Bollywood is not about romantic sagas anymore. A number of sports have made their entry into Bollywood scripts. But the big question is?are they here to stay? I am not sure this question has one right answer. A yes or no would imply a trend, and where I?m concerned, trends are no more than myths that get shattered every Friday. This is not to say that there have been gross inconsistencies in the consumption behaviour of our films?quite clearly, certain realities, ground truths and observations that emerge on a weekly basis are strong enough in enabling us to decipher audience psyche but not enough to make a very sweeping generalisation.
With a spate of ?sports movies? in Bollywood of late, the question has predictably risen?do films with sports themes work? Lagaan is widely quoted as the classic that opened the market for this genre of films. Many argued that India is a cricket-crazy country and that worked for the film. But by that logic, how does one explain the debacle of Hattrick and Say Salaam India, both cricket films? One might counter-argue that Lagaan featured Aamir Khan, which helped, but then Iqbal (another cricket film) starred only Naseeruddin Shah but succeeded in bagging enormous appreciation and a reasonable multiplex run.
Debutant Nisha Chainani?s film on marathons, entitled Marathon, is yet to see the light of the day, if I?m right. Swimming and car-racing were used in the background in My Brother Nikhil and Tara Rum Pum respectively. Films like Ghulam and Apne entered the boxing ring. The fate of these at the box-office was mixed with none emerging as a runaway hit.
That is why the results of Chak De India and Goal will be interesting. With a number of films, using a fair dose of cricket, already under production, it is evident that the latter is the most accepted and understood sport in India?far more than hockey and football.
But if these films score (literally), I would not be surprised to see our actors playing tennis, baseball and badminton.
Potter leak
Not only has the last Harry Potter book leaked, the full-length movie has also been online on Google Video. Google claims to have a sophisticated ?hash? system to block repeated uploads of the same infringing material, but if the repeated uploads of the movies we?ve found so far are any indication, video pirates are making a hash of Google?s ?hash? technology. Die Hard, Sicko and Hairspray are among the many that were removed by Google, but were quick to return, obviously without the copy owner?s knowledge or permission.
It?s not just films produced in the US making their way to Google. Even foreign films from India, Russia, the Middle East and Asia, that have been dubbed into foreign languages, have come on the search engine. I find it incredible that the world?s No 1 search engine is unable to find and remove such pirated content hosted on its own servers.