Style and Substance

Style and Substance have been two of the main ingredients that attract public a lot whether its movies or cricket. If you want to see style without substance go to a theatre nearby to watch the film ‘TASHAN’ but if you want to watch substance without style then you don’t need to move out of your living room and start following Shane Warne’s Rajasthan Royals. Similarly if you want to experience what a disastrous effect the lack of both style and substance can have upon you then you may want to watch the movie ‘Donga Sachinollu’ - if it is still running in theatres but if you want to see how entertaining and enjoyable the combination of both style and substance you must watch the replay or recording or YouTube Upload of Adam Gilchrist's innings for Deccan Chargers in their yesterday’s match against Mumbai Indians. Of course, I am also sure… if you are a Mumbai team supporter you may completely disagree with me and say ….wait for Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar to make his IPL debut to get an idea of what a combination of style and substance is all about.

Anyway, the point I want to make here is spending loads of money on just stylizing a movie or forming a cricket team doesn’t guarantee a blockbuster or a resounding win.

The New York Yankees in spite of being the most expensive team in Major League Baseball and spending hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 8 years still could not win the World Series since their last championship way back in 2000. Similarily, the Mumbai Indians team, even though the most expensive IPL franchise, is still reeling at the bottom of the points table losing all four of its games and are still in search of their first victory. Of course absence of Sachin Tendulkar and anger management on part of their stand-in captain Harbhajan Singh can be taken as excuses by their supporters.

In 2004, Oliver Stones’ historical epic drama ‘Alexander’ with likes of Colin Farrel, Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins and Val Kilmer in its casting failed to gross even one third of its production budget of $155 million with US box-office collections of just $34.3 million whereas two years before that Eddie Murphy’s $100 million movie ‘The Adventures of Pluto Nash’ could muster just under $5 million. Coming to the Bollywood, the reputed film production house Yash Raj Films could not deliver any blockbuster in 2007 in the lines of DDLJ in spite of producing five films with just 'Chak De India' doing some decent business and other four films Ta Ra Rum Pum, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, Laaga Chunari Mein Daag and Aaja Nachle failing miserably at Box-Office.

Giving an opportunity to the writer of Dhoom Series Vijay Krishna Acharya to direct their latest release ‘TASHAN’ doesn’t seem to have worked well for YRF. Only relief in the movie is Akshay Kumar’s composed action though his monkey like jumps were irritating at times. Saif Ali Khan is a miscast in the movie and Anil Kapoor with his 'Hinglish' accent though provided some comic relief it became redundant and boring as the film progressed. Kareena Kapoor (including in a two-piece bikini suit appearance) makes the IPL cheerleaders wonder what is it that they did more in terms of their attire and seducing the audience to be a controversial topic of discussion by the State Governments of Maharashtra, West Bengal and others.

The movie ‘TASHAN’ is full of style as the title of the movie suggests and absolutely no substance. And the amount of money spent to bring that style will work only sometimes as it did with Dhoom series…but not always. As former US president Abraham Lincoln once said – “You can fool some people all the time and all the people some time but never all the people all the time”. The sooner Yash Raj Films recognizes this the better it would be for the audience who expect nothing short of films like DDLJ, Dil To Pagal Hai, Hum Tum, Veer-Zaara, Salaam Namste and Chak De India from this great banner.

In Tollywood, the audiences are still very fresh in their memory about what was the result of big budgeted movies like Sainikudu, Athidhi & Okka Magaadu etc and how low budgeted movies with substance like Happy Days, Gamyam, Manthra & Anasuya fared at the box-office.

Coming back to the cricket, apart from Rajasthan Royals, all other IPL Franchises bid for the players with astronomical figures and must be wondering how come the Shane Warne lead team which is the least expensive of all franchises is doing so well. I believe the owners of the franchise Emerging Media may have done their home work and did not run madly after the players. In fact at the end of first auction of IPL players they have picked up just 8 players. It doesn’t surprise me that they are excelling in IPL under the able leadership of Shane Warne as the operations are being professionally managed by the UK based company partnered with Lachlan Keith Murdoch’s company Illyria. Lachlan is the eldest son of media mogul, Rupert Murdoch whose Fox Network News pushed down all other American News networks like ABC, NBC, and CBS & CNN within a very short period of time. Its only natural that Lachlan has all the business acumen of his father and exercised decisions that made business sense.

The price tag of $450,000 on Shane Warne now looks like a steal by Jaipur based Franchise. While the captains of all other IPL teams are struggling Warne in his double role as both Captain and Coach is having a ball with a bunch of inexperienced players and couple of rock solid players. I find it really difficult to comprehend the fact that there are at least 40 players in the league who were bought for more than the Rajasthan Royals paid Shane Warne including Cameron White, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, RP Singh, Daniel Vettori, Dinesh Karthik, Mohammad Asif, Shoaib Malik, Sreesanth, Uthappa, Mohd Kaif etc., It really pains me to know that Shane Watson was paid just $150,000 especially after seeing his two match winning knocks for his team. I strongly believe Rajasthan Royals is building a team with a substance called team work rather than buying big guns at phenomenal amounts which need not necessarily contribute a lot towards team spirit. I have no doubts in my mind that Warne will be leading his team into the semi-finals of this tournament and with a little luck might even take them to the championship game and who knows if his team performs like it did in their first four outings we might even see the least expensive team of the IPL lifting the trophy.

Now I am eagerly waiting for the next game of Rajasthan Royals and also for the release of ‘Parugu’ – the producer of the movie Dil Raju as you are all aware of is very well known for making his films with both style and substance. I am also instantly hooked up to Keeravani’s tunes of Pandurangadu like I did for another ‘style and substance’ legend Raghavendra Rao’s earlier devotional epics and am waiting for the Audio CD to be available in the market to listen to them all in their entirety. Some of those songs are sung by my all time favorite singer SPB as melodiously as ever. Wait till next week to hear more about them.

Cricket and Cinema: My passion and obsession:
.• Krazzy 4 IPL
.• JALSA on Celluloid and on Cricket minefield
.• Cricket and Cinema connections

About Vijay Jeedigunta: Vijay Saradhi Jeedigunta is a great fan of Cinema and Cricket and follows them as passoinately as any other Indian in spite of living in US for last 14 years. He Lived in Hyderabad,Graduated from Osmania in Electrical Engg and worked for Allwyn and Dr. Reddy's Labs before moving to USA in 1994. Before going to US he worked on some Doordarshan Documentaries and won the best TV Reviewer award for his Eenadu column called 'Cinnithera Chidvilasam'. He also had small stints as All India Radio's Official Statistician for Reliance Cup and some ODIs and Test matches. He was also a frequent contributor to Deccan Chronicle in their weekly sports page. He lives in Bridgewater, NJ with his wife and children. Currenlty employed by IBM as Managing consultant, he spends his spare time writing for dreamcricket.com. He also participates in a weekly radio show on cricket for EBCRADIO (1170 AM) in New Jersey. To know more about him you can visit his profile on orkut at http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=15920368379975419443 and his cricket blog http://cricketestats.blogspot.com You can send all your inquiries and suggestions to [email protected]