It is one of Indian Cinema’s tragic ironies that a sensitive and poetic film like Teesri Kasam sank without a trace indirectly leading to its producer lyricist Shailendra’s death due to stress of financial problems caused by the failure of the film. The irony is even more so as today the film is recognised as one of the the all-time great films of Indian Cinema.

Starring : Raj Kapoor, Waheeda Rehman, Iftikhar, Asit Sen, Dulari, Keshto Mukherjee, C.S. Dubey

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Kumar has just returned from London to his “Haveli”, and he experiences many strange and creepy things around the house. He is told that his haveli is haunted by a spirit who have killed his anscetor and now its his turn…

Starring: Bishwajeet, Lata Sinha, Madan Puri, Manmohan Krishan, Sajjan, Waheeda Rehman

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Aashiq Banaya Aapne
The movie went flat at box-office, but music of movie before its release was rocking the nation from pan-wallas in trams to DJs in clubs. Everyone was having its own version of this hit song. ‘Aashiq Banaya Aapne’ was rendered first time by the music composer himself, Himesh Reshamiya and bollywood found one new singer for this year (‘Bheege Honthe Tere’ of this year) . Apart from the title song, Aap Ki Kashih was also popular fast track.

Lucky
The haunting melodies of late 60s was back with Lucky- No Time for Love music. Wether its Soon Zara or Lucky Lips Adanan Sami had something new to debeut as Music Director.

Parineeta
The classic musical album with the ambience and mood of its story in its melodies. The song were so well chorographed in the movie, music just becomes heart of the story. Shantanu Moitra’s melodious score set in 1960s captured the mood of the ‘then’ generation so well that it was sheer pleasure to both hear the songs in isolation and watch the actors perform as per the song’s mood .

Zeher
Woh Lamhe Wo Yaadein – and the entire nation was wooed by this mesmerizing love song, a Pakistani import that worked wonders for Emraan Hashmi. With the movie turning into a good success, there was further impetus provided to this highly successful album that also comprised of Shreya Ghoshal’s highly successful sweet-n-saccharine love song Agar Tum Mil Jaayo. Just two great numbers along with other decent tracks were good enough reasons to get Bhatts their first musical success of the year.

Dus
From the start of its teaser promo, the title song Dus bahane karke instantly became hit. After its aring on small screen much more confirmed the sucess of the movie itself. Vocals backed by ‘Shaan& KK’, Vishal-Sekhar’s composition and Vijay Arora’s cinematography, Abhishek Bachhan had one more feather on his cap as new youth style icon.

Kaal
Kaal was transition of Karan Johar from soulful and celebration/feel good music to current peppy and RDB music. With soundtracks like Kaal Dhamal featuring SRK as item boy along with hot and sensual Maliaka Arora Khan, Nassa Nassa and Tauba Tauba and definitely with KJ’s glossy and rich look choreography the ablum became sure shot hit before the release of the movie.

Salaam Namaste
Apart from a rocking ‘Dus’, Vishal Shekhar had another reason to end the year on a great note with the good success garnered from ‘Salaam Namaste’. Title song ‘Salaam Namaste’ shot on Australian beach clearly led the front with Kunal Ganjawala and Vasundhara Das rocking the show. ‘My Dil Goes Mmmm’ followed it as the second best. It was a pity that the ‘English Club Mix’ and the ‘Instrumental’ of ‘My Dil Goes Mmmm’ were not promoted to an extent that they deserved.

Apart from above albums, some notable single hit songs of this year were

1. Kaja rare -Bunti Aur Babli
2. Just Chill, Laga Laga - Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya
3. Dil Mera , Chaska – Kya Kool Hain Hum
4. Baras Ja – Fareb
5. Tinka Tinka – Karam
6. Just Paly Holi – Waqt
7. Halka Halka Sa – Choclate
8. Ishq Ki Galli Wich, Just Love Me – No Entry
9. Le Chale – My Brother Nikhil
10. Aadat – Kalyug

So while on the topic of things characteristic to Bollywood, how can we forget what it’s famous or rather infamous for. Remakes!
Over the years, producers and directors galore have developed quite a notorious reputation for getting inspired or making blatant remakes of past hit films. So how could this year be any different?

One of the first movies to make it to this list would probably be the Mahesh Manjrekar dud Padmashree Laloo Prasad Yadav, a remake of the Hollywood film A Fish Called Wanda. However, like we all know, it sank without a trace. Maybe the makers should have tried something original instead!

February brought with it the spring season and the Suneel Darshan directed Bewafaa. Having an impressive star cast like Anil Kapoor, Akshay Kumar, Sushmita Sen and Kareena Kapoor, it dealt with infidelity, a subject done to death in filmdom. This one had traces of the 1967 Hindi classic Humraaz.

The summer of 2005 was definitely scorching with the deadly combination of Rekha and Mallika Sherawat in Bachke Rehna Re Baba. From the promos itself it could be figured out that this one was a revision of the Sigourney Weaver – Jennifer Hewitt starrer Heartbreakers.
One of the biggest musical hits of the year Zeher was remake of Out Of Time. This one surprised everyone as it did well without the backing of a massive starcast. Ajay Devgan couldn’t re-create the same brilliance of Sean Penn while playing a mentally challenged character in Main Aisa Hi Hoon that was a desi adaptation of I Am Sam.

The first movie of the year with Shah Rukh Khan in the lead was his home production Paheli. This one was an alteration of the yesteryear film Duvidha, which in turn was an adaptation of the novel of the same name. Few people might be aware that one of the year’s most critically acclaimed films Black missed an entry to the Oscars because it was heavily inspired by the Hollywood film The Miracle Worker.

Director Ram Gopal Varma had no qualms accepting that his film Sarkar was heavily inspired by The Godfather and gave it due credits in the titles as well as tribute to it.
Another film from the RGV camp James was loosely derived from Varma’s first Hindi film Shiva. However Varma was not much happy with this film directed by his prot?g? Rohit Jugraj and is now making his own version of James with the same starcast. Interestingly he has titled the film Shiva. First Shiva remade as James, now James being remade as Shiva. Life has come a full circle for Ram Gopal Varma.

As list seems to be endless.

Cast: Ajay Devgan, Bipasha Basu, John Abraham, Shahid Kapoor, Amrita Rao, Javed Sheikh (Pakistan)
Rating:
Promo/Teaser/Jhalak: Download

The story of an overtly ambitious man wanting to realize his dreams at any cost catches your attention the moment curtains go up and the reels unfold. But the film runs out of gas after a strong 30 minutes. Worse, it loses its balance in the post-interval portions, with the last 35-40 minutes making the goings-on look like a complete farce. It’s like a person wanting the aircraft to land, to reach the destination pronto, but all that the pilot keeps doing is go round and round in the sky, not wanting to touch ground. Exasperating, isn’t it?

Synopsis

Gaurav Gupta aka GG [Ajay Devgan] started with nothing and now believes that only money can fuel his ambitions. On the other hand, Guruji [Javed Sheikh], a leading industrialist turned philanthropist, believes that wealth means nothing if not used for society. Caught in the tussle between the two is Guruji’s son Jaidev [Shahid Kapoor], who, while respecting his father’s philosophy, falls hook, line and sinker for GG’s manipulations.

While Guruji hopes that Jai will return to his roots, GG uses the glamorous Natasha [Bipasha Basu] to bewitch Jai and the unscrupulous politician Patil [Manoj Joshi] to exploit the adivasis into selling their lands. Madhavi [Amrita Rao] watches the man she loves being carried away to a world of wine, women and wealth. But Jaidev soon realizes his folly?

Although it’s a sheer coincidence, SHIKHAR reminds you of NAYA DAUR [Dilip Kumar, Vyjayantimala] in parts, while Ajay’s characterization bears an uncanny resemblance to the overtly ambitious Bachchan of TRISHUL. That apart, SHIKHAR is almost an original piece of work as far as the story idea is concerned.

MMS Scandals

The recent MMS controversies that involved a long line of actresses were much publicized and were mostly in bad taste. It all started with The Kareena Kapoor – Shahid Kapoor video in December 2004. The footage taken from a camera cell phone showed the duo in a passionate lip-locking scene. Reports along with pictures of it came out in a leading daily newspaper. Kareena claimed that the video was doctored and threatened to sue the paper. But nothing came out of it in the end.

The worst ones to be effected subsequently were Riya Sen, Mallika Sherawat, Manisha Koirala and Preity Zinta. Their videos were available all over the internet and mobile phones. All of them claimed that these were fakes.

Then there was Tamanna who was the victim of mistaken identity. Photographs of this young actress who made her debut in Salim’s Chand Sa Roshan Chehra were over the internet which claimed her to be the high class bar-girl Tarannum. Tamanna was devastated by this whole controversy and said those pictures were done during a photo shoot for a Telugu movie.

Sting Operation

Shakti Kapoor was in the limelight after a very long time and not because of his acting capabilities. A news channel in India exposed Shakti Kapoor of asking a reporter posing as an actress for sexual gratification. In return he would have given her an entry into Bollywood. After he was uncovered, he alleged that the tapes were doctored but later confessed he was under the influence of alcohol. Result – His slugging career got a new lease in Bollywood with him signing as many as 10 films in a very short span.

The same was the case with Aman Verma as well. But this time Aman got a massive star cast together (Something that would have put Raj Kumar Kohli’s Jaani Dushman to shame) comprising of Govinda, Arbaaz Khan, Salman Khan, director Sunil Darshan, Ravi Chopra, Pehlaj Nihalani, Raj Kanwar, David Dhawan and Vashu Bhagnani to condemn the news channel’s action. Not much happened to Aman. And by that we mean he didn’t bag many movies.

Spat ‘n Splits

Aishwarya Rai and Viveik Oberoi
Word is that all is not well in love-ville among these two as well. Word was out that the two have split, one of the reasons being Ash’s constant denial of being in a relationship with Oberoi Jr. On the other hand Viveik cannot do an interview without taking his fair maiden’s name.

Saif Ali Khan and Amrita Singh
Once word was out of their secret marriage, no one thought their marriage would last and how right they were. After Saif’s booming film career, he got over his head and the two parted ways. He is now seeing model Rosa and she is believed to be one of the reasons of the marital discord. Saif apparently froze all their accounts and Amrita forcefully had to debut on television in Kavyaanjali and made a comeback on the golden screen in Mohit Suri’s Kalyug.

Amrita Arora and Upen Patel
This hot and happening couple split without any problems whatsoever between them. In fact they are still good friends. While Amrita has moved on with new found love Usman Afzal, Upen is concentrating on his film career.

Dharmesh Darshan and wife Bindiya
The director and his wife of just one month decided to split. The Bewafaa director tied the knot with her on February 27 at Arya Samaj Mandir in a very private ceremony. Not even close friends were invited for the wedding, which came as a surprise to the entire industry and their split was definitely an even bigger shock.

Riya Sen and Ashmit Patel
Not many know the reason of their split but one of the reasons speculated was the MMS clip that was available just about everywhere of the two being intimate. Both of them denied that it was them in the video and said the people involved were duplicates

Sahil Khan and Nigar Khan
The two A-Grade looking, B-Grade actors got married and soon there were many differences between the two mainly because of Nigar’s non-traditional ways. After being deported from India, after having a wardrobe malfunction in Norway and after having posed nude for the cover of a European magazine, hubby Sahil said enough was enough and he said those three little words Talaq Talaq, Talaq. Nigar doesn’t seem to mind. She was photographed topless with Italian actor Luigi Casandra, her co-star in an Italian flick. Last heard, after all the differences the two were willing to work together in a movie that interestingly is based on their real life story. Talk about professionalism!

Last but not the least, Karisma Kapoor and husband Sunjay Kapoor who split in less than a couple of years of their marriage. Hubby went to court for stopping wife from taking their child out of the country without his consent. After much legal actions, just when we thought it was all over, the two reconciled and made public appearances. We hope that this couple lives happily everafter…

Robust growth in box office returns made 2005 among the best years for dream merchants of Bollywood. But with the biggies all set to return, 2006 looks better set. We pick the ?Must See? flicks of the coming year.

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Here’s a look at Sallu’s 10 biggest hits.

Maine Pyaar Kiya : One of the most successful films of all time, Maine Pyaar Kiya is the iconic romance of the early 1990s, one which catapulted its rookie hero to incredible heights. The newcomers, the script, the comedy, the music. Everything worked in this film.

Saajan: Never an actor to shy away from the biggest co-stars in the business, Salman took on Madhuri Dixit and Sanjay Dutt in this romantic 1991 smash hit.

Hum Aapke Hain Koun: The question is not whether you’ve seen HAHK, its how many times you’ve watched it. In fact, this most feel-good of films was one of the movies responsible for the beginning of video piracy in this country.

Karan Arjun: India’s biggest stars joined forces for this incredibly contrived and cornball Rakesh Roshan film. Full of cliches, this was reincarnated entertainment at its most masala.

Judwaa : Aided by a raucous yet rocking Anu Malik score, this double-role comedy was inanely funny, and only Salman had the timing and the panache to make it work.

Biwi No 1 : It’s a big deal to be able to laugh at yourself, and Salman’s success in comedy stems from the fact that he is able to do just that. This David Dhawan film — where he was dwarved by a much taller Sushmita Sen — rocked the audiences and became a major 1999 hit.

Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam: This 1999 Sanjay Leela Bhansali film paired him with then-girlfriend Aishwarya Rai, and vibrantly set the box-office counters rolling.

Tere Naam:Satish Kaushik’s weepy film was one of the biggest hits of 2003, and its music by Himesh Reshammiya scorched the charts relentlessly, almost as omnipresent as replicas of Sallu’s disastrous hairdo.

Mujhse Shaadi Karogi?: This much-hyped Dhawan film saw Sallu team up with Akshay Kumar, and while the laughs might not have been as good as Salman’s finest, Mujhse Shadi Karogi? also raked in the moolah.

No Entry : Anees Bazmee’s film was the runaway success of 2005, with Sallu and Anil Kapoor clowning around in an inane farce that somehow people called great timepass.

Salman is an entertainer for everyone.