Another director whose music is a craze is A.R Rehman. His music is great to listen to and very difficult to sing. He has delivered major hits like Chaiya Chaiya, Hamma hamma, roja etc. But the current heart throb is Himesh Reshammiya. It’s not a coincidence but every track which has been a hit in 2006 has been his track. This director not only makes good music but he is an exceptional singer too. Himesh sings and has a voice which sounds like he is singing from his nose but the beauty is that every word he sings touches the heart. Top directors this year are annoyed with him. Reason being even when Himesh was not signed on for some movies the producers requested him to do a special song. To the woes of many other directors everything that Himesh did turned into a hit.

Play back singing used to be the forte of a select few singers but now a days there are many players. To make it big in bollywood you either need to be star kid or you must have a godfather in the industry. Of late there has been a new way to make it big in bollywood and that is by participating in one of the reality shows. There are many shows like Indian idol and Sa Re Ga Ma Pa which are providing raw talent with a platform to make it big. Some of the recent finds have been Debojit and Abhijeet Sawant. These singers not only sing for movies they also perform in shows.

music-in-bollywood

During the 80s and early 90s it was the time for stars like Govinda who made a fortune by doing only comedy movies. Now directors like Deepak Tijori tried their hands at comedy and made a remake of a Tamil film but that too bombed at the box office. Director Priya Darshan is the only one who is churning out comedy after comedy and that too all hits. The audience loves Shah Rukh for his comedy in movies like Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge and Pardes. Salman Khan too did good to his sinking career with comedy film Maine Pyar Kyon Kiya.

• Aage Se Right Starring Shreyas Talpade, Shiv Pandit, Mahi Gill, Kay Kay Menon, Shruti Seth
• Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani Starring Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Upen Patel…
• All The Best: Fun Begins Starring Ajay Devgan, Sanjay Dutt, Fardeen Khan, Bipasha Basu
• Barah Aana Starring Naseeruddin Shah, Tannishtha Chatterjee
• Dhoondte Reh Jaaoge Starring Kunal Khemu, Paresh Rawal, Soha Ali Khan, Sonu Sood
• Dulha Mil Gaya Starring Ruk ruk Khan, Sushmita Sen, Fardeen Khan
• Do Knot Disturb starring Govinda, Ritesh Deshmukh, Lara Dutta
• Daddy Cool Starring Suniel Shetty, Aftab Shivdasani, Aarti Chabria
• Ek Se Bure Do Starring Arshad Warsi, Rajpal Yadav, Govind Namdeo, Yashpal Sharma, Virendra Saxena

Movies in India are basically made with a lot of spices. In India a movie has to have song, dance, romance, thrill, suspense, comedy, action, family drama etc. People in India work for ten hours a day and that too during the main part of the day and so many of them return to a home with no entertainment. The only available entertainment is movies. Whether a business tycoon or a cycle rickshaw driver all want to watch movies. So when a movie is made the makers have to keep in mind both the masses and the classes.

Indian cinema has improved drastically and now the audience is very mature too. They still want song and dance but not the running around tree sequences. So now there is a new market for item songs. This is where a nice fast track is made only for a great dancer to dance and increase the sales. Some of the top songs have been Babuji zara dhere chalo, khallas etc.

Movies were made particularly for the masses and the multiplex crowd. But now the viewers want to see good movies with great stories. Earlier the hero carried the entire movie on his shoulders but now the load is evenly spread. A movie will do well even if you don’t have a great star cast but have a great story and your actors do a job. A good example for this would be Khosla Ka Ghosla. There is nobody you can call the hero of the film but it’s realistic and humorous.

In three hours the audience wants to laugh, cry and be excited and so it’s a tough task for the directors but then hats off to all Indian directors as they come up with something spicy enough to fulfill the needs of all types of viewers.

Each movie has the main story and a lot of other small stories that build around it. At times in stories there may not be any scope for comedy. A lot of directors use other characters and bring in another funny plot. This comedy has no link with the movies. In the past people accepted this kind of comedy too but nowadays the audience accepts comedy only when it’s a part of the main story.

People who want to watch emotions are very particular about the quality of the emotions too. If you can’t cry or deliver the dialogues properly the audience rejects the star immediately. The stars have to be convincing enough. This is where the director’s ability is tested. The comedy has to be timed properly and the tears have to be realistically shed.

Movies in India have been made with a lot of respect for family values and traditions. Every movie which shows any function has to do it in the right way. If there is a wedding song in a movie it not only becomes a hit. It becomes a part of every Indian wedding. Movies like Hum Saath Saath Hain and Hum Apke Hain Kaun have been very very big hits because each and every scene of the movie is actually what happens in joint families and in weddings.

A movie when made in India has to be made in such a way that both a 5 year kid and an 85 year old grand father both have to enjoy it. It has to have a great story, touching performances, lovely music, breath taking locations, great dance steps and of course a really bad villain whom the hero has to bash up even if he is on the death bed.

This is true bollywood ishtyle where anything can happen. The hero can beat up any number of guys. The heroine can cry without glycerin. The villain is always ugly to look at. The police will never reach on time to save people. It’s only up to the hero to do all the running around, saving and bashing up. The heroines will always be wearing great makeup even if its in the middle of the night. Mother in laws can’t be good and the daughter in law will only worry about everybody else’s happiness and not hers. This is apna bollywood with all these errors but still it is the biggest film industry in the world. Nearly thrice the number of movies is made each year than the number of days in a year. If you are a movie buff then there is no place like bollywood because there is nothing that you can’t find here.

Starring Jimmy Sheirgill and Arbaaz Khan in the lead, BACHELOR PARTY features Nauheed Cyrusi and Madhuri Bhattacharya as the leading ladies with Ninad Kamat and Sharat Saxena in supporting roles.

‘The principal shooting of  was wrapped up quite fast. In fact we were all set to arrive on 1st April this year but because of IPL as well as the strike, the bollywood film has been further pushed. It is indeed frustrating because the film has shaped up really well and is just the kind of light hearted entertainer that you want to watch in these stressed times’, says Isshaan who got some good critical acclaim coming his way with his debut entertainer here.

New York that has John Abraham, Neil and Katrina kaif in lead role begins in the United States in 2008 with the arrest by the FBI of Omar (Neil Nitin Mukesh), a young Muslim man originally from Delhi, after guns were found in the trunk of a taxi cab he had been driving.

New York-Bollywood film

New York features John Abraham, Katrina Kaif and Neil Nitin Mukesh, and is set against the backdrop of the 9/11 terror attacks on the New York city.Neil is then taken into custody and interrogated by FBI Agent Roshan (Irrfan Khan), also a Muslim man originally from South Asia who has been living in the United States for twenty years.

After a period of time, Omar discovers that he is wanted by the FBI in order to spy on a former college friend, Samir or Sam (John Abraham), whom he hasn’t seen in seven years and who the FBI believes is a terrorist. In the process, he discovers that Sam has married Maya (Katrina Kaif), another college friend, and that they have a young son, Danyal (Aidan Wagner).

Roshan orders Omar to tell him everything he knows about Sam. The film then flashes back to September 1999 when Omar begins New York State University as an international student on scholarship. He is befriended by Maya who is his student counselor.

The average occupancy in multiplexes for the weekend stood at around 80-85 per cent, the highest since January, according to trade experts who track films’ collections. This was mainly on account of the release of New York and Terminator Salvation.
This is significant for both Bollywood and the 250-plus multiplexes, as they saw the monthly box office collections plummet to around Rs 10-15 crore, especially for April and May, when film producers and exhibitors were on a strike, which saw almost no new Hindi film release.

The Malayalam industry is the industry which has produced great actors like Mamooty and Mohan Lal. It’s this industry which is the main hub for original stories. A lot of Malayalam movies are remade into Tamil and Telugu. Cheran made autograph and he introduced Gopika and Kamala to the Tamil Industry. Stars like Mamooty and Mohan Lal have acted in many Tamil movies. Mamooty’s biggest Tamil hit was Kandukondain Kandukondain.

Asin was the face of the year in 2005 every movie which came around Diwali had her. She starred with Surya in Ghajini, Vikram in Majaa and with Vijay in Sivakasi. All the three movies were hits. Sandhya made her debut with the film kadal and walked off with the best actress award for the film. Gopika has impressed everybody with her simplicity and great eyes. This actress is going places without exposing anything at all. This year was a major year for Nayantara. This actress used act with the senior stars as she too was big built and looked good with them. Look at her this year she has shed off all the extra pounds and is looking sleek in Vallavan and E. Both the movies have been hits this year and she is riding high.

Back to Malayalam movies lets see the top five movies of 2006.

Top 5 Malayalam Movies
1. Thanmatra starring Mohan Lal and Meera Vasudevan.
2. Karutha Pakshikal starring Mamooty and Padmapriya.
3. Achanurangatha Veedu starring Salim Kumar.
4. Keerthichakra starring Mohan Lal, Jeeva and Gopika.
5. Rasathantram starring Mohan Lal and Meera Jasmine.

Top 5 Malayalam Actors
1. Mohan Lal in Thanmatra and Keerthichakra.
2. Mamooty in Karutha Pakshikal.
3. Prithviraj in Classmates and Vargam.
4. Suresh Gopi in Bharat Chandran IPS and Chinthamani kola Case.
5. Salim Kumar in Achanurangatha Veedu.
Top 5 Malayalam Actresses
1. Kavya Madhavan in Classmates.
2. Meera Jasmine in Rasathantram.
3. Padmapriya in Karutha Pakshikal.
4. Mamta Mohandas in Lanka.
5. Gopika in Keerthichakra.

Telugu Industry Or Tollywood
This industry gets its name from Telugu and bollywood. This is an industry which is growing at a rapid pace. This industry is based in Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh. This industry is another industry where brand new talent is discovered. All the movies which are made have original scripts and the fan following of each star is unbelievable.

The God of Telugu cinema or the equivalent of Rajnikant or Amitabh Bachchan is Chiranjeevi. NT Rama Rao was the star of the yester years who not only won his fans for his movies but for his politics too. Now the new generation of actors has come in and is very famous too. Actors like Junior NTR, Arjun, Prabhas and Tarun need no introduction.

Chiranjeevi is the winner of the Padma Bhushan too. His last release was such a big hit that fans waited and waited in queues to book their tickets in advance to see their big hero. He is a hero who hasn’t aged at all and still carries of the movie on his shoulders alone. The year 2006 has been very exciting as many good films released and the top ten are:-

Top 10 Tollywood Movies 2006
Stalin starring Megastar Chiranjeevi, Trisha, Sharadha and Khushboo.
Andala Ramudu starring Sunil, Radha and Aarti Agarwal.
Bommarillu starring Siddharth and Genelia.
Vikramarkudu starring Raviteja, Anushka, Ruthika and Ajay.
Godavari starring Sumanth and Kamalinee Mukherjee, Tanikella Bharani.
Pokiri starring Ileana, Mahesh Babu and Prakash Raj.
Sri Ramadasu starring Nagarjuna and Sneha.
Ranam starring Gopichand and Kamna Jethmallani.
Lakshmi starring Venkatesh and Nayantara.
Devadasu starring Ram and Ileana.

It’s common for stars in the south Indian industry to act in different languages. Movies are often remade if it’s a hit in one language. Stars too are seen in a rotation. Sidharth was last seen in Rang De Basanti and then in Bommarillu in Telugu.

If you are in Hyderabad and want to see how doest the Telugu film industry works then it is a must for you to visit the Ramuji Film city. It’s a treat but ensure you set aside the entire day to go around and look around.

A lot of Telugu producers are very active in the Hindi film industry as well as other industries. A lot of Tamil and Telugu movies have been remade into big hits by these producers. A lot of Hit Telugu movies are being made in Tamil too like chandramukhi, Something Something and now pokiri.

Stars like Vishal and Shriya Reddy are basically Telugu stars that have made it big in the Tamil Industry. Shriya who has just done few movies is an epitome of talent and looks very pretty in the shabbiest of outfits. Her performance in Timiru and Vayyil has both been admired by the fans and the critics. This is an actor who is going places.

Mahesh Babu turned out the biggest block buster of tollywood this year with pokiri. The name of the movie is so apt and all the characters have done complete justice to their roles. It’s a must watch for every Telugu movie fan. The dialogues were piercing and the music too good to beat.

BEST FILM
Chak De! India
Guru
Jab We Met
Om Shanti Om
Winner: Taare Zameen Par

BEST DIRECTOR
Winner: Aamir Khan (Taare Zameen Par)
Anurag Basu (Life… In A Metro)
Farah Khan (Om Shanti Om)
Imtiaz Ali (Jab We Met)
Mani Ratnam (Guru)
Shimit Amin (Chak De! India)

BEST ACTOR
Abhishek Bachchan (Guru)
Akshay Kumar (Namastey London)
Darsheel Safary (Taare Zameen Par)
Winner: Shahrukh Khan (Chak De! India)
Shahrukh Khan (Om Shanti Om)
Shahid Kapoor (Jab We Met)

BEST ACTRESS
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (Guru)
Deepika Padukone (Om Shanti Om)
Winner: Kareena Kapoor (Jab We Met)
Madhuri Dixit (Aaja Nachle)
Rani Mukerji (Laaga Chunari Mein Daag)
Vidya Balan (Bhool Bhulaiyaa)

Critics’ Award For Best Actor
Darsheel Safary – Taare Zameen Par

Critics’ Award For Best Actress
Tabu – Cheeni Kum

Critics’ Award For Best Film
Shimit Amin – Chak De India

Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Male)
Irrfan Khan – Life in a… Metro

Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Female)
Konkana Sen Sharma – Life in a… Metro

Best Lyrics
Prasoon Joshi – (Maa – Taare Zameen Par)

Best Playback Singer (Male)
Shaan – (Jab Se Tere Naina – Saawariya)

Best Playback Singer (Female)
Shreya Ghosal – (Barso Re – Guru)

Best Music
A. R. Rahman – Guru

Best Story
Amol Gupte – Taare Zameen Par

Best Screenplay
Anurag Basu – Life in a… Metro

Best Dialogue
Imtiaz Ali – Jab We Met

R. D. Burman Award
Monty Sharma (Saawariya)

Lifetime Achievement Award
Rishi Kapoor

Power Awards
Yash Chopra & Aditya Chopra

Best Debut (Male)
Ranbir Kapoor – Saawariya

Best Debut (Female)
Deepika Padukone – Om Shanti Om

Best Special Effects
Red Chillies Entertainment – Om Shanti Om

Sony Head N Shoulders Fresh Face of the Year Award
Deepika Padukone

Best Background Score
A. R. Rahman – Guru

Best Editing
Amitabh Shukla – Chak De India

Best Choreography
Saroj Khan (Barso Re Megha Re – Guru)

Best Action
Rob Miller – Chak De India

Best Art Direction
Samir Chanda – Guru

Best Sound
Leslie Fernandes – Johnny Gaddaar

Best Cinematography
Sudhip Chatterjee

Best Costumes
Sujata Sharma – Gandhi My Father

Every weekend she sits glued to the screen to watch her idols like Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and others. She later moves to America, but never forgets her Indian connection.

She decides to start an Indian Film Festival in the world capital of cinema, Los Angeles. After a few years the festival becomes a major cultural event and a focus of collaboration between Hollywood and Bollywood. The End.

That, in a nutshell, is the story of Christina Marouda, who founded The Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) in 2002, as a non-profit organisation devoted to promoting a greater appreciation of Indian culture.

The fifth festival opens Tuesday night with the LA premiere of Jag Mundhra’s “Provoked” and closes with Rajnesh Domalpalli’s “Vanaja” on Sunday.

The Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles is a nonprofit organization devoted to paving the way for a greater appreciation of Indian cinema and diverse culture by providing the public with a selection of films from and about the Indian diaspora by Indian and International filmmakers.

The Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) is a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting a greater appreciation of Indian cinema by showcasing films about India and the diverse perspectives of the Indian Diaspora.

The festival will run from April 22-27, 2008 at ArcLight Hollywood, a state-of-the-art facility located in the heart of Los Angeles. Jury and Audience Choice Prizes will be awarded for Best Feature, Documentary and Short film.