50th Filmfare Awards

Last night I watched the Filmfare awards (bollywood?s Oscar) religiously, as I do every year. This year it has coincided with the Oscar?s weekend too. After all these years of seeing Manikchand Filmfare awards, it sounded strange to hear a new company called SGI sponsoring this year?s event. I doubt how many even knew that a company called SGI existed before this event. Anyways, except a few ?golden? moments ? thanks to the dance sequence by the beautiful women of yester years who went to prove that they were still more beautiful and graceful than the current actresses?, the rest of the evening was boring me to death. Zeenat Aman and Rekha looked stunning. Sharmila Tagore graceful.
As every year, the awards were not given to the best actors but to the actors in movies that were the most successful commercially. Wonder how one could award the best actress award to Rani for hum tum. I would have rather voted for Shilpa Shetty for Phir Milenge. But that would have been morally wrong ? wouldn?t it ? best actress award to a movie on a socially taboo topic. And when is this Shah Rukh madness going to stop? It was an insult to Amitabh when SRK was given the ?Power Award?. After a while when almost every actor recd. an award, it seemed that many awards were creatively crafted so that every one gets one! Remembering ?Sholay? after 30 years proved that it is still the greatest Hindi movie ever made (though I don?t like it much).

After watching the Oscars this morning, I felt Oscars can never be compared to Filmfare awards. It is a class in itself ? the setting at Kodak theatre, the designer costumes of actor?s speak for themselves. But you know what a colorful combination can be ? replacing the performances/dance sequences of Oscars with Filmfare awards 