Opinion Oscars,yawn!
The Oscars show on Star Movies was not worth loosing sleep over.
What is the biggest difference between ours and their film awards ceremonies? That we have as many item numbers during the show as awards? That too. But the Academy Awards,BAFTA,Golden Globes are telecast live all our shows are edited and broadcast after the event,preferably on a Sunday evening when they attract high viewership.
Their shows are also on Sunday evenings but that’s Monday morning for us in India,so diehard fans,woke up before sunrise,to catch host Anne Hathaway change her clothes (that would be eight times). If that wasn’t enough to get us rushing off to office,there was her co-host James Franco looking very pale and only faintly interesting throughout the telecast,perhaps due to an excessive loss of blood as Aron Raltson in 127 Hours. Just kidding.
Frankly,the show on Star Movies was not worth loosing sleep over. It was too formal and by that I don’t mean just the evening gowns and dinner jackets worn by almost the entire film fraternity. The presenters were so straightforward in their announcements,they could have been reading out the BBC World news. Even someone who is normally quite amusing,Sandra Bullock,spoke as if she was at a wake. What’s wrong with them?
The American media has criticised the Oscars for trying to bridge the generation gap by having two young hosts on stage and all the well-lined stars in the audience! That’s a little unfair but one other striking difference with Indian awards shows. Their awards recognise a good performance even if it is by a white-haired,over 60 dame — remember Helen Mirren in The Queen? Our awards are bestowed on the fair and lovely; the only over 40 year old people felicitated are those whose acting days are over and are hanging around for lifetime achievement awards.
No,the Oscars were not a yawning gap because of the unsuccessful attempts to be young and hip and social networking at the same time; they were a C+ because everything was so entirely predictable. You knew who was going to win the most coveted awards — there wasn’t one surprise,not even the fact that our very own A R Rahman did not win — he’d just won two years ago for Slumdog Millionaire and if there is one mistake the Oscars do not make,it is to repeat themselves.
And since there were no upset victories,there was no spontaneous joy,no matter what was going on inside Best Actor winner Colin Firth. If he really wanted to dance,as he said he did,he should have shaken a leg or two right there and then. That would have been more fun than hearing about it. The acceptance speeches were more tiresome than usual probably because they had been well-rehearsed so sure were the winners of their victories.
So the secret for success is not to introduce more nominees — 10 for best picture this year — but to introduce an element of the unpredictable and to bring Bob Hope back from the dead. He was funnier than all the presenters and winners put together.
Share
