I love the movies. I love the movie awards.

It’s a shame for me to admit myself, but it gives me a compass of the movies that I should like. Let me explain. I’m a Bengali, AKA the biggest cultural snobs in India. Traditionally a very cultural community, it does though tend over do the love of culture shtick. I’m therefore by birth somewhat of a cultural snob myself, if I do say so myself, rather shamelessly. I tended to like only ‘artsy’ movies growing up in India, which generally were shot in low light, with a lot of realism and poverty thrown in for good measure. And I watched a lot of ‘foreign’ movies i.e. Oscar winning Hollywood movies and a fair sprinkling of French and Italian movies as well. Though I would like to convince myself I really liked those movies, I am not sure whether it was because they were critically acclaimed or won a fistful of awards.

I have had arguments with friends, big movie lovers themselves, about choice of movies and found them sometimes to have a far more open mind. Let me give an example – True Romance. It had a stellar supporting cast, though it won no awards and got mixed reviews. I loathed the movie. On the other hand “Pulp Fiction”, which one might say was in the same vicinity in terms of genre, but it won rave reviews and awards. I loved Pulp Fiction. Further confounding my choice of movies is that I love romantic comedies, I am a sucker for emotional ‘the underdog finally triumphs’ kind of movies and get misty eyed without fail in such situations. I love comedies, regardless of critical appreciation, especially if it is smart, verbal and not overly slapstick.

So one could conclude that my choice in movies is suspect, snobbish and all over the place, which brings us to the Oscars 2008 and the current crop of movies. The whole world (at least the ones paying attention) seems to love Slumdog Millionaire, and even though I was proud at the attention it was getting as a Hindi (partly) movie in a theatre in the middle of the American South (Durham, North Carolina), it left me distinctly underwhelmed. The screenplay centered more around ten questions (rather than the love story) woven around the lead characters life, seemed rather forced, the acting stilted (especially when India actors spoke English and British actors spoke Indian English) and the Mumbai underworld don enactment downright childish.

I left the theatre wondering why I couldn’t like the movie when everyone else is ready to do cartwheels and break into a Bollywood song and dance routine to celebrate the movie. I can think of scores of things that I can find wrong with the movie, but am still left with the nagging suspicion that perhaps I am too snooty to enjoy it since it is too close to the song and dance Bollywood masala movie that I love to loathe.

But I’m still rooting for it on Oscar night. If “Gladiator” and “Departed” (sorry I didn’t like it, especially not over “Letters from Iwo Jima”) can get the nod, surely Slumdog should win over the twice warmed Forest Gump masquerading under the alias of Benjamin Button. 

But no one should confuse the movie with its character and should not assume Slumdog Millionaire despite its name and lineage is an underdog and that should hardly be the basis to root for it on Oscar night. Fox Searchlight is a past master at promoting movies for Oscar trophies, which over the years have increasingly morphed from an artistic exercise in rewarding the best movies of the year (if it was ever that), to a full fledged campaign. Millions of dollars are spent in promoting these movies for the Oscars, often crossing the budget for the movie itself and of the box office proceeds as well.

It is hardly a democratic campaign though, with only the film industry’s version of the House of Lords (the Academy members) voting for it. So every year the Academy bemoans the fact the interest in Oscar are dwindling but still its modus operandi for choosing the winners remains distinctly bourgeois. The most well known India film award (Filmware Awards) in comparison is selected by both the public and a committee of experts. That is hardly foolproof either since the movies that win the Filmware Awards are generally the big budget blockbuster bollywood masala movies while the small indie movies are methodically shut out.

So this leaves us with a conundrum, much like my own personal choice of movies. So what should we do? Does one go with the mass or the class. In politics we are told we get the government we deserve. So in terms of our movie awards should go with the popular awards that we ‘deserve’ or with go with the ones we are told we are supposed to like.

You decide.