IIFA or The International Indian Film Academy Awards 2019 were recently concluded. There were all the OTT moments and the entertainment, as well as some awards that made people go WTF? Here are some of the IIFA 2019 highlights according to Twitter:
Deepika's lavender er… outfit; Ranveer Singh’s fountain ponytail (let’s not go into the leggings with lettering and the yards of inexplicable red fabric) were arresting to say the least.
There were of course many others, but this one which compares Singh’s look to this one from Gunda is the closest.
Singh grabbed eyeballs and also bagged the best actor award for his bizarrely barbaric Khilji in Padmaavat. Many wanted to know why actors such as Ayushmaan Khurrana were overlooked for the award (though his Andhadhun did win Best Director award).
Alia Bhatt received the award for her role in Raazi; most had no argument with this one; she did a terrific job in an outstanding movie. Raazi was also adjudged the best film, which also not too many had a quarrel with.
What? Why, when there were so many other great contenders for the award, said many of the tweeple.
Again the tweeple asked, what about Kajol, Rani, Tabu, Vidya, Kangana, Kareena? Well, at least Deepika's fans were happy.
Hrithik Roshan’s first movie Kaho Na Pyar Hai released around 20 years ago and received the award for the best film in 20 years. Now I have to say, really!
Sara Ali Khan for Kedarnath and Ishaan Khattar for Dhadak won awards for the best debut. Well some of other starkid was going to win – these two are kind of likeable, so why not.
Vicky Kaushal was one of the best things in Sanju. For several other, highly varied performances in recent times, this one was very well deserved. Incidentally, Rajkumar Hirani also received the ‘best director in 20 years’ award for Sanju (strange that they chose Sanju; that PR exercise meant to whitewash the image of actor Sanjay Dutt over his other films like 3 Idiots, the Munnabhai films)
Pritam is the music director most lampooned for the shameless copying of others’ work. It is telling that a Bollywood jury thought to pick him for this award.
A stage performance by Salman Khan included this tribute to SRK. So what if there wasn’t an award to be won. The aging Khans made their presence felt some other way.
IIFA is all about Bollywood Biggies getting together to pat each other’s backs and to indulge in an orgy of self / mutual congratulation. It’s basically a great big party with some top ticket performances. Let us not pretend it is a meaningful award ceremony that rewards originality, enterprise, new talent or ‘outsiders’ --- because it isn’t.
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