Oscar Row: Netizens troll controversial pick by Indian panel

On Saturday, 28 films were screened for the Film Federation of India and one film (‘Gully Boy’) was shortlisted in the end as India’s official entry for Oscars.  A few films that the Indian panel had considered have triggered a row.  

One of them is ‘Badla’, the Amitabh Bachchan-Taapsee Pannu thriller which was remade as ‘Evaru’ in Telugu.  ‘Badla’ itself is a remake of a Spanish film.  Usually, remakes are not considered because they don’t stand a good chance of winning the Oscar.  The Oscar panel respects only original content.  Says blogger Kartik Dayanand, “I hear #Badla was one of the Oscar probables too that didn’t make it.  I appreciate the guts of whoever thought this film could go to the Oscars. Forget about shots, this film is a frame by frame remake of #TheInvisibleGuest.  Amazed by their audacity, or shall I say, stupidity!”

The choice of Vivek Agnihotri’s ‘The Tashkent Files’ has also come in for trolling.  “It’s a mediocre movie.  Why was it even selected?  They could have gone with better regional films like ‘Virus’,” a Twitter user commented.

It’s said that ‘Gully Boy’ too has its share of rip-offs from a number of Hollywood movies.