So they actually gave PAGE 3, the national award for the best film ? God save the Indian film industry.
I couldn’t believe, Swades lost out to Rituparno Ghosh’s Raincoat on the award for the best hindi film. While I just saw Raincoat and liked it, I still think Swades was one of the best hindi films in the last couple of years. Virumandi was released in 2004 and Aayitha Ezhuthu / Yuva rocked in 2004. What happened to those ?
I know why mature directors still day-dream Oscars. Because we have such screwed up ways to judge ourselves, they have started looking else where for proper recognition. No wonder !!
P.S – I didn’t want to open up yet another comment war but someone posted a comment in the previous blogpost looking for this. Neyar Viruppam.
kirukkal.com 
30 responses to “So they actually gave PAGE”
I have not caught up with any of those which have won awards. But I assume, regional bias is natural and expected in such events. I still do not understand how a panel that consists of non-Tamil speakinf members decides on stuff like “Best Lyric”.
The classic Vairamuthu line ‘vaanamagal naanugiral’ would just loose all it’s charm and become mundane prose if it were to be translated. How did they give it then – a forceful dude from Tamil Nadu???
For this very reason I indulge in fantasies of learning french one day – just to read Sartre again.
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LG,
Do you know Ayutha Ezuthu/Yuva both were not nominated for the national awarda by the producer himself (Maniratnam). Look at the list of 107 movies nominated. Also “Virumandi” was nomintated for last years awards as it was certified in 2003.
http://pib.nic.in/archieve/others/2005/52_NFA_Awards.pdf
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Lazy,
Virumaandi competed in last year’s competition (and fyi, Kamal’s performance, though not great, was one of the other key contenders for the best actor apart from Vikram as there was no great performances).
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What about Saif as Best Actor???? this year national awards seem to be given on the criteria other than ‘merit’….
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LG, u said it… u’ve started a debate.
Suresh, that was a very informative pdf… It answers a few questions posed earlier.
Still, it would be of immense interest to know which were the final 5 shortlisted in each of the main categories atleast (film, actor, actress, director and popular movie)..
Now sudhir mishra has quoted in many places that it is not a norm that only heavy weight acting should be awarded and hence saif was chosen. Likewise, the best movie and best director needn’t go hand in hand!
Still I can’t digest “kadhal” didn’t deserve even one award. Likewise in mallu movies (am not sure if many would be following them in this forum), kadhavaseshan, kazhcha got ignored totally including performances… Likewise Anand in Telugu…
Again, saif winning national award. There is a debate on that if Sharmila Tagore (national censor chief) rigged that.. However, with due credit to Saif, I think Sharukh this year deserved more. Or perhaps some of the regional actors (Dileep, Mammooty among them)..
After all, awards are always subjective and hence we can subject them for debate 😉
P.S.: I am on both hands for next year’s best film.. It is Sudhir Mishra’s “Hazaaron Khwaishein aisi”… Hazaaron Khwaishein aisi 🙂
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Guru u have missed out the biggest joke saif winning best actor award for his another kind of performance.
now chances brighten for ilaya thalapathi vijay to win best actor next year for his different kind of role in sachien 😉
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hey LG,
yuva and aayitha ezhuthu didn’t qualify coz of internal sabotage. the production in charge in madras talkies was sacked yesterday coz they found (in his draw)the torn up application for the state award and the rejection letter for the national award coz it was entered one month late deliberately. it’s really sad and appaling that an insider cd do some a terrible thing to their own company. i’m sure abhishek’s performance was much better than saif’s and page 3 winning best film is a joke!!
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lg you are really crazy to nominate aayutha elutthu for a national award virumandi is ok not aayutha elutthu and when coming to hindi film thr are lot more in raincoast whihc is really fascinating like camera the story line , and page 3 why dint u like that they talked abt the mumbais night life you have to give him award for just 1 reason that he made this film without any worries if its in tamil nadu they woyuld have banned it before even producing it .
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The National awards is not the place to give bravery awards or awards for acting that is “allegedly” different….. It is a revered award given to the best movies…not the best attempts…The only novelty abt Page 3 was the idea….everything in the movie was as cliched as any other movie…
“Only serious roles need not win” said sudhir mishra…..agreed, but this is not the forum for you to prove your point! You are supposed to award the best and only the best.
In fact there are years when i feel the National awards should be called off for “lack of awardable movies”!!!
They could as well named this years awards as Manikchand National awards.
Sudhir mishra is also proudly giving out quotes like “Surprisingly nobody tried to influence the jury this time!”…. Hmmph, tough to influence such a “wise” jury indeed!….are you sure sudhir mishra made hazaaron khwaishein aisi??
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Ayutha ezhuthu…c’on. We the regional minorities shouldn’t be biased either. It was never award-worthy. But as bart points out, “Kadhal” definetely deserves An award. But like mentioned above, the foolishness of some hindi-speakin guy tryin to assess a tamil song is similar to him accessing, say the “vayasukku vantha” scene in kadhal. That song sequence was as close to reality as you can get. (same with virumandi. they cannot possibly have known how real those actors did their job).
But this drawback is with every other award show. I don’t see a solution for that. thats the way the machine works. If you pick among the jury a representative from, say every language, then things can become a dog-fight.
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Hmm, wasn’t Autograph also released last year? I would’ve thought that would’ve made the best movie. Wayy better than Page 3 for sure.
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While I accept other things, asking award for Aayutha Ezhuthu is too much, even Mani would laugh on that. One of the bad films by MR.
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what @ kazcha the malayalam flick? One of mammootty’s good perfomances.Guess they snubbed it too.
off topic,rahman’s new track mangal pandey is out. no great shakes.
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I have not seen Page 3, but I sure expected ‘Swades’ to win the “Best Film” award. But ‘Swades’ not even winning the best hindi film award definitely took me by surprise. But the ultimate comedy was “Saif” winning the Best actor award. I personally like him in a few films, but he is definitely not the “Best Actor” kind, that too not for “Hum Tum”. Lazy, u r correct: “God save the Indian film industry.”
P.S: Saravanan, good one on Ilaya thalapathi vijay & “Sachien”. It was funny even to imagine such a thing!
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Suresh, Thanks for the PDF. Worthy read. I wassuprised by the rationale they gave for PAGE 3 on winning the best film award.
Santhosh, Haven’t watched Hum Tum. So couldn’t comment on Saif winning the Best Actor Award.
Bart, Kadhal was top class. It should have won an award. I am with you on that. Also on Hazaaron KH movie, I think it is a great flick but may not be as good Black. Black moved me, truly.
Shal, You just gave a scoop on Madras Talkies here. Thanks for the inside story. AE atleast should have won the screenplay award, atleast.
Ganesh, I agree you rationalisation on Page 3 but that doesn’t just give it a best movie award.
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Anon, Sudhir Mishra’s free quotes surprise me. I am still thinking if he was truly the director of HKA.
Nanda, Haven’t watched that flick so no idea on mamooty’s performance. Will note that down in the ‘to watch list’ .
Preethi, Swades was undoubtedly the best film of last year. One of the best in the last few years. Pity they gave Page 3 a boost. Heck with them.
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For those of you looking for the exact reasons for each award (many of which are laughable)…check out http://mib.nic.in/dff/52nd%20NFA%20Awards.htm
If Saif’s role in HUm tum was a “a complex and demanding role”, then new words need to be invented to describe some of the roles taken up by the other actors during the year.
btw, the entire list of movies in contention are listed at the end of the page in the link above.
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The Award for the Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment of 2004 is shared by Veer Zaara for invoking a touching tale of love highlighting the importance of human relationship above man-made boundaries.
and
Autograph for invoking nostalgia in a manner that is powerful yet poetic.
So their idea of wholesome entertainment is a touching tale of love?? Was it so touching that it entertained people??
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Whatever happened to shwaas….supposedly indias best bet at the oscars?? case of being good enough for oscars and not good enough for our own awards? or did it not qualify for this years awards?
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Autograph apparently was mani’s recommendation to the Jury for the wholesome entertainer category… and am sure he felt that it deserved much more than AE… I personally feel that the movie had all elements packed and is a fitting winner of the award it won.
As for Veer Zara, I really don’t know… Maybe Yash Chopra making a comeback after 8 years, and as a tribute the jury did not want to miss out this film…
AE was a good attempt, but I really don’t think it was award material.
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oops…just realized shwaas won last year….
Sorry for that! Perhaps the jury was a sensible one last time around!
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I am surprised why no one is even mentioning Lakshya. Lazy, IMHO, Lakshya is as good a film as Swades, if not better. Cinematography in Lakshya was far better than in Swades but Christopher Pop, being a German, did not probably meet the national awards criterion (of being an Indian national). Even Hrithik’s performance was amazing, definitely matching SRK’s Swades performance and way better than Saif’s HumTum performance.
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Saif does not deserve it at all, same for shrukh khan too.Iam wondering how they first got into the best acotr competition.
check out my realted post on this.
http://jackofall.blogspot.com/2005/07/2004-national-awards.html
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wow, just saw Swades today. It was highly underrated. I heard from my friends in INdia that the movie is boring, a drag, and everything. But I thought this was a realistic movie, and background music was great. I dont know why this movie was a flop. I rented it after seeing LG’s comment. I think it should have been picked for popular award which was given to Veer Zaara,which was a good mvoie, but Swades was way better.
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I think next year most of the awards will probably go to the movie Black.
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Just one word describes the pretentious Hindi film industry – sleaze.
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Ashutosh Gowrikar’s next film is called Akbar-Jodha. Movie depicting the life of Akbar and his wife Jodha. Was happy, but became sad after seeing that Hrithik Roshan is going ot play Akbar.
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Next year Best Actor will be Amitabh(BLACK) or Vikram(ANNIYAN) or ‘Starts the Drum Roll’ Aamir Kahn for Mangal Pandey.
Folks. After a long wait, Mangal Pandey is releasing on the 15th of August 😀
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hey why not ravik.chandran for AE?YUVA or the actor award for abhishek bachan……..i think AEwas far more technically superior than any of the above mentionedmovies……even swades!!………i dont think swades shud have won the best movie award…rather it shud have been forthe best hindi movie award…….the filters trhingby ravi KC shud have got him the award….
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Seriously, national awarad for Page3? Its an okayish movie alrite… but a frigging national awaard? With so many good movies around. Lke I mentioned in my post abt Kannathil Muthamittal 2 days back, all great movies arent award winners or commercial success stories. Sigh!
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