It's December, so it must be Star Awards time again

Heck, I forgot about the Star Awards was on and only caught the last half hour. But what an interesting half hour it was! It was the awarding of the top 10 most popular male artistes, a category that had seen its share of excitement during the awards run-in.

Personal highlights:

Christopher Lee probably gave the performance his life when accepting his award. He was dressed in dark colours, the very image of sober respectability and radiating remorse from every dip of his head and tilt of his chin. His words were heart-felt and he wore an expression of grave introspection. It was what most people wanted to see from him; the star with a pricking conscience. Props to him (and his PR advisors).

What was up with Qi Yuwu? I don't keep up with the Mediacorp gossip, so there must be something behind that emotional acceptance speech. It was almost maudlin in its sentimentality and uncomfortable to watch because he was still strangely unemotional despite the choked-back tears.

See, I could have done without the long speeches they requested from the first few award winners because they were under-running. Poor Tay Ping Hui gave it the old college try and said some intelligent things about his year of learning and new experiences. But he eventually ran out of steam and ended on a rather anti-climactic "thank you". The people who could have been entertaining, Mark Lee and Brian Wong, were reduced to few words because they were over-running at that point.

I did really enjoy Gurmit's sheer shock at being among the top 10, and his obvious gratitude and sincerity in thanking his fans and co-workers. His comedic touches were also well-done, especially when he scolded the production staff who were telling him to wrap up his speech. He was not having any of it, and good on him!

Elvin Ng, what were you wearing? It was not quite Liberace, but it was singularly unsubtle. It was actually interesting how most of the old-timers were almost conservatively dressed and then this newcomer bounded up the stage in something that looked like retro-1970's discowear.

Kelvin Tan Wei Lian was in the top 10, and also most popular newcomer. He was wearing white, a clever recognition of his all-round nice-guy image. His speech was nice, especially when he seemed to really feel bad for his fans who splurged money to vote for him. After the drama of his temporary drop from the top 10 list a couple of weeks back, this must have been a huge relief to his fans. It was certainly a relief to me, who is indifferent to Kelvin (despite my previous criticisms of him as Project Superstar winner), because this means to outcry over voting conspiracies or system errors.

Nicky Cheung and Jessica Hsuen were presenting this award. Again, they insist on getting Hong Kong artistes that are not wholly well-versed in Mandarin. Hsuen was fine, although she had trouble with intoning some of the names. Cheung was much less fluent and while that sometimes lent itself to comedy, it also led to some cringe-worthy moments.

I just wish that I had caught the women, so I could play armchair fashion critic. There's always the repeat. Hell, I probably will forget about it.