Bizarre Filmfare Award Nominations

Manoj Bajpai’s extraordinarily-nuanced Gali Guleiyan and Missing were snubbed by the Filmfare awards. These films have been obliterated from the list of nominations for 2018, and Bajpai took to Twitter to protest.

But that isn’t all that’s strange about the Filmfare awards 2018 nominations. Ayushmann Khurrana in AndhaDhun features in both, the critics’ choice and the popular lists for best actor. Does this imply that his movie was both, popular and critically acclaimed? And how did Ranbir Kapoor’s performance in Sanju qualify as a critics’ choice? Sanju was among the top grossers of 2018.

And while Sanju, an appalling whitewashing job on the life and crimes of Sanjay Dutt, has been nominated for best film, Diljit Dosanjh's rousing take on the rise and fall of the hockey player Sandeep Singh has been left out. On the other hand, Shah Rukh Khan in the thundering flop Zero has been nominated for best actor. Strange.

Is there any method to the zigzagging this year at Filmfare? Everyone’s favorite Alia Bhatt figures in both, the best actress and the critics’ choice lists. In fact, so many seriously endowed and powerful performances got ignored, like Saif Ali Khan in Bazaar and Sushant Singh Rajput in Kedarnath.

And why nominate Rajkummar Rao for Stree and not for Omerta? Because it’s the politically correct thing to do? In that case why nominate Ranveer Singh for best actor for his awful hammy performance in Padmaavat where Ranveer was out-and-out plunder and debauch, and not for Simmba in which he was terrific played a corrupt cop who learns to walk on a straight narrow road?

Wish our awards nomination teams would learn to do the same.