisses me off, that not only at a global but also local stage these are the kind of films that represent what Bollywood is. That's the saddest thing.

One film was so bad, it put me off watching or tolerating any others such that you'll see a triple bonanza of bad film making. Film making that's so terrible, it didn't deserve my attention for 1-2 hours.

Still there's worse movies this year, that I might not even have seen that scare me.

So here's a list of the films that looked so bad from the trailer I didn't bother seeing them. It's not that the worst films aren't on my list, but after seeing all ten of those I couldn't bother seeing these one's;

Action Jackson: Mind numbing stupidity meets scary misogyny. A film where a Independent working woman chases after a man to see his privates just cause she thinks it's lucky for her, no thanks. Prabhudeva falling to an all new low isn't so surprising, what is; is National Award winner Ajay Devgn destroying his reputation even further.

Creature 3D: It's a novel concept to bring a creature feature to Mainstream Hindi cinema and commendable for that. It still doesn't equal copious praise for just doing something different even in Hindi cinema, it needs to be good if not great and this one doesn't look like it.

Fugly: Shaitan-lite starring a talented boxer, two talented actors and a talented actors nephew in a film by a flop director.

More: Mr. Joe B Carvalho, One By Two, Ragini MMS 2, Kaanchi, Hate Story 2, Pizzar, 3 AM, Kill Dil and Ungli were all considered bad and I didn't see them

There were so many terrible films of varying scores, that an honorable or well dishonorable section is a must. Most of these movies had some redeeming factors, but their still terrible enough to induce a headache.

Here's the dishonorable mentions;

Holiday: A slickly directed espionage thriller remake of AR Murgadoss's own Thupakki. Surprisingly Kumar lacks the charisma of south star Vijay and the film in itself feels repetitive and dull.

Main Tera Hero: A charismatic Varun Dhawan and a hilarious Anupam Kher save a sometimes cool half baked David Dhawan comedy.

Kick: Nawazuddin Siddiqui chewing scenery like a pro and a game Salman Khan negate the bland effects of Jacqueline Fernandez in a high end production value action, romantic thriller. It might have propaganda all over it, but it's still guilty fun.

Bang Bang: Some stunning set pieces and lavish design. A terribly remade script of a terrible original one, with Hrithik and Katrina phoning it in. Style over substance, nothing else.

Total Siyappa: There are funny moments spiced in a feature that feels more like a sitcom episode than a whole movie. Stretching a short concept to nigh infinite minutes of dullness.

Khoobsurat: The Princess styled remake of the Hrishikesh Mukherjee classic. There's nothing new to the story and the actors mostly pull their same shtick; from an annoyingly loud Kirron Kher to a snooty Ratna Pathak Shah and a nicely brooding Fawad Khan. This films likability depends on how much you can tolerate Sonam Kapoor's real persona. For me; Not so much.

Raja Natwarlal: A terribly constructed con movie that wastes it's talented star cast. Also for a Bhatt film, it surprisingly has some bland music. 

Let me just say that this isn't even the base of the iceberg, let alone the tip. Some of the above listed films are even enjoyable guilty pleasures.

The bottom ten is where the real fun, I mean pain is. So let's just roast these fucking bitches!

A New Dawn: My Blog's HIndie Awards

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;

Best Picture
Best Director	Best Screenplay
Best Cinematography	Best Editing
Best Dialogue	Best Documentary
Best Actor in A Lead Role Male	Best Actor in A Lead Role Female
Best Actor in A Supporting Role Male	Best Actor in A Supporting Role Female
Best Newcomer Male	Best Newcomer Female
Best Soundtrack	Best Score

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

Tintin's Top Ten: Biggest Takeaways From The Golden Globe Nominations

Tintin's Top Ten

Big Golden Globe News

The full list of nominees for the official 2015 Golden Globes just got released, providing some genuine moments of shock and boosting a lot of campaigns that looked like they might just lose steam. Now with the Globes a lock for next year, 11th January 2015. All eyes will fall on The Academy, and where and whom they will comply on with the second biggest film awards show in Hollywood.

On this post I'll be examining not only the disappointments and surprises, but the talking points that could form the outlook for the awards season ahead. So fasten your seat belt snowy, it's time for another Tintin's Top Ten. 

Tintin's Top Ten: Most Anticipated Bollywood Films of 2015

Tintin's Top Ten

Most Anticipated Bollywood Films of 2015

Wow, it's been long hasn't it?

I'm really sorry, that I haven't blogged anything for a long time due to my inherent laziness. Well it's a triple bonanza for not only my return to the blog but also to celebrate my birthday (which was yesterday) as well as the birthday of this blog. 

Now on 17th of this month, my blog will be two years old. Unfortunately I will be busy and with no internet to support my blogging needs, forcing me to celebrate its birthday a week earlier. 

Okay so let's just get on with the post. 

As the year wraps, it's time to whip up awards season predictions, my own blog awards and more importantly best of worst of lists for Bollywood films. 

I'd like this post to be a bit lengthier, so not only will I include the most anticipated releases for next year but also give two major things;

A short analysis on the top ten films I had anticipated for 2014. I'll decide whether despite my anticipation, they were disappointing, great or even a bigger surprise then I thought. 

My next part will also be a vague analysis of Bollywood in the year 2014. I'll try my best not to give spoilers for my best or worst of the year list. 

Awards Race: What Oscars 2014 Should Have Looked Like?

An Oscar 2014 Re-Do

First of all, I've been feeling lazy a lot so this was the easiest Idea to get a post done for this month. 

After the conclusion of the 86th Academy Awards and my own first Official Underdog Awards, I forgot to make this post. A post highlighting what I felt should have been the lineup for the Academy Awards. 

It's a good thing too, cause I've made some changes to my idea of winners (even for the Underdog Awards 2014) since the last time.

As I said this is a lazy post, so all I'm going to do is put a table for you highlighting my winners and nominees. Winners are in bold italics. 

Also there will be some notes for certain winners and changes from the Underdog Awards of 2014. 

Enjoy!

Best Picture
Prisoners	Stoker
The Wolf of Wall Street	12 Years A Slave
Her	Before Midnight
Inside Llewyn Davis	Short Term 12
Gravity	Nebraska
Best Director	Best Cinematography
Spike Jonze-Her	Stoker
Alfonso Cuaron-Gravity	Prisoners
Dennis Villeneuve-Prisoners	Spring Breakers
Steve McQueen-12 Years A Slave	Nebraska
Park Chan Wook-Stoker	Gravity
Best Lead Actor (Male)	Best Lead Actor (Female)
Chiwetel Ejiofor-12 Years A Slave	Cate Blanchett-Blue Jasmine
Matthew McConaughey-Dallas Buyers Club	Julie Delpy-Before Midnight
Hugh Jackman-Prisoners	Brie Larson-Short Term 12
Oscar Issac-Inside Llewyn Davis	Rooney Mara-Side Effects
Joquain Phoenix-Her	Greta Gerwig-Frances Ha
Best Supporting Actor (Male)	Best Supporting Actor (Female)
Michael Fassbender-12 Years A Slave	Lupita Nyongo-12 Years A Slave
Jared Leto-Dallas Buyers Club	Sally Hawkins-Blue Jasmine
Jake Gylenhall-Prisoners	Scarlett Johansson-Her
James Franco-Spring Breakers	June Squibb-Nebraska
Matthew McConaughey-Mud	Gabby Hoffman-Crystal Fairy
Best Original Screenplay	Best Adapted Screenplay
Jeff Nichols-Mud	Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke-Before Midnight
Spike Jonze-Her	John Ridley-12 Years A Slave
Aaron Guzikowki-Prisoners	Terrence Winter-The Wolf of Wall Street
Destin Daniel Cretton-Short Term 12	Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope-Philomena
Joel and Ethan Coen-Inside Llewyn Davis	Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber-The Spectacular Now

-Let's start from the top;

-12 Years A Slave, I still consider the best film of last year. 

-I think Cuaron gets a bit too much credit for Gravity, I still feel Steve's uncompromising look at slavery was an amazing feat to accomplish. Spike Jonze's world building is something else that deserved to be nominated. Wook (Underdog 2014 Winner) and Villeneuve's visions also enthralled me more than the works of Scorsese (Wolf) and Russell (Hustle). 

-Gravity still deserves a big technical win

-Unlike Scarlett, Phoenix was not on my Underdog nomination list due to his Globe nom. He wholly deserves to be last years best actor despite Chiwetel giving my favorite lead performance. For the McConaissance there's two deserving performances, but no wins. His best on celluloid in this phase has been in Killer Joe, overall best being True Detective. 

-I think I might have been blinded by my love for Delpy's Celine, but on rewatch I was so touched by Larson's performance in Short Term 12; it was hard not to award her. 

-Rooney Mara is a late entry with Side Effects. Her performance came early last year and I missed watching the movie while nominate the Underdog Awards, she is definitely amazing in the film and deserving of an Oscar nomination. 

-Lupita was the master of last year, period. 

-Oscars hit it right in the head with the screenplay awards. 

'Nuff Said,

Aneesh Raikundalia