DOA: the national film awards for 2005

After rumours and a stay order, the National Awards for 2005 (aka the 53rd) are finally official. No changes in the roll call and the smell of stale milk is faint. The official rants about Black can begin, although, at this point, everyone has probably moved on to bigger fish. There's a PDF with the complete list for those who'd just prefer the chase and not the chaff.

The coolest entry in the list, however, is one that's likely to get missed by most. The eminently readable entertaining erudite Baradwaj Rangan wins the Award for Best Film Critic (as the citation goes "for intelligent and reader-friendly reviews of popular cinema with a depth of understanding of the form, a discernible passion for the medium bulwarked consistently by a knowledge of the trends and
touchstones of global cinema"). Damn! He also won at the 2006 Indibloggies. Way to go, BR!

update [august 13, 2007]: Apparently, the winners haven't received official word that they've won. There's also an interesting note in that news item about a news channel declaring, some years ago, that Vishal had won an award for the screenplay of Maqbool. Alas, unlike the awards for Raveena Tandon and Anil Kapoor, this one was not to be.