The Big Night, the winners and everything!!!!. Review on Filmfare Awards 2002

As promised, I am writing this review to tell you everything about the big night!!!!

CURTAIN RAISER

It was 7:30 pm in the evening when I switched on the television and channel-surfed for Sony TV. I was excited like hell (this is my 10th year in a row when I haven’t missed these awards), and it all started with a 2-hour long Curtain Raiser. Hosted by Simone Singh and another actor (Abhay in Kkusum), the viewers were taken down the memory lane...showing videos and snapshots of the winners, performers and presenters in the past 47 award functions. I really liked the curtain-raiser as never before I had seen Raj Kapoor or Sharmila Tagore or Rekha or Shammi Kapoor performing live on stage...there was some really extensive research involved and if in one word I had to describe the whole experience—it was intriguing!!! I have recorded the entire curtain raiser on a tape, it was that wonderful. The nominations in the different categories for this year’s awards were shown simultaneously, and were equally interesting for the nice scenes that were singled out for the snapshots. The only fly in the ointment was the male host, who was at his over-acting best and did nothing but stretched the curtain raiser for 2 hours. Thankfully, Simone’s presence kept me from switching off the television.

THE MAIN EVENT

So, it was finally 9:30 pm and the 48th Manikchand Filmfare Awards started....

And lo, who was the host for the evening: Malini Sharma (remember the ghost from Raaz). When I first saw her, firstly I thanked God that there was no Rahul Khanna or Malaika Arora as the hosts...I kinda got bored of seeing them hosting every other event. Malini’s diction was alright but she looked all dull thanks to her grey hair...I didn’t know that grey hair were so ‘in’..it was not suiting her at all and how I wish I could dye her hair black. Anyways, what was to come next was Palash Sen with his group ‘Euphoria’ to perform..No, I am no great fan of his...he’s screaming half of his lines in the songs...what we had was a medley of his so-called famous songs that lasted for 10 minutes (thankfully!!!) and the only thing he did on stage was clapping and lip-synching as if he was really singing. Come on Palash, we know it was playing backstage! One word to describe his performance—DUMB!

Next up were technical awards for the evening, and we had Suresh Oberoi and Zeenat Aman on stage to present all of them!!! No doubt both of them were all confused and what was more strange was the fact that there were just 2-3 actually present to receive the trophy..And the ones who came on stage didn’t utter a word on the dais..they just ran away with their trophies!! As for the results, first to receive the award was Nitin Chandrakant Desai for ''Best Art Direction'' for the film ‘Devdas’. ''Best Cinematography'' award went to Binod Pradhan for ‘Devdas’. The ''Best Editing'' trophy went to Chandan Arora (Vivek Oberoi came on stage) for ‘Company’, and for the first time ever, Jaideep Sahni shared the Filmfare Award for ''Best Dialogue'' for Saathiya and Company respectively. Mani Ratnam won the ''Best Screenplay'' award for ‘Saathiya’. Boring and funny all the same!!

Next award to come up was ‘Sony TV Best Scene of the Year’ award. I was excited about this one as I had voted online ( http://www.setindia.com) for Devdas (the scene where Paro and Chandramukhi meet), and as anticipated, it was the scene that actually got the award. I was happy and for the first time..although for some strange reason, the video clip shown was just 5 seconds long..come on Sony, it was the Best Scene of the Year, should have shown at least 30 seconds!

The second performance of the evening was better than the first..it had Jas Arora, Aarti Chhabria, Rahul Khanna dancing to the tunes of Hinglish films released last year like Monsoon Wedding, Bend It Like Beckham, The Guru and Bollywood Hollywood. They were fine except Rahul, who although danced well looked funny dancing in a full-length suit. Passable!!!

The next two awards were the most hilarious and meaningless ones—they were related to tourism. The first one was given by British Authority to Yash Johar for his outstanding contribution to British tourism by showing wonderfully Britain and its locales (Ha!!) in two of his films—K3G and KKHH. Thankfully, Yashji was present. The second award was given by the Swiss tourism authority to Shahrukh Khan for unknown reasons (maybe Shahrukh is one hero who has danced most in Switzerland!!!). Anyways the award was presented by the famous daughter of Charlie Chaplin (forgot her name!!).

As soon as Shahrukh got the award, he rushed to Malini and forced to take the mic from her hand..Malini, upset by now left the stage stomping..don’t worry folks, it was a pre-planned goof-up and our SRK was the new host for the evening!!

With SRK on stage, the popular awards jump-started. First up was the music awards.

Feroz Khan was called upon to give the R.D. Burman Award, which very rightly went to Shreya Ghosal for her amazing entry into the world of playback singing. Ferozji couldn’t even pronounce her name, which was funny. The girl was speechless, yet delivered a genuinely emotional speech. Kabir Bedi and daughter Pooja Bedi were called upon next to present the next 4 music awards—Best Male Playback Singer went to Sonu Nigam(Saathiya), who was absent and her wife, Madhurima, accepted the award on his behalf, and said that Sonu could not come as he’s going through a period of depression for not being accepted as an actor. Best Female Playback Singer went to Kavita K./Shreya Ghosal for Dola Re Dola (Devdas). Both the ladies came up, shook hands and delivered the customary thanksgiving speeches. Best Lyrics and Best Music was bagged by Saathiya, but sadly neither Gulzar nor A.R. Rehman were present.

Debut awardswere next, and as anticipated, Esha Deol and Vivek Oberoi bagged them. Esha was not present at the stage, and gave a speech back-stage, but Vivek was, and he delivered a wonderful speech.

After the music and debut awards, we had Shilpa Shetty (looking gr8 in the golden outfit) dancing to the tunes of ‘Shakalaka Baby’ and was just okay. Nothing special, though the song was mixed very well (the Tamil, Hindi and the Bombay Dreams all merged into a long song!!)

Next up was the 4 awards for supporting artistes. Best Villianous Actor went to Ajay Devgan (Deewangee), who was absent and Papa Veeru Devgan came and went with the trophy (no words again!!). Best Comic Actor went to Paresh Rawal (Awara Pagal Deewana), who was again absent. Both the awards were presented by gorgeous Poonam Dhillon and Padmini Kolhapure. Fardeen Khan was called upon next to present the next 2 awards...thankfully he wasn’t drunk!! Best Supporting Actress was bagged by Madhuri Dixit (Devdas) and we had Fardeen giving a sweet speech about her, which was nice. Madhuri was expectedly absent (she’s pregnant in case u didn’t know!) and her award was collected by a Filmfare crew member. Best Supporting Actor went to Vivek Oberoi (Company) and the actor was completely awestruck when handed over his second trophy in one evening. He was cheered by one and all and delivered a heart-felt speech yet again. A terrible and short-winded performance by Yana Gupta was next. The less said about it, the better.

Suave Saif Ali Khan now joins Shah Rukh Khan on the stage as compere.

CONTINUED IN THE COMMENTS SECTION.....