Lagaan: Dropping the ball in B-town
Bollywood needs to move on from Aamir Khan’s film now, high time
Was Lagaan the only successful sports-based film that came out of Bollywood? It’s exactly 10 years since it was released. Its cast and crew are having a private celebration today, we hear. And filmi circles still buzz when the movie is mentioned. After all, it not only went on to sweep awards all over the place, it also made it to the Oscars short-list, though it didn’t quite make the cut that year. And even as Aamir Khan and Co played cricket against the Brits, the interested public – and the media, of course – did regular count-downs of other films that had a sporty tag. And we decided that we could not be left out and did our own little survey. Wethinks that apart from Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, and Shahrukh Khan’s Chak De! India, no other B-town production quite made runs at the BO. We did a search – Google zindabad! – and discovered almost-forgotten treasures like Mithun Chakraborty’s Boxer, Hip Hip Hurray starring the unfortunate Raj Kiran and former cricketer Sandeep Patil’s Kabhi Ajnabi The. Of course, none of them got that star status that Lagaan earned, but they were made in the days when publicity was accidental rather than incidental and PR agents had not yet been invented! We liked Iqbal and Lahore, but found potboilers like Dil Bole Hadippa – in spite of Rani Mukherjee’s fabulous body image – and Patiala House tiresome. And we are still counting the others, from Stumped to Awwal Number to Meerabai Not Out, to…
First Published: 4.09 PM IST 06.15.2011
Lakendra Joaquin
Posted at 11:20 PM on October 9, 2011
some genuinely excellent posts on this web site , thanks for contribution.
hemant
Posted at 2:24 AM on September 19, 2011
he is the no 1 actor in many people’s heart and He is an actor who is more than #1….Aamir u r the king of kings in bollywood.
Olen Muccigrosso
Posted at 9:18 PM on June 21, 2011
tremendous blog you’ve gain
Sultana
Posted at 9:46 AM on June 19, 2011
Dear amir khan,
Amir new look amazing ,lagaan was one of best film compared to shyam benegal movies, amir still standing in the film making business ihope one day he will be the top producer director and best actor.
Thanks
rizwan khan
Posted at 3:16 PM on June 20, 2011
hey wont b d no 1 actor unless shahrukh is on dis earth…keep it in mind…k..