Like me, most Bollywood movie buffs watched the 51st Filmfare awards on television unlike the privileged ones who get to see the live show. The Movie ‘Black’ won most of the awards, but then again this comes as no surprise.
Anyway, for me the highlight of the evening was not the ‘item number’ performed by Aishwarya Rai nor the short speech given by the Man in White aka. Will Smith. The never ending saga of advertisements took the cake by all measures. Now I understand that the channel and the Filmfare board need to make money to cover their enormous costs, but for crying out loud, these guys went way overboard.
We, the viewers were subjected to nearly 15 minutes of ads (most of them were Sony’s regular soap previews and Indian idol preview) after just max 5 to 7 minutes of the Filmfare show itself. This pathetic routine was repeated after every damn performance, after every award announcement.
A show which could have easily finished in two hours, went on for nearly 4 hours. For me it was like watching an ad show, with little snippets of award ceremony in it. Sony channel, it seems, looked to gain a lot from it’s TRP ratings and therefore made every second of the televised show count.
Believe me, the whole evening was just frustrating at times. The same ads were repeated a zillion times, if only the Mumbai police would have allowed Abu Salem to watch the show, I am 100% sure the man would have pleaded to every single crime he has every committed. I was watching the show at my best friend’s house along with her and her mum. And I have to say, this was only the second time that I have seen my aunt abusing the shits out of the poor television. Obviously, the anger was directed towards the people responsible, however the television was bearing the brunt.
On a serious note, the whole evening was a waste of time since we all knew who would be the winner, the performances were not that great, the show felt more like Amitabh Bachchan suck-up night and to top it all, the ongoing ads made the night even more forgetful. My advice would be, it’s better to record the show and watch it later on, at your ease, rather than waste your precious Saturday evening watching it live.
Just a side-note, Shabana Azmi was awarded the ‘Lifetime Achievement’ trophy, which I think she truly deserves. However, since she is still very much present and actively involved in Indian cinema, is it correct to hand her this award now? Couldn’t they give it to some yester-year actor ?
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Utsa
Feb 27th, 2006 at 8:32 am | #
Finally..I find someone who sees it my way!yes, it was completely and obviously about the Big B(who I don’t mind as much) as I did mind his son Abhishek Bachchan making a complete idiot(Well he was only ever half-sane”) out of himself on Stage and off it as well I presume. I mean his performance was not only had to tolerate but what made it worse was his “Wannabe”uncool style…
I think it only paid off to watch the Awards when Madhuri’s surprise performance came on and she looked sensational and performed well too inspite of being out of practice and after becoming a mum and all. She was truly brilliant and I was pretty captured for those few minutes she came on. Apart from that, all else was pretty boring and quite underwhelming. And, seriously Jaaved Jaffrey’s jokes..weren’t funny at all, give it up already I say.
Who I thought looked absolutely gorgeous was- Madhuri(But, of course)Rekha(as per usual) and Shaimak Davar (he’s still hot@the age of…however old he is.)
Cheers:)