Respect

Flipped on the TV after coming home late from dinner last night and saw the last hour of the Hong Kong Film Awards. One word: crap. Make that 2: total crap.

I know, I know...what did I expect? It's only the HK Film Awards, not the Oscars. That's the response that you hear most often, which when you think about it is rather sad. The main defense people have for the show is one of lowered expectations (along the lines of "Of course Billy can't run 100m in 10 seconds; he's just a kid, what do you expect?"). It's an issue of Respect, or lack thereof. Not only lack of respect from us, but lack of respect from themselves.

The problem is that they just don't care. I've been saying for years (even wrote the HKFAA several times) about how half-assed the nominations clips are. The clips are supposed to represent the reason why the person being nominated deserves to win, yet clip after clip, year after year we just get a random splice of some scene from the movie, with little relevence to the subject matter. I remember last year during the 10 second clip for an actress nominated for the Best Supporting role, about 8 seconds were used showing someone else! I mean, there has to be a reason why this person was nominated, right? How hard is it to find the one scene in the movie that gives us the audience proof that they deserve to win? By just spewing out some random scene, it's hard to avoid the feeling that the people in charge just wanted to get the task over with.

Another issue of respect: look at the ordering of the awards. Traditionally, the Big 5 are Film, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay (usually in that order). Now let's look at last night's ordering. Screenplay was issued before I tuned in, but the final 4 were Actress, Director, Actor and Film. So what can we infer from this? Movie > Actor > Director > Actress. Quite a slap in the face for Actresses and Directors.

Now let's look at the awards presenters. Could they be any more unprepared? Basic etiquette of being an awards presenter: know the names of the nominees in your category. It takes like, 2 minutes backstage to ask someone how to pronounce all the names on your list. You can't even take 2 minutes to learn 5 names? I guess they were all too busy making sure they hair, make-up and wardrobe were set.

Which brings me to another point: is it really that hard to just wear proper attire? A simple tux for the gents and nice evening wear for the ladies; just to show that you respect this formal occasion. What is which all the casual jeans and tacky bizarre dresses?

Oh, one last thing. Please get over the whole Even Hollywood is Borrowing From Us routine. Yes, "Infernal Affairs" was the basis of last year's Oscar hit "The Departed" and yes, it's encouraging that a screenplay from HK made it big in Hollywood. But lets put things in perspective; that's one screenplay that someone borrowed from HK out of the hundreds of movies that HK copied from others. It's good to be encouraged, but don't let it go to your head.

The film industry is always complaining that it doesn't get enough respect. Newsflash: respect is earned, not given away.