Oscars are an annual party to reward the best of the Hollywood cinema. It is a glitzy affair featuring biggest of stars and Hollywood big shots walking down the red carpet. The nominations itself are much hyped about a month back and then the actual award ceremony is one of the biggest event ever and highly covered by television networks.
This year the Academy decided to take a chance by giving the prestigious job of hosting to two young stars James Franco and Anne Hathaway. Both big stars in their own way as Oscars wanted to attract the ‘younger demographic’ as they say. But the efforts of James Franco and Anne Hathaway fell largely flat, their jokes were simply amateurish, the drama was like a school play and they were generally off-key. They were so unbearable at times that moment Billy Crystal or Oprah Winfrey came on stage people were hoping that they would take over the hosting. The line ‘Sajid Khan would have done a better job’ says it all.
The ceremony itself felt long and boring with nothing exciting happening for long period of time. Most of the awards were a no-contest and were almost decided long back. There were hardly any surprises there too and whatever surprises were there, they were more like a shock. The Box office successes are very rarely rewarded by the Oscars and mostly the drams and tragedies win the bigger prizes and this year the case remained the same. ‘Inception’ , people’s favorite and box office conquerer was largely ignored in bigger categories and it was awarded the technical awards mostly to compensate for that. Most people expected ‘The Social Network’ to win one of the bigger award that of best film or best actor or best director but it didn’t win any of those. Toy story 3 was suppose to win the best animated film award even before the nominations were announced.
Thus there were hardly anything worth looking forward to. There were no controversies either, with the trouble brewing in the Arab world we expected lot more Political statements as well from the nominated big-wigs and winners but there were hardly any interesting speeches. There was no wardrobe-malfunction either 🙂
All in all it was a dull and boring award ceremony. Hopefully next year we’ll have better hosts and more deserving films would win.
From Next Friday this drought would be hopefully over starting with Housefull starring Akshay Kumar and gang ,directed by Sajid Khan, the film will open to full houses thanks to the songs, the stars, big budget setup, funny promos and a recent drought of quality film entertainment. Will it live up to the hype is another story.
Next up is Yash Raj venture Badmaash Company starring Shahid Kapur, Anushka Sharma and directed by Parmeet Sethi this film is targeted towards youth with its young starcast, foregin locations, casinos and theft theme. The film has a young and fresh look and an average music but would certainly appeal all fans of such movies.
Kites will be the biggest release of the month starring Hrithik Roshan, Barbara Mori and the rest. Hrithik Roshan has a great box-office pull and his last major release Jodhaa Akbar was couple of years ago ( if you do not count Luck by Chance – where he was more a supporting role) . This film with supposedly hot scenes of the leading pair, fantastic action and romance appeals to young and old. The film has an international song less version as well and would certainly open the biggest this year, at least so far.
Rajneeti is the first major release which comes 2 weeks after Kites and promises to be an interesting political thriller loosley based on the mega-epic Mahabharata and featuring hottest actors like Ajay Devgan, Nana Patekar, Manoj Bajpayee, Naseeruddin Shah, Arjun Rampal , Katrina Kaif and this generation’s hottest young actor Ranbeer Kapoor in possibly a role with grey shades. This film based on Indian politics in the Hindi belt and directed by Prakash Jha is sure to attract both masses and classes to the cinema. People are loving the promos and cannot wait for it to release.
Mani Ratnam’s bilingual Raavan starring Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Vikram, Govinda and ensemble cast is the next one, releasing on 18th June. This film based on another mega-epic Ramayana is shot simultaneously in both Hindi and Tamil, has music by A R Rehman and is a modern day adaptation of the epic from the point of view of Raavan. The film shot in jungle of Kerala and Madhya Pradesh would surely be the one to watch out for simple because of Mani Ratnam’s magical touch.
Station of Disorientation 