Features

Film titles have gone from baffling to whacky to mindless and very articulate to extremely lengthy. Most titles are longer than the relationship that co-stars share! Every alternate film is known by a short form. If you don't know what RNBDJ is or if you are unsure about the full-form of CC2C, you are just not in the ring! You need to brush up. We pick the top actors of today to see how the film-title trend has got to them.

Whatever Akshay Kumar does, he does it with style. If he comes up with two huge money spinners in the form of 'Singh Is Kinng' and 'Welcome', his flops too never fail to make news. Last year it was 'Tashan', which in spite of being a failure went on to garner over 30 crores just from India box office. This year it is 'Chandni Chowk To China' which dropped miserably after the opening weekend but already has 30 crores in it's kitty (from India). And yes, it is going to surpass the total of 'Tashan'!

CHANDNI CHOWK TO CHINA has underperformed and the way it is progressing after a not-so-heartening weekend, the picture is certainly not rosy for this Akshay Kumar starrer. The wheels of fortunes have turned, and how! In case of this Rohan Sippy produced film, the very idea of having paid previews have gone wrong.

Third Salon du Cinema was held in Paris, 16th - 18th January, 2009. The event presented a unique Exhibition and Fair that was specially held to honor the World Cinema. A special newsperson from the Luxemag magazine attended the Salon at the opening day to report. The Indian Cinema was the focus of attention of the French Cinema Public this time.

For quite some time now Bollywood has been the biggest movie industry in the world. But only recently did Hollywood turn its attention here. And by the look of the Hollywood transactions so far, it's certain that the partnership is going to flourish. The Hollywood celebrity couple of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones recently announced that they are working on a script which will be filmed in India. Zeta-Jones didn't hesitate to say that she would pack her whole family and set base in India for the shoot. This follows another A-list celebrity couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie who brought their family to Pune for the filming of "A Mighty Heart".

Kids never had it so good. After decades of neglect, the genre of children's cinema is increasingly finding favour with the dream merchants of Hindi filmdom. "Chain Kulii Ki Main Kulii", "My Friend Ganesha", "The Blue Umbrella" and now "Nanhe Jaisalmer" have all hit the marquees within a span of two months. Never before have so many films for children competed simultaneously with big-budget potboilers for the attention of producers, distributors, exhibitors and cine goers.

The two most awaited films of the year, "Saawariya" and "Om Shanti Om", are likely to rewrite the rules of film marketing in India. Both the films are releasing Nov 9 and the distributors have waged an aggressive publicity campaign. Shah Rukh Khan's 6-pack abs in "Om Shanti Om" are being used to lure the audience. In "Saawariya", Ranbir and Sonam Kapoor, the scions of two illustrious Bollywood families, are touted as the film's high points.

Book clubs are popular in Australia, but Bollywood Clubs? Yes, they too exist, with more and more Australians cued on to Hindi films. Curator Rebecca Bower, whose bedside table doesn't have books but a laptop and Hindi film DVDs, has formed a Bollywood Club where a group of women watch and discuss Indian films.

Time was when you watched a film and exclaimed that it had captured so much of real life. Today the trend has reversed: we compare a real life situation to a certain turn of the script in some film. "Just like in that movie," we say wonderingly. That sense of wonder has nothing to do with real life; it has everything to do with reel life. In fact, the image has become more real than the real thing.

Comedy is certainly the flavour of the season in Bollywood with every other comic caper making a killing at the turnstiles and dime-a-dozen dream merchants scrambling over one another to board the bandwagon. Among the recent to hit the box office is "Dhamaal". No sooner was David Dhawan's pop-up comedy flick, "Partner", declared a hit, another veteran of the genre, Indra Kumar, seems poised to hit a homerun with his latest offering "Dhamaal", which released Friday.

From "Piya tu ab to aaja" to "Dum maro dum" and "Kambakht ishq", singing diva Asha Bhosle has been enthralling listeners with her vivacious and versatile numbers for more than six decades. And the singing legend, who turned 74 Saturday, is still going strong. From Madhubala to Helen in the older films to newer actresses Urmila Matondkar and Kareena Kapoor, these screen scorchers are all bound by a common thread - the evergreen voice of Asha.