SRK's "Chak-de India" has been scoring quite a few goals at the box-office. The movie is the fourth having a sports theme this year. "Ta Ra Rum Pum", "Apne" and "Hat-Trick" being the others. In today's Sunday special, Times of India carries a report on the various movies that have had sports as a central theme, read the article here.
While this year has seen some traction on sports-based movies, the history is quite dismissal. Very few movies have been made and even fewer made any impact. On top of that most have borrowed plots from the west. "Hip Hip Hurray" was one such movie that touched me, simply because the protagonist was a Computer Engineer (something I aspired to be) and a football player (a sport that I've tried to be close to for a long time). I was disappointed though that some of the climax scenes were borrowed from "Escape to Victory", a story of World War prisoners who defeat the Germans in a game of soccer and escape their clutches. The movie starred "Black Pearl" Pele and Michael Caine among others and had some great football moves. "Hip Hip Hurray" wasn't very successful but it did inspire me, I still hum the song "Ek subah ek mod pe" from the movie sometimes.
A few days ago I was reading the independence day supplement of ToI which talked about how Annadurai used MG Ramachandran's films to promote his own agenda, so much so that only DMK and its spin-offs have been in power in Tamil Nadu. Perhaps our government should also use cinema more pro-actively to promote other sport forms and inspire young minds to consider sports as a profession.
The west has built a much bigger and thriving industry around sports engaging school kids and grooming them through the years to become professionals. Michael Lewis' "Moneyball" presents an interesting insight into the world of Baseball, not only the game but the economics surrounding it as well. There were some efforts to launch a Hockey league a few years back and even Zee's Subash Chandra has shown interest in starting a Cricket league. Hopefully some of these initiatives will result in fair selections and better recreation from the sporting world in our country. The increasing Internet awareness can further do wonders by presenting facts to the general populice, similar to the way stats and facts are delivered for sports like Baseball, Ice-Hockey and Basketball etc...
While this year has seen some traction on sports-based movies, the history is quite dismissal. Very few movies have been made and even fewer made any impact. On top of that most have borrowed plots from the west. "Hip Hip Hurray" was one such movie that touched me, simply because the protagonist was a Computer Engineer (something I aspired to be) and a football player (a sport that I've tried to be close to for a long time). I was disappointed though that some of the climax scenes were borrowed from "Escape to Victory", a story of World War prisoners who defeat the Germans in a game of soccer and escape their clutches. The movie starred "Black Pearl" Pele and Michael Caine among others and had some great football moves. "Hip Hip Hurray" wasn't very successful but it did inspire me, I still hum the song "Ek subah ek mod pe" from the movie sometimes.
A few days ago I was reading the independence day supplement of ToI which talked about how Annadurai used MG Ramachandran's films to promote his own agenda, so much so that only DMK and its spin-offs have been in power in Tamil Nadu. Perhaps our government should also use cinema more pro-actively to promote other sport forms and inspire young minds to consider sports as a profession.
The west has built a much bigger and thriving industry around sports engaging school kids and grooming them through the years to become professionals. Michael Lewis' "Moneyball" presents an interesting insight into the world of Baseball, not only the game but the economics surrounding it as well. There were some efforts to launch a Hockey league a few years back and even Zee's Subash Chandra has shown interest in starting a Cricket league. Hopefully some of these initiatives will result in fair selections and better recreation from the sporting world in our country. The increasing Internet awareness can further do wonders by presenting facts to the general populice, similar to the way stats and facts are delivered for sports like Baseball, Ice-Hockey and Basketball etc...
