Awards in the ‘Woods

I have a love/hate affair with awards shows. I love watching them to see what people are wearing and who wins, but I usually can’t bear the acceptance speeches. Indeed, I love watching the Oscars, and I’ll definitely be tuning in on Monday morning (yep….they’ll be live at 6:30 a.m. in India) for a short while before heading to work. I don’t know why I even care about watching this year, as I have yet to see any of the films or actors that are nominated. But Chris Rock should be in fine form.

Bollywood is also in the award-giving spirit, and will be giving out its 2004 awards tonight. The cool thing about the Filmfare Awards is that the nominees were only announced last week, so the hype is kept somewhat to a minimum.

I doubt I’ll be watching, even though, in this case, I’ve seen two of the movies (Swades and Hum Tum) nominated for best film. Of course, I’ll be rooting for Swades to win that award, as that’s the film that Anthony had a bit part in! The other three that are nominated for best film are Dhoom, Main Hoon Na, and Veer Zaara. I can’t speak for the latter two, but I know that nominating Dhoom and Hum Tum for best film would be akin to the Academy nominating “The Fast and the Furious” and “You’ve Got Mail” for Best Picture. Bollywood churns out up to three films per week and these are the best they can come up with?

I guess there’s been a big buzz in Hollywood about Jamie Foxx’s chance to win awards for both Best Actor (Ray) and Best Supporting Actor (Collateral). Those odds are pretty good but nothing compared to those for Bollywood king Shah Rukh Khan (“King Khan”), who received three (out of five!) nominations for Best Actor for his roles in Swades, Main Hoon Na, and Veer Zaara. If he doesn’t win for one of those, it’ll be quite a shocker.

Aishwarya Rai, who I read has been invited to present at the Oscars, is one of the five nominated for a Filmfare Best Actress award. I’ve only seen one of the performances in that category (Rani Mukherjee, again for Hum Tum), but I’m rooting for Preity Zinta, who could, in my opinion, follow in Ash’s footsteps to Hollywood. I’m particularly fond of her Filmfare winning performance from last year’s Kal Ho Na Ho. Fun movie.

From what I can tell, Filmfare Awards are given in about 32 categories, including such MTV/Golden Globe-like categories as Actor in a Comic Role and Actor in a Villainous Role. There are also awards for Lyricist (check out this year’s nominees – hilarious!) and Playback Singer Male and Female (you do know that all those Bollywood songs are lip-synched a la Milli Vanilli, right?). Still, I think that the Filmis could use a few more categories.

My nominees for new categories for the Filmfare Awards include:

1) Best Bollywood Remake of a Hollywood Film (aka the “Copyright Infringment” award). I just read the other day that there’s a whole new web site – Bollycat – dedicated to such films.

2) Best Make-Out Scene Without a Kiss

3) Best Serious-Acting-to-Dance-Sequence Segue

4) Best Film Without a Wedding

Just a thought….