Wild about the Oscars

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)

L Suresh comes up with some original killer plots that will bring in the Oscars next year…

#1 La-gone
It was Pommie bashing and cricket that brought us closer to the Oscars. Obviously, while the yanks understand the former, they don’t follow the game that we hold so close to our hearts. Perhaps we could try out tennis, with the storyline revolving around this girl Basanti who is not allowed to play on center court at Wimbledon (this is where we could cash in on the Sania Mania). Since she gets no support from her fellow-villagers, she hires Leander Jai Paes and Mahesh Veeru Bhupathi to help her out. The grand finale could be the two teaming up and winning the men's doubles.

#2 Kramer vs Kramer vs Kramer
The Oscars might give Hollywood the big O, but it’s the K factor that gives us Indians our kicks. What we need to win at the Oscars is a Rakesh Roshan meets Karan Johar meets Ekta Kapoor plot – it’s about this hunk who thinks he’s a little boy who thinks he’s found an alien who’s thrown out of Mars by his parents because he married a poor she-alien who gets harassed by evil in-laws wearing ghastly bindis and sheds buckets of tears. What do we call it? Kyunki… Mars be kabhi bahuth hai (Because… sometimes Mars is also a bit much).

#3 Titanikki
If anything that sinks can be a surefire Oscar winner, then there’s still hope for our producers who are all at sea, looking for their movies that have sunk without a trace. But if it’s about a guy (Neal) who wants to hit it off with 21 women in 21 days and decides that a ship would be the best place to do it, a shark that’s hell-bent on smashing the ship to smithereens before an iceberg can do it and a push-up bra that eventually becomes the last straw that breaks the ship’s back – we have a potential winner with a bit of wreckage and lots of cleavage.

#4 The Lost Emperor
Monumental flops are always in the race for awards. This has an emperor who is inspired by the pyramids and decides to build one in Agra. But his architect couldn’t get it straight and even as the emperor was willing to settle for a sphinx, the creation becomes a jinx. As expected, Shah Jahan loses his marbles, the architect loses his life and the industries in the vicinity lose their license for fear of pollution. That’s when an entrepreneur parts the red sea and blames it on Shah Jahan, who gets imprisoned. A rescue team builds a bridge on the river Kwai to save him, his son Aurangzeb blows a fuse and sets off a time bomb. Everything is in flames as the film climaxes in a grand chase with several chariots on fire. As you can see, there’s a potential Oscar hidden in every twist.

#5 Good Fellas
Love, betrayal, death and all associated ingredients go into the making of this real-life drama about three men who are gunning for one another. The first throws his weight around, the second throws a tantrum and the third, in sheer disgust, throws in the towel. The Chapell-Ganguly-Dalmiya drama is based on an incident involving three men, each of whom narrates it from his point of view. (The original, Amores Perros, loosely translates into Love's a bitch, so we can call our tale 'Love's a pitch'.) Stands a good chance for best movie and best supporting actor – for the effigy that gets burnt right through the movie.

And if none of these works, we could see if our luck gets any better by numerologically changing the awards to Auscaars or Ohskaurs – who knows, it could change our destiny!

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 19 February, 2006)