A rude noise before Oscars
MINI ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER
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They scale the heights of success on the silver screen and just as rapidly are at the bottom of the heap, earning the dreaded Razzies. What causes tinsel town's best and brightest to burn out? Is it the lack of a sixth sense?
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ROLLER COASTER Manoj Night Shyamalan directs Abigail Breslin in Signs, which was the beginning of the end
The Golden Raspberry Awards or Razzies, a wicked take on the Academy Awards, where the worst of the big screen are honoured, have been announced and surprise, surprise, Manoj N. Shyamalan, the boy wonder, who wowed critics and the box office with his wonderful twisty thriller, The Sixth Sense, has got the maximum honours. His dreadful, damp horror, Lady in the Water, has been nominated for worst picture, his extended cameo for worst supporting actor and he also has been nominated for worst director.
A look at the Razzies gives you a disconcertingly accurate picture of the ruthless arena that is Hollywood. It seems a place where fresh talent bursts on the screen, is feted and lauded and then burns out to be honoured at the Razzies.
Up and down
Look at Halle Berry. The lovely actor rightly bagged the Academy Award for her searing performance in Monster's Ball in 2002. Her famously teary acceptance speech, had industry wags dub her Bawly Berry. There seemed to be nothing she could do wrong moving from strength to strength to play Bond babe, Jinx in Die Another Day. But perversely nothing went right for Berry and she plummeted to the depths collecting a Razzie for her performance in Catwoman in 2005.
Berry can take heart in the fact that she is in illustrious company for actors like Faye Dunaway, Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Sir Laurence Olivier, Roberto Benigini and Liza Minneli have all collected Academy Awards and Razzies.
While people like Brando got his Razzie for his lazy, greedy choice of The Island of Dr. Moreau (the producers must have made him an offer he just could not refuse), there is the queer case of director screenwriter Brian Helgeland who won a Razzie and Academy Award in the same year! In 1998, Helgeland won a well-deserved Academy Award for his masterly adaptation of James Ellroy's noir novel, L.A. Confidential and in the same year he won the Razzie for worst screenplay for Kevin Costner's unfortunate Postman.
Returning to this year's Razzie nominees, there are again illustrious names like Academy Award winner Nicholas Cage, Ben Kingsley and Lindsay Lohan. Ron Howard, much feted by the Academy for A Beautiful Mind is in the running for worst director with his clunky translation of Dan Brown's pulpy novel The Da Vinci Code on screen.
Shyamalan's ignominious descent from almost auteur to sad little joke is disappointing to say the least. When Shyamalan, Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth) and Tarsem Singh (The Cell) stormed Hollywood in the late Nineties, everyone cheered the Indian brat pack who was going to open Hollywood's eyes to a whole new lexicon of filmmaking.
Nothing of the sort happened. Shyamalan's next offering was the brittle Unbreakable, which used the same formula of Bruce Willis and child, a little bit of supernatural thrown in and moody blue lighting.
The film worked thanks to excellent acting and whimsical charm. Shymalan was pushing it with Signs, a silly alien invasion story with Mel Gibson doing a mad Mel (little did we know!) and Joaquin Phoenix looking worried.
As the star cast grew bigger, the movies got sillier. The Village had Adrien Brody and Phoenix struggling to make sense of an incredibly daft storyline and now with Lady in the Water, Shymalan seems to have touched the nadir and the only positive thing you can take out of this is that Shyamalan can only get better from now on.
Closer home in Bollywood, Vidhu Vinod Chopra returns behind the camera after a seven-year break with Eklavya. Chopra's short film An Encounter with Faces was nominated for an Academy Award in '79. His earlier films, Sazaye Maut, the amazing Khamosh (`85), the iconic Parinda (`89) and the bitter sweet 1942 A Love Story ('93) were hailed for their innovative technique and content. His last two films, Kareeb (1998) and Mission Kashmir (2000) were disappointing to put it mildly.
A couple of weeks ago Madhur Bhandarkar's Traffic Signal opened to a drubbing by the critics and the box office. This is the same man who gave us the uber realistic Chandini Bar, about the bar girls and Page 3, where he got up close and personal with air kissing glitterati.
A smashing success is a difficult act to follow - ask Ramesh Sippy, he is still reeling under Sholay's success. There is the pressure of having to prove that the earlier effort was not a flash in the pan.
As there is no formula for success, there is the comfort of using the same formula that worked before. If one needs to avoid writing oneself out, and being honoured at the Razzies, one has to think out of the box.
So Shyamalan has to think of something beyond blue lighting and terrified children just as Bhandarkar has to go beyond jerky camera work, incoherent plots and shoddy production values in the name of realistic cinema.
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