Bollywood buzzed this year with new faces, blockbuster biopics and reality cinema, big loosers, item numbers and news-hungry celebrities. Sunday Pioneer takes you through
flop sequels
Rock on 2: Farhan Akhtar, Arjun Rampal, Shraddha Kapoor, Prachi Desai and Purab Kohli star in the Shujaat Saudagar film. Bollywood’s very own rock flick saga moves to the Northeast this time, focussing on certain socio-political problems of that area, amid trademark headbanging and camaraderie.
Ghayal Once Again: Sunny Deol stars in and directs the film produced by his home banner. The film had created a lot of hype since it was a movie that had refined onscreen rage with Ghayal directed by Rajkumar Santoshi in 1990. But the film did nothing to recreate the old magic.
Great Grand Masti: Starring Ritesh Deshmukh, Vivek Oberoi, Aftab Shivdasani, Urvashi Rautela and directed by Indra Kumar did nothing when it came to masti. Not that the original was any better, but to call this one a film would be an insult to all films that have ever been made. Seriously, Bollywood can’t and doesn’t have what it takes to make a funny sex comedy.
Kya Kool Hain Hum 3: The film starred Tusshar Kapoor, Aftab Shivdasani and Mandana Karimi and the series was called India’s first porn-romcom Unfortunately, the movie did nothing in the romcom department. As for the porn, Bollywood can’t get beyond innuendos and double meaning dialogues that didn’t even bring a smirk.
Raaz Rebooted: This fourth edition in the series by Vikram Bhatt and starring Emraan Hashmi along with Kriti Kharbanda and Gaurav Arora was supposed to have a mix of horror, sex, drama and music, which Mahesh and Mukesh Bhatt set to order with the first film in 2001. Sadly, all that it manages to do is make you laugh since this vampire doesn’t need garlic or a Cross to kill it, just good old mangalsutra! Add to this list are movies like Tum Bin 2 and Tere Bin laden 2.
Top films
According to IMDb, the world’s biggest movie website, the films that made news are:
· Pink
· Airlift
· Dear Zindagi
· Udta Punjab
· Kapoor & Sons
· Neerja
· MS Dhoni: The Untold Story
· 24 (Tamil)
· Saala Khadoos
· Madaari
Money-makers
Sultan: Rs 300.45 crore (India nett)
MS Dhoni: Rs 132.85 crore (India nett)
Airlift: Rs 129 crore (India nett)
Rustom: Rs 127.42 crore (India nett)
Ae Dil Hain Mushkil: Rs 112.14 crore (India nett)
Housefull 3: Rs 107.70 crore (India nett)
Shivaay: Rs 100.05 crore (India nett)
Fan: Rs 85 crore (India nett)
Baaghi: Rs 76 crore (India nett)
Neerja: Rs 75.61 crore (India nett)
New kids on the block
Harshvardhan Kapoor: Anil Kapoor's son in the movie Mirzya
Saiyami Kher: Niece of Tanvi Azmi as well as Shabana Azmi movie Mirziya
Ritika Singh: In the movie Saala Khadoos
Sayesha Saigal: Daughter of actor Sumeet Saigal and his first wife actress Shaheen Banu, niece of Saira Banu, in the movie Shivaay
Sanya Malhotra: Aamir Khan’s daughter in Dangal
Aparshakti Khurrana: Ayushmann Khurrana’s brother debut in Dangal.
In the news
5 most searched male celebrities
Salman Khan
Kapil Sharma
Amitabh Bachchan
Shah Rukh Khan
Aamir Khan
5 most sarched female celebrities
Sunny leone
Bipasha Basu
Deepika Padukone
Katrina Kaif
Priyanka Chopra
5 most searched personality
Sunny leone
Narendra Modi
Arvind Kejriwal
Salman Khan
Bipasha Basu
Style Bhais
Kareena Kapoor Khan
Ranveer Singh
Celebrities we lost
Machali, the tigeress of Ranthambore (1996-18 August 2016)
Jayalalithaa, (February 24, 1948-December 5, 2016)
Cho Ramaswamy (October 5, 1934-December 7, 2016)
Dileep Padgaonkar (May 1, 1944-November 25, 2016)
Mufti Mohammad Sayeed (January 12 1936-January 7, 2016)
Purno Agitok Sangma (September1, 1947-March 4, 2016)
Parmeshwar Godrej (July 15, 1945-October 10, 2016)
Pratyusha Banerjee (August 10, 1991-April 1, 2016)
Sulabha Deshpande (1937 June 4, 2016)
Break-ups
Hrithik Roshan and Sussanne Khan
Arbaaz Khan -Malaika Arora Khan
Ranbir Kapoor-Katrina Kaif
Adhuna-Farhan Akhtar
Sunjay Kapoor and Karisma
Fashion & beauty
Off-shoulder
The return of the basics
Sleek middle-parted hairdos
Chokers
The lob
Slip dresses/camisole with
T-shirt
Dark lips
Events that shook India
· Demonetisation
· Introduction of new Income declaration scheme in 2016
Dramatic exit of Cyrus Mistry from Tata Group
Reliance Jio’s 4G-only network launch in India
Vijay Mallya’s great escape with Rs 9,000 crore public money
Patanjali CEO among Forbes list of richest Indians
Courtesy: Yahoo India Year In Review 2016
Big Duds
Fitoor: Starring Tabu, Aditya Roy Kapur and Katrina Kaif, the film had created a buzz since it was based on Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Well, the movie failed to deliver on all counts
Mohenjo Daro: With an actor like Hrithik Roshan in the lead, this movies, also starring Pooja Hegde and Kabir Bedi, was a much-awaited film of 2016. But it failed to live up to the people’s expectations.
Baar Baar Dekho: It was an unlikely pair to be seen on the screen — Katrina Kaif and Sidharth Malhotra. And though the song Kaala chashma created records, the movie itself had nothing much to offer.
Akira: Starring Sonakshi Sinha, Konkona Sen Sharma and Anurag Kashyap. The movie was a remake of the 2011 hit Tamil film Mouna Guru. But it failed to generate interest in Bollywood.
A Flying Jatt: It was supposed to be India’s answer to Superman. But the Tiger Shroff, Nathan Jones and Jacqueline Fernandez starrer didn’t garner the eyeballs.
Mirzya: With Anil Kapoor’s son Harshvardhan Kapoor making his debut with this historical film, the movie lacked strong dialogues and its slow pace.
Veerappan: Directed by Ram Gopal Varma, and starring Sandeep Bharadwaj, Sachiin J Joshi, Usha Jadhav and lisa Ray is film is based on the real-life bandit Veerappan. The film flopped because the bandit had little connect with the people in the north.
Fan: Starring SRK in a double role, what probably people didn’t like was SRK chasing Shah Rukh Khan.
Rocky Handsome: Starring John Abraham and Diya Chalwad. While women may drool all over John Abraham’s biceps and good looks, there has to be some content in the film to bring in the viewers. The film had nothing much to offer.
Tutak Tutak Tutiya: A comedy horror film co-written and directed by Al Vijay and starring Tamannaah Bhatia, Prabhu Deva and Sonu Sood came and went without making a single ripple at the BO.
Kya number hai
Item numbers are becoming part and parcel of Hindi cinema. Hence it is not surprising that most films end up with at least one such song.
Jaaneman Aah from the movie Dishoom featuring Parineeti Chopra
Choli Block Buster from Dongri Ka Raja featuring Sunny leone
O Janiya from Force 2 featuring Sonakshi Sinha
Jawaani le Doobi from Kya Kool Hain Hum 3 sung by Kanika Kapoor and Uvie
Then there are some numbers that have remained hot favourites down the years.
Beedi: Omkara (2006)
Kajra Re: Bunty Aur Babli (2008)
Munni Badnaam Hui: Dabangg (2010)
Chikni Chameli: Agneepath (2012)
Fevicol Se: Dabangg 2 (2012)
Standing tall
Dhanak: Nagesh Kukunoor is known to make movies that don’t have to be high on drama and emotion and yet they manage to capture one’s attention and Dhanak is no different. The journey of Pari and Chotu touched many a souls. The film makes you happy and restore your faith in human relationships.
Udta Punjab: Besides the fact that it had some fantastic acting from the likes of Shahid Kapoor and Alia Bhat, the movie revolves around a very sensitive issue — drugs in Punjab. Such is the drug abuse in the State that even 11-year-olds are taking it. So much so that around 70 per cent of the youth in the State are addicts and about 66 per cent schoolchildren have used drugs at some point. A movie on the subject, with great performances was bound to have many takers.
Aligarh: A film that had great performance from Manoj Bajpayee. Based on a real-life story of a Professor from Aligarh University who was witchhunted for being gay. Though the film didn’t do too well, it did manage to hold ground; it stole your heart and manages to change your perception.
Budhia Singh: Yet another brilliant performance from Manoj Bajpayee, the film tells you a story of a boy who loved to run. What made this film capture the hearts of many is the fact that it is based on the real-life story of a boy who ran 65 km from Bhubaneswar to Puri in seven hours and two minutes and still dreams of running for India but people have forgotten all about him.
Reality bytes
Airlift: The movie is about the great Indian evacuation from Kuwait in 1990 where 1.7 lakh Indians were stuck during Kuwait war. The movie shows the real story of how these Indians were safely brought home thanks to the undying efforts of Ranjeet Katyal and few other men.
Neerja: Neerja Bhanot, a 23 year old flight attendant shows her bravery and unending courage to help the passengers to escape from the hijacked flight.
Aligarh: The film is about an incident happened in Aligarh University where Professor SR Siras gets caught with a boy. This completely changes Siras’ life. The movie was not typical intense but it did define the standards of movie making.
Raman Raghav: The movie is about a serial killer of 60s, Raghav who murdered around 41 people in Mumbai. However, the movie disclaimer clearly stated that it’s not about him. And that it is a film about a copycat psycho killer who likes killing people just because he thinks he should kill them no matter who they are. The movie is basically that cat and mouse game running after one another.
Sarbjit: The movie may not have done so well at the Box Office but it did portray the plight of Sarbjit in Pakistan jail rather realistically. What made this film so realistic was the transformation that Randeep Hooda as Sarbjit underwent. The USP of Sarbjit was story.
Traffic: The movie is based on a real story and is also a remake of the 2011 movie with the same name.
Get sporty
Usually, whenever Bollywood makes a movie of a sport, it does manage to create a hype. Mary Kom and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag are examples. 2016 also had some movies of sports that made BO sit up.
MS Dhoni: The Untold Story: Though movies, thus far, on cricket never managed to make cash registers ringing, MSD... not only managed to grab the eyeballs, it was one of the top grossers this year.
Saala Khadoos: It is a movie about a girl coming from nowhere who goes on to becoming a boxing champion. Though it didn’t do too well at the BO, it did manage to make people interested in the sport.
Sultan: Any movie starring Salman Khan lately has been a superhit. It is because of Sallu Bhai or the fact that the movies he chooses has an interesting storylineIJ Whatever, be the case, this movie on wrestling was the biggest grosser this year.
Dangal: Any movie that has Aamir Khan at the helm of things is bound to garner a lot of interest. Moreso, since it is a movie that is based on real-life story of a forgotten wrestles from Haryana who teaches his daughters champions in the sport. A movie that was bound to be a superhit — day one collection of the movie was a whopping Rs 29.78 crore. However, the film failed to beat Sultan’s collection of Rs 36.54 crore on day one!
